This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog
There is much debate about where the U.S. economy is ultimately heading, but what everybody should be able to agree on is that economic conditions are significantly worse this year than they were last year. It is being projected that U.S. economic growth for the first quarter will be close to zero, thousands of retail stores are closing, factory output is falling, and restaurants and automakers have both fallen on very hard times. As economic activity has slowed down, commercial and consumer bankruptcies are both rising at rates that we have not seen since the last financial crisis. Everywhere you look there are echoes of 2008, and yet most people still seem to be in denial about what is happening. The following are 11 facts that prove that the U.S. economy in 2017 is in far worse shape than it was in 2016…
#1 It is being projected that there will be more than 8,000 retail store closings in the United States in 2017, and that will far surpass the former peak of 6,163 store closings that we witnessed in 2008.
#2 The number of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy so far in 2017 has already surpassed the total for the entire year of 2016.
#3 So far in 2017, an astounding 49 million square feet of retail space has closed down in the United States. At this pace, approximately 147 million square feet will be shut down by the end of the year, and that would absolutely shatter the all-time record of 115 million square feet that was shut down in 2001.
#4 The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now model is projecting that U.S. economic growth for the first quarter of 2017 will come in at just 0.5 percent. If that pace continues for the rest of the year, it will be the worst year for U.S. economic growth since the last recession.
#5 Restaurants are experiencing their toughest stretch since the last recession, and in March things continued to get even worse…
Foot traffic at chain restaurants in March dropped 3.4% from a year ago. Menu prices couldn’t be increased enough to make up for it, and same-store sales fell 1.1%. The least bad region was the Western US, where sales inched up 1.2% year-over-year and traffic fell only 1.7%, according to TDn2K’s Restaurant Industry Snapshot. The worst was the NY-NJ Region, where sales plunged 4.6% and foot traffic 6.3%.
This comes after a dismal February, when foot traffic had dropped 5% year-over-year, and same-store sales 3.7%.
#6 In March, U.S. factory output declined at the fastest pace in more than two years.
#7 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not a single person is employed in nearly one out of every five U.S. families.
#8 U.S. government revenues just suffered their biggest drop since the last recession.
#9 Nearly all of the big automakers reported disappointing sales in March, and dealer inventories have now risen to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.
#10 Used vehicle prices are absolutely crashing, and subprime auto loan losses have shot up to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.
#11 At this point, most U.S. consumers are completely tapped out. According to CNN, almost six out of every ten Americans do not have enough money saved to even cover a $500 emergency expense.
Just like in 2008, debts are going bad at a very alarming pace. In fact, things have already gotten so bad that the IMF has issued a major warning about it…
In America alone, bad debt held by companies could reach $4 trillion, “or almost a quarter of corporate assets considered,” according to the IMF. That debt “could undermine financial stability” if mishandled, the IMF says.
The percentage of “weak,” “vulnerable” or “challenged” debt held as assets by US firms has almost arrived at the same level it was right before the 2008 crisis.
We are seeing so many parallels to the last financial crisis, and many are hoping that our politicians in Washington can fix things before it is too late.
On Monday, the most critical week of Trump’s young presidency begins. The administration will continue working on tax reform and a replacement for Obamacare, but of even greater importance is the fact that if a spending agreement is not passed by Friday a government shutdown will begin at the end of the week…
Trump has indicated that he wants to tackle the repeal and replacement of Obamacare and introduce his “massive” tax plan in the next week, all while a shutdown of parts of federal government looms Friday.
By attempting three massive political undertakings in one week, investors will have a sense of whether or not Trump will be able to deliver on pro-growth policies that would be beneficial for markets.
If Trump can pull off the trifecta, it could restore faith that policy proposals like tax cuts and infrastructure spending are on the way. If not, look out.
Members of Congress are returning from their extended two week spring vacation, and now they will only have four working days to get something done.
And I don’t believe that they will be able to rush something through in just four days. The Republicans in Congress, the Democrats in Congress, and the Trump administration all want different things, and ironing out all of those differences is not going to be easy.
