Money

Meet The Man That Has Bet A Billion Dollars That The Stock Market Is Going To Crash

August 15, 2023 by Michael

Would you be willing to bet a billion dollars that stock prices are going to collapse? Needless to say, only an extremely small fraction of the population has that much money. And once you have accumulated a billion dollars, one would think that you would be extremely determined to protect it. But that is not what Michael Burry is doing. During the financial crisis of 2008, his massive bets against the housing market made him incredibly rich, and now he is making another “big short”. According to CNN, Burry has bet over 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash…

Michael Burry, the “Big Short” investor who became famous for correctly predicting the epic collapse of the housing market in 2008, has bet more than $1.6 billion on a Wall Street crash.

Burry is making his bearish bets against the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, according to Security Exchange Commission filings released Monday. Burry’s fund, Scion Asset Management, bought $866 million in put options (that’s the right to sell an asset at a particular price) against a fund that tracks the S&P 500 and $739 million in put options against a fund that tracks the Nasdaq 100.

Burry is using more than 90% of his portfolio to bet on a market downturn, according to the filings.

Does he know something that the rest of us don’t?

If he is wrong, he will look like a fool.

But if he is right, he will be a legend.

Michael Burry places a huge leveraged short position on the stock market with put options.

The Big Short Version 2.0 😳 pic.twitter.com/8SHtZ0r4V9

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 14, 2023

Without a doubt, the stock market is ripe for a crash.

So far in 2023, the S&P is up about 16 percent and the Nasdaq is up about 38 percent…

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 have both notched big gains so far this year. They’re up nearly 16% and 38%, respectively.

In the mid-2000s, Burry was famous for placing a wager against the housing market and profited handsomely from the subprime lending crisis and the collapse of numerous major financial entities in 2008. The event was chronicled by Michael Lewis in his bestseller “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” and later adapted into a film where Burry was played by Christian Bale.

This stock market rally has been happening even though the overall economy has been really struggling.

As economic activity has slowed down, demand for trucking services has slumped, and at this point the Cass Freight Index is down 8.9 percent on a year-over-year basis…

In terms of shipment volume in the for-hire market, the Cass Freight Index – which is concentrated on trucking but includes rail and other modes of transportation – fell again in July, to the worst July since July 2020, and July 2016, which had been in the middle of another freight recession (fat red line in the chart below).

Year-over-year, the index was down 8.9%, and compared to the peak in this cycle, in May 2021, it was down 12%.

And UPS and FedEx are both reporting that demand for package delivery is way down as well…

We’ve heard similar messages from UPS and FedEx. UPS reported a 9.9% drop in daily package volume for Q2, with June volume down 12.2%. FedEx reported an 18% drop in average daily shipments in its quarter ended May 31.

The economy is really struggling right now, and so the stock market should not be booming.

But for the moment, the rich are getting richer while homelessness absolutely explodes all over the nation. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The Biden administration’s fight against homelessness is faltering ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

A new Wall Street Journal report reveals the number of Americans ending up on the streets is happening at a “record rate” despite ‘Bidenomics‘ being touted as an economic savior for the middle class. Every working-class folk understands Biden’s policies have been absolutely horrendous — two years of negative real wages forced many to rack up insurmountable credit card debt during the highest interest rate environment in a generation while draining personal savings — all to make ends meet, like putting food on the table and paying rent. Compound this with the worst housing affordability period in decades (maybe relief in 2H24 or ’25), and it’s not hard to understand why the homelessness crisis is beginning to spiral out of control for Democrats.

I could go on and on about the dire state of the U.S. economy, but I am not going to repeat all of the statistics that I have shared in other articles over the past few weeks. if you are interested in seeing those numbers, this is where you can find them…

–“9 Signs That The U.S. Consumer Is About To Break”

–“7 Trends Which Indicate That Economic Disaster Is Approaching Very Rapidly”

–“10 Signs That The Mainstream Media Is Not Telling You The Truth About The Economy”

Of course it isn’t just the United States that is experiencing an economic slowdown.

As Jim Rickards has aptly noted, “major economies are falling into the ditch” all over the globe right now…

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that we’re looking at a global recession, if not a global financial crisis. These are highly unusual. It’s often the case that one or more major economies are in recession while others display growth and help pull the weak performers out of the ditch.

But today, we’re facing a case where, one after the other, all of the major economies are falling into the ditch.

So many of the things that we have been warned about for a very long time are starting to happen right in front of our eyes.

We are clearly headed for very big economic trouble, and that should be apparent to everyone at this point.

Michael Burry is planning to make a giant pile of money when the stock market finally crashes just like he did in 2008.

Will he be correct?

I don’t know, but you certainly cannot accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth is.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help. 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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Middle Class Meltdown: Thanks To The Reckless Policies Of Our Leaders, The Middle Class In The U.S. Is In Huge Trouble

August 14, 2023August 14, 2023 by Michael

The middle class in the U.S. has been steadily shrinking for decades, but in recent years our leaders have greatly accelerated that process. In 2020, 2021 and 2022 they absolutely flooded the system with new money, and almost all of that new money went into the pockets of the wealthy. The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is now larger than ever, and that isn’t a good thing for our society. Even if you are still making as much money as you did a few years ago, you have lost a lot of ground financially, because the cost of living has been rapidly eating away at our standard of living. As I covered the other day, household income in the United States has declined by 9.1 percent since April 2020 after adjusting for inflation and taxes. In other words, the middle class is a whole lot smaller than it was in April 2020, and it continues to get smaller with each passing day.

