Biden's American Rescue Plan is Catholic social doctrine in action

NCR  Mar 12, 2021

Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress passed the $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan, (ARP) and President Joe Biden signed it into law yesterday. The new law includes efforts to confront the pandemic and the economic consequences of the pandemic, but it also addresses child poverty and other long-standing issues of economic inequality. Biden promised to "build back better," and this law is a major step toward redeeming that promise.

The plan constitutes a decisive repudiation of trickle-down economics in favor of a bottom-up approach to economic stimulus that is far more consistent with Catholic social teaching.

"This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance," the president said after the House passed the final legislation on Wednesday.

Biden and the Democrats have placed a big bet. If this stimulus package fails to stimulate the economy, if unemployment is still horrifically high next year, if children are still unable to go to schools in some cities because the poor ventilation in the school buildings make them viral incubators, if child poverty continues at its unconscionably high rate, the Democrats will pay a political price for this American Rescue Plan, and they will deserve to pay a price. And if it works, the Republicans might pay a price for having been bystanders at a time when so many of our fellow citizens are in profound pain. Whatever the political calculus, we all can hope that it works and, as Catholics, take some pride in the fact that our values and habits of ethical thought have played a role in coming to the nation's aid.

Are pandemic relief checks making universal basic income inevitable?

MSN 12/31/2020

Major crises can effect rapid changes in public opinion that otherwise would have required years or even decades to develop. Among the permanent opinion shifts of the COVID-19 pandemic, I expect to see a new — and perhaps even bipartisan — move toward universal basic income (UBI) or something like it, an evolution influenced by Americans' experience with pandemic relief checks, both the fact of them and the drawn-out political fights surrounding their passage.

UBI is exactly what it sounds like: a government income program which is not tied to recipients' employment (like unemployment insurance), age (like Social Security), income (like TANF), medical care (like Medicare or Medicaid), or food purchases (like SNAP). It's simply a monthly cash stipend that goes to everyone. The stipend could be big enough to cover all basic expenses (this is called a full UBI) or it could merely supplement other income (former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang's proposal of a $1,000 per month "Freedom Dividend" is an example of this sort of partial UBI).

A year ago, when Yang was promoting his dividend, he was a clear outlier in mainstream politics — maybe not entirely outside the Overton Window, but perched precariously on the sill. Surveys in 2017 and 2019 showed a consistent minority of 43 percent were supportive of the idea.

The World’s Billionaires Have Gotten $1.9 Trillion Richer In 2020

Forbes Dec 16, 2020

It’s been a year of pandemic-driven lockdowns, political upheaval and—especially for the planet’s richest people—incredible wealth gains. With major stock markets soaring high, Forbes estimates that the 2,200-plus billionaires in the world have collectively gotten $1.9 trillion richer in 2020.

The world’s billionaires are worth an estimated $11.4 trillion, based on Forbes’ calculations using stock prices from Friday, December 11. That’s up 20% from collective wealth of $9.5 trillion on December 31, 2019.

America’s billionaire class had a smashing 2020. Altogether, the more than 600 U.S. billionaires are worth $4 trillion, a gain of $560 billion since the beginning of the year, aided by record-breaking stock markets. The S&P 500, sitting near all-time highs, is up 13% this year despite the March Covid-crash; the Nasdaq is up 38%.

No one in the world has had a better 2020 than Elon Musk, whose fortune has grown an astonishing $110 billion this year to nearly $137 billion, making him the third-richest person in the world. The surge came from skyrocketing shares of Tesla Motors, which have ballooned by 630%. That rise has been fueled by incredibly bullish investors and the fact that the electric carmaker will be added to the S&P 500 index on December 21.

The world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, had the second-best year. Bezos, who is worth $182 billion, has gotten $67.5 billion richer in 2020 thanks to rising Amazon stock; the online retailer has been cashing in on a world shopping from home.

Amazon sees broad audience for its palm recognition tech

AP September 29, 2020

Amazon has introduced new palm recognition technology in a pair of Seattle stores and sees a broader potential audience in stadiums, offices and other gated or secured locations. 

Customers at the stores near Amazon’s campus in Washington can flash a palm for entry into secured areas and buy goods. 

