You may have noticed lately that the mainstream websites look an awful lot like alternative news sites, trumpeting the economic demise of America. For years, we in the alternative media have been warning our readers to look out because we never really recovered from the 2008 "Great Recession." We've said, "The collapse is already here" only to be blown off by the mainstream as kooks. "Don't worry," they said. "Everything is fine," they said."

But now…

Only in the past year has talk of recession begun to break out, and only in the past couple of weeks have outlets become aggressive in pushing the notion that a financial crash is just around the corner. The reality is that if one removes the illusory support of central bank stimulus, our economy never left the "Great Recession" of 2008. (source)

This is not to say our economy is in good shape – anyone paying attention knows that we've had bad signs for the economy for years, such as stores closing and people being unable to pay their bills. However, as the 2020 election draws near, it's certainly politically convenient to announce the advent of another recession.

What evidence is there of an economic crisis?

There are all sorts of things going on right now that would make even the most steadfast non-worrier break a sweat. Michael Snyder outlined 11 of them in this article, but four in particular, are of note.

Last week, the "spread between the U.S. 2-year and 10-year yields" turned negative for the very first time in 12 years.  An inversion of the yield curve has occurred prior to every single U.S. recession since the 1950s, and this is one of the most important economic signals that we have seen yet…

…Just like we witnessed in 2008, fear and volatility have returned to Wall Street in a major way.  In fact, so far this month we have already seen the 4th and 7th largest single day point declines in U.S. stock market history…

…According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the probability that a recession will happen within the next 12 months is now the highest that it has been since the last financial crisis…

…President Trump is suggesting that the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates by 100 basis points and that the Fed should restart quantitative easing as soon as possible.  Both of those moves would be considered to be "emergency measures" that should only happen if a major economic downturn was imminent. (source)

There are other issues too. For example, just as President Trump added a whole bunch of tariffs to imports from China, our farmers have had a devastating year due to weather. We can look for food prices to climb dramatically as soon as this fall. Photos from all over the country show empty gaps on grocery store shelves. Families are barely getting by and all it takes is one unexpected expense to send some into a tailspin of poverty. The most-searched-for article on my website for the past 2 months has been this one with the post getting hundreds of hits per day from people who are clearly struggling.

Why is the recession becoming "official" now?

As we head into the 2020 election cycle, it would certainly be convenient to pin an economic disaster on President Trump. Back in August of 2016, Brandon Smith of Alt-Market called exactly this. (Emphasis mine.)