Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show says the U.S. economy is already in free fall. “In international trade circles, everyone knows how much trouble the United States is in economically. We could look at debts, but in this presentation, we are going to look at international economic factors that could soon make it impossible to obtain basic supplies. In particular, I Am going to reference the Baltic Dry Index and the plunging oil prices. These two factors, alone, are wreaking havoc and devastation upon our economy.”
Unforeseen factors wreak more damage than anything else. Forbes Magazine didn’t know which way the economy would go in 2017.
“There is always the chance that some “bolt from the blue” could change everything. An international crisis, a large bank failure, terror attacks—any one of a long list of unforeseeable events could conceivably derail this train. Below of are a few factors to watch.”
Tyler Durdan wrote this in his Zerohedge.com article on March 9, 2017: “If you thought 2016 was weird, I suggest you get comfortable with the surreal because it is not going away anytime soon. 2017 is a veritable treasure trove of falling elevators, and I haven’t even covered half of the issues facing the economy this year. But what about the macro-analysis?”
Indeed, there is a lot of expectation for, 2017, as there was in 2015 and 2016, about a coming economic collapse. Durdan wrote in the same article: “As I have always said, economic collapse is a process, not a singular moment in time. This process lulls the masses into complacency. You can show them warning sign after warning sign, but most of them have no concept of what a collapse is. They are waiting for a cinematic moment of revelation, a financial explosion, when really, the whole disaster is happening in slow motion right under their noses. Economies do not explode, they drown as the water rises one inch at a time.”
I agree. Rather than looking for a huge economic collapse on the order of a sudden volcanic eruption, we should watch economic factors that can fall like dominoes, one after the other. The problem is that today’s economy is extremely difficult to predict because of the many unforeseen events, situations and conditions that now arise.
China is worried about a global economic collapse. “If the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis are anything to go by, then the next cataclysm will come as a result of inadequate risk prevention, swiftly followed by universal economic collapse and resultant woes.” So China is now focused on their financial system in order to prevent what could be an absolute catastrophe. And if you read between the lines, they are blaming the U.S. for these catastrophes.”
As China blames the U.S. for the planet’s economic woes, they are teaming up with Russia militarily. The economy is already over the cliff and hanging by a twig. It won’t take much for Russia and China to team up against the U.S. on its mainland, especially given how angry Russia is over U.S. recent shenanigans in Syria.
The factors to watch are as follows:
#1. Markets are far more volatile now in the wake of Brexit and Trump’s election. Against all odds, the U.S. has elected Donald Trump as its new president and no one can predict how the next four years will go. As a commander in chief, Trump now has the power to declare a nuclear war and nobody can legally stop him. Britain has left the EU and other European countries are planning to follow their example. No matter where you are located in the western world, uncertainty is in the air like never before.
#2. The U.S. Government has its Eye on Retirement Accounts. In 2010 Portugal seized retirement account assets to help plug holes with government deficits and debt. Ireland and France did the same in 2011, as did Poland in 2013. The U.S. government has been watching. Since 2011, Treasury has taken money from government workers’ pension funds on four separate occasions to cover deficits in federal spending. Investing billionaire legend Jim Rogers believes that private accounts will be the next ones the government raids.
#3. Top 5 US Banks Now Larger Than Before the Crisis. You learned about the five largest banks in the U.S. and their systemic importance as the unfolding financial crisis threatened to collapse them. Legislators and regulators promised they would address this issue once the crisis was contained. Over five years after the crisis ended, the five biggest banks are even bigger and more critical to the system than before the crisis began. The government made the problem worse when it forced some of these so called “too big to fail” banks to absorb the failing ones. Any of these banking behemoths failing now would be absolutely catastrophic.
#4. Danger from Derivatives Threatens the Banks More Now than in 2007/2008. The derivatives that crashed the banks back in 2008 did not disappear as regulators promised. Today the derivatives exposure of the five biggest American banks is a whopping 45% greater than before the economic collapse of 2008. The derivative bubble is over $273 trillion now versus the $187 trillion of 2008.
