Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The alarms are getting even louder each week.  It has become exceedingly clear that the U.S. economy has entered a crisis that is similar to what we experienced in 2008 and 2009, and a lot of people are really starting to freak out.  For those that cannot see the stunning parallels between the Great Recession and what we are going through now, I don’t know what to say to them.  There are a lot of people out there that simply choose to believe whatever they want to believe no matter what the evidence indicates.  In this case, all of the evidence is pointing in a single direction.

When foreclosure filings started to spike prior to the global financial crisis in 2008, that was a major red flag.

Now it is happening again.

In fact, during the month of October 2025 foreclosure filings were 19 percent higher than they were in October 2024…

In October alone, there were 36,766 foreclosure filings — the first step in the process, when a lender warns a borrower they’re in default. That’s up three percent from September and 19 percent from a year ago.

‘Foreclosure activity continued its steady upward trend in October — the eighth straight month of year-over-year increases,’ said ATTOM CEO Rob Barber.

The rise is stirring uncomfortable memories of 2008, when a wave of foreclosures triggered the worst housing crash in modern US history.

Read the second paragraph in that quote again.

Foreclosure activity has increased for eight consecutive months.

That is what we call a trend.

Some of the markets that were once the hottest are now seeing the highest rates of foreclosure filings…

States with the worst foreclosure rates were Florida (one in every 1,829 housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (one in every 1,982), Illinois (one in every 2,570), Delaware (on in every 2,710), and Nevada (one in ever 2,747).

Among metro areas with populations of a million or more, Tampa posted the highest foreclosure rate at one in every 1,373 housing units.

Following Tampa were Jacksonville (one in every 1,576 housing units), Orlando (one in every 1,703), Riverside (one in every 1,983), and Cleveland (one in every 2,114).

What a mess.

The good news is that it looks like there will soon be a lot of homes on the market in Florida.

We live at a time when our nation is facing a very serious housing affordability crisis, and this has hit our young adults particularly hard.

The following chart which was once posted by Charlie Kirk demonstrates how home ownership among young adults has plunged in recent years…

These days, a lot of young adults are convinced that they will never be able to become homeowners.

Others that have really stretched themselves financially to purchase homes are now being hit with foreclosure notices.

I really detest what Wall Street has done to the housing market, and now we are reaping the consequences.

Renting is the primary alternative to home ownership, but renters are having a really hard time right now too.

As Daisy Luther has aptly pointed out, vast numbers of renters are being ruthlessly evicted from their homes in this very harsh economic environment…

Rents in America are ridiculously high in many areas, and nearly impossible to find in other areas. This is harder to track than foreclosures for two reasons.

Nobody official is keeping track of evictions, so we have to rely on extrapolated data from regions that do have somebody watching. One example of this is a company called “Eviction Lab” that tracks data from ten states, but only in specific cities and counties in those states. Even with this sparse reporting, their home page shows more than a million evictions over the last year, and more than 78,000 just last month.

The other reason we don’t have official numbers is something called “informal evictions.” Some states have laws against dramatic increases in rent, but not all states do. Both my daughter and I, living in a metro area, have faced a vast increase in rent when our leases were up. For my daughter, the increase was $900 a month and for me it was $600 a month.

Most of the country is just barely scraping by from month to month.

So it is really easy to push most Americans into a state of financial disaster.

Just look at what is happening with subprime auto loans.

The share of those loans that are at least 60 days delinquent has reached the highest level ever recorded…

The share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days behind on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest level on record, according to Fitch Ratings data going back to the early 1990s.

As auto loan delinquencies spike, we are seeing a shocking surge in vehicle repossessions as well…

A near-record number of cars are being repossessed as Americans continue to fall behind on their auto loans amid mounting financial strain.

According to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), analyzed by CURepossession, 2025 has seen over 7.5 million repossession assignments—authorizations given to an agency to recover a vehicle on behalf of a lender. Based on historic trends, this figure is expected to reach a record 10.5 million by the end of the year.

Although recovery ratios have fallen in recent years—potentially lowering the number of actual repossessions—it is projected that over three million cars could be repossessed in 2025, a level only reached in 2009 during the Great Recession.

