When It Comes To The U.S. Economy, Everyone Wants To Pin The Credit Or The Blame On Donald Trump - Michael Snyder

When It Comes To The U.S. Economy, Everyone Wants To Pin The Credit Or The Blame On Donald Trump

Posted: 20 Aug 2019 Michael Snyder

No matter what happens with the U.S. economy, most of the credit or the blame is going to go to President Trump.  And now that the U.S. economy appears to be headed for big trouble, the mainstream media is salivating over what this could mean for Trump’s chances of winning in 2020. 

Within the past few days, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have all run stories about Trump and the economy, and they are all perpetuating the false premise that presidents should be held accountable for how the economy performs.  As I have repeatedly reminded my readers, the truth is that U.S. presidents generally have relatively little control over the direction of the economy. 

In our system, it is the central planners at the Federal Reserve that primarily direct our economy, and so most of the credit or the blame for our economic performance should go to them.  And the truth is that even President Trump realizes this.  He understands that the Federal Reserve has control over key economic tools that he does not, and that is one of the reasons why he is so frustrated right now.  The Fed is not running things the way that he would run them, and he realizes that this could severely hurt his chances of winning the next election.

During his first term, President Trump has not actually been able to do much to alter the overall trajectory of the economy.  Some pundits point to the tax cuts that he was able to pass, and certainly reducing corporate tax rates helped things a little bit in the short-term, but the overall impact of the tax bill was relatively negligible.  Ultimately, the moves that the Federal Reserve has been making have been far more important, and at this point Trump seems to be convinced that Fed Chair Jerome Powell and others are intentionally trying to undermine him…

He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession.
“The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election,” Mr. Trump tweeted last week. “The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!”

Trade policy is one area where presidents do have more power than anyone else, and this is definitely where President Trump has had the biggest impact on the economy.  After claiming for months that a trade war would be “easy” to win, President Trump is now acknowledging that our trade war with China could potentially result in a recession…

“I am doing this whether it’s good or bad for your statement about, ‘Oh, will we fall into a recession for two months?’ The fact is, somebody had to take China on,” Trump said.
“Whether it’s good for our country or bad for our country, short term, it had to be done,” he said, repeating that “whether it’s good or bad, short term, is irrelevant.”

And to be honest, this is the argument that Trump should have been making all along.  A trade conflict with China is most definitely going to be very painful, but it is also very true that something had to be done about China.  They have been taking advantage of us and ripping us off for years, and when previous administrations decided to do nothing about China they were being exceedingly negligent.

However, there is a huge difference between recalibrating our relationship with China and antagonizing them so much that our relationship with the Chinese is completely destroyed.  At this point it appears that we are doing the latter, and that is going to have enormous implications in 2020 and beyond.

And if our trade war with China does push us into a recession, there are many on the left that would greatly rejoice.  The following comes from a Fox News editorial by Steve Hilton…

It’s pretty obvious that these establishment Trump-hating hysterics — all of them, of course, living comfortable coastal lives — actually want a recession because they think that’s the best way to get rid of Trump. At least one of them is honest about it.
“I’ve been saying for about two years  — that I hope we have a recession, and people get mad at me,” said Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Unfortunately for Trump, most Americans will squarely blame him if a recession happens even if it wasn’t his fault.  When the U.S. economy was doing relatively well, Trump repeatedly took full credit for it, and that was a huge mistake.  Because if the economy is really struggling in 2020, he probably won’t be able to successfully shift the blame to someone else.  The mainstream media will hammer him over and over again with editorials about “the failure of Trumponomics”, and even though most of those editorials won’t make any sense, they will still have a huge impact on millions of Americans voters.

It is often said that “pride goeth before destruction”, and President Trump has repeatedly told us that this is the greatest economy ever and that he is responsible for it.  But of course this isn’t even close to the greatest economy ever.  The following comes from another Fox News editorial…

The fact is Trump’s best economic growth is 3.5 percent in two quarters out of the 10 quarters he’s been in office, CNBC’s John Harwood reports, adding that same growth figure, 3.5 percent, is Obama’s seventh best quarter, George W. Bush’s eighth best, and Bill Clinton’s 17th best. Yet, Trump claims his economy is the best ever. Far from it.

