Michael Snyder Is Coming To Texas, And What He Has To Say Will Shock America

Michael Snyder

What I am about to do next is going to shock a lot of people.  I am about to get on a plane and fly down to Dallas, Texas where I am going to speak about some things that I have never spoken publicly about before.  On Saturday, April 11th and Sunday, April 12th I am going to be speaking at the Prophecy Club, and I told Stan Johnson that I truly believe that these are the two most important presentations of my entire life.  Over the past six years, I have written more than 1,200 articles about the coming economic collapse, and these articles have been read by millions of people all over the globe.  Now we stand at the precipice of the greatest economic crash in the history of the United States, and what is going to follow that crash is going to absolutely shock the entire planet.  In my presentation on Saturday night, I am going to lay out the most comprehensive warning about the future of America that I have ever come across.  It is going to be a warning message unlike any other.  The following Sunday morning I am going to shift gears.  I am going to present the most hope-filled message that I have ever delivered.  Even if you have been following my websites for years, you are going to be stunned by what I have to share in these two presentations. (Read More...)

 

 

It’s Official: Americans R Stupid

Brain - Public Domain

As Americans, we tend to be pretty full of ourselves, and this is especially true of our young people.  But do we really have reason for such pride?  According to a shocking new report from the Educational Testing Service, Americans between the ages of 20 and 34 are way behind young adults in other industrialized nations when it comes to literacy, mathematics and technological proficiency.  Even though more Americans than ever are going to college, we continue to fall farther and farther behind intellectually.  So what does this say about us?  Sadly, the truth is that Americans are stupid.  Our education system is an abysmal failure, and our young people spend most of their free time staring at the television, their computers or their mobile devices.  And until we are honest with ourselves about this, our intellectual decline is going to get even worse. (Read More....)

 

 

10 Charts Which Show We Are Much Worse Off Than Just Before The Last Economic Crisis

10 Charts Economic Crisis

If you believe that ignorance is bliss, you might not want to read this article.  I am going to dispel the notion that there has been any sort of “economic recovery”, and I am going to show that we are much worse off than we were just prior to the last economic crisis.  If you go back to 2007, people were feeling really good about things.  Houses were being flipped like crazy, the stock market was booming and unemployment was relatively low.  But then the financial crisis of 2008 struck, and for a while it felt like the world was coming to an end.  Of course it didn’t come to an end – it was just the first wave of our problems.  The waves that come next are going to be the ones that really wipe us out.  Unfortunately, because we have experienced a few years of relative stability, many Americans have become convinced that Barack Obama, Janet Yellen and the rest of the folks in Washington D.C. have fixed whatever problems caused the last crisis.  Even though all of the numbers are screaming otherwise, there are millions upon millions of people out there that truly believe that everything is going to be okay somehow.  We never seem to learn from the past, and when this next economic downturn strikes it is going to do an astonishing amount of damage because we are already in a significantly weakened state from the last one. (Read More....)

California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans

Drought - Public Domain

Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert.  And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one.  Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of California had seen in 1000 years.  But now weather patterns are reverting back to historical norms, and California is rapidly running out of water.  It is being reported that the state only has approximately a one year supply of water left in the reservoirs, and when the water is all gone there are no contingency plans.  Back in early 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state, but since that time water usage has only dropped by 9 percent.  That is not nearly enough.  The state of California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of total water a year since 2011, and we are quickly heading toward an extremely painful water crisis unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before. (Read More....)

 

 

Guess What Happened The Last Two Times The S&P 500 Was Up More Than 200% In Six Years?

