Money

After The Worst January Job Cuts ‘Since The Great Recession’, Here Are 12 Major Layoffs That Have Already Been Announced In February

It appears that the tsunami of layoffs that started late last year is starting to accelerate.  January was a horrible month for job losses, and major layoff announcements are coming fast and furious here in February.  But of course the Biden administration would have us believe that everything is just fine.  Last week, the government told us that the U.S. economy “added 517,000 jobs” in January.  But as I discussed in a previous article, that wasn’t what actually happened.  The raw, unadjusted number showed that the U.S. economy actually lost 2.5 million jobs last month.  That is a terrible number, but after the bureaucrats in Washington were done with their “adjustments” it magically became a gain of 517,000 jobs.  If you want to have faith that their “adjustments” are appropriate, good for you.  But other sources also confirm that things have really taken a turn for the worse.  For example, Challenger, Gray & Christmas just issued a report that concluded that last month “was the worst January for job cuts since the Great Recession in 2009”…

U.S. companies announced roughly 103,000 job cuts in January, the highest monthly total since September 2020, a Thursday analysis found.

Last month was the worst January for job cuts since the Great Recession in 2009, according to a report from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Around 40 percent of last month’s job reductions came in the tech industry, where Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce announced plans to lay off thousands of workers. Many of the companies said they grew too quickly in recent years and must cut costs to boost profitability.

So many large companies announced staff reductions last month, and that trend has definitely continued this month.

The following are 12 major layoffs that have already been announced in February…

#1 Disney has decided to tell approximately 7,000 employees to hit the bricks…

“We will be reducing our workforce by approximately 7,000 jobs,” CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s first quarter earnings call. “While this is necessary to address the challenges we’re facing today, I do not make this decision lightly. I have enormous respect and appreciation for the talent and dedication of our employees worldwide, and I’m mindful of the personal impact of these changes.”

#2 Yahoo has announced that it will be laying off “more than 20% of its workforce”…

Yahoo will lay off more than 20% of its workforce by the end of 2023, eliminating 1,000 positions this week alone, the company said in a statement Thursday.

#3 Ebay was doing quite well, but now they have decided that 4 percent of their workers are no longer needed…

Ebay on Tuesday announced plans to cut 500 jobs, or about 4% of its workforce, according to a filing with the SEC.

#4 Affirm is yet another tech company that has recently made a decision to conduct mass layoffs…

Affirm announced it’s cutting 19% of its workforce Wednesday. The news came as it reported second quarter earnings that fell below analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines.

#5 As the U.S. housing crash deepens, JPMorgan Chase has concluded that now is the time to “cut hundreds of mortgage employees”…

JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut hundreds of mortgage employees this week, adding to job losses across the industry as home-lending businesses continue to be hurt by elevated interest rates.

#6 GoDaddy just let their workers know that they plan to “reduce the size of our global team by about 8%”…

Today, we are announcing a plan to reduce the size of our global team by about 8%. This will come as difficult news for many valued and respected GoDaddy team members.

#7 Micron is one of the biggest private employers in Idaho, but now it intends to “reduce its global headcount by about 10% over the next year”…

Micron has begun laying off workers, a spokesperson for the company told the Idaho Statesman.

The news marks the beginning of the company’s plan to reduce its global headcount by about 10% over the next year. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra announced during a quarterly conference call with investors in December that the company is taking significant steps to reduce costs and operating expenses as demand for its principal products wanes.

#8 GitHub has become yet another victim of the downsizing trend in the tech industry…

Microsoft-owned GitHub is laying off 10% of its staff, the company confirmed to Fortune.

#9 Nomad Health just laid off approximately 20 percent of their entire corporate workforce…

Nomad Health, a healthcare staffing startup, laid off around 20% of its corporate workforce this week, according to four terminated employees, as the surge in travel nurses and other temporary healthcare workers ignited by the pandemic cools down.

#10 Zoom is giving the axe to approximately 1,300 workers…

Zoom on Tuesday said it will lay off about 1,300 employees, or approximately 15% of its staff, becoming the latest tech company to announce significant job cuts as a pandemic-fueled surge in demand for digital services wanes.

#11 Boeing was supposedly going to be hiring more workers, but instead the company just announced that thousands of positions in finance and human resources will be eliminated…

“We expect about 2,000 reductions this year primarily in Finance and HR through a combination of attrition and layoffs,” Boeing confirmed Monday.

#12 Do you remember when Dell computers were still popular?  Unfortunately, the tide has turned and now Dell has been forced to get rid of 6,650 workers…

Dell Technologies Inc. is eliminating about 6,650 roles as it faces plummeting demand for personal computers, becoming the latest technology company to announce thousands of job cuts.

I could go on and on if you would like.

There are countless other firms that have also just announced significant layoffs.

We truly have not faced economic conditions like this since the Great Recession, and a recent Gallup survey seems to underscore this point…

Reflecting on their personal financial situations, 35% of Americans say they are better off now than they were a year ago, while 50% are worse off. Since Gallup first asked this question in 1976, it has been rare for half or more of Americans to say they are worse off. The only other times this occurred was during the Great Recession era in 2008 and 2009.

Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early chapters of this new crisis.  As I have been warning for years, things will eventually get much worse.

Our leaders have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and now we are going to get to suffer the consequences of those bad decisions.

This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, but we wrecked it.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and most Americans are completely unprepared for what is coming next.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

Before We End Up In Wars With Russia And China Simultaneously, Let’s Review The Nuclear Balance Of Power…

It has been said that there are no winners in a nuclear war, but the Russians and the Chinese have been feverishly preparing to fight one anyway.  When I was growing up, I was taught that nobody would ever dare start a nuclear war because both sides would fire their missiles and everyone would die.  In those days the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” was universally accepted in the United States, and once the Cold War ended our politicians saw no more need to upgrade our missiles or to develop cutting edge anti-missile technologies.  Unfortunately, the balance of power has changed dramatically over the past decade.  Russia and China have both made enormous leaps forward, and that puts us in a very precarious position.

