44 Numbers From 2018 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

by | Dec 31, 2018 | Headline News | 55 comments

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    This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse

    Was 2018 everything that you expected it to be?  Every year contains surprises, but 2018 truly turned out to be a year that we will never forget.  Over the past 12 months we witnessed great political shaking, Wall Street experienced the worst downturn that we have seen since 2008, the crust of our planet was rattled by an increasing number of major seismic events, social decay spread like wildfire, and America continued to become even more divided as a nation.  In comparison, 2017 was rather bland and boring, and I truly believe that one day we will look back on 2018 as a major turning point.

    It is amazing that 12 months has flown by already.  It seems like the years just keep getting faster, and perhaps that is because we are all getting older.

    In any event, the following are 44 numbers from 2018 that are almost too crazy to believe…

    #1 One study found that the average American spends 86 hours a month on a cellphone.

    #2 A different study discovered that 37 percent of all Americans have eaten fast food within the last 24 hours.

    #3 90 percent of the beer that Americans drink is produced by just 2 gigantic corporations.

    #4 McDonalds feeds approximately 70 million people a day globally.  Pornhub gets more than 78 million visits a day.

    #5 60 percent of all Americans actually believe that they have seen a ghost.

    #6 The middle class continues to decline, and at this point half of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year.

    #7 During the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats were able to pick up 40 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Those that were forecasting a “red tsunami” were completely and totally wrong.

    #8 Kevin Spacey’s incredibly creepy YouTube video entitled “Let Me Be Frank” in which he promises that he will never be held accountable for his actions has already been viewed more than 8 million times.

    #9 Since 2007, the total amount of student loan debt in America has nearly tripled.

    #10 The suicide rate in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 1999.

    #11 Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for Americans from age 15 to age 24.

    #12 Netflix recently made a deal to renew streaming of “Friends” for another year for 100 million dollars.

    #13 According to the United Nations Population Fund, 40 percent of all births in the U.S. now happen outside of marriage. But if you go back to 1970, that figure was sitting at just 10 percent.

    #14 13 million households in the United States do not always have enough food to eat.  So if you have enough food to eat every day, you should consider yourself to be very blessed.

    #15 According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost 1 out of every 4 children in rural areas is currently living in poverty.

    #16 At this point, almost 52 percent of all children live in a home that receives monthly help from the federal government.

    #17 Over half a million people are homeless in the United States right now.

    #18 Today, a million Americans are living in their RVS, and that number is rising with each passing year.

    #19 Social decay is clearly evident even in our most prosperous cities.  One recent investigation found 300 piles of human feces on the streets of downtown San Francisco.

    #20 62 percent of all U.S. jobs do not pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle.

    #21 In 1980, the average American worker’s debt was 1.96 times larger than his or her monthly salary. Today, that number has ballooned to 5.00.

    #22 Over half the country now receives more in government transfer payments than they pay in taxes.

    #23 According to one recent study, the “rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991”.

    #24 More than 100 churches in the United States are dying every single week.

    #25 If you go back to 1986, just 10 percent of all young adults were “religiously unaffiliated”, but now that number has jumped all the way to 39 percent.

    #26 According to one recent survey, Americans from the age of 18 to the age of 29 favor Democrats over Republicans by a 66 percent to 32 percent margin.

    #27 One study found that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.

    #28 The number of married couples with children in the U.S. just reached a 56 year low.

    #29 In the city of Baltimore, approximately one out of every four babies is born as an opioid addict.

    #30 According to the New York Times, approximately 110 million Americans have a sexually-transmitted disease right now.

    #31 It is being projected that the total amount of plastic in the oceans of the world will exceed the total weight of all fish by the year 2050.

    #32 90 percent of all seabirds in the world now have plastic in their stomachs.  Back in 1960, that number was sitting at just 5 percent.

    #33 In August, we learned that the number of global earthquakes over the last 30 days had risen to a level that was 50 percent above normal.

    #34 In September, an all-time record high seven named storms were swirling across the globe simultaneously.