Question Ball - Public Domain

 

Just a few days ago, the bull market for the S&P 500 turned six years old.  This six year period of time has been great for investors, but what comes next?  On March 9th, 2009 the S&P 500 hit a low of 676.53.  Since that day, it has risen more than 200 percent.  As you will see below, there are only two other times within the last 100 years when the S&P 500 performed this well over a six year time frame.  In both instances, the end result was utter disaster. And as you take in this information, I want you to keep in mind what I said in my previous article entitled “7 Signs That A Stock Market Peak Is Happening Right Now“.  What we are witnessing at this moment is classic “peaking behavior”, and there is a long way to go down from here.  So if historical patterns hold up, those with lots of money in the stock market could soon be in for a whole lot of trouble. (Read More....)

 

 

 

Scientists Discover Proof That Humanity Is Getting Dumber, Smaller And Weaker

DNA - Photo by Christoph Bock

Scientists have found that our bodies and our minds have both deteriorated significantly compared to our ancestors.  In fact, just this week a very prominent professor at Cambridge University said that “our most highly trained athletes pale in comparison to these ancestors of ours”.  The biggest reason for this, of course, is the degradation of the human genome.  Groundbreaking (Read More...)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Global Liquidity Squeeze Has Begun

Squeeze Globe - Public DomainGet ready for another major worldwide credit crunch.  Today, the entire global financial system resembles a colossal spiral of debt.  Just about all economic activity involves the flow of credit in some way, and so the only way to have economic growth is to introduce even more debt into the system.  When the system started to fail back in 2008, global authorities responded by pumping this debt spiral back up and getting it to spin even faster than ever.  If you can believe it, the total amount of global debt has risen by $35 trillion since the last crisis.  Unfortunately, any system based on debt is going to break down eventually, and there are signs that it is starting to happen once again.  For example, just a few days ago the IMF warned regulators to prepare for a global liquidity shock.  And on Friday, Chinese authorities announced a ban on certain types of financing for margin trades on over-the-counter stocks, and we learned that preparations are being made behind the scenes in Europe for a Greek debt default and a Greek exit from the eurozone.  On top of everything else, we just witnessed the biggest spike in credit application rejections ever recorded in the United States.  All of these are signs that credit conditions are tightening, and once a liquidity squeeze begins, it can create a lot of fear. (Read More....)

 

Flat Broke, Living In A Moldy Basement And Relying On Food Stamps And Medicaid

Lock In The Rain - Public DomainCould you imagine being a single parent and trying to survive in America today on $10.50 an hour?  For a moment, I want you to imagine that you are living in a moldy apartment that is so badly maintained that rain seeps in whenever it rains.  You are employed, but you are completely dependent on government programs such as food stamps and Medicaid in order to make ends meet.  Sometimes you would really like to take your small child somewhere fun, like a movie theater, but you cant really afford the gas money.  You are working as hard as you can, but you never seem to get anywhere, and you feel trapped because nobody seems to want to hire you for a better job.  What I have just described for you is real life for a 22-year-old single mother from Chicago named Adriana Alvarez, but there are tens of millions of other Americans that have similar stories.  If every day seems like it is a soul-crushing struggle for you, I want you to know that you are not alone.  The long-term economic collapse that I chronicle on my website is not just about facts and figures.  It is about real people that are quietly leading lives of silent desperation, and by now it has becoming exceedingly apparent that our politicians, the mainstream media and the gigantic corporations that dominate our economy do not really care much about the rest of us at all. (Read More....)

 

Huge Trouble Is Percolating Just Under The Surface Of The Global Economy

World On Fire - Public DomainDid you know that the number of publicly traded companies declaring bankruptcy has reached a five year high?  And did you know that Chinese exports are absolutely collapsing and that Chinese economic growth in 2014 was the weakest in over 20 years?  Even though things may seem to be okay on the surface for the global economy at the moment, that does not mean that big trouble is not percolating just under the surface.  On Wednesday, investors cheered as stocks soared to new highs, but almost all of the economic news coming in from around the planet has been bad.  The credit rating on Greek debt has been slashed again, global economic trade is really slowing down, and many of the exact same financial patterns that we saw just before the crash of 2008 are repeating once again.  All of this reminds me of the months leading up to the implosion of Lehman Brothers.  Most people were feeling really good about things, but huge trouble was brewing just underneath the surface.  Finally, one day we learned that Lehman Brothers had suddenly collapsed, and then all hell broke loose. (Read More....)

