Money

The unraveling of the yen carry trade is accelerating, and that is really bad news for the entire global financial system. For such a long time, investors could borrow yen for next to nothing and invest that money in financial assets all over the world. That helped to create some epic financial bubbles, but now the entire process has gone in reverse. Interest rates in Japan have been spiking and the value of the yen has been plummeting. Those of you that have been following these developments already know that we are facing a very real financial doomsday scenario.

The yen fell so low last week that the U.S. Treasury felt forced to take emergency action.

Needless to say, that was extremely unusual.

An unprecedented intervention by Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the U.S. Treasury absolutely shocked investors throughout the globe…

The unprecedented U.S.-Japan intervention to support the yen may end up shaping market behavior.

Japan has intervened in currency markets before, but this episode was bigger than usual. It was backed by Washington, reportedly executed using the euro-yen cross rather than directly in dollar-yen, and accompanied by explicit political support.

Some investors consider this a major step.

“Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the U.S. Treasury have successfully weaponized the yen,” said Jesper Koll, expert director for Monex Group, referring to market deterrence. The intervention went beyond conventional foreign exchange management because the countries deployed public balance sheets in concert to influence market psychology, he said.

Unfortunately, that intervention didn’t fix things for long.

The yen is absolutely plummeting against the dollar today.

So what happens now?

Will the U.S. Treasury spend billions more to artificially prop up the yen?

Even if they do, it won’t work for long.

Meanwhile, Japanese bond yields have been going nuts…

The yen carry trade is blowing up right in front of our eyes.

And so now major financial institutions in Japan are facing staggering losses…

This is only the beginning.

The value of the yen is almost certainly going to continue to fall.

Japanese bond yields are almost certainly going to continue to go up.

And the pain will be felt all over the planet.

Earlier today, I came across a post on X that did a great job of explaining the magnitude of the crisis that we are potentially looking at…

It would be difficult for me to overstate how serious this is.

During a recent interview with Greg Hunter, Jim Rickards warned that the unwinding of the yen carry trade is “the financial equivalent of all out nuclear war”…

Eight-time, best-selling financial author Jim Rickards is warning of a financial calamity already underway that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is trying to contain. It is the Japanese yen carry trade where the US Treasury is propping up the yen’s value. Is the yen carry trade coming to a halt and can it blow up things? Rickards says, “The answer is yes and yes. . .. Somebody wrote me and asked if the yen carry trade is a big deal? I wrote them back and said there is nothing bigger. This is actually the biggest story in the world.”

In simple terms, the problem is people have been borrowing at 0% in yen to do deals around the world. Everything was fine until interest rates in Japan started going up after more than two decades. Rickards says, “This is the engine of global economic growth. It has been powering the US economy and the global economy for over 30 years. What could go wrong? The thing that could go wrong the fastest is if Japanese interest rates went up. . .. The bank of Japan says it is going to keep raising interest rates. It’s not going to the moon, but 3% for yen (and Japanese) interest rates is like going to the moon when it’s been 0% for 20 years. So, now, the yen carry trade is unwinding. . .. The original borrower borrows dollars to pay back the yen loan, swaps the yen and pays back the yen loan. What if you can’t borrow? What if the bank says sorry, no soup for you. . .. Now, what do you do if you want to get out of the yen carry trade? You have to sell assets. So, you are going to sit there and make a lot less money or even lose money, or you are going to dump assets to get dollars to pay back the yen loan. They are both bad for the markets. It you have to sell assets, guess what? The price goes down, and other people have to sell assets. The next thing you know it’s a stampede, and everyone is running for the exit. This is not a few investment banks on Wall Street or a few hedge funds. This is the whole world getting out of the leveraged exchange rate engine that has been running the world for 30 years. That is the financial equivalent of all out nuclear war.”

As this crisis builds, it threatens to become an unstoppable tsunami which could end up ripping through everything.

Of course we are already witnessing some very serious trouble signs in U.S. financial markets.

Massive derivative losses have caused the stock price of the largest mortgage lender in the United States to utterly implode…

The already shredded stock of UWM Holdings, the parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage, the largest home-mortgage lender in the US with $40 billion in mortgage originations in Q2, plunged another 35% today, into penny-stock territory of $1.20 a share.

The company, which exclusively originates home loans through mortgage brokers, had gone public in January 2021 via merger with a SPAC that gave it a $16 billion valuation. It was the largest SPAC deal at the time and made CEO and founder Mat Ishbia a multi-billionaire. True to SPAC form, it has been a bloodbath for public investors ever since.

We aren’t talking about some Mickey Mouse operation.

This was the biggest mortgage lender in the entire country.

And then today we witnessed some very alarming forced liquidations of highly leveraged cryptocurrency positions…

It is starting, and we can see the symptoms all around us.

For average Americans, harsh economic conditions are going to get even worse.

The size of the U.S. workforce has fallen by more than a million workers over the past year, and the cost of living has become extremely oppressive.

But these will be considered “good times” compared to what is coming.

