Do You Want To Know The Truth? Infrastructure All Over America Is Crumbling At A Frightening Pace

The great tragedy that we just witnessed in Florida has shocked the entire nation, and it should be a major wake up call for all of us.  Our nation really is literally falling apart right in front of our eyes.  Just a few short months ago, at least 151 people died during a catastrophic failure of the power grid in Texas.  Thousands of water pipes burst, and billions of dollars worth of damage was done.  But most people that don’t live in Texas soon forgot all about that, and now we have another spectacular example of the rapid deterioration of the once beautiful cities that previous generations handed down to us.  According to the latest report that I have seen, nearly 100 people are still missing, and officials say that they are hearing “sounds like banging” coming from the wreckage…

Miami-Dade fire officials said rescuers have heard “what sounds like banging” from within the rubble, but not voices, as they continue to search for survivors of the Champlain Towers South collapse.

Thirty-seven people have been pulled from the structure so far, and the portions of the building that did not collapse have been evacuated. At least 99 people remain unaccounted for.

Hopefully anyone that is still alive underneath all of that rubble will soon be rescued.

What makes this tragedy much worse is that it could have been prevented.

According to USA Today, a study that was conducted last year discovered that this particular building had been “sinking at an alarming rate” since the 90s…

A Florida high rise that collapsed early Thursday was determined to be unstable a year ago, according to a researcher at Florida International University.

The building, which was constructed in 1981, has been sinking at an alarming rate since the 1990s, according to a 2020 study conducted by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment.

So they knew that this was probably going to happen, and they did nothing to stop it.

They also know that our entire economy is heading for a massive implosion, and they aren’t doing anything to stop that from happening either.

I have been writing about America’s crumbling infrastructure for many years, and now we have gotten to a point where horrible “accidents” are occurring all around us on a regular basis.

Prior to the tragedy in Florida, the sudden collapse of a bridge in Washington D.C. was making headlines all over the nation

SIX people have been injured after a bridge in Washington DC collapsed, reports say.

Shocking pictures show that the Kenilworth bridge caved in over a highway, halting dozens of cars.

Five people were rushed to hospital and six people in total were hurt, cops said during an afternoon press conference.

If you are not familiar with that disaster, you can see footage of the aftermath right here.

None of this should be a surprise to any of us.  The ASCE has been sounding the alarm about America’s crumbling infrastructure for a very long time, but very few have been listening.  To me, these numbers are simply astounding

The topic of improving our national infrastructure is once again front and center in Washington. For years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been urging policymakers to reinvest in things like waterways, bridges, energy grids, and roads. In fact, ASCE reports that 43% of America’s public roadways are in poor or mediocre condition, more than 230,000 U.S. bridges require repair and preservation work, and there is a water main break every two minutes, causing an estimated six billion gallons of treated water to be lost each day.

So now the Biden administration wants to make a big effort to patch up some of our decaying infrastructure.

That is a noble goal, but instead of using existing funds the Biden administration is proposing an enormous amount of new spending

According to the White House, the price tag comes in at $1.2 trillion over eight years, with more than $500 billion in new spending. How the measure would be paid for was a central point in negotiations, with Republicans opposed to undoing any of the 2017 tax cuts.

The plan “makes transformational and historic investments in clean transportation infrastructure, clean water infrastructure, universal broadband infrastructure, clean power infrastructure, remediation of legacy pollution, and resilience to the changing climate,” said a White House fact sheet on the plan released Thursday.

We can’t do this.

Our politicians have already borrowed and spent trillions and trillions of dollars that we did not have over the course of the past year, and this has created very painful inflation throughout our economy.

Stealing hundreds of billions more dollars from future generations may seem like a good short-term solution, but it just makes our long-term financial problems even worse.

I am all for fixing up our infrastructure, but existing funds that are already being greatly wasted elsewhere should be diverted for that purpose.

But that isn’t going to happen.  Our politicians are absolutely addicted to spending money, and after this “infrastructure package” gets passed I am sure that they will soon come up with even more ways to flush our future down the toilet.

Every dollar that we borrow and spend now is a dollar that we will be expected to pay back later with interest.

During the past year, our politicians have been on the biggest spending binge in American history by a very wide margin, but most Americans don’t seem to care.

And the Federal Reserve has been committing economic suicide by pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system, but most Americans don’t seem to care about that either.

Our entire society is absolutely addicted to immediate gratification, and so the vast majority of the population wants our leaders to do whatever is necessary to make life better right now.

Meanwhile, the long-term outlook for our nation just gets bleaker and bleaker.

It was just a matter of time before that building in Florida fell, and it is just a matter of time before the entire U.S. economy collapses.

The whole system is crumbling all around us, but very few people are concerned enough to try to save it.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?

As if we didn’t have enough weird things going on, now birds are suddenly dropping dead in large numbers all across the eastern half of the country.  Before they die, a lot of these birds are exhibiting very strange symptoms.  Experts are telling us that in many cases birds are developing “crusty or puffy eyes”, and often they appear to go completely blind.  In addition, quite a few of these dying birds lose their ability to stay balanced, and we are being told that some even seem to be having “seizures”.  If scientists understood what was causing this to happen, that would be one thing.  But at this point they have no idea why this is taking place, and that is quite alarming.