 

ISIS Has Camps On The U.S. Border, But Obama Says ‘Right-Wing Extremists’ Are The Greatest Terror Threat

Islamic State White HouseISIS camps have now been discovered directly across the U.S. border with Mexico, ISIS operatives have been captured illegally entering the United States, and ISIS is threatening to conduct a massive campaign of terror against U.S. targets, and yet Barack Obama and his underlings continue to insist that right-wing extremists are the greatest terror threat that this nation is facing.  One recent survey found that 84 percent of all Americans believe that ISIS is a direct threat to the USA, but Obama refuses to secure our borders and he is even allowing dozens of American citizens that fought for ISIS overseas to come back into this country.  What in the world is Obama thinking?  Even though ISIS has promised to drown all of us in our own blood, the Obama administration has purged virtually all references to Islam out of government terror training materials.  Meanwhile, as you will see below, Obamas political enemies have been regularly labeled as potential terrorists in official government documents during the Obama era.  This includes patriots, conspiracy theorists, evangelical Christians and general right-wing extremists. (Read More....)

 

The Six Too Big To Fail Banks In The U.S. Have 278 TRILLION Dollars Of Exposure To Derivatives

Bankers - Public DomainThe very same people that caused the last economic crisis have created a 278 TRILLION dollar derivatives time bomb that could go off at any moment.  When this absolutely colossal bubble does implode, we are going to be faced with the worst economic crash in the history of the United States.  During the last financial crisis, our politicians promised us that they would make sure that too big to fail would never be a problem again.  Instead, as you will see below, those banks have actually gotten far larger since then.  So now we really cant afford for them to fail.  The six banks that I am talking about are JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.  When you add up all of their exposure to derivatives, it comes to a grand total of more than 278 trillion dollars.  But when you add up all of the assets of all six banks combined, it only comes to a grand total of about 9.8 trillion dollars.  In other words, these too big to fail banks have exposure to derivatives that is more than 28 times greater than their total assets.  This is complete and utter insanity, and yet nobody seems too alarmed about it.  For the moment, those banks are still making lots of money and funding the campaigns of our most prominent politicians.  Right now there is no incentive for them to stop their incredibly reckless gambling so they are just going to keep on doing it. (Read More....)

 

19 Signs That American Families Are Being Economically Destroyed

19 - Public DomainThe systematic destruction of the American way of life is happening all around us, and yet most people have no idea what is happening.  Once upon a time in America, if you were responsible and hard working you could get a good paying job that could support a middle class lifestyle for an entire family even if you only had a high school education.  Things werent perfect, but generally almost everyone in the entire country was able to take care of themselves without government assistance.  We worked hard, we played hard, and our seemingly boundless prosperity was the envy of the entire planet.  But over the past several decades things have completely changed.  We consumed far more wealth than we produced, we shipped millions of good paying jobs overseas, we piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and we kept electing politicians that had absolutely no concern for the long-term future of this nation whatsoever.  So now good jobs are in very short supply, we are drowning in an ocean of red ink, the middle class is rapidly shrinking and dependence on the government is at an all-time high.  Even as we stand at the precipice of the next great economic crisis, we continue to make the same mistakes.  In the end, all of us are going to pay a very great price for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Of course a tremendous amount of damage has already been done.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are staggering.  The following are 19 signs that American families are being economically destroyed (Read More....)

