Just Like We Witnessed During The Great Recession And The Great Depression, Economic Activity Is Slowing Down All Around Us As Chaos Breaks Out In The Financial Markets | The Economic Collapse.

When the economy and the financial system are both greatly shaken at the same time, the consequences can be extremely painful. Most of you still clearly remember what life was like in 2008 and 2009. It was such a dark chapter in American history. But there have been other times when we have had a financial market crash but no recession. 1987 is a perfect example of that. Of course there have also been many instances when economic conditions have been very poor but the financial markets weathered it just fine. It is actually rare for a major economic crisis and a major financial crisis to occur simultaneously like we witnessed during the Great Recession and the Great Depression. Unfortunately, it appears that this is precisely the type of scenario that we are now facing.

The other day I authored an article entitled “12 Signposts That Indicate That A Monumental Economic Meltdown Is Now Upon Us”, and it received a tremendous amount of attention. That article clearly established that a significant economic slowdown is now upon us. Since I wrote that article, more evidence that the economy is slowing down has emerged.

For example, it is being reported that Las Vegas experienced a “devastating fall of 7.5 percent” in the number of people visiting the city last year…

Las Vegas’s long‑rumored tourism collapse has erupted into full public view, with new data revealing that 2025 was the year the desert empire finally stumbled.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) confirmed that the city drew just 38.5 million visitors in 2025, a devastating fall of 7.5 percent from the previous year.

This marked the sharpest annual decline since the post‑pandemic recovery and erasing years of hard‑won momentum.

Las Vegas has always been a leading indicator for U.S. economic performance.

When the number of tourists starts to fall, an economic downturn almost always follows.

The video game industry has also fallen on very hard times.

According to one recent survey, one-third of all video game industry workers were laid off in 2025…

One-third of U.S. video game industry workers say they were laid off last year, according to a new survey conducted by the organizers behind the newly revamped Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Based on responses from more than 2,300 gaming industry professionals, with surveys “customized for each participant group, ensuring that developers, marketers, executives, investors and others answered questions most relevant to them,” the 2026 State of the Game Industry Report found that 33% of respondents in the U.S. were laid off in the past two years.

That is crazy.

I think that AI is having a bigger impact in the video game industry than most of us realized.

But of course we are seeing mass layoffs in many other industries as well.

On Thursday, Mastercard announced that it will be laying off approximately 4 percentof its entire workforce…

‌Mastercard ​has ‌completed a review ​of its ‍business that will ​impact ​about ⁠4% of its full-time employees, the payment ‌processor’s CFO, Sachin ​Mehra, said ‌on ‍Thursday.

“Based on the ⁠recent strategic review of our business, we ​expect to record a one-time restructuring charge in Q1 of approximately $200 million,” Mehra said on a call ​with analysts.

Another really big name, Home Depot, has just made a decision to give the axe to hundreds of loyal workers…

Atlanta-based Home Depot announced hundreds of layoffs Wednesday in its corporate operations.

Around 800 employees who work for the Atlanta store support center are being laid off, according to the company. Less than 150 of them work in the center and the rest work remotely.

In a statement, a Home Depot spokesperson said the company is “simplifying our corporate operations to better support our stores and our customers.”

Just like in 2008, it seems like we are being hit by one wave of layoffs after another.

Everyone thought that Dow Inc. was doing well, but they just announced that 4,500 employeeswill be hitting the bricks…

Chemical maker Dow Inc. is the latest company to announce substantial layoffs as it pivots to a stronger reliance on artificial intelligence and automation.

The company, on Thursday, announced it would cut 4,500 jobs as part of a streamlining operation it calls “Transform to Outperform.” The cuts will provide a $2 billion boost in near-term revenue, the company said, but will bring with them between $1.1 billion and $1.5 billion in one-time costs, including severance and other costs.

Some of the employment markets that were once the hottest are now being hit the hardest by layoffs.

In Seattle, we are being told that the “tech boom” has now turned into “tech gloom”…

A cloud hanging over Seattle is usually a good thing, if you’re here for the rain, or if you work in that aspect of the tech industry. But the cloud of economic uncertainty is a less welcome occurrence.

The tech boom is showing more signs of tech gloom this week following layoffs at some of the region’s biggest employers.

Just this month, Amazon and Meta are among the big names that have slashed jobs in the Emerald City…

• Amazon is laying off another 16,000 corporate employees, bringing the total to 30,000 since October. The company is also shuttering all of its Fresh and Go grocery stores.
• Meta is cutting hundreds of workers in its Reality Labs division, with roots in the region.
• Expedia Group is slashing more than 160 jobs at its Seattle HQ.

For those that want even more examples of the mass layoffs that have been happening all over America, I would recommend checking out my previous articles.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, chaos is erupting in the financial system.

Japanese bond yields have been going nuts, currency rates have been flying all over the place, cryptocurrencies crashed again today, and the price of silver and the price of gold have both been absolutely skyrocketing.

Statistically, the probability of what we have witnessed in the financial markets during the month of January is very close to zero.  To illustrate this, I would like to share an extended excerpt from a social media post that a user known as “NoLimit” recently published on his X account…

The probability of what is happening is near zero.

Three 6-sigma events occurred in one week.

– Bonds
– Silver
– Gold

We are currently living through a statistical impossibility.

Let me explain:

Last Tuesday, Japanese 30-year debt recorded what’s called a “6-sigma” session.

2 days ago, silver did even better: it was at 5-sigma on the rally, then reached 6-sigma on the drop. IN A SINGLE SESSION.

Gold right now? It’s up 23% in less than a month. We’re getting very close to a 6-sigma event.

That’s three 6-sigma events in ONE WEEK.

To explain quickly: in finance, we measure price moves around an average using the standard deviation, which we call sigma.

1-sigma: mundane
2-sigma: common
3-sigma: becomes rare
4-sigma: exceptional
5-sigma: extremely rare
6-sigma: supposed to occur once in 500 million

Here are the 6-sigma-type episodes we saw previously:

– The october 1987 crash, 22% drop in 1 session
– March 2020 covid crash
– The swiss franc’s surge in january 2015
– WTI oil turning negative in april 2020

But we’ve never had 3 events occur in one week.

Do you see the point?

A 6-sigma event is almost NEVER triggered by a simple macro headline.

It almost always comes from the market’s structure: leverage, positions that are too concentrated, margin calls, collateral problems, and forced selling or buying.

That’s important to understand because we’re talking about internal strains in the system’s mechanics.

As you know, the Japanese bond market sits at the heart of the global financial system, and I won’t go back over the whole topic, but a 6-sigma move in a market that enormous doesn’t go unnoticed.

Seeing a 6-sigma move in silver a few days later gives one a lot to think about.

And now gold?? That’s absolutely insane.

Why are we seeing extreme statistical events, only days apart, in such different markets?

When a pillar of global funding becomes unstable, leverage tends to contract, and two things happen at the same time: forced selling in certain assets and forced buying of protection in others.

Historically, precious metals are often among the beneficiaries.

Many of my readers are loving the fact that gold and silver prices have risen at an exponential rate.

JPMorgan is even suggesting that the price of gold could eventually hit $8,000.

But meanwhile the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies are dying and investors are losing faith in the entire system.

