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

By the time you are done reading this article, you may be tempted to tear your hair out.  A substantial portion of the U.S. population is deeply struggling in our current economic environment, but instead of focusing on helping Americans who are hurting, homeless, and hungry, our leaders are going to great lengths to make things better for those who have no legal right to be in this country.

Our priorities are way out of whack, and U.S. voters are fed up.  Immigration has become the hottest political issue during this campaign season, but many of our politicians still don’t seem to understand why so many of us are so frustrated with what has been going on.

Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.

It is being reported that more than half of all Americans over the age of 65 “are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year”…

And, for some, the retirement crisis is already here. Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The largest share — just under 23% — have incomes between $10,000 and $19,999.

Millions of elderly Americans are barely surviving at this point.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been flying hundreds of thousands of migrants that have no legal right to be here directly into the country…

It means that while record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country.

Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 aliens with no legal rights to enter the United States.

It comes after a controversy over a 2022 transportation program in which the administration used taxpayers money to move migrants throughout the country on overnight flights.

You have got to be kidding me.

Let me give you another example.

Since 2020, the income needed “to comfortably afford a home in the US” has gone up by 80 percent…

According to Zillow, the income needed to comfortably afford a home in the US has leapt 80% since 2020, far exceeding what the BLS reports has been a 23% increase in median household income over the same period.

The real estate website found home buyers today need to make more than $106,000 a year, up $47,000 from 2020, a change driven largely by higher prices and borrowing costs.

“Housing costs have soared over the past four years as drastic hikes in home prices, mortgage rates and rent growth far outpaced wage gains,” said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.

But instead of doing something about that, politicians in California actually want to provide interest-free home loans with no down payment required to newly arrived migrants…

Assembly Bill 1840 would change existing law to allow illegal immigrants to be eligible for the California Dream for All Fund, which provides interest-free loans for a down payment on a home for first-time buyers.

The bill was introduced by California Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat, who last month told GV Wire, a Fresno-based news outlet, that he “wanted to ensure that qualified first-time homebuyers include undocumented applicants.”

You have got to be kidding me.

Don’t stop reading now, because there is more.

On Thursday, we learned that the number of layoffs in the U.S. last month was the highest total that we have seen during February since 2009…

The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in February, a sign the labor market is starting to deteriorate in the face of ongoing inflation and high interest rates.

That is according to a new report published Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 84,638 job cuts in February, a 3% increase from the previous month and a 9% jump from the same time last year.

It marked the highest layoff total for the month of February in data going back to 2009.

That is terrible news.

But instead of finding jobs for American workers, New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to “prioritize” hiring newly arrived migrants for state jobs…

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing a plan to prioritize hiring illegal aliens for state jobs by eliminating certain requirements like the civil service exam and high school diploma.

The aim is to expedite the process for illegal immigrants to secure state jobs once they have work permits.

You have got to be kidding me.

Last but not least, let’s talk about what is going on in Washington right now.

In preparation for the State of the Union address, a “large steel fence” was being put up around the U.S. Capitol…

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address this evening – what concerns do the political elites on Capitol Hill have that require security crews to erect a large steel fence around the immediate perimeter of the Capitol Complex?

In several posts on X, FOX News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram said the steel, grated 12-foot fence around the Capitol Complex was erected on Wednesday night on the orders of the Secret Service.

Apparently, our leaders in Washington have no problem with being protected by walls.

Unfortunately, our southern border has been left wide open and it is being estimated that approximately 10 million migrants have come pouring into this nation since Joe Biden entered the White House…

The number of illegal immigrants in the country has roughly doubled under President Biden. The United States had some 10.2 million illegal immigrants in 2020, and another 10 million have entered during Biden’s presidency. If the 20 million illegal immigrants were all in one state, it would be tied with New York for the fourth most populated state.

And here’s even worse news. If Biden wins a second term in office and there is no serious reform of U.S. immigration and asylum laws — both of which are very real possibilities — we can expect a continuing increase in the rate of immigrants crossing the border illegally.

You have got to be kidding me.

We already have tens of millions of people that are deeply suffering in this country.

To allow millions more to come marching in doesn’t make any sense at all.

We can’t even afford to take care of the people that we already have.  We are completely broke, and we have been adding another trillion dollars to the national debt about every 100 days.

We are literally committing national suicide, but most of our politicians don’t seem alarmed by this at all.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

 

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me

 

 

 

GUSNOTE: GUS LEONISKY IS A RABID ATHEIST... 

 

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BANK FAILURES Will Start Soon, Admits Fed Chair Powell to U.S. Congress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qz7jVbXfEo

 

NOTHING NEW HERE.... FROM "HOT MONEY" — CHAPTER 18... Buddy, Can You Spare a Billion?:

 

During the 1970s many American banks had grown by leaps and bounds. But as the 1980s unfolded, the US banking system found itself in a precarious position. Major banks with double or treble their equity tied up in loans to delinquent debtor countries became household gossip. Moreover, world energy and agricultural prices were soft, and, until late 1985, the high dollar was pricing American manufactured goods out of world markets. As a result, equal or worse was the threat to banks that had lent to the domestic farm, energy, and manufacturing sectors. Banks were forced into a scramble for deposits to finance loans to domestic and international borrowers having trouble repaying existing credits on time. 