 

Smart Meters: Enforcement Of Mandatory Water Restrictions Is Only Just The Beginning

Warning Signs 2 - Public DomainSmart meters are now being used by authorities to crack down on water wasters in the state of California, but this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they can be used for.  Ultimately, smart meters are designed to be part of an entire smart grid that will enable government bureaucrats to control everything from your dishwasher to thermostat.   And in recent years, there has been a massive push to install smart meters in as many homes in the United States and Europe as possible.  Back in December 2007, there were only 7 million smart meters installed in this country.  Today there are more than 51 million.  On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Parliament has set a goal of having smart meters in 80 percent of all homes by the year 2020.  This is being promoted as the green thing to do, but could it be possible that there is more to these smart meters than meets the eye? (Read More....)

 

The EMP Threat: All It Would Take Is A Couple Of Explosions To Send America Back To The 1800s

EMP ThreatOur entire way of life can be ended in a single day.  And it wouldnt even take a nuclear war to do it.  All it would take for a rogue nation or terror organization to bring us to our knees is the explosion of a couple well-placed nuclear devices high up in our atmosphere.  The resulting electromagnetic pulses would fry electronics from coast to coast.  Of course this could also be accomplished without any attack.  Scientists tell us that massive solar storms have hit our planet before, and that it is inevitable that there will be more in the future.  As you will read about below, the most recent example of this was the Carrington Event in 1859.  If a similar burst from the sun hit us today, experts tell us that life in America could suddenly resemble life in the 1800s, and the economic damage caused could potentially be in the trillions of dollars.  This is one of the greatest potential threats that we are facing as a nation, and yet Barack Obama has essentially done nothing to get us prepared. (Read More....)

 

 

Christians Are Being Systematically Purged From The U.S. Military

Soldier - Public DomainIf you are a Bible-believing Christian, there is no place for you in Barack Obama’s version of the U.S. military.  Christian service members all over the nation are being disciplined for reading their Bibles, talking about their faith publicly and encouraging others to live a moral lifestyle.  And just saying the name of “Jesus” at the wrong place or the wrong time while serving in the military is enough to spark a national controversy.  We live at a time when political correctness in America is wildly out of control, and thanks to Obama the U.S. military has become one of the most politically correct institutions in our society.  Things have gotten so bad that dozens of top officers that did not agree with Obama’s views have been forced out of the military in recent years.  The U.S. military is being transformed into an overtly anti-Christian institution, and for those of us that are Christians that is a very chilling development. (Read More...)

 

The Number Of Volcanoes Erupting Right Now Is Greater Than The 20th Century’s YEARLY Average

Volcano EruptionIs the number of volcanic eruptions worldwide increasing?  Yes.  During the 20th century, there were a total of 3,542 volcanic eruptions globally.  That works out to approximately 35 eruptions per year.  That may sound like a lot, but according to Volcano Discovery there are 36 volcanoes erupting around the world right now.  In other words, the number of volcanoes erupting as you read this article is greater than the 20th century’s yearly average.  And all of this is part of a larger trend.  In 2013, we witnessed the most volcanic eruptions worldwide that we had ever seen in a single year, and 2015 is already threatening to be another one for the record books.  All over the planet, volcanoes that have long been dormant are beginning to wake up, and this is greatly puzzling many scientists.  Fortunately, most of the eruptions in recent years have been relatively small.  But scientists tell us that if we do see a VEI 7 or a VEI 8 eruption today, the amount of energy that would be released would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a million nuclear bombs going off all at once, and such an eruption would completely literally transform our civilization almost overnight. (Read More...)

 

Signs That The Elite Are Feverishly Preparing For Something BIG

Police State Riot Control Exercise - Public DomainWhat in the world are the elite up to?  In recent days, we have learned that the New York Fed is moving a lot of operations to Chicago because of concerns about what a “natural disaster” could do, the federal government is buying 62 million rounds of ammunition commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles for “training” purposes, and NORAD is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain because it is “EMP-hardened”.  In addition, government authorities have scheduled a whole host of unusual “training exercises” all over the nation.  So are the elite doing all of this in order to prepare for something really BIG, or should we just chalk up all of this strange activity to rampant government paranoia? (Read More...)

