Month: June 2023

We live in a strange time, one where the formerly unthinkable – skepticism among the “very serious people” about government data veracity – has become mundane. And yet even though numerous bank analysts and strategists, and this site of course, have repeatedly raised questions and concerns about the credibility of the most important US economic data – the monthly jobs report – nothing ever changes and if it does, it comes in the form of periodic “seasonal adjustment” resets where we “learn” that all the data that guided markets and central banks, had been fake, manipulated wrong for years.

But even if one ignores the blatant manipulation of economic data by self-serving administrations, who hope to generate political brownie points by casting the economy in a far stronger light than is merited in reality, there are still various bizarre offshoots within the data which few notice yet which are instrumental to maintaining the fake narrative.

Such as this: readers are probably aware that according to the BLS, there are now roughly 3.3 million more jobs (155.7 million) than there were at the peak just before the covid crash (152.4 million).

On the surface, this is an impressive accomplishment, as a deficit of some 22 million jobs has been erased in under three years.

But then, if one starts digging, some peculiarities emerge, like for example that much of jobs created in recent years have gone to “multiple jobholders“, meaning that not every “payroll” has been assigned to a unique individual, but instead there are now people who hold two, three or more jobs to make ends meet.

Or that much of the recent job creation has gone to low-paying part-time workers while full time jobs have stagnated.

Or that according to the household survey there was virtually no new jobs created for much of 2022 even as the establishment survey indicated that over 2 million new jobs had been added over the same period.

To be sure, it didn’t take long after we pointed out these glaring narrative “glitches” and discrepancies for the BLS to notice and to make the appropriate adjustments and historical revisions to the data to make it coherent. After all, bureaucrats are not very diligent and attention oriented, and manipulating bureaucrats are even worse.

Yet one place where the BLS has allowed a glaring data deficiency to persist, is in what will soon be a very politically charged and sensitive data series: where have all the new workers come from.

As noted above, if one believes the BLS, US payrolls are now a record high 155.7 million, or 161 million employed workers according to the Household survey. But if one digs a little deeper, one finds something rather peculiar: all of the jobs created since the covid crash have gone to foreign-born workers!

That’s right: as shown in the chart below, there are currently 131.1 million native-born US workers, which is down more than half a million from the pre-covid peak of 131.7 million reached in October 2019 (data source: Federal Reserve). Meanwhile, if only looks at the number of foreign-born workers, here the data paints a very different picture: having peaked at 27.8 million in Feb 2019, the number of foreign-born workers has not only recovered its covid crash losses, but has increased by an additional 2.2 million to a record 30.0 million as of April 2023!

This means that all the new job creation since the covid crash has gone to foreign workers, with native-born workers stagnating and still unable to break above pre-covid highs, even though if one merely extends the pre-covid trendline, native-born workers should have long ago surpassed their 2019 highs. Said otherwise, millions of native jobs have quietly gone to (lower paid) foreigners.

But what if the data shown above is merely a product of uneven distribution of hiring while the labor force growth has been similar. Good question, and to answer that we have looked not at the change in absolute jobs/workers but the change in labor forces, native-born and foreign-born, indexed at 100 as of Oct 2019. The result, shown below, speaks for itself.

And there you have it: both the number of native-born workers and the actual native-born labor force have stagnated, while foreign-born workers have flourished and captured market share or rather employment and wage share from native Americans.

To be sure, there is much to analyze: unfortunately the BLS does not break down the “foreign-born” data set into legally and illegally-immigrated foreign-born workers, although considering that it was virtually impossible for legal foreigners to enter the US – let along work in it – for nearly two years after the covid pandemic broke out, it is rather safe to assume that much of the foreign-born work has gone to illegal immigrants.

Which then begs the question: how does this impact inflation? We already know that wage inflation is supposedly off the charts, but if the bulk of new hiring has gone to foreign-born workers who, for the most part, represent a cheaper labor option for employers, does that mean that wage inflation would be that much higher if most new workers had been native-born? What will happen to inflation if, say, Trump or DeSantis makes it a campaign pledge to focus on hiring native-born workers?