In recent days, Republicans in Congress have been buzzing about a new report “from the top commander of U.S. nuclear forces” that says that China now has more launchers for land-based nuclear missiles than the U.S. does…

Top Republicans on Capitol Hill are raising alarms over news that China has surpassed the U.S. in its number of launchers for land-based nuclear missiles — and arguing for the U.S. to expand its own arsenal to keep pace.

Four GOP leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services committees said the revelation about China’s nuclear capability, made in a Jan. 26 letter from the top commander of U.S. nuclear forces, is a warning that Beijing’s arsenal is expanding faster than anticipated, though the U.S. still has more warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

We all knew that the Chinese were upgrading their arsenal, but it turns out that they were even busier than we had anticipated.

In fact, they “have doubled their number of warheads in just 2 years”…

“The [Chinese Communist Party] is rapidly expanding its nuclear capability. They have doubled their number of warheads in just 2 years,” Rogers said at the outset of Tuesday’s hearing. “We estimated it would take them a decade to do that.”

I was stunned when I saw that.

The Chinese were not supposed to catch up with us that quickly.

Meanwhile, the Russians have developed a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is the most advanced in the world by a wide margin.  It is called “the Sarmat”, and it is absolutely frightening…

The Sarmat is a three-stage, silo-based, liquid-fuel, heavy ICBM with a reported range of 18,000 kilometers. Dubbed “Satan II” by NATO, the missile is a Russian-built replacement of the Soviet-era SS-18 “Satan” ICBM, which is reaching the end of its life cycle. The Sarmat reportedly can carry a 10-ton payload consisting of 10-plus multiple independent reentry vehicles along with penetration aids used to evade missile defenses. Moscow says the new missile can also carry several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles.

A single Sarmat can carry enough firepower to destroy an area the size of Texas.

If the Russians or the Chinese fire their missiles at us, can we shoot them down?

The answer is no.

In fact, a study that was just released concluded that our anti-missile defenses are so feeble that we couldn’t even do much “to stop a relative handful of old-fashioned North Korean ICBMs” from reaching their targets…

While the United States could do very little to stop a sky full of Russian or Chinese hypersonic boost-glide vehicles from finding their targets on American soil… it could do just as little to stop a relative handful of old-fashioned North Korean ICBMs from reaching those targets either.

And that’s not media sensationalism or journalistic hyperbole. A bit more than a month ago, a team of 13 physicists and engineers with the American Physical Society released a 54-page study exploring this very question, and they came to some disconcerting conclusions.

So on our side of the equation, “mutual assured destruction” still applies.

If our enemies fire their missiles at us, we will be in all sorts of trouble.

Unfortunately, the Russians have been working very hard to develop very sophisticated anti-missile systems.

Until the S-500 was developed, the A-135 was the best system that the Russians had for intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles…

The A-135 was designed to intercept US intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as submarine-launched ballistic missiles. This anti-ballistic missile system has discrimination ability and can identify real re-entry vehicles from decoys and fake warheads.

The A-135 is superior to anything that we have, but it is far from perfect.

But now the S-500 is here.

It went into service last year, and there is no other system in the world that is even worth comparing to it.  The following information about the S-500 comes from Wikipedia…

The S-500 is designed for intercepting and destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as hypersonic cruise missiles and aircraft, for air defense against Airborne Early Warning and Control and for jamming aircraft.[citation needed] With a planned range of 600 km (370 mi) for anti-ballistic missile (ABM) and 500 km (310 mi) for air defense,[22] the S-500 would be able to detect and simultaneously engage up to 10 ballistic hypersonic targets flying at a speed of 5 kilometres per second (3.1 mi/s)[23][24] to a limit of 7 km/s (4.3 mi/s).[25][26] It also aims at destroying hypersonic cruise missiles and other aerial targets at speeds of higher than Mach 5, as well as spacecraft. The altitude of a target engaged can be as high as 180–200 km (110–120 mi).[27] It is effective against ballistic missiles with a launch range of 3,500 km (2,200 mi), the radar reaches a radius of 3,000 km (1,300 km for the EPR 0,1 square meter).[28][29] Other targets it has been announced to defend against include unmanned aerial vehicles, low Earth orbit satellites, space weapons launched from hypersonic aircraft, and hypersonic orbital platforms.[30]

The system is mobile and has rapid deployability. Experts believe that the system’s capabilities can affect enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles at the middle and end portions of flight,[22] but reports by Almaz-Antey say that the external target-designation system (RLS Voronezh-DM and missile defence system A-135 radar Don-2N) will be capable of mid-early flight portion interceptions of enemy ballistic missiles, which is one of the final stages of the S-500 project. It is to have a response time of less than 4 seconds (Compared to the S-400’s less than 10).[31]

Sadly, the U.S. has not developed new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in decades.  At this point, the backbone of our land-based arsenal consists of just 400 extremely outdated Minuteman III missiles.  The following comes from the official website of the U.S. Department of Defense…

Up to 400 Minuteman III missiles make up the most responsive leg of the nuclear triad. America’s ICBM force has remained on continuous, around-the-clock alert since 1959. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program will begin the replacement of Minuteman III and modernization of the 450 ICBM launch facilities in 2029.

These Minuteman III missiles first went into service in the early 1970s, and the silos for these missiles can be found in the states of Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming…

In 1970, the Minuteman III became the first deployed ICBM with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV): three smaller warheads that improved the missile’s ability to strike targets defended by ABMs.[8] They were initially armed with the W62 warhead with a yield of 170 kilotons.

