Money

44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities And The Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Has Risen To $5.3 Million

October 14, 2026 by Michael

How did we get to a point where nearly half of the entire population is struggling to even pay for the most basic necessities? A lot of people talk about “economic collapse” as something that will occur someday in the future. The truth is that “economic collapse” has been slowly happening for decades as the middle class has been systematically eviscerated. It now takes 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime. Who can afford that? Most Americans aren’t even going to come close to making 5.3 million dollars during their working years. Of course in this economic environment, much of the population is just concerned with trying to survive from month to month. The cost of living crisis that has been raging for this entire decade is absolutely crushing millions upon millions of U.S. households, and now we just learned that the official inflation rate has gone up again.

If financial stress has become a major theme in your life, I want you to know that you are not alone.

According to a shocking new survey just released by the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Americans struggle to even pay for the most basic necessities…

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) indicate they have had trouble paying for at least one of these basic necessities in the past year

We aren’t talking about having difficulty paying the phone bill.

The survey found that an alarmingly high percentage of the population can’t even afford to pay for housing, food and medical care.

It also discovered that a whopping 27 percent of Americans can’t pay their monthly bills in full…

60% say they do not currently have enough income to lead the kind of life they want.
53% say they do not have emergency funds that would cover their expenses for three months.
27% cannot pay some of their monthly bills or can only make partial payments.
32% say they worry every day or almost every day about the cost of healthcare and the amount of debt they have.

More than a quarter of the population is getting behind on their debts.

That is what you call a crisis.

And there is no end in sight.

Most Americans don’t want to be rich.

Most Americans just want to live a middle class lifestyle like their parents did.

Unfortunately, it now costs 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime…

The cost of the American dream is rising at a faster pace than household earnings, driven by notable increases in the cost of homeownership, raising children and paying for college, according to a new report.

An analysis by Investopedia finds that the lifetime cost of the American dream rose 4.1% from 2025 to 2026, with the cost increasing by more than $208,000 from $5.11 million a year ago to $5.32 million this year.

Are you going to make more than 5 million dollars during your working years?

If not, you are out of luck.

Housing costs have been eroding the middle class faster than just about anything else…

Homeownership costs rose the most in dollar terms, with the lifetime cost rising by over $91,000 from $1.184 million in 2025 to $1.275 million in 2026. That rise amounts to a 7.7% increase year over year.

That figure includes a 20% down payment on a median-priced single-family home of $420,000, with a 6.32% 30-year mortgage that brings the total cost with interest to about $837,000, as well as $3,057 a year in insurance costs, property taxes and 30 years of upkeep and utilities which adds another $438,000 to the price tag.

Of course the figures quoted above no longer apply, because the average rate on a 30 year mortgage is now well over 7 percent.

So now homeownership is even more unaffordable.

And just about everything else is becoming more expensive too.

Today we learned that the official rate of inflation just went up again…

September brought little relief to the accelerating cost of living, as consumer prices increased again and kept the inflation rate well above the Federal Reserve’s goal.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the 12-month rate at 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected respective gains of 0.6% and 3.6%.

The formula that is used to calculate the official rate of inflation has been changed dozens of times since the Jimmy Carter era, and at this stage it doesn’t even come close to accurately reflecting how quickly prices are actually going up.

But the fact that even the government is admitting that inflation is rising is not good.

Soaring energy costs were the primary reason for the spike in the inflation rate…

Energy costs drove inflation in September, and high retail prices in October suggest pain at the pump will continue. Prices have soared since the Iran conflict started at the end of February.

Gasoline prices last month rose 9.1% from the prior month—a faster pace than August’s 3.9% increase—and are up 34% over the past year. Fuel-oil prices, meanwhile, are up 74% since last September.

When this inflation report was released, it really spooked investors, and bond yields spiked dramatically…

The 10-year Treasury note yield rose on Wednesday following the latest U.S. inflation print.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — jumped more than 7 basis points to 5.289% and reached the highest level since Oct. 8.

The longer-dated 30-year U.S. Treasury yield — which tends to react most to geopolitical events — was up more than 3 basis points to 5.602%.

The U.S. Treasury has been working really hard to keep bond yields under control.

I think that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is going to need a bigger boat.

During most economic downturns, normally we are either facing an inflation crisis or an unemployment crisis.

This time around, it appears that we will have both.

Mass layoffs have been occurring all over the nation, and on Wednesday we learned that Netflix is joining the party…

Netflix is reportedly laying off 1,000 workers – the streaming giant’s biggest cuts since 2022.

Staff were told Wednesday that about 6% of the workforce – within product, tech, legal, and human resources teams – was being slashed, according to a memo obtained by the Post.

I thought that Netflix was doing well.

I guess not.

Kroger is another company that was once thriving, but now they have decided to give the axe to about 3,000 highly-paid corporate workers…

Kroger is planning to eliminate approximately 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years as the grocery giant expands its use of artificial intelligence and looks to cut costs, according to a report.

The planned cuts would affect roughly 37% of Kroger’s approximately 8,200 corporate employees, Reuters reported Monday, citing an internal memo from CEO Greg Foran.

The restructuring comes as Kroger faces pressure to improve sales, keep grocery prices competitive and streamline operations through increased use of AI.

Every time more highly-paid jobs are wiped out, the middle class gets even smaller.

If you still have your seat in the middle class, you should be very thankful, because more chairs are being pulled out of the game with each passing day.

The top 10 percent of all income earners are still thriving, but for almost everyone else life is a struggle.

It didn’t have to turn out this way.

Decades of insanely bad decisions have brought us to this point, and now the cost of living is the number one political issue during this campaign season by a very wide margin.

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.

