Those at the top of the economic food chain just don’t get it. They are mystified by surveys that show that most Americans are deeply upset about the state of the U.S. economy. Since their stock portfolios are doing really well and the official numbers that the government has been giving us look fine they just assume that the general public’s perception of the economy must not be accurate. But the truth is that it is their perception of the economy that is not accurate.
They should try to live the way that the rest of us have been living.
Homes are more unaffordable than ever.
Our insurance bills have become extremely bloated.
Millions of Americans avoid going to the hospital because a single visit could financially ruin them.
Power bills have soared to absurd heights in many parts of the country.
Purchasing a new automobile is way out of reach for most of us.
Many of the items that I commonly purchase at the grocery store have doubled or even tripled in price since the beginning of this decade.
When I get up to the checkout counter, I feel like asking the clerk which organ I should donate in order to pay for my groceries.
We want it to stop.
What part of that is so difficult for the elite to understand?
Pew Research has discovered that American voters are more concerned about prices and affordability than anything else by “a wide margin”…
By a wide margin, voters most want candidates running for Congress to talk about economic issues – with many specifically mentioning prices and affordability.
One of the primary reasons why Republicans did so well in 2024 is because voters were sick and tired of inflation.
But now the 2026 election is coming up, and the shoe is on the other foot.
This month, consumer confidence fell once again…
Consumer sentiment falls in September for two consecutive months. The preliminary September reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index came in at 47.8. This marks a 7.5% (3.9 points) decrease from August. Consumer sentiment sits 13.2% below where it was a year ago and is currently below the 1st percentile in the series’ history.
How low does it have to go before the talking heads on television start taking this seriously?
At this point, it is already at the second lowest level ever recorded…
Consumer confidence fell to its second-lowest level on record in September, and Goldman Sachs says the economy is only part of the reason. Americans, the bank told its clients, have grown unhappier with the state of the world in general.
No, it isn’t because we are unhappy “with the state of the world in general”.
Consumer confidence is so low because stuff costs too much money.
If that isn’t simple enough for the analysts at Goldman Sachs to understand, I can put it in even baser terms.
Unfortunately, more inflation is on the way.
Mortgage rates are rising, and this is going to make homes even more unaffordable than they are now…
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped 15 basis points to 7.12% in the week ended September 18, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday. It was last higher in May 2024.
Mortgage rates have risen more than a full percentage point since joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran began pushing up the global price of oil in late February, putting the squeeze on prospective homebuyers and a chill into the US housing market.
Mortgage rates track US Treasury yields, which are sensitive to oil prices and the threat they pose to inflation, which has been running above the Fed’s 2% goal for 5-1/2 years.
Meanwhile, gasoline and diesel have become much more expensive this month…
The average retail price of on-highway diesel spiked by 24 cents in the latest week, and by 88 cents in four weeks, to a record $6.529 a gallon at gas stations on Monday, and that’s for the US overall, according to the EIA this morning. Year-over-year, the price of diesel has spiked by 74%.
California diesel prices spiked to $8.246 a gallon. While driving by gas stations, we’ve seen over $8 a gallon for weeks.
These are sobering sights, setting off the inflation alarm bells.
Higher fuel prices will mean that it will cost a lot more to transport stuff to the stores.
So you better brace yourself for significantly higher prices.
Ominously, Bank of America is warning that the price of oil could hit $150 a barrel if the war in the Middle East continues to drag on…
Oil prices could reach upward of $150 a barrel if inventories continue to deplete as the war in Iran rages on, according to Bank of America, and the bank has raised its year-end forecast for Brent crude from $83 a barrel to a new target of $95 a barrel.
“Although alternative routes and escorted Hormuz shipments have mitigated some of the shortfall, damaged infrastructure and rising geopolitical tensions make rapid normalization unlikely,” strategists led by Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities, equity derivatives and cross-asset quantitative investment strategies, wrote in a note released to the media on Tuesday.
If the price of oil does reach $150 a barrel and it stays there for an extended period of time, I believe that we will see rioting in the streets.
I really do.
It seems like just about everyone is raising prices these days.
And in some cases where prices aren’t actually being raised, package sizes are getting smaller.
For example, it appears that packages of Sam’s Club toilet paper don’t contain as much toilet paper as they once did…
When comparing the old package to the new package they look almost identical, but when you put them up against a wall you can see the size of the rolls seem to be visibly smaller
The package is labeled the same as the old package, same weight and ply. However when you line them up there is very clearly a large difference in size
This is very strange. Maybe it’s just a manufacturing thing where the rolls are being rolled more tightly. Or maybe we’re being shorted
This needs to be investigated. Costco did the exact same thing back in May, they shrunk the size of their toilet paper rolls
I really detest shrinkflation.
Companies that engage in that practice should be shamed.
Needless to say, everything becomes unaffordable if you don’t have any income coming in at all.
All over the nation, we are witnessing layoffs.
For instance, it is being reported that CSX could soon be laying off as many as 1,100 railroad workers…
Hundreds of railroad workers could be losing their jobs in the coming weeks across West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky as 1,100 workers – mostly engineers who deal with safety inspections, maintenance and construction – could lose their jobs across the U.S., a union representing those workers said.
Transportation giant CSX called the The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division on Sept. 14 and told them they’d be furloughing the 1,100 workers by mid-November, according to general chairman Brian Thompson. Those positions range from $80,000 jobs to management positions in duties that involve safety inspections, rail maintenance and construction.
The direction of the transportation industry is often an early indicator of where the U.S. economy is heading as a whole.
So this is a very troubling sign.
Thanks to rapidly rising beef prices, a company that operates “314 Wendy’s locations across 15 states” has been forced to file for bankruptcy…
Meritage Hospitality Group, one of the largest Wendy’s franchisees in the U.S., has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a high-stakes dispute with the fast-food chain’s corporate parent.
The bankruptcy filing comes amid severe financial pressures at the franchisee, which has struggled with soaring beef costs and weak customer traffic, while Meritage has also blamed aggressive promotional discounting for squeezing margins.
The Michigan-based operator runs 314 Wendy’s locations across 15 states. The company filed its voluntary petition Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan, according to court documents.
Many years ago, I used to eat at Wendy’s a lot when I worked in the D.C. area.
But who can afford to eat at Wendy’s on a regular basis now?
It turns out that even CNN is bracing for mass layoffs.
One executive is claiming that it will be a “bloodbath”…
“Bloodbath coming, including at CNN,” a TV exec said. “That’s the next big step — slashing and burning.”
Paramount has said it sees at least $6 billion in cost savings, which would translate to several thousand jobs lost in the months ahead.
Inside CNN, staffers have been more or less kept in the dark by top brass, who are themselves unsure who will be running the network once Ellison takes over.
For years, I pleaded with our politicians not to spend trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have.
But they didn’t listen.
And I warned that the trillions of dollars that the Federal Reserve was pumping into the system would cause tremendous inflation.
Now we have tremendous inflation.
The government continues to feed us numbers that show that the rate of inflation is in the low single digits, but we all know that is not true.
If it was true, many of our recurring expenses would not have doubled or tripled since the beginning of this decade.
Let’s get real.
The American people are telling us loud and clear that they care far more about the cost of living than they do about anything else.
But those at the top of the economic food chain insist on pretending that everything is just fine, and that is extremely unfortunate.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