When things were going relatively well, President Trump should have said that it was a team effort and he should have acknowledged that we still had an enormous amount of work to do.

And all along he should have been educating the American people about the fact that the Federal Reserve has far more power over the performance of the economy than he does.
But now it appears that we are facing a nightmare economic scenario, and everybody is going to blame him for the failure of the economy.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve will once again escape accountability for running our economy into the ground, and that is extremely unfortunate.


About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. 

From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The post When It Comes To The U.S. Economy, Everyone Wants To Pin The Credit Or The Blame On Donald Trumpappeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Is There A Hidden Political Agenda? The Mainstream Media Is Suddenly Full Of Stories About The Coming Recession - Michael Snyder

Is There A Hidden Political Agenda? The Mainstream Media Is Suddenly Full Of Stories About The Coming Recession

August 15, 2019 by Michael Snyder

All of a sudden, it seems like the mainstream media just can’t stop talking about “the coming recession”.  If you go to Google News and type in the word “recession”, you will literally get dozens of articles from the last couple of days with “recession” in the headline.  And of course it is true that there are signs of global economic trouble all around us, and I have been documenting them on my website all throughout 2019.  

So we don’t want to criticize the mainstream media when they actually decide to tell the truth, because a recession is definitely coming, but could it be possible that there is also a hidden political agenda at work?  The economy is generally regarded to be one of the bright spots for President Trump, and political operatives on the left clearly understand that a major economic downturn now would spell almost certain doom for Trump’s chances of winning the 2020 election.  

And when mainstream reporters talk about the possibility of a recession as we approach the next election, many of them almost seem gleeful as they describe how it could hurt Trump politically.  Ultimately, when things start to really get bad it is inevitable that the mainstream media will place the blame directly at the feet of Trump.  It is easy to imagine a narrative along the lines of “Trump’s handling of the economy has plunged the nation into a recession” being relentlessly pounded into the heads of American voters over the next year.  And if the end result is Trump being voted out of office, more than 90 percent of those that work for the big news companies will be just fine with that.

This week, we have seen an absolute explosion in the number of stories about the possibility of an imminent recession.  The following are just a few of the stories I came across while doing research earlier today…

–A global recession may be coming a lot sooner than anyone thought

–Recession watch: 6 financial moves to make when the economy slows down

–Trump 2020 can’t afford a recession

–The recession question we should be asking isn’t ‘when’ but ‘how bad?’

–Recession fears explained in one simple sentence

–Recession ahead? Dow, stocks tank on fears that bond market signals a downturn

–Recession indicator with perfect track record flashing red

–Recession signs are flashing, but Americans are still shopping at Walmart

–Worried about a recession? Don’t panic, but be prepared

Of course many of these stories were sparked by a major event that we just witnessed on Wall Street.  The following comes from Fox Business…

The yield curve is blaring a recession warning.

The spread between the U.S. 2-year and 10-year yields on Wednesday turned negative for the first time since 2007. Such a development has occurred ahead of each and every U.S. recession of the last 50 years, sometimes leading by as much as 24 months.

Yes, it is possible that the yield curve could be wrong this time, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

And the economic news that is coming in from all over the world just continues to confirm that conditions are deteriorating.  On Thursday, we learned that U.S. manufacturing has slumped back into contraction territory, and earlier this week we got some really troubling news from Germany and China…

Germany – Europe’s largest economy – reported that its gross domestic product, a measure of an economy’s health, went negative in the second quarter.

In China, the country’s industrial output in July hit a 17-year low, Detrick said. Retail sales and investment in real estate and other fixed assets weakened, an indication the world’s second-biggest economy is feeling pressure.

So it isn’t as if the mainstream media is being dishonest with us in this case.  Global economic activity is most definitely slowing down, and many believe that things will get much worse during the second half of this year.