At this stage, Peter Schiff is warning that we are headed for a global nightmare “that will make the 2008 financial crisis look like a Sunday school picnic”…

As gold prices keep rising, American economist Peter Schiff says investors should view the rally as more than a hedge — calling it a warning that inflation is speeding up, the U.S. dollar is losing global trust and a major economic reckoning may be near.

“Gold and silver are warning about a bigger crisis that’s gonna hit either later this year or maybe next year. We are headed for a U.S. dollar crisis and a sovereign debt crisis,” Schiff said Tuesday afternoon on “The Claman Countdown.”

“Central banks are buying gold to back up their currencies. They’re getting rid of dollars. They are getting rid of Treasuries,” he continued. “We are headed for [an] economic crisis, again, that will make the 2008 financial crisis look like a Sunday school picnic.”

The warning signs are all around us.

The last time we were forced to endure a major economic crisis and a major financial crisis at the same time was during the Great Recession.

Now it is happening again, and many prominent voices believe that the pain that we will soon experience will be off the charts.

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 News, and 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.

The post Just Like We Witnessed During The Great Recession And The Great Depression, Economic Activity Is Slowing Down All Around Us As Chaos Breaks Out In The Financial Markets appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Exploding Price Of Silver Shows That We Have Reached A Critical Turning Point In Human History | The Economic Collapse

You can throw out all of the old rules, because they simply don’t apply anymore. The dominance of western financial institutions is faltering, and cracks in the system are starting to show up all over the place. They can’t keep the price of silver from exploding, they can’t stop the price of gold from relentlessly marching upward, they can’t stop the extremely alarming decline of the U.S. dollar, and they can’t stop debt levels from soaring into the stratosphere. The stability that the global financial system has known since the end of World War II is dissipating right in front of our eyes, and that should chill you to the core.

It was expected that the price of gold would smash through the $5,000 barrier on Monday, and that is precisely what occurred.

In fact, at one point it was trading above $5,100 an ounce…

Gold climbed to a fresh all-time high, crossing $5,100 an ounce on Monday and extending its record-breaking run as investors seek the safety of the yellow metal amid rising geopolitical tensions and global fiscal risks.

Spot gold prices gained 2.4%, trading at $5,102 an ounce, before slightly paring gains to last trade at $5,086. Meanwhile, U.S. gold futures for February rose 2.1%, reaching $5,087 an ounce.

This was never supposed to happen.

Just like they had always done, those that pull the strings were supposed to be able to stop the price of gold before it ever got even close to $5,000.

But now it has become apparent that they simply lack the ability to be able to do that.

Of course the price of silver has been going up far faster than the price of gold, and on Monday it exploded higher…

Silver also rallied Monday, with spot prices jumping 4.9% to $107.9 per ounce, also benefiting from industrial demand.

Analysts at Union Bancaire Privée said Friday that prices have rallied on the back of sustained demand from both institutional and retail buyers.

Over the past year, western financial institutions have lost all control over the price of silver.

Those that are still holding short positions are in for a world of hurt.

Global demand for physical silver has soared, and now that there is nothing holding it back there is no telling how high it could go.

One of my readers recently alerted me to something that I wrote about the price of silver a number of years ago…

I have always said that I believe that the price of silver will eventually go over $100 an ounce.

When that happens, those that got in today will be exceedingly happy with their returns.

When I wrote those words, the price of silver was $15.81 an ounce.

If you had invested in silver at that time, your investment would be worth 6 times more today.

At this moment, the price of silver has risen to over $108 dollars an ounce.

Those that have been waiting for a “financial reset” can stop, because one is literally happening right in front of our eyes.

There are some analysts that are convinced that silver is now extremely overbought and that there is no way that this rally can continue for much longer…

Heraeus analysts noted that the gray metal’s move above $100 per ounce last week was largely driven by strength in the gold market as geopolitical tensions surrounding Greenland drove safe-haven flows.

“From a technical perspective, this rally now looks very extended,” they wrote. “The daily relative strength index (RSI) remains above 70, signalling overbought conditions, although currently there is a divergence as the RSI was much higher at the lower price peak in late December. Speculative net long futures exposure has continued to build through January, increasing from 146 moz to 160 moz week-on-week. That said, positioning remains well below the extremes seen in 2025, when speculative net length peaked close to 300 moz, suggesting that there is still potential for further investor engagement.”

I am sure that we will see some volatility up and down in the short-term, but ultimately what is driving the price of silver is a historic imbalance between the demand for physical silver and the amount of physical silver which is actually available…

Persistent supply deficits in silver over several consecutive years, combined with rapidly rising industrial demand from sectors such as solar energy, electric vehicles, electronics and defense, have created a physical shortage in the last 5 years that paper markets can no longer mask.

At the same time, the volume of outstanding paper contracts in London and New York now vastly exceeds the amount of physical silver available for delivery.

In our high tech society, silver has become an absolutely essential global commodity.

There is nothing that western financial institutions can do to change that.

Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar continues to plummet.

The latest leg down is being driven by speculation that the Federal Reserve is “considering coordinated action” to support the Japanese yen…

The U.S. dollar has been in relative free fall since late Friday after it emerged that the New York Federal Reserve had conducted a rare “rate check” with currency traders on the dollar/Japanese yen exchange rate.

The purpose of the move implies that the U.S. Federal Reserve may be considering coordinated action with the Bank of Japan to support the latter’s currency.

As a result, traders began selling the dollar, which is now down more than 2.26% over the past five days against a standard basket of international currencies—an unusually steep decline given the gargantuan scale of the dollar in the global economy. Over the last day alone it lost 0.46%. The yen is up more than 3% against the dollar over the same time period.

Japan is teetering on the brink of financial collapse.

Europe is in big trouble too.

And last year was the worst year for the U.S. dollar in a very long time.

Personally, I don’t see how things are going to get any better for the U.S. dollar any time soon.  The rest of the world is steadily losing faith in our currency, we are more than 38 trillion dollars in debt, and economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating.  In fact, we just learned that New York City experienced a net loss of almost 5,000 businesses last year alone…

New York City lost nearly 5,000 businesses early last year as employers closed their doors or left for other low-tax states, according to a new report.

The analysis comes as newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushes to hike business taxes to foot the bill for his agenda.

The report, released Thursday by the Economic Development Corporation, showed more than 3,500 new businesses opened their doors in New York City during the second quarter of the fiscal year but that was offset by a loss of about 8,400 employers. That’s the weakest quarter for business formation since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report’s authors said.

Needless to say, this isn’t just happening in the United States.

Economic conditions are heading in the wrong direction all over the globe, and at a time like this it makes perfect sense for investors to flock to gold and silver.

Those that were wise enough to invest when the price of silver was under 20 dollars an ounce are loving life right now.

But we also need to understand that the system that we all depend upon is coming apart at the seams all around us, and that means that there is going to be an enormous amount of chaos in the days ahead.

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 News, and 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.

The post The Exploding Price Of Silver Shows That We Have Reached A Critical Turning Point In Human History appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The System Is Starting To Crack – Home Prices Plummet As Silver Hits $100 And Gold Closes In On $5,000 | The Economic Collapse

There are all sorts of signs that the relentless pressure that has been causing an enormous amount of stress on our financial system is starting to break things. Do you remember how bad things got in 2008 and 2009 when home prices fell dramatically? Well, as you will see below, it is beginning to happen again. Meanwhile, the price of silver and the price of gold both just keep setting brand new record high after brand new record high. That is music to the ears of many of my readers, but for large financial institutions that are holding enormous short positions that has the potential to be absolutely catastrophic. I think that we will be shocked by how violently things start to break loose in the financial system in the months ahead.

