The pundits can disingenuously blame the crashing Baltric Dry Index  on container ship overcapacity and find some dopes to believe that fairy tale, but there’s only one explanation for collapsing rail freight shipment volume in the United States:  the consumer has finally suffocated from too much debt and declining real income.

We believe rail data may be signaling a warning for the broader economy,” the recent note from Bank of America says. “Carloads have declined more than 5 percent in each of the past 11 weeks on a year-over-year basis. While one-off volume declines occur occasionally, they are generally followed by a recovery shortly thereafter. The current period of substantial and sustained weakness, including last week’s -10.1 percent decline, has not occurred since 2009.  – Bank of America brain trust

Eric Dubin of The News Doctors brought this article to my attention:  Rail Traffic Is Saying Something Worrying About the U.S. Economy

I’d like to point out that the price of oil is collapsing.  It will soon be in the $20’s.  Several Wall Street fraud shops have decided that oil is headed to $20.  I made that call 6 months ago.  Oil is the economy’s canary in the coal mine that the Fed can not remove before it dies.  Rail freight traffic is the canary’s twin brother.

I hope everyone is braced for impact because the system is in for a much bigger shock than occurred in 2008/2009…and the Fed is out of bullets – just ask former Fed President Richard Fisher…