According to Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, on average Americans are now spending “$709 more per month on everyday goods and services than they did two years ago”…

Americans are spending $709 more per month on everyday goods and services than they did two years ago, according to Moody’s Analytics.

Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi made the statement Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter, as part of his analysis of July’s consumer price index report.

Is the rising cost of living causing financial stress for you?

If it is, you are definitely not alone.

The wealthy are doing just fine for the moment, but inflation has caused a lot of pain for the vast majority of the rest of us.

Just paying for a place to live has become incredibly oppressive. Personally, I was astounded to learn that the average rent in Manhattan has now reached $5,588 per month…

New Yorkers are feeling the squeeze as rents hit a new high.

Rent in Manhattan soared to a record-high average of $5,588 in July, up 9% from 2022.

It’s hurting tenants struggling to find apartments they can afford. One apartment hunter said she can’t find a studio to suit her work-from-home needs for less than $5,000.

Who can afford that?

Only the wealthy.

Of course the truth is that rents have been soaring all over the country.

It is being reported that the nationwide average rent-to-income ratio has exceeded 30 percent for the past two years.

This is the very first time in the entire history of our country that this has ever happened.

With rents being so high, a lot of Americans are being forced out into the streets.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States “has seen a record increase in homeless people this year”.

Please let that statement sink in for a moment.

So far in 2023, the number of homeless people in the U.S. is up 11 percent from last year.

That is the biggest jump that the government has ever recorded.

Not even during the recession of 2008 and 2009 did we see anything like this.

Unfortunately, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising, because it looks like the cost of living is going to continue to rise at a brisk pace.

According to CNN, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has nearly reached 4 dollars a gallon…

Pump prices are creeping towards $4 a gallon nationally.

The national average for regular gasoline hit $3.85 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s the highest level since October 19 and comes just weeks ahead of Labor Day weekend when millions of Americans will hit the roads.

I remember the days when I could fill up my vehicle for less than 20 dollars.

But the other day I spent 70 dollars at the gas station and that didn’t even fill the tank.

And we are being warned that U.S. consumers are going to have a lot less discretionary income in the months ahead as tens of millions are forced to start making payments on student loans again…

For more than three years, federal student loan borrowers have not had to make monthly payments. But that pandemic-era pause is coming to an end this fall, setting up a financial shock for millions of Americans and the big-name stores, such as Target, Nike, Under Armour and Gap, where they shop.

About 44 million borrowers in the U.S. were affected by the payment pause, which initially began in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration extended the pause for the eighth time in November but will not do so again as part of the bipartisan debt ceiling deal approved by Congress.

More than 60 percent of all Americans are already living paycheck to paycheck, and many are increasingly turning to debt in order to make ends meet.

In fact, total credit card debt now exceeds the one trillion dollar mark for the first time ever, and that is not a good sign at all.

Also, an increasing number of Americans are now dipping into their 401(K) plans…

When father-of-two Ivan Marusic lost his job overnight in 2020, he was left panicking about how he would cover his mortgage.

It prompted the 35-year-old, from Texas, to do something he never thought he would: withdraw $20,000 from his 401(K). It is a decision he is still paying for now.

‘I was really hesitant to do it because I knew it would set me back financially in the long run. But I didn’t have any other options. I had already maxed out my credit card and I was running out of money,’ Marusic, a tech worker who has since founded the website Game Taco, told Dailymail.com

We really are witnessing a middle class meltdown.

I have been warning about this trend in my books for years, and now the evisceration of the middle class has greatly accelerated.

I wish that I could tell you that there is economic hope on the horizon.

But I can’t do that, because our leaders continue to make incredibly self-destructive decisions which are going to cause immense economic pain for the entire country.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Some Parts Of America Are Already On The Verge Of Being Ungovernable As Rampant Lawlessness Spreads Like Wildfire

August 13, 2023August 13, 2023 by Michael

In order for a civilized society to function, most people have to willingly follow the rules of that society. If that happens, law enforcement authorities can deal with the few that choose to be lawless. For generations, that is how things worked in America. There was a high standard of morality among the general population, and so the police were able to successfully handle the few bad apples that insisted on breaking the law. But now everything has changed. As a result of decades of extreme moral decay, lawlessness is rampant and there are vast multitudes of young people that openly flaunt the rules of our society. In fact, there are already some areas of the country that are literally on the verge of being ungovernable.

A perfect example of what I am talking about happened in southern California on Saturday.

Dozens of lawless young thieves systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall, and they were able to get away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise…

Shoppers at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park were in for quite a shock when dozens of thieves ransacked the Nordstrom inside the mall on Saturday, Aug. 12, smashing displays and stealing an estimated $60,000- $100,000 worth of merchandise, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Police Department responded to the mall at around 4 p.m. after hearing reports that between 20 and 50 people ran through the Nordstrom grabbing merchandise, leaving some on the ground and taking armfuls with them.

When I was growing up, this sort of thing simply did not happen.

But now we are seeing mobs of looters go haywire all over the nation on a regular basis.

