Hickory, NC: Economic Transformation (2011-2025)

 

Hickory 2025: A City Transformed or Just Treading Water

From the ashes of post-industrial decline, Hickory has clawed its way toward a new identity. Once marred by economic stagnation and a fading manufacturing legacy, this North Carolina foothills city faced a critical turning point in 2011. At the time, local thought leaders issued a challenge: evolve or fade into obscurity. Fourteen years later, we assess whether that call to action sparked real transformation—or simply rebranded the same old challenges.

 “A community once defined by fading furniture factories is now wired with fiber optics and humming with data servers—but has Hickory, North Carolina truly reinvented itself or just put on a fresh coat of paint?”

 This article evaluates Hickory’s evolution from 2011 to 2025, comparing past forecasts with current realities across five pillars: economy, governance, infrastructure, education, and cultural identity. It serves as a performance audit of long-term strategic decisions while identifying gaps that still need addressing. The intended audience includes civic stakeholders, economic planners, local entrepreneurs, and engaged residents.

 

Economic Transformation: From Wood and Textiles to Fiber and Silicon

 In 2011, Hickory was reeling from the collapse of its traditional industries. Furniture and textiles had once anchored over half the workforce—but by 2009, that figure had plummeted to 28%. The call then was clear: diversify or die. Fast forward to 2025, and the numbers suggest the city responded.

Manufacturing now accounts for 30% of the workforce, but the composition has changed dramatically. Corning Optical and CommScope are now among the largest employers, driving fiber-optic production. Meanwhile, Apple’s massive data center in nearby Maiden and Microsoft’s $1 billion investment into four new centers mark Hickory as a vital node in the Southeast’s Data Center Corridor. Although Hickory hasn't become a new Silicon Valley, it has made steady, strategic moves to rewire its economic DNA—aligning closely with the 2011 vision for modernization.

 

Leadership: Incremental Progress with Lingering Disconnect

Back in 2011, local leadership was criticized for being risk-averse and disconnected. Today, the picture is more nuanced.

The 2014 $45 million bond referendum funded transformative amenities—parks, trails, pedestrian walkways, and housing—enhancing public spaces and signaling a shift toward proactive urban planning. The Catawba County Economic Development Corporation has been aggressive in branding Hickory’s low business costs and skilled labor force, earning the area top rankings from Forbes and NerdWallet.

Yet for all this, the county still sits in Tier 2 for economic distress as of 2025, suggesting that meaningful progress coexists with structural fragility. The discontent that once simmered beneath the surface hasn’t fully disappeared—it’s just more polished now.

 

Infrastructure & Housing: Stabilizing What Was Once Fragile

One of the more accurate predictions from 2011 was the overbuilt housing market. Back then, occupancy had fallen sharply, and the fear was collapse. But the opposite happened: stabilization.

While housing values remain modest, they’ve held firm without the bubble-burst some anticipated. More importantly, investments in public spaces have increased livability. The Riverwalk, new greenways, and enhanced downtown aesthetics have paid dividends—Hickory now ranks #3 in both Best Places to Live and Best Places to Retire in North Carolina. What was once overcapacity has now become community capital. The city didn’t bulldoze its excess—it activated it.

 

Education & Workforce Development: The CVCC Effect

If Hickory has a secret weapon, it’s Catawba Valley Community College. The Workforce Solutions Complex is a shining example of targeted investment. From advanced manufacturing to healthcare and information technology, CVCC’s programs are feeding the very industries reshaping the local economy. The 2011 suggestion that education should anchor the city’s reinvention has clearly borne fruit here.

Still, the vision of Hickory as a fully integrated “open center for knowledge” remains aspirational. Lenoir-Rhyne University has contributed to the city’s intellectual footprint, but broader innovation ecosystems like tech incubators or startup hubs haven’t taken root.

