The U.S. Has Lost 195,000 Good Paying Energy Industry JobsBy Michael Snyder Just today we got some more disturbing news. According to Challenger, Gray Christmas, the U.S. has lost 195,000 good paying energy jobs since the middle of 2014 Cheap oil has fueled a massive wave of job cuts that may not be over yet. Since oil prices began to fall in mid-2014, cheap crude has been blamed for 195,000 job cuts in the U.S., according to a report published on Thursday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray Christmas. Its an enormous toll that is especially painful because these tend to be well-paying jobs. The average pay in the oil and gas industry is 84% higher than the national average, according to Goldman Sachs. Those are good-paying jobs that are not easy to replace, and unfortunately the jobs losses appear to be accelerating. In their new report, Challenger, Gray Christmas went on to say that 95,000 of those job cuts have come in 2016, and 17,725 of them were in July alone. We also got some other bad news for the U.S. economy on Thursday. Needless to say, we have never seen such a thing happen outside of a recession. In addition, it is being reported that U.S. banks have been tightening lending standards for four quarters in a row. Once again, this is something that has never happened outside of a recession. On top of all that, tax receipts continue to plummet. This is a very bad sign for the economy, because falling tax receipts are usually a sign that we are headed into a recession. The following comesfrom Zero Hedge July Withheld receipts those tax and withholding payments that come straight from wage earner pay stubs are down 1.0% year over year. This data series can be choppy, and looking at the three month trailing average yields a 3.1%. Thats a touch slower than the 2016 YTD comp of 3.3%, and tells us to not expect too much from Fridays number. Last, corporate tax receipts are down 11% YTD, and if the current pace of these payments holds it will be the first negative comp since 2011. Bottom line: if the tax man isnt as busy, can the U.S. economy really be expanding? Are you starting to see a pattern here? And lets review what else we have learned over the past couple of weeks Meanwhile, things continue to get worse around the rest of the planet as well. For example, the economic depression in Brazil continues to deepen and it is being reported that the Brazilian economy has now been shrinkingfor five quarters in a row Brazils economy, the worlds ninth largest, contracted by 0.3 percent in the first quarter, marking the fifth straight quarter it shrank. Last year, Brazils gross domestic product fell to its lowest level since 2009. Inflation has also shot higher recently, rising 9 percent in 2015, from 6.3 percent in 2014, according to data from the World Bank. Energy as a percentage of exports, meanwhile, fell to 7 percent in 2015, from 9 percent in the previous year. And of course Brazil is hosting the Olympics this summer, and that is turning out to be a major debacle. Many of the international athletes will actually be rowing, sailing and swimming in open waters that are highly contaminated by raw sewage, and Brazilian police have been welcoming tourists to Rio with a big sign that says Welcome To Hell. And let us not forget that right next door in Venezuela the economic collapse has gotten so bad that people are killing and eating zoo animals. As the global economy continues to deteriorate, what should we do? Legendary investor Bill Gross shared some of his thoughts on the matter in his latest Investment Outlook Negative returns and principal losses in many asset categories are increasingly possible unless nominal growth rates reach acceptable levels, Gross said in his latest Investment Outlook note published Wednesday. I dont like bonds; I dont like most stocks; I dont like private equity. Real assets such as land, gold, and tangible plant and equipment at a discount are favored asset categories. I tend to agree with Gross. Bonds are in a tremendous bubble right now, and the stock market bubble has grown to ridiculous proportions. In the end, the only wealth that you are going to be able to fully rely on is wealth that you can physically have in your possession. As you have seen in this article, signs of economic decline are all around us. And yet, many people out there are still convinced that good times are right around the corner. What is it going to take to convince them that they are wrong? 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. So Venezuela 10 Bolivars = $1usd, hmmm might be a good place to retire. Hillary is fighting to bring jobs back to the USSA. She or It or whatever has already created thousands of jobs by hiring warm bodies to fill up the DNC convention. Makes me feel so warm and fuzzy, umm please pass the GMO corn Yep, and you can almost afford a warm GMO meal on the $50 you got to be the warm body in that convention seat, applauding, clapping, stamping and shouting out Go Hillary for 5 hours before being boarded back on the bus. The so called good news is that the economy added 288,000 new jobs last month. The bad news is that they were mostly seasonal, part time, minimum wage ones. Oh, and since Congress expanded the visas for seasonal jobs to make sure no American got them, 99% of those jobs went to foreigners. We the Republic of the USA are being destroyed from within by the corporate monopolies and the corporate government. Read the constitution and wake the F888 up or you will find one day you have been taken by the greatest fraud ever. Maybe better put we are being taken by this fraud at the very moment. To dislodge this evil corporate monopoly will take intelligent people who are not trapped in the mind control of the MSM and T V, sports and wars.. History shows that this will take a deep spiritual awakening that arises from within each one collectively. 