The latest JOLTS report for February 2026 is being interpreted by the mainstream press as a “cooling” labor market, but they are once again missing the broader cyclical picture. What we are looking at here is not simply a softening in hiring. This is a transition phase that aligns directly with the turning point structure we have been warning about going into 2026 as a Panic Cycle year.
Job openings declined by 358,000 to 6.882 million, falling below expectations and continuing a downward trend from 7.2 million in January. Hiring collapsed by nearly 500,000 to just 4.849 million, marking the lowest level since the COVID shutdowns in 2020. The hiring rate dropped to 3.1%, again the weakest since April 2020, while layoffs ticked up modestly to 1.7 million. Meanwhile, quits, which remain the clearest measure of worker confidence, fell to roughly 3.0 million, the lowest since 2020, showing that workers no longer believe opportunities are improving.
What they are calling a “low-hire, low-fire” environment is in reality something far more important. This is stagnation. Even Jerome Powell admitted the labor market is approaching what he described as a “zero-employment growth equilibrium,” which is simply a polite way of saying the system is freezing up.
When you step back and look at this through the lens of the Economic Confidence Model, the timing is not random. We are moving into the 2026 ECM turning point where confidence in government and economic management begins to fracture. The critical detail here is that the number of unemployed workers has now exceeded job openings for seven consecutive months. That reverses the entire post-COVID narrative where there were more jobs than workers.
At the same time, the decline in openings is widespread across industries. Leisure and hospitality alone saw a drop of more than 200,000 openings, while manufacturing, construction, and even healthcare sectors that had been resilient are now beginning to contract. This confirms that the slowdown is not isolated.
Now layer on top the geopolitical environment, which the press continues to treat as secondary rather than causal. Rising tensions globally have already pushed energy prices higher, feeding directly into business costs and hiring decisions. Companies do not expand when they cannot forecast input costs, and right now uncertainty is dominating everything.
You also have a structural shift taking place beneath the surface. Corporations are cutting jobs not simply because demand has slowed, but because technology is replacing roles outright. That distinction matters because it means even if growth stabilizes, those jobs are not returning. That is a long-term contraction in labor demand masked as efficiency.
This is why the mainstream models are failing. They are still looking at employment through a linear lens, assuming demand drives hiring in a predictable way. What they refuse to acknowledge is that capital flows and confidence drive everything. When confidence turns, hiring freezes regardless of interest rates or policy intervention.
Going forward, the ECM suggests that volatility will increase into 2027, which aligns with rising geopolitical tensions and the risk of broader conflict. The labor market does not implode overnight. It transitions from expansion to stagnation, and then from stagnation to contraction. February’s JOLTS data confirms we are now firmly in that middle phase.
An armed group identifying itself as the “New Republican Movement” has issued warnings to Irish politicians, accusing them of flooding communities with what they describe as military-age men and claiming that cultural and religious identity is under threat, and while governments will immediately dismiss such statements as fringe or extreme, the existence of these groups is not the cause of the problem but a symptom of something that has already been building beneath the surface.
The core issue is not simply immigration. It is illegal immigration layered on top of an economy that is already under strain, where housing shortages, rising costs of living, and pressure on public services have left many citizens feeling that their own needs are being ignored while policy priorities are directed elsewhere, and that is where the anger originates.
I have said many times that governments make a critical mistake when they assume people will tolerate unlimited inflows without regard to economic capacity, because immigration has always functioned best when it aligns with economic expansion, yet when it is introduced during contraction or stagnation, it becomes a point of conflict rather than growth. What makes this situation particularly volatile is the refusal of political leadership to even acknowledge the economic dimension of the issue.
That is when you begin to see the formation of groups like this who not only distrust government but see the political establishment as an enemy. From the standpoint of the Economic Confidence Model, this is exactly how civil unrest begins, because when confidence in government declines, people stop believing that the system represents them, and once that trust breaks down, opposition moves outside traditional political channels and begins to organize in ways that are more confrontational.
This is not unique to Ireland. It is happening across Europe, where migration pressures combined with economic stagnation are creating similar tensions, and governments continue to underestimate how quickly sentiment can shift when people feel that policy is being imposed without consent. The outrage you are seeing is not manufactured. It is the result of a population that believes it is being forced to absorb the consequences of decisions made at a higher level without regard for local impact, and when that perception takes hold, it becomes very difficult to reverse.