And another question: what does this track record mean for the coming presidential mudslinging campaigns – what impact will it have on the reputation of, say, Joe Biden, when he is asked why all new jobs under his administration have gone to foreign-born workers while native-born Americans have been left to stagnate?

We hope to have the answers soon enough; for now, however, we have another jobs report to focus on in just a few hours. And if the recent track record of the BLS “accuracy and integrity” is any indication of what to expect, tomorrow’s numbers should push what are already ridiculous job numbers well into the realm of peak absurdity.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former president Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’s eying a “most spectacular” 250th birthday celebration of the United States if he is elected, coming days after he promised to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. But the former president, a leading GOP candidate, has made a range of other new policy proposals.

US Celebration

“Three years from now, the United States will celebrate the biggest and most important milestone in our country’s history—250 years of American independence,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “That’s why as a nation we should be preparing for the most spectacular birthday party. We want to make it the best of all time.”

And Trump’s campaign said in a news release that the former commander-in-chief will hold a  White House task force known as the “Salute to America 250” to hold anniversary celebrations across the United States between Memorial Day 2025 and July 4, 2026.

“I will work with all 50 governors, Republican and Democrat alike, to create the Great American State Fair, a unique one-year exhibition featuring pavilions from all 50 states,” he said in a video, proposing a “legendary,” special “one-time festival” in Iowa.

“And finally, and most importantly, I will ask America’s great religious communities to pray for our nation and our people as we prepare for this momentous occasion,” Trump also remarked. “America has been a country sustained and strengthened by prayer and by our communities of faith as we chart a course toward the next 250 years. Let us come together and rededicate ourselves as one nation under God.”

Other initiatives include the Patriot Games, an Olympic-style event for high school athletes, and the re-issuance of an executive order to restore the Trump-era National Garden of American Heroes that was ultimately blocked by President Joe Biden. That park would have honored great Americans and historical figures, Trump has said.

The timing of Trump’s statement is no coincidence. The former president is traveling to Iowa for a tour of the state, which is important launching point during the 2024 Republican Party primary.

“Together we will build it, and they will come,” Trump said of the proposed Iowa Fairgrounds event, using a quote from the movie Field of Dreams, which was filmed in Iowa.

100 New US Attorneys

Wednesday’s proposal from Trump builds on the patriotic themes that he used during his 2016 campaign and administration. Trump in 2020 established the 1776 Commission dedicated to patriotic education and history lessons, countering the New York Times’s “1619 Project” that attempts to reframe the founding of America around slavery.

Months before that, Trump also vowed in a campaign video to fight against who he described as “Marxist” left-wing district attorneys and “overhaul” the Department of Justice in the wake of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump for allegedly falsifying business records. If elected, his administration would also appoint 100 U.S. attorneys who are the “polar opposite” of district attorneys who received campaign cash from controversial left-wing billionaire George Soros.

“As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys,” Trump said  in a video posted to his YouTube page, which was restored earlier this year after a two-year suspension. “And that’s what we have—they are Marxist in many cases.”

End Birthright Citizenship

This week, Trump also again vowed to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrant parents. Several years ago, Trump signaled that he would issue the executive order, but some legal analysts have said that it would likely face significant legal challenges as birthright citizenship is essentially protected under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

Trump’s website says that he “will again end catch-and-release, restore Remain in Mexico, and eliminate asylum fraud,” while “in cooperative states, President Trump will deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals. He will also deliver a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values.”

Death Penalty for Drug Offenders

During his post-midterm announcement for president, Trump also proposed handing down the death penalty for some drug dealers and traffickers, arguing that such individuals are causing death and destruction

“We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said at the time. “Because it’s the only way.”

