by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
Have you noticed it too? There has been a dramatic shift in the economy in recent days. It has been sudden and it has been severe. All over the country, sales are falling like a rock, inventories are piling up to alarming levels, and large companies are beginning to conduct mass layoffs. Perhaps it was inevitable that such a downturn would arrive, but the Federal Reserve has made things far worse by rapidly hiking interest rates. Every other time the Fed has engaged in such a rate hiking binge it has resulted in a recession, and there is no way that we are going to escape unscathed this time around. The following are 11 signs that economic activity is plunging off a cliff…