What governments also fail to understand is that labeling all opposition as extremist only accelerates the problem, because it removes any legitimate avenue for dissent, and when people feel they have no voice within the system, they begin to create alternatives outside of it. This is where the risk escalates, because once movements begin to frame their position in terms of cultural survival, compromise becomes increasingly unlikely, and the situation shifts from political disagreement to something far more entrenched.
From a cyclical perspective, this is precisely the phase where social cohesion begins to fracture, and once that process starts, it rarely remains contained, because economic pressure, political division, and demographic change reinforce each other. This is not about one group issuing a warning, but rather, this is a warning to governments worldwide that the people will eventually reach a breaking point.
The latest IRS data makes one thing clear. The United States is undergoing a massive redistribution of wealth between states, and it is being driven almost entirely by tax policy. California lost $11.9 billion and New York lost $9.9 billion in income in a single year, while Florida gained $20.6 billion.
This is not random migration. This is capital responding to incentives. States like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee have positioned themselves as low-tax environments, and they are now absorbing wealth at an unprecedented pace. Florida alone has become the primary destination for high-income earners exiting high-tax jurisdictions.
What is important here is not just the scale but the composition. Higher-income individuals are disproportionately represented in these moves. In Florida’s Palm Beach County, incoming residents reported significantly higher average incomes than those leaving. This is not just population growth. This is the migration of wealth concentration.
States gaining population are also building housing and infrastructure to support that growth. Those losing population are constrained by regulation, cost, and policy inertia. That divergence is becoming more pronounced, and it is creating two very different economic paths within the same country.
There is also a broader implication. As wealth concentrates in certain regions, political influence follows. The balance of economic power is shifting toward the Southeast and away from traditional financial hubs in the Northeast and on the West Coast.
New York illustrates the problem perfectly. With a combined state and local tax rate approaching 14.8%, it has become one of the most expensive places in the country to generate income. The assumption behind these policies is that the wealthy will stay regardless. That assumption is now being proven false.
What matters here is not just the dollars moving, but the direction. Capital is consolidating in regions that promote growth while leaving those that penalize it. This creates a widening gap between states, not just economically but structurally.
The long-term consequence is clear. States losing wealth will face increasing fiscal pressure, while those gaining it will expand their influence. This is how economic power shifts internally within a country. It does not happen through legislation. It happens through capital movement.
The latest statements coming out of Washington are the result of a structural imbalance that has existed for decades. President Donald Trump is now openly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, calling the alliance a “paper tiger” and questioning its value after European allies failed to align with US policy beyond their immediate interests.
To understand this, you have to start with the numbers because they expose the reality far better than any political statement. NATO’s total defense spending is estimated at roughly $1.5 to $1.6 trillion, yet the United States alone accounts for about 62% of that total. That means Washington is effectively funding the majority of the alliance while the remaining members collectively contribute less than half. In 2025, US defense spending approached $980 billion, dwarfing every other member combined.
Europe, by contrast, has only recently begun increasing spending after years of underinvestment. EU defense expenditures reached about €381 billion in 2025, which equates to roughly 2.1% of GDP, barely meeting the long-standing NATO guideline. Trump threatened to withdraw from the lopsided alliance in his first term, warning that Europe was relying on American taxpayers to subsidize its security.
For years, most NATO members failed to meet even the 2% GDP target agreed upon in 2014. It was not until after the Ukraine conflict escalated that spending began to rise meaningfully. Even now, only a handful of countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, exceed 3% of GDP, while many others hover just above the minimum threshold.
Europe has shown no hesitation when it comes to Ukraine. Defense spending across European NATO members and Canada has surged by roughly 50% between 2022 and 2025, driven almost entirely by the war in Ukraine. Arms imports into Europe have more than tripled in response to the conflict, with the United States supplying approximately 58% of those imports. This is where the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore. Europe is willing to spend when the conflict is on its doorstep, yet it continues to rely on the United States for both funding and military capability.
This is exactly why I have said there is no real benefit for the United States in NATO in its current form. It has evolved into an institution where the burden is not shared equally. It has also become a political structure dominated by career policymakers who continue to push interventionist agendas without bearing proportional responsibility. NATO has become a retirement home for Neocons, a place where the same foreign policy ideas persist regardless of outcomes. The illusion of safety is a fallacy, as NATO is a globalist organization that promotes war and acts on the offense.
