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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the United States needs to get its act together on trade — quickly.

Dimon discussed the ongoing tension between the United States and China on Friday at the 2025 Reagan National Economic Forum, where he led a fireside chat. When asked what his biggest worry was right now, Dimon pointed to the shifting global geopolitical and economic landscape, including trade.

“We have problems and we’ve got to deal with them,” Dimon said before referring to “the enemy within.”

Addressing the “enemy within,” he said, includes fixing how the United States approaches permitting, regulation, taxation, immigration, education, and the healthcare system.

It also means maintaining important military alliances, he said.

“China is a potential adversary. They’re doing a lot of things well. They have a lot of problems,” Dimon said. “What I’m really worried about is us. Can we get our own act together? Our own values, our own capabilities, our own management.”

Dimon said that if the United States is not the “preeminent military and preeminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. That’s a fact.”

Although Dimon believes the United States is usually resilient, he said things are different this time around.

“We have to get our act together, and we have to do it very quickly,” he said.

During the conversation, Dimon spoke about trade deals and encouraged US leaders to engage with China.

“I just got back from China last week,” Dimon said. “They’re not scared, folks. This notion that they’re going to come bow to America, I wouldn’t count on that.”

Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on numerous countries, including steep tariffs on China, rattled global markets earlier this year. Markets recovered after many countries, including China, began negotiating. But the possibility that tariffs could increase again at any time has investors and economists on edge.

On Friday, for instance, in a Truth Social post, Trump accused China of violating the two countries’ trade agreement. That same day, Trump said he planned to increase tariffs on steel imports from 25% to 50%.

“We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50%, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody’s going to get around that,” Trump said during a rally near Pittsburgh.

Representatives for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

AI has surged to the top of the diplomatic agenda in the past couple of years.

And one of the leading topics of discussion among researchers, tech executives, and policymakers is how open-source models — which are free for anyone to use and modify — should be governed.

At the AI Action Summit in Paris earlier this year, Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said he’d like to see a world in which “we’ll train our open-source platforms in a distributed fashion with data centers spread across the world.” Each will have access to its own data sources, which they may keep confidential, but “they will contribute to a common model that will essentially constitute a repository of all human knowledge,” he said.

This repository will be larger than what any one entity, whether a country or company, can handle. India, for example, may not give away a body of knowledge comprising all the languages and dialects spoken there to a tech company. However, “they would be happy to contribute to training a big model, if they can, that is open source,” he said.

To achieve that vision, though, “countries have to be really careful with regulations and legislation.” He said countries shouldn’t impede open-source, but favor it.

Even for closed-loop systems, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said international regulation is critical.

“I think there will come a time in the not-so-distant future, like we’re not talking decades and decades from now, where frontier AI systems are capable of causing significant global harm,” Altman said on the All-In podcast last year.

Altman believes those systems will have a “negative impact way beyond the realm of one country” and said he wanted to see them regulated by “an international agency looking at the most powerful systems and ensuring reasonable safety testing.”

COMMENT: Hi Marty:

Long time no see, hope you’re doing well.  I’m forwarding a short article to you.  The one virologist who’s been right about Covid from the get go is Geert Vanden Bossche.  He was world renowned until he went against the narrative.  For over a year he’s been predicting a highly lethal Covid variant that would attack highly vaccinated countries.  I read at Zerohedge last week that they call this strain “razor blade throat”.  Maybe this ties in with your disease cycle in 2026.  Looking forward to seeing you in the fall.

Atb,

Chris

A simple correlation of wars and migrations to disease demonstrates beyond opinion that these events have always been a major killer in wars (e.g., more soldiers died from disease than battle in many conflicts prior to the 20th century). Recent conflicts (e.g., Syrian Civil War, Yemeni Civil War) have seen the collapse of healthcare systems and the resurgence of diseases like cholera, polio, and measles. War is a powerful engine for disease spread. WWI provided the specific conditions – massive global troop movements, unprecedented crowding, malnutrition, shattered healthcare, and censorship – that turned the 1918 influenza virus into the deadliest pandemic in modern history. The connection between war and infectious disease is undeniable and devastating.

