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I am going to share some information with you in this article that nobody is talking about, but I believe that it is exceedingly important. Iran has been weaponizing some of the most deadly pathogens known to humanity, and that includes smallpox. The United States has known about Iran’s biological weapons program for more than 30 years. So have the Russians. If the Iranians were to suddenly release an extremely contagious disease in the United States and Israel, millions could potentially die. This is a threat that we should be taking very seriously, but we aren’t.

Many of you may be thinking that if the Iranians actually had biological weapons they would have used them by now.

But that is not how the escalation ladder works.

The Iranians believe that they have done enough to win a strategic victory in this war. The Iranians are suffocating the flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizer out of the Middle East, and they are convinced that this will force the Trump administration to back down and give in to their demands.

If they were to start using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, that would invite catastrophic retaliation and they fully understand this.

So for now they are showing restraint, but that could easily change in the months ahead as both sides continue to escalate matters.

23 years ago, the Washington Post published a stunning report on Iran’s biological weapons program. The following is a screenshot from that report…

That was a major bombshell.

The opposition group that made these allegations had a lot of credibility at the time because they also successfully exposed Iran’s secret Natanz nuclear facility…

The opposition group’s claims, if true, would suggest that Iran’s pursuit of biological weapons is more aggressive than previously believed.

The Mujaheddin-e Khalq, also known as the People’s Mujaheddin, is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group, though weapons experts and intelligence officials say many of the group’s past claims about Iranian weapons programs have been largely reliable. The group first exposed a massive nuclear facility built near the town of Natanz to make enriched uranium, which can be used for commercial nuclear power plants or to make nuclear weapons.

By this time, it was well known that Iran had a biological weapons program.

But what we didn’t know is that they were working to weaponize “anthrax, aflatoxin, typhus, smallpox, plague and cholera”…

While Iran in the past has relied on foreign suppliers for advanced equipment such as industrial fermenters for growing pathogens, the country now can produce nearly all the critical parts, the officials said. Jafarzadeh said Iran’s biological, chemical and nuclear programs have all progressed rapidly under the leadership of Khatami, a man regarded in the West as a moderate and reformer.

Among the pathogens being weaponized under the plan are anthrax, aflatoxin, typhus, smallpox, plague and cholera, Jafarzadeh said.

I am particularly concerned about what Iran could do with weaponized smallpox.

Smallpox was officially eradicated more than four decades ago, and so the vast majority of the global population has absolutely no immunity.

If the Iranians have been able to successfully create a weaponized form of Variola major, the implications are staggering.

Someday if Iran were to release such a bioweapon in the United States and Israel, vast numbers of people would likely die…

Smallpox can manifest itself in two clinical forms: Variola major and Variola minor. Variola major in its common manifestation is more widely known as a consequence of the extensive rashes and pustules covering large parts of the body and the ugly lesions that mark the survivors for the remainder of their life. In 30 percent of cases the infection is fatal. However, there are two rare types of smallpox infection, namely malignant (or flat) and hemorrhagic smallpox, that are extremely severe and almost always fatal (mortality rates are 95–100 percent and 94 percent, respectively, in unvaccinated victims). In cases of malignant smallpox no pustules are formed, but the lesions remain soft and flat instead. Hemorrhagic smallpox is characterized by hemorrhage into the mucous membranes and the skin.

Of course smallpox is not the only threat.

For decades, Iran has been monkeying around with all sorts of very dangerous diseases…

Infections of the smallpox virus were last recorded in Iran in 1972. The reference strain, IRN72_tbrz, is held at the CDC in the US. It is not known whether additional virus isolates were obtained from Iranian patients and kept in Iran. What is known is that in recent years, the analogous virus – the one that causes monkeypox – has been reviewed at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, an institution known for its relationship with the IRGC. In parallel, further viruses that constitute the causative agents of notorious hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, Marburg, Rift Valley, Crimean-Congo, Chikungunia and dengue, were meticulously investigated at both Tarbiat Modares University and Islamic Azad University. The latter maintains close ties to the IRGC, particularly in terms of military research collaboration. It is not known whether the Ebola and Marburg viruses, which are exotic to Iran, have been obtained by it, but this is likely.

In 2007, a notable interface formed between Iran and Indonesia with regard to the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, which emerged indigenously in Indonesia. While the global average mortality rate for H5N1 was about 60% (in humans), the rate in Indonesia was as high as 85% during 2005-07. A confrontation with WHO arose when Indonesia refused to share local virus samples with the organization. Iran took advantage and established a joint project with Indonesia to produce an H5N1 vaccine in Iran. The Iranian regime took possession of Indonesia’s extremely virulent strains in the process.

I realize that this may come as a shock to many of you, because you aren’t hearing a peep about this from the mainstream media.

But the truth is that U.S. officials have known about Iran’s biological weapons program since at least 1993…

US President George Bush, in his last arms control compliance report to Congress, states that Iran probably has produced a small amount of biological weapons. CIA Director James Woolsey states that Iran’s BW ability “could be operational now.”

That was 33 years ago.

And it turns out that the Russians have also known about Iran’s biological weapons program since at least 1993 as well…

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reports that “it is possible to speak confidently of a military-applied biological program” in Iran. It states that military-applied biological research has been conducted for about three years and that there is an “initial program of research, development, and purchases in the sphere of biological weapons.” The report continues by stating that “it cannot be ruled out that small stocks of biological agents have already been created. Western countries have recorded attempts by Iranian representatives to purchase unofficially equipment and biological material suitable for the production of biological weapons, mycotoxins particularly.”

Do you think that the Russians were making that up?

Of course not.

More than a decade later, John Bolton publicly stated that Iran should “declare its biological weapons program and make arrangements for its dismantlement”…

The U.S. Intelligence Community stated in its recent 721 Report that, “Tehran probably maintains an offensive BW program. Iran continued to seek dual-use biotechnical materials, equipment, and expertise. While such materials had legitimate uses, Iran’s biological warfare (BW) program also could have benefited from them. It is likely that Iran has capabilities to produce small quantities of BW agents, but has a limited ability to weaponize them.” Because BW programs are easily concealed, I cannot say that the United States can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran has an offensive BW program. The intelligence I have seen suggests that this is the case, and, as a policy matter therefore, I believe we have to act on that assumption. The risks to international peace and security from such programs are too great to wait for irrefutable proof of illicit activity: responsible members of the international community should act to head off such threats and demand transparency and accountability from suspected violators while these threats are still emerging. It would be folly indeed to wait for the threat fully to mature before trying to stop it.

