The Top 12 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Heading Toward Another RecessionMichael Snyder In fact, that would fit with the daily reality of tens of millions of Americans that are deeply suffering in this harsh economic environment. But no matter whether we are in a recession at the moment or not, there are an increasing number of indications that we are rapidly plunging into another major economic slowdown. The following are the top 12 signs that the U.S. economy is heading toward another recession #1 We recently learned that the number of new mortgage applications in the United States had fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in nearly 20 years. #2 Radio Shack has announced that it is going to close more than 1,000 stores. This is just another sign that we are in the midst of a retail apocalypse. #4 Obamacare is really starting to hammer the U.S. health care industry #5 Trading revenue at the too big to fail banks on Wall Street is way down #6 One of the too big to fail banks, JPMorgan, is planning to fire thousands more workers. #7 Moodys has downgraded the credit rating of the city of Chicago again. Now it is just three notches above junk status. #8 The U.S. economy actually lost 2.87 million jobs during the month of January according to the unadjusted numbers. Over the past decade, the only time the U.S. economy has lost more jobs during the month of January was in 2009 at the peak of the last recession. #9 In January, real disposable income in the U.S. experienced the largest year over year decline that we have seen since 1974. #10 Only 35 percent of all Americans say that they are better off financially than they were a year ago. #11 Global retail sales for machinery giant Caterpillar have fallen for 14 months in a row. #12 The economic data show that virtually all of the largest economies on the planet are slowing down right now. The following is from a recent Zero Hedge article For much more on how the rest of the global economy is also slowing down, please see my recent article entitled 20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire. Meanwhile, things in Ukraine continue to become even more tense, and the Russian government continues to debate how it will respond if the U.S. does end up deciding to hit Russia with economic sanctions. According toone Russian news source, the Russian parliament is actually considering the confiscation of the property and assets of U.S. businesses in Russia if the U.S. decides to go ahead with economic sanctions against Russia We are talking about banks, retail chains, mining operations, etc. U.S. companies have billions invested in Russia, and all of that could be gone in an instant. So let us certainly hope that economic war between the United States and Russia is averted. Our economy is hurting enough as it is. But no matter how things with this crisis in Ukraine play out, it looks like hard times are ahead for the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, most Americans never learned the lessons that they should have learned back in 2008. They just assume that the federal government and the Federal Reserve have fixed our problems and have everything under control, so they are not preparing for the next great crisis. In the end, tens of millions of Americans will be absolutely devastated when they get absolutely blindsided by what is coming. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse. 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. 