By the 1970s, 1,000 Minuteman missiles were deployed. This force has shrunk to 400 Minuteman III missiles as of September 2017,[9] deployed in missile silos around Malmstrom AFB, Montana; Minot AFB, North Dakota; and Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyoming.[10]

Would you want to use a computer that was made in the 1970s?

If not, then why would we want to fight a nuclear war with missiles made in the 1970s?

If a nuclear war with Russia erupts, we will be sending 400 hopelessly outdated land-based missiles against the extremely sophisticated anti-missile systems that the Russians have now developed.

Are you sure that our missiles will get through?

Needless to say, our land-based missiles are only one-third of our “nuclear triad”.

Our strategic bombers are another leg of the triad.  The B-52 bomber has been around for a long time, and it is capable of carrying nuclear weapons…

The B-52 is a long-range, heavy bomber that can perform a variety of missions. It can carry nuclear or precision guided conventional weapons with worldwide precision navigation. The B-52 is slated to be in service beyond 2040.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t count on B-52 bombers doing much, because they would get absolutely shredded by Russian anti-aircraft systems.

Our stealth bombers are much better choices…

The B-2 Spirit is a multirole stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear weapons. The B-21 Raider will first supplement, then eventually replace, the B-2 beginning in the mid-2020s.

Of course if the Russians destroy our airbases in a devastating first strike from their subs before we can even get our bombers loaded and off the ground, this leg of the triad won’t be of much use either.

The final leg of our nuclear triad is made up of just 14 Ohio-class submarines…

Fourteen Ohio-class SSBNs make up the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. Their stealth design makes finding an SSBN an almost impossible task, giving pause to potential adversaries. The Columbia-class SSBN program will begin to replace the Ohio-class SSBNs starting in the early 2030s.

As the Department of Defense has noted, these submarines are definitely “the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad”.

If the Russians nuke us, we should be able to send sub-based missiles back at them.

But once again, those missiles are outdated.

Right now, our Ohio-class subs are carrying Trident II missiles that first went into service in 1990…

The UGM-133A Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), built by Lockheed Martin Space in Sunnyvale, California, and deployed with the American and British navies. It was first deployed in March 1990,[6] and remains in service. The Trident II Strategic Weapons System is an improved SLBM with greater accuracy, payload, and range than the earlier Trident C-4. It is a key element of the U.S. strategic nuclear triad and strengthens U.S. strategic deterrence.

I believe that Trident II missiles are a more viable threat than Minuteman III missiles are, but they are still more than 30 years old.

Are you sure that our aging Trident II missiles will be able to get through the cutting edge anti-missile systems that the Russians have now developed?

By the way, the Chinese have been working very hard to develop sophisticated anti-missile systems as well.

Meanwhile, we continue to pretend that the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” will magically save us even though the balance of power has fundamentally shifted.

As I have repeatedly warned my readers, we could soon find ourselves involved in wars with Russia and China at the same time.

Before we do that, perhaps we should take a really hard look at our own capabilities.

Many of the old paradigms no longer apply, and we are far more vulnerable than most people realize.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

16 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Going To Be “Just Fine”

According to Joe Biden and the pundits in the mainstream media, the U.S. economy is in great shape and much better times are just around the corner.  In fact, CNN is actually scolding those of us that are warning that economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating.  A CNN article entitled “It’s time to chill with all the recession talk” is boldly declaring that the economic optimists were correct and that what our leaders are doing is working.  Of course that is music to Joe Biden’s ears, because he is trying very hard to convince all of us that the policies of his administration have the U.S. economy moving in the right direction.  Of course you will never hear Biden share any of the numbers that I am about to share with you.  The following are 16 signs that the U.S. economy is going to be “just fine”…

#1 74 percent of Americans believe that interest rates will go even higher in the next six months.

#2 67 percent of Americans believe that inflation will go even higher in the next six months.

#3 Only 36 percent of Americans expect that the U.S. economy will grow in the next six months.

#4 Only 31 percent of Americans expect that the stock market will go up in the next six months.

#5 Only 29 percent of Americans expect that unemployment will go down in the next six months.

#6 Boeing just announced that it will be giving the axe to 2,000 workers this year…

Boeing is planning to slash around 2,000 jobs this year, primarily in finance and human resources, to simplify its corporate structure.

The U.S. planemaker confirmed to FOX Business Digital on Monday that the job cuts will come through a combination of attrition and layoffs.

#7 Dell just announced that it will be laying off more than 6,500 workers…

Dell plans to lay off roughly 5% of its workforce, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday, in the latest example of tech companies cutting costs in an uncertain economic climate.

Dell has about 133,000 employees, the company told CNN. At that level, the 5% cut would represent more than 6,500 employees.

#8 Zoom just announced that it is reducing the size of its workforce by 15 percent…

Zoom is reducing its headcount by 15%.

The layoffs will affect about 1,300 of Zoom’s employees, CEO Eric Yuan said in a blog post published Tuesday on the video communication company’s website.

#9 The CEO of Zoom says that he is going to cut his own salary by 98 percent because the economic outlook is so grim…

The CEO of Zoom has said he will slash his own $1.1M salary by 98 percent after laying off about 1,300 employees, 15 percent of the company’s workforce.

#10 As a result of falling sales, Impossible Foods is being forced to lay off approximately 20 percent of their workers…

Sales have collapsed, however, which according to a recent Bloomberg report, has resulted in Impossible Foods planning to lay off around 20% of its workers.

#11 Bed Bath & Beyond just announced that it will be closing 150 more stores…

Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 more stores — just a week after the struggling retailer announced the closure of 87 locations.

The company’s brick-and-mortar footprint has already shrunk dramatically, a regulatory filing showed late Monday, and the new closings mean it will have shuttered 400 stores in the past year — almost half the 950 or so stores it had open in February 2022.