Do you remember the “subprime mortgage meltdown” that we witnessed in 2008 and 2009?

Well, this time around we have a “subprime auto loan meltdown”, and a couple of very large lenders have already gone belly up…

PrimaLend, which serves the “buy-here-pay-here” auto financing market — where dealers sell and directly finance vehicles for customers with poor or limited credit — filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Tricolor, which sold cars and provided auto loans mostly to low-income Hispanic communities in the Southwestern United States, also filed for bankruptcy in September.

Unfortunately, a lot more Americans will be getting behind on their mortgages and their auto loans during the months ahead because a lot more Americans will be losing their jobs.

With each passing day, we learn of more mass layoffs.

Today, it is being reported that Verizon “is planning to cut 15,000 jobs”…

The optics look awful for Verizon Communications if the Wall Street Journal’s report is accurate: the carrier is preparing for its largest job cuts ever just days before millions of Americans hit the road for Thanksgiving.

WSJ says Verizon is planning to cut 15,000 jobs. If that figure is correct, Bloomberg’s latest data suggests this would be about 15% of its roughly 100,000-person workforce. WSJ notes this would be the largest workforce reduction on record for the carrier.

Does this mean that Verizon’s customer service is about to get even worse?

Of course it would be exceedingly difficult for it to get any worse than it is right now.

By the way, you may have noticed that stock prices are absolutely plummeting.

I think that we will see a lot more market volatility in the days ahead, because global events are going to get quite chaotic.

We are truly living in one of the most pivotal times in all of human history.

Sadly, the vast majority of the population still doesn’t understand what is happening to us, and that is very unfortunate.

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.

At the start of the week, Goldman’s top consumer specialist Scott Feiler pointed out this would be a “very important week” for earnings across the consumer sector. Home Depot set the tone on Tuesday by cutting its full-year outlook as big-ticket spending and home-renovation demand continue to fade. Now, the next major earnings report just hit the tape, and it’s delivering another clear signal of softening trends. 

Target slashed the top end of its 2025 profit outlook amid softening demand, heavy markdowns, and uneven traffic, which continue to plague its turnaround strategy. 

Adjusted EPS is now forecasted at $7 to $8 for the year, trimming the prior $7 to $9 range. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate stood at $7.29. 

Full-Year Outlook Adjusted

EPS: $7–$8 (prior: $7–$9; BBG Consensus: $7.29)

Q3 Takeaway: Results reflected consumer softness, weaker comps, declining traffic, margin pressure, and elevated costs. While EPS printed slightly ahead of consensus, the key retail metric of comparable sales fell more sharply than expected.

Q3 Highlights

Comparable sales: -2.7% (consensus: -2.06%; prior year: +0.3%)

Digital comps: +2.4% (consensus: +3.43%; prior year: +10.8%)

Net sales: $25.27B (vs. est. $25.33B)

Gross margin: 28.2%

EBIT: $974M, -19% y/y

EBITDA: $1.75B, -10% y/y (est. $1.89B)

Operating income: $948M, -19% y/y (est. $1.12B)

Operating margin: 3.8% (prior: 4.6%; est. 4.34%)

Q3 Customer Metrics

Transactions: -2.2% y/y (prior: +2.4%)

Avg. ticket: -0.5% (est. -0.79%; prior: -2%)

Digital share of sales: 19.3% (prior: 18.5%)

Stores originated sales: 80.7% (prior: 81.5%)

Q3 Footprint & Costs Total stores

1,995 (+0.9%; est. 1,988)

SG&A: $5.54B, +1.4% (est. $5.48B)

Store comps: -3.8% (est. -3.33%; prior: -1.9%)

Q3 Bottom Line

Total stores: 1,995 (+0.9%; est. 1,988)

SG&A: $5.54B, +1.4% (est. $5.48B)

Store comps: -3.8% (est. -3.33%; prior: -1.9%)

“We are relentless in our pursuit of returning to growth and not satisfied with our current results,” Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke said on a call with analysts. Fiddelke is set to become CEO in February. 

In New York, the stock fell about 2% in premarket trading, deepening its mutli-year bear market. As of Tuesday’s close, shares were already down roughly 34.5% year-to-date.

Shares are trading at mid-2019 lows. 