 

10 Hilarious Modifications Of Hillary Clinton’s New Campaign Logo

Move To The Right AmericaShould we be surprised that Hillary Clinton has come up with perhaps the worst presidential campaign logo in American history?  This is a woman that has never seemed to be able to do much of anything right, and yet at the moment she appears quite likely to be our next president.  And it is sad commentary on the state of this nation that we would willingly choose such a leader.  The Clintons have been continuously immersed in scandal since their days in Arkansas in the 1980s, and yet tens of millions of Americans still worship them.  The Clintons could probably sacrifice children to Baal on national television and most of their supporters would still love them.  There is no way in the world that Bill or Hillary Clinton should be running for anything at this point.  If we actually lived in a just society, they would both be in prison.  But instead, they are treated like rock stars wherever they go, and they have made more than $100 million since leaving the White House in 2001.  Most of that money has come from making speeches and doing personal appearances.  They are a bright, shining example of how broken our political system is, and yet Hillary is very likely going to be our first female president. (Read More...)

 

A 1,000 Mile Stretch Of The Pacific Ocean Has Heated Up Several Degrees And Scientists Don’t Know Why

Pacific Ocean AnomalyAccording to two University of Washington scientific research papers that were recently released, a 1,000 mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean has warmed up by several degrees, and nobody seems to know why this is happening.  This giant “blob” of warm water was first observed in late 2013, and it is playing havoc with our climate.  And since this giant “blob” first showed up, fish and other sea creatures have been dying in absolutely massive numbers.  So could there be a connection?  And what is going to happen if the Pacific Ocean continues to warm up?  Could we potentially be facing the greatest holocaust of sea life in the Pacific that anyone has ever observed?  If so, what would that mean for the food chain and for our food supply? (Read More...)

 

Michael Snyder Is Coming To Texas, And What He Has To Say Will Shock America

Michael Snyder

What I am about to do next is going to shock a lot of people.  I am about to get on a plane and fly down to Dallas, Texas where I am going to speak about some things that I have never spoken publicly about before.  On Saturday, April 11th and Sunday, April 12th I am going to be speaking at the Prophecy Club, and I told Stan Johnson that I truly believe that these are the two most important presentations of my entire life.  Over the past six years, I have written more than 1,200 articles about the coming economic collapse, and these articles have been read by millions of people all over the globe.  Now we stand at the precipice of the greatest economic crash in the history of the United States, and what is going to follow that crash is going to absolutely shock the entire planet.  In my presentation on Saturday night, I am going to lay out the most comprehensive warning about the future of America that I have ever come across.  It is going to be a warning message unlike any other.  The following Sunday morning I am going to shift gears.  I am going to present the most hope-filled message that I have ever delivered.  Even if you have been following my websites for years, you are going to be stunned by what I have to share in these two presentations. (Read More...)

 

10 Quotes That Reveal Barack Obama’s Obsession With A Palestinian State  { I think that’s a good idea; and, long overdue! }

Obama Thinking - Public DomainBarack Obama is absolutely obsessed with getting the Jewish people and the Palestinians to agree to a peace deal which will permanently divide the land of Israel between those two peoples.  Barack Obama insists that such an agreement will bring permanent peace to the region, even though no previous agreement between the Jewish people and the Palestinians has lasted very long at all.  We are just told to believe that the creation of a Palestinian state will somehow cause terror groups such as Hamas to totally forsake their goal of obliterating the Jewish state and pushing all Jewish people living there into the Mediterranean Sea.  For Obama, this has become personal.  He wants to cement his legacy as a great “peacemaker” by being the president that succeeded where all presidents before him have failed.  He wants to be the one that delivers the West Bank and Gaza into the hands of the Palestinians, and he has about 20 months left to do it.  The recent election victory of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a blow to those plans, but Obama is not about to give up.  In fact, Obama administration officials are now hinting that they may back a plan for a declaration of a Palestinian state at the United Nations – thus bypassing negotiations with Israel completely.  Whether by hook or by crook, Obama seems absolutely determined to make the Palestinian dream a reality.  The following are 10 quotes that reveal Barack Obama’s obsession with a Palestinian state… (Read More...)

