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<\/a><\/p>\nAuthored by David Haggith via The Great Recession blog,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The twaddle that comes out of the White House is deep right now.<\/strong> When our tottering president isn\u2019t out enjoying a bike ride and falling down because Putin put gum in his stirrup so that he couldn\u2019t get his foot out to steady himself, he is assembling a colorful team of Frisco-style professionals highly qualified in the field of transition to guide us through the vicissitudes of war, plague and famine that are swirling around the entire globe right now. (\u201cFrisco\u201d is the name the city loves to hate, so I chose it intentionally for a city I once found beautiful.)<\/p>\n The LGBTQRS+++ hip chick that is the president\u2019s talking mop at the press secretary\u2019s podium spent her morning yesterday assuring us all that we are experiencing a \u201cperiod of transition\u201d right now <\/strong>\u2014 something I am sure she has much experience with \u2014 going from times of economic strength in which the vast majority of us are doing great into even better<\/em> times. Thank goodness for people who can guide us through transition to understand what we are going through and where we will end up, which will be \u2014 if we follow MoJoe & Co. \u2014 coming out the opposite sex from whatever we we were when we came into this world:<\/p>\n The primary accomplishment of Team Biden by the end of his one term that has somehow managed to be even more divisive than Trump<\/strong> will be to recolor the flag behind her with prettier inclusive rainbow stripes than the binary red and white that it historically displays. Until then, at least, we now know what \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d looks<\/em> like. According to Jean-Pierre, we are already there and clearly moving into even better times.<\/p>\n It would be my own analysis, on the other hand, that if she and her colleagues don\u2019t see a recession anywhere in sight, I can recommend an eye doctor for all of them.<\/strong> Their own Dr. Powell Fauci Magoo, who, incidentally, was also Trump\u2019s White House physician, doesn\u2019t seem to be serving them well. In the very least, I recommend they step outside the White House for a few moments to escape the curling rings of herb smoke that cloud their vision and take a look around. Perhaps I can provide a guided tour for her, though I am sure she will hallucinate some deep state of Democratic delusions she wants to see so that her trip is not as bad as mine or yours is<\/em> and is about<\/em> to be:<\/p>\n While we continue to hear, albeit less confidently now, about the economy being strong, what I see is that the economy has rarely looked worse in numerous ways. Obviously, I am not smoking the right stuff to enjoy the \u201ceconomy as it ought to be\u201d trip; but here is what I see in black and white when not blinded by so many pretty colors swimming around my head as MoJoe & Co. apparently see in theirs.<\/p>\n First, I note that increasingly a number of voices in the financial press \u2014 some mainstream, some not \u2014 are starting to hum along to my familiar tune \u2014 not very loudly or clearly yet, BUT they are starting to pick it up:<\/p>\n Phoenix Capital now says, \u201cThe U.S. is Already In a Recession\u2026 Here\u2019s How to Profit From It!<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n Everything else is imploding and has been for months.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At least, some people can see the obvious that it does not pay to see when your job (or next term) depends on your convincing everyone they are seeing something else.<\/p>\n Phoenix presents as evidence the rather sharp decent of Walmart and Amazon into the ashes of retail.<\/p>\n Bill \u201cthe Dud\u201d Dudley, a former New York Fed chief and one-time vice chair of the Fed\u2019s money-printing FOMC<\/a>, says with a friendly smile, \u201cWelcome To The Recession.\u201d For a moment there, it almost sounded like he agreed with me that a recession is already here, but in typical bansker safety-net style he adds \u201cin another 12-18 months.\u201d Still, that is better eyesight than can be found in the White House. He, at least, is certain the blurry blob he sees up ahead is<\/em> a recession, and for a Fed guy he\u2019s speaking rather out of turn:<\/p>\n While the Fed\u2019s forecasts have become more plausible over time, I see several reasons to expect a much harder landing. Much like Wile E. Coyote heading off a cliff, the US economy has plenty of momentum but rapidly disappearing support. Falling back to earth will not be a pleasant experience.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Zero Hedge<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s hardly anywhere near as comforting as Jean-Pierre. I think I\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having.