Iran is a party to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Like the CWC, the central obligation of the BWC is simple: no possession, no development no production and, together with the 1925 Protocol, no use of biological weapons. The overwhelming majority of States Parties abide by these obligations. We believe Iran is not abiding by its BWC obligations, however, and we have made this abundantly clear to the parties of this treaty. It is time for Iran to declare its biological weapons program and make arrangements for its dismantlement.

That was in 2004.

In more recent years, annual reports to Congress have made it clear that the Iranians have not abandoned their biological weapons program…

Starting in 2018, however, US administrations have certified to Congress in annual reports required by law that Iran is not in compliance with its chemical weapons treaty obligations. And since 2019, a companion report has consistently expressed “serious concerns” that Iran has “not abandoned its intention to conduct research and development of biological agents and toxins for offensive purposes.”

Is anyone out there still not convinced?

Okay, let’s bring it up to the present day.

Unclassified assessments from both the U.S. State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ominously warn about Iran’s biological weapons program…

The U.S. State Department’s most recent compliance report concludes that Iran “maintains flexibility to use, upon leadership demand, legitimate research underway … to produce lethal biological weapons agents.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence similarly assesses that Iran “very likely aims to continue R&D of chemical and biological agents for offensive purposes.” These are unclassified assessments, sitting in government reports that too few people have read.

There are dozens of more examples stretching all the way back to the early 1990s that I could share with you.

Iran has a biological weapons program.

We have known about it for more than 30 years.

If both sides continue to escalate the war in the Middle East, it is just a matter of time before unconventional weapons are used.

Can you imagine the panic that we would witness if something got released in the United States and people started developing “white blisters” all over their bodies?

It really would be a nightmare scenario, and we are totally unprepared.

Biological weapons are a far more serious threat than most people realize.

Let us hope that the Iranians do not decide to pull the trigger, because that would unleash a cataclysmic series of events that would be absolutely uncontrollable.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

President Trump’s profanity-laced tirade about Iran has shocked people all over the globe, and it appears that things are about to get really crazy in the Middle East. At the end of last week, all of the signs were pointing in the direction of a major escalation of the Great Middle East War, but then President Trump suddenly decided to stop shooting because he wanted to give diplomacy with Iran another chance. But instead of negotiating, the Iranians launched a surprise attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan instead…

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on July 28 announced that Iran launched a series of ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan, in what the federal agency called a “surprise attack” that day.

The attack took place at 5:45 p.m. ET, when CENTCOM said Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched “multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces” in the Middle East.

For a long time, Iran has been responding to attacks from the United States.

But now they have taken the initiative, and we are being told that they “see themselves as having the upper hand”…

Iran’s surprise missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan shows Tehran’s military leaders would rather risk ramping up the war than play defense or accept a peace deal that would expose them to greater domestic political pressures.

Iran fired ballistic missiles on U.S. troops early Wednesday local time, demonstrating a willingness by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which exerts more power than ever in Tehran, to escalate during a relative lull in the conflict and attempt to seize the initiative after weeks in which Iran has mostly reacted to U.S. and Israeli attacks.

“They see themselves as having the upper hand,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow specializing in Iran at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “It was a signal of a sort of calibrated escalation.”

Shortly after Iran’s surprise attack, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia conducted a series of joint airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq…

Saudi Arabia entered the Iran war directly Wednesday, joining the United States in airstrikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq.

The operation marked the first time Riyadh publicly acknowledged taking part in combat alongside U.S. forces during the conflict.

U.S. and Saudi officials said the strikes were retaliation for drone attacks launched from Iraq against Saudi oil facilities.

So now Saudi Arabia has officially joined the war.

That definitely takes things to another level.

It is being reported that the joint airstrikes hit 8 different areas inside Iraq…

This was a very big operation.

In addition to the others that died as a result of these airstrikes, we are being told that “several Iranian military advisers were among those killed”…

Sabreen News, a media outlet linked to Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeted by joint U.S.-Saudi strikes on Tuesday, said Wednesday that several Iranian military advisers were among those killed in the attacks.

The news outlet released a photo showing coffins wrapped in Iranian flags with a caption reading: “The martyred Iranian advisers who were killed by the fire of the Saudi Wahhabi-American enemy in Iraq at dawn today.”

Every time more of their people die, the Iranian thirst for revenge only grows stronger.

Images such as the one below certainly stir up a lot of emotion…

U.S. forces spent so many years fighting in Iraq, but today Iranian-backed groups control large sections of that country.

The Iraqis did not give us permission to attack those groups, and Iraq’s president has strongly condemned the joint airstrikes…

Iraq’s president has condemned a joint U.S.-Saudi attack on Iran-backed paramilitary forces in the country, which the militias said had killed at least 20 people and drew yet another country into the five-month Middle East war launched by Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28.

In a statement, the Iraqi presidency said Wednesday that the strikes, which were the first offensive operations Saudi Arabia has acknowledged taking part in during the current conflict, were “an unacceptable attack and a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

The statement condemned “targeting of its official security institutions in a manner that contravenes the rules of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.”

Iraq’s central government is very weak, and it simply cannot stop Iranian-backed groups from firing missiles and drones at targets throughout the region.

And now one of those groups is promising that the United States and Saudi Arabia will pay “a heavy price” for last night’s attacks…

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, an Iran-aligned Iraqi militia, warned Wednesday that U.S. and Saudi forces would face retaliation following joint strikes on armed groups in Iraq.

The group said it would not allow the two countries to “desecrate Iraqi soil without paying a heavy price.”

The warning came after Washington and Riyadh attacked Iran-backed militias accused of launching strikes against Saudi Arabia, further escalating tensions across the region.

Other Iranian-backed organizations in Iraq have issued similar threats.

So now we are at war with just about every crazy Shiite militia group in Iraq too.

More than 100,000 fighters belong to Shiite militia groups in Iraq, and those fighters operate primarily under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces.

Tonight, Iran will be the focus of U.S. airstrikes.

On Wednesday morning here in the United States, President Trump used some very strong profanities to describe what he is about to do to Iran…

President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning issued a profanity-laced threat against Iran after the Islamic regime launched a surprise missile strike on U.S. forces in Jordan overnight.

“We’re going to beat the f—ing s— out of them,” Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst.

“We’ll be hitting them hard,” the president said of Iran. “They’re going to get a beating.”

