Home » Posts tagged 'the economic collapse blog' (Page 3)
Tag Archives: the economic collapse blog
Even The Mainstream Media Is Now Admitting That Humanity Is Facing “A Perfect Storm”
Even The Mainstream Media Is Now Admitting That Humanity Is Facing “A Perfect Storm”
Over the last several decades, have we ever seen a year start as strangely as 2020 has? Global weather patterns have gone completely nuts, large earthquakes are popping off like firecrackers, it looks like the plague of locusts in Africa could soon develop into the worst in modern history, and a massive plague of bats is severely terrorizing parts of Australia. On top of all that, African Swine Fever is wiping out millions upon millions of pigs around the globe, the H1N1 Swine Flu is killing people in Taiwan, there have been H5N1 Bird Flu outbreaks in China and in India, and the H5N8 Bird Flu has made an appearance at a poultry facility in Saudi Arabia. Of course the coronavirus outbreak which is causing people to literally drop dead in the streets in China is making more headlines than anything that I have mentioned so far, and it could potentially turn into a horrifying global pandemic that kills millions of people.
But other than that, it has been a rather calm beginning to the year, eh?
I have been repeatedly warning that the time of “the perfect storm” is upon us, and many others have also been using this terminology to describe what we are now facing.
The world is facing a series of interlinked emergencies that are threatening the existence of humans, because the sum of the effects of the crises is much greater than their individual impacts, according to a new global study.
Climate breakdown and extreme weather, species loss, water scarcity and a food production crisis are all serious in themselves, but the combination of all five together is amplifying the risks of each, creating a perfect storm that threatens to engulf humanity unless swift action is taken.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
4 Plagues Are Marching Across Asia Simultaneously: Coronavirus, African Swine Fever, H5N1 Bird Flu And H1N1 Swine Flu
4 Plagues Are Marching Across Asia Simultaneously: Coronavirus, African Swine Fever, H5N1 Bird Flu And H1N1 Swine Flu
The coronavirus outbreak that is raging all over China right now has been making headlines on a daily basis all over the globe, and rightly so. At this point we don’t know if it will ultimately become a horrifying global pandemic that will affect tens of millions of people, but what we do know is that the virus spreads very easily and the number of cases has been rising at an exponential rate. Meanwhile, three other plagues have also been marching across Asia, and most people in the western world don’t even realize that this is happening. What I am about to share with you in this article is quite chilling, and the months ahead will be very dark if these plagues continue to spread.
Long before we ever heard of this new coronavirus, African Swine Fever was devastating pork farms from one end of China to the other. There is no vaccine for “pig ebola”, there is no cure, and once it hits a farm the only thing that can be done is to kill every single pig so that it won’t spread anywhere else. But even though draconian measures have been implemented, it has just kept spreading, and at this point “about two-thirds of China’s swine herd has been lost”…
Video of people fighting over pork at Chinese meat counters will likely become more common as the fallout from the African swine fever outbreak in China progresses.
Brett Stuart, president of the market research and analysis firm Global AgriTrends, estimates that about two-thirds of China’s swine herd has been lost to the disease and contrary to official government reports of recovery, more pigs are dying every day as ASF continues to spread.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
A Plague Of “Billions” Of Locusts Threatens To Create A Horrific End Times Famine All Over Africa
A Plague Of “Billions” Of Locusts Threatens To Create A Horrific End Times Famine All Over Africa
Billions of locusts are eating everything in sight in east Africa right now, and every single day many more farms are being completely wiped out. Unfortunately, authorities are telling us that what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, if extreme measures are not implemented immediately, authorities are claiming that this locust plague could literally get “500 times” worse in a few months. But it is difficult to imagine conditions getting any worse than they are at this moment. Ravenous locust swarms that are “the size of cities”are consuming crops at a staggering pace, and this could potentially cause famine on the African continent that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.
It can be difficult to imagine a plague of “billions” of locusts. After all, there are only about 7 billion people living on the entire planet.
But this is actually happening. Right now “billions of locusts” are absolutely devastating east Africa, and each one can eat “its own weight in food every day”…
Billions of locusts swarming through East Africa could prove disastrous for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods, experts have warned, amid increasing calls for international help.
Dense clouds of the ravenous insects, each of which consumes its own weight in food every day, have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades.
