For much of the nation, it feels like we are in a permanent economic crisis with no end in sight. I have been documenting our long-term economic decline for years, and now we have reached a point where Americans have literally never felt this bad about the state of the U.S. economy. Considering everything that we have been through over the last several decades, that is saying a lot. So how will the American people be feeling if economic conditions continue to deteriorate? We might want to be thinking about that, because all of the long-term trends are taking us in the wrong direction very rapidly.
The University of Michigan has been tracking consumer sentiment for more than 70 years.
On Friday, we learned that the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded…
American attitudes just hit a milestone of sorts. On Friday, the University of Michigan reported that its index of consumer sentiment fell to the lowest level ever recorded in 70-odd years of surveys.
Sentiment was already low at the start of this year, but it fell sharply after the Iran war began at the end of February and sent gas prices sharply higher.
Until this year, the previous lowest level was in June 2022, when inflation was running at the highest level in decades. Friday’s sentiment reading was 10% below even that number.
“Prices remain extremely high, labor markets have unambiguously weakened in the last four years, and now we’re in the middle of a war,” said Joanne Hsu, director of consumer surveys for the University of Michigan. “I don’t think the fact that we’re lower than June 2022 should come as a surprise to anyone.”
At this stage, nobody can deny what is happening.
Those at the very top of the economic pyramid are still thriving, but just about everyone else is really hurting.
Since the 1970s, there have been many periods of great economic turmoil, but even during those times Americans felt better about the economy than they do right now…
Indeed, households are feeling worse about their personal finances and the broader state of the economy than they did during the Great Inflation of the 1970s, when the cost of groceries doubled and the government was forced to ration gasoline; the Volcker shock, from 1979 to 1982, when the average interest rate on 30-year mortgages hit 18.6 percent and the country went into devastating back-to-back recessions; the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, when 200,000 firms collapsed, the unemployment rate flirted with 15 percent, and essentials such as infant formula became impossible to find; and the Great Recession, when the stock market lost half its value, the banking system teetered on the brink of implosion, and lenders foreclosed on 6 million homes.
Read that paragraph again and let it really sink in.
Even during our darkest economic moments, Americans always had hope that things would eventually turn around.
Unfortunately, that is no longer true.
According to one financial expert, consumers are now “entrenched in financial stress”…
Americans “are entrenched in financial stress,” Bruce McClary, senior vice president of membership and media relations at NFCC says — the result of elevated prices on top of near-historic highs of consumer debt on credit cards and auto loans.
The nonprofit organization, which provides education and solutions for individuals struggling with their finances, especially debt management, reported a “significant surge” in consumers reaching out for credit counseling, which could be a warning sign for the broader economy, NFCC says. While it’s encouraging to see individuals seeking help before they have run out of options and can’t pay their bills at all, the widespread struggle could be evidence of the overall consumer economy’s health declining, the organization says.
Financial stress has become a permanent part of most of our lives.
Our seemingly endless cost of living crisis is getting even worse, and consumers are drowning in an ocean of debt.
As prices go up and up, our standard of living is steadily going down.
One recent survey asked Americans if they have reduced spending in certain areas or not, and the results were absolutely shocking…
- dining out: 54 percent say yes, while 44 percent say no;
- entertainment or leisure activities like going to movies, shows, or sporting events: 49 percent say yes, while 47 percent say no;
- vacation plans: 48 percent say yes, while 49 percent say no;
- grocery shopping: 43 percent say yes, while 56 percent say no;
- driving: 36 percent say yes, while 60 percent say no.
When close to half the country is reducing spending in multiple areas, that is really bad news for the economy.
In the past, when the economy has started to waver our politicians in Washington have intervened by borrowing and spending more money.
Borrowing and spending money that we do not have provides a short-term economic boost, but it also creates a long-term economic problem.
Now we are trapped in a nightmarish debt spiral, and so any short-term help that our politicians in Washington will be able to provide moving forward will be very limited…
The national debt held by the public, about $31 trillion, is now the size of the U.S. economy, up from 39 percent of the economy in 2008 and 79 percent in 2019. For most of the country’s history, the fact that the economy’s growth rate surpassed the interest rate on the debt enabled us to keep paying our bills.
But as my colleagues and I show in a policy brief for the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research, the fiscal outlook today is much more challenging. We concluded that the combination of higher deficits and climbing interest rates raises the risk that borrowing will become more expensive and will push government debt levels to climb relentlessly. This is a debt spiral.
The math is simple and unforgiving. Say both your annual income and your debt equal $100. Suppose you face a 2 percent interest rate but you get a 4 percent raise. You’ll have no problem paying your creditor their $2 in interest from your $4 in added income. But if you swap those rates around, every year puts you further in the hole.
It took decades of incredibly bad decisions to get us into this hole.
Sadly, there is no easy way out.
What this means is that a tremendous amount of pain is ahead.
If you think that economic conditions are bad now, just wait until you see what is coming.
We tried to defy the laws of economics for a long time, but now economic reality is catching up with us in a major way.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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17 Responses
THE FALL OF AMERICA.
American Patriots are paying the price for not fighting back.
Riding motorcycles and protesting doesn’t do Jack Sh!t. Just like praying.
The NWO is probably stunned at how easy this has been.
My economy is fine. But I have many skills. I’m making more than ever before in this economy. But I learned how to use my hands. Life is good.
WTO, NAFTA, and FIL took out American textiles, auto, and electronics decades ago, and now you have E3 and H-2B mass imported workers hitting construction, farming, trucking, and what’s left of textiles..