 

Culture and Diversity: Moving, But at a Crawl

Hickory’s cultural scene was once criticized as sterile and corporate. Chains dominated, and diversity—cultural or entrepreneurial—was thin. There’s some progress in 2025. Craft breweries, small-batch goods, and local artisans are gaining footholds. A trickle of remote workers and retirees has nudged demographic change, and Hickory is now ranked #9 for in-bound migration.

But let’s not overstate the shift. Hickory still lags behind peer cities like Asheville or Durham in cultural vibrancy. Minority-owned businesses remain limited. Immigrant communities are small. Public events and nightlife lean conservative and traditional.  Diversity is growing—but it’s not yet thriving.      

 

Reputation: From “Bottom of the List” to National Recognition

In 2011, Hickory was often cited in negative national rankings—low educational attainment, weak job growth, and poor quality of life. Today, those rankings tell a different story.

• #3 Best Places to Live in NC (U.S. News & World Report)
• #4 Best Places to Start a Business (NerdWallet)
• #9 for Inbound Migration (United Van Lines, 2024)

Local leadership has made a concerted effort to “reverse engineer” studies, proactively promoting affordability, workforce readiness, and quality of life. That rebranding has helped reshape Hickory’s image, even if real socioeconomic hurdles remain.

The Hound’s Comment: They learned a lot about this kind of thing from the hot days of this blog back from ( 2009-2014ish). Here on the back nine we’re going to take this to another level. I haven’t always agreed with their specific projects and mindsets but they do deserve credit for taking action. Now you have to follow through. We need to grab ahold of re-industrialization that will depend on A.I. and robotics.

 

Where the 2011 Predictions Landed

Nailed It:

• Shift to advanced manufacturing and tech
• Housing stabilization and investment in public spaces
• Education’s central role via CVCC

Half Right:

• Leadership progress—real gains but ongoing gaps
• Cultural diversity—improved, still behind

Way Off:     

• No mass exodus—people are actually moving in
• Chronicle didn’t rise—Hickory remains the regional anchor
• No “savior” company—progress came from broad, steady diversification

 

Key Economic Indicators (2011 vs 2025)

Metric	2011	2025
Manufacturing Workforce	28%	30% (Advanced sectors)
Housing Occupancy	85.4% (2009)	Stabilized, modest values
Economic Distress Tier	Not listed	Tier 2 (2025)
Livability Rankings	Bottom of studies	Top 3 in NC (U.S. News)
Data Center Investment	Minimal	Apple, Microsoft expansion
Inbound Migration Rank	Not listed	#9 (United Van Lines, 2024)

 

Conclusion: A City in Measured Transformation

Hickory has not become a utopia. But it’s no longer a city in freefall either. It has recalibrated, stabilized, and in many ways, reimagined its identity. The road from 2011 to 2025 has been neither straight nor smooth—but the direction is undeniably forward.

For Hickory, the lesson is this: resilience isn’t about a sudden leap—it’s about not standing still. The next chapter will depend on whether the city can turn slow gains into a lasting legacy.

 

Key Citations

• City of Hickory Business Development page with economic initiatives
• Catawba County Economic Development Corporation overview
• North Carolina economic development tier designations for 2025
• Business North Carolina article on industrial parks in NC
• Wikipedia page for Hickory, North Carolina, with economic history

Thursday, January 27, 2011 - The State Of Hickory 2011

The Most And Least Educated Cities In America -- Hickory Metro 135 out of 150

The Most And Least Educated Cities In America - Forbes - September 16, 2014

Hound Notes: The Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton Area ranks number 135 out of 150 in this study on education. When one looks into the numbers cited, they see that we are number 143 out of 150 in educational attainment, but number 65 out of 150 in quality of education. It's the same story I have been pointing to since 2008. I have seen many times where people want to throw our school system under the bus, but we are actually a bit better than average when one looks at the numbers cited. Also think about those numbers being skewed down, because the parents of the children that populate our local school system are some of the least educated people in America.