It would greatly help if the Strait of Hormuz was reopened, but you can forget all about that now…

The only way that Iran will open up the Strait of Hormuz is if President Trump essentially throws up the white flag and gives the Iranians every single thing on their wish list…

• Never threaten Iran with any language or insult the sanctities of this nation.

• End the war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq forever.

• Lift the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (naval and air) from around Iran.

• Pay the damages of the two wars of aggression and imposition on Iran without any reduction or reduction.

• Lift the cruel and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation.

• Unconditionally release the frozen and stolen assets of the Iranian people.

Trump can never possibly agree to all of that.

In fact, he just responded to Iran’s demands by demanding that they pay reparations…

As I have been saying all along, there isn’t going to be a deal.

So the price of oil is going to go even higher, and our stockpiles are going to continue to get drained…

As negotiations between the US and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz go nowhere, oil prices continue to slide lower on some naive hope that a resolution to the conflict will magically emerge. Meanwhile, both commercial and strategic stocks continue to be drained at a historic pace, and one day virtually every tank bottom will be hit, sparking a historic surge in commodity prices as the market realizes that physical always wins the war with paper oil.

That day just got closer today when the US reported that crude oil stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell below 300 million barrels for the first time since early 1983, as global inventories are under pressure due to the Iran war.

The SPR fell by 6.1 million barrels to 298.7 million barrels last week, according to data released by the Department of Energy on Monday. The reserve is at its lowest level since January 1983.

The war in the Middle East is far from over, and the really painful chapters of the global energy crisis are ahead of us.

At the same time, a new global financial crisis is suddenly erupting in Japan.

We just keep getting hit by one thing after another.

All of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together all at once, and not in a good way.

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.

This week, we will witness a convergence of celestial events that is truly extraordinary. On August 12th, we will be able to see a parade of 6 planets in the sky, a total solar eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower all on the same day. I was curious, and so I asked Google if this had ever happened before and I was told that these three events “have never all occurred on the same day in recorded modern astronomical history”. I was also told that the probability of all three events taking place on the same day is “roughly 1 in several hundred million”. Could it be possible that God is using the heavens to try to get our attention? If so, could it be possible that incredibly significant events are about to happen?

I wrote about this extremely unusual convergence of celestial events last month, but now that the day is approaching I just had to write about it again.

In Luke chapter 21, Jesus specifically instructed us to watch for “signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” in the days just prior to His return.

August 12th will probably be the most spectacular day for heavenly events since the Great American Eclipse of April 8th, 2024.

Needless to say, all sorts of historic events have occurred since that total solar eclipse.

Now another total solar eclipse is coming, along with a parade of 6 planets and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower…

The sky is about to put on an incredible show through August, as celestial events occur throughout the month. But one day in particular will offer the ultimate stargazing experience.

On Wednesday, Aug. 12, there will be a planetary alignment early in the morning, a solar eclipse in the afternoon, a new moon at night and the Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak.

We have never seen this happen before, and we will never see it again.

The planetary parade will include all of the planets in our solar system except for Venus…

A six-planet parade begins in the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday, and continues for several nights afterward, according to The Planetary Society.

This planet parade will include Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune.

For those wanting to see this six-planet spectacle, you’ll likely only be able to see four planets without any aid: Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn.

To catch Uranus, binoculars will be necessary and to witness Neptune, you’ll need a telescope.

Of course that parade of planets is not the main event.

The main event on August 12th will be the total solar eclipse…

Millions of people across Europe and North America will witness a solar eclipse on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but the event will vary greatly depending on the location. A narrow corridor stretching from Greenland to northeastern Spain will experience a total solar eclipse, much of Europe will enjoy a deep partial eclipse, and parts of North America will see a smaller partial eclipse.

A partial solar eclipse will be visible in 26 U.S. states.

If you live in an area of the country that will get a partial solar eclipse, it will “look like a cookie with a small bite taken out of it”…

The Aug. 12 total solar eclipse will only be visible from Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and parts of Portugal. Residents in some U.S. states will be able to see a partial eclipse using specialized eclipse glasses.

In the U.S., the sun will look like a cookie with a small bite taken out of it, according to NASA.

Following the total solar eclipse, everyone will be able to enjoy the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

NASA says that it will be the “best meteor shower of the year”…

The “best meteor shower of the year,” according to NASA, is about to begin.

The Perseids meteor shower, which can produce up to 50 to 100 shooting stars an hour, will be active from July 17 to Aug. 24, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS).

This year, the shower will peak around the same time as a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12, according to USA TODAY’s previous reporting.

This is our only chance to enjoy all three of these things on a single day, because such a convergence will never happen again in any of our lifetimes.

I asked Google about this, and I was told that the mathematical odds of all three events occurring on the exact same day “are roughly 1 in several hundred million”…

The mathematical odds of a total solar eclipse, a six-planet parade, and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower falling on the exact same calendar day are roughly 1 in several hundred million, making it an exceptionally rare, “once-in-a-generation” cosmic coincidence.