 

What Would Happen If Martial Law Was Declared In America?

Martial Law - Public DomainIn recent weeks, there has been a lot of concern that an upcoming eight week military exercise on U.S. soil known as “Jade Helm” is actually a dress rehearsal for the imposition of martial law in this country.  One of the reasons for the high level of concern is that we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of “urban warfare exercises” conducted by the U.S. military in major U.S. cities over the past decade – including exercises where “dissidents” are hunted down, arrested and hauled away.  As our world becomes increasingly unstable, and as our society rapidly decays from within, many believe that it is only a matter of time before the executive branch will have sufficient excuse to use the extensive martial law powers that it has been accumulating since 9/11.  When that day arrives, what will our nation look like?  What would actually happen if martial law was declared in America? (Read More...)

 

The Next-Generation Weapons That Russia Will Use Against The United States In World War III

Russian Submarine Launching A Nuclear Missile - Public DomainThe Russian military is in the midst of a sweeping modernization program, and it is currently developing some incredibly impressive offensive and defensive next-generation weapons that are designed to be used in a future war with the United States.  The key to winning World War III will be to strike hard and to strike fast, and the Russians understand this.  Meanwhile, the U.S. military has totally shifted gears from a “Cold War mindset” and is now completely focused on fighting smaller regional wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.  As a result, U.S. strategic forces have suffered.  There has been very little effort to modernize, and many of our nuclear missile silos are using technology that is ridiculously outdated.  For example, CBS News has documented that eight inch floppy disks are still being used in many of our missile silos.  And don’t expect things to change any time soon.  At this point, the U.S. military plans to keep Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles that were originally deployed in the 1960s and 1970s in service until 2030. (Read More...)

 

Russia Has Constructed Massive Underground Shelters In Anticipation Of Nuclear War

Russian National Defense Center - Photo by Russian Defense MinistryDid you know that the Russians have a massive underground complex in the Ural mountains that has been estimated to be approximately 400 square miles in size?  In other words, it is roughly as big as the area inside the Washington D.C. beltway.  Back in the 1990s, the Clinton administration was deeply concerned about the construction of this enormous complex deep inside Yamantau mountain, but they could never seem to get any straight answers from the Russians.  The command center for this complex is rumored to be 3,000 feet directly straight down from the summit of this giant rock quartz mountain.  And of course U.S. military officials will admit that there are dozens of other similar sites throughout Russia, although most of them are thought to be quite a bit smaller.  But that is not all that the Russians have been up to.  For example, Russian television has reported that 5,000 new emergency nuclear bomb shelters were scheduled to have been completed in the city of Moscow alone by the end of 2012.  Most Americans don’t realize this, but the Russians have never stopped making preparations for nuclear war.  Meanwhile, the U.S. government has essentially done nothing to prepare our citizens for an attack.  The assumption seems to be that a nuclear attack will probably never happen, and that if it does it will probably mean the end of our civilization anyway. (Read More...)

 

 

 

 

11 Signs That We Are Entering The Next Phase Of The Global Economic Crisis

Earth Puzzle - Public DomainWell, the Nasdaq finally did it.  It has climbed all the way back to where it was at the peak of the dotcom bubble.  Back in March 2000, the Nasdaq set an all-time record high of 5,048.62.  On Thursday, after all these years, that all-time record was finally eclipsed.  The Nasdaq closed at 5056.06, and Wall Street greatly rejoiced.  So if you invested in the Nasdaq at the peak of the dotcom bubble, you are just finally breaking even 15 years later.  Unfortunately, the truth is that stocks have not been soaring because the U.S. economy is fundamentally strong.  Just like the last two times, what we are witnessing is an irrational financial bubble.  Sometimes these irrational bubbles can last for a surprisingly long time, but in the end they always burst.  And even now there are signs of economic trouble bubbling to the surface all around us.  The following are 11 signs that we are entering the next phase of the global economic crisis (Read More....)

