Money

Even though central banks all over the world have been raising interest rates in recent months, food prices just continue to go up.  There are a couple of reasons why this is happening.  First of all, demand for food is very inelastic.  In other words, no matter how high or how low prices go, people are still going to need to eat.  So even if the Federal Reserve sent interest rates into the stratosphere, people would still need to go the supermarket to get food for themselves and their families.  Secondly, we are facing some severe long-term supply problems.  As I have detailed in previous articles, food production is being significantly hindered in a number of different ways, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.  There simply is not enough food to feed everyone on the planet, and supplies are only going to get tighter in the months and years ahead.  No matter what central banks do, this is going to push food prices steadily higher.

But even though higher interest rates haven’t had much of an impact on food prices, we knew that they would dramatically affect western economies in many other ways.  Economic activity is starting to dry up all over the western world, and as I discussed the other day, Europe has already plunged into a recession.

In addition, higher interest rates have burst the global housing bubble, and here in the United States we have entered what will ultimately become the greatest commercial real estate crisis in our entire history.

On top of everything else, hundreds of small and mid-size banks are now struggling to survive because higher rates have blown giant black holes in their balance sheets.

After seeing all the damage that they have caused, officials at the Federal Reserve finally decided to “pause” their interest rate hiking campaign on Wednesday…

Federal Reserve policymakers left the central bank’s benchmark interest rate unchanged despite inflation that has run above its target for over two years, saying the pause would allow it to gauge the effects of earlier hikes on the economy.

The Fed said on Wednesday that it would hold its benchmark rate at a range of five percent to 5.25 percent, the range it set at its May meeting and the highest since the Fed cut rates at the summer of 2007. At the same time, the Fed signaled that it expects to hike at least two more times this year.

If they had any sense, they would start cutting rates.

But that probably won’t happen for a while.

The good news is that higher rates have crushed economic activity enough that the overall rate of inflation has started to come down…

Overall, consumer prices increased 4% from a year earlier, down from 4.9% in April and a 40-year high of 9.1% last June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index.

Of course you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.

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

And when you look at core CPI, it has “barely budged” over the past year…

And when you dig into core CPI, the news isn’t nearly so good. In fact, it’s downright bad.

Core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, rose 0.4% month-on-month. On an annual basis, core CPI rose by 5.3%.

To put that number into perspective, the core CPI increase in May 2022 was 6%. That means the increase in core CPI has barely budged.

That is very troubling.

And what is even more troubling is the fact that food prices in the U.S. just continue to go up…

But what the data also revealed is that food prices continue to increase. According to the new government data, food at home prices went up 5.8% for the year ending in May. For food away from home, prices have jumped 8.3%.

Once again, it is important to remember that the way inflation is calculated has changed dramatically over the decades.

If food inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, those numbers would be way into the double digits.

And even with all of the massaging that they do to the numbers these days, there are certain categories of food where the official numbers that we have been given actually show double digit inflation on a yearly basis…

Frozen vegetables (18.7%)

Frozen drinks (15.8%)

Bread (12.5%)

Fats and oils (11.8%)

Candy (11.6%)

Cakes, cookies and cupcakes (11%)

Baby food and formula (10.1)

The cost of living has been escalating much faster than our paychecks have, and this is putting enormous financial stress on American families.

Thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, more U.S. adults than ever are being forced to find a “side hustle”…

As many as two in five adults in the U.S. have a side hustle, according to a recent Bankrate survey of 2,500-plus adults, backing up LendingTree data from earlier this year that found side gigs are up by 13% over the past two years and recent Deloitte data that found more millennials and Gen Zers are adding on part-time jobs. Younger workers are more likely to need an extra job: 53% of Gen Zers and half of millennials have one, Bankrate finds, compared to only 40% of Gen Xers and 24% of baby boomers.

It’s a reflection of the state of the economy, which has left many Americans—even those earning six figures—feeling like they’re living paycheck to paycheck. At the end of the day, side hustles have become a necessity for many who are struggling to compete with the pace of inflation and trying to save amid recession fears.

And food inflation is also one of the reasons why demand at food banks around the nation has been absolutely exploding in recent months.

For example, just check out what is happening in one area of Oklahoma…

Food banks across Green Country are seeing a spike in the number of people using their services.

Two issues are at play: it’s more expensive to make ends meet because of inflation and emergency SNAP benefits are ending.

Just since March, the food bank said there’s been a 50-percent increase in people who need help.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just happening in the United States.

In fact, food inflation is a much bigger problem over in Europe right now…

Whether in Spain, Hungary, or Italy, food prices keep rising in Europe even as inflation relents. Food inflation reached a historic peak in March, up 19.2% over the previous year, and fell to 12.5% in May. Governments across the continent are trying to come up with solutions: Spain waived its 5% tax on food products, France reached a three-month pricing agreement with supermarkets, and Croatia mandated price controls.