So far, confirmed incidents of this strange phenomenon have been documented in Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.

Could it be possible that we are dealing with a “mystery disease” that started in one state and that has now spread to other surrounding states?

Or is something else going on here?

We are being told that “blue jays, common grackles and European starlings” are the most common birds that are being affected.

But whatever is happening is not just limited to one species of birds, and I think that should be a red flag.

If our best experts even had a decent working theory about why so many birds are dying, I probably would not have written this article.  But at this point they are openly admitting that they have absolutely no idea why so many birds are suddenly dropping dead…

“We’re experiencing an unusual amount of bird mortality this year,” said Kate Slankard, an avian biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We have yet to figure out what the problem is. The condition seems to be pretty deadly.”

In Kentucky, the bird deaths seem to have begun in late May.  The following comes directly from the official website of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources…

In late May, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources began receiving reports of sick and dying birds with eye swelling and crusty discharge, as well as neurological signs. Wildlife agencies in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia have reported similar problems.

State wildlife agencies are working with diagnostic laboratories to investigate the cause of mortality. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has sent more than 20 samples for lab testing to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. More results are pending, but no definitive cause of death has been identified at this time.

After testing 20 samples, they still have no idea what is going on.

According to Slankard, “hundreds of birds” in her state have now become victims…

“They’ll just sit still, often kind of shaking,” Slankard said. “It’s pretty safe to say that hundreds of birds in the state have had this problem.”

But of course the truth is that we have no way of knowing how many birds have actually been affected.

It could be thousands of birds in the state.

It could be hundreds of thousands.

We just don’t know, and Kentucky is just one of the states that has been hit.

In Indiana, authorities tested for avian flu and West Nile virus, but those tests came back negative

Indiana wildlife officials said there have been suspicious deaths of blue jays, robins, northern cardinals and brown-headed cowbirds in five counties. James Brindle, spokesman for the state’s Department of Natural Resources, said birds there have tested negative for avian influenza and West Nile virus.

One theory that is floating around is that these birds are ingesting large amounts of pesticides because of all the cicadas that they are eating.

Some experts are flatly dismissing that theory because “the disease has also appeared in states where cicadas are not present”.

But how can they be so sure that it is a disease if they have absolutely no idea why this is happening?

I don’t think that we should jump to any conclusions that are not backed up by science.

Obviously a lot more testing needs to be done.  If it does turn out to be a disease that is causing this, is it a disease that can also spread to humans?  Moving forward, that could be one of the most important questions that needs to be answered.

Hopefully we can get some solid answers, because this is not the first time something like this has happened.  Back in September, one expert said that it appeared that “hundreds of thousands” of birds were dropping dead in New Mexico…

Wildlife experts in New Mexico say birds in the region are dropping dead in alarming numbers, potentially in the “hundreds of thousands.”

“It appears to be an unprecedented and a very large number,” Martha Desmond, a professor at New Mexico State University’s department of fish, wildlife, and conservation ecology, told NBC’s Albuquerque affiliate KOB.

But whatever was causing those deaths to happen in New Mexico seems to have stopped.

Is there any connection between that event and the deaths that are happening in the eastern half of the country now?

I wish that I had the answer to that question.

We live at a time when pesticides, high technology and other forms of human activity are having a greater impact on birds and animals than ever before.  But we have also entered an era when I believe that great pestilences are going to become very common.

Obviously something is killing all those birds, and hopefully scientists will have something solid to tell us very soon.

With each passing day, our world is getting crazier, and so much is going wrong all around us.

Many are hoping that 2020 and 2021 will just turn out to be anomalies, but I am entirely convinced that they are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

On The Mean Streets Of America, The Gun Battles Never Seem To End…

Did you know that 296 mass shootings have happened in the United States this year?  Needless to say, the vast majority of the mass shootings are taking place in our core urban areas, and at this point many of our largest cities are becoming open war zones.  We desperately need more law enforcement officers on the streets, and as I wrote about yesterday, even some of our most liberal cities are now racing to “re-fund” the police.  Crime rates spiked dramatically all over the nation in 2020, and they are skyrocketing even higher in 2021.  But if you think that things have been bad so far, just wait, because we are being warned that “a bloody summer” is on the way…

“The spike in homicides and nonfatal shootings is extremely alarming,” said Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo, who recently left the Houston Police Department and leads the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of law enforcement executives. “One of the reasons we talk about a bloody summer ahead for our country is because it’s already been a very bloody year, a very deadly year for Americans.”

There is usually more violent crime when the weather is warmer, and we have definitely seen that so far here in the month of June.

Mass shootings are considered to be incidents in which at least four people are wounded, and during this past weekend we witnessed mass shootings in New Jersey, Colorado, Indiana, Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas and California.