This heist was obviously well coordinated, and not one of the thieves even showed a shred of remorse.

Apparently these young people are not exactly languishing in poverty, because a BMW and a Lexus were among the getaway vehicles that they used…

After grabbing between $60,000 and $100,000 worth of goods, the crew fled in several cars including a BMW and a Lexus, cops said.

At least one guard was doused with bear spray — which causes violent eye and respiratory irritation in humans. The guard was treated by paramedics.

How are we supposed to respond to this?

As I stated earlier, we are seeing robberies of this nature so often now.

Several days earlier, dozens of young people looted the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale…

Earlier this week a high-end designer store in Glendale, California was looted by dozens of people in another flash mob burglary on Tuesday.

At least 30 suspects “flooded” the Yves Saint Laurent store in The Americana at Brand Tuesday afternoon and stole clothing and other merchandise before fleeing on foot and leaving the location in numerous vehicles, said police in a statement.

The total loss is estimated to be approximately $300,000.

Some people attempt to downplay the severity of these crimes by saying that these big corporate retailers can afford the losses they are experiencing.

No, they can’t.

Overall, U.S. retailers will lose more than 100 billion dollars due to theft this year alone.

This has become a major national crisis, and as J. Lee Grady has aptly pointed out, we truly have become “the land of the free-for-all”…

You’ve probably seen the videos of thieves filling trash bags with stolen merchandise from CVS or walking out of Home Depot or Wal-Mart with armloads of tools, laptops, detergent and athletic shoes they didn’t pay for. We used to call this shoplifting, and it was a crime. Today, it’s known as “inventory shrinkage”—and it costs retailers billions of dollars in losses. But many soft-on-crime politicians are treating criminals like victims and allowing the crime wave to grow.

Some retailers are locking items behind glass cases, but that hasn’t stopped brazen criminals who just smash and grab. Other retailers actually warn employees not to try to stop thieves—and they will even fire an employee for confronting a shoplifter. Welcome to the USA in 2023: We were once known as the land of the free; now we are the land of the free-for-all, where criminals can take whatever they want from store shelves knowing that no one will stop them.

A lot of of this theft is being fueled by the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation.

Today, vast stretches of the city of Los Angeles have been transformed into giant homeless encampments that are filled with “zombie-like residents smoking drugs”…

Shocking new photos lay bear the devastating homeless crisis tormenting downtown LA – where filthy ramshackle tent cities are plagued by zombie-like residents smoking drugs, while others hawk stolen goods on street corners.

There are currently an estimated 42,260 people sleeping rough in the City of Angels – a startling 10 percent rise compared to just last year, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported.

Just this week, it emerged that the city had resorted to sending mobile teams with oxygen cylinders to Skid Row in a desperate bid to prevent overdoses amid its crippling opioid crisis.

The same thing is happening in San Francisco.

In fact, conditions have become so dangerous in downtown San Francisco that federal employees that work at “the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” are being told to work from home for the foreseeable future…

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.

The imposing, 18-story tower on the corner of Seventh and Mission streets houses various federal agencies, including HHS, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the office of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The area is also home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets, where dozens of dealers and users congregate on a daily basis.

I find it perfectly fitting that “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” is operating right outside of a giant office tower named for Nancy Pelosi.

Politicians such as Pelosi have been making horrendously bad decisions for decades, and that has been a major factor in getting us to this point.

We are truly reaping what we have sown, and what we are currently experiencing is just the beginning.

Eventually, conditions will deteriorate so dramatically in our core urban areas that our leaders will be forced to implement extreme measures in a desperate attempt to restore order.

But ultimately you can’t govern vast numbers of people that have no intention of being governed.

The fabric of our society really is coming apart at the seams, and we are going to see things happen in the years ahead that will completely shock all of us.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

An Open Letter To Joe Biden: The American People Are Absolutely Sick And Tired Of “Bidenomics”

August 10, 2023August 10, 2023 by Michael

Thanks Joe Biden! Ever since you entered the White House, economic conditions have taken a major turn for the worse. We have been experiencing the most painful inflation crisis since the Jimmy Carter era, more than 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, the U.S. actually lost 585,000 full-time jobs last month, consumers now owe more than a trillion dollars on their credit cards, the housing bubble has started to burst, and the most dramatic commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history has begun. Needless to say, the American people are fed up. According to a brand new Reuters/Ipsos survey that was just released, a whopping 73 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in worse condition than it was five years ago…

Americans have soured on Bidenomics, concluding that the U.S. economy is worse now than it was five years ago under former President Donald Trump’s leadership, a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey found.

The overall survey found that Americans view economic issues as some of the most “pressing problems” of the day. Overall, nearly half, 49 percent, of Americans view inflation as the most important issue facing the country. Further, nearly three-quarters of Americans, 73 percent, say the economy is worse off now than it was five years ago, under Trump’s leadership. A majority, 64 percent, also believe the economy is worse off than it was in 2020, when the coronavirus took a grip, forcing businesses to close.

Those are horrible numbers Joe.

So do you actually have a plan to turn things around if you win a second term, or should we just expect more of the same?