We have never seen a president of the United States talk like this.

And it appears that Trump is not bluffing.

A senior Israeli security official just told an Israeli reporter that the U.S. is “preparing for something bigger than anything we’ve seen so far”…

It is likely that Iran will get hit really hard tonight.

But will the Iranians soon be getting help in fighting off U.S. airstrikes from China?

Reuters is reporting that Iran has paid somewhere between 60 and 70 million dollars for hundreds of Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense systems…

Iran is poised to receive its first shipment of shoulder-fired missile launchers from China amid the escalating war with the US — which is now in its sixth month.

The $60-70 million deal, first reported by Reuters, is one of the regime’s most high-profile efforts to boost its short-range air defenses since war broke out in February, laying bare its inability to defend military sites and strategic infrastructure against aerial bombardments by the US and Israel.

The contract will see between 300 and 400 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), complete with Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, delivered to Tehran in the coming weeks, sources told the outlet.

These Chinese systems are designed to be able to shoot down our most advanced fighter jets.

Needless to say, this is going to make Trump very angry, and it pushes us even closer to our coming war with China.

Events in the Middle East are starting to spiral out of control, and oil prices spiked once again on Wednesday…

Global oil prices surged on Wednesday after an Iranian attack elicited a vow of reprisal from President Donald Trump, ending a brief calm that had renewed hope among investors of a negotiated resolution.

A benchmark index for worldwide crude prices climbed more than 7% on Wednesday, crossing above $90 a barrel.

I have been writing a lot of articles about the historic energy crisis that we are facing, and now we have learned that commercial oil inventories unexpectedly fell at a very rapid pace this week…

There is no way that this is going to end well.

A lot of people out there seem to think that we are nearing the top of the escalation ladder.

The truth is that we aren’t even close.

We have witnessed some pretty shocking escalations so far, but I have a feeling that they won’t even be worth comparing to the shocking escalations that are eventually coming.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The Pacific Ring of Fire has been extremely active this year, and that should deeply alarm all of us. Approximately 90 percent of all global earthquakes occur along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and we have just gotten another reminder that danger is potentially lurking every single moment of every single day. Those that were killed by the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that just hit Japan were just living their lives like normal when disaster suddenly struck. Unfortunately, the entire west coast of the United States also sits directly along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and scientists openly acknowledge that the clock is ticking.

As far as I know, nobody was forecasting that a magnitude 7.1 earthquake would hit Japan on Tuesday.

But that is precisely what happened…

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southern Kumamoto prefecture on Tuesday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall.

Speaking to reporters from her office in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said authorities were still assessing the full extent of the damage in the area, which was devastated by a deadly quake a decade ago.

“We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas, and there has also been damage to roads and bridges and the collapse of buildings,” Takaichi said.

One moment, local residents were casually strolling through a shopping mall.

But then everything started shaking and the shopping mall collapsed right on top of them…

Footage on social media shows members of the public running for cover and crouching down on the floor as the ground shook at the shopping centre.

An unknown number of people are believed to have become trapped in the rubble of the mall, with rescue operations being carried out, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

There have also been several reports of injuries and damage to roads, bridges and buildings, as well as blackouts and fire.

Videos on social media showed clouds of smoke billowing into the air as flames engulfed a building, while firefighters scrambled to tackle the blaze.

This is a great tragedy, and it shows how quickly something like this can occur.

But it shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us.

Throughout 2026, Japan has been hammered by sizable earthquakes over and over again.

Back on April 20th, northern Japan was hit by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake…

On April 20 this year, a tremor measuring 7.7 hit the country’s north, injuring at least 10 people and shaking large buildings in Tokyo.

This prompted authorities to issue a special advisory warning of an increased risk of earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 or stronger.

That one made headlines all over the planet.

About a month ago, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake shook northern Japan on June 25th…

At least 10 people were injured after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit northern Japan on Thursday morning, registering a rare upper 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in the town of Hashikami, Aomori Prefecture. No tsunami warning has been issued.

A mild quake was also felt in Tokyo.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the epicenter was 44 kilometers deep off the coast of Iwate Prefecture.

One day later, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake rattled Yamanashi Prefecture’s Fuji Five Lakes area…

An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5.6 hit Yamanashi Prefecture’s Fuji Five Lakes area at 10:28 p.m. on Friday, registering a lower 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Fuji-Kawaguchiko, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The JMA estimates that the earthquake originated at a depth of 20 kilometers. The earthquake did not trigger a tsunami.

Two days after that, residents of Iwate Prefecture were awakened by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake…

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Iwate Prefecture early Sunday, the latest in a spate of temblors to shake the area.
The quake, which occurred at 5:21 a.m., registered a lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. No tsunami warning was issued.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the epicenter was at a depth of approximately 40 kilometers.

I could provide many more examples, but I think that most of you get the point by now.

Japan is being shaken over and over again, and there is no end in sight.

Here in the United States, we have been very fortunate.

There have been a lot of sizable earthquakes along the west coast this year, but no really big ones.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that the amount of accumulated tectonic stress in Southern California is “higher today than at any point over the last 1,000 years”…

And the time is ripe. According to a new paper, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, accumulative stresses in the Earth’s crust in California are higher today than at any point over the last 1,000 years, raising concerns over the potential for a massive rupture in the Los Angeles region.

The research could help scientists better understand the specific conditions that come ahead of massive earthquakes, giving us a clearer picture of what range of potentially devastating scenarios we should be ready for. Predicting when these events will occur, however, remains next to impossible, despite scientists’ best efforts.

The densely populated LA region is home to the Cajon Pass, a “critical fault junction,” meaning that a major earthquake could cross from one fault line to the other. The international team led by University of Bern Earth sciences researcher Liliane Burkhard modeled 1,000 years of earthquake history along these fault systems. They found that tectonic stresses, measured in force per unit area, have been building up since the last 7.9 magnitude quake that shook the LA region in 1857, reaching and even exceeding the highest levels over the last millennium.

Yes, a “massive rupture” is most certainly coming.

This is something that I have been warning about for many years.

So what would such a disaster look like?

One expert is warning that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Southern California would cause more than a trillion dollars in damage…

When the next “Big One” hits, it could carry a massive price tag, according to a California earthquake expert.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake along the southern San Andreas Fault, rupturing from Imperial County to Los Angeles County, could result in an estimated $1 trillion in damage across Southern California.