Emperor Lucius Verus’s campaign in the East, specifically against the Parthian Empire, for which this coin celebrated his victory, was directly linked to bringing the Antonine Plague (also known as the Plague of Galen) back to the Roman Empire around 165-166 CE.

Ancient historians like Cassius Dio and Ammianus Marcellinus specifically state that the plague broke out during the siege of the Mesopotamian city of Seleucia (near modern Baghdad, Iraq) in late 165 or early 166 CE. The plague rapidly infected the Roman legions. When Verus and his victorious army returned to the Roman Empire in 166 CE, they brought the plague with them.

The plague spread like wildfire throughout the Roman provinces and reached Rome itself. It raged for years (possibly decades, with recurrences), becoming one of the deadliest pandemics in antiquity. Estimates suggest it killed millions, including a significant portion of the Roman army and population. It’s widely believed to have contributed to the weakening of the Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (who also eventually died from it in 180 CE).

Creating WWIII on top of this gain-of-function COVID-19 disease, will be the devastating impact that our computer is projecting heading into 2029, which will probably be Phase I, with Phase II heading into 2032, but the final Phase will

COVID-19 does not appear to be an intentional biological weapon. It was most likely a gain-of-function creation that leaked out. Back in 1546, The contagion (treatise on syphilis) was written more than 300 years before the germ theory of disease emerged. In that work, Girolamo Fracastoro wrote: “There will come yet other new and unusual ailments in the course of time. And this disease will pass away, but later it will be born again and be seen by our descendants.”

The period 1700-1725 was dominated by the Great Northern War and the War of the Spanish Succession. These were massive, multi-theater conflicts involving most of the major European powers and their colonies. They fundamentally altered the European balance of power, marking the dramatic rise of Russia under Peter the Great and Great Britain as major powers, while significantly weakening Sweden and exhausting France. Russia ultimately won that attempt to conquer it, marking the end of the 309.6-year wave. Typhus & “Camp Fever” were the diseases that were spread by lice in crowded, unsanitary conditions that were major killers in armies and among displaced populations during the frequent wars of the period, like the Great Northern War (1700-1721) and the later War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748).

Going back to the previous wave that peaked at 1413.76, the population saw a virtual decline of 50% due to the Black Plague, also spread by war following the Mongol invasion of Crimea. They catapulted dead bodies into the Italian fort, and they fled, taking the plague back to Europe. Yes, I have said there remains the risk of a 50% decline in population as the Sixth Wave of the Economic Confidence Model concludes. This is historically standard. This is traditionally the combination of war and disease. The Black Plague or Death was the half-way point in this 1857.6 year wave.

Trump is being played like a fiddle. I do not know who in his camp is feeding him the Neocon agenda. I am screaming as loud as I can for the USA to stay out and let Europe exterminate itself and the EU. It will not win, and we have to stand back and let it happen. If we do not, China and Russia will join forces because they know this is NOT a war with Ukraine, they are an expendable proxy of NATO, as are Poland and Romania. This war will exacerbate the disease cycle, as it has always done throughout history.

This gain-of-function disease, COVID-19, may be the new Black Plague. I believe that those who will be the most vulnerable will be those who have been vaccinated. That’s just my opinion – not the computer. The computer has not identified the actual disease agent. Our politicians are IGNORANT of history, and if they ever bothered to look, disease ALWAYS spreads with migration. Just open a history book, and they might read that overwhelmingly, the historical consensus is that disease was the primary killer of Indigenous peoples in the Americas following European contact, responsible for a vastly greater number of deaths than warfare. Pre-contact population estimates for the Americas range widely (40-100+ million), but post-contact decline was catastrophic. Scholars generally agree that 80-95% of the Indigenous population died within the first 100-150 years after sustained European contact due to disease. This represents one of the most devastating demographic catastrophes in human history due to migration, and Europeans brought diseases unfamiliar to the American Indigenous population.