For example, the Trump administration is insisting on funding for a border wall, and the Democrats are saying no way. The following comes from the Washington Post…
President Trump and his top aides applied new pressure Sunday on lawmakers to include money for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in a must-pass government funding bill, raising the possibility of a federal government shutdown this week.
In a pair of tweets, Trump attacked Democrats for opposing the wall and insisted that Mexico would pay for it “at a later date,” despite his repeated campaign promises not including that qualifier. And top administration officials appeared on Sunday morning news shows to press for wall funding, including White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, who said Trump might refuse to sign a spending bill that does not include any.
And of course the border wall is just one of a whole host of controversial issues that are standing in the way of an agreement. Those that are suggesting that all of these issues will be resolved in less than 100 hours are being completely unrealistic. And even though the Trump administration is putting on a brave face, the truth is that quiet preparations for a government shutdown have already begun.
The stage is being set for the kind of nightmare crisis that I portrayed in The Beginning Of The End. The stock market bubble is showing signs of being ready to burst, and an extended government shutdown would be more than enough to push things over the edge.
Let us hope that this government shutdown is only for a limited period of time, because an extended shutdown could potentially be catastrophic. In the end, either the Trump administration or the Democrats are going to have to give in on issues such as funding for Obamacare, the border wall, Planned Parenthood, defense spending increases, etc.
It will be a test of the wills, and it will be absolutely fascinating to see who buckles under the pressure first.
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.
Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream.
If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It.
it takes time for the destruction of a failed presidency to show up in the market place,, it just doesn’t happen over night
what we are seeing isn’t what Trump is doing or hasent done.. its the follow up pile of shit that the last jerkoff left following his 8 years of failure
Just to qualify .. Im of no party.. just a patriot that wants his country back and everyone in DC to burn
The Globalist Empire must be destroyed if America is to have a chance of survival.
And they’ll blame Trump.
The Cell Phone Industry killed the Shopping Mall and Retail Markets. Kids today, do not hang out at malls because all of their disposable income goes to pay for their cell phone bill and internet surfing. That’s a fact.
Hermes- Everytime I go to the mall in Springfield, Mo all I see is kids walking around with
their thumbs up their asses, looking at their phones. Kids do not hang out at malls? Really?
They may not be buying a lot of crap, but they still go there. Amazon killed retail. So did
the sorry economy we now have. The 90’s are over. Conspicious consumption is a thing of
the past. The internet and mouse click shopping is helping to kill retail. People want UPS to
deliver everything to the front door. Its all about convenience now. Mommy and daddy are
the ones paying their smart phone bills.
acually it was the obammy economics that killed it all.in a vibrant and thriveing economey thairs money for cell phones,retail,amazon and everyone else to thrive
Who gives a shit if the gubmint shuts down. It’s function could be sustained at half its size now. I say let it shut down and it can stay that way for a while. Politicians will still get paid too. I mean, in the end, that’s all that really counts to them.
That black son of a bitch known as Barry Hussein and Crooked Killary should both swing from the end of thick ropes for ALL to witness!!
The orders were clear: borrow and print what it takes until the first black president is out the door, then let the economy collapse. Obama wracked up more debt than any other president; he has left the worst geopolitical situation of any president; he burned allies all over the place and now he is going to chortal and chuckle as he watches whites and asians burn each other to a crisp in a nuclear war.
this problem gets its roots way back when Bill Clinton signed off on deregulating the banks and Alan Greenspan could see no evil.
This made liar loans and liar apprasials the tools to rob banks.
We didn’t have REAL de-regulation at all. We still had regulation, which is why everything is as bad as it is.
REAL ACTUAL FREEDOM DE_REGULATION would be no Federal Reserve and sound money.
Fact of the matter is nobody alive today in America has ever experienced freedom and de-regulation.
“By this (fiat/central banking) means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.” — British Lord John Maynard Keynes (the father of ‘Keynesian Economics’ which our nation now endures) in his book “THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE” (1920).
“Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the FRAUD can no longer be concealed.” — British Lord John Maynard Keynes (the father of ‘Keynesian Economics’ which our nation now endures) in his book “THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE” (1920).
“when Bill Clinton signed off on deregulating the banks”
part of the problem is people that think Bill Clinton de-regulated anything. Finance is HIGHLY regulated. In every conceivable way.
It was govt law/policy that made that to happen.
so, someone given a MILLION DOLLARS in 1975, AND had CONNECTIONS goes bankrupt to beat it all !
THEY are gonna save the economy? how exactly?
G W Bush handed barry a crap economy thanks to decades of trickle down crap.
WAGES, where are they?
Home prices, where are they?
Cost of living is WAY TOO HIGH, robots taking over, immigrants flooding in to LOWER PAY, and increase HOUSING COSTS.
how can trump “bring the jobs back”? can we live on what the third worlders are getting paid?
YES WE CAN, if home prices DROP and become reflective of pay and cost of living.
In 2000, a home bought for 50,000 is “worth” 200,000 today, yet PAY is LOWER? govt keeps feeding the beast of Military Industrial Complex by keeping prop values high IN ORDER TO keep prop taxes HIGH!
The IRS/government took in an all time record theft of money from the people and businesses. Of course this absolutely was the result of the prior Obama tax rates and confiscatory policies.
Obama was like Slim Pickings riding the nuke in Dr Strangelove.
A comment on retail space. Amazon built a, not just huge, but a mega warehouse not far from me. It’s within a mile of a US Postal distribution center. Amazon runs semi-trailer load of goods continuously to the USPO for delivery. That’s where all your missing commercial floor space went.
Example, I needed garden fence to keep out the rabbits. The big box hardware stores, who just a decade ago ran all the small hardware stores out of business, who mourns them, only carries 2″X3″ or 2″X4″ garden fence that the smaller rabbits and baby bunnies just walk right through. At Amazon I could buy a graduated garden fence where the first 8 sections are 1″X2″, then the next 4 are 2″X2″, and the top 3 sections are 2″X4″. This stuff is rabbit proof. Which one would you buy? Them baby bunnies can decimate new plantings.
Another example, I needed kitchen cabinet hinges. The ones supplied with the 25 yr old cabinets have a flaw, where a little plastic part snaps, and they stop working properly and make an annoying snapping sound thereafter. I’ve been replacing them as they break at about $7 ea. from the big box store. Ten years ago I refaced the cabinets with new doors, the hinges that came with the new doors are the wrong offset and are useless. Thus I am still using the original hinges. Hinge offset was not a buying option at Lowe’s when I bought the new doors. Annoyed at the ever increasing failure of hinges (plastic under stress fails with time) I shopped on the net. Not Amazon, but a wood working supply store not only sold hinges, they sold sexy slow closing hinges that let you slap the door shut, and the hinge slows the door every time to a soft silent close. This option available on new high end kitchen cabinetry. Now the punch line, if I buy in quantity, 50 or more, I can get these cool hinges for $2.80 a hinge. The big box store sells slow closing hinges, for $9 each, holy rip me off batman? An hour ago I just finished replacing the last of the original hinges that just kept breaking, everywhere, kitchen and bath vanities. Small (narrow) doors only need one slow closing hinge, so the other is one of the better newer replacements bought over the years. I mean damn, not only did I fix an annoying problem that never ended. I did it cheap, and upgraded all my cabinets at the same time, increasing my homes resale value.
By the way if you have old style cabinets, and want slow closing, there is a cheaper shock absorber they sell that screws into the top hinge corner. I also just bought enough to do my sons house and my brother in laws house. In quantity they cost $1.88 a door. With installation it will be an early birthday present for each.
To be clear, shopping on the web and fixing my own cabinets saved me $200 plus labor. But I got an upgrade out of it that really saved like $350.
Many decry China for slave labor rates, and this is true, but seriously, the hinges I bought, and the ones the big box store sells are the same freaking part, except the big box store takes three times the profit. The slaves are still paid squat in either case.