Yes, Donald Trump Really Did Just Say That “An Economic Depression Much Like 1929” Could Be Coming

October 13, 2026 by Michael

A lot of people may not like what Donald Trump just said about the economy, but it is accurate. As you will see below, he recently warned that we could soon be facing “an economic depression much like 1929”, and without a doubt the stage has been set for a downturn of that magnitude. Right now, we are in the midst of a global bond crisis, the housing market is paralyzed by high mortgage rates, stores and restaurants are closing all over the nation, there have been mass layoffs in the tech industry, demand at food banks is soaring, and we are experiencing a seemingly endless cost of living crisis that stretches back all the way back to the beginning of this decade.

So I very much agree that we are potentially facing a full-blown economic depression.

Earlier this month, Trump caused quite a shock when he publicly stated that the U.S. “will have an economic depression much like 1929” if the Democrats win the midterms…

Trump made the warning while promoting his pledge to give every adult American $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate.

“If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression much like 1929,” Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social on Saturday.

He also argued that Republican control would allow the administration to return money to Americans, citing record tariff revenue and economic gains.

Trump has estimated the proposed “Trump dividend” would cost about $1 trillion.

Of course Trump is convinced that an economic depression can be avoided if Republicans win the midterms.

At the moment, pollsters are telling us that such an outcome is very unlikely.

The latest surveys indicate that Democrats are almost certainly going to take the House, and there is a good chance that they will also take the Senate.

Needless to say, the pollsters have been wrong before, and they could be wrong again.

So we will just have to wait and see what happens.

But without a doubt, our economy is teetering on the brink of disaster.

Today, we learned that pending home sales in the U.S. just hit their lowest level in more than 12 years…

U.S. pending home sales are down to their lowest level since spring 2014–with the exception of April 2020, when the onset of the pandemic ground the housing market to a halt.

Pending home sales declined 4% from a month earlier in September on a seasonally adjusted basis–the biggest monthly drop in more than three years. This is a real-time indicator of what’s happening in the housing market; fewer homes went under contract in September largely because mortgage rates rose steadily, surpassing 7% by the end of the month.

The bond crisis has driven mortgage rates to absurd heights, and this is absolutely crushing the housing market.

The areas that are being hit the hardest were once some of the hottest during the boom years…

The declines were biggest on the West Coast: Seattle posted the biggest drop (-24.4% year over year), followed by Los Angeles (-16%), San Diego (-15.8%) and Anaheim, CA (-15.5%). Those Southern California metros are among the priciest in the U.S., so rising mortgage rates hit them hard, pricing many on-the-fence buyers out. Seattle is also expensive, and a bumpy local job market is curbing demand.

It appears to be inevitable that home prices will fall substantially.

In fact, this has already started to happen in some parts of the country.

That may sound like good news, but the last time this happened our economy plunged into “the Great Recession”.

What will happen this time around?

Right now, U.S. households are struggling to keep up with their debts at a level that we haven’t seen since 2010…

The ability of U.S. families to stay current on their debts worsened over the past three years, hitting levels not seen since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve reported Friday.

In the central bank’s Survey of Consumer Finances, researchers found that while wealth disparities narrowed somewhat, the ability to meet debt payments deteriorated significantly.

“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” stated the survey, a data-rich document the Fed releases every three years to chronicle the nation’s financial health.

The country in 2010 was just emerging from what became known as the Great Recession, a period that ran from December 2007 to June 2009.

The reason why so many Americans are struggling to stay afloat financially is because we are in the middle of the longest multi-year cost of living crisis in U.S. history.

For years, I pleaded with our politicians to stop borrowing and spending so much money.

For years, I pleaded with the Federal Reserve to stop flooding our financial system with fresh cash.

But they didn’t listen.

Now the purchasing power of our money has fallen dramatically and the cost of living crisis is strangling the life out of communities from coast to coast.

In West Virginia, just trying to survive has become a daily struggle for countless numbers of people…

Those forces have hit especially hard in areas that were already struggling economically, like West Virginia’s once-flourishing coal mining communities. The spike in gas costs means a 45-minute drive to the nearest grocery store can set residents back more than $15. And West Virginians who must comply with the new work requirements to receive food benefits are confronting a lack of jobs and training programs. Since last summer, about 24,000 people, including 8,000 children, have lost food stamps, according to the West Virginia Department of Human Services.

“It’s like the pandemic on steroids without funds,” Kirkhart said. “I don’t believe the government needs to provide everything, but if you’re going to ask us to, please help.”

Of course it isn’t just our rural areas that are dealing with hard times.

Our major cities are teeming with the impoverished, the homeless and the addicted.

In some cities, homeless encampments stretch on for block after block, and hordes of drug addicts wander around like zombies and defecate in the streets.

Such an environment is perfect for rats, and it is no surprise that New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia are the most rodent-infested cities in the United States…

A national pest control company has released its annual list of the top 10 most rodent-infested cities in the U.S. — and one Midwest city has now joined the list for the first time.

The list is based on rodent control service data from more than 300 Terminix branches nationwide in 2025, ranking cities where residents most frequently used the company’s services.

While New York and Los Angeles held onto the top two spots, Philadelphia moved up one spot to No. 3.

If things are this bad now, what will they look like if “an economic depression much like 1929” soon hits us?

When I was growing up, our major cities were quite clean and there were no homeless encampments anywhere to be seen.

When I was growing up, drug addicts were not publicly urinating in front of children.

When I was growing up, millions of Americans were not living in their vehicles.

The middle class has been eroding for decades, and now millions upon millions of U.S. citizens live in third world conditions.

This is what long-term economic decline looks like, and now we are being told that “an economic depression much like 1929” could be in our future.

Brace yourself, because we are moving into times that are going to be extremely challenging for all of us.

The Rising Cost Of Living Is Absolutely Crushing U.S. Households – And Here Is Why It Is About To Get Even More Painful

October 11, 2026 by Michael

When you are working as hard as you can and you still don’t even come close to being able to pay all the bills, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Millions upon millions of Americans are living lives of quiet desperation as they attempt to scrape by from month to month. Many of them have a really hard time sleeping at night because the financial pressure never ends. This is the result of decades of bad policies from our leaders in Washington, and the cost of living is only going to go higher. As you will see below, the global energy crisis continues to escalate, and that means that just about everything that we purchase on a regular basis will soon be even more expensive.

