The deadline for the ruling class to lift the debt limit is rapidly approaching in early June as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen exhausts all of the department’s “extraordinary measures”. Most of those measures are nothing more than fear-mongering and propaganda.  If a debt ceiling deal isn’t reached, it could mean the Treasury forgoes Social Security payments, payments to Medicare and Medicaid, and ultimately payments to U.S. bondholders, according to a report by Yahoo News. 

• Prepare For The New System: A “Crisis of Epic Proportions” Is Coming

If the ruling class allows itself to default, it will surely use this as an excuse to usher in the fully controlled new slave system of central bank digital currencies.

• The Endgame: Central Bank Digital Currency

“The closer the US gets to the debt ceiling, the more we expect these market-stress indicators to worsen, leading to increased volatility in equity and corporate bond markets and inhibiting firms’ ability to finance themselves and engage in the productive investment that is essential for extending the current [economic] expansion,” The White House CEA said in a May 3rd post.

Additionally, millions of people would lose their jobs and a sharp economic contraction would lead to a massive recession, the CEA warned. “In the third quarter of 2023, the first full quarter of the simulated debt ceiling breach, the stock market plummets 45%, leading to a hit to retirement accounts; meanwhile, consumer and business confidence takes substantial hits, leading to a pullback in consumption and investment,” the CEA said, adding that unemployment would increase by 5 percentage points.

“Without the ability to spend on counter-cyclical measures such as extended unemployment insurance, Federal and state governments would be hamstrung in responding to this turmoil and unable to buffer households from the impacts,” the CEA explained.

“Hamstrung” is what the government should be before they cease to exist at all.

However, according to the CEA, U.S. households mong the slave class would be unable to turn to the private sector for loans because interest rates for credit cards and personal loans would “skyrocket”.

Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.

The speculative answer to that question comes down to which economists you believe. They’re all over the board right now ranging from a default would be no big deal all the way to a default would cause economic carnage that could devolve into a full-blown economic collapse in a matter of months.

Yellen seems to be in the latter camp, saying, “In my assessment – and that of economists across the board – a U.S. default would generate an economic and financial catastrophe.”

Larry Kudlow, who famously doesn’t trust the Treasury Department for their “lack of credibility,” recently said he’s concerned Yellen may actually be correct this time. He even warned of Treasury borrowing from accounts, including retirement accounts, to keep things funded. According to Kudlow [emphasis added]:

“I know all these numbers are boring, but I hope they paint a picture and tell a story that an inflation-prone, stagnant economy bankrupts the country. That’s where the damaging debt comes from. Say it again: inflation-prone, stagnant economy and continued overspending. Now, to get even more boring – I’ve got tell you how exciting this is for me personally – there’s only so much the Treasury can borrow from the civil service retirement, the postal service retirement, the federal financing bank, the exchange stabilization fund, and the thrift savings plan. Actually, borrowing from these retirement plans is itself a pretty terrible idea, but that’s what happens when you have a malfunctioning economy with continued overspending and high inflation.”

The risks to retirement accounts are of particular interest to those who have not engaged in rollover or transfer moves to self-directed IRAs. Both Ira Bershatsky from Our Gold Guy and Jonathan Rose from Genesis Gold Group have been busy over the last few weeks helping Americans do so without the gimmicks or high-pressure sales tactics.

Yellen was joined by her advisors in warning that a default could decimate both the jobs market and the stock market. They ran a simulation in which the financial devastation was unprecedented.

“It finds that it could lead to a downturn as severe as the Great Recession. In its simulation, over 8 million Americans lose their jobs. Business and consumer confidence take a substantial hit. The value of the stock market is slashed by about 45 percent – wiping out years of retirement and other household savings,” she described.

Many economists are predicting that precious metals will skyrocket whether there’s a default or not, though both Bershatsky and Rose are hesitant to make such predictions.

“Precious metals are about being safe havens,” Rose said. “If the prices do go up, that’s great, but that’s not why people are having us transfer or rollover their retirement accounts into physical precious metal IRAs. Their concern is that whether there’s a default or not, the markets and the U.S. Dollar will suffer.”

It behooves Americans to learn what they can about physical precious metals before the Biden-Harris regime either makes a move or doesn’t in the next couple of weeks. Contact Genesis Gold Group or Our Gold Guy today for an honest assessment of your current situation.

(Note: The information provided by this website or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice. We may benefit from purchases you make through links on this page.)

“If Congress fails to do that, it really impairs our credit rating. We have to default on some obligation, whether it’s Treasuries or payments to Social Security recipients,” Yellen said on Friday in an interview with Bloomberg.

“That’s something America hasn’t done since 1789,” she continued, referring to a time when the new-born United States failed to pay back money it borrowed to finance the war against the British Empire. “And we shouldn’t start now. So we’ve not discussed what to do.”

