The U.S. economy is hurtling toward a cliff, and it seems most are blinded by denial and delusion. National debt is at $38.6 trillion as of February 2026—over $115,000 per U.S. citizen—with interest payments alone devouring billions daily and deficits ballooning toward $2 trillion a year. Corporate bankruptcies surged 11% in 2025, as business bankruptcies and shutdowns are skyrocketing due to rates, lingering inflation and rising costs.
Meanwhile, the stock market rides a wave of manic irrational exuberance, with the Shiller P/E ratio hovering around 40—echoing dot-com bubble worries—while everyone pretends AI will magically bail us out. But that same AI is the silent killer: already killing millions of jobs in finance, admin, healthcare, and beyond.
If you’ve been paying attention, you probably understand that you don’t wait for the “official” emergency. By the time the news anchor says the word crisis, shelves are already bare and the lines are already long. Right now, the warning signs are everywhere. The federal government is borrowing at levels normally reserved for war or recession. Corporate bankruptcies and business shutdowns are through the roof. And most concerning, artificial intelligence is moving from “tool” to “replacement” faster than most workers, schools, and institutions can react.
The Fiscal Time Bomb: Deficits and Debt on the Rise
The Congressional Budget Office’s new long-term outlook (released February 11, 2026) paints a familiar picture, but with less room to pretend it’s normal. The deficit is projected at about $1.85 trillion (5.8% of GDP) for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, staying roughly flat in 2027 before widening over the next decade.
The deeper problem isn’t just the annual deficit — it’s the compounding cost of yesterday’s borrowing. CBO projects that debt held by the public crosses 100% of GDP this year, exceeds post–World War II highs by 2030, and reaches about 120% of GDP by 2036.
Interest is the accelerant. The CBO warns that net interest costs rise as the debt load grows, and that by 2036, interest consumes 26% of federal revenue (up from about 19% this year). CBO Director Phillip Swagel summarized it bluntly: the “fiscal trajectory is not sustainable.”
In the background are the drivers everyone knows and no one wants to touch: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. CBO now expects Social Security’s trust fund to be depleted in 2032, which forces Congress toward benefit cuts, tax increases, or a patchwork of both.
These projections assume no major policy changes, but critics like Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) decry the “reckless and irresponsible” debt burden being passed to future generations. With interest costs higher than any year since 1940 as a share of GDP, the economy’s resilience is in question. A sudden rise in rates—perhaps triggered by investor skepticism—could spiral into default risks, echoing warnings from economists about a destabilizing debt crisis.
CBO also breaks out the impact of recent policy changes under President Trump’s second term: tax cuts widen the deficit over time, tariffs bring in revenue but carry legal uncertainty, and immigration restrictions reduce labor-force growth and tax receipts.
The reason this matters for “risk of collapse” is simple: high debt doesn’t always cause a crisis — until it does. The trigger is often a loss of confidence that shows up as higher rates. And when rates rise on a mountain of debt, everything gets more expensive at once.
Corporate Cracks and a Market That Doesn’t Match the Reality
While Washington borrows, parts of the private sector are starting to buckle. One widely circulated tracking post reported nine large U.S. companies filed for bankruptcy last week, putting the three-week average at its highest since the 2020 pandemic (using a “$50 million-plus liabilities” threshold).
That figure comes from a market newsletter/social post, not a government release, so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel — but it lines up with a broader pattern of elevated bankruptcy activity tracked in recent years by firms like S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Now look at sentiment. A January 2026 Gallup poll found 50% of Americans expect the stock market to rise over the next six months, while 50% also expect unemployment to increase — a rare divergence between market optimism and labor fear.
That’s the kind of split you see when prices are being driven by liquidity, momentum, and concentration — while the average person feels the job market getting less forgiving.
And that brings us to the force that could turn “less forgiving” into “structurally different.”
The AI Tsunami: This Time It’s Not Just Automation — It’s Replacement
The most important thing to understand about the current AI wave is that it’s no longer limited to “help me draft an email” or “summarize a document.”
What’s changing the equation is the rise of agentic AI: systems that can take a goal, use tools, run steps, test their own output, iterate, and keep going until the task is done. Vox described this shift as an “inflection point,” with examples like AI systems that can build functional software with minimal human oversight.