But the interventions don’t seem to be sufficient, and even staples or typical products are affected. In Italy, the price of pasta has surged by 14% in the past year, twice as much as overall inflation, and the nation’s tables are paying a steep price for higher energy costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with the resulting wheat shortages.

All over the world, food prices are moving up faster than wages are.

And the outlook for global food production in 2023 is not promising.

Sadly, this is just the very beginning of this crisis.  In my latest book I spend several chapters detailing a number of nightmarish long-term trends that are going to absolutely crush global food production during the years to come.

No matter what our leaders do now, global famine is inevitable.

We aren’t able to feed everyone in the world right now, and global food supplies are only going to get tighter.

But most people don’t understand the long-term trends that we are facing.

Most people just assume that the “bumps in the road” that we are currently facing are just temporary and that everything will be “just fine” in the long run.

Don’t be one of those people.

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.

What is going to happen to our banking system as trillions of dollars worth of commercial real estate loans go bad?  Many months ago, I warned that the greatest commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history was coming.  At the time, a lot of people didn’t believe me and that was fine.  As with so many other things, all I needed to do to be proven right was to wait.  Sadly, a commercial real estate tsunami is now here, and it appears to be accelerating even faster than many of the experts had been anticipating.  Just within the past few weeks, there have been several more high profile defaults, and San Francisco has become the epicenter of this crisis.

On Monday, we learned that Westfield has decided to purposely default on a 558 million dollar loan on the San Francisco Centre mall…

Shopping center giant Westfield is walking away from its San Francisco Centre mall, becoming the latest major company to leave the California city amid rampant crime problems.

Westfield confirmed to FOX Business Monday that the company and partner Brookfield Properties earlier this month stopped making payments on a $558 million loan securing the San Francisco Centre property.

Do you remember in 2008 when millions of Americans that were underwater on their mortgages simply walked away from them?

Well, now the same thing is happening, except that instead of homes we are talking about shopping malls and office buildings.

The San Francisco Centre mall was the most important retail destination in downtown San Francisco.

But sales have been declining for some time, and just like Park Hotels & Resorts, Westfield is identifying rapidly deteriorating conditions in the downtown area as one of the primary reasons for leaving the city…

“Given the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender to allow them to appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward.”

Westfield’s move comes less than a week after Park Hotels & Resorts announced it had handed two prominent hotels back to the bank. The real estate investment trust said it was abandoning the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55, saying the city’s streets are unsafe and expressing doubts about the area’s ability to recover.

San Francisco was once such a beautiful city.

But now one of the wealthiest cities in the entire world is being systematically transformed into a hellhole, and it is all thanks to the “progressive” policies of the city’s leaders…

Westfield’s struggles will pile fresh pressure on city leaders, after multiple retailers and hotels shuttered in downtown San Francisco as it continues to battle soaring crime, open drug use and homelessness.

The famously progressive city has been condemned for its ‘harm reduction’ policies, which critics say have effectively legalized drug taking. Meanwhile, its police department remains short-staffed after woke lawmakers called for defunding in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

Even Twitter has decided to walk away.

The company has not been paying rent on “Twitter headquarters” for months, and Elon Musk has confirmed that there is no plan to ever restart payments…

Twitter ceased paying its rent in November, the report says, and CEO Elon Musk has said he doesn’t intend on restarting payments. Those payments would go to Columbia Property, a REIT that Goldman has lent $1.7 billion to, in a consortium with (of course) Deutsche Bank.

Sadly, this is only just the beginning.

As retailers and businesses leave the downtown areas of our major cities, a lot more defaults will inevitably happen.

In New York City, the office occupancy rate was close to 100 percent before the pandemic.

Now it is hovering around 50 percent.

Of course this commercial real estate tsunami is not the only crisis that we are facing.

The residential real estate bubble has also started to burst, and sales have been falling all over the nation for months.

Higher interest rates will continue to put downward pressure on home prices, and many analysts are extremely concerned that foreclosure filings have begun to surge…

May foreclosure-related filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were up 7% from April and up 14% from a year ago, to 35,196 properties, according to the real estate data group ATTOM.

Meanwhile, large companies all over America continue to conduct mass layoffs.

As I discussed in a previous article, the number of announced job cuts in the United States during the first five months of this year was 315 percent higher than the number of announced job cuts during the same period last year.

And we are being told that the number of media industry layoffs so far this year is the largest figure ever recorded…

The media industry has announced at least 17,436 job cuts so far this year, marking the highest year-to-date level of cuts on record, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Despite everything that I just shared with you, many of the “experts” in the mainstream media continue to insist that the economy is in fine shape.

I honestly do not know how they can say that with a straight face.

But they are saying it.