Right now, lines at food banks all over America are the longest that they have been since the early days of the last pandemic.

But we don’t have a pandemic to blame for the long lines this time around.

At a food bank in West Virginia on one recent morning, vehicles were lined up for half a mile before the sun even came up…

Bill Likens stared down a half-mile-long line of cars that started forming before the sun came up over the Appalachian Mountains. He had one job: figure out how to feed them all.

Some had driven more than 30 miles in aging cars and trucks that wheezed down flood-prone roads through the steep hills. They sat silently as the temperature rose into the 80s, their vehicles turned off with no air conditioning to preserve gas, waiting hours for a few boxes of food.

Aided by a cane, Likens, 51, surveyed the pallets being unloaded off a semitruck that arrived that morning. He counted cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes to calculate how much each waiting car could get — an algorithm of hunger he is constantly trying to solve.

More Americans are seeking help from food banks because grocery prices have soared to absurd heights.

If you can still afford to eat three meals a day, you should be very grateful, because there are millions of Americans that cannot.

73-year-old Joanne Girvin has lost 20 pounds during the past year because she can’t afford to buy enough food, and some nights she just sits down and cries as she tries to figure out what to eat…

Girvin, 73, used to own a restaurant nearby and is now living off Social Security, which is barely enough to cover her monthly bills. Already on a tight budget, she has no extra room for $4 gallons of gas or a rising electric bill. That has left one place to cut — her food.

She said she has lost 20 pounds over the past year because she has been eating less. The night before, she’d eaten canned deer meat left over from last fall’s hunting season with rice and gravy. Some nights she eats a bag of frozen broccoli with butter.

“Sometimes I just sit down and cry when I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to eat out of a can or something because you don’t have no meat,” Girvin said as her eyes welled with tears. “It’s just really bad, this economy. It’s horrible.”

This is what life is like in West Virginia in 2026, and it has been this way for many years.

Of course it isn’t just residents of West Virginia that are struggling.

Food banks all over the country are reporting increased demand this year…

The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia. An NBC News survey of 48 of the largest food banks across 35 states and Washington, D.C., found that nearly three-quarters said more people are showing up at their doors over the past year, from workers on their lunch breaks to older adults overwhelmed with medical expenses. At the same time, more than 80% said the food and funding they received through the U.S. Department of Agriculture had dropped and they were struggling with higher fuel costs for transporting food.

In Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank said the USDA cut the amount of food it received from 13 million pounds to 9 million pounds in one year. A Michigan food bank, Forgotten Harvest, said it’s handing out less food to make sure there is enough to go around: one bag of potatoes instead of two, two tubs of yogurt as opposed to six.

If you are like most of us, nearly all of your bills have gone up over the past 12 months.

If your income has not been going up at the same rate, you are falling behind.

Once upon a time, if you earned $100,000 or more a year you were living very comfortably.

But now even many of those that are earning $100,000 a year are really struggling…

And though $100,000 is more than double the national median salary of $46,960, financial stress remains for many six-figure earners.

In fact, those making $100,000 or more have now adopted the shopping habits of lower-income households as they struggle with affordability, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said at a recent retail conference. That remark has some consumers second-guessing the value of such a salary.

“I think a lot of people got to six figures and thought, ‘Wait, why doesn’t this feel like as much money as I expected?’” Steve Sexton, owner of financial firm Sexton Advisory Group, told The Independent in an email.

For decades, our politicians have been spending way too much money and have been destroying the value of our currency.

Now we are stuck with the consequences.

Unfortunately, our cost of living crisis is going to get even worse because the global energy crisis is only going to intensify.

On Saturday, the Houthis hit King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia really hard.

12 people died as a result of that attack, and 309 were injured…

Saudi Arabia said Sunday it would “respond decisively” against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen a day after a strike on Riyadh’s international airport brought the expanding Middle East conflict home for the Saudi capital and its residents.

The attack, which left 12 dead and 309 injured and came without warning, revealed the vulnerability of the U.S. ally and the ramifications of the Trump administration’s reluctance to openly help fight the Houthis more than seven months into Washington’s war with Iran. Riyadh’s airport is the country’s second largest for civilians and is frequently used by royals and visiting dignitaries, including President Donald Trump in his last visit to the kingdom.

The United States is providing Saudi Arabia with intelligence support, analysts and U.S. officials say. But the administration has so far stopped short of the direct military assistance that officials in Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen’s internationally recognized government have sought.

The Saudis responded with a huge wave of airstrikes, and then the Houthis struck King Khalid International Airport again on Sunday…

A passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was attacked again on Sunday, one day after a deadly strike on the Riyadh airport killed at least 12 people, including a U.S. citizen, and wounded hundreds of others.

The second attack comes as Yemen’s Houthi group said they carried out at least four operations targeting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh since Saturday.

Saudi’s civil aviation authority said the latest Riyadh airport attack caused injuries and that damage assessments are underway.

In addition to hitting the airport, the Houthis also attacked a number of Saudi Arabia’s most important energy production facilities…

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said on Telegram that the attacks are in response to “brutal Saudi aggression against our country and our people,” CBS News partner BBC News reported. He claimed Saudi Arabia launched more than 120 airstrikes in the past 24 hours in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.

The Houthis said their other targets included the Shugadam gas facility, which belongs to Saudi’s national petroleum and natural gas company Aramco, the Tanajib oil refinery, and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, the BBC reported.

It could take months or even years for the Saudis to repair or rebuild all of the energy infrastructure that has been damaged by the Houthis in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have really stepped up the pace of tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz this month…

There have been nearly a dozen attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz so far this month — as it emerged that some Western officials are sounding the alarm on Iran’s military capacity despite President Donald Trump’s insistence the country’s military has been destroyed.

Iran has plenty of ballistic missiles and can speedily ramp up its stockpile, even after more than seven months of bombing by the United States, anonymous Western officials told Bloomberg.