For decades, those that pull the financial strings in the western world were able to keep the price of silver and the price of gold within ranges that they considered to be acceptable.

But now everything has changed.

A year ago, nobody was predicting that the price of silver would hit $100 and the price of gold would nearly reach $5,000 in just 12 months.

But that is precisely what has occurred…

Silver prices rose above $100 an ounce ​for the first time ever on Friday, while gold hit another record en route ‌to $5,000/oz as investors pile into safe-haven assets amid geopolitical turmoil and on expectations for U.S. interest rate cuts.

The price of silver is up more than 200 percent over the past year.

When there are swings of this magnitude, there are really big winners and really big losers.

I think that the identities of the really big losers will start to be revealed soon, and this will shock the financial world to the core.

In previous articles, I have gone over many of the reasons why the price of silver has been skyrocketing.

But there is one more theory that I wanted to throw out there today.

Zero Hedge is reporting that demand in China is “off the charts”, and not too long ago the Chinese implemented severe restrictions on silver exports.

Could it be possible that China is purposely attempting to destabilize the western financial system?

The Chinese know that there are very large institutions that have massive short positions, and if they can force those institutions to fail that would cause enormous chaos in the U.S. and Europe.

If that really is their motive, that would explain a lot.

It is very interesting that silver has hit $100 at the exact same moment when gold is almost reaching the $5,000 milestone.

Both of those marks are key psychological thresholds, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next…

Gold approaching $5,000 and silver approaching $100 represent more than incremental price advances. These levels function as psychological thresholds where attention concentrates, behavior changes, and market structure briefly dominates narrative.

In market terms, these prices act as an event horizon. The concept is borrowed deliberately. In physics, the event horizon marks the point beyond which outcomes are no longer observable in advance. In trading, it marks the price level that forces participation. Opinions polarize, positioning compresses, and conviction gives way to reaction.

These numbers draw in new participants on both sides of the market. Buyers include momentum participants who believe higher prices are inevitable, as well as short positions forced to cover under pressure. Sellers include long holders who have never experienced these prices and view the opportunity to monetize as both rational and psychologically satisfying. Selling silver at $100 or gold at $5,000 carries narrative weight regardless of future direction.

Some are convinced that these key psychological thresholds will propel gold and silver to new heights.

Others are convinced that these thresholds will act as “ceilings” and gold and silver will start bouncing in the other direction.

We shall see what happens.

As I write this, the price of silver has just hit $102.

I am looking at that number and I can see that it is real, but I am still having a hard time believing it.

It is truly difficult to comprehend the pace at which things are now changing.

As precious metals soar, home prices all over the United States are starting to fall precipitously…

Florida, Texas and California are now firmly at the center of America’s housing crash – accounting for 12 of the 14 major metro areas where home prices are falling.

The sharpest drop was recorded in Dallas, TX, where median sale prices slid 7.6 percent from a year earlier.

Florida’s once-red-hot housing market is also cracking, with prices falling in Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

California has four declining metros as well, including Oakland, with the second-biggest drop of 5.6 percent, San Jose, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

On the one hand, this is good news because home prices had become wildly unaffordable.

But on the other hand, if home prices fall too rapidly that will be a very bad thing.

Let’s not forget what happened during 2008 and 2009.

When housing prices crashed, millions of mortgages were suddenly underwater and foreclosures went through the roof.

In previous articles, I have talked about the fact that the number of foreclosures was way up last year.

If we are on the leading edge of another giant tsunami of foreclosures, that will be absolutely disastrous for our banking system.

Meanwhile, pending home sales just dropped “to the lowest level for any December on record”…

Pending home sales, which track the number of contracts signed in December, plunged by 9.3% seasonally adjusted from November, to the lowest level for any December on record in the data by the National Association of Realtors, which goes back to 2010. Compared to December 2010, during the Housing Bust, pending sales were down by 21.5%.

The market is now well into its fourth year of the collapse in transactions, and there has simply been no improvement.

That is a really bad sign.

Unfortunately, demand is likely to continue to be weak for quite some time because we continue to see mass layoffs all over the nation.

For example, Amazon is gearing up for another round of layoffs which could end up being the largest in the entire history of the company…

Amazon is planning to cut thousands of jobs as part of a broader push to eliminate nearly 10% of its corporate workforce, according to Reuters.

After initially cutting roughly 14,000 white-collar jobs in October, Amazon is expected to launch a second round of layoffs impacting a similar number of employees, with an overall target of about 30,000 jobs, although the scope may change, according to two sources cited by Reuters.

If fully realized, the cuts would amount to the largest layoffs in Amazon’s history, surpassing the roughly 27,000 jobs the company cut in 2022.

So many good paying jobs are being lost.

And this is the worst time since the Great Recession to find a new good paying job.

In so many ways, it is starting to feel like 2008 all over again.

Earlier today, I heard from a reader that explained that my articles really resonate with him because of what he has been going through.

That meant a lot to me.

I know that so many of you are really struggling right now.

I want you to know that it isn’t your fault.

Decades of incredibly bad decisions by our leaders have brought us to this point, and now the entire system is starting to fail.

We should have fundamentally transformed the system after the Great Recession, but we didn’t.

Instead, our leaders chose to inflate all of the old bubbles even larger than before, and now we have a colossal mess on our hands.

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 News, and 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.

The post The System Is Starting To Crack – Home Prices Plummet As Silver Hits $100 And Gold Closes In On $5,000 appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

8 Perfect New Jobs For Tim Walz | Babylon Bee

Brought to you by: Preserve Gold

With the announcement that he is withdrawing from the Minnesota governor’s race, Tim Walz is on the hunt for a new career. Fortunately, The Babylon Bee has come up with the following list of jobs he’d be absolutely fabulous for:

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1. Learing Center Director: These have flourished into multi-billion-dollar businesses under his watch.
2. Chief counselor at the “Pray Away The Straight” camp: What a perfect fit.
3. One of those wacky inflatable tube men at a car dealership: He’s already doing the motions. Might as well get paid.
4. Supervisor of the tampon dispenser at a men’s correctional facility: He’s the world’s foremost expert on stocking feminine products in masculine spaces.
5. Head coach for the Minnesota Vikings: Run that pick-six, Timmy.
6. Member of the Village People: He would reportedly prefer to be the one who wears leather chaps.
7. Perverted uncle impersonator: It’s a niche market, but who could be better?
8. President of Somalia: A natural transition.

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Ol’ Tim is certain to land on his feet somewhere. What other jobs would be perfect for him? Post your suggestions in the comments.

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Not Satire: Central Banks Ditch Dollars for Gold: Historic Shift Signals Trouble for the U.S. Dollar!

In a landmark development first seen in nearly 30 years, global central banks now hold more gold than U.S. Treasuries in their reserves — a milestone crossed in 2025 amid surging precious metal prices that hit new all-time highs in late 2025.

This shift reflects growing concerns over the U.S. dollar’s dominance. Key drivers include:

· Tightening gold supply from massive institutional purchases, which remove physical metal from the market for years.