The company chose palm recognition, according to Dilip Kumar, vice president of Physical Retail & Technology, because it’s more private than other biometric technology, and a person would be required to purposefully flash a palm at the Amazon One device to engage.

Covid spikes cashless payments

Fresh Business 20th August 2020

Safety measures imposed by Covid-19 guidelines have resulted in a spike in cashless and digital payments in recent months, according to a new report.

Payments company Square’s findings showed that fewer than one in four payments have been made by cash during the lockdown period, around half of pre-Covid levels.

The report also identified that in parallel with this trend of businesses moving away from accepting cash, consumers and businesses are increasingly using e-commerce and mobile payments. The percentage of remote payments taken by businesses surged from 2% in January to 33% in April at the height of the pandemic. As businesses reopen, they continue to process and increased portion of payments over the phone or online without the need for physical contact, albeit not at the same levels seen at the peak of lockdown.

Square found that 31% of businesses made the move to being cashless by mid-July, up from just 8% at the start of 2020. This equates to an increase of 288%, a trend which shows little sign of abating.

The food and drink sector has led the way in going cashless – 33% of businesses in this sector were cashless, a massive increase from the start of the year when only 8% were. Similar trends have been seen in other sectors, including professional services (from 7% to 29%), retail (from 8% to 24%) and healthcare and fitness (from 15% to 29%).

Felipe Chacon, economist at Square, said: “Covid has changed the way we pay. Existing trends towards digital and cashless payments…have been greatly accelerated as a result of the pandemic.

“Business owners have had to move fast, quickly adapting to new ways of getting paid. They’ve had to balance keeping themselves and customers safe and feel safe, alongside making every sale they can.”

 

German economy shrinks at record pace in recession of a century

Reuters July 30, 2020

The German economy contracted at its steepest rate on record in the second quarter as consumer spending, company investment and exports all collapsed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, wiping out nearly 10 years of growth.

The Federal Statistics Office said gross domestic output in Europe’s largest economy shrank by 10.1% quarter-on-quarter from April to June after a revised 2.0% contraction in the first three months of the year.

The plunge was the steepest since the office began collecting quarterly growth data in 1970 and was worse than the 9% contraction predicted by economists in a Reuters poll. Adjusted for inflation, seasonal and calendar effects, it erased almost a decade of growth, the statistics office said.

The WEF and the Great Reset

Is the Lockdown the Greatest Policy Disaster in U.S. History?

UNZ May 18, 2020

Donald Trump calls the media “the enemy of the people”, but it’s much worse than that. The media is a national security threat. Just look at the way they’ve handled the coronavirus. The hysterical 24-7 coverage has people so terrified they’ve locked themselves in their homes inflicting catastrophic damage on the economy. That disaster never would’ve taken place if the media hadn’t focused all their energy on scaring people to death. Now the damage is done, millions of people have lost their jobs, tens of thousands of small and mid-sized businesses are facing bankruptcy, and the world’s biggest economy has been reduced to a smoldering wastelands. And what was gained? Nothing.

The Pushing for Coronavirus Vaccines

Neo 18.05.2020

The US White House has appointed a coronavirus “Vaccine Czar” from Big Pharma to oversee something dubbed Operation Warp Speed. The goal is to create and produce 300 million doses of a new vaccine to supposedly immunize the entire US population by year-end against COVID-19. To be sure that Big Pharma companies give their all to the medical Manhattan Project, they have been fully indemnified by the US government against liabilities should vaccine recipients die or develop serious disease as a result of the rushed vaccine. The FDA and NIH have waived standard pre-testing on animals in the situation. The US military, according to recent remarks by the US President, is being trained to administer the yet-to-be unveiled vaccine in record time. Surely nothing could go wrong here?

Warp speed is a term out of the sci-fi Star Trek media, defined as a speed faster than the speed of light. In recent weeks billions of dollars have been pledged from governments, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others to fast-track a vaccine as well as test medical treatments to combat the VODIV19 illness said to originate from a novel coronavirus first discovered late 2019 in Wuhan China. This rush to create a “miracle” vaccine is ominous and suggests some hidden agenda.