Of course this strange confluence of events in the heavens will be occurring at the same time when war, famine, pestilence and natural disasters are breaking out all over the planet.

Over the weekend, the historic wildfires in western North America got even worse.

In fact, over 20,000 people in western Canada were just evacuated from their homes…

A large wildfire is growing rapidly in western Canada, threatening towns in British Columbia. More than 20,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes.

The entire town of Summerland, with a population of 12,000, is covered by the evacuation order. In addition, another 8,000 residents in nearby Peachland have been ordered to evacuate.

The fire has destroyed houses as it spreads, but it is unclear how many.

I have previously written about how this is a record year for wildfires in Oregon, and it turns out that Utah is setting records too…

A fire in central Utah has burned more than 114,000 acres as of Saturday afternoon, becoming the state’s largest wildfire this year. Speaking at a fire briefing earlier this week, Utah Governor Spencer Cox noted that the blaze is the third to reach roughly 100,000 acres this year, “which is not a record that we’re proud of, but we’re grateful for all of the work that’s happening here.”

Meanwhile, it appears that the Middle East could be about to erupt in flames for a different reason.

The Iranians continue to block the Strait of Hormuz, and they keep telling us that they will never end their nuclear program.

There are signs that the U.S. may not be willing to continue military action, and so Israel is very strongly considering going it alone…

Israel is preparing for the possibility of carrying out unilateral military strikes against Iran if the United States reaches an agreement with Tehran and moves to end the ongoing war, Israeli media reported Saturday.

According to Israel’s Channel 13, the Israeli military is continuing to prepare for potential independent operations against Iran, keeping the option open even if Washington decides to step back from direct military action.

If Israel conducts airstrikes in Iran, the Iranians will respond with fury.

Ballistic missiles will come raining down on Israeli cities, and that would cause the Israelis to strike back really hard.

In such a scenario, the risk of going all the way up the escalation ladder would be extremely high.

And it just so happens that at this exact moment in history we are witnessing an amazing convergence of heavenly events that has never happened before and will never happen again.

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.

Americans are facing the longest and most painful affordability crisis in our entire history, and young people are being hit the hardest. For many Americans under the age of 40, homeownership is just a dream that will probably never come true. At this point, only workers that make at least six figures can afford to buy a decent home. If you can believe it, the home that Homer Simpson lived in would cost approximately 450,000 dollars today, and the home that was featured on Married With Children would cost approximately 700,000 dollars today. Those families were considered to be poor by the standards of the 1980s, but in 2026 they would be considered to be very wealthy. Of course just about everything else has become less affordable as well. Purchasing a new vehicle is totally out of reach for most of us, health insurance rates have become utterly absurd, and many of the items that I commonly purchase at the grocery store have doubled or tripled in price since the beginning of this decade. The cost of living has become the number one political issue in the United States, and it didn’t happen by accident.

Some time around the beginning of the decade, something in our system suddenly snapped.

Home prices started going through the roof, and now they are sitting at absolutely ridiculous levels.

Married With Children was a very popular television show that first aired in 1987. The star of the show was a shoe salesman named Al Bundy that made very little money, and he was constantly complaining about how poor he was.

But in 2026 the home that Al Bundy and his family lived in is valued at approximately 700,000 dollars…

I was quite stunned when I came across that post by Sean Davis.

It just shows how far our economy has fallen.

Another user on X pointed out that even the house that Homer Simpson and his family lived in would now be valued at approximately 450,000 dollars…

In 2026, you would have to be doing really well to be able to afford a house like that.

So much has changed over the past 40 years.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median price of existing homes in the United States is now $440,660…

The median price of existing homes in June was $440,660, up 1.8% from $432,700 a year ago, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Home prices have risen for 36 straight months.

“Housing affordability remains low under slowing wage growth and stronger home price growth,” Ershang Liang, an economist with PNC Economics Research, said in a report.

In order to be able to afford such a home, you need to be earning nearly $110,000 a year…

Americans still need to earn nearly $110,000 a year to comfortably afford the typical home for sale in the United States, even as housing affordability has shown modest signs of improvement over the past year.

A new Redfin report found that a household would need an annual income of $109,796 to purchase the median-priced U.S. home in June 2026 while spending no more than 30% of said income on housing costs.

If you don’t earn six figures, or if you don’t already own your own home, you are just out of luck in this economy.

Homelessness has been exploding all around us, millions of Americans are now living in their vehicles, and people are creating elaborate homes out of cardboard boxes on the side of the road…

When I was growing up, I don’t remember ever seeing someone sleeping in a vehicle because they didn’t have a home.

But now major cities have created vast parking lots where those that live in their vehicles can park safely at night.

Of course owning a vehicle is certainly not cheap either.

In fact, the average new vehicle in the U.S. now costs almost $50,000…

If you’ve seen the headlines this week, you might think buying a new car just got a lot more expensive. According to the latest data from Kelley Blue Book, the average new vehicle transaction price hit $49,353 in February, a 3.4% jump since last year, and one of the bigger annual gains in recent memory.