They are happening with such frequency now that each one barely makes a blip in the news before the next one happens.

To me, the most disturbing incident during the weekend took place in Chicago

And in another deadly shooting in the city on Saturday night, two individuals were attacked by a group of men after a crash took place at Humboldt Park, prompting a large crowd to surround Gyovanny Arzuaga’s vehicle.

He and his girlfriend, Yasmin Perez, were attending a Puerto Rican People’s Day parade in the park, Newsweek reported, when a group of two or three gunmen ambushed them and opened fire.

A video of the incident, posted to Twitter, purportedly shows Arzuaga surrounded by a group of men, who leave him lying unresponsive on the ground.

Words cannot really convey the true horror of that attack.  If you have not seen the video footage yet, you can watch it right here.

When I first watched it, I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

There has always been violence in our streets, but nothing like this.

What in the world is happening to our country?

Overall, the number of shootings in the city of Chicago is up 18 percent so far this year.

I know that sounds bad, but other major cities are seeing much larger spikes.

In Philadelphia, the number of shootings is up 27 percent so far this year.

It is supposed to be “the city of brotherly love”, but it is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous places in America.

In Atlanta, the number of shootings is up 40 percent so far this year.

But at least the Hawks are doing well, right?

In Los Angeles, the number of shootings is up 51 percent so far this year.

Crime is now the number one political issue in the L.A. area, and even tourist areas such as Venice Beach are being totally trashed.

In New York City, the number of shootings is up 64 percent so far this year.

As I discussed yesterday, in the Big Apple running gun battles even happen during broad daylight these days.

In Minneapolis, the number of shootings is up 90 percent so far this year.

I spent a lot of time in Minneapolis growing up, because I have a lot of relatives in the area.  I can’t believe how far that once beautiful city has now fallen.

But there is one major city that even has Minneapolis beat.

In Portland, the number of shootings is up 126 percent so far this year.

Everywhere you look, there is chaos and violence, and what we have been through so far is just the beginning.

It is almost as if a significant percentage of the population has gone completely and totally nuts over the past couple of years.  In this sort of an environment, you never know what some crazy person might do.  Here is just one example

A Bel Air homeowner is in shock after coming face to face with a violent naked man who broke into his house and killed the family pets.

Mat Sabz was home alone Thursday afternoon when his wife called to tell him that security cameras showed a naked man breaking into their home.

You have got to be really sick to want to kill somebody’s pets.

Sadly, right now there are vast numbers of really sick people running around out there, and many of them would kill you and your family without even thinking twice about it.

Up to this point in 2021, a total of 20,729 Americans have died as a result of gun violence, and by the time most of you read this article that number will inevitably be even higher.

Ironically, many of the cities that have the strictest gun laws also have some of the highest murder rates.

In Chicago, the number of gang members is more than ten times greater than the number of law enforcement officers, and that is causing enormous problems.  The politicians can pass as many laws as they want, but violent criminals are going to remain heavily armed and they are going to retain the upper hand for the foreseeable future.

Of course Chicago is far from alone.  Violent criminals are gaining the upper hand in communities all over the country, and meanwhile police officers are resigning in record numbers from coast to coast after being relentlessly demonized by the mainstream media for months on end.

Our society really is coming apart at the seams all around us.

Unfortunately, most Americans still do not understand what is happening.  Most Americans still assume that things will eventually “return to normal”, but a “return to normal” is simply not in the cards.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

On The Verge Of The Unthinkable

Over the past couple of years we have become accustomed to expecting the unexpected, but soon we many have to start anticipating the unthinkable.  In this article, I am going to be discussing a couple of potential scenarios that would have been unimaginable to the vast majority of Americans just a few short years ago.  Unfortunately, our world is now changing at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking, and many things that were once “unimaginable” could soon become reality.

Let’s start by talking about the record-setting heat wave which is making the epic megadrought in the western half of the country even worse.  Many western farmers planted crops this year hoping that weather conditions would eventually turn in their favor, but that has definitely not happened.  In fact, at this point 88 percent of the West is experiencing at least some level of drought.

2021 has been the worst year of this multi-year megadrought so far, and last week was the worst week for this drought up to this point in 2021.  Old temperature records were shattered all over the West, and some areas were already seeing triple digits by 8 o’clock in the morning

The West is in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave this week, as all-time records were shattered and daily records broken in over a dozen states.

Even by desert standards, the heat wave in the Southwest is atypical. On Thursday, the National Weather Service in Tucson tweeted that the city recorded a temperature of 100 degrees at 8:14 a.m., the second earliest time in the day recorded since 1948.

That is crazy.

Can you imagine hitting triple digits before you have even finished your morning coffee?

Summer had not even officially begun yet last week, and yet new all-time record highs were being established all over the place

Record-breaking temperatures spread from California to Montana this week. On thursday, the all-time high temperature was tied in Palm Springs, California at 123 degrees, breaking the previous June record of 122 degrees.