Word that Iran’s ability to strike back is still strong comes as reports show 11 ships in Strait of Hormuz or nearby, off the coast of Oman, so far in October, according to Fox News, which cited maritime officials in the United States and the UK.

Also, it appears that the Iranians have also now mined the U.S.-backed southern corridor through the Strait of Hormuz near the coast of Oman.

A very large tanker traveling through that corridor hit a mine on Saturday, and another tanker traveling through that corridor hit a mine on Sunday.

Over the past couple of months tankers had snuck a lot of oil through the Strait of Hormuz using that corridor, but at this point the Iranians have decided to crack down really hard.

So what this means is that global energy prices are poised to jump even higher.

And that is really bad news because the price of diesel in the U.S. is already about 70 percent higher than last year…

The national average for diesel stood at roughly $6.32 per gallon Monday, according to AAA — up from about $3.69 at the same time last year, a jump of more than 70%. The surge has also eclipsed the previous record of $5.816 per gallon, set in June 2022 under former President Joe Biden as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global energy prices soaring.

Even if you don’t have any diesel vehicles, this is going to affect you directly.

Our trucks, our trains and our tractors run on diesel.

It is inevitable that higher diesel prices will get passed along to U.S. consumers, and the cost of living will increase as a result.

The most painful chapters of the global energy crisis are ahead of us, and the entire global economy will be thrown into a state of turmoil.

A lot of people out there didn’t believe that things would ever get this bad, and those skeptics will be completely shocked by what is coming next.

The Energy Crisis Escalates: The Dual Threat Of More War In The Middle East And Hurricane Isaias Damaging U.S. Refineries In The Gulf Is Pushing Oil Prices Even Higher

October 8, 2026October 8, 2026 by Michael

Just when it seemed like we had hit a period of relative calm, global events are starting to accelerate again. Within the past 24 hours, there have been a couple of absolutely enormous developments. First of all, Tropical Storm Isaias has become Hurricane Isaias and we are being told that it will make landfall along the Gulf Coast. That is potentially a major problem because the Gulf Coast accounts for over 50 percent of the crude oil refining capacity in the United States. If any of that capacity is taken offline for an extended period of time, that will drive fuel prices substantially higher. Meanwhile, Iran has been attacking tankers at a very alarming pace this week, and President Trump is reportedly considering a new wave of airstrikes on Iran…

The U.S. president and his national security team have discussed possibly resuming large-scale U.S. military operations in the coming weeks, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing a U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the talks.

Axios reported earlier in the day that a possible resumption in armed conflict could include “massive bombing” of Iranian energy, infrastructure and nuclear targets, adding that military aggression could influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

This is a major bombshell.

If the U.S. starts extensively bombing Iran again, the war in the Middle East could spiral completely out of control.

The good news is that President Trump is now pledging that the U.S. will not be bombing Iran until after the midterms…

But his statement also seems to imply that the U.S. will be bombing Iran after the midterms.

Will the Iranians just sit back and wait for that to happen?

It is never a good thing to let your enemy know what you plan to do.

And the Iranians have been threatening to conduct preemptive strikes if they are convinced that they are going to get attacked…

Iran’s army spokesman said on Wednesday that the armed forces were prepared to carry out pre-emptive strikes in the war against the US, as senior IRGC figures claimed tighter control over the Strait of Hormuz and Washington questioned how much authority Iran’s civilian leadership actually holds.

“Should circumstances require it, we will conduct pre-emptive operations down the line in order to prevent the enemy from committing any act of aggression or intrusion,” spokesman for Iran’s regular army Brigadier General Mohammad Akrami-Nia told the state-run IRNA news agency.

It is my opinion that the war in the Middle East is very far from over.

I am expecting some shocking escalations, and this is something that I will be writing a lot more about.

Needless to say, if the war in the Middle East does not get resolved, the global energy crisis will just continue to intensify.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Isaias is making a beeline for the Gulf Coast with landfall expected some time on Friday…

Hurricane Isaias continued its trek toward the U.S. Gulf Coast early Thursday, with a landfall expected late Friday as a dangerous hurricane, driving life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain.

Isaias is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, and forecast to be the first to strike the United States since Hurricane Milton in 2024.

This storm is rapidly strengthening, and it could potentially become even more powerful than forecasters are currently anticipating.

And that is not good news at all.

Over 50 percent of all crude oil refining capacity in the U.S. is located along the Gulf Coast, and if any of those facilities get damaged that could push fuel prices substantially higher…

The Gulf Coast accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s crude oil refining capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts alone make up 49% of the nation’s refining capacity.

The National Hurricane Center initially projected the center of Isaias could come onshore late Friday or early Saturday somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. Located in and around that zone are refineries, where crude oil gets turned into gasoline and diesel fuel.

If those Gulf Coast refineries are forced to halt or reduce production, fuel supplies would get tighter, leading to higher prices.

This is potentially a very big deal.

As the storm approaches, 25 percent of offshore production in the Gulf has already been temporarily shut down…

In the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have shut in about 500,000 bpd, or 25% of offshore production in the region, as Hurricane Isaias churns toward the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle.

Hopefully Hurricane Isaias will not turn into a monster storm and no refining facilities will be harmed.

But for the moment, investors are quite nervous about both Hurricane Isaias and the potential for renewed fighting in the Middle East.

On Thursday, oil prices jumped quite a bit higher…

The price of oil jumped sharply Thursday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to resume large-scale U.S. military operations against Iran in the coming weeks.

Brent crude oil rose more than 5% to more than $105 per barrel in early trading, while U.S. crude oil rose almost 5% to nearly $93 per barrel. Benchmark diesel futures jumped 4.5% in European trading. Heating oil, a proxy for jet fuel, rose more than 4%.

The move higher in oil prices also pushed up bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield, which heavily influences consumer borrowing rates, jumped to 5.35%. That level effectively reversed a drop in yields seen late Wednesday. The yield on every other Treasury bond also rose.

As oil prices rise, just about everything else is going to get more expensive too.