You and your family are probably not feeling the pain of inflation because of the millions of dollars in bribes that you have received from foreign officials, but the truth is that “scorching-hot inflation” has been causing “severe financial pressures” for the rest of us…

Scorching-hot inflation has created severe financial pressures for most U.S. households, which are forced to pay more for everyday necessities like food and rent. The burden is disproportionately borne by low-income Americans, whose already-stretched paychecks are heavily affected by price fluctuations.

The latest inflation numbers just came out, and we are being told that the annual rate of inflation has gone up to 3.2 percent.

But if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the annual rate of inflation would be well into double digits right now.

The cost of living is rising much faster than our paychecks are, and we want you to do something.

It is even becoming a lot more expensive to watch television. In less than two years, the cost of a Disney+ subscription has gone up by 75 percent…

The Disney+ streaming service lost 300,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada in the most recent quarter — an ominous sign for the studio as it continues to pour billions of dollars into new streaming content that is flopping with viewers.

To make matters worse for its fans, the Walt Disney Company is hiking Disney+’s monthly subscription price to $13.99 from $10.99 — a 27 percent increase. Last year, the price rose to $10.99 from $7.99, which means Disney+ subscribers will see their monthly bill climb a total of 75 percent in less than two years.

U.S. households are being squeezed financially like never before, and most of them are just barely scraping by from month to month…

And right now, only 46 percent of Americans say they could cover an unexpected $400 bill without taking on debt.

That’s not to mention that a majority are living paycheck to paycheck.

Credit card debt tops $1 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.

And, in the second quarter of 2023, 36 percent more people drained their retirement accounts to make ends meets, compared to the same period last year, according to Bank of America’s analysis of its clients’ employee benefits programs.

And in recent months large companies all over America have started to conduct mass layoffs.

In fact, the number of job cuts in 2023 has already exceeded the total for all of last year.

Sadly, our problems appear to be accelerating. Last week, the number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment benefits shot up to 248,000. That was an increase of 21,000 from the week before.

Meanwhile, the housing bubble is bursting thanks to the Federal Reserve’s relentless rate hikes.

The average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage is now hovering around the 7 percent level, and this is keeping millions of potential buyers on the sidelines…

The 7%+ mortgages are doing their magic on the housing market as they keep buyers out of the market, and home sales sagged further in late July and August, from already dismal levels, as indicated by weekly applications for mortgages to purchase a home.

The average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming balances jumped to 7.09%, from 6.93% in the prior reporting week, the third highest since January 2002, with only two weeks last November having been marginally higher than this reporting week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association today.

So what are you going to do Joe?

Do you have a way to pull us out of this mess?

Of course if you actually had a plan to save the economy you would have implemented it already.

There is no hope for our short-term economic future. Economic activity is steadily slowing down all over the nation, the U.S. consumer is reaching a breaking point, and it appears that a recession is rapidly approaching.

And if we stay on the path that we are currently on, the long-term outlook is far worse.

Bidenomics has been a complete and utter failure, and current economic conditions are starting to eerily resemble what we went through in 2008 and 2009.

It would be wonderful if you would take responsibility for your part in creating this giant mess, but I am sure that you will continue to insist that all of our problems are somebody else’s fault.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Food Prices Are Crazy High Now, But They Will Soon Go A Lot Higher

August 9, 2023August 9, 2023 by Michael

Over the past few years, we have seen food prices in the United States and other wealthy countries do things that they have never done before. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. Global food supplies are getting tighter, and meanwhile global demand for food just continues to increase. For decades, many among the elite were optimistic that someday we would be able to eliminate global hunger completely because tremendous progress was being made. But then right around 2015 things started to reverse, and now the trend is very much going in the wrong direction. According to the United Nations, 2.4 billion people did not have enough food to eat last year, and 900 million of them were facing severe food insecurity. Those numbers will almost certainly go even higher this year, because it is getting more difficult for poor countries to get the food that they need to feed their populations.

For example, just consider what is happening to rice prices.

Rice is a core staple for billions of people around the globe, and India is the most important exporter of rice by a very wide margin…

More than half of the rice imports in around 42 countries originate from India, and in many African nations, India’s market share in rice imports surpasses 80%, according to Ifpri.

In top consuming countries in Asia – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, for example – the share of rice consumption in total calorie intake a day ranges from 40% to 67%.

Now that India has severely restricted rice exports, what are those nations going to do?

According to the BBC, India’s export ban “has sparked worries about runaway global rice prices”…

Indica white rice dominates around 70% of the global trade, and India has now ceased its export. This comes on top of the country’s ban last year of exports of broken rice and a 20% duty on non-basmati rice exports.

Not surprisingly, July’s export ban has sparked worries about runaway global rice prices.

Sadly, this is already starting to happen.

In fact, the price of Thai white rice is already “up over 50% since the start of 2022”…

On Wednesday, the Thai Rice Exporters Association revealed that the price of Thai white rice 5% broken, a key Asian benchmark, reached the highest level since Great Financial Crisis. This surge is mainly attributed to increasing fears of a global shortage due to the damaging effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon on Asian farmlands and India’s recent decision to restrict certain rice exports.

Thai white rice 5% broken hit $648 per ton this week, the highest level since October 2008. Prices are up over 50% since the start of 2022.

Of course it isn’t just the price of rice that is rising.