Granted farming has been that way since the end of share cropping and early automation over half a century ago..
Everything is based on currency exchange and every way to legally acquire currency is rapidly being taken away by exploitive foreign labor and automation.. Not everyone can work in pharma, law, and STEM.. This is a simple concept to understand, so the fact people doing it seem confused seems intentional; it’s done what seems like out of spite towards regular people..
The American worker was discarded years ago. In the early 1990s, when NAFTA was being pushed, Americans were viewed as little warriors who could (and should, according to this view) “compete” with foreign workers in other countries for lower wages. But the only winner was corporate America, which exported jobs and imported profit from lower-cost foreign labor. This short-sightedness has resulted in Americans not buying products because they can’t earn enough money, and an increase in government-provided services for the poor.
Yo Alex, can you quit with the AI slop thumbnails and graphics? It’s all starting to look like clickbait.
Total retard clickbait.
I feel fine with this economy because the economy is great. The problem is Biden era hyper inflation.
We’re not recovering from that anytime soon.
BIDENOMICS/SATANOMICS CAN’T BE DESTROYED AND REPLACED IN A DAY, WEEK, MONTH OR A COUPLE YEARS…. Welcome to the negative effects of Bidenomics/Satanomics, which will continue unless and until unrepentant devil worshipers cease and desist voting illegally and legally for Christian bashing, unrepentant devil worshipers seeking whom they may devour, for their own temporary and finite, political, power, control and financial gain and their “on high” partners in Lucifer.
When a civilization permits “moderate” unrepentant devil worshipers to seize and occupy the most meaningful positions of power and authority over others in the government sector by any means necessary (lies, theft, unjust violence, homicide etc.) and they in turn act in violation of God’s holy immutable laws in word and deed as they conduct their official duties, in so doing to protect, reward and fund disobedience to God’s holy immutable laws in thought, word and deed, and shun, shame, limit, punish and defund obedience to God’s holy immutable laws in thought, word and deed; it’s a 100 percent guarantee unjust pain and suffering will increase, and just peace and prosperity will decrease, for the worst common bad of mankind, (including but not limited to as it relates to economics matters), especially the tax oppessed, working class, peasant masses, who since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden have always been the most harmed economically and otherwise by the woefully incorrect theology of “on high” unrepentant devil worshipers united to their official acts in word and deed within the most meaningful positions of power and authority over other in the planetary government, corporate, private institution and private business human power structures.
If you continue to vote illegally and legally for “moderate” unrepentant devil worshipers who spread harmful and dangerous misinformation and disinformation there are many genders, God isn’t masculine, unrepentant devil worshipers are more Christlike than than authentic Christians etc., then expect to continue to languish under hellish economic conditions. Why? As the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob created all matter and the rules by which matter operates, and if man operates contrary to those rules, he or she will cause harm to himself or herself and others, so too God’s creation operates best when humans and spirits operate according to his holy attributes of righteousness, love, justice and mercy and when one doesn’t, he or she will cause harm to himself or herself and others.
Every human on planet earth, tune into the one and true holy Creator, turn off the electronic gadgets and drop out of the last, last days Antichist Global Empire aka the New World Disorder under Satanic rule, then your economy and the economy of your fellow man and woman will improve beyond your wildest expectations. Stay the present course and expect unjust pain and suffering to continue to increase and just peace and prosperity to continue to decrease, for the worst common bad of mankind.
OHHHH please teach us oh wise one who thinks this dates back to a recent president because correlation and studying takes too much attention and focus!!!!!
Fye up Dire Straits, Industrial Disease
Love over Gold
So the Great Depression wasn’t that bad. smh.
I live in the Ohio Valley otherwise know affectionally as the “Rust Belt”..
they sold out our country and no one did a thing.
the American Dream went with the mills! now we fight over scraps. 🙁
Hey, you like that band Big Black , with Steve up in Chiraq???!
I work in OH some times and have friends who moved back from the south..
Be thankful transplants haven’t ran up property and goods and services like they did down here.. NC, TN, SC use to be like OH is outside Cincinnati and Columbus and now it’s all track housing and obnoxious people and backups..
The economic crisis Americans are currently facing is the direct and predictable result of Socialism. This is what will always happen when governments print money to pay for lavish social programs. The Big Government types say that the only cure for the malaise of Socialism is to go full Communist, while just surrendering to them complete and total control of the system they have only partially destroyed. Of course, they have corrupted the term Capitalism to only apply to gigantic multi-national corporations that should be broken up under existing anti-trust laws, and are more properly termed as Cap-Com. However, there can be no denying that free-market capitalism is what built this country and is the only thing that could make it flourish again.
“Capitalism sucks, but it sucks less than anything else”. Socialism sucks way worse, and Communism sucks the worst of all.
It’s not the economy-it is the state of the nation: culturally and socially. It is the increasing destruction of America’s version 1.0; it is the increasing minority making of white children that have been systematically attacked and rendered demographically irrelevant minority.
Yes, we need to have a revolution ASAP, and not another fake one with masons dressing up as Indians and blaming them.
Declaration of Independence says it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish government. Its not just a revolt, its a right. Founding father Tom Jefferson said we should k!ll everyone in government, every generation, and water the tree of liberty with their blood. We’re late.
By way of truth thou shalt do war. Exemptincome . org
Truer words have never been spoken!
REVOLUTION or bust because nobody’s coming to rescue us, and this government won’t hear a damn thing until the people stand up and refuse to be ignored anymore.
The boot on the neck role must be flipped and flipped fast in “The Peoples” favor.