Ex-PM calls for global government to tackle coronavirus

The Guardian 26 Mar 2020 

Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The former Labour prime minister, who was at the centre of the international efforts to tackle the impact of the near-meltdown of the banks in 2008, said there was a need for a taskforce involving world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response.

A virtual meeting of the G20 group of developed and developing countries, chaired by Saudi Arabia, will be held on Thursday, but Brown said it would have been preferable to have also included the UN security council.

The China That Emerges After Coronavirus Will Be A Cashless Society

Wealth Advisor  

Freezing cross-province transfers and replacing $86 billion in paper yuan is only consolidating a process of surveillance where Beijing can monitor all transactions.

It’s still getting bad in China, where reported coronavirus cases are doubling every 7-10 days. Until that exponential contagion curve flattens out, we just don’t know how far the outbreak spreads or how fast the government will ultimately be able to contain it.

The society that emerges is going to play by different rules. And it starts with Beijing locking down even more of the second-biggest economy in history. 

Cash was already going away in China. Now it turns out that the virus shows up on old paper money and can live there for days.

Every time every one of those infected yuan notes moves from hand to hand, it’s another infection vector. If you handle the wrong money, you’re literally carrying the plague.

Naturally that makes people much less eager to accept cash. Luckily there are payment apps to keep everything clean and digital.

But coincidentally enough, the big apps from Alibaba and We Chat already work hand in glove with the central bank. There’s no privacy there. The transactions are open to surveillance.

And with true crypto driven deep underground, cash was the best way left to operate in the country without leaving a transparent digital trail. 

Is it any wonder Beijing has started impounding yuan notes in the quarantine zone while stopping transfers between provinces? 

Old currency just isn’t getting replaced. Instead it’s being withdrawn from circulation so it can be sterilized. In theory, new money will take its place.

Australia’s hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record

TECB. February 19, 2020

Global food production is being hit from seemingly every side.  Thanks to absolutely crazy weather patterns, giant locust armies in Africa and the Middle East, and an unprecedented outbreak of African Swine Fever in China, a lot less food is being produced around the world than originally anticipated.  Even during the best of years we really struggle to feed everyone on the planet, and so a lot of people are wondering what is going to happen as global food supplies become tighter and tighter.  The mainstream media in the United States is so obsessed with politics right now that they haven’t been paying much attention to this emerging crisis, but the truth is that this growing nightmare is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

In Australia, conditions have been extremely hot and extremely dry, and that helped to fuel the horrific wildfires that we recently witnessed.

And everyone knew that agricultural production in Australia was going to be disappointing this year, but it turns out that it is actually going to be the worst ever recorded…

Australia’s hottest and driest year on record has slashed crop production, with summer output expected to fall to the lowest levels on record, according to official projections released Tuesday.
The country’s agriculture department said it expects production of crops like sorghum, cotton and rice to fall 66 percent — the lowest levels since records began in 1980-81.

The continent of Australia is considered to be one of the breadbaskets of the world.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2018/19 Australia exported over 9 million tons of wheat to the rest of the world.

But thanks to relentless crop failures, Australia has started to import wheat, and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

So instead of helping to feed the rest of the world, Australia is now relying on the rest of us to help feed them.

And what is happening this year didn’t just barely break the old records.  In fact, one senior economist says that this will be the worst summer crop production the country has ever seen “by a large margin”…

“It is the lowest summer crop production in this period by a large margin,” Peter Collins, a senior economist with the department’s statistical body ABARES told AFP.

Of course if the rest of the world was doing great we could certainly survive a downturn in Australia.

Unfortunately, that is definitely not the case.

Right now, billions upon billions of locusts are voraciously devouring farms in eastern Africa and the Middle East.  As I detailed the other day, giant armies of locusts the size of large cities are traveling up to 100 miles per day as they search for food.  When they descend on a farm, all the crops can be consumed literally within 30 seconds.  It is a nightmare of epic proportions, and UN officials are telling us that this crisis is only going to get worse over the next couple of months.