· Rising risks in dollar-based assets, such as sanctions, asset freezes, and geopolitical tensions that could make Treasuries less reliable.

· Soaring U.S. national debt, reaching $38 trillion in 2025, raising doubts about long-term fiscal stability.

· Expanding industrial demand for metals like silver in tech, EVs, solar, and AI industries.

Several nations, including China and India, have continued to expand their gold reserves as part of broader diversification efforts, viewing gold as a neutral, permission-free store of value. The article argues this trend — backed by record central bank buying — signals a broader move away from dollars, potentially driving prices higher.

Against this backdrop, Preserve Gold offers a free 2026 Precious Metals Guide, designed to help individuals better understand how physical gold and silver may play a role in diversified financial planning, and even includes potential cashback offers up to $15,000. The message is clear: Institutions are acting now — everyday Americans should consider following suit to hedge against dollar risks.

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Here are our 100% accurate predictions of events that will transpire in 2026.

https://babylonbee.com/news/7-perfect-new-jobs-for-tim-walz/

They Can’t Stop The Unstoppable Rise Of Silver Because They Are Losing Their Grip On The Entire Global Financial System | The Economic Collapse

The rules of the game have changed. At one time, western bankers could easily pull a few strings and keep the global price of silver within an acceptable range. But now financial centers in Asia are becoming more dominant, and supplies of physical silver are becoming extremely tight. As a result, western bankers are no longer able to exert the same level of control.

At the end of December, CME Group hiked margin requirements twice in a single week.

In the old days, that would have essentially been the equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on the market.

Of course they were able to drive the price of paper silver back down to about $70 for a few days, but here we are on January 6th, and it is already back to the $80 mark.

That isn’t the result that they were hoping to achieve.

And the gap between the paper silver market and the physical silver market has become extremely alarming.

If you want to purchase an ounce of physical silver in the United States right now, it will cost you close to 90 dollars.

In some countries in Asia, an ounce of physical silver will cost you more than 100 dollars.

Financial institutions that have enormous short positions are freaking out, because they are facing catastrophic losses.

I think that this is going to be a huge story in the months ahead.

The bankers were probably assuming that they could crush this silver rally just like they crushed the rally in 1980.  But the big difference this time around is that global supplies of physical silver have become extremely tight…

Silver has closed 2025 as the best-performing asset after a historic 26% surge in December. Yet market participants warn that this rally is not a replay of the Hunt brothers’ blow‑off in 1980 or the QE panic in 2011.

Back then, with leverage removed, the price could fall back because the metal was available. Today, silver is in a persistent deficit, experiencing surging industrial demand and a tightening geopolitical grip on physical flows.

A silver rally in 2011 also got crushed, but we are in a totally different environment today and western vaults “are getting starved for physical metal”…

In 2011, ETF inflows and investment demand as a hedge against QE propelled the demand. Still, solar and industrial use were smaller, and above‑ground stocks and Western vaults could eventually meet demand once the panic cooled.

Today, these vaults are getting starved for physical metal. For years running, silver demand has outstripped mine supply and recycling, draining inventories. Industrial usage – especially solar, EVs, and electronics – has surged. The changing market dynamics have naturally shifted investment preferences.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have decided to substantially restrict silver exports, and that gives them a tremendous amount of power over the marketplace…

Meanwhile, China has not banned silver exports outright, but reclassified the metal as a strategic commodity. Thus, it controls the outflow through 44 licensed companies. Every outbound ton is now a political decision, not just a price response.

Everything is different now.

One analyst at Bank of America is actually projecting that the price of silver could go as high as $309 an ounce in 2026…

Michael Widmer, Head of Metals Research at Bank of America, stated in the report that gold will continue to serve as an important hedge and primary return driver. The bank forecasts that the average gold price will reach $4,538 per ounce in 2026, with potential to test the $5,000 milestone. Driving factors include tightening gold supply, rising production costs, and strong investment demand.

However, the report particularly emphasizes that silver’s upside potential far exceeds that of gold. Widmer pointed out that the current gold-to-silver ratio is approximately 59:1, while historical extreme lows were 32:1 in 2011 and 14:1 in 1980. A reversion of the ratio towards these historical lows implies that the silver price could surge to a range between $135 and $309 per ounce. This substantial potential appreciation makes silver highly attractive to investors willing to take on higher risk for extra upside.

If the price of silver even goes up to $100 an ounce this year, I think that it is going to create a tremendous amount of pressure on a lot of financial institutions.

The price of copper has also been skyrocketing in recent months.

It was up about 50% in 2025, and on Tuesday it hit yet another brand new record high…

Global copper prices hit an all-time high Tuesday, extending a run for both the industrial metal and its peers, as investors scrambled to secure supplies amid a surge in expected demand and uncertainty tied to tariffs and geopolitical risks.

In our high tech economy, copper is such a key commodity.

President Trump has been threatening to impose substantial tariffs on copper imports, and this is happening at a time when the AI data center construction boom is really ramping up…

Copper prices have powered more than 20% higher over the past two months, topping $13,000 a ton on the London Metal Exchange for the first time earlier this week, as supply disruptions increased the value of the key industrial metal and amid the threat of new levies from the Trump administration later this year.

President Donald Trump, according to reports, has been mulling tariffs of around 15% on all copper imports in 2027, with the levy increasing to 30% in 2028, just as demand tied to data-center construction, electric-vehicle production, and power grid projects accelerates. That has led to a surge in U.S.-based copper stockpiles as investors import the metal to avoid tariff charges and a resultant depletion of supplies in markets around the world.

Close to 3,000 new data centers are either being planned or are already under construction in the U.S. alone.

That is crazy.

Globally, it is being projected that data center construction will consume over half a million metric tons of copper each year by the end of this decade…

Data centers currently consume about 1.5% of global electricity supply, roughly the same amount as the entire U.K., according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The organization believes that, by 2030, demand will more than double, with AI responsible for much of the increase. That means data centers could be consuming more than half a million metric tons of copper annually by the end of the decade.

As executive chairman of HIVE Digital Technologies, I’ve watched this transformation firsthand. The infrastructure needed to power this new digital economy—whether it’s Bitcoin mining, AI training or cloud computing—is staggering. And it all runs on copper.

As long as the AI boom continues, demand for copper will continue to rise.

Of course the construction of AI data centers consumes a lot of physical silver as well.

This is something that is outside of the control of western bankers.

They are still trying to pull the strings, but they simply do not possess the same level of power that they once did.

That is really bad news for them, but it is exceedingly good news for silver investors.

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 News, and 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.

The post They Can’t Stop The Unstoppable Rise Of Silver Because They Are Losing Their Grip On The Entire Global Financial System appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

In A Desperate Attempt To Stop The Bleeding, A Conspiracy To Force The Price Of Silver Down Is Unfolding Right In Front Of Our Eyes | The Economic Collapse

They aren’t even trying to pretend to hide what they are doing.  Everyone knows that the meteoric rise in the price of silver in 2025 has put an immense amount of stress on certain financial institutions.  Of course nobody is publicly confirming how much damage has been done, but it must be pretty severe if CME Group is taking such extreme measures to force the price of silver down.  For the second time in less than a week, CME Group has abruptly raised margin requirements on precious metals futures…

Gold and silver prices lost ground on Wednesday as investors booked profits after a historic annual rally and exchange operator CME Group hiked the margins on precious metal futures for the second time in the space of a week.