2014’s Most and Least Educated Cities - Wallet Hub - Richie Bernardo 
 An explanation for the study:

A little more than a year ago, the Economic Policy Institute also released its report on the effects of education on state finances. The EPI’s findings suggested that college degrees are supremely important in helping to resuscitate weak economies. One way to strengthen states is to attract well-paying employers “by investing in education and increasing the number of well-educated workers.”

As the fall semester commences, WalletHub analyzed the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States to determine where the most educated Americans are choosing to settle. We examined each city across nine key metrics. Among the set are educational attainment, the percentage of workers with jobs in computer, engineering and science fields as well as the quality and size of each metro area’s universities.

What we are seeing is the Brain Drain. We educate the young people fairly well in this community, but our best and brightest leave because they don't see the opportunity to progress in this community. When we look at the numbers provided in this survey, what we see in our State, is that other cities fared very well in this study - Raleigh ranks number 2, Durham ranks number 3, Wilmington ranks number 37, Asheville ranks 40, Winston-Salem ranks 55, Charlotte ranks 73. On the lower end - Greensboro ranks 115, Fayetteville ranks 116, and we rank the lowest in North Carolina at 135.

Only 2 metro areas within 500 miles of Hickory (other than Hickory) rank in the bottom 20% of the 150 metros, when it comes to educational attainment. Those Metros are Greensboro, NC ranked at 122 (Overall rank 115) and Chattanooga, TN at  128 (Overall rank 140). Our Educational Quality is better than Charlotte's ranked at 89, Greensboro's at 88, and Fayetteville's at 95.


Hound Notes: Make of it what you will. This study lays out a case that I made several years ago. The problem is not that we don't educate our young people properly. We are educating our young people just fine. The problem is that they can't wait to get the hell out of here and go to Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Wilmington, or Asheville... and once they leave they aren't coming back. This community needs to learn how to think younger.

HDR Editorial - Give young people a chance to thrive - September 27, 2009 <<< Right at 5 years ago

Harry Hipps speaks about The Gallup-Healthways Survey

There’s been a good deal of chatter concerning the low rating Hickory received in the Gallup survey. The “public face” by many of the region’s leaders has been to not believe that the survey is accurate and to declare their love for the area. Well, many people do love the area and many like myself have longstanding roots here. But many people I’ve read on social media, talked to in person, or have heard conversing do feel stuck in a dead end area. And to live in denial is not helpful.We need honest assessments about where we are and what we need to do to bring vibrancy back to our community.

The Mayor and others are touting the Inspiring Spaces project as the ticket to economic revitalization. It won’t do it. There are some worthy projects on the list and some real dogs as well. And cities do need to move forward on some infrastructure improvements to keep a decent quality of life. Hickory has some great gems. I know I will leave some out but:  the SALT block, the Museum of Art, the Hickory Community Theater, the Choral Society, the Western Piedmont Symphony, LR, the lake, our natural beauty, good location, climate and more….

We also have some real downsides: poor educational attainment by a large segment of the population, worse than average unemployment, wages, and household wealth. These things work in tandem to create our low rating. Poor education correlates with poor income which correlates with poor eating choices which correlates with poor health, which correlates with lower satisfaction with life and so on. We have some other negatives that I believe impact our well being that I will list below.

I don’t believe that city amenities are the key to reversing our fortunes. I will offer the following observations and hope others may add their keener analysis to my list.

First, we have a corporate community that does not build clusters. If you look at Charlotte for example, you see that they are a banking city, but they also try to add related businesses to the community like insurance companies. It’s not banking, but if you have banks, insurance companies, venture capital and related businesses you can attract talent that will work for a company, but if they want or need a change there are options and the whole sector can keep the talent pool working without having to leave town as their only option. When you have clusters, not just individual businesses, you can feed off each others ideas, talent pool, and synergies instead of being a collection of lone rangers.

Charlotte is a Duke Energy town. But they are working to build an energy cluster with some solar (manufacturing as well as generation), batteries and other related industries.