Critical Race Theory

Trump in January also pledged to cut federal funding to schools that teach the controversial critical race theory along with curriculum around gender identity. While speaking in Davenport, Iowa, Trump promised to keep male transgender athletes out of girls’ sports and “bring back parental rights into our schools.”

A policy plan also calls for opening new “civil rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination.”

“As the saying goes, personnel is policy, and at the end of the day if we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids we have a major problem,” Trump said earlier this year. “We’re at the end of the list on education, and yet we spend the most, but we’re going to be tops in education no matter where you go anywhere in the world.”

Jan. 6 Pardons

More than two years after the Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said last month that he would pardon a range of individuals who were convicted and sentenced in connection to the incident. Those pardons, he said, will “be very early on” in his presidency.

Read more here…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts near-normal conditions for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season which starts today.

NOAA is forecasting five to nine hurricanes to occur in 2023, out of which one to four could turn into major hurricanes.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, one of the factors that could suppress the 2023 hurricane season is the likely start of an El Niño phase after three years with the La Niña phenomenon, which shifts colder temperatures and stronger trade winds to the Pacific, therefore exposing the Atlantic to warmer and less linear wind pattern more favorable for hurricane formation. If an El Niño phase were to start this year, it would shift cooler and windier conditions over to the Atlantic. However, above-normal ocean temperatures in the Central Atlantic band and the Caribbean have the power to strengthen hurricanes this season. NOAA concludes the two factors could offset each other, but if El Niño failed to form despite favorable conditions, the high ocean temperatures could make for an intense 2023 season.

While the 2022 season and its eight hurricanes – including Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Julia – was somewhat above average compared with recent years, 2020 was an extremely busy year for hurricanes. A total of 14 formed over the Atlantic basin – the most since 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina. Six of those were major hurricanes, including Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota. In 2022, only two out of eight hurricanes in the Atlantic basin were of category 3 or above on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which is in contrast with the recent trend of 40-50 percent of all Atlantic hurricanes being classified as major ones.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While in the 1970s and 1980s, the share of major hurricanes stood at an average of around 30-33 percent of all Atlantic hurricanes, this had increased to an average of 40-50 percent per year in the 2000s and 2010s. The change translates to an average of 1.6 major hurricanes occurring per year in the 1970s and 1980s and 3-4 occurring annually today. Climate change has been identified as a reason why stronger hurricanes occur.

More evidence that hurricane seasons are changing can be deferred from the timing of named storms. 2021’s first storm – Ana – was named on May 22 after forming near the Bahamas. This made 2021 the seventh consecutive year a named storm formed before the start of the official season on June 1. The first named storm of 2022 occurred on June 5 and none was named as of June 1 in 2023.

2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, was the worst hurricane seasons since 1851, records from the National Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory at NOAA show. Hurricane Katrina was just one of seven major hurricanes observed in the Atlantic basin that year. 2005 was the year with most hurricanes in the Atlantic (15), followed by 2020 (14), 2010 (12, including Hurricane Sandy) and 1969 (also 12).

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

Four thousand years ago, the rulers of ancient Babylon discovered a technique to stave off violent revolts.

In ancient times, there was a tendency for people to become hopelessly in debt to their creditors. Eventually, they would rise up and cause instability that could threaten the entire ruling system.

The rulers of the ancient world recognized this dynamic.

Their solution was to enact widespread debt cancellation—a debt jubilee.

Debt jubilees acted as a societal pressure release valve when there were no other options.

The practice spread in the ancient world and became codified in different civilizations.

For example, the Book of Leviticus recognizes debt jubilees as the end of a 49-year biblical cycle—seven cycles of seven years.

I think this ancient practice will make a big comeback soon as government, corporate, and personal debt have all reached unbearable levels today.

In fact, the debt jubilees have already started… and the investment consequences will be profound.

The Biggest Wealth Transfer in History

It’s important to note that debt jubilees do not magically create new wealth.

They simply redistribute it.

Debt jubilees are government decrees that amount to a massive wealth transfer with big winners and losers.