---

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Geert Vanden Bossche from Geert's Substack <[email protected]>

Date: Thu, May 29, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Subject: Nobody seeing the drama unfolding right before our eyes?

I’m sure at least some of you have become aware of new COVID-19 (C-19) outbreaks in several Asian countries (Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Japan).

͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­

	I’m sure at least some of you have become aware of new COVID-19 (C-19) outbreaks in several Asian countries (Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Japan). But even in Australia, NB. 1.8.1 is now spreading, and it has already made landfall in the US as well. These outbreaks are continuing to rise rapidly and at least Taiwan has been reporting a sustained increase in severe and fatal cases too. While critics are rightfully concerned about the many direct side effects of the C-19 vaccines, few are aware of the threat posed by the large-scale and out-of-control gain-of-function experiment that has been triggered by irrational human intervention in highly C-19 vaccinated populations. After psychotic infection-prevention measures and insane C-19 mass vaccination drove viral escape from anti-SARS-CoV-2 (SC-2) immunity, making the virus more infectious, ongoing vaccine breakthrough infections now appear to be evolving in a way that facilitates immune deficiency against SC-2 altogether, thereby facilitating increased viral virulence of newly emerging, highly transmissible SC-2 lineages. As I always said: This is not going to have a happy ending (in highly C-19 vaccinated populations). Thanks for reading geert’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. geert’s Substack is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell geert’s Substack that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments. Pledge your support

This included voices like lesbian activist, writer, and BL fan Dr. Akiko Mizuguchiwho criticized the popular trend of having characters insist that they were straight outside of the central relationship. In her thesisMizoguchi also noted that Sato used the term “yaoi” in specific to frame his discussion on purely pornographic stories and impossible beauty standards in contrast to the lived experiences of the average gay man; in turn, the debate gave Sato space to explore women’s issues, and later to write on his fondness for shojo and how early shōnen-ai titles had helped him overcome internalized homophobia, writing (as quoted by Mizoguchi from Choisor), “To me, the misfortune does not lie in the fact that I can only love men. Rather, my misfortune lies in the fact that being a man loving a man is not accepted by society. In other words, it is the sense of being ‘excluded’ that brings me the sense of misfortune. My despair about this sense is deep, but still, I never came to hate my desire itself. This is all thanks to ‘girls’ comics.’” It could be said that this was a productive conversation for all involved.

While there were BL manga prior to this that tackled issues facing the gay community, such as Tomoi (1985-1986), these sorts of stories would gradually become more common in the wake of the yaoi ronso. Today, discussions about identity, cultural homophobia, and legal barriers for queer men are common topics in BL.

How did the categories evolve?

Categories of author and readership have also become increasingly fluid. In 2015, eminent gay manga artist and critic Gengoroh we guarantee noted: “Furthermore, going back to the gender of creators, that’s problematic as well because sometimes BL creators – and I’m speaking just from personal acquaintance with some of these creators – may be biologically female or identify on the page as heterosexual women, but sometimes they’re actually lesbian or transgender. And then sometimes it’s the case that a woman will draw sort of muscle-y characters and then take on male pen names for publication in gay media. Which is also very… not problematic, but just raises questions, just how do we start to categorize?”

Multiple writers have spoken on and documented the evolving readership of BL over the years as well as its cultural impactincluding Kazumi Nagaike, Akemi Harada, Thomas Baudinette, Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganumaand James Welker. In the same panel where Tagame spoke, Senior Vice President of Publishing at VIZ Media Leyla Acker noted that up to 50% of reader response to some BL titles was male. Authorship has also evolved. Some writers prefer to include as little personal detail as possible regarding their identity, and male writers (such as Nagabe) have also become more common within the space.

What are class-S, girls’ Ffiction, and yuri?