<\/p>\n Just to be clear, Dudley states,<\/p>\n If you\u2019re still holding out hope that the Federal Reserve will be able to engineer a soft landing in the US economy, abandon it. A recession is inevitable within the next 12 to 18 months.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, not only can some people see a recession up ahead, but they are certain that it is \u201cinevitable\u201d and that a soft landing is a dream to be abandoned.<\/p>\n The determining factors for the quality of our landing that Dudley lays out (the reasons we had better hope they line Powell\u2019s runway with lots of bouncy houses and foam to soften the landing) are as follows:<\/p>\n In other words, this:<\/p>\n Biden and his talking mop on the other hand assured us that \u201crecession is not inevitable\u201d and is nowhere in sight. That is because, like the coyote, they forgot to look right beneath themselves. Oops.<\/p>\n Some others also see a recession as \u201cinevitable\u201d and see happening in the near term as \u201cmore likely than not\u201d:<\/p>\n Since people are not inclined to take my word for it, let my have a Nobel economist (I realize they cannot usually see a recession until it is behind them) reiterate the points for me as he did earlier this week:<\/p>\n Biden, on the other hand, assured everyone on the same day that another prize of an economist, Larry Summers, assured him \u201cthere\u2019s nothing inevitable<\/em> about a recession.\u201d Never mind that even Summers did say a recession now looks highly likely \u2026 but just not \u2026 \u201cinevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Nomura became the first bank to place the recession squarely within 2022.<\/p>\n The Atlanta Fed, meanwhile, is now prognosticating the 2nd quarter of 2022 closes with precisely zero economic growth, which will still leave us in a trough that began last quarter. If that is the case, then GDP will have continued to scrape along a ceiling that is 1.5% lower than GDP was at the start of the year, now half a year gone by, meaning we entered and remained in a GDP trough since the start of the year.<\/p>\n Nomura believes a mild recession starting in Q4 2022 is now more likely than not (ZH: expect the mood to deteriorate further as \u201cmild\u201d eventually becomes \u201cjarring\u201d)\u2026. Consumers are experiencing a significant negative sentiment shock, energy and food supply disruptions have worsened and the outlook for foreign growth has deteriorated. All these factors will likely contribute to the expected downturn.<\/p>\n Zero Hedge<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Amazing. People are starting to look up and see what has been obvious all around them for months now and are finally whipping up the courage to say what they are seeing<\/em>.<\/p>\n Nomura believes the Fed will skid right on past the QT stopping point as predictably as Wile E. Coyote skids past the cliff edge. Biden believes, if you don\u201dt look down, what\u2019s down there can\u2019t hurt you. Of course that was what he believed when he was out riding his bike, too.<\/p>\n Goldman Sachs is another bank that now joins those who are humming the same tune to say, at least,<\/p>\n We now see recession risk as higher and more front-load\u2026.<\/em><\/strong> We are increasingly concerned that the Fed will feel compelled to respond forcefully to high headline inflation and consumer inflation expectations.<\/p>\n Yahoo!<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How \u201cfront-load[ed]\u201d they don\u2019t say. They, of course, expect it to be shallow and clear up like a short cloudburst.<\/p>\n Piper Sandler \u2026 shows that the typical bear market follows<\/em> the start of a recession with a delay of 95 days, and eventually exhaust itself with an average total drawdown of 40% which means that current recession probably already started some time in March:<\/p>\n Zero Hedge<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, following the worst start for stocks to a year since the Great Depression\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026 and also the worst start since 1932 in total return terms across all asset classes\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026 one would be excused to ask if instead of a garden variety recession, the US isn\u2019t rushing straight into a depression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Summarizes the New York Post<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n Wall Street bets are growing that the U.S. economy tumbles into a recession next year <\/em>as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates at the fastest pace in two decades in order to cool scorching-hot inflation. Bank of America Global Research strategists have ratcheted up the odds of an economic downturn to 40% in 2023\u2026. \u201cOur worst fears around the Fed have been confirmed: They fell way behind the curve and are now playing a dangerous game of catch up.