The perfect storm: A whole bunch of economic disasters are converging right now

     No, I'm not an economist.  Hell, I can hardly even balance my own bank account.  However, like most Americans, I do buy groceries, watch an occasional financial news show on YouTube and notice the obvious lack of help-wanted ads on CraigsList right now.  I pay rent, have put kids through college and am not blind to all those homeless people on our streets.  You'd have to be foolish to not notice that the American economy is in trouble.  Duh.

     Perhaps my huge personal list of budget-trashing experiences have made me an economist after all?

     All these dire economic experiences have just pointed even me in only one direction.  A Perfect Storm of economic disasters is clearly headed our way.  But just to make sure, let's make an actual list of all these serious storm-warning economic signposts:

1.  America is in debt for approximately forty trillion dollars (that we know of).  Debt is a bad thing.  It always leads to the poorhouse -- no matter what John Maynard Keynes tells us.

2.  There is almost no manufacturing base here in America.  Americans don't even know how to do any of that stuff any more.  We rely on BRICS countries and skilled immigrants to do our heavy lifting in the field of manufacturing.  We don't even know how to raise chickens or grow carrots -- let alone how to make light bulbs, sports equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics or SmartPhones.

3.  The American dollar is sliding downhill fast.  150% inflation rate.  International trade is not being conducted in petro-dollars any more -- or even in fiat currency.  Everyone wants either yuans or gold.  Those dollars under our mattress?  Better spend them fast.  Holding on to the dollar is now risky business.

     Back in the day, I worked at the local post office each summer and made enough money in just those three months to put myself through the University of California at Berkeley -- tuition, rent and food included.  Can you even imagine doing that now?

4.  Endless war.  Need I say more?  Investment in weapons (not people) has been a disastrous trend since September 11, 2001.  And whose fault is that?  Let's not get into all the corruption and maleficence involved in the American weapons industry.  Let's just think about all the trillions that our governement invests in nuclear weapons capable of omnicide (a brand new word to describe the wanton destruction of all life on earth) rather than investing in you and me.  

     And let's not even mention the fact that America has approximately ten "wars" and proxy wars going on right now.  Venezuela, Gaza, Ukra$ne, Syria, Nigeria....  We may never know where else.  Gotta ask the CIA and the Pentagon about that one.  How much longer do you think we can afford all those "wars"?  Don't even get me started.  

     And journalist Mahmood Od just counted up the number of wars for drugs that America has participated in since World War II.  Afghanistan, Air America, Vietnam, Oliver North, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan -- just so the CIA could aid and abet the flow of drugs into our cities.  Good grief.  War Against DRUGS? It’s The Exact OPPOSITE | The REAL REASONS Behind & The BIG AVOIDANCE | Venezuela

5.  Infrastructure.  Schools.  Hospitals.  Healthcare.  Yikes!  This reminds me that when people sneeze in Latin America, the immediate response is always "Salud, Dinero, Amor".  Health, money and love.  The average American is losing all three really fast -- and it's a lot harder to be loving if you are also sick and poor.  And uneducated.  And worried if the bridge that you are on might be about to fall down.

6.  Corporate greed.  Just look what Pfizer did to us during the Great Lock-Down.  Shamelessly played on our worst fears.  And once again may I point out how corporations abandoned America to give our jobs to NAFTA and China and Haiti and Bangladesh and who the freak knows where else.  Might this be considered treason?  Apparently not.

7.  The Federal Reserve shamelessly prints out its Monopoly money (or generates it digitally) without any supervision or control.  No thought at all about how their counterfeit racket will effect inflation or destroy America's middle class.

8.  Oil.  Sooner or later we're gonna run out of oil.  We'll go back to candles and bicycles -- made in China.  Plus China just placed a ban on the export of rare earth minerals.  What does this mean?  It means that America can no longer make semi-conductors and, apparently, all kinds of weapons.  And we all know that America's economy is based on manufacturing things that go BOOM!  More jobs lost here.  But I digress.  Bottom line?  More blood has been spilled over oil than has been spilled over almost anything else -- and there is much more blood to come.

9.  The AI bubble.  The crypto-currency bubble.  The digital bubble.  The stock market bubble.  All kinds of things could go wrong here -- things that a techno-dunce like me can't even grasp.  What if we run out of electricity?  Will all those new data-storage clouds under the East Wing be of any use now? 

       But in the meantime, AI robots are stealing our jobs -- to the point that rabid unemployment will be the norm not the exception.  And AI surveillance is also stealing our free speech -- not that you can put an economic value on free speech.  But I like it.  I'd buy it. 

10.  Our very own government is ignoring us, our needs, our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations.  All our government seems to be concerned with right now is how best it can make global corporations earn even further big bucks.  That sucks eggs -- and is unconstitutional too.

11.  Europe, America's staunchest ally, has been shattered and Balkanized by its wasteful investment in that hopeless Ukra$ne fiasco that was designed to suck Russia dry but ended up sucking the EU dry instead.  Will political fragmentation, endless "war" spending and economic pressure end up Balkanizing the United States too?

12.  America is not self-sufficient and definitely not competitive either.  We have almost nothing of value to export except for Tomahawk missiles.  The days when everyone abroad wanted to buy Levi's and Chevrolets are over.  If our economy crashes, nobody elsewhere will care or shed a tear.  But we Americans will be crying our eyes out.

     I could go on and on -- but you get the message.  The economy.  Bad news.  Perfect storm.  

Resources:

If you wanna know about economics, you gotta listen to Richard Wolff:  Richard Wolff: The Economic COLLAPSE of US Empire – China POPS Trump’s AI & Dollar Bubble

Corruption in Amer$ca?  Corruption in Ukra$ne too.  All these corrupt Ukrainians are being supported by you and me:  Zelensky's Grip On Power Is Slipping🙅‍♂️Massive Strike Launched💥Black Sea Provocation⚓MS 2025.11.29

Used to be that the CIA ran its dirty wars by financing them with illegal World War II gold.  Now they finance them with drug sales to our youth.  Review: Gold Warriors–America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold UPDATE to Add Links to CDs - Public Intelligence Blog

And apparently gold was also one motive behind the September 11, 2001 attacks -- to get rid of the gold certificates stored there that were about to come due -- and America couldn't cover them.  https://www.wanttoknow.info/911/Collateral-Damage-911-black_eagle_fund_trust.pdf

Will AI take us over?  It could happen -- if the AI bubble doesn't burst first:  Godfather of AI Predicts Total Breakdown of Society

"The craziest thing in the world is that we could end poverty -- but we don't."  The Craziest Thing In The World Is That We Could End Poverty, But We Don't

And, yes, "war" is the number-one cause of eco-disaster.  How the U.S. Military Is Destroying the Planet:  Journalist Abby Martin's new film, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, exposes how the U.S. military — “the army of fossil fuel companies” — drives global climate destruction.  The documentary links imperialism, war, and environmental collapse, showing how crises from Iraq to Gaza and Sudan are interconnected by U.S. global power.  Martin warns, “The status quo is death… they are barreling us off a cliff and destroying the habitability of our future.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFlDWo28xnY&list=TLPQMjkxMTIwMjW8yUgVq90rGg&index=1

Only 45% of our small businesses have the money to reinvest in themselves:  https://substack.com/home/post/p-180508508 

 

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