A year ago, it would have taken about $2,700 of diesel to transport a shipment of lettuce from California to New York. Now that same amount of diesel is going to cost about 50 percent more…

Transporting a shipment of lettuce from Salinas, California, to New York “is going to run somewhere around $10,000,” said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, and $4,200 of that is for diesel alone.

A year ago, Croke said, the same fuel would have cost about $2,700.

We are all going to pay for this.

When you go to the grocery store to get lettuce, it is going to cost more than it did before.

In fact, just about everything at the grocery store is going to cost more than it did before.

We really are witnessing a “perfect storm” for global food production.

World War 3 is raging, farmers are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a Super El Niño is causing all sorts of havoc, and diesel prices have gone absolutely nuts.

We have never seen anything quite like this.

A year ago, very few people would have believed that so many crazy things would happen in 2026.

Unfortunately, I am entirely convinced that 2027 will be far crazier.

The Next Global Financial Crisis Is Erupting Right Now As Bond Yields Skyrocket All Over The World – Will France Be The First To Collapse?

October 7, 2026 by Michael

We all knew that this would be coming eventually. For years, governments around the world have been engaging in the greatest debt binge in human history. Now they are absolutely drowning in debt and investors are no longer willing to lend them gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. Bond yields are skyrocketing, and that means that bond prices are crashing. That is really bad news for U.S. banks, because they are holding approximately $4.81 trillion in combined Treasury and agency securities. Banks in Japan and Europe are also holding gobs and gobs of bonds. The nightmarish state of bank balance sheets is going to become a major story in the coming days, and many financial institutions will fail. Meanwhile, consumers will be facing much higher rates for mortgages and other forms of borrowing. This will likely slow down economic activity substantially during the months ahead.

On Wednesday, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries and the yield on 30 year U.S. Treasuries both hit the highest level that we have seen in 24 years…

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was up more than 3 basis points at 5.307%. It had earlier hit its highest level since 2002. The 30-year Treasury bond rose more than 4 basis points to 5.684% and had also reached a 24-year high earlier.

The last time we witnessed anything like this was during the aftermath of the collapse of the Dotcom bubble.

The good news is that after spiking dramatically earlier in the day U.S. bond yields are being forced back down.

I am entirely convinced that this is due to government intervention.

Our officials have been buying Treasury bonds with billions of dollars that they have created out of thin air in a desperate attempt to keep bond yields under control.

In Europe, individual nations do not have that option. That is one of the reasons why I am concerned that France could be teetering on the brink of financial ruin.

Of course it isn’t just France that is facing a desperate situation. As Bull Theory has aptly pointed out, we are literally watching a global bond market implosion in real time…

Decades ago, France was one of the most financially stable countries in Europe.

But now we are being told that there is a very real risk of “a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy”…

France’s borrowing costs are surging as investors around the world wake up to the risk of a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy.

Stress in financial markets has now started to spread beyond its borders, raising fears that political dysfunction in France could cause a broader, regional problem.

Memories of the sovereign debt crisis that threatened the single currency’s survival 15 years ago are starting to stir. But is it really going to get that bad again?

The French thought that they could just keep borrowing and borrowing and that there would never be any consequences.

They were wrong.

During an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the head of the International Monetary Fund delivered a very blunt message to the French government: “get your house in order”.

She explained that the current crisis in France is “the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock” and that the French are on a “staircase that does not lead to heaven”…

Political instability in France has put pressure on the country’s government bonds, known as OATs. Investors now demand a higher yield than they do for bonds issued by the Italian government, with French 10-year bond yields rising by more than 100 basis points since the start of the year.

“What we see in France is a complication of, on one side, the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock, climbing on this staircase that does not lead to heaven, and on the other side, a political dynamic scene in France that creates more difficulties for the finance ministry to put a clear path for tightening,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told CNBC’s Lisa Kim on the sidelines of an event in Singapore.

She is right.

France is a financial mess, and that threatens the financial stability of the entire European Union.

Meanwhile, the French government has admitted that the level of of street violence has reached the highest level ever recorded…

The French Ministry of the Interior states that street violence has reached record levels fuelled in part by the violent student uprisings seen in multicultural hubs across the country in recent weeks.

Following another day of mass mobilisation of students in concert with far-left political parties and radical trade unions apparently intent on sparking more chaos, the Ministry of the Interior released statistics showing an unprecedented level of violence in public spaces.

According to government data, public violence incidents outside the home hit a record high of 20,000 per month in September, or nearly 700 per day, Le Figaro reported.

There is no end in sight.

Initially, we were told that “students” were protesting because they wanted smaller classrooms and better textbooks.

We can all see that is simply not true at this point.

Criminals dressed in black are rioting, looting and committing acts of violence in major cities all over the country…

French revolutionaries have been burning down schools and setting public buses and fire trucks ablaze. They have looted shops and stalked and preyed on women walking alone. They have attacked strangers with fireworks, mortars, and hydrochloric acid. They have beaten numerous teachers, doused some in gasoline, and set a few on fire. They have injured hundreds of law enforcement officers and firefighters, as well as students who want nothing to do with the mayhem. One witness to the destruction described the scene as “total anarchy” and “total war.”

Yes, a lot of teenagers are involved in the mayhem.

But in many cases the “protesters” are men in their twenties, thirties and forties.

These grown men have been proudly waving Palestinian, Algerian and Moroccan flags as they call for violence in the name of their god…

Paris and other cities are now awash with foreign flags as throngs of unassimilated youths scream their hatred for France itself.

“In the name of Allah, we can kill them all,” barked one masked thug, to the mob’s demented glee.

We are witnessing something extraordinary: an intifada in the heart of Europe.

It is easy to mock the French for what is happening, because it is the result of decades of bad immigration policies.

Of course the exact same thing could easily happen in the United States.

Recent polling has shown that 43 percent of U.S. voters under the age of 25 now have a positive view of Sharia law…

The polling, from Our Republic and Rasmussen, showed “a quarter of 18-35 voters polled would support a community implementing Sharia law as the legal code for the entire town, city, or state if the majority of residents living there desired its adoption.”