 

Hopium: How Far Can Irrational Optimism Take The U.S. Economy?

Thought Bubble - Public DomainIf enough people truly believe that things will get better, will that actually cause them to get better?  There is certainly something to be said for being positive and thinking that anything is possible.  And as Americans, optimism seems to come naturally for us.  However, no amount of positive thinking is ever going to turn the sun into a block of wood or turn the moon into a block of cheese.  Any good counselor will tell you that one of the first steps toward recovery is to stop being delusional and to come to grips with how bad things really are.  When we deny reality and engage in irrational wishful thinking, we are engaging in something called hopium.  This is a difficult term to define, but the favorite definition of hopium that I have come across so far goes like this: The irrational belief that, despite all evidence to the contrary, things will turn out for the best.  In hundreds of articles, I have documented how the U.S. economy is mired in a long-term decline which is about to get a lot worse.  But most Americans see things very differently.  In fact, according to a brand new CNN/ORC poll, 52 percent of Americans describe the U.S. economy as very or somewhat good, and more than two-thirds of all Americans believe that the U.S. economy will be in good shape a year from right now.  But if you asked most of those people why they are so optimistic, they would probably mumble something about Obama or about how were Americans and we always bounce back or some other such gibberish.  Well, its wonderful that so many people are feeling good and looking forward to the future, but are those beliefs rational? (Read More....)

 

Grexit: Remaining In The Eurozone Is No Longer ‘The Base Case’ For Greece

Exit - Public DomainAccording to the Wall Street Journal, Greece staying in the eurozone is no longer the base case for European officials, and one even told the Journal that literally nothing has been achieved in negotiations with the new Greek government since the Greek election almost three months ago.  In other words, you can take all of that stuff you heard about how the Greek crisis was fixed and throw it out the window.  Over the next few months, a big chunk of Greek government bonds held by the IMF and the European Central Bank will mature.  Unless negotiations produce a load of new cash for Greece, there will be a default, and right now there is very little optimism that we will see an agreement any time soon.  In fact, as I wrote about the other day, behind the scenes banks all over Europe are quietly preparing for a Grexit.  European news sources are reporting that the Greek banking system is on the verge of collapse, and over the past couple of weeks Greek bond yields have shot through the roof.  Most of the things that we would expect to see in the lead up to a Greek exit from the eurozone are happening, and now we will wait and see if the Greeks actually have the guts to pull the trigger when push comes to shove. (Read More....)

Guess What Happened The Last Time Bond Yields Crashed Like This?…

Question Cube - Public DomainIf a major financial crisis was approaching, we would expect to see the smart money getting out of stocks and pouring into government bonds that are traditionally considered to be safe during a crisis.  This is called a flight to safety or a flight to quality.  In the past, when there has been a flight to quality we have seen yields for German government bonds and U.S. government bonds go way down.  As you will see below, this is exactly what we witnessed during the financial crisis of 2008.  U.S. and German bond yields plummeted as money from the stock market was dumped into bonds at a staggering pace.  Well, it is starting to happen again.  In recent months we have seen U.S. and German bond yields begin to plummet as the smart money moves out of the stock market.  So is this another sign that we are on the precipice of a significant financial panic? (Read More....)