And a global economic slowdown would be terrible news for the Trump campaign because their entire narrative depends on President Trump making the economy great again.  A substantial percentage of American voters are convinced that since he is a billionaire, Trump must really understand the economy very well.  And according to a CNN poll from earlier this year, the performance of the economy is one of the main reasons for his current level of support…

Right now, the main reason voters approve of Trump’s job performance is the economy. A CNN poll from late May found that 26% of those who approve of Trump’s job performance said it was mainly because of the economy. That was more than double the next most commonly given answer. Additionally, 8% said jobs/unemployment was the main reason for why they approved of Trump. Among those who disapproved, few said anything related to the economy was the main reason why they disapproved of Trump. For example, only 1% said the Trump tax cuts.

But if the U.S. economy plunges into a painful recession, the game completely changes.

For those on the left that would like to see Trump voted out in 2020, the timing of the next recession will be key.  If the next recession doesn’t begin until the second half of 2020, there may not be enough economic pain before November to swing the election in the favor of the Democratic candidate.  So what the left really needs is for a recession to begin during the second half of 2019 or the first half of 2020 so that Americans are really suffering by the time election day rolls around.

I know that is a very sick way to think, but these are the sorts of conversations that these people actually have.  For example, on his own television show Bill Maher publicly stated that a recession would be “worth it” if Trump is voted out in 2020.  As we approach the next election, many on the left will be so desperate to see Trump gone that they will be willing to pay just about any price to see that happen.

And to be honest, the U.S. economy is definitely way overdue for a major downturn, and so it is only prudent to get prepared for rough times ahead.  At this point, even USA Today is providing us with “recession survival tips”…

Do you really need that bundle package from your cable provider, or to pay a gardener to mow your lawn every week? Now might be a good time to figure out what’s an essential expense, and what you can let go.

“Review the family budget to see what could be reduced or cut if there was a sudden drop in monthly income,” says Richard Fleming, a certified financial planner based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “Be prepared to make those reductions (or) cuts as soon as it becomes necessary.”

That is actually really good advice.

Now is a time to cut costs, get out of debt and build up your emergency fund.

The coming year promises to be quite chaotic, and those that hate President Trump are likely to pull out all the stops in an all-out attempt to get him voted out in 2020.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

We Just Witnessed The 4th Largest Single Day Point Decline In U.S. Stock Market History - Michael Snyder

We Just Witnessed The 4th Largest Single Day Point Decline In U.S. Stock Market History

August 14, 2019 by Michael Snyder

You had better buckle up, because it looks like we are in for a bumpy ride.  On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down a whopping 800 points.  Not only was that the worst day of 2019, but as you will see below, there have only been three days in U.S. history that have been worse.  An inversion of the yield curve sent investors into panic mode, and the selling was fast and furious.  And of course back on August 5th we witnessed a 767 point decline.  So this is now the second historic decline that we have seen so far this month, and the month is only about half over.  Could it be possible that we are on the verge of a major stock market meltdown?

An 800 point drop is definitely rare.  According to CNN, the following were the 10 largest single day point declines for the Dow Jones Industrial Average prior to Wednesday…

02/05/2018 … -1,175.21

02/08/2018 … -1,032.89

10/10/2018 … -831.83

12/04/2018 … -799.36

09/29/2008 … -777.68

08/05/2019 … -767.27

10/15/2008 … -733.08

03/22/2018 … -724.42

09/17/2001 … -684.81

12/01/2008 … -679.95

So that means that Wednesday’s plunge was officially the 4th largest single day plunge that we have ever seen.

The “too big to fail” banks were on the cutting edge of the decline, and some of the biggest names in banking got absolutely monkeyhammered…

Bank stocks led the declines as it gets tougher for the group to make a profit lending money in such an environment. Bank of America and Citigroup fell 4.7% and 5.2%, respectively, while J.P. Morgan also dropped 4.15%. The S&P 500 Financials Sector dipped into correction territory on an intraday basis.

If you will remember, bank stocks also led the way down in 2008.

Is history about to repeat itself?