#12 The U.S. housing market continues to crash.  Existing home sales in the United States have now fallen for 11 months in a row.

#13 An economist that predicted the housing crash of 2008 says that it is likely that U.S. housing prices will soon fall by another 15 percent.

#14 At this point, 57 percent of all Americans cannot even afford to pay an unexpected $1,000 emergency expense.

#15 While Joe Biden has been in the White House, the average American family “has seen real annual earnings fall about $6,000”…

The average family has seen real annual earnings fall about $6,000 under Biden, while higher interest rates have increased borrowing costs another $1,400. That means a family effectively can buy $7,400 less today than it could in January 2021.

#16 One recent survey discovered that only 16 percent of Americans say that their finances are “better off” since Joe Biden entered the White House.

But the U.S. economy is “just fine”.

At least that is what our leaders would have us believe.

For example, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell just told the press that the U.S. labor market is “extraordinarily strong”…

The US labor market remains “extraordinarily strong” and Friday’s monster jobs report underscored that the central bank has more work to do to bring down inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.

“We didn’t expect it to be this strong,” Powell said of the January jobs report, which showed the US economy added 517,000 jobs. “It kind of shows you why we think that this will be a process that takes a significant period of time.”

But what Powell didn’t explain is that the U.S. economy didn’t actually add “517,000 jobs” last month.

That is just the final figure that is given to the media after the bureaucrats in Washington are done with all of their “adjustments”.

The real, unadjusted number for last month was a loss of 2.5 million jobs.

But the pundits in the mainstream media are going to continue to insist that everything is just great.

Even though all of the evidence suggests otherwise, CNN is brazenly claiming that the economic optimists “were right all along”…

In 2021, a bunch of economists and policy makers underestimated the inflation that was taking root around the world. In 2022, as inflation hit 40-year-highs and the Fed ramped up interest rates, many of those commentators went full-on gloomy — predicting a recession was all but inevitable.

But in the (slightly) brighter light of 2023, it looks as if the optimists — those who called inflation “transitory” and believed the Fed could pull off a so-called soft landing — were right all along.

You can believe that if you want.

And you can also believe that Joe Biden is going to dress up in a Santa suit and visit you on the 4th of July this year too.

But just because you believe something doesn’t mean that it is actually going to happen.

So many of the long-term trends that people like me have been warning about for years are now reaching a crescendo during the Biden administration.

The truth is that we aren’t just heading into another recession.

Ultimately, what we are witnessing is a fundamental meltdown of our entire system, and that means that a tremendous amount of economic pain is ahead for this country.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

The Giant Earthquakes That We Just Witnessed In Turkey Are Just The Beginning…

The complete and utter devastation that we are seeing in Turkey right now should break all of our hearts.  Hundreds of buildings have collapsed, and thousands upon thousands of dead and injured people are trapped under the rubble.  The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Turkey early on Monday is the largest earthquake that the region has experienced in a century.  Sadly, that giant quake was followed by a relentless series of aftershocks that included another giant quake.  The shaking continues even as I write this article, and there are some parts of Turkey that will never be the same again after this.

Back on January 4th, I warned that 2023 would be “a year of great natural disasters”, and unfortunately that is exactly what is happening.  Our planet continues to become even more unstable, and we have been witnessing large earthquakes and major volcanic eruptions occur with a frequency that is quite alarming.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that just struck Turkey is the most deadly seismic event that we have seen so far this year.  It is being reported that it could actually be felt all the way in Greenland…

Tremors from the powerful earthquake that rocked Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday were felt as far away as Greenland, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said.

“The large earthquakes in Turkey were clearly registered on the seismographs in Denmark and Greenland,” seismologist Tine Larsen told AFP.

I was stunned when I first read that.

As buildings fell down all around them, some people in Turkey actually believed that “judgement day” had arrived.

As I write this article, we are being told that “at least 3,500 people” have died, but that number will inevitably grow much larger as more bodies are pulled from the rubble…

At least 3,500 people in both countries are known to have been killed – 2,316 of these in Turkey, more than 700 people in opposition-controlled Syria and 538 in government-held areas of Syria, reports Sky.

In Turkey entire apartment blocks crashed to the ground in a matter of seconds following the quakes, trapping families inside and killing thousands.

According to reports from the region, the magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused approximately 90 seconds of shaking, and social media is filled with videos of tall buildings collapsing into heaps in just moments.

Subsequently, a series of large aftershocks did even more damage.

The largest aftershock was a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that was originally reported to be a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.

And even more huge earthquakes followed that one, and even more buildings fell down.

I have never seen anything quite like this.

There have been more than 60 large earthquakes in the region, and countless numbers of people that are trapped under the rubble are desperately hoping that rescuers can get to them in time…

Victims trapped in collapsed buildings have been pleading for help as rescuers desperately try to free them – with some people even broadcasting on Facebook Live while trapped to try and get aid.

Heartbreaking photos and videos have shown emergency services pulling the bodies of children from the rubble in multiple cities, as well as miraculous rescues with people somehow being carried out alive after the catastrophe.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

One seismologist named Tyler Metcalf is warning that we could see a whole lot of shaking all over the planet over the next few days…

Seismologist Tyler Metcalf explains what’s likely to happen now:

The big #earthquakes in #Turkey have likely led to destabilization of fault lines across the world. There could be many earthquakes in many areas across the world over the next few to several days.

Metcalf’s warning is based on an Oregon State University study that discovered that a major earthquake in one part of the globe can cause large earthquakes in other parts of the globe…

But the OSU analysis of seismic data from 1973 through 2016 — an analysis that excluded data from aftershock zones — using larger time windows than in previous studies, provided discernible evidence that in the three days following one large quake, other earthquakes were more likely to occur.