That’s according to a state earthquake expert who calculated the costs based on previous disasters, including the recent Los Angeles wildfires. The estimate has also been adjusted for inflation.

In my opinion, when the “Big One” finally arrives it will do far more damage than that.

Much of Southern California is just barely above sea level.

When the “Big One” strikes, the ground on one side of the San Andreas fault could end up sitting much higher than ground on the other side of the San Andreas fault.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit the Philippines earlier this year raised the seabed in some areas by about 6 feet.

So don’t think that it can’t happen.

What we have witnessed so far is just a preview.

Much larger earthquakes are on the way, and the vast majority of those living along the Pacific Ring of Fire are completely and utterly unprepared.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Unless some sort of a miracle happens, the world is facing a severe energy supply crunch in the months ahead. Since the war with Iran began, we have been able to function normally because we had huge inventory buffers that we could rely on. But now those inventory buffers are nearly gone, the Iranians have been attacking commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis are preventing Saudi tankers from getting through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Ukrainains have been relentlessly attacking Russian refineries. As a result, we are potentially facing a very difficult winter.

Most people do not understand how dire things have become because they are still operating as if there was no energy crisis at all.

The reason they have been able to do that is because we had extensive inventory stockpiles, but now those stockpiles are “largely depleted”…

At the start of the war in late February, countries relied on strategic oil reserves to mitigate the worst impacts of an energy supply crunch. Those stockpiles are now largely depleted, stripping the market of its key shock-absorbing cushion.

At this moment, the world is running an oil deficit.

But we can only do that for so long.

Once the stockpiles get to zero, oil prices will go “a lot higher”, and we are being warned that the clock is ticking…

“Our view, at a high level, is that we are in a crisis,” said Merritt Point’s Baird. “One that we have prepared for with very large inventory buffers, but the clock is ticking, and the challenges introduced this week with the potential disruption of Bab el-Mandeb just pull that much harder on the finite buffer.”

In addition to blocking Saudi vessels from traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Houthis are also hitting Saudi oil facilities…

Ship traffic through Bab el-Mandeb fell on Sunday after Yemeni Houthis attacked Saudi oil ‌installations along the Red Sea coast, while transit through the Strait of Hormuz stayed low over the weekend, shipping data from Kpler showed on Monday.

Eleven commodity vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Sunday, the lowest level in months, the data showed.

We aren’t hearing about this a lot in the western media, but serious damage is being done by the Houthis.

In fact, Aramco’s Jizan oil refinery continues to burn two days after it was originally struck by ballistic missiles…

A 77 kilometer smoke trail indicates that the damage that has been done to that facility is quite extensive.

On Monday, the Houthis struck again.

This time is was Aramco’s Abqaiq oil processing facility…

Meanwhile there are emerging Monday reports that Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq oil processing facility in the kingdom’s eastern province is on fire after probable drone and/or missile strikes by the Houthis, or from Iran-aligned Iraqi militias.

Newsquawk reports based on emerging Iranian state media that “Hours ago, the huge Abqaiq oil facility in eastern Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most important oil processing centers, was set on fire in drone and missile attacks, reports Tasnim citing sources and images.”

The damage that the Houthis are causing could take months or even years to fully repair.

So even if the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait both suddenly opened, there won’t be as much Saudi oil flowing out of the region for an extended period of time.

Meanwhile, gas stations in Russia are actually rationing gasoline as a result of Ukraine’s unprecedented drone attacks on Russian refineries…

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky began intensifying drone attacks on Russian oil refineries in mid-June as part of a campaign to raise the war’s stakes for ordinary Russians more than four years after Putin’s full-scale invasion of his country.

Thanks to more than a month of attacks on refineries, fuel depots, and warehouses hundreds of miles behind the front line—including in Moscow—Russia is facing a fuel crisis the likes of which have not been seen since Putin’s rise to power more than 25 years ago, NBC News reported.

Gas stations in many regions have taken the unprecedented move of introducing rationing schemes and restrictions, and social media has been flooded with videos of long lines and frustrated drivers.

Russia normally exports a tremendous amount of oil.

But now they are being forced to purchase gasoline from India.

If we keep running down our inventory buffers, soon we will start witnessing rationing all over the globe.

Of course supplies of natural gas are getting really tight as well.

Gas storage facilities all over Europe should be nearly full right now in preparation for winter, but instead they are currently sitting at about half that level…

Supplies have been run down because of the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with up to a fifth of the world’s supply disrupted.

Currently, across Europe, gas storage facilities are around half full.

This is “an historically low level at this time of the year”, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Unless things change, this is going to be a long, cold winter in Europe this year.

The situation is even worse in the United Kingdom.

At this point, the UK currently has “less than a week’s worth of gas reserves”…

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) said the curbs would take effect from Friday, as it faces questions over how close Britain came to blackouts during a heatwave in June.

Official data show the UK currently has less than a week’s worth of gas reserves. European nations typically hold several weeks’ worth of supply, though stocks on the Continent have also been run down.

Mr O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, said: “European gas storage levels are low. UK gas storage levels are incredibly low … If it’s not a warm winter, then there’ll be problems, and the problems will be associated with having less gas in storage.”

If the war in the Middle East does not get resolved, I have no idea what everyone is going to do.

Of course I am fully convinced that the war in the Middle East is not going to end any time soon.

So I would make preparations for a very difficult winter.

As Chris Martenson often reminds us, energy is the foundation of all economic activity, and it appears that the world simply won’t have enough energy to function normally this upcoming winter.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

We are literally watching a slow-motion apocalyptic event play out right in front of our eyes, but most people in the general population don’t seem too concerned even though we are being warned that this apocalyptic event could cause trillions of dollars in economic losses. Large numbers of fish are being cooked to death, unprecedented wildfires are ripping across the United States and Europe, severe drought is greatly harming agricultural production in many areas, and the northern hemisphere is being slammed by one crazy heatwave after another. Yeah, a lot of people out there may be able to ignore what is going on outside by sitting in their air-conditioned homes, but the truth is that what is happening to us is going to cause a tremendous amount of pain for the whole world for an extended period of time.

The Super El Niño that we are currently experiencing is setting new water temperature records in the Pacific Ocean on a daily basis, and one expert is warning that it appears that “it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin”…

The strengthening El Niño – a natural warming of seawater that influences weather around the planet – is setting daily warm water records.

It’s not only “very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin,” Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, wrote in a post for The Climate Brink, a Substack blog, earlier in July.