The airport (despite the management problems) is seeking to become a multimodal hub with air, railroad, and trucking being facilitated so that even goods that come by ship into Charleston can flow from this hub.

What is our corporate community doing (with city, private individuals, and investors) doing? Not much that I can see. We have MDI, a major food distributor, a tortilla manufacturer, a couple of commercial bakeries and you would think we could build on this core. What businesses are CommScope helping to move here? They are good community members and give to arts, and charity groups, but why aren't we building clusters like the old furniture and textile guys did?

Secondly, our media is pitiful. The radio does present a good local talk show, but the tv station is Mickey Mouse and shows shopping shows and drivel most of the day. I cringe to think about what someone from another city thinks when looking at our local tv to see what’s happening in Hickory. The local newspaper has no idea of investigative reporting and really won’t dig into issues in depth. Don’t look for them to win awards like the Charlotte paper anytime soon.

Thirdly, we have a risk adverse culture. Innovation depends on taking risk, and some of the most prosperous regions of the country have people who actually are proud of working on start up companies that failed, because they realize that it’s one form of education. No one likes to fail, but if you’re too scared to try you certainly aren’t going to be an innovator. We used to have a good deal of innovation, but no longer.

Fourthly, the City’s strategy of making us a ‘retirement village’ has been too successful. While they have changed their tune lately (with some kudos to the Hound for the focus on the issue), we are older and younger people have shunned Hickory. It’s too bad they didn’t have the foresight years ago to see what they have sown. Driving away a good music and entertainment community hasn’t done much to gain younger interest in Hickory. And it won’t be easy to change Hickory’s image.

Finally, and most worrisome to me is the culture of apathy. Too many people believe the “system” is rotten, not concerned with their situation, and only the “important” people will get their concerns addressed. So they either leave or accept mediocrity, getting by as best they can and chalking it up to just living in sad times.

Maybe I haven’t seen all the picture here and I don’t claim to have every solution. But, though I love this area and some of the great people I know here, we have a malaise here that I don’t find to the same degree in some of the places I visit. I believe Hickory can turn this around, but it will be lengthy and difficult. Denial won’t get us anywhere; work, commitment, and vision will.

Hickory Metro 2014 - Tied for 4th Most Miserable in the United States

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- August 5, 2012

Survey: 40% of American Families Live Paycheck to Paycheck - Newsmax.com - Julie Crawshaw - August 3, 2012 - A new 60-page report from the Consumer Federation of America and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards reveals that two in five American households—almost 40 percent—live paycheck to paycheck, with no savings, retirement account or emergency fund, The Fiscal Times reports.                    The number of families living this way has increased by 7 percent over the last 15 years, in no small part because of the recession.              Now, only 30 percent of Americans say they feel comfortable financially, and only one-third think they have enough saved to retire before age 65. In addition, the survey found that 51 percent of Americans feel behind on saving for retirement, a figure that has risen over the last decade and a half.



Only 24.6 Percent Of All Jobs In The United States Are Good Jobs - The American Dream Blog -  Do you want to know why it seems like good jobs are very rare in the United States today?  It is because good jobs are very rare in the United States today.  According to a paper that was just released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all American jobs qualified as "good jobs" in 2010.  Over the past several decades, there has been increasing pressure on corporations to reduce expenses and increase corporate profits.  One of the biggest expenses that any corporation faces is labor.  Large corporations all over the globe are in an endless race to gain a competitive advantage by pushing labor costs as low as possible.  Sometimes this is done by using technology.  Computers, automation, robotics and other forms of technology have eliminated millions of jobs in the United States and those jobs are never coming back.  Millions of other jobs have been eliminated by offshoring.  In our globalized economy, American workers have been merged into one giant labor pool with everyone else.  That makes it very tempting for big corporations to move jobs from areas where workers are very expensive (such as the United States) to areas of the world where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  When big corporations do this, corporate profits go up, but the number of good jobs in the United States goes down.  As a result, there is increased competition for the jobs that remain in the United States and this drives down wages.  Meanwhile, the cost of living just keeps going up.  So millions of American families have fallen into poverty in recent years, and millions of others have gone deep into debt in an attempt to survive.  This dynamic is absolutely shredding the middle class in the United States.                     So how exactly did the authors of the paper mentioned above come to the conclusion that only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs?                         Well, they had three criteria for what a "good job" is....                        (#1) The job must pay at least $18.50 an hour.  According to the authors, that is the equivalent of the median hourly pay for American workers back in 1979 after you adjust for inflation.                    (#2) The job must provide access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and the employer must pay at least some portion of the cost of that insurance.                    (#3) The job must provide access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.