Just like in 2008, they simply do not want to believe what is happening right in front of their eyes, and they aren’t interested in ominous warnings about our long-term future either.

In the short-term, our economic problems are going to continue to intensify in the months ahead.

In the long-term, we are going to have a real nightmare on our hands.

But for now, millions upon millions of Americans continue to trust those that are telling them that brighter days are ahead, and so they are doing nothing to prepare for the great storm that is rapidly approaching.

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.

America was once a country that built stuff.  Previous generations of Americans constructed the greatest highways, bridges, railroads, ports, dams and water systems that anyone had ever seen.  Magnificent new mega-cities were erected from coast to coast, and the rest of the world looked at us with envy.  Ultimately, the keys to all of this infrastructure were handed down to us, and we have really messed things up.  We don’t actually build much of anything these days.  In fact, we can’t even maintain the infrastructure that we have been given.  As a society we have become extremely lazy and extremely incompetent, and so the great civilization that our forefathers built for us is now crumbling right in front of our eyes.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America’s infrastructure a grade every few years, and the last time they issued a report we were given a C-…

In its latest Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the United States a C- , citing its crumbling public roads, ageing bridges, and deteriorating water mains.

Personally, I believe that a C- grade is extremely generous.

After what we have witnessed in recent months, I am entirely convinced that we deserve an F grade when the next report is released in 2025.

America is literally falling apart all around us, and a few years ago the Volcker Alliance estimated that there is a one trillion dollar backlog of repairs that desperately need to be done…

The United States is consistently falling short on funding infrastructure maintenance. A report by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker’s Volcker Alliance in 2019 estimated the U.S. has a US$1 trillion backlog of needed repairs.

Over 220,000 bridges across the country—about 33% of the total—require rehabilitation or replacement.

A water main break now occurs somewhere in the U.S. every two minutes, and an estimated 6 million gallons of treated water are lost each day. This is happening at the same time the western United States is implementing water restrictions amid the driest 20-year span in 1,200 years. Similarly, drinking water distribution in the United States relies on over 2 million miles of pipes that have limited life spans.

In 2022, 60 Minutes did a major report about our crumbling infrastructure, and a dilapidated section of I-95 that runs right through Philadelphia was specifically featured during that show…

In Philadelphia, Kroft reported on a highly trafficked section of I-95 in need of repair. Those improvements are now underway and scheduled to continue until at least 2028.

The unmistakable orange construction signs along I-95 will soon appear on roads around the U.S. Philadelphia’s I-95 corridor is only a small portion of the 43% of U.S. roads that the 2021 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers said needs to be fixed.

Sure enough, the repairs never got done, and a portion of the highway completely collapsed on Sunday…

Human remains have been found in the wreckage of the Interstate 95 collapse in Philadelphia.

Part of the major US highway, which extends from the Maine-Canada border south to Miami, Florida, collapsed on Sunday after a tanker truck carrying an estimated 8,500 gallons of fuel caught fire.

Approximately 150,000 vehicles would normally travel through there every day, but now traffic patterns have been thrown into a state of chaos and we are being told that it is going to take months to make the highway operational again…

I-95 is going to take months to repair, sparking chaos on the major interstate that funnels 150,000 vehicles across the East Coast every day, officials have warned.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro last night said the highway was going to take ‘some months’ before it is running smoothly again following the overpass collapse.

Of course if this happened in China, the Chinese would probably have the road opened up again in a matter of days.

They know how to do infrastructure.

We don’t.

So now thousands upon thousands of trucks will have to find new routes, and this will cause significant supply chain headaches for the foreseeable future.

Our railroads are falling apart as well, and this has had disastrous consequences.

We all saw what happened in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Last year, there were more than 1,000 train derailments in the United States.  When you break that down, it comes out to an average of about three a day…

There were at least 1,164 train derailments across the country last year, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration. That means the country is averaging roughly three derailments per day.

I am certainly not eager to hop on a train any time soon.

Are you?

Of course I am not particularly eager to jump on a plane either.

At this point, our airports are about 40 years old on average, and they desperately need billions upon billions of dollars worth of repairs and improvements…

In the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, U.S airports earned a D+ for both condition and needs. It’s estimated that they will need $115.4 billion over the next five years to address these infrastructure challenges.

Roughly half of all planned airport projects between 2021 and 2025 are terminal-related. At many airports, building upgrades are needed to increase the number of gates and accommodate larger jet aircraft. Flexible and automated baggage handling systems, dynamic wayfinding, and queue management systems projects are needed to ease crowding and improve circulation.

It is frankly embarrassing to compare our run down airports to the shiny new airports that are going up in Asia and in Europe.

But this is our country now.  We are a run down people that live in a run down society that is literally crumbling all around us.

The truth is that the United States has been an empire in decline for decades, and the outlook for the future is extremely bleak if we stay on the road that we are currently on.