 

Michele Sindona's Last Laugh 

In July 1982 Penn Square Bank, a high-flying Oklahoma City operation with an appetite for energy-sector speculation, collapsed with more than $2 billion in worthless loans on its books. The ensuing tremors shook and eventually collapsed the sixth largest bank in the US, an institution with a history of odd domestic and international associations. 

 

Continental Illinois Bank and Trust (Conti) had long prided itself on being the largest bank in Archbishop Marcinkus's hometown. Their mutual admiration was highlighted when one of Michele Sindona's Italian aides became a father, and the boy was named David, after David Kennedy, then chief executive officer of Conti and subsequently Nixon's secretary of the treasury and American ambassador to NATO. Marcinkus baptized the baby, and Sindona, appropriately enough, became his godfather. Conti was a partner in Sindona's main capital-flight vehicle, Banca Privata Finanziaria. And it was a former vice-president of Conti whom Michele Sindona hired to run the foreign-exchange department of Franklin National, whose subsequent foreign-exchange speculation losses set off America's greatest-ever deposit run — until Conti broke that record ten years later.

 

MEANWHILE:

 

The Swiss National Bank vs. the Federal Reserve: The Fed's Capital Losses in Perspective

 

Switzerland’s central bank, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), lost $3.6 billion in 2023,1 after a gigantic loss of $150 billion in 2022. But after booking these losses, and properly subtracting them from its capital, the SNB still had positive capital of over $70 billion. This gives it the quite respectable capital to total assets ratio of 7.9%. All of these numbers are after marking its investments to market, as is required by the SNB’s governing law, so the capital is a real, marked to market equity. The market value of the SNB’s holdings of gold is $65 billion, which includes a large appreciation, including $1.9 billion in 2023. Since the SNB had an overall loss for the year, it paid no dividends to its stockholders.

“The SNB aims for a robust balance sheet with sufficient equity capital to ensure that it can also absorb high losses,” it states.2 This sound financial principle is the opposite of the official position of the Fed. 

The Federal Reserve, central bank not only to the United States but to the dollar-using world, had a gigantic loss of $114 billion for 2023. It had reported a profit for the full year 2022, but had started losing money in September of that year at the remarkable rate of $2 billion a week. The Fed’s huge losses are continuing into 2024—by its February 28, 2024 report the aggregate losses have reached $154 billion. Since the Fed’s governing law does not permit it to maintain “a robust balance sheet with sufficient equity capital to absorb high losses,” indeed forbids it from doing so, the losses have wiped out the Fed’s capital by more than 3.5 times. 

Of course, the Congresses which passed the Federal Reserve Act and its amendments never intended the Fed to run with negative capital—they simply thought it was impossible for the Fed to lose this much money — a flawed assumption.

The current capital deficit is shown by the undeniable arithmetic of the Fed’s capital as of February 28. The Fed has paid-in capital of $36 billion and miniscule retained earnings of $7 billion, for total of $43 billion. Starting capital of $43 billion minus Losses of $154 billion = current capital of negative $111 billion.

You will not find this negative capital, which is the real capital, reported on the Federal Reserve balance sheet, however. The Fed insists on the accounting charade of booking its massive losses as an asset, a so-called “deferred asset.” Do you believe, Candid Reader, that losses are an asset? You don’t? Neither do I. Do you believe that losses should be subtracted from capital, as responsibly done by the SNB? So do I! In short, the Fed publishes, not to put too fine a point on it, a phony capital number. But that’s its line, and the Fed is sticking to it.

Unlike the SNB, the Fed owns zero gold to help offset the secular depreciation of all paper currencies.

In spite of its huge losses, negative capital and negative retained earnings, the Fed continues to pay dividends to its shareholders. And the Fed does not mark its investments or its capital to market.

Taken all together, this makes quite an interesting contrast with the SNB. 

The Federal Reserve balance sheet combines the balance sheets of the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs). Here is an update on the real capital as of February 28, 2024 of these individual FRBs, as well as the total Federal Reserve. Eight of the twelve FRBs are technically insolvent, with losses of more than 100% of their capital and thus liabilities greater than their assets. Two other FRBs have lost 98% and 85% of their capital and are steadily approaching technical insolvency. Only two have most of their capital left. Of all the FRBs, the biggest and most important by far is the FRB of New York. It also has far and away the biggest losses and the most negative capital. The total system has a huge capital deficit. Recall that the table shows the real capital numbers, not the contrived ones reported by the Fed.

Real Capital of the Federal Reserve Banks as of February 28, 20243 :

 

SEE THE LIST OF MASSIVE LOSSES... https://mises.org/mises-wire/swiss-national-bank-vs-federal-reserve-feds-capital-losses-perspective

 

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US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

 

By Tyler Durden

Earlier today, CNBC’s Brian Sullivan took a horse dose of Red Pills when, about six months after our readers, he learned that the US is issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, which prompted him to rage tweet, (or rageX, not sure what the proper term is here) the following:

We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany – a country with major economic woes – added ‘just’ 32%.

Maybe it will never matter. Maybe MMT is real. Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.

I have no idea. Only time will tell. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.

 

He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River’s Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming “US debt sustainability crisis.”

According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.

https://www.activistpost.com/2024/03/us-spent-more-than-double-what-it-collected-in-february-as-2024-deficit-is-second-highest-ever-and-debt-explodes.htm

 

 

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See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUV8lX6czVQ 

CONTROLLED CRISIS EXPOSED: Failed BANKS To Be BOUGHT by Mysterious "BLANK CHEQUE Investor"

 

 

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