    #35 In October, we witnessed the third largest single day point crash in stock market history on the exact same day that the third most powerful hurricane in U.S. history made landfall.

    #36 In November, the Camp Fire destroyed 14,000 homes and businesses in northern California.  It was the most destructive wildfire in the history of the state.

    #37 According to the official Twitter account of Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, they had wind chills of between -70 and -75 degrees on Thanksgiving morning.

    #38 In the aftermath of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rattled Anchorage, the state of Alaska was shaken by more than 1,400 earthquakes.

    #39 In early December, the largest earthquake in 45 years hit eastern Tennessee.

    #40 During the last full week before Christmas, the Dow fell 1,655 points.  That was the worst week for the stock market since the financial crisis of 2008.

    #41 The National Retail Federation was projecting that total Christmas spending would surpass $465,000,000,000 in 2018. Only 25 countries on the entire planet have a GDP that is greater than that number.

    #42 In 2017, the Dow was either up or down by 1 percent or more just 8 times.  In 2018, it happened 64 times.  Volatility has returned to Wall Street in a major way, and that is a really bad sign.

    #43 A recent survey of corporate financial officers discovered that 82 percent of them believe that a recession will have started by the end of 2020.

    #44 During 2018, the U.S. national debt increased by nearly 1.4 trillion dollars.  We are now almost 22 trillion dollars in debt, and there is no end to our debt problems on the horizon.

    ***

    Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

    GetPreparedNow-MichaelSnyderBarbaraFixMichael 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 [amazon text=Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It&asin=150522599X].

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      55 Comments

      1. Well Happy New Year then.

        • Back at you Mike. Great news to start the year out. Ah well….

        • Happy New Year. We’ll just wait and see what happens. I just stay prepared for the things I might be able to control like a financial crisis or food shortage, and protecting my family. I don’t worry about the things I can’t control, like an asteroid smashing into the earth, or the earth’s poles flipping from north to south. I used to worry about it all, but what’s the use of worrying about something I couldn’t control? It sure helped me to put more resources into what I might be able to control, and lessened my preparedness stress level. It is what it is…just my thoughts…. Once again, Happy New Year.

          • I’m ready for Silver to rocket back up to like $48 an ounce again. Last time it did this, it all happened in about a 6 months period time frame. Get ready, to the Moon Baby!! Good Luck Preppers… The collapse is a coming.

            • And now for the good news 3,2,1…

            • Half the shit in this article isn’t about 2018. Snyder is a moron. HELL YA SILVER TO THE MOON! HI HO SILVER…AWAAAYYY!

            • Industrial uses of gold and silver — and possibly platinum and palladium — might drop to almost zero if this technology can be scaled from a lab experiment to a cost-effective commercial process. You have to wonder how this will affect the market price of these metals.

              kitco.com/news/2018-12-31/Turning-Copper-Into-Gold-Chinese-Scientists-Disguise-Copper-As-The-Precious-Metal.html

              Looks like the Chinese finally developed something on their own, instead of just stealing from others…

              • We don’t know how expensive the process is…yet. It is concerning news regarding precious metals though.

        • Happy New Year, to everyone.

      2. Yep, those numbers ARE too crazy to believe. Oh well, let’s all hope for a better year.

      3. Thanks Michael Snyder for compiling those facts & statistics. Regarding #10. Following an age of participation trophies, political correctness on steroids, military horrors all over the globe, the feminization of males, and other idiocies; the result is that too many Americans cannot cope with the challenges of life. Life is a marathon. You win some and you lose some. When life knocks you down, get up and try to do better.

      4. Mike in VA and Reper Sleeper, Happy New Year to both of you.

        • And to you ‘ol boy.

          • And to all you fellers!