The primary thing that set off this fresh wave of panic on Wall Street was a yield curve inversion…

The U.S. government bond market sounded alarms Wednesday as investors fleeing riskier assets drove the 30-year bond’s yield to a record low and the 10-year yield fell below the rate on the two-year for the first time since 2007.

The 10-year Treasury yield dipped as much as 1.9 basis points below the two-year yield in what’s considered a harbinger of a U.S. economic recession beginning in the next 18 months.

When longer-duration bonds are yielding less than shorter-duration bonds, that is a sign that investors are anticipating that economic conditions will be deteriorating.  And as history has shown us, recessions are almost always preceded by yield curve inversions, and so many are taking this as an extremely troubling sign.

So now all eyes are on the Federal Reserve and other global central banks, and many analysts are strongly urging them to do something…

“The bond market is saying central banks are behind the curve,” said Marc Ostwald, global strategist at ADM Investor Services in London. “It’s all doom and gloom on the global economy.”

Personally, I don’t really like to use the term “gloom and doom”, but it is definitely an appropriate phrase for what we are witnessing at the moment.  On Wednesday, we got some more really bad economic news from Germany and from China…

Economic output in Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, contracted in the second quarter, according to a report Wednesday, while a report on factory output in China, the second-largest economy, came in lower than expected.

“It’s almost like we’re starting to see a textbook version of a pre-recessionary period,” Nicholas Akins, chief executive of Ohio-based American Electric Power Co. , said in an interview Wednesday. The company provides electricity to industrial, commercial and residential customers in 11 states.

Of course the more everyone on Wall Street talks about a “recession”, the more everyone is going to start acting like one is coming, and that is actually going to make one more likely.

And it isn’t just Wall Street that is buzzing about the potential for an economic slowdown.  According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the odds of a recession happening during the next 12 months are now the highest they have been since the last financial crisis…

The curve isn’t the only thing flashing high alert. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s index showing the probability of a U.S. recession over the next 12 months is close to its highest level since the global financial crisis, at around 31%.

Over and over again, we are seeing things happen that have not happened since the last recession.  At first the mainstream media was slow to catch on, but now just about everybody is acknowledging the warning signs that are all around us.

Unfortunately, the financial bubble that we are facing today is far, far larger than the one that burst in 2008.  And so when this one also bursts, the pain will be much greater than we experienced the last time around.

Many are fearing the worst.  For example, just check out what Martin Armstrong is saying…

I am overseas as a crisis is brewing which many might rename the “Lehman Moment” to something more up to date. Clearly, the stakes are far higher to the world economy than anyone may truly appreciate. We are cascading toward a perfect financial storm.

Hmm – there is yet another prominent name that is using the words “perfect” and “storm” together.

Very interesting.

We’ll see where things go from here.  Since the Dow is already so ridiculously high, an 800 point drop is definitely not the end of the world.  But without a doubt, the market’s downward momentum is beginning to pick up speed, and it isn’t going to take much to turn this into a full-blown crash.

As I have stated numerous times, our financial markets are more primed for a crash right now than they were in 2008.  And when this “everything bubble” finally completely bursts, the financial carnage is going to be off the charts.  I very much encourage you to get your financial house in order, because it looks like the chaos could start escalating quite rapidly.

Every major stock market bubble in U.S. history has ended badly, and this one will too.  We have been waiting for this twisted game to start unraveling for quite some time now, and it may be starting to happen.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Middle Class Death Spiral: Consumers Have Never Been In More Debt, And Bankruptcies Are Surging - Michael Snyder

