3 Signs We’re Near A Collapse

Tyler Kirkpatrick
4 min readApr 13, 2022

And How It Could Affect You

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

When people are selling their used cars for more than they originally paid, everyone from your high school is flocking to get their real estate license, and artists are selling JPEGs for tens of millions of dollars, something is very wrong.

There is an obvious disconnect between the “real economy” (wages, cost of living, real estate) and the “financial economy” (stock markets, anything speculative in nature). And the longer this gap persists, the worse the crash will be.

Dominos are Starting to fall in other countries

We live in a highly interconnected world, where semiconductors shortages in Taiwan can lead to vehicle shortages in the United States. With supply chains spanning multiple continents, every developed country relies upon several others for resource extraction, transportation, manufacturing, and economic stability.

Argentina is (yet again) experiencing unprecedented inflation at 55.1% for the year.

Recently Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency after protests turned violent and defaulted on all its external debt.

We all know the seriousness of the current Russia/Ukraine conflict. After a collapse of the ruble, the invading country recently defaulted on all its foreign debt.

China has been unusually quiet in the past few months (probably because the Ukrainian conflict has overshadowed everything). Still, we are witnessing cracks in their foundation through the failures of real estate giants Evergrande and Sinic Holdings.

Speaking of collapsing real estate companies:

Housing is out of control

A still from “Million Dollar Shack.” Michelle Joyce/Youtube referenced in this Business Insider Article

Mortgage payments and rent are the largest expense for most people, around 27% of the average American’s income.

For renters, landlords increased their rates by over 21% last year alone.

For a country already living paycheck to paycheck, if the housing market crashes while interest rates go up, millions will be evicted from…

Tyler Kirkpatrick

I write about politics, money, and my crippling video game addiction. Email: tkirkpatrick@smu.edu