It remains to be seen what this will mean for the world’s weather over the next 12 to 18 months, but climate scientists say El Niño’s effects on global temperatures will increase the chances that 2026 could be the warmest year on record, and make it likely that 2027 will be the warmest.

The droughts caused by the Super El Niño of 1877-1878 resulted in famines that killed tens of millions of people.

So if this Super El Niño will be stronger than that Super El Niño “by a truly mind-blowing margin”, what will that mean for impoverished nations all over the globe?

Prior to the war with Iran, the number of people around the globe suffering from acute food insecurity was already at the highest level ever recorded.

How bad will things get in the months ahead?

This Super El Niño just started, and we are already setting records.

Sea surface temperatures in the equatorial waters of the Pacific have never been this hot in July.

We truly are in unprecedented territory, and scientists are extremely concerned about what is coming next.

In fact, a Dartmouth professor is telling us that this could be “the costliest El Niño on record”…

Because of its influence on hydrologic cycles, El Niño can bring catastrophic floods to some regions but severe drought and wildfires to others. It can also disrupt fisheries and food production and bring about trillions of dollars in economic losses.

“The current forecasts imply this could be the costliest El Niño on record,” Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth geography associate professor who studies El Niño’s economic impacts, recently told USA TODAY by email.

Trillions of dollars in economic losses is nothing to laugh at.

If a worst-case scenario materializes, we could potentially be facing tens of trillions of dollars in economic losses from this Super El Niño.

We won’t know exactly how bad this event will be until it is over, because we have never seen anything like this before.

At this moment, the heartland of America is being absolutely baked by the third giant “heat dome” to strike the U.S. over the last month…

About 70 million people in the US are set to face excessive heat advisories as dangerously hot temperatures scorch much of the country’s southern and central states.

The third major “heat dome” event to hit the US in the past month is gathering strength over the weekend, spanning a vast swathe of the country, from the Gulf of Mexico coast to the Great Plains and the midwest.

Temperatures of 95-105F (35-40C) are expected, with some areas of the south-western US desert potentially reaching 120F (48C). The elevated heat is expected to linger into the coming week, held in place by the heat dome, which is when a high-pressure atmospheric system acts as a sort of lid, trapping heat in place over a region for days or even weeks.

Not too long ago, “heat dome” events were considered to be quite rare.

Now we are getting slammed by one almost every week.

It isn’t supposed to get up to 108 degrees in Nebraska, and it isn’t supposed to get up to 114 degrees in Nevada…

Places under a National Weather Service extreme heat warning included western Nebraska, where temperatures Saturday and Sunday were forecast to reach 108F.

The region’s heat was forecast to continue through the week, with temperatures topping 100F even in normally moderate areas of Montana and Wyoming.

Las Vegas was also expected to see near record-breaking highs. On Saturday, when temperatures reached around 114F in the valley, HVAC repair technician Kristian ‘Flaco’ Santos spent hours outside fixing air conditioning units.

And guess what?

A lot more heat is on the way.

In early August, another enormous heatwave is expected to send temperatures in California to dangerously high levels…

Much of the Central Valley will range from 105 to 113 degrees, and the interior Bay Area should surge to the triple digits. Warm nights will compound the effects of the extreme daytime temperatures.

Temperatures will wax and wane daily, and the duration of the heat wave is still uncertain, but long-range forecasts indicate California will contend with above-normal temperatures through mid-August. Fire danger may sharply increase. Poor air quality is expected as surface-level ozone concentrations build during the hot, sunny and windless weather.

When conditions are this hot and this dry, it is really easy for wildfires to erupt.

On Friday, I shared the following wildfire map from WatchDuty.org with my core supporters…

This is what the western third of the nation looks like right now.

Meanwhile, absolutely gigantic wildfires are ripping across France and Spain…

France fought an “unpredictable” wildfire close to Bordeaux on Sunday while Spain warned of “difficult hours” in its own fiery battle, with evacuations from danger zones in both countries mounting to well over 300,000 people.

The forest infernos, raging for days unchecked in France’s southwest and in central Spain near Madrid, were among the worst each nation has seen in peacetime.

France’s major fire has caused an unprecedented “pyrocumulonimbus”: a gigantic, untamable fire cloud that creates its own winds and packs lightning that causes more blazes, according to the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF).

“It’s a David-versus-Goliath scenario: the idea is that, at some point, we’ll find a weak spot and strike there,” said FNSPF spokesman Eric Brocardi.

This sort of thing is not supposed to happen in Western Europe.

At this point, more than 250,000 people have been evacuated in just one region of France alone…

Authorities in France’s Gironde region, where the wine region city of Bordeaux is located, issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities as shifting winds and arid conditions complicated the massive effort to limit the spread of the monster blaze. The evacuation operation now ranks among the biggest seen since World War II, authorities said, with more than 250,000 people ordered out of the danger zone in one region alone.

Of course it isn’t just the United States and Europe that are suffering.

In Japan, high temperatures reached at least 104 degrees for a fifth day in a row yesterday.

That is the longest streak in the entire recorded history of Japan…

Japan experienced its fifth consecutive day with temperatures reaching 40°C (104°F) or higher on July 25, setting the country’s longest such streak on record. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) attributed the persistent heat to a Pacific high-pressure system that has kept skies largely clear across much of the country.

The highest temperature of the day was 40.8°C (105.4°F) in Mino, Gifu Prefecture. Other locations reaching 40°C (104°F) or higher included Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture at 40.7°C (105.3°F), Kuwana, Mie Prefecture at 40.6°C (105.1°F), Hamamatsu (Chuo Ward), Shizuoka Prefecture at 40.3°C (104.5°F), Toyota, Aichi Prefecture at 40°C (104.0°F), and Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture at 40°C (104.0°F).

Whenever El Niño conditions develop we get hotter weather, and many parts of the globe also experience severe drought.

Right now, farmers and ranchers all over the Western Plains are dealing with a severe drought that is unlike anything they have ever experienced before…

The drought gripping the Western Plains is rapidly becoming one of the most devastating agricultural disasters producers have faced in decades. From southern Colorado to Montana, farmers and ranchers are battling a crisis that extends far beyond dry fields. Water supplies are dwindling, wheat crops are failing, hay production is shrinking and cattle producers are being forced into difficult herd liquidation decisions.

As a result of the extremely dry conditions, the water level in Lake Powell has fallen to a critically low level…

Lake Powell was 23.4% full on July 19. It was last full in 1983. If its level falls more, that could create environmental catastrophe by stopping the river flowing through the Grand Canyon, a situation known as “dead pool.”