The PPP loan forgiveness during the Covid hysteria was the prelude.

President Biden’s student loan forgiveness took it to the next level.

The student loan forgiveness was unprecedented. Unilateral executive action of this size has never occurred during a time of peace. Moreover, Congress, not the president, is supposed to make spending decisions of this magnitude.

It is estimated that the immediate and deferred costs of the student loan forgiveness to be at least $590 billion.

Biden’s student loan debt jubilee went too far for even Obama’s former chief economic advisor, Jason Furman, who described it as:

“Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless.”

Aside from the inflationary effects—which I’ll get to in a moment—the student loan jubilee also set a precedent that I think will be impossible to reverse.

Consider how the people who behaved prudently feel.

These people took different career paths to avoid student loans, cut back on their spending so they could afford college without borrowing, or paid off their student debt.

These people are probably feeling like suckers now.

Not only do they not get any debt relief, but they will have to foot the bill in one way or another to pay for those who had their student loans forgiven.

I imagine these people will be angry and probably have considerable car, mortgage, and credit card debt, as many Americans do. So they will want debt relief too… and I bet they will get it.

Amid rising prices, consumer debt is skyrocketing. It is at an all-time high of over $16 trillion, as seen in the chart below.

With interest rates rising, the cost of servicing this record debt is becoming unbearable for many. As a result, many Americans have reached their maximum debt saturation and are hitting a financial breaking point.

As Biden demonstrated, all it takes is a President’s pen stroke to wipe out hundreds of billions in debt.

I think the political pressure to do this again will be irresistible—especially before elections—as a way to court voters.

The student loan jubilee set a precedent.

I don’t think it will be long before we see a credit card jubilee, a car loan jubilee, or a mortgage jubilee.

How will the government pay for all these jubilees?

It’s improbable they could raise taxes enough to pay for them.

It also wouldn’t make sense to issue more debt to cancel other debts.

That leaves money printing as the only way they can finance these jubilees. So my guess is that’s what they’ll do.

That’s why the coming debt jubilees will pour “gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning.”

But it’s not just consumer debt that has become unbearable. The big enchilada is the US government’s federal debt.

The Coming Federal Debt Jubilee

The US federal government has the biggest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.

In short, the US government is fast approaching the financial endgame.

Here’s why…

Today, the US federal debt has gone parabolic and is scores of trillions.

To put it in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 1,008,378 YEARS to pay off the US federal debt.

And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.

The truth is, the debt will keep piling up unless Congress makes some politically impossible decisions to cut spending. But don’t count on that happening. In fact, they’re racing in the opposite direction now that they’ve normalized multitrillion-dollar deficits.

The amount of debt is so extreme that even a return of interest rates to their historical average would mean paying the interest expense on the debt would consume more than half of current tax revenues. Interest expense would eclipse Social Security and defense spending and become the largest item in the federal budget.

Second, a return to the historical average interest rate will not be enough to reign in inflation—not even close. A drastic rise in interest rates is needed. If that happened, it could mean that the US government is paying more for the interest expense than it takes in from taxes.

In short, the Federal Reserve is trapped.

Raising interest rates high enough to dent inflation would bankrupt the US government.

In other words, it’s game over. They have no choice but to “reset” the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.

How are they going to reset the system?

Nobody knows for sure. But I’d bet a debt jubilee of biblical proportions will be a big part of it.

So then, how will the US government repudiate its impossible federal debt burden?

My guess is that they won’t be explicit. That would look too much like a default. It would destroy the role of the US as the center of the world’s financial system.

Given a choice, I don’t think the US government would choose immediate self-destruction. Since power does not relinquish itself voluntarily, we should presume they’ll decide to stealthily implement their federal debt jubilee through inflation.

Inflation is a big bonus to debtors. It allows you to borrow in dollars and repay in dimes.

And since the US government is the biggest debtor in the history of the world, it is the single largest beneficiary of inflation.

That’s why I think the federal debt jubilee will come in the form of a massive wave of inflation.