Seasonal And Birth Death Adjustments Add 429,000 Statistical "Jobs" -  Zero Hedge - Tyler Durden's August 3, 2012 - Happy by the headline establishment survey print of 133,245 which says that the US "added" 163,000 jobs in July from 133,082 last month? Consider this: the number was based on a non seasonally adjusted July number of 132,868. This was a 1.248 million drop from the June print. So how did the smoothing work out to make a real plunge into an "adjusted" rise? Simple: the BLS "added" 377K jobs for seasonal purposes. This was the largest seasonal addition in the past decade for a July NFP print in the past decade, possibly ever, as the first chart below shows. But wait, there's more: the Birth Death adjustment, which adds to the NSA Print to get to the final number, was +52k. How does this compare to July 2011? It is about 1000% higher: the last B/D adjustment was a tiny +5K! In other words, of the 163,000 jobs "added", 429,000 was based on purely statistical fudging. Doesn't matter - the flashing red headline is good enough for the algos.

CHART OF THE DAY: The Scariest Jobs Chart EVER - Business Insider - Joe Weisenthal August 3, 2012 - With the unemployment rate ticking higher, and the pace of job creation still at a pathetically low rate (by historical standards), we're compelled to revisit this chart.                        It's put together every monthly by Bill McBride at Calculated Risk, and it shows the trajectory of job losses in all of the various post-WWII recessions. This current recession (and recovery) is the bright red line.                 As you can see, the downtrend was far worse than anything else we'd seen since WWII, and the rise is far more meager than anything else we had seen.

'Real' Unemployment Rate Shows Far More Jobless - CNBC - Jeff Cox - August 3, 2012 - ... The government's most widely publicized unemployment rate measures only those who are out of a job and currently looking for work. It does not count discouraged potential employees who have quit looking, nor those who are underemployed — wanting to work full-time but forced to work part-time.

For that count, the government releases a separate number called the "U-6," which provides a more complete tally of how many people really are out of work.               The numbers in some cases are startling.                Consider: Nevada's U-6 rate is 22.1 percent, up from just 7.6 percent in 2007. Economically troubled California has a 20.3 percent real rate, while Rhode Island is at 18.3 percent, more than double its 8.3 percent rate in 2007.                 Those numbers compare especially unfavorably to the national rate, high in itself at 14.9 percent though off its record peak of 17.2 percent in October 2009.


Friday’s Jobs Report: More Lies From “our” Big Brother - Paul Craig Roberts - August 4, 2012 -
In his report on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs and unemployment report, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) writes: “The July employment and unemployment numbers published today, August 3rd, were worthless and likely misleading. . . . Suspecting at one time that the jobs numbers were being rigged against him by his own Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), President Richard M. Nixon proposed a new approach to reporting the numbers. Although the proposed changes never were implemented, several decades later the BLS adopted reporting methods that were somewhat parallel to the late president’s thinking.”                   ...According to the BLS, there were 163,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs created in July. This figure is about 13,000 more jobs than is needed to keep pace with population growth. Therefore, the unemployment rate should have declined fractionally. Instead, the unemployment rate (U3) rose from 8.2% to 8.3%.              In case you missed the point, new jobs, a net figure, rose and so did the unemployment rate!                    Moreover, the alternative, but much less reported, jobs report from the Household Survey found that the economy lost 195,000 jobs in July.





