Economic Pain

Fear Of The Coronavirus Has Absolutely Destroyed America’s Future

Very few people are talking about it, and even fewer are bothering to object, but by borrowing and spending so much money our politicians are essentially feeding America’s financial future into a wood chipper.  It took from the founding of our country all the way to 1981 before the U.S. national debt reached one trillion dollars.  Incredibly, we just added more than a trillion dollars to our national debt in less than a month.  On April 5th, we were 23.9 trillion dollars in debt, and by May 4th we were 25 trillion dollars in debt.  Fear of the coronavirus has caused nearly all of our politicians to suddenly become socialists, and we are being told that trillions more in spending may be coming.  This is complete and utter lunacy, and we are leaving future generations of Americans with a mountain of debt that would absolutely crush them.  But of course our society may not even last too much longer at the rate we are going.  For years I have been loudly warning that our absurd national debt is an existential threat to America’s future, but at this point both major political parties have completely abandoned any sense of fiscal responsibility.  Now our national debt is rapidly speeding toward the 26 trillion dollar mark, and the House of Representatives just passed a bill that would borrow and spend an additional 3 trillion dollars that we do not currently have… (Read More...)

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...)

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...)

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...)

America Has Millions Of Millennial Brats That Need To Move Away From Mommy And Daddy And Start Acting Like Adults

If young adults are America’s future, then they better get their act together. Today, over 30 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds live with their parents or other family members. Meanwhile, marriage rates and fertility rates in the United States have both hit record lows in recent years. Instead of coddling these self-absorbed Millennial narcissists well into their adult years, we need to be kicking them out of the nest and encouraging them to learn to fend for themselves. In many instances, if they do not learn how to act like adults by the time they are 35, they never will. It is time for parents all over America to exercise some tough love, because we are facing a major national crisis. (Read More...)

20 Signs That Europe Is Plunging Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression

An economic nightmare is descending on Europe.  With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse.  At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression.  In fact, some parts of Europe are already there.  In Spain the overall unemployment rate is over 22 percent, and in Greece one out of every five retail establishments has already been closed down.  All over Europe, economic activity is rapidly slowing down, unemployment is skyrocketing and bad debts are unraveling.  It isn’t even going to take a default by a nation such as Greece or a collapse of the euro to push Europe into an economic depression.  All Europe has to do is to stay on the exact path that it is on right now and it will get there.  Normally, European governments would respond to an economic slowdown by increasing government spending.  But this time most of them are already drowning in debt.  Instead of increasing government spending, most governments in Europe are actually cutting back.  All over Europe, national governments are being encouraged to implement even more tax increases and even more budget cuts.  The hope is that all of this austerity will help solve the nightmarish sovereign debt crisis that Europe is facing.  But unfortunately, all of these tax increases and budget cuts are also going to involve a tremendous amount of economic pain. (Read More...)

No Christmas For Millions Of American Families This Year

For millions of American families, there will be no Christmas this year.  The sad truth is that an increasing number of families simply do not have money for Christmas presents or any other luxuries right now.  The number of Americans that fell into poverty set a new all-time record last year and extreme poverty is at the highest level ever measured in the United States.  This Christmas, a lot of American families will be deciding whether to spend the little money that they do have on food, heat or medicine.  All over America, the poor are getting poorer and each year the economic pain seems to get even worse.  But there are also many American families that will have no Christmas this year for other reasons.  Some are just sick and tired of all of the materialism that is involved in Christmas.  Others are trying to be “politically correct” and don’t want to offend anyone.  There are even a growing number of Americans that are Christians but that believe that Christians should not celebrate Christmas for spiritual reasons.  Once upon a time, Christmas was pretty much considered to be a nearly universal holiday in the United States, but that just is not the case anymore.  There are millions upon millions of Americans that simply will not be celebrating Christmas at all this year. (Read More...)