The discussion about increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 only reinforces the problem. To reach that level, NATO members would need to add trillions in additional spending. Estimates suggest total NATO expenditures could rise to over $4 trillion annually under such targets, a figure that would place enormous strain on European economies. For many countries, this would require either massive borrowing or cuts to social programs, neither of which is politically sustainable.
Europe talks about strategic autonomy and independence, yet it continues to depend on the United States for both security and military hardware. Even now, more than half of European NATO arms imports come from the United States, highlighting just how reliant the continent remains.
What we are witnessing is the slow breakdown of a post-World War II structure that no longer reflects the current geopolitical reality. NATO was created for a different era, one where the United States was willing to underwrite global security without question. That era is ending. The financial burden is becoming too large, and the political return is becoming too small.
Trump is not creating this issue. He is articulating what the numbers already show. If the United States is paying the majority of the costs while receiving inconsistent support in return, then the value of the alliance is called into question. This is not about isolationism. It is about cost versus benefit.
Ukraine was neither a NATO member nor part of the EU. In fact, both alliances rejected Ukraine’s request to join. Europe went ahead and financed their entire war; meanwhile, those same leaders refuse to assist the US against Iran because it is “not their war.” Europe effectively bit the hand that has been feeding it by loudly rebuking US military action.
If the United States steps back, Europe will be forced to confront a reality it has avoided for decades. It will have to fund its own defense, build its own capabilities, and manage its own conflicts without relying on Washington as a backstop. That transition will expose just how fragile the current structure has become.
Tonight at 9:00pm Eastern, President Donald J Trump is scheduled to deliver a national address on the subject of the current military operations against Iran. The Livestream Links are below:
RSBN Livestream with ongoing discussion on current events:
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Forbes Breaking News Livestream – Initiates when white house feed begins.
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Associated Press Livestream – Activates with White House feed.
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They stopped their oil and gas exploration. They chose to chase ‘net zero’ academic pontifications. They closed their refining operations. They took apart their coal-fired electricity plants. They disassembled their nuclear power capabilities. Then, the absolute cherry on the proverbial cake, they voted to stop purchasing oil and gas from Russia.
The EU is now in the Find Out stage of their FAFO positioning.
Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. The last shipments of jet fuel have arrived. Major airline carriers are cancelling flights due to lack of fuel. Faster than the EU can organize meetings to discuss their position, EU destined LNG shipments have diverted to southeast Asia and India as the ASEAN nations bid higher purchase prices for the vessels literally on the water.
Folks, it’s quite an article written by EU Politico as they outline how each of the leaders from the nation states are now discussing how vulnerable they are to the changed oil/gas environment with the mid east conflict ongoing. The entire energy sector in Europe is now in crisis mode with leaders predicting it will get much worse within days, not weeks.
EU Politico – “Germany’s Friedrich Merz warns the economic fallout from the war in Iran is on track to rival that of the Covid pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
[…] With the war in Iran threatening to choke off energy flows for the foreseeable future, Europe is facing a supply shock that promises to cripple manufacturing, ground airlines, hike up the price of food, spike borrowing costs and send inflation spiraling back to crisis levels.
As the last tankers carrying fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf pull into European ports, the scale of what is about to hit seems to be dawning on the continent’s leaders.
“I’m living with the reality of this war and its consequences 24 hours a day,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the La Repubblica newspaper. “I’m forced to know things that don’t let me sleep.” The conflict could last “years,” Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, warned in an interview with the Economist last week. The long-term effects, she added, are “probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment.”
[…] “Markets are now grappling with a scenario long discussed in theory but rarely thought of as a legitimate possibility — the effective shutdown of the world’s most critical energy chokepoint,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for the Europe team at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
One immediate worry is that Asian countries, which before the war relied on the Gulf for some 80 percent of their gas and oil, are beginning to bid up the price of those products as they fight over dwindling supplies. That has diverted merchants with more flexible contracts toward Asia to exploit the higher profit margins, turning them away from Europe.
According to Charles Costerousse, a senior energy analyst at maritime consultancy Kpler, 11 U.S.- and Nigerian-flagged LNG tankers have been redirected from Europe to further east in the past few days. Within the next few days, the last tanker bearing Qatari LNG will arrive in Europe, he said.
[…] For now, as the final Gulf tankers finish unloading their cargo this week, the clock officially starts ticking for Europe’s policymakers. The continent has weeks, not months, to brace for an impact that could reshape its economy for a generation. (read more)
The one element missing from the lengthy diatribe of EU leader quotes is any self-reflection; any admission their EU vulnerability was entirely driven by their own policies. No, that part of the equation is missing entirely.