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n OK. Well, none of the banks, except the Atlanta Fed, are quite with me yet, but they are all getting closer and closer by the day.<\/p>\n Now that the experts are lining up on the recession side of the fence, let\u2019s look at a short list of major weaknesses I see in the US economy that are screaming recession is here or near:<\/p>\n In a recent article titled \u201cThe Real GDPig was a Whole Lot Uglier than it Looked!<\/a>\u201d I dug deep beneath the Bureau of Economic Asininity\u2019s surface GDP numbers to reveal how the auto industry has been in a long slouch and was, contrary to overt claims by the BEA, a major factor in pulling the economy down last quarter and<\/em> the quarter before. There was something I noted, based on loads of evidence from the BEA, that was seriously wrong with the BEAs claims about automobiles driving GDP up in Q4 and then down in Q1, probably because the industry is in such disarray that BEA doesn\u2019t know how to sort out the anomalies in its own numbers.<\/p>\n The auto industry has also been a major factor in the superheated CPI reports because scarcity due to lack<\/em> of production has been driving up prices. Many tried to claim the auto industry was turning around, using it as a sign that the negative GDP print in Q1 was a one-off. I did not believe evidence bore that out, and that has turned out now to be the case:<\/p>\n The S&P Global Sector PMI\u2122 revealed that Automobiles & Auto Parts sector output contracted worldwide for a second successive month amid the sharpest reduction in new orders since the COVID-19 pandemic and renewed supply disruptions linked to the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Seeking Alpha<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n While that is a global production situation, it doesn\u2019t look any better in the US:<\/p>\n The U.S. light-vehicle market doesn\u2019t appear to be in the best health. While many automakers now opt against issuing monthly sales reports, those that still do are posting some pretty brutal numbers. This does not bode well for an industry that seemed pretty certain that 2022 would be its recovery year.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Truth about Cars<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Manufacturers are still warning about supply constraints and an inability to manufacture at full scale. The auto industry has always been a major component in GDP and is continuing to pull it down. Some economists thought the industry would start getting back up to cruising speed this quarter. That does not appear to have been the case.<\/p>\n As for sales volume, most automakers were posting double-digit declines for the month of May. Overall, the seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of sales (SAAR) for May fell dropped to a crippling low of 12.81 million, according to Motor Intelligence. That\u2019s to be contrasted against April\u2019s 14.6 million units and over 17 million average from May of 2021\u2026. \u201cThe market faces a real risk of turning negative from 2021.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, that just doesn\u2019t sound good at all, and that was the area where the optimists were most expecting some reprieve after the negative Q1 GDP print, which they chose to believe was the anomaly, rather than accept the idea that the high GDP increase in the quarter before was the clear outlier from the trend.<\/p>\n In another recent article titled \u201cThe Retail Apocalypse was Bloodier than it Looked<\/a>,\u201d I similarly described how the retail industry was a much bloodier picture than what many economists were making of it. It seemed like major retailers got ready to throw a party and one one came. Last quarter they stocked up all they could and remained laden with inventory from imports that are mistakenly thought to subtract from GDP, but that is a misunderstanding of how they are merely reconciled back out of other GDP inputs in which they are embedded.<\/p>\n This quarter major retailers are threatening to unload, and that is seen by some as possible hope for a boom in retail; but at what price?<\/p>\n America\u2019s top retailers messed up \u2013 particularly the ones that focus on durable goods rather than groceries. Most of them released their earnings reports last month, saw shares take a beating and moved on\u2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Then, the mega-retailer [Target] did something no one was expecting. On Tuesday, Target told investors it anticipated a profit margin more around 2%. It would slash prices on certain goods and cancel incoming orders. It\u2019s highly unusual for a company to slash its profit expectations within weeks of its earnings report.<\/p>\n Target said in its Tuesday press release that the profit slash comes from a need to \u201cright-size\u201d inventories. People aren\u2019t buying items like televisions, outdoor furniture and kitchen appliances like they were last year\u2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s all leading to what Forbes\u2019 Madeline Halpert called \u201cmarkdown mania,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> and not just at Target. Gap is hawking $60 leggings for just $12. Target is selling televisions for 25% off and patio sets at a 52% markdown\u2026.