Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
If this is “the recovery”, what are things going to look like once economic conditions start to deteriorate again?
As you will see below, more than half of all households in some of our largest cities “are facing serious financial problems”, and Americans continue to file for unemployment benefits at a rate that the United States had never seen before prior to 2020. When 695,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits during a single week in 1982, it established a record which stood for nearly 38 years. But now we have been way above that old record for 25 weeks in a row. On Thursday, we learned that another 884,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…
Weekly jobless claims were worse than expected last week amid a plodding climb for the U.S. labor market from the damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Labor Department on Thursday reported 884,000 first-time filings for unemployment insurance, compared with 850,000 expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The total was unchanged from the previous week.
Of course it is always important to look at the non-adjusted numbers, and according to those numbers we actually saw an increase over the previous week…
The Labor Department changed its methodology in how it seasonally adjusts the numbers, so the past two weeks’ totals are not directly comparable to the reports from earlier in the pandemic. Claims not adjusted for seasonal factors totaled 857,148, an increase of 20,140 from the previous week.
This is the second week in a row that the non-seasonally adjusted initial claims have risen.
That definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.
We are supposedly in a “recovery” right now, and things are supposed to be getting better.
But instead they appear to be getting worse. According to Wolf Richter, continuing claims under all state and federal programs were way up last week…
Total continued claims for unemployment insurance (UI) under all state and federal programs rose by 380,000, to 29.6 million people (not seasonally adjusted), the highest since August 1, according to the Department of Labor this morning. This was the second weekly increase in a row, after the 2.2-million jump last week.
At any other time in American history, the numbers that were just reported would be considered “catastrophic”, but we have been getting these sorts of catastrophic numbers for so long that we have become desensitized to them.
But at least the unemployment numbers are not as bad as they were earlier this year, and other economic figures seem to have hit a bit of a plateau as well.
So for the moment there is relative calm, but it won’t last for very long.
If you feel like something really, really bad is about to happen, you are definitely not alone. There are countless others that are also waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, and I believe that it could literally happen at any time.
But for now we wait.
I would encourage you to enjoy these remaining days of summer while you still can. This weekend, put some burgers on the grill and enjoy some time with your family. Unfortunately, there are many Americans that are under such financial stress that it is hard to enjoy much of anything right now. In fact, one recent survey found that 50 percent or more of the households in some of our largest cities are currently facing “serious financial problems”…
There’s no question the coronavirus pandemic has forced many Americans into financial hardship, but a new NPR/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey provided a clearer picture of the extent of the struggles in the United States’ four largest cities.
At least half of all households in those cities — 53 percent in New York City, 56 percent in Los Angeles, 50 percent in Chicago, and 63 percent in Houston — reported facing serious financial problems, including depleted savings, problems paying credit card bills, and affording medical bills.
How can that be possible if we are in the midst of a tremendous “recovery”?
Of course the truth is that we aren’t in any sort of a recovery, but at least things are a whole lot better than they will be after the upcoming election.
I had such an ominous feeling coming into 2020, and I shared this repeatedly with my readers, and now I have such an ominous feeling about the rest of 2020 and beyond.
In particular, I am extremely concerned about what will happen in November. No matter who is ultimately declared the winner, the other side is going to be convinced that the election was stolen from them and that is likely to throw our nation into a state of chaos.
And we are already being told that we probably will not know the winner until long after election day. That period of uncertainty is almost certainly going to spark more civil unrest, and I believe that faith in the integrity of our elections will be greatly shaken.
Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention that I found to be extremely interesting. This year the Federal Reserve has been buying up mortgage bonds worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and according to Mish Shedlock the Fed now owns nearly a third of that entire market…
- The Fed has snapped up $1 trillion of mortgage bonds since March. It bought around $300 billion of the bonds in each of March and April, and since then has been buying about $100 billion a month.
- The Fed now owns almost a third of bonds backed by home loans in the U.S.
- Buying the securities has pushed mortgage rates lower, with the average 30-year rate falling to 2.91% as of last week from 3.3% in early February.
- Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out in late March that the buying was running at eight times the pace seen in prior episodes of Fed purchasing under programs known as quantitative easing.
No matter who wins the election, the direction of the Fed is not going to change. They are going to continue to engage in exceedingly reckless manipulation of the markets, and that is going to have very serious long-term implications.
All around us, we can see our society being thrown into convulsions as all of our systems begin to fail.
I know that so many of you out there are feeling the exact same way that I am.
A sense of anticipation hangs in the air, and millions of people are waiting for the next big crisis to erupt.
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Sorta looks like the fed has not learned you can’t pick yourself up by your own boot straps.
There was NO bagged rice at Auntie’s local Walmart. None. Think about that for a moment.
And to everyone’s amazement Cthulhu was elected president of the USSA in 2024.
That H. P. Lovecraft was one strange writer.
https://archive.org/details/TheCompleteWorksOfHPLovecraft_201412
By the way, what was the name of Lovecraft’s cat?
HP Lovecraft’s cat was named “Nigger Man”. He named the cat when he was 9 yo. If that’s amusing, then check out the British made war film “Dam busters”. The black dog in that movie, which was the squadrons’ mascot, was named “Nigger”. Going further, check out a series of adventure books written at the turn of the 20th century called “The Battleship Boys”. I used to have the complete set, but they got lost somewhere, somehow, over the years. There were many non politically correct terms in those stories.
Tons of rice everywhere here in Northern MI.
Every week when we go to the store, I walk all of the aisles just to see what is missing. Kroger has started spreading out what they have in stock so there is not so much empty space on display (except household cleaners). Wally World just leaves them empty.
I imagine each region will have different things missing. I suppose if I were in beautiful Colombia, I’d at least always have coffee available. But I’ll settle for apples and figs here.