What does this have to do with prepping? Well, now I have saved enough to buy a thousand rounds of 9mm. Yahoooooooooooo! Yeah, I’ll probably buy that on line too.
Hello,
many germans are changeing from FB (Facebook) to vk.
There are right know not so many english speaking people, but it is growing!
So you need a plan B to facebook:
Please move to vk!
For example there is a german survival-group:
https://vk.com/survival_gruppe_deutsch
yours, Jupp
NSA ??
__
SNYDER AGAIN? Ho hum, back to sleep.
Have ever been awake?
You don’t have to agree with everything a writer says but usually there are some very valid points that all would be well advised to take note of.
Articles here are intended to be thought provoking. If you are not able to produce though, it’s OK, someone had to ride the short bus to school.
Meh,,,,
Anyone paying attention sees stuff that isnt quite right,
Lots are asleep though and cant see past their own bubble,
Personally, im rooting for a government shutdown that blows the whole lot, we need a serious reset to the system and just get on with stuff, the longer it goes on skipping along the bottom the worse it will be. This is just common sense to some folks, but to most they just dont get i.
What did you expect from yet another CIA operative in the WH? The Bushes, the Clintons, Obama all controlled by the warmongers. They want the people dead. Fukushima, chemtrails, GMO’s, vaccinations are a few of the killing methods. Trump forced to follow that exact path.
Our economy is ruined.
Jobs we need JOBS! People can’t spend what they do not have.
Get rid of healthcare so companies that can grow might take the chance.
Lower tax rates, provide more tax credits which has proven growth results.
Half the country has been unemployed for years! Part time work in many places.
On the morality front, SHTF has already happened! If you are brick-and-mortar retailer, SHTF has already happened! It all depends on who you talk to, whether SHTF lies in the past or the future! If you still have a reliable source of income, SHTF is in the future.
A lot of smart people on this site. I agree with many of you.
A big convoluted mess! It needs to collapse and start from scratch but many people will suffer and/or die.
The Government should have let the system correct itself back in 2008!Now it will hurt twice as bad,still needs to be done!This gonna sting just a little,lol.
Be well all
Maniac –out
Snyder is running out of Fear items to talk about. None of this is new and Snyder said the US was going to collapse in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and you get the idea.
For many of us, it did collapse.
Since Trump won, there is cognitive dissonance creeping into the prepping community. I have to admit I feel it too.
DJT is doing a lot to roll back Obama policy, much of which was luckily done with Executive orders and memos, because it just takes another memo to put Obama executive memo policy in the trash heap for all time.
Snyder does produce a lot of fear porn, but as long as I have bacon, I’m OK.
I don’t prep for politics, I prep for reality.
The economy is improving here where I live. Our county’s unemployment is down to 3.4%, mew homes are being built, new businesses are popping up. Everyone I know is happy with Trump. Fear mongering sells prepping supplies. I don’t expect miracles in the first 100 days, but he’s come pretty close. He’s gettin’ ‘er done one step at a time as he promised. The malls are GONE, folks. It’s just part of the evolution of modern society. Online shopping has made it cheaper, faster, and easier to have what you need delivered to your doorstep. Why spend gas and time going to a mall? Plus, with the screwballs out there, people perceive malls as dangerous. Heck, nearly 30 years ago, I took my newborn baby to the mall here, and there were so many shady people there that I said, “Never again!” The next mall that opened was nice for a while, and then the creeps took over, and there was a shooting there last year. For wages to increase, we need to get all of the illegals out, and no one yet can make me understand why securing our borders is a bad idea. We lock our doors and cars, don’t we? Why should we allow open borders? A small group of libs are doing a large amount of protesting, trying to make all of us believe DT is bad. The Democratic party is imploding as we are seeing their hateful ways. They are pawns serving the New World Order. They were caught by surprise at the uprising of us little folks who voted for Trump because he voiced our pain. God is good.
Snyder and his collapse prognostications are like the octogenarian Chicago Cubs fan who spent his entire life predicting this is the year the his team is winning the World Series. Now the old bastard gets to say “SEE?”