When asked about the speculation that her department would prioritize payments of interest and principal on Treasury securities in a default scenario, Yellen said the White House has never reviewed or approved such a plan.

“My understanding—I was at the Fed in 2011—is that this plan was never presented to the president and never approved,” Yellen told Bloomberg. In 2011, she was serving as vice chair of the Federal Reverse.

When asked if she would now present that plan to prioritize Treasuries to the president, Yellen replied, “We are working full time to work with Congress to raise the debt ceiling. That’s where our focus is.”

Yellen Warns of Credit Downgrade

The remarks comes after she argued that a U.S. government default might trigger a downgrade of its credit rating and weaken consumer confidence, similar to what happened in 2011.

“A default would threaten the gains that we’ve worked so hard to make over the past few years in our pandemic recovery. And it would spark a global downturn that would set us back much further,” Yellen said Thursday in Japan, where she was attending a meeting of finance chiefs and central bankers of G7 countries.

“It would also risk undermining U.S. global economic leadership and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” she added.

Yellen pointed to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis that prompted Standard & Poor’s to lower the United States’ long-held top-notch AAA sovereign credit rating to AA-plus. She warned that another downgrade would drive up interest rates for consumers and companies seeking loans.

“We could see a rise in interest rates drive up payments on mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. We are already seeing spikes in interest rates for debt due around the date that the debt limit may bind,” she said.

“The U.S. Congress has raised or suspended the debt limit about 80 times since 1960. I urge it to act quickly to do so once again.”

Democrats, Republicans Blame Each Other

Yellen’s comments echo those of President Joe Biden, who criticized Republican members of Congress for wanting to tie the debt limit increase to deficit-savings measures.

“They’re literally—not figuratively—holding the economy hostage by threatening to default on our nation’s debt,” Biden said Wednesday of what he called “extreme MAGA Republicans.”

Although the Biden administration insists that Congress pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, almost every major debt ceiling agreement in the past 30 years had at least some kind of deficit-reduction law attached to it, including the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act under the Clinton administration, and the 2010 Pay-As-You-Go Act and the 2011 Budget Control Act under the Obama administration.

Republican congressional leaders remain cautious on defaulting national debt, as the nation’s top Republican, former President Donald Trump suggested that it’s better to let the U.S. government default than passing a budget that doesn’t include spending cuts.

“I say to the Republicans out there—Congressmen, Senators—if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default,” Trump said Wednesday during a town hall event hosted by CNN in New Hampshire.

“I don’t believe they’re going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely cave because you don’t want to have that happen,” he told an undeclared voter in the audience. “But it’s better than what we’re doing right now, because we’re spending money like drunken sailors.”

Speaking the day after the Trump town hall, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said his party is working to avoid a default, while Democrats are pushing the nation closer to one.

“The only thing I see right now is that the Republicans made sure default is not on the table. We’ve raised the debt limit,” he said, reported The Hill.

“The only person talking about default right now is President Biden. His actions, he’s ignored this problem, just like he’s ignored the border, that means more Americans are gonna die from fentanyl. You had 11,000 people just yesterday come across.”

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times. Image via Mark Warner, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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.

Does Janet Yellen even understand what she just did?

During congressional testimony on 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?”

Incredibly, Yellen came right out and admitted that uninsured deposits will only be protected under certain circumstances…

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.”

If your bank fails in the days ahead, bureaucrats in Washington will get together and take a vote to determine if the uninsured depositors at your bank are important enough to protect or not.

Needless to say, that means that wealthy individuals with very large balances at very small banks are at great risk.

Senator Lankford clearly understood that Yellen and her fellow bureaucrats have now created a two-tier banking system…

“I’m concerned you’re … encouraging anyone who has a large deposit at a community bank to say, ‘we’re not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole.’”

If you have not seen the exchange between Lankford and Yellen yet, you can view it here…

Here is the snippet: pic.twitter.com/85iBeXC0Wn

— Seidler (@SeidlerCorp) March 17, 2023

We are in so much trouble.

Prior to Yellen’s testimony, banks were already being forced to rely on the discount window at the fastest pace that we have ever seen…

Data published by the Fed showed $152.85 billion in borrowing from the discount window — the traditional liquidity backstop for banks — in the week ended March 15, a record high, up from $4.58 billion the previous week. The prior all-time high was $111 billion reached during the 2008 financial crisis.

The data also showed $11.9 billion in borrowing from the Fed’s new emergency backstop known as the Bank Term Funding Program, which was launched Sunday.

But now this stampede threatens to evolve into an avalanche.

There are more than 4,000 banks in the United States right now, but if our leaders are determined to only protect the biggest institutions we could ultimately see hundreds of them fail.

Unless something changes, I cannot recommend keeping more than $250,000 in any small or mid-size bank.

Of course the vast majority of us do not have to worry about such things, but those that do have lots of money are paying very close attention to what is happening.