Middle-Class Death Spiral: Consumers Have Never Been In More Debt, And Bankruptcies Are Surging Posted: 12 Aug 2019 Michael Snyder This wasn’t supposed to happen.  During the relative economic stability of the past few years, the middle class was supposed to experience a resurgence, but instead, it has just continued to be hollowed out.  The cost of living has risen much faster than wages have, and as a result, hard-working families all over America are being stretched financially like never before.  Even though most of us are working, 59 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, and almost 50 million Americans are living in poverty.  In a desperate attempt to continue their middle-class lifestyles, many Americans have been piling up mountains of debt, and it has gotten to the point where we have a major crisis on our hands. According to the New York Post, the total amount of debt that U.S. households have accumulated is about to cross the 14 trillion dollar mark for the first time ever… Meanwhile, record American household debt, near $14 trillion including mortgages and student loans, is some $1 trillion higher than during the Great Recession of 2008. Credit card debt of $1 trillion also exceeds the 2008 peak. Americans are spending heavily, again — and often recklessly, say analysts. This is the exact opposite of what U.S. consumers should be doing.  We can see signs of a fresh economic slowdown all around us, and consumers should be feverishly trying to get out of debt as fast as they can. But instead, debt levels just keep setting record after record.  In fact, total student loan debt just hit a brand new record high of 1.605 trillion dollars, and auto loan debt just hit a brand new record high of 1.174 trillion dollars. It would be one thing if we could handle all of this debt, but that isn’t the case.  Bankruptcies have been steadily rising, and according to the latest figures the number of bankruptcy filings shot up another 5 percent in the month of July… Bankruptcy petitions for consumers and businesses are on the rise. There was a 5% increase in total bankruptcy filings in July 2019 from the previous month, the American Bankruptcy Institute said this week. There were 64,283 bankruptcy filings, up from 62,241 for the same period last year. Unfortunately, this is probably just the beginning. Right now, most of the country is living on the edge financially, and so a major economic slowdown would inevitably cause another enormous tsunami of consumer bankruptcies like we saw in 2008. Even now, things are already so bad that many hard working “middle class” workers in high-cost cities such as New York are so financially stretched that they have to rely on free food from local food banks… “In high-cost cities like New York, personal incomes are not often enough to pay the household bills,” Zac Hall, vice president of anti-poverty programs at the Food Bank For New York City, told The Post. “We are seeing people using consumer debt as a way to make ends meet when they come here,” he added, citing the pressures his nonprofit faces to keep up the distribution of food and meals at no cost to some 1.5 million New Yorkers. If 1.5 million people in New York are being fed by foodbanks now while things are still relatively stable, how bad will things be when the economy really starts to tank? For decades, the “almighty U.S. consumer” was one of the fundamental pillars of our economy, but now that is no longer true. U.S. consumers simply do not have a lot of discretionary income to spend these days, and this is killing major retailers all over the nation.  We are on pace to absolutely shatter the all-time record for store closings in a single year, and within the past 7 days more big retailers have announced that they will be permanently shutting down stores. For example, Walgreens just announced that they will be closing “approximately 200 U.S. stores”… Walgreens plans to close approximately 200 U.S. stores, the company announced Tuesday in an SEC filing. According to the document posted Tuesday on the Securities and Exchange Commission website, the move to close stores follows “a review of the real estate footprint in the United States.” That wouldn’t be happening if the U.S. economy really was “booming”. Here is another example that comes to us from Wolf Street… A’Gaci, a young women’s fashion retailer based in Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, for the second time, after having filed for the first time in January 2018. This time, it will liquidate. All its remaining 54 stores in seven states and Puerto Rico will be closed – the “bulk” of them by the end of this month. In addition, we just learned that Party City is going to be closing more stores than expected in 2019… Party City is increasing the number of stores expected to shutter this year. The New Jersey-based party supplies company said it was looking to close 55 stores throughout the year, up 10 from the May estimate of 45 stores. I honestly don’t know what malls and shopping centers all over the U.S. are going to do.  I once warned of a future in which America’s landscape would be littered with abandoned stores, and that future has now arrived. For the moment, those at the very top of the economic pyramid are still doing okay, but the middle class is eroding a little bit more with each passing day.  For much more on this, I would encourage you to check out this Youtube video by Jeremiah Babe. I have been writing about the evisceration of the U.S. middle class for a decade, and the condition of the middle class right now is as bad as I have ever seen it. And as we plunge into this new economic downturn, things are only going to get worse.  The middle class is absolutely drowning in debt, and even a mild recession would be enough to financially wipe out millions of American families. About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time. The post Middle-Class Death Spiral: Consumers Have Never Been In More Debt, And Bankruptcies Are Surging appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer - Michael Snyder

