11 Ominous Predictions For 2023

There is a growing consensus that 2023 is going to be a miserable year for the U.S. economy and for the global economy as a whole.  In fact, in all the years that I have been writing I have never seen so many big names on Wall Street be so incredibly pessimistic about the coming year.  Of course much of that pessimism is due to the fact that 2022 went so poorly.  The cryptocurrency industry imploded, trillions of dollars in stock market wealth evaporated, inflation became a major problem all over the industrialized world, and a new housing crash suddenly erupted.  Considering all of the pain that we have experienced over the past 12 months, it is only natural for the experts to have a negative view of 2023.  The following are 11 ominous warnings that they have issued for the year ahead…

#1 The IMF: “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even countries that are not in recession, it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people”

#2 Bloomberg: “Economists say there is a 7-in-10 likelihood that the US economy will sink into a recession next year, slashing demand forecasts and trimming inflation projections in the wake of massive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”

#3 The World Bank: “As central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates in response to inflation, the world may be edging toward a global recession in 2023 and a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm, according to a comprehensive new study by the World Bank.”

#4 Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: “We’re going to have a shallow recession”

#5 Mohamed El-Erian: “Many ‘high-conviction’ U.S. recession calls are immediately coupled with the assertion that it’ll be ‘short and shallow.’ Reminds me of the behavioral trap ‘transitory inflation’ proponents fell into last year”

#6 Nouriel Roubini: “No, this is not going to be a short and shallow recession, it’s going to be deep and protracted”

#7 Larry Summers: “My sense is that it’s much harder than many people think to achieve a soft landing”

#8 Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: “Economic growth is slowing,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at the same conference. “When I talk to our clients, they sound extremely cautious.”

#9 Charles Schwab & Co.’s Liz Ann Sonders: “We have to take our medicine still, meaning a weaker economy and a weaker labor market. The question is, is it better to take our medicine sooner or later?”

#10 BlackRock: “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. They are deliberately causing recessions by overtightening policy to try to rein in inflation”

#11 Michael Burry: “Inflation peaked. But it is not the last peak of this cycle. We are likely to see CPI lower, possibly negative in 2H 2023, and the US in recession by any definition. Fed will cut and government will stimulate. And we will have another inflation spike. It’s not hard.”

As you can see, there is a general consensus that things will be bad in 2023, but there is disagreement about just how deep the coming economic downturn will turn out to be.

If the worst of these forecasts turn out to be accurate, that will actually be incredibly good news.

Because the reality of what we will be facing in 2023 is likely to be significantly worse than any of these experts are currently projecting.

With each passing day, we continue to get even more numbers that indicate that big trouble is ahead.

For example, we just learned that luxury home sales absolutely cratered during the months of September, October and November…

Sales of luxury homes fell 38.1% year over year during the three months ending November 30, 2022, the biggest decline on record, according to a new report from Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage. That outpaced the record 31.4% decline in sales of non-luxury homes. Redfin’s data goes back to 2012.

The luxury market and the overall housing market lost momentum in 2022 due to many of the same factors: inflation, relatively high interest rates, a sagging stock market and recession fears.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And we all remember what the housing crash of 2008 ultimately did to the financial markets.

Normally, the beginning of a calendar year is a time for optimism.  As we look forward to a completely clean slate, it can be easy to forget the difficulties of the previous 12 months.

But this year things seem completely different.

On some level, just about everyone can feel that very challenging times are ahead of us.

Decades of very foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way.

Our leaders tried very hard to keep the party going for as long as possible, and to a certain extent they were quite successful in doing so.

Our politicians in Washington kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that definitely delayed our day of reckoning.

And the Federal Reserve kept the financial markets artificially propped up for years by endlessly pumping giant mountains of fresh cash into the system.

But such foolish measures only made our long-term problems even worse, and now our leaders are losing control.

All of the “mega-bubbles” are starting to burst, and the system is beginning to fall apart all around us.

It is time to turn out the lights, because the party is over.

We all had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now the bill is due and an extraordinary amount of pain is ahead.

***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 BlogEnd 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 Year When Everything Started To Fall Apart

It amazes me that so many people still cannot understand what is happening.  2022 was supposedly going to be a year when America entered a new golden age of prosperity, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, it was a complete and utter disaster.  Stock prices fell by the most that we have seen since 2008, the cryptocurrency industry came apart at the seams, inflation soared to absurd heights, and home sales just kept declining all throughout the year.  Without a doubt, 2022 represented a major turning point.  Americans have already collectively lost trillions of dollars, and many experts are telling us that 2023 will be even worse.