Salt Lake City tied its all-time record high of 107 degrees. The old record was notably set in July — when temperatures are usually at their highest for the year in that region. This comes after daily record highs were broken Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in Salt Lake, each with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

We have never seen anything quite like this in the state of Utah.

More than half of the state is in the highest level of drought, and thanks to dramatic water restrictions farmers are being forced to choose which of their crops will die

With drastic limits placed on what little water he has, Tom Favero said he and many farmers along this west side of Weber County were forced to watch some crops die. “We’ve all made serious choices of what fields we can water and what we can’t,” Favero said.

Another Utah farmer that lost a lot of corn and an entire field of barley said that it really “hurts” to see his hard work go to waste…

Farmer Dean Martini pointed at one of his fields. “That corn there, where I can’t water, I don’t have the water. It makes me sick to see it go to heck like that.”

With limits on amount and time, he said there wasn’t enough water flowing to make it across his fields. While some of the corn dried up, he had to let a whole field of barley go too. “It hurts buddy. That hurts,” Martini said.

Of course this is just the beginning.

If this summer is as hot and as dry as they are projecting, we could see catastrophic crop failures all across the West.

And that is really bad news, because the state of California alone produces more than a third of our vegetables and about two-thirds of our fruits and nuts.

A few years ago, hardly anyone would have imagined that we would be facing a crisis of this magnitude in 2021, but here we are.  Paleoclimatologist Kathleen Johnson is quite “worried” about what will happen this summer, and she is warning that this drought is shaping up to be the worst the region has experienced “in at least 1,200 years”

I’m worried about this summer – this doesn’t bode well, in terms of what we can expect with wildfire and the worsening drought. This current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years.

Now I would like to shift gears.

A few years ago, hardly anyone would have imagined that we would be facing a very serious computer chip shortage in 2021.  In particular, the most sophisticated chips are really in short supply, and what most people don’t realize is that “almost all” of them are made by a single company based in Taiwan…

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. chips are everywhere, though most consumers don’t know it.

The company makes almost all of the world’s most sophisticated chips, and many of the simpler ones, too. They’re in billions of products with built-in electronics, including iPhones, personal computers and cars—all without any obvious sign they came from TSMC, which does the manufacturing for better-known companies that design them, like Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.

Because manufacturing those chips is so exceedingly complicated, other companies can’t just plop down new factories and start pumping out their own chips.  Business leaders in the U.S. are now planning new factories, but it could take quite a few years before they are up and running.

So even under ideal conditions, the chip shortage will not be resolved for some time.

But what happens if China invades Taiwan within the next several years?  This is something that U.S. officials were warning about earlier this month

Concerns are growing in Washington over the possibility that China could try to invade Taiwan in the next few years.

Top U.S. military officers have warned in recent months that Beijing might try to make the explosive move this decade, and recent saber rattling, including a Chinese military amphibious landing exercise near the island, is further raising the alarm.

Can you imagine the chaos that it would cause for the global economy if the primary supply of advanced chips was suddenly cut off?

According to the Wall Street Journal, TSMC currently makes “around 92% of the world’s most sophisticated chips”…

Its technology is so advanced, Capital Economics said, that it now makes around 92% of the world’s most sophisticated chips, which have transistors that are less than one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Samsung Electronics Co. makes the rest. Most of the roughly 1.4 billion smartphone processors world-wide are made by TSMC.

Without TSMC, the global economy as it is structured today would not be able to function.

So the fact that China is being more aggressive than ever with Taiwan should deeply alarm all of us.  For example, check out what happened just last week

China has flown 28 warplanes into Taiwan-controlled airspace, the biggest sortie of its kind since the Taiwanese government began publishing information about the frequent incursions last year.

The flights are widely seen as part of an effort by Beijing to dial up pressure on Taiwan, a self-governed democracy of about 24 million people off the Chinese coast that the Chinese government considers a part of China.

We should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on foreign chips, but we did.

And now experts are telling us that the chip shortage will last into next year under the best of conditions…

Dimitris Dotis, the Audi brand specialist at Audi Tysons Corner dealership in Virginia, summed up the situation to customers. “Almost all microchips that go into all new vehicles including Audi come from TSMC in Taiwan,” he wrote. “They expect bottlenecks in the supply chain to last through 2022.”

Of course if China does decide to invade Taiwan, the U.S. military will respond, and that would mean no advanced chips for us for the foreseeable future.

In this article, I have shared just two potential scenarios which could soon plunge us into unthinkable nightmares.

Needless to say, there are many, many more crisis points that bear watching right now as well.