I was curious, and so I asked Google what the average new vehicle cost in 1987.

This is what I was told…

But just purchasing a vehicle is not the end of it.

You have also got to pay for insurance, repairs and maintenance.

According to Zero Hedge, the typical household in Louisiana now spends 23.2 percent of its income on vehicle expenses each year…

Louisiana is the nation’s least affordable state for car ownership, with the typical household spending 23.2% of its income, or $14,894 annually, on vehicle expenses.

This is what life in America is like in 2026.

And I haven’t even gotten to one of my big pet peeves yet.

I am shocked by how expensive groceries have become, and a new report that was just released indicates that grocery prices are a major concern for 90 percent of the country…

Affordability is the “defining challenge” when it comes to economic mobility, according to a new report by the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The survey of 30,000 Americans across income levels found that 90% of those polled cited groceries and food prices as a top cost concern, even over other key expenses, such as housing and healthcare.

“We face a common challenge, and that is the rising cost of living,” said John-Paul Julien, a partner at McKinsey & Co. and co-founder of the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility. “Although people are experiencing the economy differently, there is this shared feeling that rising costs are making it difficult to get ahead.”

Of course this is just the beginning.

As I discussed earlier this week, food prices are about to go significantly higher.

But when I was in school in the late 1980s, the cost of groceries wasn’t even an issue.

Food was extremely inexpensive, and we ate like kings.

Sometimes we forget how good we once had it.

In the late 1980s, you could have had a three bedroom home, two vehicles in the driveway and all the food that you wanted and still be considered “poor”.

Today, if you actually have all of those things you are considered to be “wealthy”.

Our standard of living has been going down for a long time, and more Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day.

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.

Experts are warning that a historic global food crisis has begun. Food prices have already been rising for years, and now they are about to go significantly higher. The number of impoverished people in the world suffering from acute hunger was already at an all-time record high coming into this year, and it is being projected that 49 million more impoverished people will be added to that total in 2026. We are facing a Super El Niño, a painful global fertilizer shortage and a very alarming cyclosporiasis outbreak all at the same time. We really are in unprecedented territory, and the months ahead are certainly going to be quite chaotic.

If you doubt this, just consider the chaos that we just witnessed in Ceuta.

Approximately 60,000 migrants from Morocco suddenly came storming in, and most people have no idea why it happened.

The primary reason why those migrants are so desperate is because they are hungry.

A nightmarish drought that never seems to end in Morocco “nearly halved its cereal harvests and erased 720,000 agricultural jobs”…

And this week, the pressure reached Europe’s own border. In two days, close to 60,000 people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, more than 50 people dying in the attempt, and within hours France had tightened its border with Spain and Italy had suspended Schengen. No single cause explains a border crisis, and this one has geopolitics stacked through it. But the ground it grew from is well documented: seven years of drought, Morocco’s worst in four decades, nearly halved its cereal harvests and erased 720,000 agricultural jobs, pushing rural families toward the cities, the coast, and beyond, an out-migration the World Bank’s climate report on Morocco predicted in almost exactly these terms. Climate pressure does not stay in the elsewhere column. This week it swam around a border fence.

The global food crisis that I have been relentlessly warning my readers about is not coming.

It is already here.

In Europe, the “hottest June ever recorded” did an immense amount of crop damage…

June 2026 was the hottest June ever recorded in western Europe, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. France logged its hottest nationally averaged day on record; Germany, Denmark and the Czech Republic set all-time highs. It was the third major heatwave since late May, arriving while crops were most vulnerable.

The damage forced an almost unheard-of response from the grain trade itself. COCERAL, the association of Europe’s cereal traders, published an extraordinary, out-of-cycle forecast, cutting expected EU and UK grain production to 286.6 million tonnes, roughly 9 million below its own June estimate. The total is also 23.4 million tonnes below last year, though that larger year-on-year gap cannot all be blamed on the June heat.

Those numbers are really bad, but in my opinion they are way too optimistic.

The situation is particularly dire in the UK.

Wales and England just experienced their “driest July in at least 190 years”, and as a result harvest season is going to be a total disaster…

It comes as Wales and England reel from their driest July in at least 190 years, forcing all the former and half the latter into drought.

Total output for barley, oats, and oilseed rape – key ingredients used in bread, beer, breakfast cereals, and livestock feed – is projected to drop to just 19.5 million tonnes this year.

That would undercut the previous low of 19.8m tonnes in 2020, making it the poorest yield since detailed record-keeping began in 1984.

This is what a Super El Niño looks like.

While barley crops in the UK are withering, here in the United States it is being projected that we will have “the smallest wheat crop in more than half a century”…

In the United States, the USDA forecasts the smallest wheat crop in more than half a century, with planted area the lowest since records began in 1919 and hard red winter wheat, the bread wheat of the Great Plains, the smallest since 1957 after severe drought.

