China Takes A Comprehensive Trade Deal Off The Table, And That Is Disastrous News For The U.S. Economy

The Chinese never intended to make a deal, and now they are publicly admitting it.  For months, I have been warning readers of The Economic Collapse Blog that a comprehensive trade deal with China will not happen before the 2020 presidential election, and the reason why this is the case is actually very simple.  The Chinese have concluded that President Trump will never give them the kind of deal that they are looking for, and so their entire goal has been to run out the clock on the Trump administration so that they can finally get to a Democrat that will be much more “reasonable” to deal with.  Of course if Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders wins the election, they won’t be very “reasonable” either, and so the best case scenario for the Chinese is for either Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton to emerge victorious in November 2020.  In any event, the Chinese are now being very clear about the fact that they are never, ever going to agree to Trump’s core demands.  The following comes from CNBC(Read More...)

New Survey: 69% Of U.S. CFOs Believe That A Recession Will Start “By The End Of 2020”

Throughout 2017 and most of 2018, U.S. corporate executives were generally very optimistic about the future of the economy, but now that optimism has been replaced by a deep sense of doom and gloom.  And of course there are very good reasons for all of the doom and gloom.  The trade war with China looks like it is going to last for an extended period of time, recent global manufacturing numbers have been absolutely dismal, and it is being projected that corporate earnings will be down significantly in the second quarter.  The economic environment is tough and it is rapidly getting tougher, and a brand new survey that was just released has found that 69 percent of U.S. CFOs believe that a new recession will start “by the end of 2020″… (Read More...)

The Next U.S. Housing Crisis Has Arrived: Existing Home Sales Post Their Biggest Decline In 4 Years

Things just continue to get even worse for the U.S. housing industry.  New homes sales have been absolutely plummeting, homebuilder stocks have lost over a third of their value, and existing home sales just posted their biggest decline since 2014.  For years, we had been witnessing a real estate boom in the United States, but now that has officially ended.  It is starting to feel like 2008 all over again, and many of those that work in the industry are really starting to freak out.  The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising interest rates, and it is having the exact same effect on the housing industry that it did just before the last recession. (Read More...)

U.S. Job Losses Accelerate: Here Are 10 Big Companies That Are Cutting Jobs Or Laying Off Workers

Job cuts and layoffs are coming fast and furious now as the U.S. economy really starts to slow down.  We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008, when millions of Americans lost their jobs in just a matter of months.  Things are certainly not that bad yet, but there has been a very noticeable shift over the last couple of months.  Back during the summer, everyone was talking about how well the U.S. economy was doing, but now things have dramatically changed.  At this point, economic activity has slowed down so much that even Jim Cramer of CNBC is admitting that the U.S. economy has “cooled”.  If current trends continue, things will certainly get even worse, and the job losses in this article will be just the tip of the iceberg. (Read More...)

More Than Half A Million People: America’s Homelessness Crisis Is Rapidly Exploding On Both Coasts

The homelessness crisis in the United States is getting a lot worse, and it is happening at a pace that is absolutely frightening.  Did you realize that more than half a million Americans are homeless right now?  One out of every four homeless Americans actually has a job, but thanks to rapidly rising housing prices they are not able to afford a place to live.  So every night in this country, hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping in shelters, in their vehicles or on the streets.  It is a national crisis that isn’t going away, and during the next economic downturn it is only going to intensify. (Read More...)

Chinese Exports Plunge 11.2 Percent As Economic Activity Continues To Collapse All Over The Planet

Cargo Ship - Public DomainIf the global economy is in fine shape, then why does all of the hard data tell us that global trade is absolutely collapsing?  The Baltic Dry Index has fallen below 300 for the first time ever, and export numbers are way down for almost every major exporting nation on the entire planet.  As you will see below, this includes China.  The Chinese account for more global trade than anyone else, and so the fact that their imports and their exports are both collapsing precipitously is a huge red flag.  When less stuff is being bought and sold and shipped around the world, that tells us that the “real economy” is contracting.  Tremendous efforts are being made to try to prop up financial markets all over the globe right now, but in the end those efforts are going to prove to be rather futile.  The global economy is clearly plunging into recession, and at this point it is becoming exceedingly difficult for even the most optimistic economic analysts to deny this reality. (Read More...)

Suicide, Crime, Unemployment And Poverty All Soar As The Economic Crisis In Alberta Accelerates

Canadian Flag - Public DomainThe nightmare that is currently unfolding up in Canada will soon be coming to the United States. When the price of oil first started crashing, most Americans and most Canadians applauded. Most people thought that lower gas prices would be really good for the economy. Well, it turns out that the exact opposite is true. Just like in the United States, the energy industry has been the primary engine for the growth of good paying jobs in Canada since the last recession. Up in Alberta, there was such a need for oil patch workers that even someone that had just recently graduated from high school could find an oil patch job that paid six figures during the boom times. Now the “boom” is turning into a “bust”, and huge numbers of those good paying jobs are being lost. As a result, suicide, crime, unemployment and poverty are all skyrocketing, and the mainstream media is telling us that “the worst is yet to come“. (Read More...)

18 Numbers That Scream That A Crippling Global Recession Has Arrived

Scream - Public DomainThe stock market has been soaring, but all of the hard economic numbers are telling us that a major global recession is here.  This is so reminiscent of what happened back in 2008.  Back then, all of the fundamentals were screaming “recession” by the middle of that year, but the equity markets didn’t respond until later.  It appears that a similar pattern is playing out right now.  The trade numbers, the manufacturing numbers, the inventory numbers and even the GDP numbers are all saying that a very significant economic slowdown is happening, but stock traders haven’t gotten the memo yet.  In fact, stocks had an absolutely great month in October.  Of course just like in 2008, stocks will eventually catch up with reality.  It is just a matter of time.  The following are 18 numbers that scream that a crippling global recession has arrived… (Read More...)