We have reached such a critical moment in our history, and I expect global events to accelerate even more as we head into the second half of 2021.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

We Should Be Shocked By What Inflation Is Doing To Home Prices, Because We Have Never Seen This Before

If you are shopping for a home right now, I really do feel sorry for you.  Home prices in many areas of the country have officially crossed the line into “absurd” territory, and they just keep going higher.  Thanks to wild spending by the federal government and the economic malpractice that has been happening at the Federal Reserve, we now have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services.  Inflation is showing up in every sector of our economy, but it is not showing up equally in all sectors.  One area where inflation threatens to spiral completely out of control is in home prices.  Right now we are seeing the wildest bidding wars in U.S. history, and in many, many cases buyers end up paying way over listing price.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  When a fairly ordinary three bedroom home in Berkeley, California was recently listed for more than a million dollars, the real estate agent that listed the property was absolutely stunned by what happened next

A three bedroom, mid-century home on a cul-de-sac in Berkeley, California, with an expansive view of the San Francisco Bay was nearly a one-of-a-kind property, said Jill Carrigan, an agent with The Grubb Company who listed it this spring.

“It ticked all the boxes for a lot of people,” she said. “I’ve never had a property with 29 offers and buyers were upping their offers without us even countering. The Bay Area is always competitive, but this was something I’d never seen before.”

This wasn’t a property that was particularly special.  You can see a photo of it right here.  In my opinion, there is no way in the world that such a house should ever sell for a million dollars.

Of course it didn’t sell for a million dollars.

When the dust finally settled, it sold for 2.3 million dollars

Listed at $1.15 million, the home sold in two weeks for $2.3 million in cash, double the asking price.

You might think that such extreme bidding wars are rare, but they aren’t.

In fact, CNN is reporting that 940 U.S. homes sold for more than half a million dollars above listing price in March, and 310 U.S. homes sold for more than a million dollars above listing price in that month alone.

That is just one month!

Now that our leaders have turned the U.S. dollar into “wheelbarrow money”, this is the sort of thing that is going to happen.

In this sort of an environment, a “fixer upper” in Colorado Springs that was completely trashed by a former tenant can sell for $590,000

A ‘formerly majestic’ Colorado Springs home left in ruin and covered in graffiti by an angry former tenant has gone on the market for $590,000.

Listed as an ‘investor special’ on Zillow, the 3,598 square-foot home is advertised as a fixer upper after it was destroyed by the prior tenant who covered the walls with spray-painted messages including ‘evict me b***h’ and left a pile of rotten meet in a freezer.

As long as this frenzy continues, I am going to recommend that young couples look to rent instead of buy, but rents are going up rapidly too.  This week we learned that rental prices just increased at the fastest pace in 15 years during the month of April…

Single-family rents were up 5.3% year over year in April, rising from a 2.4% increase in April 2020, according to CoreLogic. That is the largest gain in nearly 15 years.

Rents for single-family detached homes (not townhomes), were up an even stronger 7.9% compared with a year ago, as millennials in particular seek more outdoor space. Nearly half of millennials surveyed by Corelogic, and 64% of baby boomers, said they, “strongly prefer” to live in a single, stand-alone home.

Yes, the U.S. has wrestled with inflation at various times in the past, but what we are witnessing here in 2021 is completely insane.

Just look at what is happening in the restaurant industry.  In upstate New York, the cost of chicken wings has gone up 99 percent and the cost of fryer oil has gone up more than 120 percent so far in 2021.

How are you supposed to run a profitable restaurant with prices spiking like that?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our leaders have pumped trillions and trillions of fresh dollars into the system, and all of that money is creating a tremendous amount of inflationary pressure.  At this point, things have already gotten so crazy that pieces of “artwork” that Hunter Biden has created are selling for up to $500,000

President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has taken a turn into artistry and the first paintings he’s selling are going for as high as $500,000.

The first son’s first foray into the art world has seen his pieces picked up by art dealer Georges Berges, who has priced the younger Biden’s artwork between $75,000 and $500,000 depending on the size and scope of the collage artwork.

Now that Hunter Biden is trying to go clean and sober, I suppose that he has to try to make a living somehow.

But are there people that will actually be willing to pay half a million dollars for a piece of his “art”?

I find that hard to believe, but of course I find a lot of things hard to believe these days.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve finally took a few very small steps in the direction of acknowledging the crisis that we are facing…

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee unanimously left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after saying in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.” The raised expectations come amid the biggest rise in consumer prices in about 13 years.

Of course those moves by the Fed won’t actually do anything to get the “inflation monster” that they have created under control.

As long as our politicians in Washington continue their wildest spending binge ever, and as long as the Fed continues to pump more money into the financial system, the “inflation monster” will continue to grow.

So if you are looking to buy a home, there might not be any relief for the foreseeable future.

We are going down the same road that the Weimar Republic once did, but our leaders keep insisting that somehow we will get a much different result.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Why Are Hordes Of Wealthy People Hitting The Escape Button And Heading To Montana?

Why have thousands upon thousands of very wealthy people suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to buy a home in Montana?  At this moment, Montana is one of the hottest real estate markets in the entire country.  When a desirable house is put on the market, it can often spark a wild bidding war.  Of course the vast majority of the potential buyers involved in these bidding wars do not actually have any roots in Montana at all.  Vast hordes of wealthy individuals from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other major cities are flooding into the state, and there is only a limited amount of housing to accommodate them.  As a result, home prices are being pushed to absolutely absurd levels.