Each test case in the study represented a single three-day window “injected” with a large-magnitude (6.5 or greater) earthquake suspected of inducing other quakes, and accompanying each case was a control group of 5,355 three-day periods that didn’t have the quake injection.

“The test cases showed a clearly detectable increase over background rates,” said the study’s corresponding author, Robert O’Malley, a researcher in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences. “Earthquakes are part of a cycle of tectonic stress buildup and release. As fault zones near the end of this seismic cycle, tipping points may be reached and triggering can occur.”

The higher the magnitude, the more likely a quake is to trigger another quake. Higher-magnitude quakes, which have been happening with more frequency in recent years, also seem to be triggered more often than lower-magnitude ones.

Speaking of large earthquakes in other parts of the globe, we just witnessed the largest earthquake that the Buffalo area has experienced “in 40 years”…

A 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck Monday morning near Buffalo, New York, the strongest recorded in the area in 40 years.

The quake hit 1.24 miles east-northeast of West Seneca, New York, with a depth of 1.86 miles around 6:15 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey.

Yes, this is really happening.

As I discussed in my latest book, we are entering an era when there will be extremely powerful earthquakes in diverse places.

Our planet has never been a particularly stable place, and now it is becoming a lot less stable.

There will be many more major geophysical events in 2023 and beyond, and the death and devastation that we will see will be absolutely staggering.

But most people don’t want to hear this.

What most people want to hear is that everything is going to be just fine.

I could tell you that, but it wouldn’t be true.

What we have just witnessed in Turkey is just the beginning, because even greater shaking is on the way.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

You May Want To Vomit After You Read About The Unspeakable Evil That Is Happening All Over America Right Now

More kids are being sexually victimized in the United States than ever before in our entire history.  As you will see below, in some cases “kids are being raped 20 to 30 times a day” and very little is being done to prevent this from happening.  But this crisis is certainly not just limited to the hundreds of thousands of children that have been forced into sexual slavery.  In our society today, very young children are being constantly bombarded with extremely sick and twisted sexual messaging on television, in the movies, on the Internet and in their classrooms.  What we are doing to America’s children is beyond criminal, and if we do not reverse course our nation is not going to have a future.  Every society throughout history that has violated children like we are violating them has fallen.  If you actually believe that we will be able to get away with our heinous crimes, you are just being delusional.

Every single day, hordes of extremely young “sex workers” are being paraded in the streets of our major cities.  In fact, in East Oakland the pimps have become so brazen that they are actually forcing their girls to solicit men “right outside a Catholic grade school”…

Video showing women who appear to be sex workers soliciting right outside a Catholic grade school in East Oakland is raising concerns about human trafficking in the area.

Parents and city officials tell the I-Team young women, some police believe may be trafficked, are walking outside St. Anthony’s K-8 grade school off E. 15th Street in Oakland at all hours of the day.

This is even happening while school is in session, and it is being reported that some of the prostitutes are just 15 or 16 years old…

On the street, it’s a sad reality. We drove with Gallo along E. 15th.

Young girls are walking in the middle of the street, peaking into cars, and crowding the street corners.

“We’ve seen up to 20 women walking up and down this street,” Gallo said. “Young, young girls.”

“How young?” Sierra asked.

“I’ve seen some as young as 15, 16 years old,” Gallo said.

Further south, the sex industry in Los Angeles has been absolutely thriving.

One man named David Cox that helps to rescue those involved in the industry says that girls “as young as 11” are being victimized.

And he also says that some of the kids on L.A. streets “are being raped 20 to 30 times a day”…

Victims are sometimes brought in from other states or countries, said David Cox, COO for ZOE International, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that helps victims recover once rescued locally and internationally.

Cox said his organization, partnering with a similar Los Angeles-based nonprofit Saving Innocents, has cared for 489 youth victims of sex trafficking this past year, with some as young as 11.

“In our city, kids are being raped 20 to 30 times a day,” he said.

It is like hell on Earth for these children.

But most of our leaders don’t seem to care.

Every once in a while, someone does actually get busted for having sex with kids, but often those that do get busted are hit with extremely light sentences.

For example, a 20-year-old man that actually raped two girls under the age of 10 will only be serving 180 days in a local jail…

A 20-year-old from Rochester will serve no prison time after he was convicted of raping two girls between the ages of 4 and 9, according to Crime Watch Minneapolis.

During his Monday sentencing, presided over by Judge Jacob Allen, Mohamed Bakari Shei received 180 days in local jail and up to 30 years of probation on a felony criminal sexual conduct conviction.

Is this what passes for “justice” in modern America?

Of course if we really had a just society, millions of sexual predators would be serving hardcore prison time right now.

In a previous article, I shared some very sobering statistics that originally come from an excellent piece by John and Nisha Whitehead…

Consider this: every two minutes, a child is bought and sold for sex.

Hundreds of young girls and boys—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex, as many as 20 times per day.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States alone.

In Georgia alone, it is estimated that 7,200 men (half of them in their 30s) seek to purchase sex with adolescent girls each month, averaging roughly 300 a day.

On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period.

It is estimated that at least 100,000 to 500,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances.

Child rape has become Big Business in America.

This is America now.

We have become a nation that is absolutely teeming with predators.

Sadly, way too often that includes men in positions of power and authority.  Earlier today, I came across yet another example…

A former producer for ABC News was arrested Tuesday on federal charges of transporting child pornography.

James Gordon Meek, who lives in Arlington, Va., had several devices seized from his home by the FBI last April, the Department of Justice said in a statement. According to court documents, they contained images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Authorities also found multiple chat conversations with users who expressed enthusiasm for sexually abusing children.

Quite a few news producers have been exposed as sexual predators over the past few years.

Is that just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?

Of course even if our kids are able to escape the clutches of these predators that still doesn’t mean that they are safe.

