More Apocalypse Approaching

Debt is catching up with nations, China’s stock market is tanking, Crude is plummeting, itself a mark of diminished activity, which is taking down energy stocks as our market free falls, and now we see retail is heading down.

Retail sales are actually far worse than the 2.4% reported number. Excluding the subprime debt fueled auto sales, retail sales only grew by 1.3% in the last year…

The year over year crash in oil prices was supposed to result in a huge spending splurge by the masses, according to the media talking heads. You don’t hear much about that storyline anymore…

With real median household income at 1989 levels, real unemployment north of 15%, a massive level of under-employment, young people unable to buy a home – saddled with $1 trillion of student loan debt, middle aged parents struggling to take care of their aging parents and struggling children, and Boomers who never saved for their retirement, the mood of the country is decidedly dark and getting darker by the day. The rise of Trump and Sanders in the polls is an indication of this dissatisfaction with the existing social order…

The department store data is almost beyond comprehension. July department store sales were the lowest in the history of the data series. Sales of $13.8 billion were 22% below the July 2007 level of $17.6 billion. They were 28% below the peak level of $19.2 billion in 1999. Real department store sales are 36.5% BELOW where they were in 2007, and Wall Street shysters have had buy ratings on these stocks the whole way down.

This is not the collapse. The real tipping point will be the bank haircuts, which are not escapable with a fractional banking system and an economic system with massively increasing risk and fear, leading everyone to want to get hands on their money. The stock losers today will tell themselves that no matter how bad it is, they will make their money back in a couple of years. That is amygdala, diluted with dopamine, and it is weak medicine in driving a K-selected worldview. A government saying, “60% of your savings are gone, and that is never coming back” is all amygdala. The effect on the brain will be acute, shocking, and the rage will be uncontrollable. Add in all the fun which goes with that, from reduced demand for goods, to unemployment, to crime and unrest, and that will be real K-selection.

Events like the present economic unrest light up the people’s amygdalae, they will respond ever more to Trumpian calls to in-group, compete, win, and reject the losers who refuse to seize every advantage for our team. As those things get worse, the Donald’s followers will begin to become the group which everyone will want to be a part of.

He is really poised at a magical point in history, almost custom-designed for his candidacy.

Apocalypse cometh™