In the Flathead Valley, home builders have been working incredibly hard to construct houses for the new arrivals.  The following comes from a New York Post article entitled “Montana, the sold-out state New Yorkers can’t get enough of”

All around the Lodge, along Montana Highway 35, from Kalispell to Whitefish, are what the locals call “COVID homes,” prefabricated track houses that line up along what used to be a timber farm — all of which were built last year and sold at around $550,000.

“Most were bought sight unseen for cash deals,” said Doug Averill.

$550,000 may have seemed like a hefty price when those homes originally went up, but today $550,000 would be considered a bargain price.

That is because the average selling price of a home in Flathead County has now risen to more than $638,000

In May 2020, the average sale price for a home in Flathead County was $447,387 — a year later it had increased to $638,992. The average number of days a property stayed on the market has been cut almost in half, from 77 days in May 2020 to 41 days in May 2021.

The Flathead Valley possesses great natural beauty, and Whitefish in particular has become an extremely popular tourist destination.

All of this interest in Whitefish has helped to fuel a home price boom that is unlike anything the region has ever experienced…

While this may be good for realtors, locals are shell-shocked at the price hikes due to what the Flathead Beacon called the “COVID migration” from states like New York. “(The housing crisis) is happening all over Montana,” one Whitefish local told The Post. “No one who is from here can actually afford to live here anymore.”

According to Realtor.com, just before the pandemic in December 2019, the average home price in Whitefish, a town of 7,700 people just south of Glacier National Park, was $369,450. A year and a half later, that has almost doubled — and the average home price is now $704,000. Local average wages in Whitefish are just $30,642, according to bestplaces.net.

Needless to say, the vast majority of Americans cannot afford a $700,000 home.

Only the wealthy have enough money to relocate to Whitefish now, and many locals with roots in the area are having to leave for good because housing has become so ridiculously expensive.

A similar thing is happening over in Missoula.  From last May to this May, the median sales price in Missoula shot up a staggering 41 percent

New real estate data for the month of May shows an increasingly competitive market in western Montana.

New Multiple Listing Service data shows the median sales price in Missoula increased 41% from May 2020 to May 2021, up to $449,338.

Ten years ago, the median sales price in Missoula was just $205,000.

If you go all the way back to 2001, it was just $138,000.

Things are getting crazy in Bozeman too.  At this point, “the average home in the greater Bozeman area is going for more than $650,000”

One hundred thirty thousand dollars. That’s what it takes for a down payment to buy an average-priced home in Bozeman, Montana. Then an aspiring homeowner must fork out another $3,000 each month, which is more than two-thirds of their household’s paychecks if they make the median income for the metro area.

That’s because the average home in the greater Bozeman area is going for more than $650,000, up from an already astronomical $500,000 in early 2020.

So why is this happening?

Why are home prices in Montana and other desirable locations around the country going absolutely nuts?

Many are blaming the COVID pandemic, and that certainly played a major role at first, but now the COVID pandemic is subsiding.

Ultimately, I believe the the largest reason why we are seeing such a home buying frenzy is because people can see that our society is starting to come apart at the seams and they can sense that enormous trouble is ahead.

Just consider what happened this weekend.  We literally witnessed mass shootings in four different U.S. cities in a period of just six hours

At least four major U.S. cities were reeling from an onslaught of mass shootings over the weekend that left at least 39 people wounded, five dead and police officials alarmed that the surge in gun violence is a prelude to a bloody summer as the nation emerges from the pandemic.

Police in Austin, Cleveland, Chicago and Savannah were all investigating on Sunday mass shootings that erupted over a six-hour streak that began around 9 p.m. on Friday and spilled over into Saturday morning.

All over America, countless numbers of people are finally waking up and realizing that it is time to leave the major cities and head for greener pastures.

As I have been encouraging people to do for years, those that are leaving are looking for areas with low population density and low crime rates.

Of course the wealthy also value great natural beauty, and this is one of the big reasons why the Flathead Valley has become so popular.

And once they have purchased their beautiful new homes in remote parts of the nation, many wealthy individuals are filling them up with emergency food and supplies.

Collectively, rich people tend to be much more into “prepping” than the general population as a whole.

Sadly, the vast majority of the population is still asleep.  The mainstream media keeps telling us that everything is going to work out just fine somehow, and most Americans blindly believe them.

Meanwhile, many among the wealthy are buying up properties in remote locations at a blistering pace, and this is going to permanently change the character of those communities.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Thoughts On The “New Normal” And The Things That We Are Losing As A Society…

The last two years have greatly shaken America, and our country will never be the same as a result.  If you would have told someone two years ago that in 2021 millions of people would run around wearing masks all day and that the federal government would be relentlessly pushing a large scale mass injection campaign, that person probably would have thought that you were nuts.  But now this is the “new normal”.  Our freedoms and liberties have been permanently eroded, and now that they have gotten away with pushing the envelope so dramatically, government entities on all levels will be ready to flex their muscles again once the next major crisis comes along.

You could argue that we should just vote out the politicians that are running things on the state and federal levels, but exactly how are we supposed to do that?