Our children are constantly being bombarded by harmful content on our televisions, in the movies, and on the Internet…

The average child in Britain begins consuming harmful pornography online at the age of 13 while as many as ten percent start watching the often violent and disturbed content at the age of nine, a government report has found.

A paper issued by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza this week said that there is an “urgent need to protect children from the harms of online pornography,” with the report noting that “by age nine, 10 percent had seen pornography, 27 percent had seen it by age 11 and half of children who had seen pornography had seen it by age 13.”

And even if we are able to successfully shield our kids from all of that material, they are still getting hit from other directions.

All over the United States, children as young as four years old are being taught extremely alarming things in their own classrooms.

Why can’t we just let kids be kids?

At this point, America has gone so far downhill that it is hard to imagine a way back.

Every hour of every day, countless numbers of children are being viciously abused all over the nation.

And this crisis only gets worse with each passing year.

So what does our nation deserve for engaging in unspeakable evil on such a grand scale?

You might want to start thinking about that, because the clock is ticking.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

Don’t Be Stupid – The U.S. Economy Actually LOST 2.5 Million Jobs Last Month

I can’t take it anymore.  Fake numbers that are released by the government get turned into fake news by the corporate media, and many Americans don’t even realize that they are being conned.  Major news outlets all over the country are breathlessly trumpeting the “blockbuster jobs report” as if it is a sign from heaven that good economic times are ahead.  We are being told that the U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs last month, but that isn’t true.  Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. economy actually lost 2.5 million jobs in January.  Yes, you read that correctly.  So how in the world does a loss of 2.5 million jobs become a “gain” of 517,000 jobs?  Every month, government bureaucrats apply “adjustments” to the numbers that they believe are appropriate, and at this point their “adjustments” have become so absurd that they have turned the monthly employment report into a total farce.

As I have been documenting on my website for weeks, there has been a tremendous wave of layoffs over the last several months.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Lyft, Twitter, Walmart, McDonald’s, FedEx and countless other large corporations have decided to conduct mass layoffs.

But now the government expects us to believe that the U.S. economy is actually adding jobs at a very brisk pace?

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Unfortunately, the corporate media is totally buying it.  For example, CNBC just posted an article that described the jobs report as “stunningly strong”…

The employment picture started off 2023 on a stunningly strong note, with nonfarm payrolls posting their biggest gain since July 2022.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 517,000 for January, above the Dow Jones estimate of 187,000 and December’s gain of 260,000, according to a Labor Department report Friday.

And a CNN article has quoted one expert as saying that “the labor market is more like a bullet train”…

“With 517,000 new jobs added in January 2023 and the unemployment rate at 3.4%, this is a blockbuster report demonstrating that the labor market is more like a bullet train,” Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief commercial officer of ManpowerGroup, said Friday.

Really?

After all of the layoffs that we have witnessed in recent months, does she really believe that?

Not to be outdone, Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi boldly declared that any concerns about a coming recession “should be completely dashed by these numbers”…

The January jobs report should “dash” concerns of recession, Moody’s chief economist said Friday, but warned that the numbers may overstate job growth.

“Any concern the economy is in recession or close to a recession should be completely dashed by these numbers,” Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi told CNN’s Matt Egan on Friday, adding that it would take “an awful lot” to send the US economy into a downturn.

Come on man.

You are smarter than that.

The U.S. economy did not add 517,000 jobs last month.

That is the “adjusted” number.

The “unadjusted” number actually shows that the U.S. economy lost 2.5 million jobs last month.  The following comes from Bloomberg…

For the establishment survey, the government’s updated seasonal factors may have impacted the headline payrolls figure. On an unadjusted basis, payrolls actually fell by 2.5 million last month.

That is actually what was measured.

But if you brazenly add more than 3 million jobs to the report that simply do not exist, it makes it look like the U.S. economy is doing just great.

Needless to say, Joe Biden was quite eager to take credit for the “spectacular” jobs report, and he also told reporters that he takes no responsibility for the raging inflation crisis that we are currently experiencing…

He replied with an emphatic ‘no’ when asked if he took any accountability for the price rises under his presidency. ‘It was already there when I got here, man.’

‘Remember what the economy was like when I got here? Jobs were hemorrhaging. Inflation was rising. We weren’t manufacturing the damn thing here. We were in real economic difficulty.’

Inflation in January 2021 when Biden took office was 1.4 percent. The latest December figures were 6.5 percent, down from a June 2022 peak of 9 percent.

For the next month, the Biden administration is going to endlessly boast that 517,000 jobs were added to the economy in January, and most Americans will never even know that it is a number that is entirely fictional.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that economic activity is slowing down all around us, and many people are starting to become quite desperate…

Video out of Austin, Texas, shows desperate people climbing into supermarket dumpsters to retrieve food that may have been discarded due to a widespread power outage.

The shocking footage Thursday from behind an H-E-B grocery store in Southeast Austin featured people having a free-for-all from dumpsters, in what one commenter on Instagram described as a “dystopian hellscape.”

From now on, I really wish that the government would only release the raw, unadjusted employment numbers to the corporate media.

Because there is way too much guesswork that goes into the “adjustments” that the government bureaucrats are coming up with.

But that is never going to happen.

Every month they are just going to continue to tell us that things are better than they really are.

At least that will give me something to write about.

If anyone tries to shove the “517,000 jobs” number in your face, please share this article with them.

That figure does not reflect reality in any way.

The raw numbers show that 2.5 million jobs were actually lost last month, and that is absolutely horrible.

And as I continue to warn my readers, incredibly challenging economic times are on the horizon.

More layoffs are coming, the housing market is going to continue to crash, and global food shortages are going to continue to intensify.