It would be hard to overstate what this is going to mean for the region. According to the FAO, this plague is an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa”…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Boom Turns Into A Bust – Here are 14 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Steadily Weakening
The Boom Turns Into A Bust – Here are 14 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Steadily Weakening
There should no longer be any doubt that the U.S. economy is slowing down, but most Americans still don’t realize what is happening because the major news networks are completely focused on the endless impeachment drama that is currently playing out in Washington. And without a doubt that is important, because it threatens to literally rip our entire nation in two. But meanwhile, economic activity has taken a very ominous turn. Hiring is slowing, consumer confidence is plunging, defaults on auto loans are rapidly escalating, the “transportation recession” continues to get deeper and it appears that the housing bubble is popping. Everywhere we turn, there are signs of economic trouble, and many are deeply concerned about what this will mean for us as we head into a pivotal election year in 2020.
Not since the last recession have we seen numbers this bad. The “mini-boom” that we witnessed for several years has now turned into a “bust”, and very tough times are ahead.
The following are 14 signs that the U.S. economy is steadily weakening…
#1 U.S. business hiring has fallen to a 7 year low.
#2 Consumer confidence in the United States has now declined for 3 months in a row.
#3 Defaults on “subprime” auto loans are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2008.
#4 The percentage of “subprime” auto loans that are at least 60 days delinquent is now higher than it was at any point during the last recession.
#5 Vacancies at U.S. shopping malls have hit the highest level since the last recession.
#6 Destination Maternity has announced that they will be closing 183 stores as the worst year for store closings in U.S. history just continues to get worse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What You Think Is Controlled By What You Watch, And What You Watch Is Controlled By The Elite
What You Think Is Controlled By What You Watch, And What You Watch Is Controlled By The Elite
Why do you believe what you believe? Some people have a really solid answer to that question, but much of the population never thinks much about deeper questions such as this. In fact, for most Americans it is simply easier to let others do their thinking for them. Today, most of us spend multiple hours each day absorbing information through a screen, and most of the content that is fed to us through our televisions, phones, tablets and computers is controlled by the elite. And if you allow anyone to feed information into your mind for several hours every day, it is going to have a dramatic impact on how you view the world.
When I was younger, one of my favorite movies was “The Matrix”, and I think that it is a really good metaphor for what is going on in our society today. In the film, nearly the entire human population was plugged into a system which continuously fed a computer-generated reality into their minds that wasn’t real at all. Later on, I eventually came to realize that we are willingly doing the same thing to ourselves. Our personal interactions with one another are extremely limited, but we willingly “plug in” to the enormous matrix of news, information and entertainment that the elite have constructed for many hours each day.
According to numbers that were released earlier this year, the average American spends more than three hours watching television and more than three hours on mobile devices every single day…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
National Geographic Admits Billions Of People Will “Face Shortages Of Food And Clean Water” Over The Next 30 Years
National Geographic Admits Billions Of People Will “Face Shortages Of Food And Clean Water” Over The Next 30 Years
A lot of people out there don’t like when I write these kinds of articles, because they directly contradict the false narrative that humanity has an extremely bright future ahead. Sadly, the truth is that our planet and everything that lives on it is rapidly deteriorating. And I am not talking about the false environmentalism being pushed by the mainstream media, Greta Thunberg and countless well-funded NGOs. What I am talking about is the stuff that is happening right in our face. We are systematically poisoning our planet, thousands upon thousands of species are going extinct, and we are literally running out of all of our most important natural resources. There isn’t going to be enough of anything in the not too distant future. In fact, even National Geographic is admitting that up to five billion people could soon be facing “shortages of food and clean water”…
As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model examining how nature and humans can survive together.
“I hope no one is shocked that billions of people could be impacted by 2050,” says Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer a landscape ecologist at Stanford University. “We know we are dependent on nature for many things,” says Chaplin-Kramer, lead author of the paper “Global Modeling Of Nature’s Contributions To People” published in Science.