They probably thought that it was best to pull a stunt like this during the holidays while less people are paying attention.

A statement was released by CME Group which said that this latest move to hike margin requirements was done “to ensure adequate collateral coverage”…

CME Group, one of the world’s largest trading floors for commodities, said Tuesday that margins for gold, silver, platinum and palladium would increase again after the close of business Wednesday.

It said in a statement that the decision was made “as per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage.”

Give me a break.

We all know why this was done.

What we are witnessing is literally a conspiracy to force the price of silver down.

They knew that when they suddenly increased margin requirements, it would create a squeeze and force precious metals prices lower…

One reason behind recent declines in silver, including the stark fall on Wednesday, is changes to trading rules implemented by exchange operator CME Group, which hosts widely traded silver futures contracts.

Traders operating in CME’s derivatives market must put down cash to support their trades, with the exact amount or margin required varying. Amid volatile trading, the CME raised margin requirements effective Monday for precious metals including silver, and announced that margin requirements would rise again after Wednesday.

If traders cannot put up more cash, their positions are often forcibly closed, or sold, typically at unfavorable prices. This can cause a wave of selling that pushes prices down further, taking some of the shine out of silver—for now.

I am so disgusted by this.

The first margin hike didn’t get the results that they wanted, and so they did it again.

Shame on them.

We are supposed to be at least pretending that we have some semblance of a free market system left.

But even after this desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the price of silver is still up more than 140 percent in 2025…

Even after sharp declines on Wednesday, silver prices have gained more than 140% this year and remain relatively close to all-time highs above $82 reached on Sunday.

And most analysts are still projecting that the price of silver will continue to rise in 2026 because the fundamentals for silver are exceedingly favorable…

Yet there are also fundamentals behind silver’s remarkable rally this year.

The precious metal, like gold—up almost two-thirds in 2025 to record levels—is considered a store of value and a hedge against the dollar, which weakened this year amid falling U.S. interest rates.

Silver also benefits from industrial demand typical of the current moment, including uses in solar panels, electric vehicles, and data centers powering artificial intelligence.

If the AI boom were to burst, that could change the outlook for silver.

But right now the AI revolution is steaming ahead.

And the U.S. dollar is probably going to continue to get even weaker in 2026.

In 2025, the U.S. dollar index has fallen by nearly 10 percent…

The dollar continues to face a challenging backdrop in 2026 following this year’s sharp depreciation, Charles Stanley’s Abbas Owainati says in a note. The dollar’s fall this year reflects concerns over long-term fiscal sustainability, an erosion of the currency’s safe haven status amid unpredictable policy, increased currency hedging by non-U.S. investors and changes in capital flows. The dollar could stay under pressure next year as the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates further, he says. A weaker dollar could support emerging markets equities by easing external debt burdens, improving capital flows and boosting local currency returns, he says. The DXY dollar index trades flat at 98.008. It has fallen nearly 10% in the year to date.

The Trump administration doesn’t mind that the dollar has been getting weaker because it makes our exports more appealing to the rest of the world.

But when the U.S. dollar gets weaker, our purchasing power goes down.

A weaker dollar is one of the primary reasons why we find ourselves in an affordability crisis that never seems to end.

So if the U.S. dollar continues to lose value next year that will not be good news for millions of deeply struggling American households, but it will be great news for silver investors.

In addition, Martin Armstrong says that there are a number of geopolitical factors that will help move the price of silver higher during the months ahead…

When it comes to metal, Armstrong says, “People who know war and crisis are coming are buying metals. . .. We have creative destruction. You have AI coming in and you have unemployment rising and you have GDP rising. . .. You have shortages in commodities on top of this. . .. Then you have geopolitical nonsense. Anthony Blinken (Secretary of State in the Biden Administration) put sanctions on Russia. Look at the metals. What did it do? It cut off the supply of gold, silver and platinum coming out of Russia. Now, you have China putting in a ban on exporting silver as of January 1, 2026. This is rather important. China controls about 60% of the supply of silver. . .. This is one of the reasons why silver jumped up dramatically. This is a perfect storm. On top of all this, NATO is there only for war. That is it. . .. Socrates is still saying Europe will lose badly in a war with Russia.”

Armstrong sees a bull market for gold, silver and other metals for years ahead. One big reason is shortages in the metals. Armstrong says, “I don’t see these shortages going away. The bull market is more likely to go into 2032. It will be volatile, and then you’ve got war coming. Once you get into war, prices are going to go up even more. It’s all a mess. This is a perfect storm.”

Yes, we certainly are facing “a perfect storm”, and I am entirely convinced that the year in front of us is going to be absolutely nuts.

In the short-term, there will be plenty of opportunities for savvy investors to capitalize on all of the global chaos that we are witnessing.

Some people will make a lot of money, and of course others will lose a lot of money.

But in the end, the entire system is going to come crashing down all around us.

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 News, and 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.

The post In A Desperate Attempt To Stop The Bleeding, A Conspiracy To Force The Price Of Silver Down Is Unfolding Right In Front Of Our Eyes appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

As Silver Surges Toward The Magical $100 Mark, Global Debt Levels Are Exploding And The U.S. Dollar Is Dying | The Economic Collapse

This year silver has been on the greatest bull run that we have ever seen.  It is up an astounding 166 percent since January 1st, and so those that purchased it long ago and stuck with it are really loving life right now.  When the price of silver reached the 50 dollar mark earlier this year, I thought that it would be some time before it hit the 60 dollar mark.  But of course the truth is that it didn’t take long at all.  Once the price of silver reached 60 dollars, I thought that it might hit 70 dollars some time in early 2026.  If you check the latest numbers, you will see that we have easily blown past that threshold, and the price of silver has already surpassed 80 dollars in Shanghai.  I know that I have been using the word “crazy” a lot lately, but without a doubt what we are witnessing at this moment is truly “crazy”.

So why is this happening?

In a previous article, I discussed factors such as the AI boom, strong industrial demand, new technologies and a spike in demand for physical silver in Asia.

But let’s step back for a moment and take a look at the bigger picture.

To me, it is not a coincidence that the price of silver is exploding at the exact same time that we are reaching the terminal phase of the largest global debt super cycle in history…

Global debt has climbed to an all-time high of $337.7 trillion by the end of the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest Global Debt Monitor from the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The first half of 2025 alone saw an increase of over $21 trillion, largely driven by accommodative financial conditions, a softer US dollar, and continued government borrowing.

This jump is comparable to the COVID-era debt explosion in 2020, when governments and corporations worldwide dramatically ramped up spending to tackle the pandemic.

This is the first time in world history that all of the major powers are facing a nightmarish debt crisis simultaneously.

As this 337.7 trillion dollar debt bubble bursts, it is going to be so important to have your money somewhere safe.

So it makes all the sense in the world that there is so much demand for silver right now.

Long-term bond yields have been surging all over the globe, and this is even happening in nations that were once considered to be “safe havens” such as Japan and Germany…

Long-term yields are rising sharply across many countries, including in Germany and Japan, which in the past used to be safe havens. That puts huge pressure on fiscally distressed countries like Italy and France and incentivizes short-termism. If the EU wants to become a geopolitical player, it can’t allow high-debt countries to dictate foreign policy. This has to stop.