Target’s uninspiring earnings report and the continuation of a low- to mid-income squeeze build on a similar story from Home Depot’s earnings report on Tuesday. 

Goldman’s Feiler laid out the key earnings across the consumer sector this week (read here). Once earnings are finished this week, investors should have better visibility into spending behavior, particularly the mounting pressure on low- and middle-income consumers (read here). That backdrop helps explain the Trump administration’s renewed “operation affordability” push ahead of the midterm election cycle.

The Dutch government has fully withdrawn its emergency powers over chipmaker Nexperia, returning control to Chinese parent Wingtech and ending the tense standoff that had led Beijing to halt key automotive-chip shipments, Bloomberg reported. If tensions persisted, this would’ve sparked snarled automotive supply chains worldwide. The reversal marks a clear de-escalation and comes just weeks after the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea helped cool broader trade tensions. 

The powers were initially invoked in September under a Cold War-era law, prompting Beijing to retaliate with export restrictions on chips from Nexperia’s Guangdong plant, sparking shipment delays that hit automakers including Honda and Volkswagen.

Some of the first evidence of cooling tensions between the Netherlands and China emerged last Friday when Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans stated that he expects chip supplies to Nexperia’s customers in Europe and elsewhere to be resolved “in the coming days.” 

Earlier on X, Economic Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said the Netherlands is suspending its emergency order over Nexperia after constructive talks with Chinese officials and coordination with European and international partners. He noted that China has already taken steps to ensure chip supplies to Europe and beyond. 

In light of recent developments, I consider it the right moment to take a constructive step by suspending my order under the Goods Availability Act regarding Nexperia, in close consultation with our European and international partners.

Full statement ⤵️https://t.co/i0zzqsYahA pic.twitter.com/aR2lajS1CY

— Vincent Karremans (@MinisterEZ) November 19, 2025

Nexperia timeline (via BBG):

Our reporting:

Nexperia-Linked Chip Shortages Ripple Through Global Auto Supply Chain, From Germany To Japan

Chipmaker Nexperia’s China Arm Tells Staff To Ignore Dutch HQ, Deepening Semiconductor Split

White House Unveils Details Of U.S.-China Deal, Including Resolution To Nexperia Auto Chip Crisis

Nexperia Chip Crisis Defused? Dutch Minister “Trusts” China To Resume Chip Exports Next Week

Karremans’ statement suggests that the Dutch miscalculated their trade spat with Beijing. This underscored how little leverage Europe actually has – and how quickly China can squeeze the fragile continent’s already-failing automotive sector. 

Via Spiked 

Free speech is under serious attack all across Europe. To criticise the sacred cows of the progressive worldview – from transgenderism to immigration and even Islam – is to invite a knock on the door from the thought police. The recent, harrowing trial of a Finnish parliamentarian reveals how it is often Christians who find themselves in the firing line. Päivi Räsänen has spent the past six years fighting a ‘hate speech’ prosecution, simply for quoting passages from the Bible and defending traditional marriage.

Paul Coleman – executive director of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International – joined Brendan O’Neill on his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to discuss Räsänen’s case as well as the broader assault on free expression in Europe. What follows is an edited version of that conversation. You can watch the whole thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: Tell us about the case of Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen. Why is it so important to the cause of free speech?

Paul Coleman: It’s always hard for me to convince people that this case really happened as it did. They say ‘come on, Paul, there must be something more to it’, because it really does sound so far-fetched.

Päivi Räsänen is Finland’s former minister of interior, the equivalent of the British home secretary. She’s the longest serving female member of parliament. Things took a turn for her in 2019, when the Lutheran Church in Finland became an official sponsor of the Helsinki Pride parade. As a member of the church (and wife of a pastor), Päivi was highly critical of the decision, and considered it to be out of line with her understanding of the Bible. For saying as much, she was investigated by the police.

The police dug up almost three decades worth of material. They found a booklet that she wrote in 2004 – a little church pamphlet on the Christian view of marriage and sexuality – as well as one minute of an hour-long radio debate she once took part in. They used these to file three criminal charges against her for hate speech. The bishop who published her pamphlet in 2004 was also charged. One of the most significant things to note here is that the law Päivi was being charged under didn’t even exist until 2011 – she was essentially prosecuted back in time.