Here in the United States, just about everything in our grocery stores is becoming a lot more expensive…

Americans are noticing a lot of sold-out notes on Costco shelves in the past few weeks. Shortages of household supplies and basic grocery items seem to be rapidly spreading across Costco warehouses. However, most of the complaints have been published by shoppers that just can’t believe the price hikes they’re seeing at their local stores. One major example of this was the 250% increase in the price of 40-packs of Kirkland-branded water bottles. One Redditor reported that the bulk buy, which cost $1.44 as recently as a year ago, now costs $4.99.

“Yeah that used to be the case at the beginning of the year, just checked yesterday, and $4.99, ridiculous,” user u/ghx16 wrote.

User jasonsparks19 said that crab legs have more than doubled in price over the past year: “King crab legs went from $23/lb to $48/lb.”

That’s a 110% increase. It has been difficult for shoppers to find chicken nuggets in stock at Costco, as they are often sold out in the frozen section due to the high demand. They used to cost $13 for a four-pound bag, but are now going for $19.99, causing some customers to express their displeasure with the price hike on Reddit.

“I saw them today for the first time in a while too. My jaw dropped when I saw the price and I kept walking,” a commenter said.

Have you noticed similar things where you live?

I wish that I could tell you that there will soon be relief, but I can’t do that.

As I regularly discuss on my websites, global food production is being hammered by crisis after crisis right now.

And the food that isn’t being produced in 2023 is food that will not be available on store shelves in 2024.

Here in the western world, that will mean even higher prices, but on the other side of the planet that will mean that even fewer poor people will have enough food to eat.

A global famine has now begun, and in a recent article James Lasher explained that many Americans are feverishly preparing for even harder times ahead…

The price of groceries continues to rise putting millions on edge about the availability of food across the U.S.

Many are bracing for even harder times to hit the country and are preparing, much like Joseph did as a ruler in Egypt before the famine struck.

But if you only listen to the mainstream media, they are making it seem as though nothing is amiss at all.

For example, the following comes from an article that USA Today just posted entitled “Need an afternoon sweet treat? McDonald’s new Peanut Butter Crunch McFlurry is out now”…

If you’ve been able to recover from McDonald’s purple Grimace shakes, the fast-food chain has a new sweet treat available for a limited time.

Just try not to pass out this time for a viral TikTok trend, OK?

The Peanut Butter Crunch McFlurry debuted Wednesday at participating locations nationwide. The dessert is made with vanilla soft serve and blended with crispy cereal mix and chunks of chocolatey peanut butter cookie.

See, everything must be just great if this is front page news!

Amazingly, this is the sort of pablum that passes for “journalism” these days.

They aren’t telling you the truth.

The truth is that we really are facing a historic global food crisis, and in the months and years ahead it is going to get a whole lot worse.

But for now, many in the western world are completely ignoring the millions upon millions of deeply suffering people on the other side of the planet.

Of course ignoring them will not make the problem go away, nor will it do anything about the long-term trends that are making the global food crisis even worse with each passing day.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Is America Doomed?

August 8, 2023 by Michael

Is time running out for America? Throughout human history, great civilizations have risen and fell, and many believe that the U.S. will be no exception. At this point, we have already drifted so far from our core values that our founders would not even be able to recognize the Republic that they once established if they were alive today. Of course most Americans realize that something has gone horribly wrong, but most of them also believe that sending the right people to Washington is the answer. But is that really the solution to what ails us?

According to a brand new Rasmussen poll that was just released, 40 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that Joe Biden must win the next presidential election “or the United States is doomed”…

Per the poll, 40% of likely US voters agree with the statement, “Joe Biden must be re-elected president next year, or the United States is doomed,” which includes 25% who strongly agree. 53% are in disagreement, which includes 43% who strongly disagree.

That is nuts.

Nearly half the country literally believes that our nation is “doomed” if Joe Biden does not win in 2024.

The same poll also found that 45 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that Donald Trump must win the next presidential election “or the United States is doomed”…

45% agree with the statement, “Donald Trump must be re-elected president next year or the United States is doomed,” which includes 26% who strongly agree. 53% disagree, which includes 44% who strongly disagree.

I am assuming that there is no overlap between those two groups.

If that is true, that means that 85 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that our nation is “doomed” if the candidate that they are supporting does not win the next presidential election.

I have never seen numbers like this before.

The stakes in 2024 are incredibly high, and the side that loses is going to be absolutely devastated.

Over the next year there will be endless campaigning as the upcoming election approaches, but meanwhile our society is being ripped to shreds right in front of our eyes.

In Chicago, predators literally roam the streets in their vehicles in the middle of the day looking for someone to attack.

When a suitable target is identified, brutal violence often ensues.

Welcome to Chicago.

Mayor Brandon Johnson will claim these criminals are misunderstood youth. pic.twitter.com/1UyTdyLZ2m

— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) August 7, 2023

In the old days, thieves would at least wait until the cover of night to go out and do their thing.

But now there is very little fear of the police.

There are more than 1,000 identifiable gangs in the city of Chicago today, and mafia-style killings have become quite common…

Three suspects shot and killed a man whom they also reportedly hit with a car at a gas station in Chicago in a brazen daytime shooting.