America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer Posted: 04 Aug 2019 08:54 PM PDT Whenever a tragic act of violence makes national headlines, the calls to give up more of our freedoms and liberties in exchange for the promise of increased security become deafening.  But if we take another step toward becoming an authoritarian society every time something horrible happens, eventually we won’t have any of the basic liberties and freedoms that previous generations of Americans fought so hard to secure for us.  Unfortunately, voices like mine are becoming increasingly rare, and the American people seem to want a society that will shelter them from anything that could possibly go wrong.  Of course, there has never been such a society in all of human history, and we won’t be able to create one either.  No governmental system can eliminate the problem of evil, and bad things sometimes happen to good people.  And without a doubt, the mass shootings that we witnessed over the weekend were absolutely horrific.  In less than 24 hours, 29 American lives were lost between these two mass shootings, and this has greatly shaken the entire nation… On Sunday, Americans woke up to news of a shooting rampage in an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, where a man wearing body armor shot and killed nine people, including his own sister. Hours earlier, a 21-year-old with a rifle entered a Walmart in El Paso and killed 20 people. In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken. Sadly, these are not isolated incidents.  As our society has become less moral, we have seen an escalation of violence all over the country. According to USA Today, so far in 2019 there have been more mass shootings than days in the year… As gunfire ripped through America in an unprecedented 24 hours, a bleak milestone in a nation pocked by gun violence was marked: There have been 251 mass shootings in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive. A shooting spree early Sunday at an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio – which left at least nine dead and more than two dozen injured – notched an even darker statistic: It occurred on the 216th day of the year, meaning there have been more mass shootings than days so far this year. As I have been warning for years, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is steadily disappearing. At one time, you could walk down the streets in most communities in America without worrying that someone would suddenly gun you down, but that is no longer a safe assumption. And in some areas, things are getting really, really bad.  Just check out what happened in Chicago over the weekend… In Chicago at least three people have been killed and 37 more injured since Friday evening in shootings within city limits, including 22 people shot Sunday in less than four hours, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. In particular, a mass shooting that took place near a children’s playground was particularly tragic… As The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reports, at least seven people were shot and wounded on Aug. 4 as they gathered near a children’s playground on Chicago’s West Side. The people gathered at 1:20 a.m. as they stood in the park on the 2900 West Roosevelt Road when a person opened fire from a black Chevy Camaro, said Chicago Police. So why didn’t this mass shooting get the same kind of coverage that the other mass shootings received? Could it be that it is because it didn’t neatly fit the agenda that the mainstream media is trying to promote? The city of Baltimore is another major American city where violence is completely and utterly out of control.  In fact, there is only one nation on the entire planet that has a higher homicide rate than Baltimore… Only one country in the world has a higher per capita homicide rate than the city of Baltimore. According to WorldAtlas, the murder capital of the globe is Honduras — where there are 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people. Baltimore, with 56 homicides per 100,000 people, edges out the number two spot ahead of Venezuela, where there are 53.7 homicides per 100,000 people. As the violence across our country continues to escalate, the calls to restrict our 2nd Amendment rights are going to become overwhelming. But taking away our 2nd Amendment rights is not going to solve the problem.  Instead, it will just take the guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. The truth is that the El Paso shooter picked a gun-free zone for a reason.  When they know that their targets will be sitting ducks, that just makes things even easier for the mass shooters. And the bad guys will always find ways to get guns.  Just look at the city of Chicago – they have some of the harshest gun laws in the entire nation, but they also lead the country in gun deaths. Unfortunately, logic doesn’t tend to work with those that love authoritarianism.  Whenever something happens, they want the government to do “something”, and that “something” almost always involves eroding our most basic rights. I wish that it wasn’t true, but this is where our country is heading.  Americans have been trained to believe that the government should take care of them from the cradle to the grave and should do all that it can to shield them from everything bad that can possibly happen in life. Sadly, every time such a totalitarian “utopia” has been attempted throughout human history, it has always ended very badly, and that will be the case here as well. About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time. The post America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer appeared first on The Economic Collapse.