      5. So Mike – what’s your point?
        If the USA is this bad what does that say for the world?
        Obviously this bad inertia will continue to a point where society breaks and world order disintegrates.
        Does the economic collapse come first then the wars or the wars then the economic collapse – HUM

      6. I think the scariest fact is #26. but since the author did not footnote his sources I’ll assume the poll was taken at a public university.
        #38, 7.0 earthquake in AK. We had a 7.0 last May and I’ll bet you never heard about it. Maybe it is because we has this little lava flow to go along with it.
        Guaranteed 2019 will be far worse in areas of politics and social issues, Democrats are a cancer that only will get worse. An EMP
        taking out the East and West coast grids would be a blessing to us normal people.
        Natural disasters will happen as always, I’m pretty well ready for them. There is nothing you can do about natural events. Unlike the mainland, Hawaii even had a Tornado this last year.
        Aloha and have a Happy new year, hopefully 2019 will treat you better than 2018 did.

        • So many problems on that list, so little solutions.
          Long term, #31, the oceans choking in plastic will be changing the game of life on the planet. Just MHO.

          rellik, agree on the emp. But make it worldwide to even the playing field.
          Happy New Year all.

          • tsk, tsk, “so few solutions”..

            • ketchup, good to hear from you. Also agree on the EMP. I think that will still happen regardless of whatever else happens.

              • Plastic filling the ocean is a product of??? OVERPOPULATION (of morons especially). Nature will wipe out humanity or man will do it. One way or the other it WILL HAPPEN. There ARE consequences to overpopulation you know (or not).

        • Rellik, it’s a given that politics and social issues WILL get worse this year. I also believe Civil War 2 starts this year. I also think it’s more likely an EMP will hit sometime this year. I say #26 is definitely true if taken at a libturd university. If there’s more libturd millennials than conservative ones then that’s all she wrote. Aloha and Happy New Year to you. I hope for the best from 2019 but I’m not holding my breath.

          • I’m pretty sure my beer can handle it lol.

      7. The truly pathetic part is that future Americans might look back on 2018 as the “good old days”. Dismal thought! Have a Happy New Year!

      8. I am no longer sure when is the last month or year that I ate fast food or went to a 501c3 state church.

      9. Beaumont, I had a fried chicken dinner on Sunday. The last time I was in a 501c3 church was in 1972. I’ll take the chicken but no churches for me.

        • I wonder if the church of satan is a 501c3? I bet it has a McDonalds lol.

          • Genius, I’ll take an MRE over stinkin’ McDonalds any day. Anything in my preps is better than the other two.

      10. These birth pains will get more frequent and more destructive until God’s kingdom is established on the Earth. Only those raptured out of the Earth will return for the 1000 year reign of Christ on the Earth after the Earth has been restored from the damage the wicked have done on it.

        Matthew 24:6-8 New International Version (NIV)
        6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.

        • This is just the natural cycle of the stupid human species. It has happened before it gonna happen again.

        • Due to Hebrews 10, it seems that any reconstruction of the Temple would be an abomination, so it’s logical that if an animated statue of the Beast were placed in the Tomb of Christ (the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem), this would fulfill the prophecy of Matthew 24.

      11. #45 Indictments are about to be released for traitorous individuals against the U.S. Constitution.

      12. #45: Number of new people who come to this site daily: Incalculable!

        #46: Number of people here who daily get FIRED UP enough to prep and pray and agitate:
        Inestimable!

        #47: Number of posters here who hate the Lone Ranger: just 2! 🙂

        #48: Number of posters who will add to this list: read on!

        Happy New Year, everyone! Keep your head on a swivel. Carry a flashlight with you every day, SOMEBODY has to light up the world!

        🙂

        • I thought everybody hated you. Things must be improving.

        • I just can’t resist this,
          Diogenes used an ancient Greek
          version of a flashlight to find
          honest men. He did it in broad
          daylight.
          Light in the world is hard to find.

          • Especially with all the chemtrails!

      13. test

      14. #35 is NOTHING. Wait until you see the numbers for October, 2019. Likely 40% DOWN from Labor Day high to the last Friday in October low.

      15. http://forestry.ky.gov/ChampionTrees/Pages/default.aspx
        Kentucky has some immense trees, some being national champions in height and circumference.