LOL – “. . . Something Really, Really Bad . . .”
Uh, that’s very relative to One’s “circumstance” by One’s CHOICE.
For those INFORMED Ones who CHOOSE/CHOSE to be “red-county-rural”, REPENTing/REDEEMed fellow “country Folk”, GROUPed/GUNned/GARDENed and . . . System-D SIMPLIFIED on a portion of arable, UN-addressed/UN-encumbered inland, rural “allodial” GROUND . . . “carry on”! “Thrive-in-place”! Lock[ed] and load[ed]. NO Fear/Hate when,”… where two or three GATHER together …”, What/Who “abides”? “JC always before me/us” cuz … there are no atheists in foxholes! This VFW whose “white privilege” and a deaf ear didn’t exempt him from the draft in ’67, is daily increasingly grateful/thankful to still be active/UNmedicated and daily engaged in COLLABORATIVE PRODUCTIVE enterprise while “… the whole [schiff]-house goes up in flames” – Jim Morrison. ‘Nuf said, I close . . . “a little closer to Home”. Hoo-rah.
“Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention that I found to be extremely interesting. This year the Federal Reserve has been buying up mortgage bonds worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and according to Mish Shedlock the Fed now owns nearly a third of that entire market…”
Why do you find this interesting or new. If you read TBP you would have known this way back when and you would have known why. More than a few of us have brought this up often.
Who owns the Fed and the US and State and Local governments? The Fed is using your money to buy your assets for the benefit of the owners of the FED. Some are calling it communism but that’s a diversion or Rabbit Hole to lead inquiring minds down a long empty hole. What is happening will be adorned with a few Commie trappings to keep the usefully useless eaters rioting until they are no longer needed. Afterward, they will meet Tony’s little friend as the kneel and squeal over the ditch.
Welcome to Neo Feudalism.
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/israel-funds-americas-israel-lobby-while-u-s-taxpayers-pay-for-endless-fraud-against-themselves/
When you add shit like the eviction moratorium, small and medium size landlords are going to get played, sprayed, and slayed by the big guys.
Gubmint picking winners and losers
Flea, I have every confidence that the gene asses in the previous article will figure it all out. Then they will make the appropriate corrective action. Then we will be watching butterflies and sniffing unicorn farts.
I am a real estate photographer and have been for many years. Many years. I have many clients who say this will be a record year for them. I’m in Northern Virginia.
Our daughter is in the mortgage business in Denver area and business is booming for them.
My brother is in the mortgage business also (Maryland). Doing VERY well.
The smart ones in NOVA are the sellers, provided they’re using their newfound riches to GTFO. I can’t fathom how stupid someone has to be to actually move INTO the DC Metro Area at this point. I guess some folks really do love the smell of napalm in the morning?
Real Estate is insane here in CO especially along the Front Range. It seemed to slow for awhile but it’s back to houses going on the market and being sold in less than a day with multiple offers and often offers over asking price. It’s crazy and I can’t figure out how average people can afford some of these prices.
In my area it’s all about getting into rural farmsteads. I’d also wager the wealthy are trying to get as much tangible assets as they can. Even if RE isn’t movable, it’s better than having a 401(k) or stocks.
Yeah, it’s happening alright. The rise and fall of AmeriKa, i.e. Rome 2.0
Just an example, Trump’s “Law and Order” Amerika. Enjoy your dick tator while he’s still in power and you still suffer from cognitive dissonance and statism.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/officer-caught-stealing-dead-man-not-fired/
Unless you are employed by government , contracted and paid thru a government program or paid by insurance like most health care operations the job market for the majority of working people is bull shit !
Lo pay bad hours poor or no benefits leaving a working person at or below real poverty eligible for or just a fraction above where they qualify for government assistance !
It is not worth the effort to show up and waste the expense of travel to and from a shitty job !
Well, that was the plan.
The Siracusa Principles, adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1984, and UN Human Rights Committee general comments on states of emergency and freedom of movement provide authoritative guidance on government responses that restrict human rights for reasons of public health or national emergency. Any measures taken to protect the population that limit people’s rights and freedoms must be lawful, necessary, and proportionate. States of emergency need to be limited in duration and any curtailment of rights needs to take into consideration the disproportionate impact on specific populations or marginalized groups.
On March 16, 2020, a group of UN human rights experts said that “emergency declarations based on the COVID-19 outbreak should not be used as a basis to target particular groups, minorities, or individuals. It should not function as a cover for repressive action under the guise of protecting health… and should not be used simply to quash dissent.”
The Siracusa Principles specifically state that restrictions should, at a minimum, be:
provided for and carried out in accordance with the law;
directed toward a legitimate objective of general interest;
strictly necessary in a democratic society to achieve the objective;
the least intrusive and restrictive available to reach the objective;
based on scientific evidence and neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application; and
of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, and subject to review.
Human Rights Concerns
Protect freedom of expression and ensure access to critical information
Under international human rights law, governments have an obligation to protect the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information of all kinds, regardless of frontiers. Permissible restrictions on freedom of expression for reasons of public health, noted above, may not put in jeopardy the right itself.
So…someone explain what the hell’s happening!
“So…someone explain what the hell’s happening!”
The planned demise of America continues
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <<——-====
You could stop reading after reading Michael Snyder, who is probably the all time greatest purveyor of doom porn of all time. Not that things aren’t bad enough, but Snyder makes is mass marketing this stuff. Of course, those actual perpetrators of the destructive agenda that plagues America are never named and probably won’t be due to his being duty bound to protect his tribe members.
thejewishvoice.com/2020/07/the-u-s-economy-hasnt…
by Michael Snyder (Economic Collapse Blog) The recession of 2008 and 2009 was bad, but it was nothing like this. Even though this new economic downturn is only a few months old