So don’t let anyone fool you.  We really are plunging into a very serious economic downturn, and the months ahead are not going to be pleasant.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

Food Shortages Are Starting To Become Quite Serious All Over The Planet

The worst case scenario that many of the experts feared is starting to play out right in front of our eyes.  Throughout 2022, I repeatedly warned my regular readers that there were all sorts of indications that the emerging global food crisis would go to entirely new level in 2023, and that is precisely what is happening.  In response to tightening supplies of food, prices are surging all over the planet and the number of desperately hungry people is exploding.  Unfortunately, this crisis is not going to be just temporary.  As I will explain at the end of this article, the global nightmare that we are facing is inevitably going to intensify in the years ahead.

Most of us in the western world simply do not understand how badly conditions have already deteriorated in much of the world.

For example, Reuters is admitting that the hunger crisis in Africa has now become “bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen”…

Across Africa, from east to west, people are experiencing a food crisis that is bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen, say diplomats and humanitarian workers.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

There have been many famines in Africa in the past, but things have never been as bad as they are right now.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East a severe shortage of wheat is forcing many Pakistanis to wait in line for hours “to receive a single bag”…

Pakistan is currently suffering from skyrocketing prices and a shortage of wheat flour, with people waiting in line for hours to receive a single bag.

Would you wait in line for hours for one bag of flour?

If you were desperately hungry you would.

In South America, seemingly endless civil unrest has intensified the very serious shortages that are happening in Peru…

As the anti-government protests in Peru show no sign of ending, the country is currently facing a shortage of basic products including food items and fuel.

And on the other side of the globe, Australians are growing increasingly frustrated about the very painful potato shortage that has gripped that nation…

Potatoes are among Australia’s favourite vegetables. However, we are facing a shortage of processed potatoes, especially of frozen chips. Coles introduced a two-item limit for shoppers seeking frozen potato products. Fish and chip businesses are under pressure and some are outraged McDonald’s is launching a new potato product in the middle of a crisis.

In previous decades, there have been times when there have been localized famines in various parts of the world.

But what we are facing now is global.

According to the New York Times, food shortages are “causing intense pain across Africa, Asia and the Americas”…

“We’re dealing now with a massive food insecurity crisis,” Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said last month at a summit with African leaders in Washington. “It’s the product of a lot of things, as we all know,” he said, “including Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

The food shortages and high prices are causing intense pain across Africa, Asia and the Americas. U.S. officials are especially worried about Afghanistan and Yemen, which have been ravaged by war. Egypt, Lebanon and other big food-importing nations are finding it difficult to pay their debts and other expenses because costs have surged. Even in wealthy countries like the United States and Britain, soaring inflation driven in part by the war’s disruptions has left poorer people without enough to eat.

Have I convinced you yet?

This is serious.

Here in the United States, food prices continue to escalate to frightening levels.  For example, the price of orange juice just skyrocketed to a brand new record high because it is being projected that Florida citrus production will hit the lowest level since 1945…

OJ futures have hit a new high, surging 10 cents or 4.56% to $2.292/lb, surpassing the 2016 record of $2.2585, due to limited supply.

The USDA predicts Florida’s citrus production will reach 44.5 million boxes this year, which could result in the state’s smallest orange harvest since 1945. This is due to “greening disease” and hurricane damage in Florida’s citrus groves.

In 1945, there were 139 million people living in the United States.

Today, the population of the country has risen to 329 million.

So there are far less oranges per person now.

The size of the national cattle herd is also shrinking…

The latest figures from the US Department of Agriculture cattle-inventory report on Tuesday showed 89.3 million cattle as of Jan. 1, down 3% from a year ago. The decline wasn’t unexpected and was in line with a Bloomberg survey.

This means that beef prices are going to continue to go higher and higher.

You could try to switch to chicken or turkey, but thanks to the bird flu pandemic they certainly aren’t inexpensive either.

At this point, the bird flu has already killed more than 58 million chickens and turkeys in the United States.

If that wasn’t bad enough, now a lot of chicken farmers around the country are reporting that their hens have suddenly stopped laying eggs.  This is something that Tucker Carlson recently discussed…

Now healthy hens lay eggs on a regular basis, every 24 to 26 hours. But suddenly, chicken owners all over the country – not all of them, but a lot of them – are reporting they’re not getting any eggs or as many. So what’s causing that? Clearly, something is causing that. Some have concluded their chicken feed may be responsible.

Egg prices have already shot up to a level that most people never dreamed would be possible, and this is creating quite a bit of panic.

More Americans than ever before are suddenly interested in raising their own chickens, and this has sparked quite a buying frenzy at local hatcheries…

Google search interest in “raising chickens” has jumped markedly from a year ago. The shift is part of a broader phenomenon: A small but rapidly growing slice of the American population has become interested in growing and raising food at home, a trend that was nascent before the pandemic and that has been invigorated by the shortages it spurred.

“As there are more and more shortages, it’s driving more people to want to raise their own food,” Ms. Stevenson observed on a January afternoon, as 242 callers to the hatchery sat on hold, presumably waiting to stock up on their own chicks and chick-adjacent accessories.

Unfortunately, everything that I have shared in this article so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

That is because global food supplies are going to continue to get tighter in the years ahead no matter what we do now.

If we suddenly stopped using all fertilizer immediately, we would only be able to feed about half the world.

So the production of fertilizer is absolutely critical.

Unfortunately, almost all of the phosphorus that we use in our fertilizers comes from “non-renewable phosphate rock”, and 85 percent of the remaining supply is located in just five countries…

Without phosphorus food cannot be produced, since all plants and animals need it to grow. Put simply: if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. As such, phosphorus-based fertilisers – it is the “P” in “NPK” fertiliser – have become critical to the global food system.

Most phosphorus comes from non-renewable phosphate rock and it cannot be synthesised artificially. All farmers therefore need access to it, but 85% of the world’s remaining high-grade phosphate rock is concentrated in just five countries (some of which are “geopolitically complex”): Morocco, China, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa.

