Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has joined the...

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has joined the permabear club that forecasts an imminent economic collapse in the U.S.

He said in an interview with the Washington Post that U.S. economic conditions are so risky that the world’s largest economy is headed for a “very massive recession” and that “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the U.S. stock market.

“I think we’re sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble,” the billionaire businessman said in the interview published on Saturday.

“We’re not at five percent unemployment,” Trump said.
“We’re at a number that’s probably into the twenties if you look at the real number,” he added.

Government experts don’t count people as officially unemployed unless they have searched for jobs in the past four weeks.
Official data show eight million Americans are still unemployed, while another 6.1 million want full time work but can find only part-time jobs.

Trump said the official jobless figure is “statistically devised to make politicians – and in particular presidents–look good.”
He also blamed unemployment on the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and facilities to countries such as China and Mexico.

The real estate magnate said “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the stock market, offering a more bleak view of the US Economy than that held by many mainstream economists.