Goodbye Middle Class: 50 Percent Of American Workers Make Less Than 33,000 Dollars A Year

TECB October 22, 2019

The truth is that most American families are deeply struggling, but you hardly ever hear this from the mainstream media.  Yes, about 10 percent of all American workers are making $100,000 or more a year, but most of those high paying jobs are concentrated in the major cities along the east and west coasts.  For much of the rest of the country, these are very challenging times as the cost of living soars but their paychecks do not.  According to the Social Security Administration, the median income in the United States last year was just $32,838.05.  In other words, 50 percent of American workers made more than $32,838.05 and 50 percent of American workers made less than $32,838.05 in 2018.  Let’s be generous and round that number up to $33,000, and when you break it down on a monthly basis it comes to just $2,750 a month.  Of course nobody can support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four on $2,750 a month before taxes, and so in most families more than one person is working these days.  In fact, in many families today more than one person is working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet, and it still is often not quite enough.

If you want to look at the Social Security wage statistics for yourself, you can find them right here.  As you will see, I am not making these numbers up.

These days many would have us feel bad if we are not making at least $100,000 a year, but according to the report only about 10 percent of all American workers make that much money.

Instead, most Americans are in what I would call “the barely getting by” category.  Here are some key facts that I pulled out of the report…

-33 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-46 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-58 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-67 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

That means that approximately two-thirds of all American workers are making $4,000 or less a month before taxes.

Ouch.

But these numbers help us to understand why survey after survey has shown that most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  After paying the bills, there just isn’t much money left for most of us.

And for an increasing number of Americans, even paying the bills has become exceedingly difficult.  In fact, a brand new report from UBS says that 44 percent of all U.S. consumers “don’t make enough money to cover their expenses”…

Stock Market Crash Near? Nobel Laureate Sees 'Bubbles Everywhere'

Investors   10/25/2019
When Nobel Laureate and "Irrational Exuberance" author Robert Shiller says he sees bubbles in the financial markets — you'd better listen up. He literally wrote the book on stock market crashes and bubbles after all.

"I see bubbles everywhere," Shiller, economics professor at Yale University and author of just-published "Narrative Economics" told investors gathered in Los Angeles on Oct. 23. "There's no place to go. You just have to ride it out. You invest even though you expect the price to decline." Shiller famously predicted the 2000 stock market crash and the 2007 crash of the housing market.

The timing of Shiller's ominous warning comes at a scary time. This is the month of the 90th anniversary of Black Monday. That day on Oct. 28, 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 13%. That still stands as the second-worst drop in history and, combined with the pounding the stock market took in early days of the depression, took 25 years for investors to recover from.

Shiller sees bubbles in the stock market, bond market and the housing market. "You get ... in a situation where you know it's going to decline, but you still saved enough to hold you over; you have no choice."

Trump: ‘I could declare a national emergency’

August 25, 2019  NBC

SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ, France — President Donald Trump said Sunday he could declare the escalating U.S.-China trade war as a national emergency if he wanted to.
“In many ways this is an emergency,” Trump said at the G-7 leaders meeting of the ongoing trade battle between the world’s top two economies.
“I could declare a national emergency, I think when they steal and take out and intellectual property theft anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year and when we have a total lost of almost a trillion dollars a year for many years,” Trump said, adding that he had no plan right now to call for a national emergency.
“Actually we are getting along very well with China right now, we are talking. I think they want to make a deal much more than I do. I’m getting a lot of money in tariffs its coming in by the billions. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China, so we will see what happens.”

Starvation to the poorer classes will result in a civil war

There are men in the church and in the world who have educated themselves to practice fraud, and for this they will be brought into judgment.... Men have chosen to stand, not under the blood-stained banner of Prince Immanuel, but under the rebel flag to do the works of a rebellious prince. They may have sold their souls for money. They may have taken their Lord's money to purchase wheat and the facilities whereby poor men live, that they may extort from the Lord's creatures the highest prices. They make for themselves princely fortunes.  

But for all this the Lord says He will bring them into judgment. In God's sight such a man has made himself an outcast. He has sold his soul for that which he may lose at any time. He has worshiped an idol; covetousness was his sin, and the means needed to bless humanity has become to him the greatest curse.—Letter 89, 1898, pp. 9, 10. (To J. E. White, October 30, 1898.)  