The crisis could create ripple effects nationwide. Nearly half of the country’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the state’s Food and Agriculture Department. A substantial amount of California crops are irrigated with Colorado River water.

When there is not enough water to irrigate crops in California any longer, we will be in all sorts of trouble.

Because this is a slow-motion disaster, a lot of people aren’t taking it very seriously.

But if you are old enough, you should still be able to remember the mass starvation that occurred in Africa as a result of the Super El Niño of 1982-1983.

This Super El Niño is going to be far stronger than that Super El Niño, and many are projecting that it will not end until well into 2027.

That means that this Super El Niño could affect global agricultural production for multiple years.

Of course this is happening at a time when we are also facing a global energy crisis and a global fertilizer crisis.

The stage has been set for a historic worldwide food supply crunch, and the poorest countries are going to get hit harder than anyone else.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Everyone is starting to figure out that there isn’t going to be enough oil. The Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis are targeting Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, and the Ukrainians are relentlessly attacking Russian energy infrastructure. The reality of what we are facing is finally starting to set in on Wall Street. As I write this article, the price of Brent crude has crossed the $100 threshold, the Dow has dropped more than 500 points, the Nasdaq has dropped more than 600 points, and U.S. Treasury yields have been flying all over the place. For a long time investors tried really hard to ignore what was happening on the other side of the globe, but now things have gotten so bad that they simply cannot do that any longer.

Thanks to multiple wars that the U.S. is currently involved in, global oil markets have been thrown into a state of chaos…

The second wave of the US-Iran conflict shows no signs of letting up. Attacks by the Houthi militia have threatened to curtail shipping through the Red Sea. Russia’s refineries are buckling under the weight of bombardment by the Ukrainian military.

For global oil markets, already in a precarious situation, critical logistical nodes just keep getting thwarted. Things keep going wrong.

There has been so much focus on what has been taking place in the Middle East, and I will have quite a bit to say about that in a moment.

But it is also important to recognize that the rapidly escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine is also driving up the price of oil.

In fact, it is being reported that Ukraine has “attacked more than 150 tankers in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov this month”…

The Ukraine-Russia war is also putting pressure on global oil markets, Croft said. Kyiv has attacked more than 150 tankers in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov this month, she said. The tanker attacks have forced the Caspian Pipeline Consortium to stop loading crude at its Black Sea terminal.

About 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude is exported through that pipeline, Croft said.

“The duration of closure remains uncertain, but alternate routes for Kazakhstan are limited (and unlikely to fully offset CPC), meaning production (1.7 mb/d in June) could face shut-ins,” the analyst said.

This is a really big deal, and hardly anyone is talking about it.

Meanwhile, the crisis in the Middle East just escalated to another new level.

Less than 24 hours ago, the Houthis in Yemen successfully targeted two Saudi oil tankers that were attempting to slip past their blockade…

The Iran-backed Houthis struck two Saudi oil tankers on Thursday that they accused of violating a naval blockade imposed by the group, signaling a potential new front in the US-Iran conflict, as the US military struck Iran for the 12th successive night.

The attack came after the Houthis said on Monday that they were imposing a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, a move that could significantly widen the war and strain the US military.

Yemen’s Houthis said they targeted two Saudi oil tankers, identified as Encelia and Laylia, saying the vessels violated their naval blockade.

Investors didn’t like this at all, and it is the primary reason why we are talking about $100 oil again.

In addition, the Houthis are claiming that their blockade forced 10 other commercial vessels to turn around before getting to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait…

The Houthis claimed they had also forced “10 ships to retreat and return.” That claim could not be independently verified, The Times said, but at least six vessels reversed course in the Red Sea on Monday and Tuesday after the Houthis warned shipping companies to avoid Saudi ports, according to Kpler, a maritime data company. It was not clear if those ships were part of the Houthis’ claims.

Everyone knows that the Iranians asked the Houthis to do this.

And now we have learned that Iran actually flew “military advisers and missile- and drone-related equipment into Yemen this month”…

Iran flew Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, military advisers and missile- and drone-related equipment into Yemen this month, according to four sources, in a move that suggests Tehran is seeking to strengthen the ability of its Houthi allies to threaten Red Sea shipping.

Four sources familiar with the matter, including two Iranian sources, Yemen’s information minister and a regional security analyst, said Iran transferred the IRGC personnel and military-related equipment on a flight from Tehran to Yemen on July 13, a development that has not been previously reported.

The two Iranian sources told Reuters that between 10 and 21 IRGC personnel, including senior commanders, were on the Mahan Air flight.

The Iranians think that they are really going to put the squeeze on us by having the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait closed simultaneously.

President Trump is very angry about this, and he has told the entire world that the U.S. will hold Iran responsible for whatever the Houthis do…

Threats aren’t going to cause the Iranians and the Houthis to back down.

And there is no end in sight for the war between Russia and Ukraine.

A lot more fighting is ahead, and that means that the global energy crisis is going to continue to intensify.

For months, Wall Street tried to ignore what has happening.

But now one Wall Street strategist is telling us that it is simply “too hard to ignore $100 oil”…

“These problems became too big to ignore,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, about the move in stocks on Thursday. “It’s too hard to ignore $100 oil. It’s too hard to ignore 10-year rates that are above 4.70%. It’s too hard for the stock market to ignore 30-year rates that are solidly above 5%.”

I think that we have finally reached a major tipping point.

Global oil inventories are rapidly disappearing, and that means that a whole lot of pain is on the horizon…

Even so, Kpler analysts wrote, “buffers are eroding fast.” After the first phase of the war drew down global oil inventories throughout both governmental strategic reserves and the commercial sector’s own stores, the global oil market is now effectively functioning like a savings account for someone who just lost their job, Rabobank’s DeLaura said.

The market is effectively treating the situation as manageable because global inventories haven’t reached zero, he said. Yet with no solution in sight, that picture grows ever more perilous.

“We’re pinning everything on these just absolutely lottery ticket kind of ideas that something will happen,” DeLaura said. “The reality is, we’re just going to continue to grind out our inventories and savings.”

That last paragraph is so true.

Investors have just been assuming that everything would magically work out just fine somehow.

But relying on “lottery ticket kind of ideas that something will happen” is not a strategy.

Global events really are starting to spiral out of control, and I expect the wars that we are witnessing to escalate significantly.

