Hardly anyone expected that things would get this bad in 2020. Once the pandemic hit and states all over the country started instituting lockdowns, economic activity collapsed dramatically. U.S. GDP was down 31.4 percent during the second quarter of 2020, and that was a drop without parallel in all of U.S. history. In fact, that decline was more than three times as large as the previous record. But eventually, states started to “reopen” their economies, and U.S. GDP for the third quarter is expected to show a significant rebound when the numbers are finally released. Of course, we still aren’t even close to where we used to be, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were in the second quarter. But now as the fourth quarter begins, it appears that economic conditions are heading back in the wrong direction again. The following are 15 signs that America’s economic depression is accelerating as we head toward the holiday season…

#1 All 546 Regal Cinema theaters in the United States are being shut down, and right now there is no timetable for reopening them.

#2 It is being reported that AMC Entertainment (the largest movie theater chain in the U.S.) will “run out of liquidity” in 6 months.

#3 Over the weekend, I was told by someone that works in the industry that he expects most movie theaters in the country to eventually close down permanently because of this pandemic.

#4 The average rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is 20.3 percent lower than it was one year ago.

#5 During the 3rd quarter, the number of vehicles delivered by General Motors was down about 10 percent from a year ago.

#6 It is being reported that Anheuser-Busch will be laying off 400 employees in Loveland, Denver, Littleton, and Colorado Springs.

#7 Allstate has just announced that they will be laying off 3,800 workers.

#8 JCPenney says that it will be cutting approximately 15,000 jobs as we approach the holiday shopping season.

#9 At least one-fourth of the 28,000 layoffs that Disney will be conducting will happen in Florida.

#10 Collectively, American Airlines and United Airlines let 32,000 employees go last week.

#11 On Thursday, we learned that another 787,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week.

#12 Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits so far in 2020.  That number is far higher than anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.

#13 Retail store closings in the United States continue to surge along at a pace that is absolutely unprecedented.

#14 Bankruptcy filings in New York City have risen 40 percent so far in 2020.

#15 This number is hard to believe, but it is being reported that almost 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their full rent for the month of August.

None of this was supposed to happen.

By now, we were supposed to be well into a “V-shaped recovery” that would soon have Americans forgetting all about the dark days in the middle of 2020.

But instead, millions upon millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are facing a deeply uncertain future.  One of those Americans is an unemployed cook named Juan Jose Martinez Camacho…