Debt

There Is An Increasing Amount Of Buzz That China Could Invoke The Rare Earth “Nuclear Option” In The Trade War

If China wants to cause a massive amount of pain for the U.S. economy in this trade war, they certainly have the firepower to do so.  Today, China accounts for more than 80 percent of the world’s rare earth element production, and approximately 80 percent of the rare earth elements that are used by U.S. companies are imported from China.  The U.S. does have one facility that mines rare earth elements in California, but everything that is mined there has to be shipped to China for processing.  So at this point we do not have the ability to supply our own rare earth element needs, and that gives the Chinese a tremendous amount of leverage. (Read More...)

Trade Talks Are Dead, And So U.S. Consumers Should Brace For A Long, Bitter, Painful Trade War With China

There is not going to be a trade deal between the United States and China any time soon, and that is going to mean a tremendous amount of pain for the U.S. economy.  For months, hope that the U.S. and China would soon reach a trade deal helped to elevate global financial markets, but now that hope has disappeared.  In order for a trade deal to happen, the two sides have to talk, and at this point no negotiations are scheduled.  And unless one side or the other decides that they are willing to move dramatically from their current positions, there really isn’t any reason to talk.  In fact, the Chinese government is openly saying that it is in “no rush” to negotiate with the United States… (Read More...)

On The Edge Of Disaster: 59 Percent Of Americans Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck

Living on the edge, being dragged down by debt, and having little hope for the future is no way to live.  But that is precisely where most Americans find themselves in 2019.  Despite a supposedly “booming economy”, the middle class continues to shrink and most of the country is barely scraping by from month to month.  In fact, a brand new survey that was just released by Charles Schwab discovered that 59 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck… (Read More...)

If The Chinese Were Upset Before, Now They Are Going To Be Absolutely Furious After Trump’s Latest Move

President Trump is doubling down on his tough approach with China, and apparently he has decided that now is the time to cripple their most important tech company.  Huawei Technologies sells more telecommunications equipment than anyone else in the entire world, and it was anticipated that they would be one of the global leaders in the rollout of 5G networks all over the planet.  The company ranks 72nd on the Fortune Global 500 list, and at this point they sell more phones than Apple does.  Essentially, Huawei is China’s version of Apple, and the company is greatly loved by the communist government in China.  So if President Trump really wanted to piss off China, taking a sledgehammer to Huawei would be a great way to do it, and that is precisely what he just did. (Read More...)

Credit Card Charge-Offs Hit The Highest Level In Nearly 7 Years And Credit Card Delinquencies Hit The Highest Level In Almost 8 Years

When people are having a harder time paying their bills, that is a signal that the economy is slowing down.  This is something that we witnessed back in 2008, and it is something that is happening once again right now.  Credit card charge-offs at major U.S. banks haven’t been this high since the U.S. economy was pulling out of the last recession, and the same thing is true regarding credit card delinquencies.  So even though the mainstream media keeps telling us over and over that the U.S. economy is “booming”, the cold, hard numbers are telling us something completely different.  This is a point that I made yesterday in my article about how homelessness is absolutely exploding in New York City, and it is a point I will undoubtedly have to make many more times as long as the mainstream media feeds us this fictional narrative about a “booming economy”.  Look, the truth is that you can’t say that we have a booming economy until we have a year when the U.S. economy grows by at least 3 percent, and at this point we haven’t had that since the middle of the Bush administration. (Read More...)

The True Size Of The U.S. National Debt, Including Unfunded Liabilities, Is 222 Trillion Dollars

The United States is on a path to financial ruin, and everyone can see what is happening, but nobody can seem to come up with a way to stop it.  According to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government is currently 22 trillion dollars in debt, and that represents the single largest debt in the history of the planet.  Over the past decade, we have been adding to that debt at a rate of about 1.1 trillion dollars a year, and we will add more than a trillion dollars to that total once again this year.  But when you add in our unfunded liabilities, our long-term financial outlook as a nation looks downright apocalyptic.  According to Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff, the U.S. is currently facing 200 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, and when you add that number to our 22 trillion dollar debt, you get a grand total of 222 trillion dollars. (Read More...)

12 Statistics That Prove That The U.S. Is Facing A Consumer Debt Apocalypse

In the entire history of the United States, consumers have never been in so much debt.  And that would not be a crisis as long as the vast majority of us were regularly making our debt payments, but as you will see below delinquency levels are starting to rise to extremely alarming levels.  In fact, some of the numbers that are coming in are even worse than we witnessed at any point during the last recession.  If things are this bad already, what are they going to look like once the economy really gets bad?  Because even though it appears that we are heading into a new recession, according to the Federal Reserve it has not officially begun yet.  That means that much worse is yet to come.  Just like last time, millions of Americans will likely lose their jobs, and without an income most of those that suddenly find themselves unemployed will not be able to pay their bills.  The stage is set for the largest tsunami of consumer debt defaults that this country has ever seen, and that will absolutely devastate major financial institutions all across America. (Read More...)

50 Actual College Course Titles That Prove That America’s Universities Are Training Our College Students To Be Socialists

What in the world are they teaching to our young people?  As you go through the list of college course titles below, I am sure that many of you will be completely shocked.  Most parents assume that they are sending their children to college to get prepared for their future careers, but the truth is that a lot of our major colleges and universities have become little more than indoctrination centers for progressive thought.  Our college students are literally being systematically trained to be socialists, and it is working.  According to a brand new Harris Poll that was just released, 37.2 percent of all Americans “prefer living in a socialist country”.  But for Millennials and Generation Z combined, that figure is 49.6 percent.  That means that essentially half of our young adults want to be socialists, and that has enormous implications for the future of our society. (Read More...)