5 Charts Which Show That The Next Economic Crash Is Dead AheadMichael Snyder Some people would have you believe that nobody can anticipate the next great economic downturn and that to try to do so is just an exercise in guesswork. But that is not the case at all. We can look back over history and see patterns that keep repeating. And a lot of the exact same patterns that happened just before previous stock market crashes are happening again right now. For example, lets talk about the price of oil. There are only two times in history when the price of oil has fallen by more than 50 dollars in a six-month time period. One was just before the financial crisis in 2008, and the other has just happened As a result of crashing oil prices, we are witnessing oil rigs shut down in the United States at a blistering pace. In fact, almost half of all oil rigs in the U.S. have already shut down. The following commentary and chart come from Wolf Richter For example, just check out the disturbing numberthat just came out of Texas Ouch. But this pain is going to be felt far beyond Texas. In recent years, Wall Street banks have made a massive amount of money packaging up energy industry loans, bonds, etc. and selling them off to investors. If that sounds similar to the kind of behavior that preceded the subprime mortgage meltdown, that is because it is. Now those loans, bonds, etc. are going bad as the fracking bust intensifies, and whoever is left holding all of this worthless paper at the end of the day is going to lose an extraordinary amount of money. Here is morefrom Wolf Richter At the same time, we are also witnessing a slowdown in global trade. This usually happens when economic conditions are about to turn sour, and that is why it is so alarming that the total volume of global trade in January was down 1.4 percent from December. According toTyler Durden of Zero Hedge, that was the largest drop since 2011 We are seeing some troubling signs in the U.S. as well. I shared the following chartin a previous article, but it bears repeating. It comes from Charles Hugh Smith, and it shows that new orders for consumer goods are falling at a rate not seen since the last recession Well, what about the stock market? It was up more than 200 points on Monday. Isnt that good news? Yes, but the euphoria on Wall Street will not last for long. When corporate earnings per share either start flattening out or start to decline, that is a huge red flag. We saw this just prior to the stock market crash of 2008, and it is happening again right now. The following commentary and chart comefrom Phoenix Capital Research And guess what? According to CNBC, a lot of the smart money is pulling their money out of the stock market right now while the getting is good It doesnt matter if you are a millionaire on paper today. What matters is if the money is going to be there when you really need it. At the moment, a whole lot of people have been lulled into a false sense of complacency by the soaring stock market and by the bubble of false economic stability that we have been enjoying. But under the surface, there is a whole lot of turmoil going on. Those that are looking for the signs are going to see the next crisis approaching well in advance. Those that are not are going to get absolutely blindsided by what is coming. Dont let that happen to you. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 