Sadly, many people don’t care for such warnings.

Most of them are just going to keep partying for as long as they can, and a lot of them will never realize what is happening until it is far too late to do anything about it.

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.

A lot of the “experts” have been telling us that economic conditions are likely to really start deteriorating later in the year, but here we are in June and the economy is beginning to unravel a lot quicker than most of them had anticipated.  The housing bubble is imploding, existing home sales are plunging all over the nation, foreclosures are surging, manufacturing numbers have fallen into contraction territory and jobless claims are rising.  We are building up a tremendous amount of momentum in the wrong direction, and just about everyone agrees that the outlook for the remainder of 2023 is not promising.  So if things are this bad now, what will they look like in six months?

For a long time, the U.S. economy was “remarkably resilient”, but now things have started to change in a major way.

The following are 11 signs that our economic problems are accelerating a lot faster than most people were anticipating…

#1 We just learned that foreclosure-related filings were up 14 percent last month compared to the same period a year ago…

As the cost of living in the U.S. continues to climb, foreclosures are also on the rise.

May foreclosure-related filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were up 7% from April and up 14% from a year ago, to 35,196 properties, according to the real estate data group ATTOM.

#2 We are being warned that foreclosure filings are on an “upward trajectory” which suggests “heightened activity” in the months ahead…

“The recent increase in foreclosure filings nationwide indicates a trend that has been observed throughout the year, and what we have expected to occur,” Rob Barber, ATTOM’s CEO, said in a statement. “This upward trajectory suggests the possibility of continued heightened activity, and with foreclosure completions seeing the largest monthly increase this year, we will continue to monitor the potential impacts this may have on the housing market.”

#3 As the housing bubble bursts, sales of existing homes are falling all over the nation.  For example, sales of existing homes in central Indiana have now declined for 16 months in a row…

Sales of existing homes in central Indiana dropped 14.8% in May—the 16th straight month that sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis.

Closed sales of existing homes in the 16-county area in May totaled 2,901, down from 3,406 in the same month of 2022, according to the latest monthly data from the MIBOR Realtor Association.

#4 One recent study found that a whopping 8 million Americans currently live in a household that is behind on paying rent.  Many are just barely surviving from month to month like this single mother that was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times…

Evelyn Arceo holds down a full-time job as a baker at Universal Studios Hollywood, earning $19 an hour. But even when she gets a few hours of overtime at the theme park, the single mother of four can barely afford the rent of her one-bedroom apartment in Panorama City.

On her salary, buying a home is out of the question.

Already, her monthly rent of $1,300 is “just too expensive at this point,” Arceo said, with late fees of $40 to $50 compounding her financial plight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on time on my rent.”

#5 The most epic commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history has begun, and we are being warned that the two massive defaults in San Francisco that recently made headlines all over the world could just be the tip of the iceberg…

News of Park Hotels & Resorts’ plan to surrender ownership of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels is the beginning of what could potentially become a mass exodus of hotels from the city as 30 additional properties are facing massive loans due over the next two years.

The company behind the hotels announced Monday it had stopped making payments on its $725million loan that is due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels.

#6 Major corporate bankruptcies are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2010…

US corporate bankruptcies crept higher in May over the prior month as higher interest rates and a slowing economy are pushing many companies over the edge.

S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 54 corporate bankruptcy filings during May, a slight rise from 52 April. In the first five months of the year, 2023 has recorded more filings than any comparable period since 2010.

#7 Initial jobless claims just rose to their highest level in almost two years…

Initial jobless claims surged last week to 261k (up from 233k prior and well above the 235k exp) – its highest since Oct 2021.

#8 According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, during the first five months of this year the number of announced job cuts was up 315 percent compared to the same five months last year.

#9 U.S. manufacturing has now fallen into contraction territory…

S&P Global data showed that the US manufacturing sector fell into contraction territory in May. A similar survey released by the Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, at a faster pace than in the prior month.

#10 European manufacturing has also dropped into contraction territory…

Among manufacturers in the eurozone, production, new orders and backlogs all fell in May as the sector contracted at a faster pace that month, according to S&P Global figures. The 20-nation currency area’s industrial production fell sharply in March, mostly due to a plunge in Ireland. The indicator measures the output of manufacturers, miners, and utility companies.

#11 It is being reported that new numbers show that the EU “entered a recession in the first quarter of this year”…

The euro zone entered a recession in the first quarter of this year, and economists are not optimistic for the coming months.

The 20-member bloc reported gross domestic product of -0.1% for the first quarter, according to revised estimates from the region’s statistics office, Eurostat, released Thursday.

What I have just shared with you is certainly quite a bit of bad news.

But if I am correct, conditions will continue to deteriorate throughout the rest of this year and into 2024.