In fact, on Friday investors once again pulled lots and lots of money out of banking stocks…

Stocks fell Friday as investors pulled back from positions in First Republic and other bank shares amid lingering concerns over the state of the U.S. banking sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384.57 points, or 1.19%, to close at 31,861.98 points. The S&P 500 slid 1.1% to end at 3,916.64 points, while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.74% to 11,630.51 points.

First Republic slid around 33% to end the week down nearly 72%.

I had hoped that the banking panic would settle down a little bit after the emergency measures that were instituted.

But now there is a great risk that the panic could escalate significantly.

Many are warning that this crisis could eventually grow to be even worse than the last financial crisis.  For example, Dave Kranzler believes that what we are facing “will be 2008 x five unless the Fed and the other big Central Banks print enough money to monetize the fraud in the banking system”…

I believe what is starting to unfold will be 2008 x five unless the Fed and the other big Central Banks print enough money to monetize the fraud in the banking system. But if the Fed takes that kind of action, the dollar will likely collapse. It may take bigger blow-ups for the Fed to act. In which case, I am confident that Blackrock (BLK), Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS), among several others, are at risk.

You may not have any sympathy for the banks.

But a healthy banking system is absolutely critical for our economy as a whole.

For a moment, just imagine what our system would look like if nobody could get a mortgage, an auto loan or a credit card.

Relatively few people pay with cash or checks these days, and that is especially true for major purchases.

If banks start failing, the flow of credit will start drying up, and we will plunge into a full-blown economic nightmare.

So you better hope that our leaders can find a way to prop up our rapidly failing system.

Because economic conditions are already bad enough.  In fact, earlier today we learned that leading economic indicators have now fallen for 11 months in a row.

We are already in the midst of a substantial economic downturn, but if banks start collapsing left and right we will soon find ourselves in an economic horror show.

So I don’t know why Janet Yellen did what she just did. It is madness.

She just put a target on every single small bank in America, and so now uninsured deposits will likely get pulled out of those banks at a rate that is absolutely breathtaking.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced through a press release that they are lifting the $250,000 FDIC insurance limit. She proudly announced twice in her release that taxpayers wouldn’t be hit with the burden. This means they’re going to print more money.

Did FDIC insurance for depositors just become unlimited ??? pic.twitter.com/sS8Okhtkiw

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) March 12, 2023

According to the press release:

Washington, DC — The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

Bad fiscal policy hurts everyone. Some will be affected in the near future. Many of us will be impacted immediately. But the Democrats’ Big Tech cronies will have their suffering minimized at the expense of everyone else.

Editor’s Note: Now would be a good time to talk to Genesis about physical precious metals.

Following the earthshattering fall of Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday, fear of more carnage prompted actions by other banks. Now, the FDIC has shuttered another bank on the other coast, making massive turbulence in the coming weeks a certainty.

Regulators have shut down New York’s Signature Bank for the same basic reasons they took down Silicon Valley Bank. According to Red State:

The move to shutter the second bank is seen in the financial world as a race to contain the fallout from SVB’s collapse. The Fed is trying to auction the bank’s assets off, accepting bids until Sunday night. There is concern in Washington D.C. that this is the beginning of a bigger financial crisis, one that could rival the Global Financial Crisis from the Bush and early Obama years. The worry from folks like my colleague Streiff is that this is a very big and very slippery slope toward nationalizing the financial markets.

The Fed, in its release, is trying to convince Americans that this is limited to just a depositor bailout and not a greater handout to shareholders and other debtholders, saying “Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected” and that “Senior management has also been removed.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen initiated an emergency series of policies. The most noteworthy is to remove the $250,000 limit on FDIC depositor insurance. This will allow big money depositors at these two banks to not be harmed. To be able to do this without putting the burden on taxpayers means printing more money. This is why in Yellen’s press release she noted that they are working with the Fed to offer a bailout to depositors.

According to the press release:

Washington, DC — The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

It’s noteworthy that she referred to these measures as “reforms” rather than anything temporary. This isn’t a stopgap. It’s the new normal. This tells us beyond any shadow of a doubt that they realize the economy is in the process of tanking and they’re trying to hold it together until they get their Central Bank Digital Currency ready.

That’s part of the endgame. A manufactured and semi-controlled economic collapse will give the powers-that-be the predicate they need to force a Digital Dollar upon sooner rather than later. This is why I strongly urge Americans to start stocking up on essentials now. Tighten your financial belts. Cancel amenities and reduce frivolous spending if appropriate. Things are getting very rocky and if this really is by design as I suspect, it’s not going to get any better soon.

This is also why I am telling friends and family to move their retirement funds to self-directed precious metals IRAs. I am not a financial advisor but it makes a whole lot of sense to me to get wealth as far away from other markets as quickly as possible. Even though we have three gold sponsors, in this unique circumstance I’m recommending one in particular.