Ever since the end of the Great Recession, Americans have been piling up debt at a staggering pace, and now that debt bubble is starting to implode.  There isn't really a precedent for this, and so we can't look back at past events in order to project what will happen next.  But it should be obvious to all of us that things will soon start getting really bad in this country.

It was only a matter of time before bankruptcies began to soar, and according to CBS News that is precisely what is happening…

The end of federal pandemic aid is putting many Americans and businesses under mounting financial pressure, leading to a spike in bankruptcies.

Total bankruptcy filings in January shot up 19% in January to 31,087, up 19% from a year ago, according to data from Epiq, a legal research firm. The number of Americans who filed for bankruptcy across Chapters 7, 11 and 13 shot up 20% in January from a year ago.