Meanwhile, fiat currencies are rapidly losing value, and that has particularly been true for the U.S. dollar…

The U.S. dollar was on the back foot on Wednesday and set for its biggest yearly fall since 2017, possibly with more to come, as investors wagered the Federal Reserve would have room to cut rates further next year even as most of its peers look finished with easing.

Tuesday’s solid U.S. GDP reading failed to move the dial on the rate outlook, leaving investors pricing in roughly two more Fed cuts in 2026.

This has been a horrible year for the U.S. dollar.

That is one of the reasons why the purchasing power of your money doesn’t stretch as far as it once did.

For the year, the U.S. dollar index is down about 10 percent…

Against a basket of currencies, the dollar index fell to a 2-1/2-month low of 97.767. It was on track to lose 9.8% for the year, which would mark its steepest annual drop since 2017. Any further weakness in the last week of the year would take its fall to its greatest since 2003.

Please keep in mind that the other currencies that the U.S. dollar is being measured against are rapidly losing value as well.

It is just that the U.S. dollar is losing value even faster.

One of the reasons why the U.S. dollar is losing value so rapidly is because global central banks are becoming less dependent on it…

The share of USD-denominated assets held by other central banks dropped to 56.9% of total foreign exchange reserves in Q3, the lowest since 1994, from 57.1% in Q2 and 58.5% in Q1, according to the IMF’s new data on Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves.

USD-denominated foreign exchange reserves include US Treasury securities, US mortgage-backed securities (MBS), US agency securities, US corporate bonds, and other USD-denominated assets held by central banks other than the Fed.

This is not good news at all.

Because as Wolf Richter has aptly pointed out, having the reserve currency of the world has been a massive advantage for us…

Foreign central banks buying USD-denominated assets, such as Treasury securities, helps push up prices and push down yields of those assets. Being the dominant reserve currency had the effect of helping the US borrow more cheaply to fund its huge twin deficits – the trade deficit and the budget deficit – and thereby has enabled the US to run those huge twin deficits for decades. At some point, this continued decline as a reserve currency, as it reduces demand for USD debt, would make the trade deficit and the budget deficit more difficult to sustain.

People have been talking about the death of the U.S. dollar for a long time.

The U.S. dollar is certainly not dead yet, but the fact that it is in the process of dying should deeply alarm us.

The entire global financial system is shifting, and right now there is a global race to accumulate precious metals.  This is particularly true for silver…

Silver has been designated critical by the United States. Russia has increased accumulation. India has discouraged selling while encouraging the use of silver as collateral. The Middle East is preparing silver-linked tokenized instruments. Demand is rising across jurisdictions.

At the same time, there have been some things going on behind the scenes that have caused the price of silver to go parabolic over the last couple of months…

Here’s the next dot: over the last two months, there has been a massive inflow of silver from Latin America into the United States. Not into China. Into the U.S.

Who is one clearinghouse? JPMorgan.

On Black Friday, JPMorgan effectively pulled silver off the market. That removal of available supply triggered a forced response elsewhere. Someone in China who was structurally short silver had to cover, and cover aggressively. That wasn’t a trade. That was a scramble.

I don’t see how the price of silver can keep going up at this rate.

At some point it will stabilize.

But of course silver is not the only precious metal that is in great demand right now.

On Friday, the price of platinum and the price of palladium both went absolutely haywire…

Elsewhere, spot platinum rose 8.7% to $2,411.46 per ounce, having earlier hit a record high of $2,448.25, ⁠while palladium climbed nearly 10% to $1,850.76.

For those that have invested in precious metals, what we are witnessing at this moment is such good news.

Conversely, unprecedented volatility in the prices of precious metals is a major red flag for the global financial system.

Bond yields are going nuts, cryptocurrencies have already crashed, and global stock markets are flashing huge warning signs.

Many are anticipating a great deal of financial chaos in 2026, and at this stage it is hard to argue that they are wrong.

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 News, and 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.

The post As Silver Surges Toward The Magical $100 Mark, Global Debt Levels Are Exploding And The U.S. Dollar Is Dying appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Silver And Copper Are Both Flashing The Same Signal — And That Is Setting The Stage For Widespread Panic On Wall Street | The Economic Collapse

2025 has been a smashing year for those that invested in precious metals.  The price of copper is up about 30 percent since the start of the year, and the price of silver has risen 128 percent during that same time period.  I have been saying “we have never seen anything like this before” a lot lately, but this is yet another case where that is entirely true.  Needless to say, what we have been witnessing is not welcome news for those that have been trying to keep silver prices and copper prices suppressed.  In recent weeks, big losses have turned into even bigger losses as things haven’t gone their way.  The big financial institutions in the western world that have been attempting to suppress prices are fighting a losing battle, because the “AI revolution” is going to require vast amounts of physical silver and physical copper.  At this stage, it would take a truly apocalyptic event to stop the construction of the thousands of colossal data centers that are currently going up all over the globe.

At the same time, there has been a worldwide explosion in demand for physical silver from individual investors as paper currencies rapidly lose their purchasing power.

This has particularly been true in Asia.

In fact, there was so much demand for physical silver in India a couple of months ago that it actually caused “severe physical shortages”…

The Indian silver market has been gripped by an unprecedented “silver squeeze” in October 2025, sending prices to historic highs and creating severe physical shortages. This crisis, fueled by a unique blend of festive demand, speculative buying, and a constrained global supply, has had immediate and significant implications, not only within India but also across international bullion markets. The traditional festive season of Dhanteras and Diwali has ignited a buying frenzy, pushing domestic silver prices to record levels, with physical market premiums skyrocketing and global ripple effects causing scarcity even in major bullion hubs.

You could argue that what has been going on in India lately is just temporary hysteria.

But what isn’t temporary is the steadily increasing industrial demand for physical silver…

High industrial demand for silver, too, has been driving up prices for months, the Silver Institute, an international nonprofit industry group, has observed. A December report from the institute further declared silver the “next generation metal,” calling it “an essential component across multiple high-growth sectors as industries race to embrace digital innovation and meet clean energy mandates.”

Physical silver is literally used in thousands upon thousands of high tech products, and many are convinced that what we are witnessing today is just the beginning.

For example, Samsung has been working on a new generation of solid-state batteries that threatens to revolutionize the marketplace…

Solid-state batteries have long been viewed as the next major evolution beyond conventional lithium-ion systems. Their promise—higher energy density, faster charging, and improved safety—has attracted sustained research investment from major automotive and electronics manufacturers.

Recent disclosures from Samsung SDI suggest that progress in this field has accelerated, particularly through the use of a silver–carbon (Ag–C) composite anode layer. While media coverage has focused on headline performance metrics such as extended driving range and reduced charging times, the material implications of this design choice have received comparatively limited attention.

Specifically, Samsung’s approach positions silver as an active electrochemical material, rather than a marginal conductive input. This distinction has meaningful consequences for long-term silver demand and supply dynamics.

If the adoption of solid-state batteries becomes widespread, the demand for physical silver in many industries could go through the roof…

Historically, silver usage in vehicles has been relatively modest. Internal combustion vehicles typically contain 15–20 grams, while electric vehicles use 30–50 grams, primarily in electronics, power management systems, and connectors.

Solid-state battery designs incorporating Ag–C anodes change this profile. Instead of milligram-scale dispersion, silver is deployed in gram-scale quantities per cell, making it a structural component of the battery system.