        We also have bears, wildcats, owls, piliated woodpeckers, red tail hawks, vultures, foxes, racoons, oppossums, skunks, and even cryptids in the Sasquatch family that will cry and howl to each other. People have heard and recorded them talking. It’s possible that these bigfoot creatures are different species and they have been seen in Western, Central, and Eastern Kentucky. Some are furry and immense and some are smaller and some have camoflaged tree bark-like skin.

        During westward expansion, bear meat was not uncommon as a meal for settlers looking for homesteads and beyond. Now, not so much. We have feral hogs as our ancestors free ranged them.

        Some of the least population density territory,not far from Paducah, has so few people and is wooded, so honestly anything might live within.

        One of the most peculiar UFO stories has goblin creatures in it in the Western KY region. The Air Force chased UFOs in KY too with one pilot dying as he ran out of oxygen.

      16. #22 is an inflated number.

        Social Security payments are technically “transfer payments” by the government, but they are in no way “benefits.”

        If the SS system operated in the real world and paid even the old time modest Whole Life policy interest rates (say 3%)most recipients would have to live into their mid 80s to get the real number value of their contributions back.

        That doesn’t even begin to account for the inflation that has happened over our lifetime rendering the ‘payback’ even lower than the face value plus the 3% compounded.

        <bb

        • bb,
          You are on a subject near and dear to me as
          I’m eligible to receive SS now. Most our
          government debt is owed to Americans.
          Much of it is owed to the SS fund. Assuming
          it is tied up in T bonds, 30 year T Bonds
          typically pay interest in excess of 3%.
          although that money does not compound,
          because like you say it is “transfer payments”.
          What has killed SS is giving out social
          security money to people that did not pay
          into it such as SSI.
          Inflation is another factor, which is why I
          typically advocate for a depression to occur.

      17. How many of these numbers would’ve made the list if NAFTA never existed?

      18. Rellik, I’ll be 62 in March and will be eligible for SS myself. But I’ve been told I’d have to cut my hours and income at work in order to receive any SS and even then I’d still have to pay taxes on that. I’ll pass on that. I don’t care for some govt. moron to tell me what my standard of living can be. I’ll just wait til’ I turn 66 when I can collect the full amount.

        • What if you don’t live that long? Get it while you can and work for cash. Or make what you are allowed and then cash lol. Don’t let them steal yer fed notes!

        • DP,
          You’d be nuts to both work and collect SS, tax wise.
          It is complex but working wages count against your SS,
          you’ll still get your SS but they will cut the shit
          out of it. So as you say cut your hours. Learn to work a
          spread sheet and it will then make sense.
          Pensions do not have that problem, as pensions are not “wages”.
          In many states and SS, a 1099R doesn’t show up on their Taxable income radar.
          You will still pay Federal taxes either way if your total income
          is over a certain amount.

      19. #4 McDonalds feeds approximately 70 million people a day globally. Pornhub gets more than 78 million visits a day.

        You deserve a break to today!

      20. #6 The middle class continues to decline, and at this point half of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year.

        Just about everybody I know only works a part time job.

        Under Obamacare you can only work 19.5 hours a week or the employer has to pay for health care… so the employers only allow employees to work 19.5 hours.

        • $30,533 is equal to $15,427 in 1990. In other words, it’s not a middle class wage anymore but poverty.Everything is way more expensive. A husband and wife both making that wage have the purchasing power of one worker back in 1990.

          The economic apocalypse happened.

          • A low end but full-time job as a general services janitor working in a factory in Western KY in 1990 might earn $26,000 plus have healthcare, two weeks of vacation, and Christmas vacation. But working at a better factory, some made as much as $30,000.

            No companies pay the same level of heathcare today, but that low end janitor would have to earn $51,436.33 to equal that 26k in 1990.

            This is why buying a new car is all but impossible today yet was possible back then. A frugal factory worker in KY could buy a shotgun fixer upper for $15,000 or a bungalow for $30,000 back in 1990. Now that is impossible. You could pay off such a home in five years or less.

      21. #9 Since 2007, the total amount of student loan debt in America has nearly tripled.

        The dam democrats keep promising everybody “student loan forgiveness and free college.”