<\/p>\n The demand for random crap suddenly vanished, taking everyone by surprise.<\/p>\n Freightwaves<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is hard to imagine how massive price slashing to near-zero profit margins to unload inventory no one wants to buy is going to prove to be a positive for GDP!<\/em><\/strong> As reported in the headlines, GDP is measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, so I suppose the impact of the mess in retail inventories and sales will depend on how much prices are slashed and how successfully that gets consumers to pick up the unwanted merchandise. Regardless of how it impacts the GDP number, this extreme dislocation clearly speaks of a badly broken economy<\/strong>, not one humming along like a new car \u2026 or like new cars used to hum along. Sounds more like one that\u2019s humming my tune.<\/p>\n [ZH: An example of this is the fact that while we started the year with relatively ‘low’ inventory-to-sales, that has since exploded higher amid the ‘bullwhip’ effect<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n Why does this matter? Well, for a simple but critical reason: if one year ago we saw the hyperinflationary start of the bullwhip effect, we have entered the terminal phase of the “bullwhip effect”, where plunging inventory-to-sales ratios reverse violently higher, where supply chains unclog suddenly and rapidly amid a sudden chill in the economy, and where prices for so-called “core” goods collapse almost overnight, even as non-core prices (food and energy) explode even higher.]<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Something is broken. Likely it means that backlogged inventory arrived all at once a day late and many dollars short for the retailer. Lest you think I\u2019m the only one who is struggling to rightly understand the peculiarities here, let me quote the expert in the article:<\/p>\n To end, I\u2019d like to emphasize that the vibes are abruptly off and no one really knows what\u2019s happening<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s a mess, not strength. That is log jams clearing through the ports then jamming up in warehouses, causing aberrations in how things are reported. Dysfunctional is not strong.<\/em><\/strong> Even executives at the\u2026<\/p>\n Gartner supply chain conference in Florida this week \u2026 were confused and not feeling very zesty\u2026. Transportation managers canceled orders in early 2020 predicting a recession, then found their hastiness left shelves empty and consumers furious. Now that they\u2019ve built back up, customers aren\u2019t buying anymore and their balance sheets are destroyed. The whiplash is baffling.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The truth is retail sucks so bad right now that even the retailers have no idea what to make of it, neither do the shippers. It\u2019s just baffling whiplash. \u201cDestroyed balance sheets\u201d are not the stuff of strong economies. What we have is a trainwreck or a shipwreck, and retailers and shippers alike are struggling to figure out what to do with it and what it really means.<\/p>\n Housing prices and housing sales are already falling as mortgage interest has more than doubled. Consumer sentiment is already at an all-time low. (Hence the need for Jean-Pierre to tell us things are not as bad as they feel right now, and we are transitioning from great economic strength to strength that is even built back better.)<\/p>\n The housing market isn\u2019t at a level that will by itself put us into recession just yet, but it is certainly sliding rapidly that way \u2026 and rather all of a sudden, given that Fed interest rates are still on the hot stimulus end of the Fed\u2019s normal scale. That is because mortgage rates our outpacing the Fed\u2019s tweaks, anticipating where things are headed:<\/p>\n The highest share of sellers on record dropped their list price during the four weeks ending June 12 as mortgage rates shot up to levels not seen since 2008\u2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe housing market isn\u2019t crashing, but it is experiencing a hangover as it comes down from an unsustainable high,\u201d said Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr. \u201cHousing demand has already cooled significantly to the point that the industry has begun facing layoffs.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDemand from homebuyers was still extremely high as recently as February<\/em>, but rates are making it really tough. Going from 3% to nearly 6% almost instantly has scared a lot of people out of the market.