A small memorial was left by family members for 31-year-old Anton Benoit after he was shot and killed in a gang-style shooting at a Shell gas station in Chatham, a neighborhood in Chicago. Chatham is located on the south side and has a population of approximately 32,000.

I don’t want to just pick on Chicago, and so let’s talk about major cities on the west coast for a bit.

This week, a video posted by a San Francisco woman named Hanna Ayla went viral, because it accurately conveyed emotions that so many other San Francisco residents are feeling right now…

“I was just getting groceries and I live in San Francisco, and I never really feel fully safe. If you live in San Francisco, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. And I just got groceries, I’m walking out of the store, and this guy is walking past me and says, ‘Move you stupid b****,’ and he spits in my face!” she said.

“Spits all over my face,” she repeats.

“And I say, ‘Excuse me, did you just spit in my face?’ And he says, ‘Move or I’ll rape you.’ There’s also people everywhere and everyone’s just walking by because they’re like, I can’t handle something else in San Francisco, it’s always something else!” Ayla continued.

“I don’t even know why I’m posting this,” she concluded. “If you live in San Francisco, do you feel this way all the time? I don’t feel safe. Ever. I literally never feel safe. It’s better when it’s daytime, but nighttime? No. Not leaving my house.”

This is what it’s like living in blue cities. And if you voted for this, you get what you vote for. pic.twitter.com/RRbxumet5N

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 7, 2023

I don’t think that anyone that lives in San Francisco truly feels safe at this point.

Crime is completely out of control, but many would argue that conditions in Oakland are even worse.

In fact, a 48-year-old woman that has lived there her entire life says that she is being forced to move because she has become “too scared” to go outside of her own home…

>A lifelong Oakland resident has made the heartbreaking decision to move out of the city after soaring crime rates left her ‘too scared’ to go outside.

Kristin Cook, 48, spoke for many in Oakland as she sobbed: ‘I can’t take it anymore. I got to the point I was too scared to leave my house.’

‘The fact that I am being pushed out because I emotionally can’t take it anymore is horrible,’ she added.

Burglary rates in the city are 41 percent up on last year and robberies have increased more than 20 percent, according to police data. Rape offenses are also up 12 percent.

Our cities have degenerated into crime-ridden hellholes, and our country does not have a future if we stay on this path.

But instead of working to fix our cities, Joe Biden continues to send giant mountains of money overseas.

For example, it is being reported that Biden has actually given more than two billion dollars to the Taliban during the past two years…

A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) notes that the Biden administration has given $2.35 billion to Afghanistan over the past two years, despite the fact that it is now ruled by the Taliban again following the disastrous U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

The Washington Free Beacon shared details of the findings Tuesday, noting that the funds could be propping up the Taliban’s terrorist government.

Of course two billion dollars is just a drop in the bucket compared to what Biden has given to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, our own country is in absolutely horrible shape.

I write a lot about our rapidly growing economic problems, but the moral decay that is eating away at the foundations of our culture is an even bigger crisis.

We can see this moral decay in major cities from coast to coast, and we can also see it in rural areas. Here is just one example…

A woman in Texas has been placed under arrest after dozens of dead horses and dogs were discovered at a ranch reportedly under her control.

Animal cruelty had been suspected at a ranch in Westminster, Texas, about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, for some time. Dating back to 2019, police had received reports of alleged animal cruelty at the property at least 15 times.

Recently, police had received yet another report regarding animal maltreatment. Landscapers who had been doing work at the ranch called authorities to claim that they had seen the decaying remains of several animals.

Reading that probably made you very angry.

And it should.

If the police had taken previous reports of animal cruelty seriously, a lot of those deaths could have been prevented.

But it isn’t just a few crazed nuts like that woman that are our problem.

The truth is that our entire society is deeply sick. It is being reported that Pornhub is visited 115 million times a day, and many of those visitors are young adults and children…

Pornhub, the YouTube of pornography, gets more global users than Amazon or Netflix. In 2019, the last year Pornhub released its data, the site was visited 42 billion times, or 115 million times each day.

To put those numbers in perspective, there are only 331 million people living in the United States.

And please keep in mind that we are just talking about one website. There are thousands of other websites that are also preying on our young people.

I get extremely passionate about these issues, because the future of our country is literally hanging in the balance.

For decades, extreme leftists have been rapidly advancing their agenda, and that has brought us to where we are today.

Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, and if we don’t find a way to turn things around America really is doomed.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

7 Trends Which Indicate That Economic Disaster Is Approaching Very Rapidly

August 6, 2023August 6, 2023 by Michael

The economic meltdown that is coming should not be a surprise to anyone. Throughout U.S. history, there have always been signs that a major downturn was coming, and that is precisely what we are witnessing right now. Tax revenues are way down, demand for trucking services is way down, demand for cardboard boxes is way down, the money supply is shrinking at the fastest pace in modern history, and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has already declined for 15 months in a row. At this point, anyone that cannot see what is coming has got to be willingly blind. The following are 7 trends which indicate that economic disaster is approaching very rapidly…

#1 When economic activity slows down, less tax revenue comes in. Right now, federal government and state government tax revenues are declining precipitously…

US state and local governments just experienced the worst decline in income tax revenues ever recorded.

This was the second steepest year-over-year percentage decline in history, with only the GFC having a worse outcome.