The polling said, “Overall, 21% of likely voters said they have a mostly or somewhat positive opinion of Sharia, compared with 57% who have a negative opinion. Positive views were much higher among younger Americans, including 43% of voters ages 18–24 and 39% of those ages 25–29.”

The polling cited a “generational divide” over Sharia, as seniors had a much higher level of opposition.

Reading that should chill you to the core.

We are on the same path that France has been on.

But only a very small segment of the U.S. population seems alarmed by this.

I think that France is cooked.

So is Spain, and so is Germany.

The EU is headed for financial collapse.

Of course the same thing could be said for Japan and the United States too.

It will take some time for the global bond crisis to fully play out, but without a doubt an enormous amount of pain is in our future.

Food Shortages In 2027? The ICC Warns That Global Food Prices Could Rise By Close To 70% – I Asked AI What Would Happen Next

October 5, 2026 by Michael

All over social media, people want to know if there will be food shortages in 2027. Coming into this year, the UN was warning that global hunger had reached an unprecedented level. Now we are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a global energy crisis, widespread droughts, a Super El Niño and World War III all at the same time. Of course global hunger is going to get even worse in the months ahead. Nobody can deny that. Wealthy nations such as the United States will theoretically be in the best shape, but even here in the U.S. approximately 1 out of every 7 people already live in food insecure households. Rapidly rising food prices will definitely be very painful for us, but for millions of people that live in deeply impoverished countries much higher food prices could suddenly make it impossible for them to buy enough food to properly feed their families.

How would you feel if members of your family were extremely hungry but you didn’t have anything to give them?

For many of us, that would be unimaginable.

Unfortunately, such a scenario could soon become a reality in needy households all over the planet.

For months, I have been warning that the global energy crisis and the global fertilizer crisis were going to have an enormous impact on food production.

Now harvest season is here, and the consequences are starting to become apparent. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Hormuz Gridlock Risks Global Food Crisis, International Chamber of Commerce Chief Says”…

Disruptions to a vital shipping route in the Middle East have created an energy shock. Now, a global food security crisis is brewing, warns the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce is a man named John Denton.

He is a legal expert on international trade and investment, and he is projecting that global grain prices could potentially increase by up to 80 percent…

The monthslong conflict between Iran and the US has curbed the flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway many countries rely on for imports of critical inputs like fertilizers and natural gas.

According to Denton, if the strait is not reopened, grain prices could rise by up to 80%, which would be particularly hard on the economies of import-dependent countries. He added that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz has caused a shortage of about 2.7 million tons of fertilizer on the world market.

Less fertilizer means less food.

That is the bottom line.

If we do see such a spike in global grain prices (and they have already been rising), an ICC-commissioned model determined that global food prices overall could increase by close to 70 percent…

A prolonged disruption to fertiliser and energy markets linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push global cereal prices sharply higher, with potentially severe consequences for food security and public health, according to new modelling commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

In the study’s most severe scenario, global cereal prices rise by as much as 81% above 2020 levels. The shock also feeds through sharply to households, with consumer food prices in East Asia, the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa rising close to 70% above a 2020 baseline.

In recent years, the world has not even come close to producing enough food for everyone.

Now global food supplies are going to get substantially tighter.

As a result, there will be a mad scramble for whatever is available, and this will really drive up prices.

In the end, a lot more people will be malnourished and a lot more people will die from starvation…

Conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen and Scotland’s Rural College, the modelling shows how the shock would work its way through the global food system. Higher fertiliser and energy costs reduce nitrogen fertiliser use by approximately 37% and cereal productivity by up to 10%, tightening supply and raising prices for consumers.

For poorer households, these price increases translate into lower calorie consumption, less diverse diets and higher rates of underweight. Under the same severe and sustained scenario, the modelling suggests that the shock could contribute to approximately one million additional dietary health-related deaths in 2030 and leave 67 million more people underweight.

The burden would fall overwhelmingly on lower-income regions. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and the Pacific would account for around 80% of the additional mortality and more than 90% of the additional underweight burden. Modelled health outcomes would change little in higher-income regions.

The poorest nations will get hit the hardest.

But we will all be affected.

I asked Google AI to tell me what would happen if the type of scenario that the ICC is envisioning actually plays out. This is what I was told…

Massive Food Inflation: Retail prices for bread, cereal, and packaged goods would skyrocket globally.
Surging Meat Prices: Livestock feed costs would soar, forcing ranchers to cull herds and driving up the cost of beef, pork, and poultry.
Severe Humanitarian Crisis: Lower-income nations that rely heavily on grain imports would face immediate, widespread food insecurity and potential famine.
Geopolitical Instability: Historically, drastic food price spikes trigger civil unrest, protests, and political revolutions (similar to the 2011 Arab Spring).
Protectionist Trade Policies: Major grain-exporting countries would likely ban or restrict exports to safeguard their domestic food supplies, worsening the global shortage.

That sounds about right.

There are some people out there that are touting the fact that they warned about this months in advance.

Of course there are others that were warning about all of this years in advance.

As long as commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains restricted, the global fertilizer crisis and the global energy crisis will both just continue to intensify.

Unfortunately, the Iranians are telling us that they will keep attacking commercial vessels that are traveling through the Strait of Hormuz until the United States agrees to their entire list of demands…

The Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed until the United States accepts Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the waterway, Iran’s top negotiator and parliament speaker has said.

Iranian state-linked news agency Nournews, quoting ⁠Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reported on Sunday that Washington made “some proposals through a mediator” days after the US replied ⁠to Iran’s diplomatic proposal.

The US should know “that the era of wasting time and dictating unilateral demands is over”, Ghalibaf said, adding Iran’s position remains “clear and definite”.

There is no way that the Trump administration will ever agree to all of Iran’s demands.

So on and on we go.

I realize that food prices are absurdly high now, but they are going to go even higher.