There isn’t going to be enough oil coming out of the Middle East.

There isn’t going to be enough natural gas, fertilizer, sulfur or helium coming out of the Middle East either.

We have never faced anything like this, and Wall Street is finally starting to get the message.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Somehow we have convinced ourselves that AI companies that are bleeding billions upon billions of dollars are great investments because there is a possibility that someday they will eventually become profitable. But the losses just keep getting even bigger every year. Meanwhile, we are spending trillions of dollars to build even more AI infrastructure. There is no way that the AI industry is ever going to generate the sort of revenue that will justify that level of investment. What we are witnessing is a capital misallocation of absolutely epic proportions, and it is inevitable that this entire bubble is going to come crashing down. When that finally happens, it will be unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Stanford University says that “total global corporate investment in AI reached $1.6 trillion” from 2013 to 2024…

According to the 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford University, between 2013 and 2024, total global corporate investment in AI reached $1.6 trillion. This substantial expenditure dwarfs even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects of the 20th and 21st centuries.

That number is so high that it is difficult to believe.

But last year we took things to an entirely new level.

We are being told that total worldwide spending on AI in 2025 was 2.5 trillion dollars…

According to Gartner, a United States-based business and technology insights company, worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.5 trillion in 2026, a 44 percent increase over 2025.

We are building a tremendous amount of AI infrastructure, but is it worth it?

For a long time, investors have been completely sold on the idea.

In fact, over the last three years the “value of AI-linked firms has climbed $27 trillion”…

The American stock market is booming, thanks to artificial intelligence. Tech giants are borrowing billions to acquire AI talent, purchase chips and hardware, and construct data centers. And market watchers are starting to get worried. They see financiers bulldozing giant piles of money to private AI start-ups with no realistic path to profitability, tech companies reliant on other tech companies for revenue growth, and non-tech businesses without a lot to show for their AI investments. The value of AI-linked firms has climbed $27 trillion in the past three years—an astonishing amount, equivalent to 36 percent of the value of the entire U.S. stock market today.

AI mania has reached a fever pitch.

But are these firms really worth that much money?

Of course not.

In fact, most of them are bleeding colossal amounts of cash.

A perfect example is OpenAI. Ed Zitron is warning that when OpenAI inevitably fails it could take the entire stock market down with it…

The AI bubble is simple, Ed Zitron says, because it’s really a bubble in a single company: OpenAI.

As the ChatGPT maker heads toward a momentous IPO, the vocal AI critic says that OpenAI is the only reason anyone cares about AI at all—and it’s failure would spark a collapse similar to the one set off by Lehman Brothers when the bank fell apart in 2008.

OpenAI is supposedly worth more than 800 billion dollars.

But the financial numbers that it reported for 2025 were absolutely nightmarish…

• Revenue: $13.07 billion
• Cost of Revenue: $7.5 billion
• Research and Development: $19.18 billion
• Sales and Marketing: $5.73 billion
• General and Administrative: $1.57 Billion
• Total Costs and Expenses: $34 billion
• Loss from Operations: $20.92 billion

For the entire year, OpenAI reported a total net loss of 38.5 billion dollars…

Please note that 2025 was the year that OpenAI converted from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, leading to a $41.55 billion loss due to changes in fair value of convertible interests and warrant liability.

Taking into account other minor factors like interest income and interest expense, OpenAI is left with a net loss of $60.35 billion, which it lowered to $38.53 billion by removing $17.87 billion in costs via that “net loss attributable to noncontrolling members capital” and another $3.95 billion via a “net loss attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests.”

Ultimately, the net loss attributable to OpenAI in 2025 was $38.5 billion.

If I hired thousands of people and we all started flushing dollar bills down the toilet as fast as we possibly could, there is no way that we could ever lose that much money in an entire year.

Open AI is a financial black hole.

Sam Altman promised us that OpenAI would soon be making $100 billion a year in ad revenue alone, but that isn’t the way that things have worked out.

Sadly, Open AI is currently on pace “to undershoot its own five-year ad revenue projections by a whopping 90 percent”…

Even as the AI bubble becomes a mainstream talking point on Wall Street, tech companies continue to peddle the fantasy that AI is poised to become an almost magical money-maker. Case in point, OpenAI wants you to believe that by 2030, it’ll be raking in $100 billion a year just from ads alone — even though it’s currently struggling to reach just $1 billion.

That massive gulf was observed in a new analysis from marketing consulting firm Emarketer, first flagged by AdWeek, which found OpenAI is on pace to undershoot its own five-year ad revenue projections by a whopping 90 percent. In fact, Emarketer’s take is even more devastating than that: it estimates the entire addressable market for chatbot advertising — the maximum amount of money up for grabs overall — at $5.4 billion.

This is an unmitigated disaster.

Other AI companies are producing similar results.

Meanwhile, a lot of companies are now ditching expensive AI models that were created in the United States for much cheaper AI models that were created in China…

As corporate AI bills spiral out of control, many companies are beginning to ask themselves a simple question: why pay a pretty penny for the US’s leading AI models when Chinese ones are far cheaper?

Major companies like DoorDash, Airbnb, and Siemens are adopting Chinese AI tools, the Financial Times reports, attracted not only by their lower costs but their “open-weight” approach that allows them to be molded to each company’s particular needs.

According to data from OpenRouter, a platform that provides all-in-one access to major AI models and tracks their usage, leading Chinese models from DeepSeek and Z.ai have overtaken US equivalents like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Cost-cutting, it seems, trumps all geopolitical rivalries.

Chinese models are “the elephant in the room,” Eugene Cheah, CEO of the AI platform Featherless AI, told the FT. “Enterprises are starting to realize, ‘Hey, we don’t need the best model, we can use the faster, cheaper models.’”

It has become very clear that AI companies will never be the money trees that they were touted to be by their most fervent proponents.

In fact, the biggest money losers will end up being some of the most dramatic financial flops of all time.

So what does that mean for the stock market?

From a long-term point of view, stock prices are insanely high…

The S&P 500 Shiller CAPE ratio’s long-term average is around 17, and it’s been steadily creeping higher over the last decade or so.

Right now, the ratio is nearing 42 — the highest it’s been since the dot-com bubble, when it peaked at around 44.

The Shiller CAPE Ratio has stayed above 40 since May, which is only the second time in history that it’s remained this high. The first time was in January 1999, when it stayed above 40 until September 2000.

What goes up must eventually come down.