Note that Federal tax receipts are also dropped again, now at recessionary levels and approaching -10% on a YoY basis.

#2 When the economy slows down, trucking companies see less demand for their services. So it is deeply alarming that truck freight volume and spending absolutely plummeted during the second quarter…

Truck freight volume and spending in the second quarter of 2023 declined by the highest levels since the early days of the pandemic, the latest U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index revealed. Spending by shippers dropped 10.9% compared to the second quarter of 2022 while shipment volume dropped 9%, according to a statement from the Minneapolis-based bank.

#3 Employment is supposed to be the “bright spot” for the economy, but the latest employment report shows that the U.S. actually lost 585,000 full-time jobs last month…

Well, one look at this month’s adjustment and it’s literally a shocker: you will not hear anyone from the Biden admin or associated economist cheerleaders mention this, but the BLS reported that in July the number of full-time jobs plunged by 585,000 to 134.274 million, the biggest monthly drop since record covid crash of 14.7 million jobs!

#4 U.S. employers have already announced more job cuts this year than they did in all of 2022, and the hits just keep on coming…

CVS Health said Monday it is cutting approximately 5,000 jobs to focus more on healthcare services for its customers.

The move, which is supposed to help the company save money, will affect workers primarily in corporate jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

#5 Thanks to rapidly rising interest rates, monthly costs for new homebuyers are almost 20 percent higher than they were a year ago. This is absolutely crushing the housing market…

The monthly cost for a potential homebuyer has surged nearly 20% compared with a year ago as prices remain elevated, according to new data.

During the four-week period ending July 30, the monthly mortgage payment for the typical U.S. homebuyer sat at $2,605, 19% higher than the same period a year earlier, according to Redfin.

#6 The fact that delinquency rates for commercial real estate mortgages are skyrocketing is yet another sign that we are in the early stages of the worst commercial real estate crisis in all of U.S. history…

The delinquency rate of commercial real estate mortgages on office properties that had been securitized into Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) spiked to 5.0% by loan balance in July, up from a delinquency rate of 2.8% in April, having now spiked by 2.2 percentage points in three months, by far the biggest three-month spike in the data going back to 2000, and by 3.4 percentage points so far this year, by far the biggest seven-month spike, according to Trepp, which tracks and analyzes CMBS.

#7 The share of the U.S. population that cannot even afford “a $400 emergency expense” just continues to go up…

“The share of U.S. adults who said they would cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or equivalents dropped by 2 percentage points from the previous quarter to 46%, highlighting how cash-strapped many Americans are despite the recent decrease in headline inflation,” according to the survey developed by Bloomberg and conducted by intelligence company Morning Consult.

But Joe Biden and his defenders continue to insist that everything is just fine.

In fact, Joy Behar is quite certain that “the economy is booming” right now…

Leftist Joy Behar — who reportedly earns $7 million annually as a co-host on “The View” — said on Friday’s program that “the economy is booming” and “people are having an easier time putting bread on the table” in a passionate defense of President Joe Biden.

For those that are making millions of dollars a year, I am sure that everything must seem great.

But for the rest of us, things are tough.

Meanwhile, our banks continue to experience really weird “technical glitches”. For example, in recent days many Wells Fargo customers have been greatly upset about money disappearing from their accounts…

On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, users complained about their disappearing funds. One bank customer said they saw the news about the problem right as they noticed their deposits weren’t in their account.

“Right before this popped up in the news I saw that my deposits weren’t in my account,” their tweet read. “I was trying to pay bills and none would go through. This is so unacceptable.”

The company responded in a statement to CNN that a “limited amount” of their customers are experiencing the disappearing deposits. They said most of them were “resolved” and that they would fix the problem soon.

This is another example which shows why it is wise to never keep all of your eggs in one basket.

Our financial institutions are far more vulnerable than most people realize, and the cyberattacks that we have seen so far are just a small preview of what is coming.

Unfortunately, most Americans don’t understand any of the things that I have discussed in this article.

Most Americans are simply trusting that our leaders have everything under control, and so they will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed when they finally realize the truth.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Great Evil Is Roaming The Streets Of America

August 3, 2023August 3, 2023 by Michael

America’s societal decline appears to be accelerating. Hordes of predators are roaming our streets, drug addiction has risen to unprecedented levels, and crime is completely out of control. Some of the things that I am about to share with you are deeply disturbing. But we must face what is happening to us as a society, because we are in danger of losing everything. America is literally disappearing right in front of our eyes, and it is being replaced by a horror show.

Sadly, I am not exaggerating one bit.

A 29-year-old man named Negasi Zuberi recently kidnapped a woman in Seattle and took her 450 miles away to his house in southern Oregon…

A Klamath Falls man is in custody after a woman escaped from a makeshift cinder block cell in his garage, the FBI of Portland says.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation 29-year-old, Negasi Zuberi (aka Sakima, Justin Hyche and Justin Kouassi), traveled from his home in Klamath Falls to Seattle on July 15. Once in Seattle, Zuberi posed as an undercover police officer and paid the woman for sex.

The victim told police that Zuberi pointed a taser at her, put her in handcuffs and leg irons before putting her in the back of his car.

This literally sounds like a plot from a horror movie.