But as long as you have enough to eat, you should be very thankful, because there are many on the other side of the planet that are desperately hungry right now.

Yes, there will be food shortages in 2027.

At this stage, the debate is about how intense they will become.

Hunger is on the rise all over the planet, and the higher food prices go the worse it will get.

It Has Begun: They Have Launched A New Military Operation Involving 100,000 Soldiers To Wipe Out The Houthis And Take Back Control Of Yemen

October 4, 2026 by Michael

The Great Middle East War has just entered a very dangerous new chapter. 100,000 troops under the control of the internationally-recognized government of Yemen are going to attempt to end the Houthi threat once and for all. Saudi Arabia will be assisting by conducting constant airstrikes on Houthi positions. In other words, all-out war is coming to the Arabian Peninsula. The United States will be providing intelligence and targeting data for this operation, but officials are telling us that the U.S. military will not be directly involved at this time. However, Axios is reporting that the U.S. could join the operation at a later date “should it go south”.

What this means is that there isn’t going to be an end to the Great Middle East war for a long time to come.

One of Iran’s core demands has always been an end to the fighting on all fronts.

Needless to say, what we are witnessing is the opposite of that.

Even in the most wildly optimistic scenario, it would take months to totally defeat the Houthis.

In a televised speech, Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi announced that this new military operation will continue “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia”…

Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government said on Sunday it was launching a major military campaign to recapture all areas of the country controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The government’s armed forces would press the offensive “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia,” Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi said in a televised address. A military spokesman later called on the Houthis to lay down their weapons.

The Houthis are crazed religious zealots.

They will never, ever lay down their weapons.

So there will be no surrender.

The Houthis will fight until they are either wiped out or they are victorious.

It appears that this will be the biggest conflict in the entire modern history of Yemen.

It is being reported that over 100,000 soldiers could be mobilized to battle the Houthis…

More than 100,000 Yemeni troops could be mobilized in the offensive, depending on the scale, the officials all said.

Riyadh has concluded it cannot enter new Yemeni peace negotiations with the Houthis while they remain in control of Bab al-Mandab, giving them significant global leverage, the Western diplomats and a Gulf official said.

The Houthis have a core group of around 20,000 to 30,000 dedicated fighters, but they can easily mobilize more.

They have been in control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014, and all previous efforts to dislodge them have failed.

Recently, they captured vast amounts of territory along the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and they haven’t been allowing Saudi oil tankers to travel through that very important chokepoint.

Now the goal is to take it all back.

The U.S. was asked to join this military operation, but that request was denied.

According to Axios, an anonymous U.S. official is insisting that our military “is not going to take kinetic action for now”…

On Thursday, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid Bin Salman called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to brief him on the planned operation and ask again for U.S. airstrikes against Houthi targets, the U.S. official said.
A U.S. official said that the U.S. “is not going to take kinetic action for now.”
Last week, President Trump was close to ordering a strike on the Houthis after a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), but eventually decided to hold off.

However, we will be assisting the operation by providing “intelligence and targeting data”…

And apparently the door is being left open for the U.S. military to get involved in the operation at a future date “should it go south”…

The US could join Saudi Arabia’s operation against the Houthis should it go south, despite several previous refusals, Axios reported on Friday, citing American officials.

The operation, expected to be launched in the coming weeks in response to the increased assault by the terrorist organization on Saudi Arabia as well as its storming of Bab al-Mandab, will be led by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces on the ground and supported by Saudi air strikes.

I think that there is a very good chance that the operation will not go well.

The Houthis have had the upper hand for weeks, and in the last 48 hours they got even closer to Yemen’s third largest city…

In the last 48 hours, the Houthis have also made gains against government and local forces on strategic hilltops near Yemen’s Taiz, military sources said, advancing on the last road between the city and Aden on the southern coast.

Houthi control over the Taiz-Aden road would lead to an effective siege of the city, Yemen’s third-largest, inhabited by hundreds of ⁠thousands of civilians and where thousands of government forces are also stationed.

The fall of Taiz would be catastrophic for Yemen’s internationally-recognized government.

I don’t think that Saudi Arabia was eager for an all-out war with the Houthis, but at this stage they probably felt that they had no choice.

So now that one of their key allies is faced with all-out war, how will the Iranians respond?

Will they just sit on their hands as the Houthis get pummeled, or will they take action?

We shall see.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Iran’s enemies that his nation is prepared to strike back “stronger than before”…

“If our enemies again choose the path of military confrontation, our response will be stronger than before, and we will defend ourselves with even more force,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a gathering of foreign ambassadors.

“There is no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions,” he continued, adding “only negotiations based on justice and fairness” could end the conflict.

If the Houthis are able to hold their own, the Iranians may not get directly involved in what is happening on the Arabian Peninsula.

But if the Houthis start losing ground, Iran may feel compelled to intervene.

In any event, it has become clear that there will be no peace.

The Great Middle East War will be three years old this week, and now it has escalated to yet another new level.

The death and destruction that we have already witnessed has shocked the world, but much worse is coming.

The U.S. Is Sending A Third Aircraft Carrier And A Second Marine Division To The Middle East As The Global Energy Crisis And The Global Food Crisis Both Intensify

October 1, 2026 by Michael

The months ahead are shaping up to be a time of war, economic problems, food shortages and global chaos. There is no end in sight for the war in the Middle East or the war with Russia. Meanwhile, global energy supplies and global food supplies both continue to get even tighter. We desperately need some sort of a diplomatic miracle, but talks with the Iranians have totally broken down and tensions between the Russians and our allies in Europe are higher than ever. Our deteriorating economy is the number one political issue in the U.S. during this election season, but the economic pain that we have experienced so far will be absolutely dwarfed by what is ahead.

On Thursday, it was being reported that the U.S. has decided to deploy a third aircraft carrier and a second Marine division to the Middle East…

The Trump administration has decided to deploy a third aircraft carrier to the Middle East, along with a second Marine division, a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt and an additional division of US Marines will deploy to US Central Command’s area of operations.