The clock is literally ticking for humanity, but meanwhile we spend immense amounts of energy on relatively meaningless political squabbles.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
An “All-Out Blizzard” That Is “Unheard Of For October” Is About To Hit Farms In The Midwest With Up To 2 Feet Of Snow
An “All-Out Blizzard” That Is “Unheard Of For October” Is About To Hit Farms In The Midwest With Up To 2 Feet Of Snow
Farmers in the middle of the country are about to get hit by what could potentially be the worst October blizzard in U.S. history. According to USA Today, “the massive size and intensity of this snowstorm is unheard of for October”. In other words, we have never seen anything like this in the month of October ever before. Such a storm would have been disastrous enough in a normal year, but this has definitely not been a normal year for Midwest farmers. As I detailed extensively in previous articles, endless rain and horrific flooding made planting season a complete and utter nightmare for many Midwest farmers this year. Millions of acres did not get planted at all, and planting was seriously delayed on tens of millions of other acres. As a result, corn, soybeans and other crops are simply not ready to be harvested in many parts of the Midwest, and now an unprecedented winter storm is barreling directly toward our heartland.
This is a very, very serious situation. Normally, most corn in the Dakotas and Minnesota is considered to be “mature” by now, but this year we are facing a completely different scenario.
According to the latest USDA Crop Progress Report, only 22 percent of the corn in North Dakota is considered to be “mature” at this point…
Many farmers continue to wait on the sidelines to get into the fields. With freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, and high winds set to hit the northern Plains this week, the corn in North Dakota is only 22% mature vs. a 75% five-year average, according to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report.
Also, South Dakota corn is rated 36% mature vs. an 80% five-year average. Minnesota farmers have a corn crop that is just 39% mature vs. an 83% five-year average.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
America’s Financial Suicide: The Budget Deficit Rises 26% In 1 Year As Federal Spending Spirals Wildly Out Of Control
America’s Financial Suicide: The Budget Deficit Rises 26% In 1 Year As Federal Spending Spirals Wildly Out Of Control
We are in the process of committing national financial suicide, and most Americans don’t seem to care. As you will see below, the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended on September 30th was the largest in 7 years. In fact, it was actually 26 percent larger than last year. Federal spending is wildly out of control, and “non-discretionary spending” is projected to go through the roof in the years ahead. Under our current system, it is literally going to be impossible to turn things around. As the Baby Boomers continue to retire, the amount of resources demanded by Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs is going to continue to escalate dramatically. Meanwhile, the biggest bureaucracy in the history of the world just continues to get even larger with each passing year, and neither political party seems interested in trying to do anything about it. Our national debt will shortly hit 23 trillion dollars, but we will never actually pay it off. Instead, we will just keep piling on more debt until this entire charade comes crashing down like a house of cards.
At this point, we shouldn’t expect the Democrats to show any concern for our skyrocketing national debt. During the Obama years the national debt increased by an average of more than a trillion dollars a year, and this unprecedented spending helped to stabilize the U.S. economy following the Great Recession.
However, if we could go back and remove the 9.3 trillion dollars that was added to the national debt during Obama’s time in office, those eight years would have been the worst eight years economically in the history of our nation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
A U.S. Economic Slowdown Has Been Confirmed, And We Are Being Warned That “More Damage” Is Ahead
A U.S. Economic Slowdown Has Been Confirmed, And We Are Being Warned That “More Damage” Is Ahead
We just witnessed the worst month for U.S. manufacturers in more than 10 years, and nobody seems optimistic that things are going to get much better any time soon. In fact, one expert is warning that “more damage” is coming if the trade war is not resolved, and unfortunately it does not appear that a resolution will be possible for the foreseeable future. As I have been detailing for months, the entire global economy has been steadily slowing down, but some shocking new numbers that we just got indicate that our economic problems are really starting to accelerate. So hold on to your hats, because it looks like things are about to get really crazy. According to CNBC, September was the worst month for U.S. factories in more than a decade…
The U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers’ index from the Institute for Supply Management came in at 47.8% in September, the lowest since June 2009, marking the second consecutive month of contraction. Any figure below 50% signals a contraction.
The new export orders index was only 41%, the lowest level since March 2009, down from the August reading of 43.3%, ISM data showed.
Those numbers are absolutely abysmal, and they were far worse than analysts were expecting.
Since December 2009, I have published more than 2,000 articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, and in all that time we have never seen manufacturing numbers this bad.