Here’s the bottom line.

The coming debt jubilees could have the effect of wiping out many trillions worth of liabilities and creating previously unfathomable inflation.

That could trigger the largest wealth transfer in history.

Remember, debt doesn’t exist within a vacuum. It is a liability to the borrower and an asset to lender.

Those storing their wealth in government currencies, bondholders, and creditors will be the big losers.

Debtors and those who own unencumbered scarce assets will be the big winners.

It’s certainly not a just outcome.

Prudent savers shouldn’t be made to pay for the excesses of the debtors.

But notions of what is just or not did not impede Biden’s student loan jubilee—and they certainly won’t for the coming jubilees.

Although that will be unfortunate for many people, there is simply nothing anyone can do now.

The debt levels have already reached a point of saturation, and the government could soon see jubilees as a politically attractive option.

That’s why it is best to recognize the reality of this Big Picture and get positioned accordingly.

That means owning scarce and valuable assets that are not simultaneously someone else’s liability.

Crucially, this excludes fiat currency in bank accounts.

Remember, fiat currency is the unbacked liability of a bankrupt government.

Further, once you deposit currency into a bank, it is no longer yours. Technically and legally, it is the bank’s property, and what you own instead is an unsecured liability of the bank.

In an era of jubilees in which debts are wiped clean, you won’t want to be on the other end of unsecured liabilities or IOUs of any kind.

I suspect it could all go down soon… and it will not be pretty for many.

Most people have no idea how bad things can get… let alone how to prepare.

That’s why I’ve recently published a how-to guide detailing the best ways to protect your savings. It’s called The Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years… the Top 3 Strategies You Need Right Now.

Click here to download the free PDF.

Residential real estate brokerage firm Redfin released new data that revealed a record-breaking drop in homes purchased by investors in the first quarter. This sharp decline is due to a combination of elevated interest rates and sliding home prices, which impacts potential future returns. With investors retreating to the sidelines, buyers in the market have dramatically shrunk, and price wars have eased. 

Redfin data shows investors purchased 48.6% fewer homes in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. This was the most significant plunge on record. 

To illustrate just how the Federal Reserve’s 14 months of aggressive interest hikes have chilled a major buyer of the residential real estate market, Redfin shows the record-breaking pullback in the chart below: 

The brokerage said the investors still in the market have shifted to buying or flipping more affordable properties due to tightening credit conditions. Getting financing for lower-priced homes is easier, and there’s more demand. Low-priced home purchases surged to a two-year high, and a record 41.1% of investor purchases in the quarter were starter homes. 

Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari said overall, investors have “pumped the brakes on home purchases.” However, he said, “They’re still scooping up a bigger share of homes than they were before the pandemic, which can create challenges for individual buyers at a time when there are so few homes for sale.” 

Investors made up 17.6% of the market in the first quarter, down from 20.4% a year earlier. Still, the investor share of purchased homes is near record levels. 

The rapid increase in the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to over 7%, not seen since the Dot Com bust, has been the main driver in cooling demand. 

In a separate report, Lotfi Karoui, chief credit strategist at Goldman Sachs, offered some good news to clients that mortgage rates are expected to top around these levels and fall to under 6% in 2024. 

Karoui pointed out that housing affordability has slightly improved but remains at decade lows. 

And the inventory of existing homes remains extraordinarily tight. 

“Beyond 2023, we expect a rebound in home prices as the impact of policy tightening subsides. While our economists think another policy rate hike this year is a possibility, their baseline expectation is that the Fed has ceased policy tightening. History indicates that home prices tend to grow after the conclusion of a hiking cycle, using 1995, 2000, and 2018 as a guide,” the Goldman analyst noted. 

The silver lining is that investors are no longer saturating the market and sparking price wars as they did before and during the Covid era. Financing deals is becoming more challenging due to the increased cost of money, which is expected to continue to weigh on home purchases. 