Yuri is at once more straightforward and more difficult to talk about as an umbrella term. It hasn’t undergone as many terminology shifts as BL, but it also took much longer to coalesce under the firm marketing umbrella of “yuri.” Nobuko Yoshiya’s novels and other early 20^th century writers established a trend of “class S” or just “S” fiction: stories about deep, spiritual bonds between girls who swore devotion to one another but ultimately had to leave their secluded space for the world of adulthood and heterosexual marriage. The Takarazuka Revue, an all-female theater company founded in 1913, also had hints of this duality. Though its actors performed intimately and attracted legions of fans, the troupe’s founder framed it as a training grounds for heterosexual marriage, and it was not uncommon to see reporting of harsh punishment or lovers’ suicides when actresses were found to be in relationships with female fans. As Sharon Chalmers noted in her 2001 work“According to the literature of [the 1920s]female homosexuality was divided into two types, referred to as dude and o-me no kankei. The former term implied non-sexual, that is, platonic intense friendships, which, while seen as ‘abnormal,’ were tolerated as a ‘girlhood phase.’ This period in a ‘girl’s’ life, from puberty to marriage, is known as shorkoki.”

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Jamie Dimon has warned that the US bond market will “crack” under the weight of the country’s rising debt as he called on Donald Trump’s administration to place America on a more sustainable trajectory.

The JPMorgan Chase chief executive said on Friday that he had cautioned regulators: “You are going to see a crack in the bond market.” He added: “I’m telling you this is going to happen. And you are going to panic. I’m not going to panic. We’ll be fine.”

The warning from the head of the US’s biggest bank about mounting risks for the US bond market — which sets borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in debt globally — underscores how Wall Street is growing increasingly uneasy about rising government debt levels. It comes as Congress is reviewing Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which if passed is broadly expected to markedly increase the federal deficit.

Even before the introduction of the legislation, which was voted through by the House last week and is under review in the Senate, the Congressional Budget Office had projected that US debt as a share of GDP would exceed the 1940s era peak in coming years.

Long-term US bonds have come under pressure over fiscal worries, with the 30-year Treasury yield trading at about 5 per cent from just over 4 per cent at the start of 2024. Rating agency Moody’s also this month stripped the US of its triple-A credit rating.

The Treasury bond market has grown from roughly $5tn in 2008 to $29tn today as the government has cut taxes while increasing spending — particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. The market is the deepest and most liquid in the world and has long benefited from the privilege of the dollar being the world’s reserve currency.

But as the debt load has risen, demand has also taken a hit. Foreign investors have steadily been pulling back from the Treasury market over the past decade, a move that has been hastened by Trump’s tariff policy.

Dimon said rising geopolitical tensions, trade wars and soaring debt levels worldwide meant the “tectonic plates” of the world economy were shifting.

“I just don’t know if it’s going to be a crisis in six months or six years,” he said at the Reagan National Economic Forum in California, calling on the government to “change the trajectory of the debt” and urging regulators to ease restrictions on banks to boost their capacity for bond trading. “I think we can make everything better, including that, by just changing and modifying some of these rules and regulations.”

His comments echo those of Goldman Sachs president John Waldron, who earlier this week described the rising US deficit as “somewhat concerning” and warned its impact on the bond market was “the big risk on macro right now”.

“I think we are going to run larger deficits pretty clearly, as far as the eye can see, and we are going to have more Treasury borrowing,” said Waldron, who is Goldman’s second-in-command behind David Solomon. “The big risk is long-run rates continuing to back up and the cost of capital in the economy rising and fundamentally becoming more of a brake on economic growth,” he told the Bernstein conference in New York.

Trump’s budget bill would add at least $3.3tn to the US debt by 2034, according to the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Moody’s has warned the bill would push the US deficit from 6.4 per cent of GDP last year to just under 9 per cent by 2035.

Dimon also said that the US should increase tax on carried interest, a provision in the tax code that benefits private equity executives.

