Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- Inflation, economic instability and a lack of savings have an increasing number of Americans feeling financially stressed.
- Some 70% of Americans admit to being stressed about their personal finances these days and a majority — 52% — of U.S. adults said their financial stress has increased since before the Covid-19 pandemic began in March 2020, according to a new CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey conducted in partnership with Momentive.
- “People are worried that the money they’ve saved won’t last and are worried they’re going to have to lean more on their credit cards and other sources of debt just to get by,” said Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
- Bank failures weaken confidence
- About a third of people earning six figures said they are living paycheck to paycheck and more than a quarter said they have no emergency fund.
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Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
Important Takeaways:
- Bank of America clients withdraw $2.3B from US securities
- Bank of America clients sold around $2.3 billion in U.S. equities last week, according to a note from bank strategist Jill Carey Hall on Tuesday
- Although the note failed to highlight reasons for the withdrawal, data compiled by Bank of America showed clients sold both single stocks and ETFs for the second consecutive week, while selling was broad-based across client groups including institutional, hedge funds, retail, and size segments.
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Revelations 18:9-11 “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ 11 “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore
Important Takeaways:
- Gallup: 83% of Americans View Economic Conditions as ‘Poor/Only Fair’
- A new survey shows that 83% of American adults view current economic conditions as “only fair” or “poor,” reported Gallup. In addition, 72% think economic conditions are getting “worse.”
- On other issues, only 2% of Americans said “Environment/Pollution/Climate change” was the most important problem facing the country, and only 2% said the “situation with Russia” was a top problem.
- 20% said “the government/poor leadership” is the most important problem facing America today; 11% said “immigration.”
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Walmart laying off hundreds of US workers at five e-commerce fulfillment centers
- About 200 workers at Pedricktown, New Jersey, and hundreds of others at Fort Worth, Texas; Chino, California; Davenport, Florida; and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania were let go due to a reduction or elimination in evening and weekend shifts, the spokesperson said.
- The layoffs at Walmart, a retail bellwether because of its size, could be a harbinger of further turmoil in the U.S. economy, which many economists predict could enter recession this year.
- Fears of an upcoming recession have already led retailers to announce 17,456 job cuts so far in 2023, compared with 761 in the same period last year
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Revelations 18:9-11 “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ 11 “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore
Important Takeaways:
- Top Asian economy urges citizens to abandon Western payment systems
- The leader of Indonesia says the country must reduce its dependence on foreign payment systems, to negate potentially disastrous economic consequences should the country ever find itself in the crosshairs of Western sanctions.
- “Be very careful. We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia. Visa and Mastercard could be a problem,” Widodo said on Wednesday at a gathering that promoted the use of Indonesian-made products and services.
- The president urged the public sector to adopt domestic systems, stressing that eventually “everyone should be able to use” locally-issued bank cards so that “we can be independent.”
- “If we use our own platforms, and everybody is using them, from ministries and local administrations to municipal governments, then we can be more secure,” Widodo said
- However, in order to compete with Visa and Mastercard, any domestic alternative must be accepted internationally, experts cited by the Post said
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Revelations 18:9-11 “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ 11 “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore
Important Takeaways:
- Janet Yellen Just Poured Lighter Fluid On Every Small Bank In America
- When a bailout was hastily arranged for uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the implication was that the same thing would be done for uninsured depositors at any other banks that failed. But now U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is telling us that is not actually what will happen. She just admitted that depositors at a failed bank will only be protected if officials determine that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences”. So that means that depositors at big banks are likely to be protected and that depositors at small banks are much less likely to be protected. In other words, Janet Yellen just poured lighter fluid on every small bank in America.
- Why would anyone keep more than $250,000 in a small bank at this point when there is a very real risk of losing all of the uninsured money if the bank suddenly fails?
- Wealthy people are not stupid. They are going to move billions of dollars from small banks to large banks in the days ahead, and that is going to cause a tsunami of stress on those small banks.
- [Last] Friday, Senator James Lankford asked Yellen the sort of question that many of us have been hoping that someone would ask…
- Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma pressed Yellen about how widely the uninsured deposit backstops will apply across the banking industry.
- “Will the deposits in every community bank in Oklahoma, regardless of their size, be fully insured now?” asked Lankford. “Will they get the same treatment that SVB just got, or Signature Bank just got?”
- Yellen acknowledged they would not.
- Uninsured deposits, she said, would only be covered in the event that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences.”
- Needless to say, that means that wealthy individuals with very large balances at very small banks are at great risk.
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Revelations 18:9-11 “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ 11 “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore
Important Takeaways:
- The Big Banks Have Bailed Out First Republic, But Who Is Going To Bail Out The Big Banks When They Start Failing?
- Citi group posted on their website : Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BNY-Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist and U.S. Bank to make uninsured deposits totaling $30 billion into First Republic Bank
- So why was First Republic in so much trouble?
- Well, just like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, they were sitting on enormous unrealized losses because the government bonds that they were holding had lost a ton of value thanks to rapidly rising interest rates.
- Ultimately, those unrealized losses made a potential purchase of First Republic quite “unappealing” to the “too big to fail” banks…
- But the “too big to fail” banks are collectively sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses themselves.
- And they also have trillions of dollars’ worth of exposure to the derivatives bubble.
- So who is going to bail them out when they start failing?
- That is a question that we all need to start asking.
- In order for our current economic system to function effectively, we need stable banks, and we need people to have faith in those banks.
- For the moment, most ordinary Americans say that they still have faith in the institutions where they are currently doing their banking…
- USA today say’s 7 in 10 still have faith in our banks
- But the same can’t be said for those at the top of the economic food chain.
- In fact, many of them are now transferring vast sums out of their banks while they still can…
- This crisis is just getting started.
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Ezekiel 7:19 “They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall become abhorrent; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, or fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become a stumbling block.”
Important Takeaways:
- Retail price of gold in Japan hits all-time high of $67 per gram
- The retail price of gold in Japan has hit an all-time high of 9,000 yen ($66.94), according to data released by one of the country’s largest producers and sellers of precious metals, Tanaka Kikinzoku, on Monday.
- The record price was fixed amid investors’ growing interest in stable assets following the bankruptcy of one of America’s largest banks, Silicon Valley Bank.
- On March 10, the California Department of Financial Protection announced the bankruptcy of SVB, the 16th-biggest lender in the United States. It served mainly employees in the technological sector and companies financed with venture capital. It became the largest bankruptcy of a US bank since the 2008 financial crisis as estimated by the CNN TV channel.
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Subprime Auto Lender American Car Center Closes for Business
- Bloomberg reports, used car retailer and subprime auto loan lender, American Car Center, told employees the business was closing its doors, just one day after the company had hoped to pull off a funding Hail Mary by selling a $222 million bond (it failed).
- According to Bloomberg, the used car retailer, which targets consumers regardless of their credit history (and thus targets almost entirely subprime borrowers who can’t get a loan elsewhere), said in an email to employees on Friday the firm was ceasing all operations, closing its headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, and that all employees would be terminated by the end of the business day, the people said. It employed about 288 people at its headquarters.
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Household debt hit record $16.9 trillion last quarter, as consumers loaded up their credit cards
- Total US household debt hit a record $16.9 trillion during the fourth quarter, an increase of $394 billion, or 2.4%, from the prior three-month period, according to the Fed’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. While the lion’s share of the debt is attributable to mortgages, the report showed that not only are credit card balances swelling at record levels, delinquencies are on the rise as well.
- Credit card balances increased nearly 6.6% to $986 billion during the quarter, the highest quarterly growth on record, according to New York Fed data
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