SemiAnalysis put the corporate incentive in brutally economic terms: if a $20/month AI tool can do even a meaningful fraction of a knowledge worker’s workflow, the ROI becomes hard for executives to ignore.
And the pace is not linear. METR has documented a long-running trend in which the length of tasks AI agents can complete has been growing exponentially, with a doubling time on the order of months.
That’s why the “I tried AI and it wasn’t that good” reaction is increasingly outdated. People aren’t comparing what exists now; they’re comparing what they used a year or two ago.
The first layoffs are already on the books
The layoff tie-in is no longer hypothetical. Challenger, Gray & Christmas tracks corporate layoff announcements and reports AI was cited for 54,836 job cuts in 2025 (with additional AI-cited cuts already appearing in early 2026 reports).
Davos messaging has caught up to the anxiety: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned AI is hitting the labor market “like a tsunami,” adding that many countries and businesses aren’t prepared.
Even consumer brands are now publicly linking restructuring to AI-driven productivity. Heineken, for example, announced plans to cut 5,000–6,000 jobs as part of a productivity push, with reporting noting AI and efficiency measures in that mix.
The Part Most People Still Don’t Get
Here’s the danger: society is wired to treat job disruption like it’s part of everyday life. A few layoffs. A few new tools. A few years to adapt.
But agentic AI creates a different possibility: a compressed timeline where the “learning curve” becomes irrelevant for huge sections of white-collar work.
If a system can draft, analyze, revise, and deliver work product at a level that’s “good enough,” then the labor market doesn’t need AI to be perfect. It needs AI to be cheaper and fast — and in many workflows, it already is.
These Companies Do Not Care About You
Stop expecting loyalty from institutions that don’t even pretend to offer it anymore.
A public company has one real religion: Money. If cutting 8% of staff makes the numbers look good to investors, they’ll do it and call it leadership. If replacing a team with an AI subscription makes margins jump, they’ll do it and call it innovation. And if it wrecks the lives of thousands of people, they’ll call it “a difficult decision” and move on to the next slide deck.
These companies do not give a fuck about you!!!
How AI Will Change Everything: Catastrophe or Catalyst?
Every major collapse in history had the same pattern. Too much debt. Too much leverage. Too much confidence that “this time is different.” Rome diluted its currency. The 1930s wiped out families overnight. In 2008, people went to bed thinking they were fine and woke up watching banks implode on live TV.
And right now? We’re sitting on record national debt, record household debt, rising delinquencies, shrinking savings, and an economy that’s being held together with borrowing and optimism.
The federal government owes more than it ever has. Interest alone is over a trillion dollars a year. Social Security is running toward a wall. Households are floating nearly $19 trillion in debt. Credit card balances are at all-time highs. Commercial real estate is staring down a wave of loan resets. Savings rates are thin. Mortgage payments are eating people alive.
You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see the issues. You just need to look at the numbers without pretending they don’t matter.
Now add AI to that equation…
If AI wipes out large chunks of white-collar work faster than the economy can absorb those workers, you don’t just get layoffs. You get lower tax revenue, higher safety-net spending, more borrowing, and more pressure on a government that’s already drowning in debt.
But the dangerous part isn’t which outcome wins. It’s the gap between what’s actually happening and what people think is happening.
Most people still think AI is a chatbot that writes emails. It’s not.
Most people think the debt can just roll forever. It can’t.
For those reading this: Don’t wait for headlines to confirm what insiders already see. Start learning skills that matter when systems fails — fixing things, growing food, building, repairing, protecting yourself and those around you, build multiple income streams, and prepare for what’s ahead. The asteroid is incoming; adaptation—or survival—depends on acting before impact. The clock is ticking!
Are you Prepared for an Economic Collapse?
In many ways it is already here, and millions of American families are already living the nightmare. This economic crisis is not to be taken lightly, it is one of the biggest threats we face. Don’t wait for the mainstream media to tell you how bad it is, take action now to protect yourself and your loved ones.
We advise reading our article on Preparing for an Economic Collapse. We talk about the history of economic collapses, list the steps you need to take, and talk about what will most likely happen when the banking system goes down. You can read the article here.
Be Prepared to Feed Yourself when the Collapse Hits!
Grocery Options that ship right to your Home:Â
Read the full article here