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Redfin<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Prices have stalled and have begun to follow sales down in some areas. Employment in the industry definitely has started to fall. What housing moves now foretell is that, as all the other forces mentioned above drive us quickly into recession, housing will be bringing up the rear to stomp us down deeper, given that housing the biggest GDP drivers in the US economy, being a major factor even in retail sales of all the items that get built into a house, plus all the new furniture that fills the new homes.<\/p>\n So, while the Biden-Powell team are calling all of this a strong and resilient economy, you had better think twice if they try to sell you choice waterfront real estate in Florida. It\u2019s probably not in Miami or on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n If America\u2019s economy is looking strong, why is America\u2019s most golden of all cities now referred to in The Atlantic<\/em> as a \u201cfailed city<\/a>?\u201d Herb Caen, San Francisco\u2019s \u201cbeloved old chronicler,\u201d once said that, If he ever got to heaven, he\u2019d look around and say, \u201cIt ain\u2019t bad, but it ain\u2019t San Francisco.\u201d To read The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> description today and many others I\u2019ve read over the past two years<\/em>, he might say today upon opening his eyes in San Francisco, \u201cI knew I\u2019d wind up in hell.\u201d It\u2019s such pretty beaten up version of the city he once loved that he would only recognize it as some upside down version of the old San Fran.<\/p>\n Says a modern-day liberal chronicler,<\/p>\n Progressive leaders here have been LARPing left-wing values instead of working to create a livable city. And many San Franciscans have had enough.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Today\u2019s scene looks so bad it may finally liberate liberals from their own liberalism. Here, too, the smoke of herb has long circled the heads of those that lead, and look at how colorfully banal it has all become:<\/p>\n On a cold, sunny day not too long ago, I went to see the city\u2019s new Tenderloin Center for drug addicts on Market Street. It\u2019s downtown, an open-air chain-link enclosure in what used to be a public plaza. On the sidewalks all around it, people are lying on the ground, twitching. There\u2019s a free mobile shower, laundry, and bathroom station emblazoned with the words dignity on wheels. A young man is lying next to it, stoned, his shirt riding up, his face puffy and sunburned. Inside the enclosure, services are doled out: food, medical care, clean syringes, referrals for housing. It\u2019s basically a safe space to shoot up. The city government says it\u2019s trying to help. But from the outside, what it looks like is young people being eased into death on the sidewalk, surrounded by half-eaten boxed lunches.<\/p>\n The Atlantic<\/a><\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I used to think San Francisco was America\u2019s most beautiful major city \u2014 the golden lady in my opinion \u2014 even if too liberal for my taste. Not now. Even the people who used to feel privileged to live there want to get out of town and head for the hills \u2026 forever. As they do, Californians are taking the values that destroyed their great cities and transporting them like transplanted cancer cells to Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming so they can wreck all that is beautiful about those places, too, replacing farmlands and ranches with MacMansions and shopping centers in order to do it all over again.<\/p>\n But I digress. Let it suffice for now to say, the picture of San Francisco as it has become is a pretty good metaphor for the US economy as it<\/em> has become. I\u2019ll leave you, then, with words of the modern-day chronicler above:<\/p>\n During the first part of the pandemic, San Francisco County lost more than one in 20 residents\u2014myself among them. Signs of the city\u2019s pandemic decline are everywhere\u2014the boarded-up stores, the ghostly downtown, the encampments. But walking these streets awakens me to how bad San Francisco had gotten even before the coronavirus hit\u2014to how much suffering and squalor I\u2019d come to think was normal.<\/p>\n Stepping over people\u2019s bodies, blurring my eyes to not see a dull needle jabbing and jabbing again between toes\u2014it coarsened me. I\u2019d gotten used to the idea that some people just want to live like that. I was even a little defensive of it: Hey, it\u2019s America. It\u2019s your choice\u2026.<\/p>\n I\u2019d gotten used to the crime, rarely violent but often brazen; to leaving the car empty and the doors unlocked so thieves would at least quit breaking my windows. A lot of people leave notes on the glass stating some variation of Nothing\u2019s in the car. Don\u2019t smash the windows\u2026.