Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge.
Two new surveys say most Americans think the recession has already begun.
This must come as a shock to our mendacious media sacrificing fresh mountains of newsprint to gaslight Kackles over the 50-yard line come November.
Meanwhile, nearly 70% of Americans report that inflation—which that same media told us was long gone—continues making life a struggle, with little prospect of saving for the future or getting out of debt.
The numbers come from two surveys by left-wing Guardian-Harris polling, and another from payment network Affirm, who sampled 2,000 Americans.
Nearly 60% say we’re already in recession, and on average, they say it started 15 months ago.
Keep in mind that during the last normal recession in 2008 they didn’t announce the recession until fully one year after it began. The previous two recessions in 2001 and 1991 both waited eight to nine months before admitting the obvious.
In other words, the people always see the recession before it’s officially announced, raising the question: Are they hiding it or are they just stupid?
Indeed, the numbers are now saying that winter is already here.
Yesterday, I talked about the jobs collapse. I’ve mentioned in recent videos the dismal numbers on consumer confidence and business confidence—especially small business, which just hit an 11-year low in confidence with nearly half of small businesses unable to make rent.
Eighty percent of Americans now see McDonald’s as a luxury, millions are buying groceries on credit cards, and the number of young Americans living at home just hit the highest rate since the 1940s.
Manufacturing just turned in recession-level numbers.
Then, throw in after-inflation wages that are down 5% since pre-COVID-19, along with exploding debt costs between $300,000 starter homes, 7% mortgages, and 25% credit card interest rates.
In short, inflation never went anywhere, while the economy’s been running on fumes—trillions in stimulus checks, trillion-dollar deficits, and soaring personal debt that’s turning from a temporary lifeline into a permanent albatross.
At this point, the trillions in duct tape and bubble gum isn’t holding it together: Delinquencies are soaring: They recently passed 9% in credit cards, which matches 2008 levels—and we’re seeing them jump in car and house loans that were both inflated by the Fed.
Most concerning for an economy running on the Fed’s magic money printer, fully three-quarters of income taxes now go to interest on the national debt, while inflation remains stuck going on four years now. A couple more years and all our taxes will go to interest, and the government will run on pure money printing.
I’ve previously mentioned the Fed is positioning for recession.
All the dire economic data we’re seeing now—the jobs, the delinquencies, the $35 trillion in debt—get much worse when the recession hits in full.
If we’re headed for a repeat of 2008, expect 10% unemployment, millions of bankruptcies, and $3 trillion-plus deficits taking us toward $50 trillion in debt and 100% of income taxes going to debt service.
On the other hand, if we are repeating the 1970s—as I’ve long feared—we could be looking at a much worse catastrophe that could take a decade to dig out of.
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