Even under conservative assumptions, partial adoption of solid-state batteries could introduce tens of millions of ounces of incremental annual silver demand by the late 2020s. Under more aggressive adoption scenarios, the impact would be materially larger.

I was quite stunned when I read that.

Our society is being transformed at a pace that is difficult to comprehend.

Just look at how many data centers are going up all around us.

Needless to say, every single one of those data centers requires large amounts of physical silver…

Industry association The Silver Institute and Oxford Economics reinforced that view in a report released on Tuesday, saying AI’s rapid expansion is helping drive growing demand for silver across digital economy applications.

“As digitalisation and AI adoption accelerate, so too does the demand for critical materials involved in their applications — silver a critical one among them,” they wrote.

Data centers increasingly rely on next-generation chips such as GPUs and TPUs equipped with high-performance semiconductors that use silver in their internal connections and packaging, the association wrote.

There is no telling how high the price of silver could eventually go during the AI boom.

The same thing is true for the price of copper.

This may be difficult for many of you to believe, but a single AI data center “can require up to 50,000 tons of copper”…

A conventional data center uses between 5,000 and 15,000 tons of copper. A hyperscale data center, on the other hand—the kind being built to run artificial intelligence (AI)—can require up to 50,000 tons of copper per facility, according to the Copper Development Association.

Think about that for a second. A single AI data center that uses more copper than three conventional facilities combined.

That’s why I think the AI story is about much more than just raw compute power. It also involves electrical infrastructure at a scale we’ve never seen before. And these massive facilities have an insatiable appetite for copper.

That is a lot of copper!

As the price of copper has soared, it has become an increasingly appealing target for thieves…

Often strung from utility poles or buried beneath our feet, copper wire has played a critical role in powering America’s electrical grid for more than a century.

But brazen thefts are threatening the grid, with thieves climbing onto car roofs to cut down telephone lines or prying open manholes in broad daylight to strip copper wiring.

The effects have been felt nationwide: roads and bridges going dark, 911 calls that fail to connect and higher utility bills as replacement costs get passed on to consumers.

If you live in an urban area and your power suddenly goes out for seemingly no reason, this might be the cause.

In a recent 12 month period, there were 15,000 attacks on domestic communication networks, and copper theft was one of the biggest factors…

There were more than 15,000 destructive attacks nationwide on domestic communication networks between June 2024 and June 2025, with copper theft a major driver, according to the TV and internet industry trade group, NCTA. More than 9.5 million customers were affected, with California and Texas alone accounting for over half of the incidents.

Copper theft is particularly bad in Los Angeles.

Law enforcement officials in L.A. openly admit that this is something that they are forced to deal with on a daily basis.

No matter how hard they try, they can’t seem to stop it from happening.

Just look at what has happened to the Sixth Street Bridge.  It opened in 2022, and since then thieves have ripped seven miles of copper wire out of it…

When Los Angeles unveiled its newly built Sixth Street Bridge in 2022, it was hailed as a new city landmark. At night, the 3,500-foot bridge, with wide pedestrian walkways, would light up in shifting LED colors.

Three years later, the bridge sits dark.

Thieves have stolen more than 38,000 feet, or seven miles, of copper wire from the bridge, causing $2.5 million in damage, according to Mark González, the local assemblymember who represents the area.

It is very hard to deny that we are rapidly becoming a third world country.

There is so much crime all around us, and I am entirely convinced that the worst is yet to come.

This is one of the reasons why so many data centers are being put up in very remote areas.

If a data center is located in the middle of nowhere, it is much less likely that criminals will mess with it.

And as long as the data center construction boom continues, the price of silver and the price of copper will both continue to rise.

For those that have positioned themselves wisely, that is very good news.

But for those on Wall Street that desperately need the price of silver and the price of copper to stop soaring, that is very bad news indeed.

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 News, and 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.

The post Silver And Copper Are Both Flashing The Same Signal — And That Is Setting The Stage For Widespread Panic On Wall Street appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Price Of Silver Goes Parabolic As The Cost Of Living Spikes And Mass Layoffs Occur All Over The Nation | The Economic Collapse

For a long time we were warned that when the financial system finally started melting down, the price of silver would explode.  It appears that those that predicted this were quite prescient.  The yen carry trade is unwinding, more than a trillion dollars in cryptocurrency wealth has been wiped out, stocks and bonds have been extremely volatile, and the U.S. dollar has plummeted in value since the beginning of the year.  Meanwhile, the price of silver has nearly doubled since January 1st…

In just 11 months, the price of silver has almost doubled. While gold stole the spotlight in 2025, it is silver that has gained more than the yellow metal. Compared to gold, silver has moved sharply higher over the last 12 months.

Over the last year, gold has increased by 59%, while silver has jumped nearly 87%. Even in 2025, so far gold has gained 60%, while silver is already up 94%.

As I write this article, silver is trading at $57.16 an ounce.

I never imagined that the price of silver would go so high in 2025, but here we are.

When there is a lot of uncertainty in the air, demand for silver tends to go up.

And right now there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the air.

Just about everyone expected that the price of silver would rise, but we have never seen anything quite like this.

It is being reported that the vaults in London are rapidly emptying…

Yet, London’s vaults have been emptying rapidly for the past few years. In June 2022, the London Bullion Market Association held 31,023 metric tons of silver. By March 2025, volumes had fallen by around a third to 22,126 metric tons — its lowest point in years.

“What isn’t necessarily so visible to people is what’s happening in the vaults,” said O’Connell. “And that had reached a point where there was basically there was no available metal left in London.”

On the other side of the planet, China’s physical stockpile of silver has hit a 10 year low.

This is a huge red flag, but most people don’t seem to realize this.

Global supplies of physical silver are becoming extremely tight, and this has been creating quite a bit of chaos…

“Some people were having to transport silver by plane rather than on cargo ships to meet delivery demand,” Paul Syms, head of EMEA ETF Fixed Income and commodity product management at Invesco, told CNBC.

Of course this is just the beginning.

Silver is used in thousands of different products, and this includes electric vehicles.

If current trends continue, demand for physical silver is only going to accelerate…

“At the moment, a standard electric vehicle has about 25 grams of silver, maybe the larger EVs have 50 grams of silver as part of their components,” said Syms.

“If we move into these solid-state silver batteries, each electric vehicle might require a kilo or more of silver,” he added.

And with silver having a high thermal conductivity and a higher electrical conductivity than other metals, as well as increasing demand for EVs, AI and renewables, the metal’s value is likely to keep shining.

There is no telling how high the price of silver could eventually go.

But that is not good news for the economy.

In fact, that is really bad news for the economy.

Investors tend to flock to silver when things are not going well.

And this year the value of the dollar has been tanking, our standard of living has been going down, and the cost of just about everything has been going up.

For example, the data center boom has been one of the primary forces that has driven power bills into unprecedented territory…

The data centers that power the artificial intelligence revolution are driving up electricity prices for households — and price relief may not be coming anytime soon, according to energy experts.

Residential retail electricity prices in September were up 7.4%, to about 18 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration.

It is being projected that thousands more data centers will be constructed in the U.S. by the year 2030.