#5. U.S. Interest Rates are Already at Abnormal Lows so the Fed has Little Room to Cut Rates. Even after raising interest rates once last year, the Federal funds rate is still in the range of ¼ to ½ percent. Consider that before the crisis erupted in August of 2007, the Federal funds interest rates sat at 5.25%! In the next crisis, the Fed will have less than half a percentage point total it can reduce rates to stimulate the economy.
#6. American Banks Are Not the Safest Place for Your Money. Global Finance magazine puts out a yearly list of the top 50 safest global banks. Only 5 of those are U.S. based. The top spot an American bank commands is only #39.
#7. The Fed Balance Sheet is Still Expanded from the Financial Crisis of 2008. The Fed still has nearly $1.8 trillion in mortgage backed securities on its balance sheet from the 2008 financial crisis. This is more than double the less than $1 trillion it held before the crisis began. When mortgage backed securities go bad again, the Federal Reserve has a lot less maneuverability to absorb bad assets than before.
#8. The FDIC Admits it Lacks Reserves to Cover Another Banking Crisis. The latest FDIC’s annual report shows that they will not have sufficient reserves to adequately insure the nation’s banking deposits for minimally another five years. This stunning revelation admits that they can only cover 1.01% of U.S. bank held deposits, or $1 out of every $100 of your bank account deposits.
#9. Long Term Unemployment Is Still Higher than Before the Great Recession. Unemployment was 4.4% in early 2007 before the last crisis began. While the unemployment rate has finally reached the 4.7% levels seen as the financial crisis began to ravage the U.S. economy, the long term unemployment remains high and the employment participation rate significantly lower more than five years after the previous crisis ended. Joblessness could be much higher in the wake of the coming crisis.
#10. American Businesses Failing at a Record Pace. In the beginning of 2016, the Gallup CEO Jim Clifton announced that American business failures are now greater than new business startups for the first time in over three decades. The dearth of medium and small businesses has huge implications for an economy long driven by free enterprise. Bigger businesses are not immune to the problems either. Even American economic heavy weights like Microsoft (reducing 18,000 jobs) and McDonald’s (shutting down 700 stores for the year) are suffering from this dismal trend.
Economic collapse is coming. I think what we’re going to see first, though, is a huge economic downturn like the one in 2008. Why do I say this? It is based on understanding that the Book of Revelation reveals that the end time collapse happens during the period called the “Great Tribulation”.
Rev 6:5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
Rev 6:6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
The 3rd horse, the “economic horse”, rides after war covers the globe from stem to stern. This war will happen very quickly and will be followed by the destruction of end time Babylon, America.
Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Rev 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Rev 18:6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
Rev 18:7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
Rev 18:8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Rev 18:9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Rev 18:10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
Babylon will fall completely during the Great Tribulation, but her demise begins in the decades before that. Her fall is a process. Each time there is a downturn, a warning is given to leave Babylon. During the last event, the war in which she is ‘burned’ by war, another final call is made for believers to escape.
I believe these events will happen in close succession in the first few months of the Great Tribulation. Should you wait until then to leave Babylon? Probably not. Jeremiah began calling for believers to leave Babylon during his day!
The choice is heartbreaking: stay to help other families, or leave to help your own. “That’s the calculation thousands in Puerto Rico are making. The bankruptcy of the U.S. commonwealth, the culmination of years of decline, has accelerated an exodus that’s adding to the island’s economic misery.”
Puerto Rico is an example to Americans of what not to do. Puerto Ricans are fleeing to the wrong place! There is a place prepared for YHVH’s “woman”, His Bride.
Rev 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
American believers are feeling the need to move away from the place of danger, but they don’t know where to go. YHVH has prepared a place in the same wilderness that He always brings His people to: The area east of the Red Sea, which is also called ‘Edom’ and ‘Teman (south)’ in the scriptures.
No one knows when hell will break loose on the global economy. There isn’t anything we can do prepare. As believers, we understand that only YHVH will be able to deliver us. His first line of defense are the safe places listed in scripture.
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