According to Peter Boockvar, the chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, we have “now tariffed our way into a manufacturing recession in the U.S. and globally”. So those that have been waiting for a “manufacturing recession” to arrive can now stop waiting. It is here, and it is going to be very painful.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
North America’s Bird Population Is Collapsing – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Have Been Wiped Out Since 1970
North America’s Bird Population Is Collapsing – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Have Been Wiped Out Since 1970
All around us, our world is literally in a state of collapse, but most people don’t seem to care. I spend much of my time writing about the inevitable collapse of our economic and financial systems, but they are only one part of the story. These days, millions upon millions of us are spending countless hours in this “virtual world” that we have created, and that is preventing many of us from understanding what is really going on in “the real world”. Where I live, I can literally keep the doors wide open for hours without worrying about bugs coming in, because insect populations are disappearing at a pace that is frightening. They are calling it “the insect apocalypse”, and some scientists are warning that they could all be gone in 100 years. And this dramatic decline in the insect population is one of the main reasons why North America’s bird population is collapsing. In the old days, I remember the singing of birds often greeting me in the morning, but these days I am never awakened by birds. That might make sense if I lived right in the middle of a major city, but I don’t. I live in a very rural location, and I do see birds out here, but not nearly as many as I would expect.
Sadly, the scientific evidence is confirming what many of us had feared. According to a scientific study that was just released, North America’s bird population has fallen by “nearly 3 billion birds since 1970″…
If you’ve noticed fewer birds in your backyard than you used to, you’re not mistaken.
North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970, a study said Thursday, which also found significant population declines among hundreds of bird species, including those once considered plentiful.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Temperatures In The Pacific Ocean Have Shot Up To Dangerous Levels, And Scientists Are Blaming A “Strange Anomaly”
Temperatures In The Pacific Ocean Have Shot Up To Dangerous Levels, And Scientists Are Blaming A “Strange Anomaly”
It is being called “the Pacific marine heatwave of 2019”, and officials are warning that it could have very frightening implications if it does not dissipate soon. Right now, there is a vast expanse of water stretching from northern Alaska all the way to southern California where the water temperatures have rapidly risen to very dangerous levels. In fact, in some spots the water temperature is already “as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal”, and there is a tremendous amount of concern about what will happen if the water continues to become even warmer. At this point things are already so bad that we are being warned that this strange anomaly could “ravage marine life and decimate commercial fishing” all along the west coast. The following comes from NPR…
A huge new marine heat wave has gripped the waters off the U.S. West Coast, threatening to ravage marine life and decimate commercial fishing over an expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
We are being told that this new anomaly is probably similar to another “marine heatwave” known as “the Blob” that made global headlines when it struck the region in 2014.
And if that is true, then things will definitely get very uncomfortable for marine life, but conditions will eventually go back to normal. Although for the near future we are being warned that this anomaly is “on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event”…
“It’s on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event,” said Andrew Leising, a research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. About five years ago, sea temperatures peaked at close to 7 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Uh Oh: U.S. Layoffs Rise 38 Percent – Highest Level For August Since 2009
Uh Oh: U.S. Layoffs Rise 38 Percent – Highest Level For August Since 2009
We continue to get more numbers that indicate that U.S. economic activity is really starting to slow down. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the United States was 38 percent higher in August than it was in July. A 38 percent increase in one month is more than just a little bit startling, and many believe that if this momentum continues we could soon be facing an avalanche of job losses similar to what we witnessed in 2008. And without a doubt, all of the other economic numbers that have been rolling in lately also confirm that the U.S. economy is heading into harder times. But is our country ready to handle another major economic downturn?
Even though there have been moments of difficulty over the past decade, we truly haven’t seen anything like this since the last recession. In fact, the latest job cut numbers that we just got from Challenger, Gray & Christmas are the highest that we have seen during any August since 2009…
Employers also announced the most layoffs of any August since 2009, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.
Job cuts rose 38 percent over July, with 53,480 positions to be slashed from employer payrolls, led by workforce reductions in health care, which had been a mainstay of recent job creation, the tech sector and manufacturing.
So why is this happening?
Well, certainly there are many factors at play, but Andrew Challenger has singled out “the trade war” as one of the biggest reasons…
“Employers are beginning to feel the effects of the trade war and imposed tariffs by the US and China,” Andrew Challenger, the firm’s vice president, said in a statement.
Other nations are really starting to feel the effects of the trade war as well. This week, Germany reported a startling drop in new manufacturing orders…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
28 Signs Of Economic Doom As The Pivotal Month Of September Begins
28 Signs Of Economic Doom As The Pivotal Month Of September Begins
Since the end of the last recession, the outlook for the U.S. economy has never been as dire as it is right now. Everywhere you look, economic red flags are popping up, and the mainstream media is suddenly full of stories about “the coming recession”. After several years of relative economic stability, things appear to be changing dramatically for the U.S. economy and the global economy as a whole. Over and over again, we are seeing things happen that we have not witnessed since the last recession, and many analysts expect our troubles to accelerate as we head into the final months of 2019.