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United States lacks an effective tool to adequately combat widespread espionage and intellectual property theft being perpetrated by China’s communist regime, according to a U.S. Treasury Department official.

Despite years of competition and ongoing IP theft, the United States has not developed the tools required to target and prevent the continued transfer of sensitive U.S. technologies to China, according to Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Rosen.

“We currently assess we don’t have an effective tool to target the money and sophistication with know-how that goes into these sensitive and most critical technologies into countries of concern,” Rosen said during a May 31 hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

“We risk leaving a gap in terms of some of our national security concerns,” he said.

Rosen added that the Biden administration was committed to “zealously” defending U.S. security interests, and would prioritize those interests over economic development if necessary, but required more tools to do so.

“The United States will secure our interests and those of our allies and partners,” Rosen said.

“We will not compromise on national security concerns, even when they force trade-offs with economic interests.”

Rosen’s remarks confirm expert testimony delivered to Congress last year, which stated that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in anti-competitive and anti-free market practices on a global scale, and that the United States lacks adequate non-security tools to defend its interests.

Policies That Benefited Corporate Profits

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the committee chair, said that the United States had fostered a system of policies over the course of several decades that had strengthened China at the expense of the American people. The nation’s current struggles to counter China, he said, are owed to policies that benefited corporate profits instead of American well-being.

“For far too long, our policy around China catered to multinational corporations and failed working families. It destroyed local communities, it eroded our manufacturing base and international competitiveness,” Brown said.

Brown added that U.S. policymakers “knew” corporations would terminate millions of U.S. jobs in favor of dirt cheap labor in China, but still granted the regime permanent most-favored trade status in the 1990s. Since then, he said, consecutive administrations had failed to correct the imbalance in China’s favor.

Read more here…

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on March 29, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., pointedly demanded Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley why drag queen story hours were still taking place on US bases around the world, including in Montana, Nevada, Virginia and Germany.

“Drag queen story hours is not something that the department funds,” Austin told the committee.

Milley chimed in, asking to see the flyers for the events Gaetz was referring to:

“I’d like to take a look at those, because I don’t agree with those,” Milley said.

Gaetz Asks Austin and Milley Why Drag Queen Shows are Still Happening on Military Baseshttps://t.co/nG99e4tp3n pic.twitter.com/RYVx96DWzb

— AɯƙɯαɾԃMαɱα™® (@Aspiemama_107) May 24, 2023

And as NBC News reports, when Milley was informed about the event this week, he was visibly angry about the decision to host the event on base, a U.S. official and a defense official said.

Sure enough, just days later, the DoD canceled a planned drag show at Nellis Air Force base in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to a statement provided to the Daily Caller on Thursday.

The Nellis LGBTQ+ Pride Council was set to offer a free “family friendly” drag show Thursday, June 1, to kick off pride month

“Per DoD Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), certain criteria must be met for persons or organizations acting in non-Federal capacity to use DoD facilities and equipment,” Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the Department of Defense, told the Caller.

“As Secretary Austin has said, the DOD will not host drag events at U.S. military installations or facilities. Hosting these types of events in federally funded facilities is not a suitable use of DOD resources. Our Service members are diverse and are allowed to have personal outlets. We are proud to serve alongside any and every young American who takes the oath that puts their life on the line in defense of our country.”

Nellis AFB hosted a Pride Month drag show in June 2021, named “Drag-u-Nellis.”

A spokesperson for the base said in a statement that it was intended to promote inclusivity and diversity.

Rightly so, Rep. Matt Gaetz took a victory lap on the news…“HUGE VICTORY: The Department of Defense has CANCELED a scheduled ‘child-friendly’ drag show after I demanded answers from @SecDef Austin and General Milley!”

HUGE VICTORY: The Department of Defense has CANCELED a scheduled “child-friendly” drag show after I demanded answers from @SecDef Austin and General Milley!

Drag shows should not be taking place on military installations with taxpayer dollars PERIOD!

