Consumer Demand Collapses - Global Economy Implodes - Factories Closing Doors, Freight Demand Plummets

Consumer demand collapses as global economy IMPLODES, factories closing doors, freight demand plummets

Mike Adams

We are now watching the whiplash effect of all the mad money printing that took place during covid lockdowns, which provided the world’s central banks an excuse to prop up their Ponzi markets one last time. The flood of money and debt was stabbed into the economy like an adrenaline needle into the heart of a code blue drug junky, reanimating the corpse of the economy into something mimicking economic “activity.” But the stimulus wave has, as we all supposed would happen, set into motion a series of inevitable after effects that might be worse than just letting the corpse expire in the first place.

Now the world faces skyrocketing inflation (i.e. currency devaluation) being reflected in prices of food (up at least 40% in the grocery store and closer to 80% in restaurants, in case you haven’t noticed), energy (up 800% – 1000% across much of Europe), clothing, housing and almost everything else you can think of. With consumers at the end of their financial ropes, they are now drastically cutting back on purchases of discretionary items such as appliances, vacations and high-end cosmetics. This is causing alarm bells to sound off in the manufacturing industry where companies like Electrolux (the second-largest appliance manufacturer in the world) has announced production cuts in both Europe and the United States.

As consumer demand is plummeting, forced shutdowns of factories are also occurring due to high energy prices and supply chain disruptions. We learned yesterday, for example, that Toyota has shut down Sienna production (that’s their mini-van) for the next two years. Promised 2023 models from Dodge, Nissan, Honda, GMC, Ford and Chevy are severely lacking in availability, and we are told that much of this problem traces back to lack of transportation (rail transport, believe it or not) and parts that are unable to be sourced due to the supply chain collapse.

All across Western Europe, steel plants and smelting operations that handle zinc, copper, aluminum, manganese and other industrial metals are collapsing by the day. The situation is so dire that a trade group known as “Eurometaux” issued an urgent warning, claiming that if “emergency EU action” wasn’t initiated, the entire continent would face a crisis of “permanent deindustrialisation.”

This means the end of industry for Europe.

“Europe’s worsening energy crisis,” the letter says, “[poses an] existential threat to our future.”

EU leaders must, “take emergency action to preserve their strategic electricity-intensive industries and prevent permanent job losses,” the warning continues.

It goes on to state that 50% of aluminum and zinc production capacity is already offline. Copper and nickel aren’t far behind. “Producers face electricity and gas costs over ten times higher than last year, far exceeding the sales price for their products,” the letter warns.

In essence, Europe’s entire metals industry is demanding a government bailout. “Intervention” means using public money to keep these zombie industries alive by allowing them to use energy that simply isn’t available. The energy crisis is so severe across Europe right now that if severe restrictions are not enforced, many countries will face a total wipeout of energy and electricity before the Spring of 2023. So paying metals smelting operators to keep running their high-energy-usage plants isn’t a viable option. Instead, European governments are likely to pay metals industry companies to idle their plants while paying their workers to produce nothing.

If this starts to sound a lot like communism, that’s not a coincidence.

All across Europe, nations must choose to either pay industry to produce nothing, or allow those industries to permanently collapse into ruin, from which there is no easy recovery. You can’t simply restart large-scale industrial operations after bankruptcies have been declared, equipment has been auctioned off and employees have sought jobs somewhere else. Allowing industrial metals factories to plunge into bankruptcy would spell the end of industry in Europe for at least the next decade. Without metals, obviously, you can’t build much of anything else, including automobiles.

The economic devastation coming to Europe this winter will likely be worse than World War II.