Once they arrived at his house, Zuberi put her into a “cinderblock cell” that he had already constructed…

“According to the complaint, this woman was kidnapped, chained, sexually assaulted, and locked in a cinderblock cell. Police say, she beat the door with her hands until they were bloody in order to break free. Her quick thinking and will to survive may have saved other women from a similar nightmare,” says Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Stephanie Shark with the FBI Portland Field Office.

The victim was eventually able to break down the door to the cell when Zuberi was away, took a gun from his car and escaped the home. She then was able to flag down a passing driver who called 911.

Obviously Zuberi had all of this well planned out in advance.

And the victim should be so glad that she escaped, because otherwise she probably would have ended up dead after Zuberi was finished with her.

Decades ago, this sort of story would have been front page news for weeks.

So why hasn’t this case gotten more attention from our national news networks?

It is because cases like this have become extremely common in our day and age.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are 917,771 registered sex offenders in the United States and its territories.

As I stated earlier, hordes of predators are roaming our streets, and it gets worse with each passing year.

The FBI recently took a break from persecuting conservatives to conduct a two week effort known as “Operation Cross Country”, and they were able to arrest quite a few predators that were involved in child sex trafficking…

Known as “Operation Cross Country,” nearly every FBI field office was involved in the annual two-week operation that led to the arrest of 126 suspects of child sexual exploitation and human trafficking offenses, and 68 suspects of trafficking were identified or arrested.

The bureau and its local partners found 59 minor victims of child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and another 59 children who had been reported missing.

“Human traffickers prey on the most vulnerable members of our society, and their crimes scar victims — many of them children — for life. The FBI’s commitment to combatting this threat will never waver, and we will continue to send our message that these atrocities will not be tolerated,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

I suppose that we should be thankful for what the FBI was able to accomplish, but why can’t they be working on this all year long?

And the truth is that they only put an extremely small dent in the overall problem.

Much more work needs to be done.

Meanwhile, other forms of crime also continue to rise.

On Sunday evening, hundreds of young people in Chicago went on an extremely alarming looting rampage…

A large group of young people, mostly juveniles, ripped through the South Loop on Sunday evening, looting a convenience store, storming a Dunkin, and fighting as they ran through the streets. It was the second time in days that groups of teens targeted the area along Roosevelt Road.

Chicago police supervisors, in a departure from previous “large group” situations, encouraged cops to lock people up. They did. A total of 40 people, including 37 juveniles were taken into custody during the incident, according to a CPD spokesperson. Officers seized three firearms from the arrestees.

At this point, I don’t understand why anyone would still want to live in the Windy City.

Of course the same could be said for Oakland. According to Newsweek, the city is facing a major crime emergency right now…

Oakland—a liberal stronghold that has a Democratic mayor, state senator and U.S. congresswoman—recorded a 52 percent increase in motor vehicle theft in the year to July 30.

The OPD data, provided to Newsweek by the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, also includes a 44 percent rise in robberies involving a knife and a 22 percent increase for robberies of any kind.

Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, told Newsweek: “The public safety situation in Oakland, fueled by rising crime and a revolving door justice system, is exacerbated by too few cops struggling to keep up with the surge in criminal activity and increased calls for help from our residents.”

All over America, theft has become an enormous problem.

It is being projected that theft will cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars in 2023, and many are responding by literally “locking up items”…

Running errands isn’t as easy as it used to be. Businesses have been reducing operating hours, locking up items and threatening to shutter stores completely.

The reason for many of these shifts, according to retailers? A spike in theft.

Companies like Target, Walmart, Dollar General and Home Depot have been sounding the alarm on retail theft in recent months. Missing inventory was talked about more during this previous quarter’s earnings call than any quarter on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

But apparently our politicians have decided that the chaos in our streets is not yet bad enough, because they continue to leave our borders wide open and they continue to bring in vast hordes of new migrants.

In New York City, there are so many new migrants that authorities have literally run out of places to put them…

Sobering video shows dozens of migrants sleeping on cardboard outside the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Monday morning — as the makeshift processing center for asylum seekers hit capacity this weekend.

The slumbering newly arrived migrants could be seen filling the sidewalks surrounding the historic hotel at 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, stretching from the hotel door up East 47th Street.

The group slept shoulder-to-shoulder across three full blocks while waiting to be processed at the site, which also houses migrant families, as NYPD officers monitored the situation.

Of course more new migrants continue to arrive with each passing day.

In a desperate attempt to address this crisis, city leaders are actually thinking about turning Central Park and Prospect Park into giant migrant camps…

The Depression-era shantytowns known as Hoovervilles, are about to make a triumphal return smack in the middle of New York’s Central Park.

Amid a relentless influx of illegal immigrants that has exposed liberal NIMBY hypocrisy in the quote-unquote Sanctuary City that is New York, Bloomberg reports that officials are considering housing migrants in Manhattan’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park as part of a plan to find new sites for some of the more than 95,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in the past 15 months.

We already have millions of deeply impoverished people that are extremely angry, and now we are bringing lots more in.

This isn’t going to end well.

During the years ahead, there is going to be widespread violence and civil unrest in this country.

But this didn’t have to happen.

If our leaders had made different decisions, we would have gotten different results.

Unfortunately, our leaders just continue to make self-destructive decision after self-destructive decision, and we are all going to pay a very great price for their unwise policies.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

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