Down Detector has received reports from over the weekend, carrying on into this morning, that some people in CA, NY, NJ WA, AZ, TX and others states, have not had their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, similar to a bank ATM or debit card to receive and use their food stamp and/or cash benefits, reloaded with their monthly welfare funds.
According to the Food Research & Action Center, food stamp participation averaged 44,391,436 persons in February 2016, which is the most recent report provided to date, and there is noway to gauge how widespread this issue is as not everyone using the food stamp program, now known as SNAP, is aware of Down Detector where these complaints are being left in the comment section.
A small sample of the comments shown below.
While periodically there are glitches within a city or state, or machines are down at a specific location, a look back through the 2,700+ comments left at DD shows that the U.S. government has been late in loading these EBT cards throughout 2016, and it is a nationwide issue, which tells us that either the U.S. government is having a difficult time paying out their welfare programs or they are randomly testing the fallout for when they cannot pay out at all.
As many might remember from back in 2013, EBT users were threatening "Rodney King" style riots when the EBT system crashed for just one weekend, social media posts showing threats and anger, with people declaring "Riot Time!!!"
COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE BREAKDOWN OR TEST?
It is not just the EBT program seeing complaints as we saw an alert at Steve Quayle's website about Internet and cell service outages over the weekend, with his reader stating "I heard from my neighbor about this and went to check downdetector.com. It looks like a pizza blew up over the United States. Red in major cities everywhere."
We checked for ourselves and the description was accurate as screen shots taken this morning show.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality.
Let me rephrase that "If the system collapses and no one can communicate, how long before you notice?"
Perhaps when your paycheck is delayed? When your company goes under and you never receive that last check or two? When your Social Security check doesn't arrive? Or maybe when you head to the store and see shelves empty because everyone went on a panic shopping spree?
By then the food riots will have started and what you have in your home is all you will have for the foreseeable future.
Of course just about every other economic indicator shows the dramatic decline of the middle class as well. As you can see from this set of charts from Zero Hedge, median family income, the labor force participation rate and the rate of homeownership are all way down over the last decade. Meanwhile, the U.S. national debt, the number of Americans on food stamps and healthcare costs are way up. Does that sound like a “healthy economy” to you?
For example, one of our own advertisers, with no warning just two days before their payment was due, decided to change the terms of payment "moving from 45 business days to 90 calendar days (in each case from delivery of the revenue statement)," as stated on the publisher's dashboard, with no prior notification given that payment would be delayed by a month.
Stefan looked at me and said "it's happening," because when companies cannot pay their bills on time, it is one of the first indicators of a trickle effect systematic failure.
Companies unable to pay their suppliers are just an indicator, but when the U.S. government itself is unable to make their payments on time as was the case over the last few months for so many EBT recipients, then things are futher along that we thought.
BOTTOM LINE
For years a variety of financial industry insiders have been shouting from the rooftops, watching historical trends and patterns, markets, store closings, the U.S. national debt, the unsustainment spending, and more, and telling us to prepare as central banks run out of options to manipulate the system.
The MSM and the U.S. government aren't telling the populace to prepare, they are still pretending the economy is "recovering," so it is left to all of us to look around at the signs, watch what is happening around you locally and personally, search for the local reports that the national MSM won't report, and to prepare for what is coming, because when it all falls apart, when the collapse finally hits, those prepared will have a much better chance to survive than those that haven't.
If the threats and chaos that occurred in 2013 when EBT systems failed for a short time are any indicator, then when the government totally stops paying out their 'benefits', food riots will occur, if the government then shuts off communications using their often talked about cell phone and internet "kill switch," then it will be impossible to offer a warning to others, so keep your eyes open in your city or town, your stores, your own personal observations and experiences that indicate a breakdown, and share the signs you are seeing now.
