Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

It can be difficult to believe that the wild scenes that we are witnessing on the streets of America are actually real.  Earlier this week, I wrote an article entitled “What Life Is Really Like In America’s Hellish Inner Cities”.  I wrote that article before the widespread looting that just erupted in Philadelphia.  Just when I think that conditions in our core urban areas have reached a low point, they seem to find a way to get even worse.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of this crisis.  As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, countless numbers of people will become very desperate.  And when countless numbers of people become very desperate, our society will descend into a permanent state of chaos.

On Tuesday night, dozens of young people went on a rampage in the city of Philadelphia.

It is being reported that “stores in several areas of Philadelphia” were hit…

Dozens of people faced criminal charges Wednesday after a night of social media-fueled mayhem in which groups of thieves, apparently working together, smashed their way into stores in several areas of Philadelphia, stuffing plastic bags with merchandise and fleeing, authorities said.

A total of 52 arrests have been made so far, police said Wednesday.

Burglary, theft and other counts have been filed so far against at least 30 people, all but three of them adults, according to Jane Roh, spokesperson for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.

The largest group consisted of approximately 100 young people, and there was violence when the police finally confronted that group outside of a Lululemon store…

Police in the city said that a large group of around 100 juveniles kept moving from store to store and looting them.

Videos shared on social media show officers attempting to grab thieves, some of whom are wearing Halloween masks, as they run riot through a Lululemon store.

One officer manages to hit one of the looters with a punch after tackling them to the ground.

Many on social media seem to be quite entertained by videos of the looting, but the truth is that this footage should break all of our hearts.

"Everybody must eat!" a woman exclaims as looters breach a business right behind her.#Philadelphia #Philly #Pennsylvania #Looting #Riot #CenterCity pic.twitter.com/8yYJMHmMax

— Raw Reporting (@Raw_Reporting) September 27, 2023

Everything in Center City Philadelphia is free with promo code: “the Big Guy 2024.”
pic.twitter.com/Ogd8gIFTGg

— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) September 27, 2023

"Everybody keep yo phone out!"

Seeking another George Floyd moment, #BLM protesters tell one another to start recording after Philadelphia Police arrived to make arrests at the downtown mass looting. Video uploaded by @OSiiNT:pic.twitter.com/oEyKU3Mhwk

— Andy Ngô ????️‍???? (@MrAndyNgo) September 27, 2023

Our society is literally coming apart at the seams all around us.

I had warned my readers that total retail theft would exceed 100 billion dollars this year, but now it is being reported that total retail theft already broke that threshold in 2022…

Last year, total losses tied to theft amounted to $112.1 billion, according to data from the 2023 National Retail Security Survey. That is up from $93.9 billion in losses in 2021 and $90.8 billion in 2020.

Retailers within metros including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland as well as Houston, New York and Seattle were hit the hardest last year.

So if last year’s number was 112 billion, what will the final number be for 2023?

130 billion?

140 billion?

150 billion?

Major retail chains all over America are shutting down stores due to rampant theft.

As I discussed yesterday, Target has decided to permanently shutter nine stores in high crime areas…

Target Corp. will shutter nine stores across four states on Oct. 21 because of theft and threats to safety, the company announced Tuesday, the latest — and loudest —example of a retailer exiting urban locations because of crime.

Target said it made the “difficult decision” to close the stores — which include locations in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Seattle, Portland and the San Francisco Bay area — after the Minneapolis-based company determined that theft-preventive measures had proved ineffective. The company said it had tried adding more security, including third-party guards, and using deterrents such as locking up merchandise.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said.

But nine stores is just a drop in the bucket compared to what other retailers are doing.

For example, it is being reported that Rite Aid will close approximately 500 stores…

One of the largest U.S. drugstores chains Rite Aid is set to close around 500 stores nationwide as it negotiates a plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the firm, which is the third largest in the country, is looking to close branches and either sell or let creditors take over their remaining operations.

And CVS is in the process of closing a total of 900 stores by 2024…

Drugstore chain CVS is set to close hundreds of stores across the US as it undergoes a major reform to adjust to the needs of modern online shoppers.

The retail giant is coming to the end of a policy launched in 2021 which will see 300 stores closed each year – meaning 900 will have shuttered by 2024.

In the announcement, which has hit headlines again recently amid rampant shoplifting at the store, bosses they said that they were undergoing a new ‘retail footprint strategy.’

Drugstores used to be all over the place in our core urban areas.

But now our inner cities are littered with scores of boarded up establishments with “space available” signs on them.

This is what the future of America looks like, and it isn’t good.

Once upon a time, we could be proud of the shiny new cities that we had built from coast to coast.

Those cities were safe and they were clean.

