The Final Depressing Chapters for the Late, Great U.S. Economy

(The Economic Collapse Blog)—It is incredibly sad to watch the U.S. economy slowly but surely come apart at the seams all around us.  For most of our history, the rest of the world marveled at our economic performance, and that is because we embraced economic values that led to great blessing.  In recent decades, we have abandoned those values, but we were able to maintain a very high standard of living by going into unprecedented amounts of debt.  Our leaders were able to keep the game going for longer than a lot of people thought, but now we have entered the final depressing chapters for the late, great U.S. economy, and we can see evidence of this all around us.  If you doubt this, just look at all of the businesses that are going bankrupt.

Last week, I discussed the fact that for the year ending June 30th, the number of business bankruptcy filings was up more than 40 percent compared to the previous 12 months.  There is no way that the Biden administration can manipulate this number.  Either a business filed for bankruptcy or it didn’t, and right now we are seeing a spike of historic significance.

On Sunday, CNBC published an article that listed ten prominent restaurant chains that have filed for bankruptcy this year…

• Roti
• Buca di Beppo
• World of Beer
• Rubio’s
• Melt Bar & Grilled
• Kuma’s Corner
• Red Lobster
• Tijuana Flats
• Sticky’s Finger Joint
• Boxer Ramen

We really are in the midst of a “restaurant apocalypse”, and more of our favorite eateries are getting into trouble with each passing day.

For example, a large number of KFC locations just suddenly shut down in the Midwest…

Dozens of KFC locations owned by one franchisee have abruptly closed across the Midwest.

Up to 25 restaurants owned by major fast food franchisee EYM Chicken have shut in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, according to reports.

The closure of several locations in Wisconsin will lead to nearly 100 employees being laid off, according to local media WKOW 27 News.

At one time, KFC was such a wonderful American success story. But now KFC restaurants are becoming an endangered species.

There used to be one about an hour from where I live, but that one has been shut down too.

If you still have a KFC in your community, you should visit it while you still can.

Meanwhile, we just learned that a chain of gas stations and convenience stores in the Midwest has also abruptly shut down…

The gas station and convenience store sector has faced distress in recent years marked by bankruptcy filings and store closings.

The Store convenience stores and gas stations, owned by Team Schierl Cos., in July 2024 was forced to shut down all operations of its 25 locations in Michigan and Wisconsin after its landlord Mountain Express Oil Co. filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in August 2023, Convenience Store News reported.

Whatever is happening to the economy right now, it seems to be hitting the Midwest particularly hard.

At the rate that things are going, I think that it won’t be too long before even more communities in the Midwest resemble the nightmare that Gary, Indiana has become…

Gary, Indiana – best known as the birthplace of Michael Jackson – is home to the highest abandoned home rate in the nation at 31.41 percent, according to analysis from 247WallSt.

The data found that the population has staggeringly dropped by 18.2 percent from 2010 to 2020, with a population around 67,000.

We also continue to see more signs of trouble in the banking industry.

According to the Daily Mail, the U.S. lost 41 more bank branches in just one recent two week period…

Major banks have closed 41 branches in just two weeks as the shift toward online banking continues. Major banks such as Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo were among those shuttering locations.

When the economy is booming, banks tend to open up lots of new branches.

What we are witnessing now is the opposite of that.

Of course lots of retail stores are being permanently shut down as well.

Thousands of store closings have already been announced in 2024, and now Big Lots has raised the number of stores that it is likely to close “to a maximum of 315”…

In the first quarter, the discount retailer said its net sales for the three-month period declined 10.2% year-over-year to $1 billion. For all of 2023, net sales were $4.72 billion, a 13.6% decrease compared with the prior year.

More recently, in an Aug. 2 filing, the company told investors that it had upped the number of permitted store closings to a maximum of 315 as part of late July amendments to a credit agreement and term loan facility. That marked a 165-store increase from the 150 previously permitted.

There were nearly 1,400 Big Lots stores in the U.S. as of the first quarter. The discount retailer’s locations sell home goods, furniture, seasonal decorations and other products.

Sadly, this really is the beginning of the end for Big Lots, because it won’t be able to survive much longer.

Rite Aid is another major chain that is in serious peril.

They have already closed hundreds of stores, but that hasn’t helped much…

Another retail casualty this year has been the sudden bankruptcy of Rite Aid, leaving hundreds of stores empty in states such as Michigan and Ohio after closing up to 500 stores nationally. In its filing, the company said it expected its losses would increase significantly in the past quarter, following a loss of $750 million between March 2022 and March 2023 and another $307 million in the second quarter this year. The last quarterly report filed by Rite Aid was in June, when they had only $135.5 million of cash to work with, combined with $3.3 billion in long-term debt.

Needless to say, Rite Aid is far from alone.

All over the nation, once thriving businesses are being boarded up.

U.S. consumers simply do not have the same level of discretionary income that they once did.

The cost of living crisis has hit most Americans really hard, and at this point the vast majority of the population can no longer afford to purchase an average home.

These days most Americans are desperately trying to find a way to scrape by from month to month, and so there just isn’t a lot of room for discretionary spending.

Economic conditions are not good right now, but what is this country going to look like once they take a dramatic turn for the worse?

You might want to think about that, because what we are experiencing at this moment is going to look like rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is eventually coming.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.