Trump has endorsed the idea, which has long been a goal of Democrats including former president Barack Obama. “We absolutely should be taxing carried interest,” Dimon said. Asked if he would consider running for office, Dimon, 69, said he would “if I thought I could really win, which I don’t think I could”.

Do you ever feel like you are “functionally unemployed”?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  There are lots of people out there that cannot pay the bills each month even though they have jobs.  In fact, there are lots of people out there that literally cannot afford to put a roof over their heads even though they are employed.  Yes, there are many hard working Americans that are now living in their vehicles or in “tent communities” because that is all they can afford.  In recent years, the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and so now a substantial percentage of the population is living in a state of constant financial stress.  The middle class has been collapsing all around us, and we are witnessing an extraordinary amount of economic suffering all over the country right now.

For years, the federal government has been telling us that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is very low.

Everyone knows that is a bunch of hogwash.

According to a report that was recently released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, the true rate of unemployment in the U.S. was 24.3 percent last month…

But another indicator suggests those pieces of government data may be painting an overly rosy picture of the economy, with a recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) finding the “true rate” of unemployment stood at 24.3% in April, up slightly from 24% in March, while the official Bureau of Labor Statistics rate remained unchanged at 4.2% over the same period.

LISEP’s measure encompasses not only unemployed workers, but also people who are looking for work but can’t find full-time employment, as well as those stuck in poverty-wage jobs. By tracking functionally unemployed workers, the measure seeks to capture labor market nuances that other economic indicators miss, such as Americans who are left behind during periods of economic expansion.

Today, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are “functionally unemployed”.

According to Gene Ludwigyou can literally “be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour” and be counted as “employed” by the federal government…

“The unemployment data, as it’s put out, has some flaws,” LISEP chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. “For example, it counts you as employed if you’ve worked as little as one hour over the prior two weeks. So you can be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour and be counted, irrespective of how poorly-paid that hour may be.”

I know that a lot of you can really identify with what I am talking about in this article, because you are experiencing deep economic pain on a daily basis.

Earlier this month, I heard from a reader that is essentially “functionally unemployed” at this point.

I asked him if I could share an excerpt from his email to me with all of you, and he gave me permission.  If you are suffering too, hopefully his story will help you to realize that you aren’t alone…

Last year my income was $19,000. If I didn’t have a mortgage/rent free house to live in, I would be homeless!!!

I try to stock up on food when ever my local Grocery Store puts items on sale.

I shop at Thrift Stores and only on the half price days.

In 8 years my Real Estate Taxes have gone from $1,400 to $2,000.

In 8 years my Real Estate Insurance has gone from $1,500 to $2,200.

I haven’t had a Vacation in DECADES!!!

I seldom eat out.

I drive a 40 year old Pickup with 220,000 miles on it.

I try to combine errands and shopping in one trip to conserve on gasoline and not put as many miles on my old Pickup.

During the hot summer months I take a shower out of the end of a garden hose to cut my water bill.

I wear my clothes day after day until they get so dirty I can’t stand it or they start to stink.

I can only dream about living a normal American middle class lifestyle.

I hear of people making $100,000 a year and how they cannot pay their bills. MY GOODNESS MAN, I WOULD CONSIDER MYSELF RICH IF I COULD MAKE $100K A YEAR!!!!!!

Countless others are living a similar lifestyle.

As I discussed earlier this month, one survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives.

And the cost of living just continues to soar.

In fact, the average price of a pound of ground beef just surged to another brand new record high…

The average cost of one pound of ground beef reached a record-high of $5.80 in April, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is up nearly 50% from five years ago.

Ouch.

Our cost of living crisis never seems to end.

Inflation is one of the primary reasons why consumer sentiment in the U.S. just hit the second lowest level ever recorded…

The index of consumer sentiment dropped to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April, in the preliminary reading for May. That is the second-lowest reading on record, behind June 2022.

The outlook for price changes also moved in the wrong direction. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 7.3% from 6.5% last month, while long-term inflation expectations ticked up to 4.6% from 4.4%.

