Why Things FEEL WORSE Than We’re Being Told

Today, I am in Larkspur, California, walking down Madrone Avenue among all these beautiful redwood trees that you will see throughout this video. And I'm glad we're in such a beautiful place so we can talk about some of the big problems that we have in our economy. Because there are still people out there who think that things are going relatively well based pretty much exclusively on the performance of different stock market indexes like the Dow Jones and the S&P 500, things like that. People look at that and say, wow, you know, S&P 500 has returned, you know, 87% since 2022 or something like that. And think that somehow is a measure of success of our economy, when in fact, you couldn't really be further from the truth. And I'm gonna show you why in this video. So we're gonna talk about all different types of things, the job market first, then we're gonna talk about buying a car, and then we're gonna talk about different things priced in gold, particularly the stock market to show you why that is not a measure of success. Now, for anybody who doesn't know, the government had a shutdown this past week and we were supposed to get the official government payroll numbers on Friday and never happened because of the government shutdown. But one thing we did still get is the ADP numbers this past week, which shows us that according to private payroll numbers by ADP, that the US lost 32,000 private sector jobs in September of 2025. And the Wall Street Journal, they expected an increase of 45,000 jobs. So think about how big of a miss that is when the Wall Street Journal is anticipating that we're gonna get 45,000 new jobs, instead we lose 32,000. And that is down from a revised loss of 3,000 jobs lost in August. That's almost an 80,000 job discrepancy between what they thought we were gonna get and what we actually got. Now, remember the ADP payroll does not include government data or any of the jobs lost due to the government shutdown. This is exclusively private payroll. So when you factor in the government losses, then the losses are actually far greater than that. And we know that there's about 750,000 workers or so who have now been furloughed due to the shutdown. How many of them are gonna make a return once they actually come to a final deal? We don't know, but we'll find out when it happens. But the ADP payroll numbers are actually a more true reflection of what's going on in the economy than the BLS data is anyhow, because every time we get the BLS data, every time the jobs report comes out, it always runs hot. And then a few months later, or even sometimes a year later, it gets revised downward. That's the trend that we have been seeing over the past few years. I mean, just look what happened for the March payroll data going all the way back from March of 2024 to March of 2025. There was 950,000 fewer jobs created than what was initially stated. That is a massive downward revision. Now, surprisingly, when you look at the ADP payroll data, the leisure and hospitality sector actually shed 19,000 jobs in September, which was the largest decline among any of the sectors, which is kind of a surprise because that has been one of the few industries that's been growing over the past couple of years. When we look at hospitality work and we look at medical workers, those are like the two top industries that have been growing in the economy over the past couple of years when everything else has been kind of falling off a cliff. But even that is starting to lose jobs now because people don't have the money to go out and spend at restaurants and hotels and everything else that's revolved around hospitality. Education and health services actually gained 33,000 jobs last month, according to ADP. And the contrast between small business and large business continues to show itself in these latest payroll numbers because businesses with fewer than 50 employees shed 40,000 jobs last month, while those with 500 or more employees added 33,000 jobs. But in case you're not counting, there were still more jobs lost than were gained. And ADP's report is based on more than 26 million workers whose employers use ADP to manage payrolls. So it is still only a fraction of the economy, which shows us that there are probably far more jobs that were actually lost in September than what was counted here because the full private sector of employment in the United States is about 136 million people, ADP only manages 26 million of that. And even most economists say these days that ADP's figures are more useful than the BLS figures because it's not based on survey data. Now, when we take a look at this chart right here, this kind of just breaks down how bad things have been getting. When you look back to the beginning of 2025, you can see just how much the amount of jobs being created has completely fallen off a cliff. And we have now had three negative months this year according to ADP, where more jobs were actually lost than were created. And you can see back in January, it was like 175,000 jobs being created. Fast forward to today and we have 32,000 job losses instead just nine months later. One state up from California here in Oregon, they are also seeing more layoffs in the state of Oregon than has been seen since the great recession. So far, Oregon employers have reported more than 11,000 layoffs since the start of last year. And employers are averaging about 600 layoffs a month so far this year after averaging 550 a month in 2024. And that is comparable to the rampant job losses that we saw back in 2008 and 2009 during the great recession when the state's jobless rate topped 11%. Now, so far, unemployment in Oregon is at 5%, which is a lot better than 11%, but they're being affected by some of the big company layoffs as well, like Intel, Oregon's largest corporate employer. They accounted for one third of Oregon's layoffs since the start of 2024. Other employers there who have laid off a ton of people are companies like Wells Fargo, Nike, Albertsons, Fred Meyer. And I recognize that even in a really good economy, people do lose jobs and businesses shut down and things go south, guys. But one thing that we can all see with