We live at such a critical moment in human history, and those that have been waiting for life to “return to normal” can stop waiting.

The pace of change is picking up speed with each passing month, and most of us are simply not prepared for the craziness that is ahead.

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.

Significantly higher food prices are coming, because U.S. food production is going to be way below normal levels this year.  That is really bad news, because food prices are already absurdly high.  In some cases, people are paying as much for a full shopping cart full of food as they did for a used vehicle in the old days.  I wish that I was exaggerating, but I am not.  Unfortunately, food prices are only going to go higher because farmers and ranchers are being hit extremely hard from coast to coast.  For example, it is being reported that wheat farmers in Kansas “will reap their smallest harvest in more than 60 years”…

Kansas has been called the country’s breadbasket. Now, wheat farmers in the state will reap their smallest harvest in more than 60 years.

This will go directly down the chain, from farmers to consumers at the grocery store.

Kansas normally produces more wheat than any other U.S. state by a wide margin.

But now the harvest in that state will be the smallest that we have seen since 1957…

For the last two years, a drought has withered a lot of the crop.

Now, this year’s wheat harvest in Kansas is shaping up to be the smallest since 1957. That year, the Eisenhower administration intentionally suppressed wheat production.

There were 166 million people living in the United States in 1957.

Today, there are 331 million people.

So who is going to volunteer to give up eating wheat this year so that others can consume what they normally do?

At this point, things are so bad that we are being told that flour mills in Kansas “will likely have to buy wheat grown in eastern Europe”…

Kansas flour mills will likely have to buy wheat grown in eastern Europe.

For decades, Kansas has led the nation in wheat production. The U.S. leads the world in in wheat exports, as well.

This is a major problem.

But can’t we all just eat more corn instead?

After all, corn is already in thousands upon thousands of different products that Americans consume on a regular basis.

Well, it turns out that corn production is being greatly affected by drought as well.  The following comes from a Newsweek article entitled “Corn Prices Set to Soar After Midwest Hit by Worst Drought in 30 Years”…

An unusually dry May in the Midwest has raised concerns over this year’s corn crop in the Corn Belt, the region stretching from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio which dominates the country’s corn production.

For a long time I have been warning that Dust Bowl conditions would return to the middle of the country, and now we are here.

Extremely dry conditions are being accompanied by unusually hot temperatures, and this combination is causing all sorts of havoc for corn farmers…

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service recently reported increasingly dry topsoil, poor pasture conditions in Missouri, and limited moisture for newly planted crops.

“We have very high temperatures all the way up through the northern plains of the Midwest, which impacts more than just corn and soybeans—it’s impacting other crops as well,” Curt Covington, senior director of partner relations at AgAmerica, America’s largest nonbank agricultural lender, told Newsweek.

We desperately need rain, and lots of it.

More than a third of all U.S. corn production is in areas that are currently experiencing drought, and the situation is especially dire in the “Corn Belt” states…

According to the US Drought Monitor, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin, often called the “Corn Belt” states, are experiencing “exceptional drought” to “moderate drought.” The timing of the drought, this early in the season, could stress young plants.

Normally, if there is going to be serious drought in the middle of the country we see it later in the year.

So the fact that there is this much drought this early in 2023 is a really bad sign.

Of course it isn’t just wheat and corn farmers that are suffering…

-The size of the U.S. beef cow herd is “the smallest since 1962”.

-The orange harvest in Florida will be approximately 56 percent smaller than last year.

-Thanks to extremely bizarre weather, approximately 90 percent of Georgia’s peach crop for 2023 has been destroyed.

Most Americans don’t realize that things have gotten so bad.

If you do not know how to grow a garden, you might want to learn.

Food prices are already painfully high, and they are only going to go higher.

And this is all happening in the context of the worst global food crisis in modern history.

Hunger has been spreading around the world like wildfire, and Yahoo News is reporting that last year there was “a 33% spike in the number of people facing hunger globally”…

The 2023 Global Report on Food Crises, which published its findings last month, found that last year saw a 33% spike in the number of people facing hunger globally from the previous year, up from 193 million people in 53 countries and territories in 2021. It was also the fourth consecutive year that an increasing number of people experienced Phase 3, or above, food insecurity, which designates their situation as serious, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a tool for improving food security analysis and decision making.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Due to multiple long-term trends which I discuss in my latest book, global famine has become inevitable.

No matter what decisions our leaders make now, they aren’t going to be able to keep global food production from collapsing in the years ahead.

They know this, but they don’t want everyone to freak out.

I would greatly encourage everyone to start becoming less dependent on the system and more self-sufficient.

Global food supplies are going to keep getting tighter and tighter, and once we get to a real crisis point you will want to be able to take care of yourself, your family and those that will be depending on you.

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.