Everything in their mindset is a discussion of external events happening to them. There is no reconsideration of their prior stupidity, and/or a responsive effort to reposition their vulnerability.
The EU is in a state of cognitive paralysis, and things are about to get much, much worse.
Today NASA is once again sending astronauts around the Moon for the first time in 50 years. NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center today. The two-hour launch window starts at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 UTC).
Livestream Links are Below:
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Four astronauts — three from NASA and one from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) — make up the Artemis II crew:
– NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander
– NASA astronaut Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot
– NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist
– Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis II mission specialist
After launching into space atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the crew will journey around the Moon and back in their Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, on an approximately 10-day mission. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight test of SLS and Orion, testing the technologies we’ll need for long-term lunar exploration and human missions to Mars.
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Democrat party leadership, bowing to pressure from their base of supporters, have previously announced their plan to reopen the border, dismantle Customs and Border Patrol and completely defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of the larger strategy to maintain the maximum number of illegal aliens as possible.
According to the Democrat plan, this approach has the support of the majority of Americans. However, President Trump, Speaker Johnson and Senate Leader Thune are working together on another approach.
[Via Truth Social] – “Republicans fully support our Great Men and Women of Law Enforcement, maybe the word should be, LOVE! America thanks each and every one of our wonderful Police, Border Patrol, ICE, and others, for their work to protect our Cities, Towns, Streets and, indeed, our Country itself.
Unlike Republicans, Democrats want to DEFUND the Police, Border Patrol, and all Immigration Enforcement. They want to allow Criminals, the Mentally Insane, and Lunatics from all over the World to come into our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, putting Americans in serious danger.
That’s why we are going forward to fund our incredible ICE Agents and Border Patrol through a process that doesn’t need Radical Left Democrat votes, and bypasses the Senate Filibuster (which should be repealed, IMMEDIATELY!), working in close conjunction with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune. We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us.
We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them. I am asking that the Bill be on my desk NO LATER than June 1st. Our Law Enforcement Officers and the American People should not have to wait until the Democrats see reason or, learn the hard way through the Polls. Hopefully, everyone will be voting REPUBLICAN for the Midterms. Through simple unification, Republicans can do this without the Democrats!
In the meantime, we will continue to use funding from THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, which is giving Record Tax Rebates to Citizens all over the Country, to ensure that ICE and Border Patrol Agents are paid ON TIME, and IN FULL, as we have been doing for them throughout the Democrat Shutdown. Immigration Enforcement will continue, and our Border will remain secure, with no Murderers, Drug Dealers, or Criminals of any kind entering our Country.
The American People should use this opportunity to reflect on the tens of millions of Illegal Aliens, including many Violent Criminals such as Murderers, Rapists, Human Traffickers, Child Molesters, and more, that Joe Biden and his Far Left Liberal Democrat Cronies in Congress (led by Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer) invited and allowed into our Country for the four years before I took office.
These Radical, Weak, and Incompetent Democrats have made clear that if they resume power, they will never again provide funding to secure our Border or enforce our Immigration Laws. The Democrats are the Party of Open Borders for Criminals, Crime, Zero Immigration Enforcement, Defunding the Police, and Allowing the Worst of the Worst to have “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards. They want America to be OPEN AND AVAILABLE to Violent Criminals, Thugs, and Lowlifes, not our Great and Loving American Patriots. Don’t forget that in November. WIN THE MIDTERMS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson released the following statement:
WASHINGTON — “This afternoon, Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson released a joint statement announcing a path forward to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security – including CBP and ICE – and end the record-long Democrat shutdown.
“We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown.
“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.
“We appreciate that Senator Graham and the Senate Budget Committee have already initiated the process of developing a budget resolution that will ensure border security and immigration enforcement will be funded for the balance of the Trump Administration and insulated from future attempts by the Democrats to defund those agencies.
“We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous. While we hoped they would accept the 60-day CR to fund the Department entirely so that bipartisan negotiations could continue, it is now abundantly clear that Democrats place allegiance to their radical left-wing base above all else — including their own power of the purse — which means open borders and protecting criminal illegal aliens. That is not acceptable to Republicans in Congress, nor is it to the American people. We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.
“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited. In return, Democrats will once again demonstrate to the American people their support for open borders and keeping criminal illegal immigrants in America.” (source)
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