We are being told that the Super El Niño could cause trillions of dollars in economic damage, and the global fertilizer shortage could have a similar long-term impact.

Let that sink in for a moment.

This is not just a small bump in the road.

This is a major historical event.

My regular readers know how I feel about the World Economic Forum.

Normally, I don’t agree with the World Economic Forum about anything.

But even the World Economic Forum has been forced to admit that the global fertilizer shortage will cause “cascading shocks that reduce future food production”…

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical chokepoints. Before the conflict, roughly 35% of global crude oil exports, 20% of liquefied natural gas exports, and up to 30% of fertilizer exports transited through this narrow strip of water – along with sulfur, essential for phosphate fertilizer production. The blockade has severely disrupted global fertilizer supply chains just as planting seasons advance across both hemispheres.

As farmers face urea fertilizer price increases of 20% to 60%, on top of rising fuel, transport, and irrigation costs, the greatest risk is not immediate food shortages but rather cascading shocks that reduce future food production. It begins with energy-price spikes and logistics disruptions, followed by fertilizer shortages, then lower yields, with delayed transmission effects eventually leading to higher food prices and market volatility months later.

When the World Economic Forum starts putting out material that sounds like it could have come out of one of my articles, it is a sign that things have gotten really bad.

NPR is sounding the alarm too.

One expert that was recently interviewed by NPR admitted that the upcoming harvest will be a big problem…

So today, we have enough food available, and we have enough stocks. The problem is for the next harvest. For the next harvest, as we move towards the middle of the year and the end of the year, we will have less supply, less stocks, and as a result, higher prices. And this will exacerbate more next year if this situation doesn’t stop. If the situation improves tomorrow, if you open the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, we will still have higher prices because of less supply, because farmers already made a decision, but we could avoid a significant crisis by the end of the year or 2027.

Harvest season is rapidly approaching in the northern hemisphere, and we aren’t ready for what is about to happen.

Meanwhile, some farmers in California are actually “trashing their lettuce crop and throwing the vegetables back into the soil” because so many people are now avoiding lettuce completely due to the nationwide cyclosporiasis outbreak…

A nationwide explosive diarrhea crisis that has left thousands clinging to their toilets and hospitalized others also seems to have another victim: lettuce growers in California.

Some like Larry Cox, who runs Coastline Family Farms in Salinas Valley, are trashing their lettuce crop and throwing the vegetables back into the soil as demand for the crop dries up, the Wall Street Journal reported. This week, Cox dumped 300,000 pounds of his romaine hearts.

I will admit that I am avoiding all store-bought lettuce right now.

I certainly don’t want to be the next victim.

Of course most lettuce is perfectly safe, but there is no way for ordinary consumers to tell what is good to eat and what is not good to eat.

Unfortunately, I believe that food safety will continue to be a very big story for quite some time.

According to the chief economist of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, we are facing a confluence of factors that has created a “perfect storm” which will really drive up global food prices in the months ahead…

The world is on the verge of another bout of food inflation as wars in Iran and Ukraine along with El Nino create a perfect storm of higher costs and lower crop yields, the chief economist of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said.

I know that food prices are already absurd.

But I would recommend stocking up now before food prices go even higher.

In impoverished nations around the world, rising food prices will push tens of millions more people into acute hunger…

A powerful El Niño weather event could push an additional nearly 49 million people into acute food insecurity across some of the world’s most vulnerable regions by the end of next year, the World Food Programme said on Wednesday.

Despite all of our advanced technology, and despite the billions of dollars that are given to international aid organizations, global hunger is worse than ever and starving people are literally dropping dead right now in Eastern Africa and other impoverished areas of the globe.

I am one of the few prominent voices that has been writing about this crisis over and over again.

Now I am telling my readers that this crisis is about to get substantially worse.

The world is not even going to come close to producing enough food to feed everyone this year, and the chaotic scenes that we just witnessed in Ceuta will soon be repeated all over the planet.

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.

A tragedy of historic importance is occurring in the Northwest, and yet it is not getting nearly enough attention from the mainstream media. 65,000 people in the Spokane area have been forced to evacuate and many neighborhoods now resembles war zones after voracious wildfires came ripping through them. Meanwhile, more than 2,000,000 acres in the state of Oregon have burned to the ground. But since they are sitting in their fancy offices far away from the danger zone, many corporate media executives just don’t seem to care much about the nightmarish disaster that we are witnessing.

Yes, these fires are getting some coverage, but the truth is that they should be front page news all over the nation.

Three very large fires have now burned over 12 square miles in Spokane and the surrounding suburbs…

Authorities were struggling to contain several large wildfires in the Spokane, Washington, area that have forced roughly 65,000 people from their homes, destroyed hundreds of buildings and sent plumes of toxic smoke into the air.

Three wildfires have consumed more than 12.5 square miles of land in and around Spokane, the second largest city in the state, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The blazes were 0% contained as of Aug. 3.

As I write this article, the Autumn Lane Fire is up to 5,869 acres, the Fairview Fire is up to 1,056 acres, and the Old Trails Fire is up to 3,621 acres.