When the public hears that the AI bubble has burst, there will be a frenzied race for the exits, and the financial devastation that we will witness will be off the charts.

It is just a matter of time.

But for the moment, the race to create new AI models continues, and there is a very real possibility that this technology could escape our control.

For example, OpenAI has revealed that it created a model that “went rogue”, escaped into the Internet and hacked into the computer system of another company…

ChatGPT creator OpenAI has revealed one of its advanced Artificial Intelligence models went rogue during a security test and hacked into a start-up company.

Bosses said the autonomous agent, which is an AI system that operates alone following human instruction, was being tested in a controlled environment.

But it found vulnerabilities and managed to escape containment before reaching the internet and breaking into Hugging Face, a major hub for sharing AI models.

That is scary.

As AI technology continues to develop at an exponential rate, what else will it eventually be able to do?

Our world has become such a strange place.

Ray Kurzweil believes that a decade from now we will be so integrated with AI that we won’t even know if our thoughts are truly our own or if they are being fed to us from highly advanced AI models.

Personally, I would never allow anyone to put a chip into my head or connect my brain directly to the Internet.

But a lot of people out there would eagerly welcome such technology.

Science fiction is rapidly becoming science reality, and things are only going to get weirder from here.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Unless we witness some sort of a crazy diplomatic miracle, the price of gasoline will soon rise into unprecedented territory. The Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis are blocking Saudi tankers from getting through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and with a big helping hand from the United States the Ukrainians are relentlessly attacking Russian oil refineries. Meanwhile, the oil inventory buffers that existed before the war with Iran are rapidly being depleted. Nations around the world are doing whatever they can to adjust to this crisis, but time is running out.

According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, the price of oil could soon hit $120 a barrel if a diplomatic solution to the conflict in the Middle East is not found…

Oil prices could reach upward of $120 a barrel if tensions between the U.S. and Iran don’t start to ease soon.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs, led by Daan Struyven, wrote in a note published on Monday night that Brent crude may surpass $120 a barrel by next quarter and average $100 a barrel the following year if the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted throughout 2027. In this scenario, output from the Persian Gulf doesn’t recover until December next year, with the support of oil-pipeline extensions.

If the price of oil reaches that level and stays there for an extended period of time, a major global economic downturn is essentially guaranteed.

The good news is that the price of oil is not anywhere near that level yet.

But on Tuesday the price of Brent crude did exceed the $90 barrier for the first time since June 11th…

After 10 consecutive days of U.S. strikes on Iran, Brent crude oil futures settled above the key threshold of $90 a barrel Tuesday.

Brent futures ended the day at $91.01, up 2.1%. The last time they settled above $90 a barrel was on June 11, less than a week before the U.S. and Iran signed a memo of understanding aimed at ending hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz while a longer-term peace deal was negotiated. But that 60-day truce ended less than a month after it was signed.

The trend is not our friend at this stage.

Of course the price of crude oil is not the only number that we need to be watching.

The “crack spread” has been soaring, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

If you are not familiar with the “crack spread”, the following is a pretty good explanation…

The process works like this: Refiners take in raw crude oil (the price mostly referred to in headlines) and “crack” it into usable petroleum products. But just like crude is its own commodity, gasoline and diesel have their own trading prices as well. The profit that oil refineries make from converting crude into usable fuels is the “crack spread.”

Prior to the war, the “crack spread” was usually about 10 to 15 dollars a barrel.

This week, it reached a whopping 70 dollars a barrel…

But while everyone has been watching crude oil, a different oil measure — the one that arguably matters more for the price at the gas pump — has never stopped climbing. That measure, called the “crack spread,” is at all-time highs.

The crack spread is the gap between what a refinery pays for crude and what it earns selling the gasoline and diesel it makes from it. For most of the past decade that gap fluctuated between $10 and $15 a barrel. This week it hit $70, the widest spread ever recorded.

The margin for refining a barrel of oil is now more than what an entire barrel of crude cost the day this war began. And here is the tell: It kept climbing while crude collapsed, and it is still climbing now that crude is rising. It does not care which way the headline price moves.

The crack spread is the market telling you, in dollars, that the right crude is not reaching the right refineries. The price of oil can do whatever it likes. The machines that turn it into fuel are screaming either way.

The conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine are the primary reason why the “crack spread” has been steadily widening.

Many refineries in the Persian Gulf region are currently not operating due to the war with Iran, and we keep helping Ukraine damage refineries all over Russia…

The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine that started in February 2022 has significantly damaged global refining capacity, with Russian crude runs falling to a 22-year low of 3.8 million barrels per day in June, according to a Truist report.

It also resulted in a Russian ban on diesel exports, limiting how much crude oil can actually be turned into fuel and reach the global market.

“When 1 in 9 barrels of diesel is produced in Russia, and suddenly they’re banning exports, it’s problematic,” De Haan said.

The U.S.-Iran war has made matters even worse. Despite previous talks to de-escalate the conflict, the International Energy Agency said in its July oil-market report that Middle East export refineries have yet to restart.

We desperately need peace.

But there isn’t going to be peace.

Instead, there were some dramatic escalations last week, and there have been more dramatic escalations this week.

On Monday, the Houthis announced that Saudi commercial vessels would no longer be allowed to travel through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait…

A successful effort by Yemen’s Houthis to shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would strike at one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes, potentially triggering a fresh surge in crude prices, disrupting fuel supplies and adding to strains on the global economy.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Monday declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, its military spokesperson said. A closure of the Red Sea’s southern gateway would remove a critical alternative route for the kingdom to the Strait of Hormuz and intensify fears of shortages.

This blockade seems to be working, because at least 8 oil tankers have already been forced to turn around…

One analyst is warning that the impact that this move will have on global markets will be “massive”…

A full closure would have the biggest immediate impact on Saudi crude exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Matt Smith, commodity research director at Kpler, said Asian refiners receiving those barrels could face delays of around a month as tankers are forced to sail around the Cape of Good Hope.

“The impact is going to be massive in the first month,” Smith said. “The biggest impact is going to be on Saudi flows.”

The bottom line is that everyone in the world will soon be paying much more for gasoline unless a miracle happens.

And once all of our buffers are totally gone, shortages and rationing will begin to manifest in various parts of the globe.

I expect Asia to feel the pain first, and Europe will quickly follow.

There is still time for peace to prevail, but that window is getting narrower each day.

For a long time I have been warning my readers that crazier times were on the way, and what we are experiencing now is just the beginning.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.