A lot of people have been waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, and now that day has arrived.  Thanks to rapidly rising interest rates and historically low occupancy rates, we are facing an unprecedented commercial real estate crisis.  Borrowers are starting to walk away from commercial real estate properties all over the nation, and that is really bad news for small and mid-size banks because they are holding most of these loans.  Needless to say, a lot of small and mid-size banks are simply not going to be able to survive a nationwide tsunami of commercial real estate defaults.

When U.S. Senator John Kennedy was asked about this growing crisis, he didn’t mince words…

“Am I worried? The short answer is yes,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview. “The long answer is hell yes.”

“I hope the Federal Reserve and the banking regulators are worried as well, and I hope they won’t be caught flat-footed like they were with the bank failures that we’ve had so far,” Kennedy said.

In some cities, commercial real estate values have already declined by more than half.

As borrowers increasingly walk away from bloated mortgages, lenders are going to be facing a balance sheet shock of epic proportions…

As the federal government strives to contain financial market turmoil, the next risk looming over the nation’s banks is in plain sight: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market.

Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates and spiraling office vacancies push down property values.

And because 70 percent of bank-held commercial mortgages sit on the balance sheets of regional and smaller lenders, a write-down in commercial loans could spell big trouble for the financial system and spill over into the larger economy just as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway.

Of course we don’t have to wait for 2024, because many borrowers are already defaulting right now.

For example, Park Hotels and Resorts just announced that it will no longer make payments on “two of San Francisco’s largest hotels”…

The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels has stopped making mortgage payments on the properties and will let them go into foreclosure as historic crime rates continue to deter tourists.

Park Hotels and Resorts announced on Monday that it stopped making payments on its $725 million loan due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 — the largest and fourth-largest hotels in the city, respectively.

Over the past few years the downtown area of San Francisco has rapidly degenerated, and Park Hotels and Resorts alluded to this in their announcement…

‘Now, more than ever we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new’ as the city becomes a ghost town with empty storefronts.

‘Ultimately, the continued burden on our operating results and balance sheet is too significant to warrant continuing to subsidize and own these assets.’

Sadly, countless other businesses have also decided to leave downtown San Francisco on a permanent basis.

In fact, only about half of the retailers that were operating in the Union Square area in 2019 are still open today…

Out of 203 retailers open in 2019 in the city’s Union Square area, just 107 are still operating, a drop of 47 percent in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.

Among the heavy hitters, Brooks Brothers, Ray Ban, Christian Louboutin, Lululemon and Marmot have all packed it in.

In the end, lenders are going to be stuck with a lot of commercial real estate that is now worth far less than it once was.

Even if buyers can be found, the losses in many cases will be absolutely staggering.  Recently, one very important office tower in San Francisco sold for “71% below the original asking price”…

Wells Fargo found a buyer for one of its office towers in San Francisco, the 13-story 355,000-square-foot 1960s-era tower at 550 California, across the street and around the corner from its headquarters tower on Montgomery.

Wells Fargo had purchased the tower in 2005 for $108 million. It is vacating the building. Last year, it listed it for $160 million, but then pulled the listing after receiving bids reportedly below $40 million. Earlier this year, it engaged real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured to relist the tower.

And it has now made a deal – the name of the buyer has not been disclosed – for about $42.6 million to $46 million ($120 to $130 per square foot), according to sources cited by the San Francisco Business Times. That would be 71% below the original asking price and nearly 60% below the purchase price in 2005.

As the U.S. economy slows down even more, this commercial real estate crisis will only intensify.

And of course this is all happening in the context of a global economic slowdown…

The World Bank said Tuesday that global economic growth has slowed sharply in the face of higher interest rates, chronic inflation and continued fallout from the banking crisis.

According to the World Bank, the outlook for the months ahead will be quite bleak as interest rates go even higher…

The threat of higher interest rates, and the possibility of more turmoil in the banking sector following a spate of bank collapses this spring, could slow economic growth even more this year.

“The world economy remains hobbled,” the World Bank said in the report. “Besieged by high inflation, tight global financial markets, and record debt levels, many countries are simply growing poorer.”

We really are in the very early stages of a global economic meltdown.

Inflation is out of control, interest rates are spiking, large companies are conducting mass layoffs, the global housing bubble is bursting, and we are facing a commercial real estate crisis that is unlike anything we have ever experienced before.

And the truth is that our economic problems are only just one element of the “perfect storm” that we are now experiencing.

I am very concerned about what the rest of 2023 will bring.

But I am even more concerned about 2024.

We are truly in unprecedented territory, and nobody is going to come riding to the rescue any time soon.

So buckle up and hold on tight, because we have got a very bumpy ride ahead 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.

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.