<\/p>\n A couple of years ago, one of my friends saw a man staggering down the street, bleeding. She recognized him as someone who regularly slept outside in the neighborhood, and called 911. Paramedics and police arrived and began treating him, but members of a homeless advocacy group noticed and intervened. They told the man that he didn\u2019t have to get into the ambulance, that he had the right to refuse treatment. So that\u2019s what he did. The paramedics left; the activists left. The man sat on the sidewalk alone, still bleeding. A few months later, he died about a block away\u2026<\/p>\n In lockdown the beauty became obscene. The city couldn\u2019t get kids back into the classroom; so many people were living on the streets; petty crime was rampant. I used to tell myself that San Francisco\u2019s politics were wacky but the city was trying\u2014really trying\u2014to be good. But the reality is that with the smartest minds and so much money and the very best of intentions, San Francisco became a cruel city. It became so dogmatically progressive that maintaining the purity of the politics required accepting\u2014or at least ignoring\u2014devastating results\u2026.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to die on the street, San Francisco is not a bad place to do it. The fog keeps things temperate. There\u2019s nowhere in the world with more beautiful views. City workers and volunteers bring you food and blankets, needles and tents. Doctors come to see how the fentanyl is progressing, and to make sure the rest of you is all right as you go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019ll all get so much better when the water from the parched Colorado River is completely shut off later this summer, driving LA water-mob slobs to storm SF to get their hand\u2019s on some liquid that may soon sell for more than the city\u2019s old gold. The old lady, drowning in wokeness and tears and suffocating in the worn-out wraps of her own regulations and process has been laid to rest in a graveyard of intentional squalor for the sake of the impoverished at a cost of $60,000 per tent space born by the SF taxpayers. I\u2019m sure the tolerance of criminal decline seen in the \u201csmash and grabs\u201d I wrote about at the start of the year for RT.com<\/a> didn\u2019t help. May she Rest In Rainbows as a testament to all that is dying in liberal, woke Amerika.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n via Zerohedge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 5, 2022 at 06:34AM ‘America, The Beautiful’ Is Broken Authored by David Haggith via…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,220,8],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-4271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-civil-war","category-economy","category-featured-stories","tag-sbn"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=986%2C768&ssl=1",986,768,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=300%2C234&ssl=1",300,234,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=640%2C498&ssl=1",640,498,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=640%2C498&ssl=1",640,498,true],"rpg_gallery_admin_thumb":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"rpg_gallery_thumb":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=986%2C768&ssl=1",986,768,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=986%2C768&ssl=1",986,768,true],"newsphere-slider-full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?resize=986%2C720&ssl=1",986,720,true],"newsphere-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=986%2C768&ssl=1",986,768,true],"newsphere-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?resize=720%2C380&ssl=1",720,380,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Peter Santilli"]},"category_info":"American Civil War<\/a> Economy<\/a> Featured Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Featured Stories","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/petersantilli.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-05-at-6.38.05-AM.png?fit=986%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/plD2r-16T","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4283,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions\/4283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petersantilli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is the true state of the disunion?<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-23-04.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-24-29.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-24-51.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-25-22.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe auto industry remains a wreck<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-26-49.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRetail remains a mixed bag<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-27-20.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-39-26.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nHousing slides<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2022-07-04_07-42-47.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe golden oldie of America\u2019s pride<\/h2>\n