There are all sorts of signs that the relentless pressure that has been causing an enormous amount of stress on our financial system is starting to break things. Do you remember how bad things got in 2008 and 2009 when home prices fell dramatically? Well, as you will see below, it is beginning to happen again. Meanwhile, the price of silver and the price of gold both just keep setting brand new record high after brand new record high. That is music to the ears of many of my readers, but for large financial institutions that are holding enormous short positions that has the potential to be absolutely catastrophic. I think that we will be shocked by how violently things start to break loose in the financial system in the months ahead.
For decades, those that pull the financial strings in the western world were able to keep the price of silver and the price of gold within ranges that they considered to be acceptable.
But now everything has changed.
A year ago, nobody was predicting that the price of silver would hit $100 and the price of gold would nearly reach $5,000 in just 12 months.
But that is precisely what has occurred…
Silver prices rose above $100 an ounce for the first time ever on Friday, while gold hit another record en route to $5,000/oz as investors pile into safe-haven assets amid geopolitical turmoil and on expectations for U.S. interest rate cuts.
The price of silver is up more than 200 percent over the past year.
When there are swings of this magnitude, there are really big winners and really big losers.
I think that the identities of the really big losers will start to be revealed soon, and this will shock the financial world to the core.
In previous articles, I have gone over many of the reasons why the price of silver has been skyrocketing.
But there is one more theory that I wanted to throw out there today.
Zero Hedge is reporting that demand in China is “off the charts”, and not too long ago the Chinese implemented severe restrictions on silver exports.
Could it be possible that China is purposely attempting to destabilize the western financial system?
The Chinese know that there are very large institutions that have massive short positions, and if they can force those institutions to fail that would cause enormous chaos in the U.S. and Europe.
If that really is their motive, that would explain a lot.
It is very interesting that silver has hit $100 at the exact same moment when gold is almost reaching the $5,000 milestone.
Both of those marks are key psychological thresholds, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next…
Gold approaching $5,000 and silver approaching $100 represent more than incremental price advances. These levels function as psychological thresholds where attention concentrates, behavior changes, and market structure briefly dominates narrative.
In market terms, these prices act as an event horizon. The concept is borrowed deliberately. In physics, the event horizon marks the point beyond which outcomes are no longer observable in advance. In trading, it marks the price level that forces participation. Opinions polarize, positioning compresses, and conviction gives way to reaction.
These numbers draw in new participants on both sides of the market. Buyers include momentum participants who believe higher prices are inevitable, as well as short positions forced to cover under pressure. Sellers include long holders who have never experienced these prices and view the opportunity to monetize as both rational and psychologically satisfying. Selling silver at $100 or gold at $5,000 carries narrative weight regardless of future direction.
Some are convinced that these key psychological thresholds will propel gold and silver to new heights.
Others are convinced that these thresholds will act as “ceilings” and gold and silver will start bouncing in the other direction.
We shall see what happens.
As I write this, the price of silver has just hit $102.
I am looking at that number and I can see that it is real, but I am still having a hard time believing it.
It is truly difficult to comprehend the pace at which things are now changing.
As precious metals soar, home prices all over the United States are starting to fall precipitously…
Florida, Texas and California are now firmly at the center of America’s housing crash – accounting for 12 of the 14 major metro areas where home prices are falling.
The sharpest drop was recorded in Dallas, TX, where median sale prices slid 7.6 percent from a year earlier.
Florida’s once-red-hot housing market is also cracking, with prices falling in Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
California has four declining metros as well, including Oakland, with the second-biggest drop of 5.6 percent, San Jose, Sacramento and Los Angeles.
On the one hand, this is good news because home prices had become wildly unaffordable.
But on the other hand, if home prices fall too rapidly that will be a very bad thing.
Let’s not forget what happened during 2008 and 2009.
When housing prices crashed, millions of mortgages were suddenly underwater and foreclosures went through the roof.
In previous articles, I have talked about the fact that the number of foreclosures was way up last year.
If we are on the leading edge of another giant tsunami of foreclosures, that will be absolutely disastrous for our banking system.
Meanwhile, pending home sales just dropped “to the lowest level for any December on record”…
Pending home sales, which track the number of contracts signed in December, plunged by 9.3% seasonally adjusted from November, to the lowest level for any December on record in the data by the National Association of Realtors, which goes back to 2010. Compared to December 2010, during the Housing Bust, pending sales were down by 21.5%.
The market is now well into its fourth year of the collapse in transactions, and there has simply been no improvement.
That is a really bad sign.
Unfortunately, demand is likely to continue to be weak for quite some time because we continue to see mass layoffs all over the nation.
For example, Amazon is gearing up for another round of layoffs which could end up being the largest in the entire history of the company…
Amazon is planning to cut thousands of jobs as part of a broader push to eliminate nearly 10% of its corporate workforce, according to Reuters.
After initially cutting roughly 14,000 white-collar jobs in October, Amazon is expected to launch a second round of layoffs impacting a similar number of employees, with an overall target of about 30,000 jobs, although the scope may change, according to two sources cited by Reuters.
If fully realized, the cuts would amount to the largest layoffs in Amazon’s history, surpassing the roughly 27,000 jobs the company cut in 2022.
So many good paying jobs are being lost.
And this is the worst time since the Great Recession to find a new good paying job.
In so many ways, it is starting to feel like 2008 all over again.
Earlier today, I heard from a reader that explained that my articles really resonate with him because of what he has been going through.
That meant a lot to me.
I know that so many of you are really struggling right now.
I want you to know that it isn’t your fault.
Decades of incredibly bad decisions by our leaders have brought us to this point, and now the entire system is starting to fail.
We should have fundamentally transformed the system after the Great Recession, but we didn’t.
Instead, our leaders chose to inflate all of the old bubbles even larger than before, and now we have a colossal mess on our hands.
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.