God does not design that men shall appropriate all that the earth produces for their own selfish purposes. He calls upon them to bring their tithes and offerings into His storehouse, that there may be meat in His house.  

In India, China, Russia, and the cities of America, thousands of men and women are dying of starvation. The monied men, because they have the power, control the market. They purchase at low rates all they can obtain, and then sell at greatly increased prices. This means starvation to the poorer classes, and will result in a civil war. There will be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.... Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.”         5MR 305

The Three Ds of Doom: Debt, Default, Depression

Charles Hughs Wednesday, July 17, 2019

"Borrowing our way out of debt" generates the three Ds of Doom: debt leads to default which ushers in Depression.

Let's start by defining Economic Depression: a Depression is a Recession that isn't fixed by conventional fiscal and monetary stimulus. In other words, when a recession drags on despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus being thrown into the economy, then the stimulus-resistant stagnation is called a Depression.

Here's why we're heading into a Depression: debt exhaustion. As the charts below illustrate, the U.S. (and global) economy has only "grown" in the 21st century by expanding debt roughly four times faster than GDP or earned income.

Costs for big-ticket essentials such as housing, healthcare and government services are soaring while wages stagnate or decline in purchasing power.What's purchasing power? Rather than get caught in the endless thicket of defining inflation, ask yourself this: how much of X does one hour of labor buy now compared to 20 years ago? For example, how much healthcare does an hour of labor buy now? How many days of rent does an hour of labor buy now compared to 1999? How many hours of labor are required to pay a parking ticket now compared to 1999?

Our earnings are buying less of every big-ticket expense that's essential, and we've covered the gigantic hole in our budget with debt. The only way the status quo could continue conjuring an illusion of "prosperity" is by borrowing fantastic sums of money, all to be paid with future earnings and taxes.

At some point, the borrower is unable to borrow more. Even at 0.1% rate of interest, borrowers can't borrow more because they can't even manage the principal payment, never mind the interest. That's debt exhaustion: borrowers can't borrow more without ramping up the risk of default.

When wages are stagnant and big-ticket items are soaring in cost, that leaves less available to service more debt. We can cover expenses by borrowing more for a while, but there's an endgame to this trick: even at zero interest, servicing the debt exceeds income.

Marginal borrowers default, and the resulting losses collapse marginal lenders.Recall that every debt is somebody else's asset and income stream. When a student defaults on a student loan, that erases the asset and income stream of a mutual fund, pension fund, etc.

In other words, defaults are not cost free. They wipe out assets and income streams, never to return.

For the past 20 years, the trick to escaping recessions has been to lower interest rates and flood the financial system with new credit. If everyone would just borrow more and spend every cent of the new money, the economy will start "growing" again.

But we've reached the point where most wage earners can't borrow more, corporations shouldn't borrow more and the top tier of earners no longer want to borrow more. Governments can always borrow more, but eventually servicing the ballooning debt starts crowding out other spending, and the solution--borrowing more to cover the interest payments--spirals out of control.

Lowering interest rates and giving banks and financiers "free money" doesn't increase wages or household incomes or corporate profits. Nor do these monetary tricks magically turn marginal borrowers into creditworthy risks.

Borrowing more to fill the hole left by declining purchasing power only works in the short-term. We've burned the 20 years that this trickery can work, and now we face the endgame: borrowing more only increases defaults, which trigger losses in wealth and income that will be measured in the trillions.      More..

A Bank With 49 Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives Is Melting Down Right In Front Of Our Eyes

TECB July 18, 2019

Could it be possible that we are on the verge of the next “Lehman Brothers moment”?  Deutsche Bank is the most important bank in all of Europe, it has 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives, and most of the largest “too big to fail banks” in the United States have very deep financial connections to the bank.  In other words, the global financial system simply cannot afford for Deutsche Bank to fail, and right now it is literally melting down right in front of our eyes.  For years I have been warning that this day would come, and even though it has been hit by scandal after scandal, somehow Deutsche Bank was able to survive until now.  But after what we have witnessed in recent days, many now believe that the end is near for Deutsche Bank.  On July 7th, they really shook up investors all over the globe when they laid off 18,000 employees and announced that they would be completely exiting their global equities trading business…

It takes a lot to rattle Wall Street.
But Deutsche Bank managed to. The beleaguered German giant announced on July 7 that it is laying off 18,000 employees—roughly one-fifth of its global workforce—and pursuing a vast restructuring plan that most notably includes shutting down its global equities trading business.
Though Deutsche’s Bloody Sunday seemed to come out of the blue, it’s actually the culmination of a years-long—some would say decades-long—descent into unprofitability and scandal for the bank, which in the early 1990s set out to make itself into a universal banking powerhouse to rival the behemoths of Wall Street.