As supplies of non-renewable phosphate rock continue to get tighter and tighter, global food supplies will continue to get tighter and tighter.

Eventually there will simply not be enough non-renewable phosphate rock to go around, and at point we will be in all sorts of trouble.

The kind of horrifying global famine that I have been relentlessly warning about has become inevitable.

It is just a matter of time.

I would encourage you to learn how to grow your own food now, because we are moving into times that will be extremely “interesting” indeed.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

Exactly What We Would Expect If A Recession Was Beginning – Sales Are Down Throughout The Economy

All of the things that we would expect to see at the start of a major economic downturn are happening.  Retail sales are falling, auto sales have been way down, and the housing market is starting to crash like it did in 2008.  But unlike the last recession, we are also dealing with a raging inflation crisis, and this is one of the main reasons why real disposable income declined at the fastest rate that we have seen since the Great Depression last year.  At this point, close to two-thirds of the entire country is living paycheck to paycheck, and more than half the country cannot even afford to pay an unexpected $1,000 emergency expense.  We are in very dangerous territory, because most U.S. consumers are tapped out.

If we really are in the early chapters of a new recession, we would expect to see sales dropping throughout the economy, and that is precisely what is happening right now…

Retail purchases have fallen in three of the past four months. Spending on services, including rent, haircuts and the bulk of bills, was flat in December, after adjusting for inflation, the worst monthly reading in nearly a year. Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell last year to their lowest level since 2014 as mortgage rates rose. The auto industry posted its worst sales year in more than a decade.

Everyone can see what is taking place.  The economy is really slowing down and there are very dark clouds on the horizon.

The Wall Street Journal recently asked a group of “business and academic economists” if a recession was coming within the next 12 months, and 61 percent of them said yes…

Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of the economy. A downshifting consumer is a key reason that business and academic economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, on average, put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%.

Of course we won’t know whether or not we are officially in a recession at this moment until several months from now.

But all the signs indicate that economic conditions have already deteriorated quite significantly.

For example, demand for cardboard boxes declined “sharply” during the fourth quarter…

Demand and output for cardboard boxes and other packaging material fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data released by the American Forest & Paper Association and Fibre Box Association on Friday.

It’s the latest indicator that consumer demand is eroding following the pandemic. Dwindling savings, inflation, rising interest rates and fears of a recession may all be swaying consumers to spend less.

To me, this is one of the clearest indicators of what is really going on in our economy.

When there is lots of economic activity, there is lots of demand for cardboard boxes.

And when economic activity drops off, so does demand for cardboard boxes.

So it should deeply alarm all of us that we just witnessed “the most severe quarterly decline since the Great Financial Crisis”…

U.S. box shipments fell by 8.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the Fibre Box Association. KeyBanc’s Adam Josephson, who leads the bank’s analysis of the packaging industry, wrote in a Sunday note that this was “the most severe quarterly decline since the Great Financial Crisis (2Q09).”

U.S. box operating rates fell to 80.9%, the Fibre Box Association said, which was also a low last seen in the first quarter of 2009. This means nearly 20% of the U.S. capacity to produce boxes was stagnant last quarter. Supply of containerboard, which is used to make corrugated boxes, stood at 4.3 weeks, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. That’s down from last quarter, but still historically high.

Another thing that happens when a recession strikes is that a lot of people get laid off.

In recent articles I have been providing lots and lots of examples of this, and today I have a couple of new ones that are quite interesting.

During booming economic times, shipping companies tend to bring on lots of extra workers, but when things get bad they start letting people go.

And so it should deeply alarm all of us that FedEx has decided to give the axe to “more than 10% of its global management staffers”…

FedEx Corp. is laying off more than 10% of its global management staffers as the delivery company faces a shipping slowdown.

In an email to staff Wednesday, Chief Executive Raj Subramaniam said the company was reducing the size of its officer and director ranks and consolidating some teams and functions. The company declined to say how many jobs were being eliminated.

To me, the fact that Paypal has just announced that it will be laying off “approximately seven percent of its workforce” is even more troubling…

Engadget reports that the leading online payment provider, PayPal, recently announced that it will lay off about 2,000 employees, or approximately seven percent of its workforce. The layoffs are anticipated to take place over the coming weeks and will have varying effects on different segments of the business. The company says the layoffs are in response to a difficult macroeconomic environment that has prompted similar responses from other technology giants like Google and Microsoft.

If even our largest and wealthiest tech companies are laying off workers now, are any jobs in the private sector truly safe?

Many that work in the private sector are deeply concerned that they might be next, because thanks to the rising cost of living their savings are almost totally gone.  For instance, consider the plight of 32-year-old Minnesota resident Benjamin DeLong…

Recent layoff trends worry Benjamin DeLong, a 32-year-old customer-account manager at an industrial manufacturer in southern Minnesota. His savings rose to $3,700 during the pandemic, thanks in part to government stimulus. He is now down to about 3 cents.

Mr. DeLong said he had to dip into his savings to cover the rising costs of his groceries, utilities and car insurance. He has found some relief in his grocery bills since he and his partner decided last year to purchase some pigs, jointly with other families, to be raised on a relative’s farm. Their portion of meat yielded nearly 150 pounds, saving them about $500 on groceries, Mr. DeLong estimated.

This is what life is like now in much of the country.

Millions upon millions of hard working Americans are living on the edge.

Now a very serious economic downturn has begun, and things aren’t going to get any easier in the long run.

It appears that 2023 is going to be such a tough year for the U.S. economy.

Hopefully you were able to build up a sizable emergency fund while times were relatively stable.

Unfortunately, most Americans did not, and so they find themselves completely unprepared for what is ahead of us.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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 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.

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