Survey after survey has found that the American people are deeply dissatisfied with how the economy has been performing, and as a result it has become the number one issue this election season.  But even though a large portion of the population is not happy about how things have been going, the truth is that the situation is far more dire than most people realize.  Just this week we have received quite a bit of very troubling news, and the outlook for the months ahead is very bleak.  The following are 11 signs that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than most people think…

#1 Just like in 2008, delinquencies are on the rise.  In fact, credit card delinquencies have now reached the highest level that we have seen in more than 10 years…

Meanwhile, more consumers aren't making loan payments on time. Credit card delinquencies have hit their highest level in over a decade, and auto delinquencies are also spiking. This could prove to be yet another tripwire for the stock market, as consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity.

#2 The commercial real estate crisis just continues to escalate.  An article that originally appeared in the New York Times claims that major Wall Street banks have "begun offloading their portfolios of commercial real estate loans hoping to cut their losses"…

Some Wall Street banks, worried that landlords of vacant and struggling office buildings won't be able to pay off their mortgages, have begun offloading their portfolios of commercial real estate loans hoping to cut their losses.

It's an early but telling sign of the broader distress brewing in the commercial real estate market, which is hurting from the twin punches of high interest rates, which make it harder to refinance loans, and low occupancy rates for office buildings — an outcome of the pandemic.