        Promise utopia and get control.

        • Less high school graduates went to universities in 1990 and some with Bachelor’s degrees could start as foremen at most factories, or else work in any number of jobs as chemists or engineers, or in an office, or in sales.

          However during that four year window, if a high school student started as a janitor in a factory making 26,000 a year, then by the time his or her friend graduated, the janitor had made $ 104,000 and might have his/her car and bungalow home paid off. While their friend might easily have spent $32,000 on tuition and room and board, so in debt. They would have to overcome that $136,000 and would do so over a 15 year period due to a better job.

          Back then, as much as professionals badmouthed blue collar factory workers, it really made little sense for most professions due to lost wages and indebtedness.

          Now, these are not options largely due to inflation and free trade and deficit spending.

          Heck, a blue collar worker could increase their wages from $26,000 to $46,000 as operators and craftsmen. Their educated friend might not catch up with just a bachelor’s degree.

          • Mara,
            I served an apprenticeship and for a while, I was making more money than my father when I was age 17. I was then educated in a tech school, I then spent 17 years as a “blue collar” worker.
            I earned a STEM degree at age 34. my salary dramatically increased at that point.
            I did this all with no student debt. In fact I worked the whole time, full time, and overtime.
            I’m not bragging here, but pointing out that if the snowflakes,
            bothered to be disciplined, they could succeed, without burying
            themselves in debt.

      22. Back in 1990, most of the guys were veterans and worked as operators, security guards, or craftsmen. Not only did they work a shift in the factory, but most had a second job through a home business. Many were either hobby farm owners with gardens and fruit and nut trees, or they were the sons of farmers so they would work 2nd or 3rd shift plus run their aging parent’s farm.

        Lots of these guys would have a business doing auto body repair and painting. Some had landscaping businesses during the day. Some guys ran vending machines or owned a coin laundry or car wash.

        It was fairly routine while still single to buy a shotgun home and fix it up by replacing the roof, painting it, cleaning up the yard, replacing some plumbing, and small improvements for curb appeal. They did that a couple of times and flipped them. Some specialized in fixing up single floor bungalows that were located downtown and so within walking distance to various places and church amd thus ideal to flip for retirees.

        Some guys were independent contractors ramrodding new construction during the day.

        This meant most guys worked 60 or 68 hours but only 40 at the factory. Others worked as much at the factory as there was as much overtime as you wanted to work. This meant a high school graduate could make $60,000 in western Kentucky were the living costs were low, and there were few leftists.

        Other guys worked construction and were in the union.

        This is the Bible Belt and thus while there are places to get an abortion in Louisville, we only have 0.4% of all abortion in this state and NONE in western KY and very few in eastern KY. Most people go to church regularly or at least believe, but many end up constantly working so attending is difficult. Despite the latter people were significant givers or tithers and their wives often volunteered at church. They were hardcore Baptists or German Catholics.

        The neocons and globalists ruined what was a fine blue collar family place to live and thrive. The majority in rural towns were country folks who were preppers in spirit although they might not know that term. They had pickup trucks and cut their own firewood and grew much of their own food and might have at least rabbits.

        Under such circumstances, many wives stayed at home when the kids were under 12 and many might end up being teachers and nurses. This meant a lot of disposable income that most frequently was used to pay down debt early. Then paid for college but children were expected to maintain a 3.5 minimum due the expense and sacrifice.

        It was very common to know your neighbors very well, and most guys were not college graduates. What was the point unless you wanted to be a pastor or a physician or maybe an engineer? Financially it didn’t make much sense.

        • A blue collar Kentuckian in 1990 making $60,000, between a factory job plus his side business and not including his wife’s income, is equivalent to $118,699.22 in 2018. That is quite a bit of purchasing power and consider how low the cost of living was.

          There were Hoosiers who moved across the Ohio River and essentially became rural Kentuckians because their ethos was so similar plus they liked the country life and owning acreage versus living in Indiana with high property taxes and snooty leftists and in crowded suburbs with no privacy.

      23. Boofing, the newest 2018-19 nonsense fad…

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