So what we are experiencing now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Health care costs are also soaring, and this is particularly true for those that are on Obamacare…

Americans are expected to see skyrocketing health care prices as the open enrollment period for insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace begins on Saturday.

About 24 million people buy health insurance through the marketplace, the majority of whom used to receive tax credits to lower the monthly price of insurance.

Without credits, the monthly cost could rise by 114% on average, according to health research nonprofit KFF. This could mean an extra $1,000 a year, and in some cases much more.

One family in Utah could see their monthly premiums go from 495 dollars a month to 2,168 dollars a month…

Stacy Cox and her husband, who are small business owners in Utah, were paying $495 (£376) a month for health insurance.

Ms Cox said that without the tax credits, their monthly premiums are estimated to rise to $2,168, a 338% increase.

“It’s horrific to actually see real numbers,” she said.

Who can afford to pay 2,000 dollars a month for health insurance?

I don’t know anyone that could afford to do that.

Of course vast numbers of U.S. workers will soon be without any health coverage at all because they are losing their jobs.

FedEx was once one of America’s hottest companies, but now hundreds of workers will be getting the axe...

America’s hottest corporate trend is layoffs.

FedEx, America’s second-largest shipping and logistics company, is shutting down a logistics operation in Coppell, Texas, and laying off nearly 900 workers, according to a WARN notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.

Hewlett-Packard is another household name that is brutally slashing workers…

A household name in tech is the latest to announce a wave of layoffs.

On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard — the 86-year-old California tech giant better known as HP — said it plans to let go of between 4,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide.

That is roughly 10 percent of its workforce, with notices rolling out through 2028.

Meanwhile, stores continue to close down at a staggering pace all over the country.

American Signature operated over 120 stores and employed approximately 3,000 workers, but now it has gone belly up…

Another furniture chain has declared bankruptcy — as cash-strapped Americans hold off on home improvement projects.

On Sunday, American Signature, a 75-year-old furniture chain that operates Value City Furniture and American Signature Furniture stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The retailer operates more than 120 stores and employs about 3,000 people.

Day after day, we see more stories like this.

And that is because the U.S. economy really is coming apart at the seams.

What we are experiencing reminds me so much of 2008.

But of course so much has changed since that time.

If you purchased silver in December 2008 and held it until today, it has more than quintupled in value.

Amazingly, along the way there were many that accused those of us that spoke highly of silver of being wrong.

But in the end, time has revealed who was right after all.

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 News, and 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.

The post The Price Of Silver Goes Parabolic As The Cost Of Living Spikes And Mass Layoffs Occur All Over The Nation appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Gold Hits $4,000 For The First Time Ever And Silver Is Closing In On $50 As The U.S. Dollar Collapses | The Economic Collapse

It is exciting to see the price of gold soar to unprecedented levels, but we should also be horrified by what is happening to the U.S. dollar.  For years, many of us warned that debasing our currency was a really bad idea.  There are two primary ways that our leaders have done this.  Firstly, we have added more than 27 trillion dollars to the national debt since 2009.  Borrowing money that we do not have and pumping it into the economy temporarily raises our standard of living, but it also debases our currency.  Secondly, the Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars out of thin air and used it to buy bonds.  A lot of pundits hailed “quantitative easing” as a wonderful thing when it was introduced, but it has had very serious consequences.  Now the wealthy are swimming in cash, but the value of our currency has plummeted and our standard of living has crashed.  The first half of 2025 was the worst first half of a year for the U.S. dollar in more than 50 years.  In other words, the purchasing power of your money has gone way down.

The reason why the price of gold is skyrocketing is not because everyone has suddenly discovered how great gold is.

The reason why the price of gold is skyrocketing is because the U.S. dollar is in the process of collapsing.

On Wednesday, the price of gold crossed the $4,000 threshold for the first time ever…

Gold surged past the $4,000 an ounce level for the first time on Wednesday, building on a record-breaking rally as broader geopolitical and economic uncertainty, as well as expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts sent investors flocking to the safe-haven asset.

Spot gold was up 1.58% at $4,047.28 per ounce. U.S. gold futures for December delivery gained 1.58% to $4,067.70. Silver also latched on to gold’s rally, gaining 3.24% to $49.37 per ounce, and hovering just below its all-time high of $49.51.

A lot of people are celebrating this milestone, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture.

So far this year, the price of gold has increased by 54 percent…

Gold, traditionally seen as a store of value during times of instability, is up 54% year-to-date, after gaining 27% in 2024. It is one of the best-performing assets of 2025, outpacing advances in global equity markets and bitcoin and losses for the U.S. dollar and crude oil.

Its rally has been propelled by a combination of factors, including expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts, mounting political and economic uncertainty, strong central bank buying, hefty inflows into gold-backed ETFs and a weakening dollar.

It has been an amazing rally, and most of the experts expect the price of gold to continue to rise during the months ahead.

In fact, Goldman Sachs is now projecting that the price of gold will reach $4,900 by the end of next year…

Last quarter marked the strongest quarter on record for inflows into gold-backed exchange-traded funds. Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs analysts lifted their gold forecast for December 2026 from $4,300 to $4,900 per troy ounce.

Needless to say, the price of silver has been going up even faster.

So far this year, the price of silver has gone up nearly 70 percent.

That is crazy.

I never imagined that silver would be closing in on the $50 mark in October 2025.

But here we are, and it just shows how late in the game it really is.

As the U.S. dollar collapses, investors are pouring into “the so-called debasement trade”…

The moves reflect a continuation of the so-called debasement trade, in which investors pour into hard assets and crypto to hedge against what they see as the erosion of fiat currency value driven by inflation, heavy government spending, and mounting debt financed by money creation.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Governments all over the world have been recklessly debasing their currencies, and so investors are looking for assets that will retain their value in a world gone mad.

The U.S. government has been a particularly egregious offender.  As Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has aptly observed, stockpiling gold and silver is a way “to effectively de-dollarize”…

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has expressed concern as investors increasingly view gold as a safer asset than the US dollar. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on Monday, Griffin noted that substantial capital is moving away from the dollar as investors seek to de-dollarize or reduce exposure to US sovereign risk. He added:

“We’re seeing substantial asset inflation away from the dollar as people are looking for ways to effectively de-dollarize, or de-risk their portfolios vis-a-vis US sovereign risk.”

Many of us have been warning about the death of the U.S. dollar for many years.

Now it is in the process of happening right in front of our eyes.

Right now, a lot of “gold bugs” are gleefully celebrating the fact that they have been proven right.

There is nothing wrong with celebrating, but we also need to view things from a longer term perspective.

When global events really hit the fan, you will want to have physical assets that you actually have in your possession.

So please don’t put your faith in paper.

The entire system that so many of us are completely and utterly dependent upon is failing.

Yes, the price of gold is likely to continue to go up during the months ahead.

Yes, the price of silver is likely to continue to go up during the months ahead.

But whatever you choose to do, I highly recommend that you invest in things that you can physically touch.

I am entirely convinced that really big things are about to start happening.

As our world is shaken by catastrophic events, there is going to be a tremendous amount of panic.

My recommendation is to become as independent of the system as possible, because a lot of people out there are going to get absolutely crushed as the system fails all around them.

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 News, and 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.

The post Gold Hits $4,000 For The First Time Ever And Silver Is Closing In On $50 As The U.S. Dollar Collapses appeared first on The Economic Collapse.