Police have now arrested the man that they believe is responsible for starting the Old Trails Fire…

A 37-year-old man was arrested Monday for allegedly starting the largest of the three devastating Spokane, Washington-area wildfires that are leaving some residents with nothing.

Aaron Farinacci, a Spokane resident who has a prior manslaughter conviction, was booked on suspicion of first degree arson in connection with the Old Trails Fire and was being held on $1 million bond, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said.

I am so glad that they caught him.

When he was arrested, he was reportedly “in possession of some waterproof matches and a butane lighter”…

Authorities began investigating Farinacci after a witness saw him kneeling near grass where the fire began, Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told a press conference late Monday.

“We believe it was matches or a lighter. When he was detained … he was found to be in possession of some waterproof matches and a butane lighter,” the sheriff said, adding that Farinacci was only arrested in connection with the Old Trails Fire.

You would have to either be deeply evil or completely insane to purposely start a fire when conditions are so hot and so dry, and this is not the first time that Farinacci has been it trouble with the law.

In 2010, Farinacci actually killed his own father…

Prior court records show that Farinacci is a convicted felon in Arizona for manslaughter and aggravated assault after killing his own father in 2010 following an argument between the two over cleaning the dishes.

Court documents show Farinacci was sentenced to 12 years, 732 days of credit for time served and was released from prison in December 2020 before being discharged from probation in December 2024.

These days, our society is absolutely teeming with predators such as this.

Once the fires started, California Interagency Incident Management Team 7 quickly arrived on the scene and took charge.

Personally, I thought that was very strange.

Why aren’t authorities from Washington state leading the response effort?

I do not have an explanation for that.

According to Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, these fires are “the worst natural disaster our region has faced”…

The fires have burned between 700 and 1,100 structures, including homes and businesses, according to the California Interagency Incident Management Team 7, which is leading the response effort. Officials said the numbers were preliminary as crews were still working to contain the wildfires.

Gent Welsh, adjutant general of the Washington National Guard, said at a news conference Aug. 3 that the damaged areas resemble a “war zone.” A day earlier, Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said the wildfires were “the worst natural disaster our region has faced.”

That is really saying something.

Spokane has a very long history, but this is the worst natural disaster in the entire history of the city.

One local resident that discovered that her home had burned to the ground says that her neighborhood now looks like “a war zone”…

“This is what I imagine a war zone is like,” Spokane resident Sheri Clark told the Spokesman-Review as she stared at the remnants of what used to be her home and beloved garden. “It feels unreal.”

Nearby, Kristin Renz surveyed the damage to the home of her son and daughter-in-law in northwest Spokane. There was very little that wasn’t scorched by the flames.

Her daughter-in-law, Kimber Renz, salvaged a muffin tin from the rubble.

Of course it isn’t just Spokane that is burning.

Since the beginning of the summer, over 1,000 wildfires have burned approximately 450,000 acres in Washington state.

Meanwhile, things have been even worse over in Oregon. More than 2,000,000 acres have burned so far in 2026, and the state is on pace to absolutely shatter the old yearly record…

Oregon is getting close to breaking the state’s all-time record for acres burned in a single wildfire season.

As of Monday morning, Carol Connolly, public information officer for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, said 2,081,661 acres burned in Oregon in 2024.

So far in 2026, 60 large fires have burned 2,014,481 acres across Oregon.

This is not normal.

In fact, this is not even close to normal.

The other day, on one of my Facebook posts some guy claimed that I didn’t know what I was talking about because an El Niño event had not even started yet.

Obviously that guy had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

On June 11th, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially confirmed that an El Niño event had begun.

Then a week later, NASA released an image of the El Niño event that the NOAA had already confirmed.

We have been witnessing crazy high temperatures all over the world, and now we are being warned that the worst is yet to come…

While many countries are already facing one of the hottest and driest summers on record, experts warn ‘this is only the warm–up act’.

The WMO now predicts that sea surface temperatures in key regions will exceed 2.9°C (5.2°F) above the seasonal average.

El Niño events typically reach their peak between November and February, and have their strongest influence on global weather during the start of the following year.

This means we are only just starting to experience the effects of what experts are calling the strongest El Niño event in recorded history.

Of course the insane weather patterns that we are witnessing are just one element of “the perfect storm” that we are currently experiencing.

If it seems to you that global events are going absolutely nuts, that is because global events really are going absolutely nuts.

Our planet is being baked by record heat, historic droughts are occurring all over the planet, and the world is not even going to come close to producing enough food for everyone this year.

Meanwhile, we are dealing with multiple wars, political chaos, outbreaks of disease and a surprising amount of seismic activity.

Sadly, most of the population has stuck their heads in the sand and refuses to acknowledge what is really happening.

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.

When will the charade finally end? Over the past several months, Iran has been given opportunity after opportunity to make a reasonable deal. Every single time, negotiations have broken down and fighting has resumed. The Iranians are simply not going to compromise on the Strait of Hormuz, and they are simply not going to make the nuclear concessions that President Trump has been requesting. But Trump seems to think that if he just keeps making extremely over the top threats, the Iranians will eventually give in.