READ:… https://t.co/YDByQihQod pic.twitter.com/vnJiuFlh2z

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) May 31, 2023

The question is – how many of these shows are being funded by the DoD that Rep. Gaetz is not aware of (and why?).

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Things have taken a turn for the worse.  In recent months, economic activity has been dropping all over the nation, and that decline appears to be accelerating.  We just learned that gross domestic income has now fallen for two quarters in a row, and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now been plummeting for 13 consecutive months.  Unfortunately, when economic conditions deteriorate it is the people at the low end of the economic pyramid that get hit the hardest.

Thanks to our rapidly rising cost of living, we are seeing a dramatic explosion in the number of “working homeless” that are living out of their vehicles on a daily basis even though they are currently employed.

In particular, the RV “communities” that are springing up from coast to coast are starting to get quite a bit of attention…

The owner of a party bus company, Rikers Island prison guards and an Amazon worker are just some of the eclectic bunch who have formed a community of ‘working homeless’ people living out of RVs in the Astoria section of Queens, New York.

Similar communities have formed across the US from New England to California where people have chosen a nomadic lifestyle amid a national cost of living crisis.

Most of these people get up and go to work in the morning.

In fact, the Daily Mail spoke to one man that actually “works for a New York City hospital”…

Resident Paul Reevers described himself as ‘working homeless.’ He said that he has a job but the rent went up too high and he could not longer to afford a an apartment.

Reevers, who works for a New York City hospital, said that he took out a loan and bought his RV.

If you work at a hospital, you should be able to afford a place to live.

But this is our country now.

We are absolutely destroying the middle class, and as a result we now have a massive homelessness crisis on our hands…

Insider Monkey, a finance website, revealed a list of the top 30 cities worldwide with the highest homeless population. Notably, a handful of the US cities on the list are governed by progressive leadership, which may not surprise readers. While it is evident that some unfortunate individuals are facing homelessness, a trend exacerbated by recent inflationary pressures and a drug addiction crisis, some liberal policies have enabled others to sustain their nomadic lifestyles with taxpayer funds.

Insider Monkey found New York City is number 5 on the list, with a homeless population of about 69,000. Next is Chicago, at number 7 with 65,611. Washington, DC, is number 8 with 57,416, Los Angeles number 13 with 41,980, and San Fransisco number 14 with 38,000.

No matter what you or I are facing right now, at least we aren’t sleeping in the streets.

So we should count our blessings.

Hunger is also rapidly growing all over America.  Right now, record numbers of people are coming for help at one food bank in the Seattle area…

Since March, the food bank has broken its record three times for the highest number of people served in a day since 2019, when the organization started allowing three visits a month. More and more, people like Jones who haven’t been to the food bank in years, are showing up, Christian said.

“That’s hard on them; they felt they had moved above the poverty line, got some stability but, ‘Here it is 2023 and here I am back in the food line asking strangers for help,’” Christian said.

And in Boston, the line for food on one recent weekend morning “stretched the length of two football fields”…

The line outside Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry on a recent Saturday morning stretched the length of two football fields.

The number of people filing into the red-brick industrial-zone warehouse on some days now exceeds the worst periods of the pandemic economic crisis and in April it had the second highest monthly traffic since it opened in 1982, according to David Andre, the director.

We are witnessing so much suffering all over the country right now.

And there are so many more people that are living right on the edge of disaster.

According to one recent survey, approximately 38.5 percent of U.S. adults experienced “some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8”…

A large swath of American consumers are facing financial hardship as they grapple with elevated living costs, record-high credit card use, and two years of negative real wage growth. This perfect storm could decimate financially fragile households in the next downturn.

As many as 89.1 million American adults (or about 38.5%) were found to experience some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from the Household Pulse Survey. This is up from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% during the same period in 2021.

Of course this is just the beginning.

As I keep warning my readers, things will eventually get much worse.

And finally, whatever happens in Washington is not going to fundamentally alter our long-term trajectory, and that means that much more suffering is coming in the days ahead.

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Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.