After what we witnessed last November, tens of millions of Americans won’t believe that our system of choosing leaders is legitimate ever again.

Of course those that are currently running things could attempt to restore faith in the system by getting rid of all the voting machines and by instituting real reforms that would make the process as transparent as possible, but we all know that they will never do that.

The last couple of years have been extremely painful for our economy as well.  More than 70 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last year, homeless encampments started popping up like mushrooms all over the country, and countless numbers of small businesses shut down permanently.  In fact, most Americans say that they have lost a favorite local business as a result of the pandemic

Few people have escaped the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic and that’s especially true for local ‘mom and pop’ shops. A new study finds half of Americans have witnessed their favorite local businesses close down because of COVID-19.

A survey of 2,000 people reveals 68 percent personally know a local business owner impacted by the pandemic. According to respondents, the most commonly impacted businesses include cafes (62%), retail shops (58%), gaming shops (55%), and book stores (54%).

On Thursday, we learned that another 444,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.

In 2019, such a number would have been considered catastrophic.

But in the “new normal”, that number is actually considered to be “good news”.

Our politicians have tried to make everyone feel better by sending out waves of huge government checks, but that has just created rampant inflation and widespread shortages.

We are also losing the peace on our streets.  Murder rates were way up in major cities all over America in 2020, and in most of those cities they are even higher this year.

And it isn’t just men that are shooting men.  Today, I came across an article about an “eight-woman brawl” that resulted in a pregnant mother being gunned down…

A pregnant mother was shot and killed while she sat in her car close to an eight-woman brawl that erupted in gunfire.

The deadly confrontation took place just before 6pm Tuesday in the 1200 block of Valencia Avenue in Hemet, which is located 75 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Family members identified the 27-year-old who had been shot in the head and died after being flown to a county trauma center as Tamika Haynes.

What in the world is happening to us?

You would have never read about such a thing happening on the streets of America in 1950.

These days, we seem to be losing control of just about everything, and that even includes the technology that we have become so dependent upon.  Hackers are causing nightmares for large entities all over the U.S., and in many cases absolutely enormous ransoms are being paid out

CNA Financial Corp., among the largest insurance companies in the U.S., paid $40 million in late March to regain control of its network after a ransomware attack, according to people with knowledge of the attack.

The Chicago-based company paid the hackers about two weeks after a trove of company data was stolen, and CNA officials were locked out of their network, according to two people familiar with the attack who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Criminals seem to have the upper hand on the Internet, in our streets and in the halls of power in Washington and on Wall Street.

In previous times, we could rely on law enforcement to restore order, but now law enforcement authorities are being relentlessly demonized in our society.

In fact, it has gotten so bad that large numbers of law enforcement officers are permanently walking away from their careers.  For example, it is being reported that nearly 20 percent of all police officers in Seattle have quit over the past year.

Police departments all over the nation are having an exceedingly difficult time recruiting replacements for those that are leaving, and that is going to continue to be the case as long as we are treating police officers like human garbage.

Speaking of human garbage, just check out the bill that was just passed in the Wisconsin Senate

Wisconsin senators approved a bill earlier this week allowing dead bodies to be dissolved in a chemical bath and disposed like sewage.

The bill, Senate Bill 228, authorizes a practice called alkaline hydrolysis, or “water cremation,” which liquifies the human body using a mixture of water, heat, and chemical agents, leaving only bones behind. The liquid is then dumped into the sewage system or boiled off, and bones can be crushed and deposited in an urn.

You have got to be pretty sick to want to liquify Grandma and Grandpa before dumping their remains into the sewer.

But that is who we are.

On all levels, we no longer respect life, and that is because as a society we are abandoning our faith.  Just check out these numbers

The American Worldview Inventory (AWVI) 2021, an annual survey that examines the perspectives of adults aged 18 and over in the United States, found that while 57 percent of Millennials (born 1984-2002) consider themselves to be Christian, 43 percent “don’t know, care, or believe that God exists.”

Comparatively, 70 percent of Generation X (Gen X) Americans (born 1965-1983), 79 percent of Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), and 83 percent of the Builder Generation (born 1927-1945) consider themselves to be Christian, while 31, 28, and 27 percent, respectively, “don’t know, care, or believe that God exists.”

America no longer resembles the nation that our founders sacrificed so much to establish, and if we stay on the path that we are currently on there is no future ahead for us.

But even though voices such as mine have been crying out for change for years, most of the population continues to sprint in the other direction.

We have already lost so much, and the “new normal” truly is horrible, but if America does not wake up things are only going to get worse.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

A Severe Computer Chip Shortage Will Last “A Few Years”, And This Could Plunge The Global Economy Into Utter Chaos

Of all the shortages that we are currently facing, the global computer chip shortage may be the most serious.  That is because the chip shortage is expected to last “a few years”, and just about every sector of the world economy will be dramatically affected by this.  When people think of products that contain computer chips, they tend to think of electronic devices such as televisions, phones and laptops.  But computer chips are in thousands of other products as well.  They are in the vehicles that we drive, they are in the toys our children play with, and they are in the heavy machinery that farmers use to produce our food.  Without computer chips, our society as it is constituted today simply could not function, and so this is a really big deal.