Grantham: Investors Should Gird for Global Food Crisis - Newsmax.com - Nancy Stanley - August 3, 2012 - While the relentless drought affecting much of the United States has increased agricultural commodity prices, a larger force is at work and this is only the beginning of the price increases, according to Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of the global investment management firm GMO.                    We are “about five years into a chronic global food crisis that is unlikely to fade for many decades, at least until the global population has considerably declined from its likely peak of over 9 billion in 2050,” Grantham wrote in his quarterly letter to investors, CNBC reports......                 Grantham believes the main drivers of the crisis will be a spike in demand for food from an increasing global middle class, decreasing grain productivity, a tainted water supply, increasing fertilizer and fuel costs and climate change, according to CNBC.          Food production will need to increase 60 to 100 percent by 2050 in order to adequately feed the more than 9 billion people who will populate the Earth, he noted.                 “The portfolio investment implications are that investors should expect resource stocks—those with resources in the ground—to outperform over the next several decades as real prices of the resources rise,” Grantham wrote. “Farming and forestry, though, are at the top of the list. Serious long-term investors should have a very substantial overweighting in a resource package.”                 The drought that is afflicting more than half the country will drive up food prices, and losses could eventually rival the 1988 drought that cost $78 billion in today’s dollars...


Spike in Crop Prices May Signal 'Chronic Food Crisis' - CNBC - John Melloy - August 3, 2012 - ... In the last three months alone, wheat prices [WCV1  891.25    26.25  (+3.03%)   ] are up 41 percent, corn [CCV1  807.50    11.75  (+1.48%)   ] is up 29 percent and prices for soybeans [SCV1  1628.75    12.25  (+0.76%)   ] are up 17 percent.
 

CORN DEC2 - (For December Delivery) - (CCV1)

807.50     11.75  (+1.48%%)
Chicago Board of Trade

Ten States Where Young People Can’t Find Work - 24/7 Wall St. - July 23, 2012 - Unemployment in the United States has been a hot-button issue since the Great Recession left millions out of work. While the employment picture has begun to improve, albeit slowly, one group that still is in particular trouble is those aged 20 to 24 years old.                                  While unemployment rates rose during the recession, they shot up much more dramatically for the part of our population that had just graduated from college. In several states, the unemployment for young Americans is alarmingly high. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed historical unemployment data for the U.S. population aged 20 to 24 by state to identify the 10 states with the most unemployed young people.
Unemployment trends among young Americans tracks with national trends. Between 2009 and 2010, the national rate rose from 9.3% to 9.6%, while the rate for those 20 to 24 increased from 14.7% to 15.5%. Between 2010 and 2011, the national job market showed signs of recovery and the unemployment rate fell to 8.9%. In that same period, the rate for young adults fell to 14.6% — a rate still nearly double that of the country as a whole.                      Historically, things are as bad for young adults in these states as they have been in at least 29 years. Compared to 2001, when the nation was in the middle of its last major recession, the national unemployment rate was roughly the same as it was in 2011. However, the unemployment rate for 20 to 24 year olds was substantially higher. In nine of the states on our list, unemployment rates among this age group were higher than in 1981. In four cases, it is five percentage points higher.                      There appear to be several common trends among the states on our list. Those states with high unemployment among the young have some of the highest proportions of residents without at least a high school diploma. All of the top three states with high youth unemployment were among the 10 with the lowest percentage of 20 to 24 year olds with high school diplomas.                       These states are also, for the most part, extremely poor. Six of them have among the lowest median income in the country. Mississippi, which had the highest youth unemployment in the country in 2011, also had the lowest median income in the country in 2010, the most recent available year. As evidence of the extreme poverty in these states, many of these states have among the highest percentages of residents receiving food stamps. In Tennessee, for example, 17% of residents received food stamps in 2010, the second-highest proportion in the country.                    24/7 Wall St. reviewed historical unemployment figures for each of the 50 states provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to identify the ten states with highest unemployment rates in 2011 among residents 20 to 24. The BLS provides unemployment rates for a variety of age groups, including those aged 16 to 19. However, these ages were excluded because such a large percentage has yet to enter the job market. 24/7 Wall St. also examined overall unemployment rates for 2009, 2010 and 2011 from the BLS. Statistics on educational attainment, median income and poverty from the U.S. Census Bureau were also reviewed.