 

Another Reason To Move Away From California: ‘Conditions Are Like A Third-World Country’

Drought - Public DomainAs if anyone actually needed another reason to move out of the crazy state of California, now it is being reported that conditions in some areas of the state are like a third-world country due to the multi-year megadrought that has hit the state.  In one California county alone, more than 1,000 wells have gone dry as the groundwater has disappeared.  The state is turning back into a desert, and an increasing number of homes no longer have any water coming out of their taps or showerheads.  So if you werent scared away by the wildfires, mudslides, high taxes, crime, gang violence, traffic, insane political correctness, the nightmarish business environment or the constant threat of the big one reducing your home to a pile of rubble, perhaps the fact that much of the state could soon be facing Dust Bowl conditions may finally convince you to pack up and leave.  And if you do decide to go, you wont be alone.  Millions of Californians have fled the state in recent years, and this water crisis could soon spark the greatest migration out of the state that we have ever seen. (Read More....)

 

The Global Liquidity Squeeze Has Begun

Squeeze Globe - Public DomainGet ready for another major worldwide credit crunch.  Today, the entire global financial system resembles a colossal spiral of debt.  Just about all economic activity involves the flow of credit in some way, and so the only way to have economic growth is to introduce even more debt into the system.  When the system started to fail back in 2008, global authorities responded by pumping this debt spiral back up and getting it to spin even faster than ever.  If you can believe it, the total amount of global debt has risen by $35 trillion since the last crisis.  Unfortunately, any system based on debt is going to break down eventually, and there are signs that it is starting to happen once again.  For example, just a few days ago the IMF warned regulators to prepare for a global liquidity shock.  And on Friday, Chinese authorities announced a ban on certain types of financing for margin trades on over-the-counter stocks, and we learned that preparations are being made behind the scenes in Europe for a Greek debt default and a Greek exit from the eurozone.  On top of everything else, we just witnessed the biggest spike in credit application rejections ever recorded in the United States.  All of these are signs that credit conditions are tightening, and once a liquidity squeeze begins, it can create a lot of fear. (Read More....)

 

Flat Broke, Living In A Moldy Basement And Relying On Food Stamps And Medicaid

Lock In The Rain - Public DomainCould you imagine being a single parent and trying to survive in America today on $10.50 an hour?  For a moment, I want you to imagine that you are living in a moldy apartment that is so badly maintained that rain seeps in whenever it rains.  You are employed, but you are completely dependent on government programs such as food stamps and Medicaid in order to make ends meet.  Sometimes you would really like to take your small child somewhere fun, like a movie theater, but you cant really afford the gas money.  You are working as hard as you can, but you never seem to get anywhere, and you feel trapped because nobody seems to want to hire you for a better job.  What I have just described for you is real life for a 22-year-old single mother from Chicago named Adriana Alvarez, but there are tens of millions of other Americans that have similar stories.  If every day seems like it is a soul-crushing struggle for you, I want you to know that you are not alone.  The long-term economic collapse that I chronicle on my website is not just about facts and figures.  It is about real people that are quietly leading lives of silent desperation, and by now it has becoming exceedingly apparent that our politicians, the mainstream media and the gigantic corporations that dominate our economy do not really care much about the rest of us at all. (Read More....)

 

Huge Trouble Is Percolating Just Under The Surface Of The Global Economy

World On Fire - Public DomainDid you know that the number of publicly traded companies declaring bankruptcy has reached a five year high?  And did you know that Chinese exports are absolutely collapsing and that Chinese economic growth in 2014 was the weakest in over 20 years?  Even though things may seem to be okay on the surface for the global economy at the moment, that does not mean that big trouble is not percolating just under the surface.  On Wednesday, investors cheered as stocks soared to new highs, but almost all of the economic news coming in from around the planet has been bad.  The credit rating on Greek debt has been slashed again, global economic trade is really slowing down, and many of the exact same financial patterns that we saw just before the crash of 2008 are repeating once again.  All of this reminds me of the months leading up to the implosion of Lehman Brothers.  Most people were feeling really good about things, but huge trouble was brewing just underneath the surface.  Finally, one day we learned that Lehman Brothers had suddenly collapsed, and then all hell broke loose. (Read More....)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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