There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, but blind optimism can be a very dangerous thing.  The reason why so many of the “experts” were shocked by the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 is because they didn’t want to believe that such a thing could happen.  Unfortunately, we are witnessing a similar pattern now.  Even though we are absolutely drowning in debt, inflation is wildly out of control, our currency is being transformed into toilet paper, the housing market has started to crash and mass layoffs are being conducted all over the nation, a lot of the “experts” continue to insist that everything is going to be just fine.  For example, the following comes from a CNN article entitled “The case for a 2023 US recession is crumbling”…

Many CEOs, investors and economists had penciled in 2023 as the year when a recession would hit the American economy.

The thinking was that the US economy would grind to a halt because the Federal Reserve was effectively slamming the brakes to squash inflation. Businesses would lay off workers and inflation-weary Americans would slash spending.

Umm, I hate to interrupt CNN’s wishful thinking, but the reality is that businesses really are laying off workers.

In fact, the number of job cuts that have been announced through the first five months of this year is 315 percent higher than the number of job cuts that were announced through the first five months of last year.

And more workers are being laid off with each passing day.  Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that Spotify has just decided that yet another round of layoffs has become necessary…

Just a few months after announcing a significant wave of layoffs, Spotify plans to conduct another round of layoffs. This time, the job cuts will affect the podcast division as part of a corporate reorganization. In particular, the company plans to merge Parcast and Gimlet Studios.

In an internal memo, Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s head of the podcast division, announced that the company was making changes that would lead to a workforce reduction of 2%. This change will affect around 200 jobs and those who are impacted have already received an invitation to talk with someone from the HR department.

Just like in 2008 and 2009, a lot of people that are losing their jobs are falling out of the middle class because they don’t have any sort of a cushion to fall back on.

The ranks of the hungry and the homeless are rapidly growing, and this has created an unprecedented crisis in many of our largest cities.

The homeless that are truly destitute tend to live in tents, but those that have at least a little bit of money often live in RVs.  At this point, it is being estimated that over 11,000 homeless people are living in RVs in Los Angeles County alone…

There are, by the latest count, more than 11,000 people living in RVs across Los Angeles County. And that number has been rising. The Covid-19 pandemic forced more people into poverty. Some of the RV dwellers have jobs but either don’t want to pay apartment rent, or can’t afford to pay it, in a city where the average one-bedroom apartment costs around $2,500 a month.

Of course wherever there is a homelessness crisis there is almost always a drug crisis.

Open air drug markets now operate freely in communities all over the country, and there are some cities where drug abuse is so bad that authorities have completely given up on trying to control it.

One of those cities is San Francisco, and as a result real estate prices are falling there much faster than the national average…

The value of residential real estate in crime-ridden San Francisco has dropped significantly in recent years, with prices dropping by around 16.7%. This contrasts with a more moderate decline of 3.3% in the rest of the country, resulting in a difference of about 13.4 percentage points.

The decline in the housing market in San Francisco has resulted in an additional loss of approximately $260 billion in the value of residential real estate compared to what would have occurred if the city had followed the pattern shown nationally, according to the research center Hoover Institution.

Zillow, a real-estate marketplace company, projected that the value of San Francisco’s housing stock was close to $2 trillion before the price drop.

Needless to say, many addicts must steal stuff in order to fund their addictions, and so we have seen crime rates soar over the past several years.

In Chicago, things have gotten so bad that one Walgreens store has actually decided to put almost all of their merchandise “behind staffed counters”…

A Walgreens store in Chicago reportedly has been redesigned to allow customers to browse only two aisles of products – after they pass through anti-theft detectors.

The changes at the store on 2 E. Roosevelt Road in the South Loop area put most of the merchandise in aisles behind staffed counters, which customers can shop digitally through kiosks, according to Block Club Chicago.

Many other retailers are shutting down stores in cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and Portland permanently.

Our society is melting down right in front of our eyes, but don’t worry.

CNN says that everything is going to be just fine.

You believe them, don’t you?

The Chinese certainly aren’t buying it.  In recent months they have been stockpiling enormous amounts of gold…

China added to its gold reserves for a sixth straight month, extending a flurry of purchases as central banks around the world expand their holdings of bullion amid escalating geopolitical and economic risks.

China raised its gold holdings by about 8.09 tons in April, according to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Sunday. Total stockpiles now sit at about 2,076 tons, after the nation increased reserves by about 120 tons in the five months through March.

Central banks have purchased large amounts of gold in the past year to diversify assets, as well as to protect reserves from the impact of a weakening dollar and rampant inflation.

The reason why the Chinese are stockpiling gold is because they can see that a global economic crisis is coming.

And everyone else should be able to see it too.

Conditions in the short-term are going to steadily get worse, and in the long-term they are going to get really bad.

But most Americans are just going to continue to trust our politicians and the “experts” on television that are assuring them that we are going to be able to avoid a major meltdown somehow.

So they aren’t going to do anything to get prepared, and in the end they will be absolutely blindsided by an economic tsunami that they were absolutely convinced would never come.