4. North Carolina
> Unemployment rate ages 20-24: 19.6%%
> Total unemployment rate: 10.5%
> Total no. unemployed ages 20-24: 93,000
> Pct. less than high school diploma: 18.3%
Last year, the unemployment rate for people aged 20 to 24 was five percentage points higher in North Carolina than the nationwide rate of 14.6%. Between 2007 and 2011, the proportion of North Carolinians in this age group who were unemployed more than doubled, rising from 8.3% to 19.6% over four years. This increase of 11.3 percentage points was the second highest among all states in the country for that period. The number of unemployed young workers in that age range rose by roughly 58,000 statewide at that time. In order to better prepare young adults for work, North Carolina, along with Tennessee and four other states, joined the Pathways to Prosperity Network.
           

Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look - 65 Signs That The Economic Collapse Is Already Happening - The Economic Collapse Blog - Micheal Snyder - August 1, 2012 - Do you want to know when the "economic collapse" is going to happen?  Just open up your eyes and take a look.  The "economic collapse" is already happening all around us.  So many people talk about the coming economic collapse as if it is some massively hyped event that they will be able to point to on the calendar, and a lot of writers spend a lot of time speculating about exactly when it will happen.  But as I have written about before, the economic collapse is not a single event.  The economic collapse has been happening, it is happening right now, and it will be getting a lot worse.  Yes, there will be moments of great crisis.  We saw one of those "waves" back in 2008 and another "wave" is rapidly approaching.  But all of the waves are part of a process that is continually unfolding.  Over the past 40 years, the United States and Europe have piled up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and now a tremendous amount of pain is heading our way.  Economic conditions in the United States and Europe have already deteriorated badly and they are going to continue to deteriorate.  Nothing is going to stop what is coming.                     But many people are still in denial about our economic decline.  Some people still believe that everything is going to be just fine.  Way too often I get comments on my site that go something like this....                    "I just don't know what you are talking about.  Where I live everything is just fine.  The malls are packed, the restaurants are full and everybody I know is going on vacation this summer.  Personally, I am doing great.  I just bought a 60 inch television and a new boat.  Every year all the 'doom and gloom' types such as yourself proclaim that an economic collapse is right around the corner but it never happens.  And you know what?  It is not going to happen.  Those in charge know what they are doing and America has the greatest economy on earth.  We have overcome challenges before and we will be able to handle whatever comes this time.  Your lack of faith in America and in the American people astounds me.  Everything is going to be just fine, so why don't you just *************************************."
You get the idea.               I definitely understand that most Americans are terribly self-involved these days, but when I read comments like this I am once again amazed at just how delusional some people can be.                    Why can't people just open their eyes and look at the evidence of economic collapse that is all around us?                      Yes, there are wealthy enclaves all over the country where things may seem better than ever, but that is not the reality for most Americans.                     All over the country, our infrastructure is in shambles.              All over the country, our once proud cities are being transformed into hellholes.                 All over the country, formerly middle class families are living in their cars.                        There are dozens and dozens of economic statistics that clearly show that we are in the midst of a long-term economic decline.  I have listed 65 of them below, but I could have easily doubled or tripled the size of the list.                 I simply do not understand how anyone can believe that things are "great" or that the U.S. economy is going to be "just fine".
We are living through a complete and total economic nightmare, and hopefully we can get more Americans to wake up from their entertainment-induced comas so that they can begin to understand exactly what is happening to this country. (Follow the Link to the 65 Reasons)


G Edward Griffin Creature From Jekyll Island Second Look at the Federal Reserve