These moves may delay Deutsche Bank’s inexorable march into oblivion, but not by much.

And as Deutsche Bank collapses, it could take a whole lot of others down with it at the same time.  According to Wall Street On Parade, the bank had 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives as of the end of last year…

During 2018, the serially troubled Deutsche Bank – which still has a vast derivatives footprint in the U.S. as counterparty to some of the largest banks on Wall Street – trimmed its exposure to derivatives from a notional €48.266 trillion to a notional €43.459 trillion (49 trillion U.S. dollars) according to its 2018 annual report. A derivatives book of $49 trillion notional puts Deutsche Bank in the same league as the bank holding companies of U.S. juggernauts JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, which logged in at $48 trillion, $47 trillion and $42 trillion, respectively, at the end of December 2018 according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). (See Table 2 in the Appendix at this link.)

Yes, the actual credit risk to Deutsche Bank is much, much lower than the notional value of its derivatives contracts, but we are still talking about an obscene amount of exposure.

And this is especially true when we consider the state of Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet.  According to Nasdaq.com, as of the end of last year the bank had total assets of 1.541 trillion dollars and total liabilities of 1.469 trillion dollars.

In other words, there wasn’t much equity there at the end of December, and things have deteriorated rapidly since that time.  In fact, it is being reported that a billion dollars a day is being pulled out of the bank at this point.

I know that most Americans don’t really care if Deutsche Bank lives or dies, but as the New York Post has pointed out, the failure of Deutsche Bank could quickly become a major crisis for the entire global financial system…

The worst agricultural downturn since the 1980s is taking its toll on the emotional well-being of American farmers.

Bloomberg  March 20, 2019

The worst agricultural downturn since the 1980s is taking its toll on the emotional well-being of American farmers.

In Kentucky, Montana and Florida, operators at Farm Aid’s hotline have seen a doubling of contacts for everything from financial counseling to crisis assistance. In Wisconsin, Dale Meyer has started holding monthly forums in the basement of his Loganville church following the suicide of a fellow parishioner, a farmer who’d fallen on hard times. In Minnesota, rural counselor Ted Matthews says he’s getting more and more calls.

“Can you imagine doing your job and having your boss say ‘well you know things are bad this year, so not only are we not going to pay you, but you owe us’,” Matthews said by telephone. “That’s what’s happened with farmers.’’

Glutted grain markets have sparked a years-long price slump made worse by a trade war with top buyer China. As their revenues decline, farmers have piled on record debt -- to the tune of $427 billion. The industry’s debt-to-income ratio is the highest since the mid 1980s, when Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert.

Nearly 25% of Americans Are Using Debt To Pay For Necessities Like Food

SHTFPlan   May 30th, 2019

Even though we are told the economy is doing great, all the evidence shows that main street Americans are struggling more and more every day. A recent report claimed that the costs of goods have risen to the point that 25% must use debt to pay for necessities, such as food.

According to a new Experian report that came out last week, Americans have an average of $6,506 in credit card debt. But some expenses are weighing much more heavily on the credit cards of the average American…

Necessities, like food and rent, are being put on credit cards. A full 23% of Americans say that paying for basic necessities such as rent, utilities, and food contributes the most to their credit card debt, according to a new survey of approximately 2,200 U.S. adults that CNBC Make It performed in conjunction with Morning Consult. Another 12% say medical bills are the biggest portion of their debt.  Medical bills additionally likely contribute to the purchases of food on a credit card.

This news isn’t shocking unless you believe the mainstream media’s glorification of the false “recovery” we’ve experienced since the Great Recession of a decade ago.  American households have taken on historic levels of debt, which will crush them in the next economic downturn.