We should certainly hope that things will soon turn around, but at this point that does not appear likely. The following are 28 signs of economic doom as the pivotal month of September begins…
#1 The U.S. and China just slapped painful new tariffs on one another, thus escalating the trade war to an entirely new level.
#2 JPMorgan Chase is projecting that the trade war will cost “the average U.S. household” $1,000 per year.
#3 Yield curve inversions have preceded every single U.S. recession since the 1950s, and the fact that it has happened again is one of the big reasons why Wall Street is freaking out so much lately.
#4 We just witnessed the largest decline in U.S. consumer sentiment in 7 years.
#5 Mortgage defaults are rising at the fastest pace that we have seen since the last financial crisis.
#6 Sales of luxury homes valued at $1.5 million or higher were down five percentduring the second quarter of 2019.
#7 The U.S. manufacturing sector has contracted for the very first time since September 2009.
#8 The Cass Freight Index has been falling for a number of months. According to CNBC, it fell “5.9% in July, following a 5.3% decline in June and a 6% drop in May.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Monster” Hurricane Dorian Is Projected To Be “A Very Big Hurricane, Perhaps One Of The Biggest”
“Monster” Hurricane Dorian Is Projected To Be “A Very Big Hurricane, Perhaps One Of The Biggest”
Well, that certainly escalated quickly. On Wednesday we were told that Hurricane Dorian would only be a Category 3 storm when it hits the Florida coastline, but now we are being told that it will be a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Dorian is rapidly gaining strength over very warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean, and the latest forecast has it making landfall somewhere along the east coast of Florida on Monday. If it is officially a Category 4 storm when it arrives, it will be the most powerful storm to hit the east coast of Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Dorian is being described as a “monster hurricane”, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has already declared a state of emergency for all 67 counties in the state of Florida.
We will see how things develop over the next several days, but at this point it has become clear that Dorian has the potential to be an exceedingly dangerous storm.
In fact, President Trump himself is telling us that Dorian could be “perhaps one of the biggest” hurricanes that the U.S. has ever seen…
Hurricane Dorian looks like it will be hitting Florida late Sunday night. Be prepared and please follow State and Federal instructions, it will be a very big Hurricane, perhaps one of the biggest!
The reason why meteorologists are so concerned is because Dorian will be traveling over extremely warm waters for the next 48 hours, and that means that we should see “steady intensification during the next 2 to 3 days”…
“The warmer the water, the more moisture is in the air,’’ the website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says. “And that could mean bigger and stronger hurricanes.’’
The weather service said current conditions in the Atlantic “should allow for at least steady intensification during the next 2 to 3 days.’’
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
An Indicator With A 100% Perfect Track Record Of Predicting Recessions Says That Another One Is Coming
An Indicator With A 100% Perfect Track Record Of Predicting Recessions Says That Another One Is Coming
You can believe that we will somehow beat the odds this time if you want, but history is completely against you. One of the biggest reasons why there is so much anxiety on Wall Street right now is because of how the yield curve is behaving. We have seen yield curve inversions before each of the last seven U.S. recessions, and now it has happened again. Perhaps this helps to explain why insiders are dumping stocks right now as if there will be no tomorrow. If you were looking for a giant waving red flag to tell you that it is time to run for the exits, it doesn’t get much better than this. This week, we watched the yield curve do something that it hasn’t done in 12 years…
The spread between the 10-year Treasury yield and the 2-year rate fell to negative 5 basis points, its lowest level since 2007. This is called a yield curve inversion. Experts fear it because in the past it has preceded recessionary periods. The 3-month Treasury bill rate also traded higher than the 30-year bond yield.
“The primary thing is yields are going down and going down with some acceleration,” said Art Cashin, the director of floor operations at UBS.
In addition, the spread between 3 month Treasury bonds and 10 year Treasury bonds just hit negative 50 basis points. We haven’t seen that happen since March 2007.
And as David Rosenberg has noted, when the spread between 3 month Treasury bonds and 10 year Treasury bonds goes negative for at least three months, we have a recession 100% of the time…
We now have had three months of a 3-mo/10-yr yield curve inversion. The track record this has had in predicting recessions: 100%.