our own eyes, and a lot of people are being directly or personally affected by this or know somebody who is being affected by this right now, that's when things start to change, right? Regardless of what the S&P 500 is doing or what the economists are saying about where things are going or how good the government or Trump says things are going with the economy, people don't need to look far to see the real deal. People just have to look at, hmm, how much money do I have left over each month after paying all of my bills? How many people do I know recently that lost a job? What happens if I lose my job? Am I confident I'm gonna be able to get a new one? Those are the true measures of the strength of the US economy, as well as how many people can afford a $400 emergency. This is something we kind of go over every year, and the numbers always change, seemingly for the worse, because take a look at this. More than one third of Americans say they cannot pay for a $400 emergency and they would need to sell something or borrow money in order to cover that emergency. The Federal Reserve surveyed more than 12,000 American adults, and they found that for the third year in a row, 63% of Americans said that they could pay for an unexpected $400 expense with cash, savings, or a credit card paid off as soon as possible, which also means that 37% said that they couldn't pay it, and they would have to turn to credit cards with plans to pay it off later, sell something, borrow money from a friend or relative, or take out a loan of some kind, and about 13% of the entire survey said they wouldn't be able to cover the expense at all. But funny enough, though, as bad as this sounds, when we look at this chart here going back to 2013, things have actually improved with how many people who say that they can actually cover this $400 emergency, but it's been relatively flat since 2022. If 63% can cover it today, well, only 50% could cover it back in 2013. That is actually a measure of stronger household finances today than what we saw back in 2013. But also keep in mind, $400 today in 2025 is nothing. According to the official inflation data, which we all know is bogus and completely wrong, $400 in 2013 would be like $556 today. But more likely, in my own estimate, it's probably more like $400 back then is more like $700 today. So yeah, it's easier to cover a $400 emergency today because $400 is not as much money as it used to be back in 2013. That is just a fact. Also, according to the Fed's recent survey, about 55% of Americans had enough money in the bank to cover three months of expenses compared to 15% who said they would have to sell things to borrow to afford that, and 30% who said they couldn't cover three months of living expenses at all. So 55% of people have at least a three-month emergency fund, which is pretty good. That's not bad. It's better than zero, that's for sure. When we look at what JP Morgan has to say about the review of their customers' cash balances and their spending patterns, that covers about six million households as of last year, they found that only 8% of people would not be able to cover a $400 expense, which is a far cry from the 37% who are admitting to the Federal Reserve study that they wouldn't be able to afford it. So that is also some skewed data point right there because maybe people who have JP Morgan and Chase accounts tend to be higher-income households. Maybe their demographic is different. But the bottom line is, guys, everybody should be able to afford this. $400 these days is essentially peanuts, you know? And most emergencies, in reality, are gonna cost a lot more than $400. So if you can't even cover a $400 emergency, imagine how bad things would be if you get slapped with a 2,000 or 5,000 or $10,000 emergency. Another thing we gotta talk about is new car down payments. You know, the other day I made an entire video about the car market and what's going on with that right now. But we gotta talk about car down payments because this is something that has actually been going down, which is also proving that people are kind of tapped out and out of money and not able to buy these vehicles. According to Edmunds, they found out that the average down payment for new car purchases fell to $6,020 in the third quarter of 2025, which is the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2021. And at the same time, the share of car buyers that have vehicle payments exceeding $1,000 per month continues to go up. 19.1% of all financed new car purchases in the third quarter of this year, which is very close to the record, had car payments over $1,000 a month. And even people who are buying used vehicles right now and the ones who have $1,000 per month payments just hit a record high of 6.1%, guys. I mean, you really have to be a sucker, in my opinion, to be buying a used vehicle and having $1,000 per month car payment. That is just insane. It's bad enough when you have to do that for a brand new car, but at least it's somewhat justifiable, like, hey, I'm getting a brand new car here. But when you're buying a used car and you're paying that, I'm not sure if there's any hope left for you. Also, more than 20% of car buyers right now who financed their purchase took out loans that are stretching seven years or longer. Edmunds is now reporting that 84-month or longer loans made up 22% of new car loans in the third quarter, which is pretty much in line with what it was last quarter at 22.4% of loans being 84 months or longer. And just a year ago, that number was 18.5% of loans at 84 months. So that shows you people are having to put less money down on these vehicles and take higher monthly payments just to be able to afford them. That's not really a sign of success in my book or a sign of prosperity within the US economy like so many people are trying to tell us it is right now. People also have to take out larger car loans than they did before. The average amount financed for a brand new vehicle rose to $42,647 in the third quarter, which is up from the second quarter of 2025. And just one year ago, that number was $40,713. So people have to borrow an extra two grand right now just one year later to be able to buy a brand new