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.

Even though most Americans aren’t paying much attention at this point, the way that the war in Ukraine is evolving should greatly concern all of us.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his generals very clearly understand that they are in very big trouble unless they can draw the U.S. and other NATO powers directly into the conflict.  All of Bakhmut is now under Russian control, and the Ukrainians continue to lose troops at a staggering pace.  They are holding a losing hand, but if Ukrainian leaders can find a way to get the Russians to use tactical nukes or other weapons of mass destruction, that would change everything.  Western powers would feel compelled to respond in kind, and then we really would have a truly apocalyptic conflict on our hands.

In recent days, there has been a tremendous amount of hype about the coming “counter-offensive” that the Ukrainians have supposedly been planning…

Kyiv renewed its plea for operational silence around the long-awaited counter-offensive against Russian forces with a clip of heavily-armed soldiers pressing their fingers to their lips.

The sleekly-produced footage features masked front-line troops gesturing for silence amid the distant rumble of artillery and gunfire.

It ends with images of soaring F-16 fighter jets – long coveted by Kyiv as it seeks to boost its air defence against Russian missiles and drones.

But instead of trying to retake Bakhmut or any of the other areas of Ukraine that the Russians have captured, the Ukrainians have been focusing their attacks on Russia itself.

Long-range drones have been hitting targets very deep inside Russia, and on one occasion that even included the Kremlin.

And Ukrainian artillery has been relentlessly pounding Russian territory.  The shelling has been particularly brutal in the Belgorod region…

Ukrainian forces continued to shell Russia’s border region of Belgorod overnight into Sunday after two people were killed the previous night and hundreds of children were evacuated away from the border, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

“Overnight, it was quite restless,” Gladkov said on the Telegram channel, adding that the Shebekino and Volokonovsky districts had suffered “lots” of damage from the latest shelling.

Shelling civilian targets in Russian territory is going to do nothing to help the Ukrainians regain lost territory.

But it is putting enormous pressure on Russian leaders.

Just imagine how we would feel if U.S. territory was being shelled.  We would be calling on the White House to nuke the living daylights out of whoever was shelling us.

Well, that is exactly how millions upon millions of Russian citizens feel right now.

And what makes things even worse is that small “militia groups” have begun crossing the Russian border to conduct attacks on nearby cities…

The New York Times wrote on Saturday that “Shebekino, a town of 40,000 six miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders.” This is all upending the lives of residents in the border region, akin to what already happened long ago on the Ukrainian side of the border. “The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades,” the report underscored. The past days have witnessed area residents move into temporary shelters, including the large Belgorod arena in the oblast capital.

The “militia groups” that are performing these raids are actually using equipment that has been provided by the U.S. and Poland…

The Russian fighters aligned against Moscow who launched a cross-border raid from Ukraine into the Belgorod region of Russia last week used at least four tactical vehicles originally given to Ukraine by the United States and Poland, U.S. officials said, raising questions about the unintended use of NATO-provided equipment and Kyiv’s commitments to secure materiel supplied by its supporters.

Three of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, also known as MRAPs, taken into Russia by the fighters were provided by the United States and the fourth was from Poland, according to people familiar with the U.S. intelligence finding, which has not previously been reported. Those people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

And it is being reported that Polish fighters are among those that have been going across the border during these raids…

The Polish Volunteer Corps has published pictures, confirming it participated in the first armed raid into the Belgorod region, Russia, together with the Russian Volunteer Corps

Russian soldiers claimed earlier they heard some of the enemies communicating in Polish

This war has reached such a dangerous stage.

The Russians aren’t stupid.  They know that foreign fighters now make up a very significant percentage of the forces that they are facing.

And if Russian cities continue to get shelled and raided, it is only a matter of time before Russian leaders lose their temper.

If the Russians decide to use tactical nukes, it really will be the beginning of the end.

So let us pray that cooler heads will prevail.

Meanwhile, things with China continue to get even more tense.

On Saturday, a Chinese warship and an American warship almost slammed directly into one another in the Taiwan Strait…

This is the astonishing moment a Chinese warship comes within 150 yards of an American destroyer in Taiwan Strait, just days after the Pentagon said it would not stand for ‘bullying’ by Beijing.

Footage obtained by Global News, shows a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warship cut across the bow of a U.S. guided-missile destroyer on Saturday while it was transiting the Taiwan Strait.

USS Chung Hoon and HMCS Montreal had also been transiting the strait on a rare joint mission when a PLAN warhsip cut across the bow of Chung-Hoon.

We really are living during a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, but most of us in the western world are focused on other things.

Even though our leaders have clearly demonstrated how incompetent they are over and over again, most of us just assume that they will be able to keep us out of a nuclear war.

Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters, and it appears that it is just a matter of time before someone crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

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.