What they put her through was, essentially, a modern-day heresy trial. I sat there in court while a prosecutor asked an MP and a bishop about their interpretations of the Bible. We won a unanimous victory for Päivi in a district court back in 2022. But in Finland, a prosecutor can appeal not-guilty verdicts, and that’s what happened in this case. So it went to the Court of Appeal in 2023, where we won another unanimous victory. The prosecutor then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Finland, which is, at the time we’re speaking, where the case currently sits.

In total, it has been a six-and-a-half year process, involving 13 hours of police interrogation, 12 judges, four criminal charges and three courts. In hate-speech cases, the process is the punishment – and that’s exactly what Päivi’s case exemplifies.

O’Neill: After two unanimous victories, why won’t the prosecution simply drop the case?

Coleman: Across Europe, hate-speech laws are upheld by going after very high profile people as a deliberate strategy. It is a way to warn everyone else that this could happen to them, too. The amount of speech that is produced each day, especially in the digital age, is clearly ungovernable – no matter how big our state becomes, or how zealously it pursues censorship. The answer to that, therefore, is to make an example out of public figures every once in a while. It encourages self-censorship. The average person doesn’t want the police knocking at their door for things they’ve tweeted, so they think, ‘I’d better just shut up’.

O’Neill: How risky is it to be a traditional Christian in 21st-century Europe?

Coleman: We have seen similar cases cropping up all over Europe, from Germany and Spain to the Balkans. Many don’t necessarily go all the way to the Supreme Court of their respective countries, but the facts of the cases are often interchangeable. They often come about when Christians hold to some of the moral teachings of the Bible that are out of step with 21st-century Europe, or what those in power consider to be acceptable. It usually comes down to three issues: human sexuality, unborn life and Islam. If you’re a Christian and you want to speak about these three things, then you run the risk of the state coming crashing down on you.

O’Neill: Do you think there’s a two-tier approach to religious people in Europe when it comes to hate speech?

Coleman: You are in complete denial if you don’t accept there is at least some form of two-tier policing taking place in the UK. There are just too many examples at this point to try and pretend otherwise. It’s really down to the vagueness of the laws, which allow for arbitrary enforcement. When you have so much discretionary power given to the state and the police, they begin choosing to clamp down on some things and while letting others go.

Ostensibly, the police are trying to maintain public order. It is not that Christians are going out of their way to provoke inter-religious disputes. It’s just that both Christianity and Islam – all monotheistic religions, in fact – have a claim to exclusivity in regard to their beliefs. Neither religion accepts that they can both be correct. What it really comes down to for Christians is that the fundamental claim of Christianity, as spoken by Jesus, is ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ That’s an exclusive claim. And it’s an offensive claim to non-Christians. The way the law reacts to that is to avoid public disorder by preventing Christians, particularly street preachers, from saying things that others might be provoked by. In legal terms, it’s like a heckler’s veto – the idea that because other people might react strongly to what you say, you ought to be censored.

O’Neill: You defend both the rights of religious people to express their views, as well as the right of secular people to mock them. How do you feel about increasing talk of ‘Islamophobia’?

Coleman: There’s been a movement at the United Nations for over 15 years for a ban on ‘defamation of religion’. It was essentially a repackaging of blasphemy laws, and was blocked by countries like the US, and – at the time – other Western nations. But from the ashes, new attempts were made to institutionalise censorship on religion. One such attempt is this idea of ‘Islamophobia’.

We have a case in the Nigerian Supreme Court right now, involving a Sufi Muslim musician called Yahaya Sheriff-Aminu who is on death row for blasphemy for a private WhatsApp message containing some song lyrics about Muhammad. If the prosecutor is successful, Sheriff-Aminu will be hanged. This is Nigeria in 2025. And so we have very clear modern day examples of how these blasphemy laws play out. Of course, everyone will say that this is never going to happen here in Europe. Well, it’s not going to happen here tomorrow. But that’s the direction of travel. The idea that insulting religion is so inherently offensive that it is punishable by law is exceptionally dangerous.

Brendan O’Neill was talking to Paul Coleman. Watch the full conversation here:

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