The move means that, until the US midterm elections, US President Donald Trump will have significantly greater military capabilities and a wider range of options for potential action against Iran.

Many were hoping that an end to the war was near.

These moves are an indication that a major escalation could be coming.

The Iranians have not backed down and they are not going to back down.

On Tuesday, they attacked three more commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz…

Three vessels reported being struck on Tuesday, September 29, in the area around the Strait of Hormuz as Iran appears to be lashing out to demonstrate that it is still threatening vessels. While it brings the total number of vessels struck to four so far this week, observers point to increasing oil flows and vessel traffic in the region.

UK Maritime Trade Operations reported the incidents, although few details were provided. It said that the information had come from verified sources but was delayed in being transmitted. It was unclear when the strikes took place. It identified all three incidents as involving tankers without details on the extent of the damage, while an unconfirmed report said one of the vessels was an LNG carrier.

Two of the vessels were identified in the tracking by the International Maritime Organization, with both being crude oil tankers flying the Liberian flag and sustaining damage. One VLCC, the Mersin Prosperity (299,319 dwt), is operated by ADNOC. The other tanker appeared to be a smaller vessel, possibly involved in the shuttle operations that have arisen to get oil from the Gulf states to tankers waiting south of the Strait in the Arabian Sea. This tanker was identified as Sinbad (115,949 dwt), and it was last reported at Fujairah. Both tankers appeared to be making the transit dark.

We have been able to get some oil through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks.

But not nearly enough.

It would be wonderful if the Iranians were willing to make a reasonable deal, but they just aren’t budging.

In fact, talks with the Iranians went so poorly when Iranian officials came to New York that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered them to leave early…

After little progress was made in weekend meetings between Iranian and Qatari mediators, Rubio lost patience and told the Iranians on Monday that Araghchi and his delegation had to leave New York immediately, according to the two officials, who were familiar with the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration process.

Rubio, according to one official, determined that the Iranians had “overstayed their welcome” and that since the high-level meetings at the U.N. were over, they should leave.

Ararghchi and his team departed New York very early Tuesday.

What this means is that the global energy crisis is going to continue to get worse.

Earlier today, we learned that the Chinese “have suspended exports of oil products to ‌regions beyond Hong Kong and Macau until further notice”…

Chinese refiners have suspended exports of oil products to ‌regions beyond Hong Kong and Macau until further notice from ‌Beijing, four people briefed on the matter said on Thursday.

As China looks to safeguard domestic supplies, state oil major PetroChina cancelled on Wednesday a handful of its gasoline and jet fuel shipments that were planned for October, three of the sources said.

This pushed the price of Brent crude above 101 dollars a barrel and the price of U.S. crude above 92 dollars a barrel.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have announced that the U.S. will be releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and they are strongly pressuring our allies in Europe to follow suit…

The Trump ⁠administration ⁠has told Germany and France to draw down ⁠emergency diesel inventories to help ease soaring global fuel prices or face a potential US diesel export ban, according to three people close to the discussions.

The warning marks an escalation in pressure on Europe as US President Donald Trump considers a potential ‌ban to help bring down US fuel prices ‌ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Even though fuel prices in Europe have risen to absolutely insane levels, European leaders have been hesitant to authorize the release of more strategic reserves.

One anonymous U.S. official told Reuters that it is “in ⁠Europe’s best interest to work with the United States”…

The International Energy Agency, the West’s energy watchdog, has not yet asked Germany to release stocks, Germany’s economy ministry said. It was not clear when the ⁠IEA ⁠might meet next.

The US administration has ⁠been particularly frustrated with France and Germany, which US officials believe have not fully followed through on earlier commitments to release emergency oil and petroleum product stocks, Reuters has reported previously.

“It is in ⁠Europe’s best interest to work with the United States as we pursue multiple pathways to boost the supply of refined products and lower costs for consumers,” one of the sources, a US official, told Reuters.

As global supplies of fuel get extremely tight, we are seeing things happen that are absolutely unprecedented.

This week, the crack spread for diesel was hovering in a range of $108 to $122 per barrel.

The soaring cost of diesel is hitting farmers all over the planet extremely hard, and it is one of the factors that is driving up global food prices.

Zero Hedge is reporting that the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index increased by a whopping 13 percent during the third quarter of this year…

The Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index (BCOMAGSP) posted its largest quarterly gain since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, as Black Sea disruptions, a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, and mounting El Niño risks have formed what could be considered a perfect storm poised to drive food prices higher.

BCOMAGSP, which tracks 10 major crops including corn, soybeans, wheat, coffee, sugar, cotton, cocoa, and others, jumped 13% in the third quarter.

When food prices rise in the United States, that is painful, but most of us still have enough food to eat.

In nations where poverty is widespread, higher food prices can mean the difference between eating and not eating for millions of people.

Ominously, the foreign minister of India is now warning that a “major food crisis” is coming in the months ahead…

India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar has warned that the world faces a “major food crisis” in the coming months, as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East compound the effects of a super El Nino.

Speaking at an event organised by the Asia Society in New York, Mr Jaishankar said the two conflicts had “a devastating impact” on the economies of the Global South, and that energy, food, fertiliser and finance were all under strain at once.

“If you have energy as a big crunch and then food and fertilisers on top of it, and finance, because every time there’s a conflict, money moves towards safe harbours and away from the Global South, the net result of it has been really very, very stressful,” he said.

We are experiencing a global fertilizer crisis, soaring diesel prices, extreme droughts in Central America and other key agricultural regions, the most powerful Super El Niño ever recorded and World War III all at the same time.

The food shortages that are coming will shock everyone.

The wealthy nations will hoard whatever food happens to be available just like they are starting to hoard fuel right now.

But many impoverished nations will not have that option.

The number of acutely hungry people in the world was already at an all-time high coming into 2026, and now global hunger is going to go to an entirely new level.

What we are facing is extremely serious, and there are no easy solutions on the horizon.

+ More