And the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

Last month, the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators fell for a fifth month in a row…

The short-term outlook for the U.S. economy worsened significantly in April, according to the Conference Board’s latest Leading Economic Index (LEI).

On Monday, the D.C.-based research said that the index—a closely monitored composite of several economic indicators—had fallen by 1.0 percent to 99.4 in April, registering the fifth consecutive monthly decline and the steepest drop since March 2023. Over the six months ending in April 2025, the LEI fell by two percent, matching the pace of decline posted over the previous six months.

Let me try to end this article on a positive note.

If you are “functionally unemployed”, I know that it is tough right now.

In this difficult economic environment, we are all just going to have to get lean and mean.

Do your best to try to earn as much money as you can, and once you have got it hold on to it very tightly.

The middle class has been getting eviscerated for years, but we must never give up.

It won’t be easy, but if you are willing to fight you can survive in this economy.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other every day, and just keep looking for more opportunities to make things better for you and your family.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important Newsand he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Do you ever feel like you are “functionally unemployed”?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  There are lots of people out there that cannot pay the bills each month even though they have jobs.  In fact, there are lots of people out there that literally cannot afford to put a roof over their heads even though they are employed.  Yes, there are many hard working Americans that are now living in their vehicles or in “tent communities” because that is all they can afford.  In recent years, the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and so now a substantial percentage of the population is living in a state of constant financial stress.  The middle class has been collapsing all around us, and we are witnessing an extraordinary amount of economic suffering all over the country right now.

For years, the federal government has been telling us that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is very low.

Everyone knows that is a bunch of hogwash.

According to a report that was recently released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, the true rate of unemployment in the U.S. was 24.3 percent last month…

But another indicator suggests those pieces of government data may be painting an overly rosy picture of the economy, with a recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) finding the “true rate” of unemployment stood at 24.3% in April, up slightly from 24% in March, while the official Bureau of Labor Statistics rate remained unchanged at 4.2% over the same period.

LISEP’s measure encompasses not only unemployed workers, but also people who are looking for work but can’t find full-time employment, as well as those stuck in poverty-wage jobs. By tracking functionally unemployed workers, the measure seeks to capture labor market nuances that other economic indicators miss, such as Americans who are left behind during periods of economic expansion.

Today, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are “functionally unemployed”.

According to Gene Ludwigyou can literally “be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour” and be counted as “employed” by the federal government…

“The unemployment data, as it’s put out, has some flaws,” LISEP chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. “For example, it counts you as employed if you’ve worked as little as one hour over the prior two weeks. So you can be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour and be counted, irrespective of how poorly-paid that hour may be.”

I know that a lot of you can really identify with what I am talking about in this article, because you are experiencing deep economic pain on a daily basis.

Earlier this month, I heard from a reader that is essentially “functionally unemployed” at this point.

I asked him if I could share an excerpt from his email to me with all of you, and he gave me permission.  If you are suffering too, hopefully his story will help you to realize that you aren’t alone…

Last year my income was $19,000. If I didn’t have a mortgage/rent free house to live in, I would be homeless!!!

I try to stock up on food when ever my local Grocery Store puts items on sale.

I shop at Thrift Stores and only on the half price days.

In 8 years my Real Estate Taxes have gone from $1,400 to $2,000.

In 8 years my Real Estate Insurance has gone from $1,500 to $2,200.

I haven’t had a Vacation in DECADES!!!

I seldom eat out.

I drive a 40 year old Pickup with 220,000 miles on it.

I try to combine errands and shopping in one trip to conserve on gasoline and not put as many miles on my old Pickup.

During the hot summer months I take a shower out of the end of a garden hose to cut my water bill.

I wear my clothes day after day until they get so dirty I can’t stand it or they start to stink.

I can only dream about living a normal American middle class lifestyle.