On Monday, Trump told the world that Iran is being given “a last chance” to sign an agreement. If they do not sign an agreement, they will face “decapitation”…

President Donald Trump warned he’s giving Iran one final opportunity to agree to a peace deal or risk “decapitation” as the two sides disagreed publicly about whether new talks were underway.

“This is a last chance,” Trump said on Aug. 3. “This is a last chance for them to sign a good document.”

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, later added that he wants to give Iran “every last chance before decapitation.”

How many times has Iran been given a “last chance” now?

Seriously, if someone out there has the number please let me know because I have lost count.

Of course the Iranians are not blinking.

They have no intention of agreeing to a deal that will be acceptable to Trump, and they are denying that any talks are taking place…

Iran said Monday that there weren’t any talks under way with the U.S. nor were any meetings planned, after President Trump said he had called off a major strike on the country to provide more time for negotiations on freeing up traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

This is all just so bizarre.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei couldn’t have been any clearer when he stated that “we are not negotiating with the United States at this time”…

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said at a press conference Monday that Tehran had no plans to hold direct talks with Washington, after Mr. Trump’s claim that a “deal is imminent.”

“To avoid any misunderstanding, it is important to clarify what the current negotiations are about and who they are with. We are not negotiating with the United States at this time,” Baghein said.

“Our negotiations are with Oman and are focused on reaching an understanding on a route that will ensure the safe passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.

Over and over again, the Trump administration and the Iranians have not even been able to agree on whether they are negotiating with one another or not.

I have never seen anything like this in my entire life.

In response to Iran’s claims, Trump insisted that his administration really is talking to the Iranians whether they want to admit it or not…

Many of us would like to believe that is true.

But then CBS News just reported that U.S. officials are admitting that no “new” negotiations are planned…

There is only one “deal” that Iran will accept.

According to the New York Times, the Iranians would be willing to return to “the Memorandum of Understanding” that Trump previously signed…

“They are ready for the war, and they won’t back down,” said Amir al-Mousawi, a former Iranian diplomat, who said he had met over the weekend with the team surrounding Iran’s head negotiator and speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Mr. al-Mousawi described an exchange of messages between U.S. and Iranian officials sent over the weekend through Pakistani and Qatari officials, in which he said Mr. Trump vowed a severe attack on civilian infrastructure like power plants if the Iranians did not restart negotiations.

The Iranians refused, he said, unless Washington returned to the previously agreed “memorandum of understanding,” which many experts say was in Iran’s favor.

“‘We have no problem with war at all, and we are ready for the big confrontation,’” Mr. al-Mousawi said the Iranians told the Americans. “Trump told the Iranians: ‘I will hit the power in Iran.’ So, the Iranians said: ‘If you strike, we strike.’”

The Iranians are calling Trump’s bluff.

They know that he doesn’t want more war, and so they are sticking to their guns.

The Memorandum of Understanding hands control of the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranians, and it does not require them to make any nuclear concessions at all.

It was the most lopsided international deal that any U.S. president has ever signed, and it certainly would not end the war in the Middle East.

But since they got Trump to actually sign it, the Iranians will not accept anything less at this point.

Now we have a real conundrum on our hands.

The Iranians will not accept a deal that is acceptable to us, and we will not accept a deal that is acceptable to them.

So where do we go from here?

Apparently the Pentagon is asking members of the military for “creative and unconventional” ideas for dealing with Iran…

This tells me that our military leaders are very unsure about how to proceed.

Bombing Iran from the air is not going to open the Strait of Hormuz, and it is certainly not going to get the Iranians to give up their nuclear program.

But President Trump does not want to conduct a ground invasion of Iran, and recent surveys have made it abundantly clear what the U.S. public would think of such a move.

And the Iranians know that the Democrats are probably going to take control of the House and the Senate after the midterm elections.

So the Iranians feel like time is on their side.

The wild card in all of this is Israel.

If Trump gives Israel the green light, the IDF is fully prepared to start hitting Iran like never before.

If that happens, the Iranians have warned that they will launch ballistic missiles at critical infrastructure all over Israel.

Once we get to that stage, the danger that unconventional weapons could get used will be very real.

And once someone uses unconventional weapons, there will be nothing that Trump or anyone else will be able to do to stop what happens next.

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

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

The map above is so crazy that I don’t even have the words to adequately describe it. It is a real map that comes from WatchDuty.org, and it shows wildfires that are actively burning in this country right now. As you can see, enormous wildfires are raging throughout the western third of the nation. A combination of intense heat, severe drought, high winds and neglected forests have created conditions that are unlike anything the region has ever seen before. Every day more homes are being lost, and the economic damage that we are witnessing is incalculable.

As I write this article, three large wildfires that have just erupted are causing immense damage in the Spokane area.