Right now, global demand for computer chips is far outpacing global supply.  Some may assume that the answer is just to quickly build a bunch more factories and start pumping out more chips, but it isn’t that simple.

At this point, chips have become incredibly sophisticated, and manufacturing them can be extremely complicated

There are up to 1,400 steps in the overall manufacturing process for semiconductor wafers; it can take as long as 20 weeks to complete advanced chips, and fabs can use as many as 300 different types of materials throughout fabrication.

“It’s almost impossible to start chip manufacturing from scratch,” says Priestley. “This is why we are seeing industry consolidation: it has become so difficult and expensive to do, that companies just couldn’t afford to do it on their own.”

Over the decades, the percentage of chips made inside the United States has dwindled.  At one time 37 percent of all computer chips were made inside the United States, but now that number stands at just 12 percent.

Today, the vast majority of the computer chips that are used around the globe are made over in Asia

Specifically, companies have largely been outsourcing the manufacturing process to two companies – Samsung and TSMC. As a result, about three-quarters of the world’s total semiconductor manufacturing capacity comes from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

That makes us exceedingly dependent on chip production on the other side of the globe, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

So for the foreseeable future, there is going to be a chip shortage, and the head of IBM is telling us that it could last “a few years”

The boss of the US tech giant IBM has said a computer chip shortage could last another two years.

Its President Jim Whitehurst told the BBC it could be “a few years” before the situation improves.

Other voices are issuing similar warnings.

For example, an industry insider quoted by CNBC believes that this crisis will persist “into 2023″…

Glenn O’Donnell, a vice president research director at advisory firm Forrester, believes the shortage could last until 2023.

“Because demand will remain high and supply will remain constrained, we expect this shortage to last through 2022 and into 2023,” he wrote in a blog.

This is very bad news for industries all over the world.

Apple needs chips to make iPhones, and it is being projected that Apple will lose billions of dollars in sales simply due to a lack of chips…

Speaking to analysts following Apple’s latest earnings report, the iPhone maker’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, predicted a loss of between $3bn and $4bn in sales in the current quarter due to limited supplies of certain chips.

The impact on the auto industry will be even more dramatic.

According to NBC News, auto industry revenues will be down 110 billion dollars in 2021 alone because of a lack of chips…

The auto industry will suffer a $110 billion hit to revenues this year due to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips, according to a new analysis from AlixPartners consulting firm. That is a steep increase from January estimates of $60 billion.

With no clear resolution in sight, the industry will likely produce about 3.9 million fewer vehicles than originally planned for all of 2021, the firm said. The chip shortages are not only curbing production of current models but may also force delays in the rollout of some 2022 products.

If you are planning to buy a new vehicle, I would do it soon, because shortages of certain vehicles are likely to start popping up around the country.

Personally, I am extremely concerned about the impact that this chip shortage will have on agricultural production.  Even though the western half of the country has been gripped by an endless “megadrought”, the chip shortage is being called the biggest problem that U.S. farmers are currently facing…

The biggest factor impacting the ability of U.S. farmers to produce the food we need has nothing to do with the weather, the markets, trade, regulations, or disease. The worldwide shortage of computer chips will impact all aspects of agriculture for the next two years and beyond. Almost every piece of farm equipment, like most everything else in our lives, needs a computer chips to operate.

The farm equipment industry has already been plunged into a state of great uncertainty because of a lack of chips.  From top to bottom, supply chains have been greatly disrupted, and this is causing massive headaches for U.S. farmers…

Meanwhile, farm equipment manufacturers have halted shipments to dealers because they don’t have the chips to put in the equipment. Reynolds Farm Equipment, one of Indiana’s largest John Deere dealers, says they are unsure about when thy will receive the new equipment that is on order. Bane Welker Equipment, which handles Case and several other brands at their dealerships in IN and OH, are urging customers to plan ahead. They indicated that not only have combine, planter, tillage, and tractor sales been impacted, but even ATV supplies are limited. Parts, even non-electric parts, are also in short supply because the manufacturers of those parts use the chips in the manufacturing process. As farmers integrate technology into all aspects of the farming process, these highly sophisticated semi-conductors have become the backbone of almost every farming operation.

Everyone agrees that this chip shortage will be with us for a long time to come.

But assuming that the world returns to “normal” after the pandemic and the global economy remains relatively stable, it is hoped that the chip shortage will end some time in 2023.

Unfortunately, those are not safe assumptions to make.

We live at a time when one crisis after another is erupting.  Just when you think that things have settled down a little bit, something else goes haywire.

Trying to accurately predict what conditions will be like for the chip industry in 2023 is a futile exercise, because nobody really knows how the world will have changed by then.

But what we do know is that we are facing a severe computer chip shortage right now, and everyone agrees that it definitely isn’t going away any time soon.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.