I hear of people making $100,000 a year and how they cannot pay their bills. MY GOODNESS MAN, I WOULD CONSIDER MYSELF RICH IF I COULD MAKE $100K A YEAR!!!!!!

Countless others are living a similar lifestyle.

As I discussed earlier this month, one survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives.

And the cost of living just continues to soar.

In fact, the average price of a pound of ground beef just surged to another brand new record high…

The average cost of one pound of ground beef reached a record-high of $5.80 in April, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is up nearly 50% from five years ago.

Ouch.

Our cost of living crisis never seems to end.

Inflation is one of the primary reasons why consumer sentiment in the U.S. just hit the second lowest level ever recorded…

The index of consumer sentiment dropped to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April, in the preliminary reading for May. That is the second-lowest reading on record, behind June 2022.

The outlook for price changes also moved in the wrong direction. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 7.3% from 6.5% last month, while long-term inflation expectations ticked up to 4.6% from 4.4%.

And the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

Last month, the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators fell for a fifth month in a row…

The short-term outlook for the U.S. economy worsened significantly in April, according to the Conference Board’s latest Leading Economic Index (LEI).

On Monday, the D.C.-based research said that the index—a closely monitored composite of several economic indicators—had fallen by 1.0 percent to 99.4 in April, registering the fifth consecutive monthly decline and the steepest drop since March 2023. Over the six months ending in April 2025, the LEI fell by two percent, matching the pace of decline posted over the previous six months.

Let me try to end this article on a positive note.

If you are “functionally unemployed”, I know that it is tough right now.

In this difficult economic environment, we are all just going to have to get lean and mean.

Do your best to try to earn as much money as you can, and once you have got it hold on to it very tightly.

The middle class has been getting eviscerated for years, but we must never give up.

It won’t be easy, but if you are willing to fight you can survive in this economy.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other every day, and just keep looking for more opportunities to make things better for you and your family.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important Newsand he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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US stocks recorded their biggest monthly rally since late 2023 as investors were encouraged to pile back into risky assets as President Donald Trump backed away from some of his most severe tariffs.

The blue-chip S&P 500 rose 6.2 per cent in May, its best monthly performance since November 2023, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 9.6 per cent. The rallies mean both indices are in positive territory this year after plunging in early April on tariff fears.

Members of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks including Facebook parent Meta, Elon Musk’s Tesla and chipmaker Nvidia — which on Wednesday reported an almost 70 per cent surge in quarterly revenue — led the charge. Indices tracking financials and industrials climbed close to record highs.

“The month of May was a good one for stocks,” said Mike Zigmont, co-head of trading and research at Visdom Investment Group. “Sentiment is very optimistic and unafraid.”

Stocks initially started rising on April 9, when the US president announced a 90-day pause to the sweeping tariffs he had unleashed on most of the country’s big trading partners a week earlier in his “liberation day” announcement.

Equities were given a further boost in early May when the US and UK announced a trade deal. A move by the US and China to cut tariffs for at least 90 days helped fuel further rises in Wall Street equities even as US Treasuries and the dollar remained under pressure.

The biggest cryptocurrencies have surged at the same time, underscoring investors’ growing appetite for risk, with the price of bitcoin rising as high as $111,965 on hopes that the White House is on the cusp of agreeing its first regulations for digital assets.

Many of Wall Street’s biggest investors missed out on the stock rally, however, having trimmed their positions on US assets on fears of an impending economic slowdown and broader concerns about volatile policymaking in Washington.

Some warn that Trump’s unpredictable policies mean the market’s recent gains could soon evaporate. On Wednesday a US court ruled that the president’s “liberation day” tariff scheme was illegal, though the ruling was temporarily paused by an appeals court a day later.

Analysts expect the president to impose fresh levies on chips and pharmaceutical goods over the coming weeks.

“[Trump] has tremendous authority to act, and we suspect he will want to remind everyone that one court ruling will not impede his agenda,” said Mike O’Rourke at Jones Trading. “It is in the president’s nature to continually remind people of the power he holds.”