But now our major cities have degenerated into crime-ridden hellholes that are absolutely filthy.  In New York City, the millions of rats that live there are constantly making headlines…

This is the moment a group of horrified New Yorkers is forced to hop over scores of vermin scurrying across their path from bins outside a pizzeria.

Footage shows a few rats brazenly scurry across the pavement before scores of them emerge from an overflowing bin.

Taryn Brady, 29, who was with a group of friends when she filmed the rat encounter, said she was left in ‘fear and disgust’ after she and her friends had to hop over the rodents running towards them.

This is our country now.

I know that I keep saying that, but it is such an important point.

We don’t have the same nation that previous generations passed down to us.

Over the past 50 to 60 years, we have literally ruined America.

From the White House all the way down to the kids that are looting retailers in our major cities, we have become a laughingstock to the rest of the world.

And if we don’t find a way to turn things around, our story is going to have an absolutely tragic ending.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Via SchiffGold.com,

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve, and people are wondering, what will it do next? The messaging coming from the central bankers is that they will need to keep interest rates higher for longer. But is that possible given the economic conditions and all of the debt in the economy?

Investment and economics writer Jim Grant appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the Fed’s inflation fight and its impact on the economy. He said we ask too much of the central bankers. After all, they are only human.

Grant opened the interview by taking exception to Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee’s assertion that the current federal funds rate is “restrictive.”

His own Financial Conditions Index, produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, shows, oddly enough, that financial conditions, as defined, are looser than average even after this short of zero to 60 in six seconds of rate increases.”

So yes, monetary policy is “tighter,” but it is not yet “tight.”

Grant has said we are likely entering into a generational bear market in bonds. He pointed out that interest rates are unique because they tend to follow generational cycles. That’s been true in the US since the Civil War.

I say we just ended in 2021 40 years, 4-0 years, of persistently declining rates, which ended, and something I  think financial historians are going to puzzle over for many many years, which is negative nominal rates — bonds priced to yields less than nothing to the tune of like $15 or $16 trillion. … It seems to me every big move in financial markets, whether its bonds or anything else, tends to climax in some absurdity, some valuation excess with the stock puppet 1999 or negative nominal yields in 2020-2021.”

Looking back, we had 40 years of declining interest rates. Before that, we had 35 years of generally increasing rates that ended in 1981. Grant said it’s simply a matter of pattern recognition “to give it its intellectual most dignified term.”

This is nothing like a physical law, but this, as I say, has been the form for many, many years in bonds.”

The CNBC host seemed a bit befuddled by Grant’s analysis. After all, if the Fed is controlling rates, why would we see these long trends? If the economy is doing well, the central bankers can raise rates. If the economy suffers, they can lower them.

Grant said “they” don’t always control events.

He quoted former British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan who was asked, “What might go wrong.” He responded, “My boy, events! Events might go wrong.”

We have been used to, I think, imputing to the Fed immense powers of foresight and control. But oftentimes, the Fed, like so many of us, finds itself not in the vanguard of action or thought, but rather running behind to catch up. You know, the Fed can will all it likes to return the 2% world it has defined for itself, but if the past is prologue, the Fed will be evolving a new set of narratives to explain the new world. And I expect that to be coming at Jackson Hole any summer now.”

While it is difficult to see the future, Grant said we can at least observe the present and size up the odds the markets are laying on certain outcomes.

Grant called the Fed members “well-intentioned human beings,” with an emphasis on human beings. He said many scored well on the SAT and they probably would have rather worked at NASA doing physical science as opposed to the “pseudoscience” of economic forecasting.

As recently as the early months of 2022, with inflation percolating above 5%, they were still doing QE. So, we ask too much of them, or indeed, of any set of human beings.”

Would some kind of rule-based system be better?

Grant gave an enthusiastic, yes!

The rule would be that interest rates ought to be discovered in the market rather than imposed or suppressed. We have decided over the course of many years to conduct our monetary affairs by kind of a Ph.D. standard of improvisation. There are no rules, per se. The dollar is uncollateralized as it had been from the beginning of the country to 1971. So, to some extent, we are playing tennis without a net, and without baselines, and without sidelines. So, circumspection in public finance is out the window.”

Demonstrating just how out of whack things have become, Grant pointed out that in private sector terms, the Fed is broke.

So, what about all of the investors and businesspeople who have made bets based on perpetually low interest rates? Grant said he thinks the odds are against them.

Within this long cycle — this projected, imagined long cycle I foresee — there are all sorts of twists and turns. There were in the 70s, for example. Inflation didn’t go straight up. It was in three phases or slices. So, if past is prologue, what we’ll see is a time of long-trending higher rates with head-fakes that will get people convinced that 2% is right around the corner.”