car and more people have to put down less money and have a higher monthly payment. Now, in my mind, if the stock market was a huge marker of success for the US economy and that just showed us that everything was going great, well, in my book, you'd be seeing more buyers paying cash for these vehicles because their stock portfolios are booming. You'd be seeing people put higher down payments so they don't have to have $1,000 per month payment. And you also wouldn't be seeing people finance a larger portion of their car loan just to be able to get the vehicle. If prosperity was wide and far and everybody was doing great because their index funds are up 20% from a year ago, well, why are people doing this? Because a lot of people I see in the comments and also some economists who say, oh, the doomers have been saying that we're in a recession since 2022, but still there's no recession. Everything is fine and none of the data reflects the fact that we're actually in a recession, which if you just go by the official numbers and the official data, that is a true statement, but we know that none of the official data can actually be trusted anymore. And then they'll say, well, if you look back to October of 2022, all the way up to present day, then the S&P 500 is up 87%. That's a massive return. How can we possibly be in a recession when we're seeing returns like that? And on the surface, I would say you're right until you start looking beyond and deeper than the surface. They will also say, well, people who listened to all the naysayers and the doom and gloomers, and they just sat on the sidelines, missed out on massive returns during this time. And I had never told anybody not to continue their investment strategies throughout this entire time. All I have done is made sure people have been more cautious than usual and have been saving more money than usual for a rainy day, because they're likely going to need it and really caution people against buying a home, which you'll see why here in just a minute. But despite these bullish points on the economy, the fact still remains like we just talked about with the job market, which was probably the biggest risk to our economy right now, even the Fed thinks so. The job market doesn't show any signs of recovery either. Things seem to just be continuing to get worse throughout 2025, setting us up for a pretty perilous 2026. But I will leave you with this. I want you guys to take a look at some of these charts here from a great website called Prices in Gold. I think it's called Priced in Gold. Let's take a look firstly at hourly wages, Priced in Gold, going all the way back to 1965. You can see that in 1970, the number on the chart was three. And when you fast forward to today, the highest it's been between 1970 and today was in the year 2000, when it was at around 1.7 or 1.8. Fast forward to today, wages priced in gold are below 0.5, which means inflation has been robbing you far more than you think, which has a huge relationship to the stock market because everybody buys the stock market indexes in dollars. Let's flip it over to the S&P 500, going all the way back to the year 1950, okay? When you price the S&P 500 in grams of gold, today, it is sitting right around 58 grams priced in gold. But back in the year 2000, it was like 170, and it has never recovered since then. And the S&P 500, when priced in gold, is as low as it was back in 1970, right around the time when wages also peaked. What a coincidence. Wanna look at the Dow Jones? Sort of the same story here. The highest peak that we saw of the Dow Jones price in gold was back in the year 2000. And today, it is sitting roughly at about levels that we saw in 2008, as well as levels that we saw around 1971. And then some people will say, well, what about real estate, Michael? Real estate's always been one of the best hedges against inflation. Well, if you price real estate in gold, that also hasn't been too great either. Take a look at this chart going back to 1985. Home prices in 2005 are roughly the same as where they were at back in 1985. What kind of hedge against inflation is that, guys? Meanwhile, the green line in the top of this chart is home prices in dollars. And this is all according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. And of course, the price in dollars has never been higher, right? So this is the reason why people who have record amounts of money in their stock portfolio feel richer than ever right now, but that's because they're not valuating these portfolios or equity values in the value of gold, which is the only real true measure of money and wealth that there ever has been. And when you start looking at it from this perspective, you start to realize that things are not going nearly as good as you thought. And if you go back and look at some of these charts, you can see prior to the 1970s, a lot of these things were still growing. Wages were growing in price of gold. Home prices were growing priced in gold, as well as all of the major stock indexes were also growing priced in gold. That was the real moment of prosperity in this country, which we no longer have. So next time you see somebody write a comment and say, yeah, we just keep repeating all this bad news. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 just hit a new record high. Remember what I just told you and remember what these indexes really are measured in the price of gold, not in dollars. And that will reframe your entire perspective on how good things really are right now. And then some people will say, well, I don't care, Michael, because I don't save money in gold and silver. I don't buy things with gold and silver. I use dollars. So all of this is worthless. Well, it's not because if you were saving in gold or silver, you could then trade that gold and silver for dollars and you'll be getting far more dollars today than you would have in the past, which would really be protecting your purchasing power and be the true hedge against inflation. So if you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And if you don't wanna wait for my next video to come out, check out this one on the screen right over here, and I'll see you in the next one.