According to the latest update, approximately 7,500 acres have burned, more than 600 structures have been destroyed, and all three fires are 0% contained…

Several fires exploded in size across Spokane County on Saturday afternoon.

A combination of three fires has burned about 7,500 acres, and all three are still 0% contained. California Interagency Incident Management Team 7 is assuming command of the Spokane Area Fires, which consist of the Autumn Lane Fire, Old Trails Fire and Fairview Fire.

Fire authorities confirmed to KREM 2 that over 600 structures have been destroyed by the fires.

There was a mad scramble to evacuate on Saturday evening, and as a result there were huge traffic jams throughout the city.

In some cases, those stuck in the traffic jams could literally see giant flames approaching in their rear view mirrors.

Can you imagine being in that position?

There were many that left with only the clothes on their backs.

That is how fast this happened.

And when some of them finally return home, they will discover that they have lost everything.

Of the 600 structures that have burned down, authorities cannot yet tell us how many of them were homes…

Cossel said they couldn’t say how many of the structures burned were homes at this time. He added that it could take up to a week for crews to arrive and assess the exact number of how many homes lost.

The California Interagency Incident Management Team 7 said the Spokane Area Fires is the No.1 priority in the nation.

Of course we know that many of the structures that burned down were homes, because we have seen footage of entire neighborhoods burning on the news…

This is a major tragedy.

One local resident described is as “a nuclear bomb going off in our neighborhoods”…

“This is a nuclear bomb going off in our neighborhoods,” Spokane resident Brent Dallman told CNN affiliate KHQ. “This is condensed into where it’s demographically a lot of people, so it’s really tragic.”

But big corporate news outlets in New York City and Washington D.C. are not giving this disaster much coverage at all.

So many in the eastern half of the nation don’t even know what is going on.

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson has officially declared a state of emergency.

According to his office, more than 200,000 acres are currently burning across the state…

“Our record-setting drought and high winds are creating dangerous conditions across the state,” Governor Ferguson said. “I am declaring an emergency to help prevent loss of life and property damage. I encourage all Washingtonians to do their part to protect our state during these extreme conditions.”

“This year has already been one of our busiest wildfire years on record, and we just started August,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove. “Our firefighters are already stretched thin across the state, and with more heat and wind expected this weekend and for the rest of the summer, any new spark on our tinder dry landscapes can lead to another devastating wildfire. I’m urging all Washingtonians to not be that spark.”

Washington is in the midst of a record-setting fourth consecutive statewide drought. More than 1,000 fires have burned approximately 425,000 acres — the most acres burned since 2021, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Currently, more than 200,000 acres are burning in 12 large fires.

The month of August is just beginning, and there is no rain in sight.

Hopefully some precipitation will come along soon.

Interestingly, one of the fires that has erupted in Spokane just happens to be “ground zero” for a massive data center that had been put on hold due to “local pushback”…

The fires have continued to spread even as I have been writing this article.

Now the total number of acres that have been burned in the Spokane area has surpassed the 8,000 mark.

Those that have already evacuated probably won’t be able to return to their homes for an extended period of time.

Meanwhile, the Super El Niño of 2026 is bringing more intense heat to the western half of the country.

For the next few days, yet another historic heat dome will be absolutely baking many of our most prominent western cities…

• Records at risk: Dozens of record highs are likely to be set this weekend from California to Montana, and it is possible that a few monthly records could be tied or broken as well.
• Searing highs: Triple-digit heat stretches from Las Vegas to Montana, with cooler pockets in between. Forecast high temperatures Sunday could reach 114 degrees in Phoenix and Las Vegas, and the low-to-mid-90s in downtown Los Angeles. These numbers are down only slightly from Saturday.
• Public health threat: The NWS warns of “major” or “extreme” heat risks across much of the region, indicating a widespread threat to public health from heat exposure. “Major” heat risk is not only centered on the Southwest, but will also stretch from Denver to North Dakota. In Los Angeles, which is under an extreme heat warning, cooling centers are open this weekend through Sunday, though above-average temperatures are forecast to extend into next week. Other major cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix have also opened various cooling stations.
• “Critical” fire danger in Northwest: Elevated fire risk is predicted from eastern Washington southward into Oregon and Nevada, on eastward all the way to the Dakotas. “Critical” fire weather risk — a level 2 out of 3 — is projected for much of Montana and parts of Idaho and Wyoming.

For years, I have been warning about the epic multi-year drought that the western half of the country has been experiencing.

At first, a lot of people out there didn’t think that it was that big of a deal.

But now the consequences are becoming exceedingly clear.

What we are facing is not even close to normal, and it is time for America to wake up.

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.

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

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

But that is not how the escalation ladder works.

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

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

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

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

That was a major bombshell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course smallpox is not the only threat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was 33 years ago.

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

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

Do you think that the Russians were making that up?

Of course not.

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

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

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

That was in 2004.

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

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

Is anyone out there still not convinced?

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

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

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

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

Iran has a biological weapons program.

We have known about it for more than 30 years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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