We warned over and over again that the party on Wall Street would eventually come to a very bitter end, but most people didn’t want to listen.

Well, the party has now ended, and the stock market losses that we have witnessed over the past 12 months have been absolutely staggering

As of closing time on Friday evening, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 3,500 points since the start of the year, a 9.4 percent drop.

The S&P 500 was also down by 957 points this year, with the tech-heavy index falling by almost 20 percent, capping off a brutal year for the tech industry.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq sunk by more than 5,600 points, a nearly 34 percent decline in 2022.

More than a third of the entire value of the Nasdaq is already gone.

Just think about that.

Of course some stocks were hit much harder than others.

Tesla is down about 70 percent from the peak, and Elon Musk “has become the first person ever to lose $200 billion from his net worth”

Tesla CEO and Chief Twit Elon Musk has become the first person ever to lose $200 billion from his net worth, according to a Bloomberg report.

Musk, 51, previously became the second person ever to amass a fortune of more than $200 billion in January 2021, after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk has now seen his wealth drop to $137 billion following a recent drop in Tesla shares.

Musk saw his fortune peak in November 2021, hitting $340 billion, and held the title of the world’s richest person up until last month. Musk was ultimately toppled off the throne by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of French luxury giant LVMH.

You have to give him credit for holding up so well under the circumstances.

200 billion dollars is an amount of money that is so large that it is almost unimaginable.

Facebook also got monkey-hammered over the course of 2022.  At this point, Facebook stock has fallen over 64 percent from where it was last January…

On the last day of trading this year, Meta’s stock was down more than 64 percent compared to January, with prices sinking from over $338-per-share to now $120-per-share.

The company has lost more than $600 billion in valuation as it spend billions to make its controversial leap to virtual reality with its Metaverse, with the efforts continuing to come up short.

Perhaps Facebook shouldn’t have put so much effort into banning and censoring millions of their best users.

What an incredibly stupid thing to do.

When I go on Facebook these days, it just feels so incredibly dead.

There are still a few diehard users hanging around, but overall it is just a pathetic hollow shell of a social media platform at this point.

Speaking of implosions, 2022 was an absolute disaster for the cryptocurrency industry.  The following summary of what we witnessed over the past 12 months comes from Zero Hedge

Among all the chaos and downfall of many crypto exchanges and leading venture capital firms, the biggest losers are crypto investors. If the burn of the bear market was not enough, millions of crypto investors who had their funds on FTX lost their life savings overnight.

Terra was once a $40 billion ecosystem. Its native token, LUNA — now known as Terra Classic (LUNC) — was one of the top five biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. With millions of customers invested in the ecosystem, the collapse brought their investment to zero within hours. After the Terra collapse, crypto investors lost their funds on a series of centralized exchanges and staking platforms like Celsius, BlockFi and Hodlnaut. Crypto investors also lost significantly in the nonfungible token market, with the price of many popular collections down by 70%. Overall, crypto investors are among the biggest losers of the year.

The total value of all cryptocurrencies exceeded 3 trillion dollars at the peak of the market.

Now the total value of all cryptocurrencies has fallen to less than 1 trillion dollars.

Hopefully you got out before the crash happened.

2022 was also a year when we experienced really painful inflation.

Food prices, energy prices and vehicle prices all went completely nuts, and many compared what we were going through to the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

But this shouldn’t have been a surprise to any of us.  Starting in 2020, our leaders absolutely flooded the system with new cash and the size of the money supply absolutely exploded.

Increasing the size of the money supply so dramatically was inevitably going to cause prices to go haywire, and anyone that thought otherwise was just not being rational.

In a desperate attempt to fight the inflation monster that they helped to create, officials at the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates throughout much of 2022.

As a result, we now find ourselves in the midst of another horrifying housing crash.  Home values are now steadily receding all over the nation, and home sales have been falling month after month.

Home sales have already fallen by more than a third.

How much lower can they possibly go?

I don’t know, but we are being warned to brace ourselves for more hard times ahead.

In fact, even the IMF is publicly admitting that “the worst is yet to come”

“The worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” the IMF said in October, noting the slowdown “will be broad-based” and may “reopen economic wounds that were only partially healed post-pandemic.”

If only they knew.

We aren’t just heading into a temporary economic downturn.  Ultimately, the entire system is starting to fall apart all around us, and the years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging.

Our leaders have been making mistake after mistake for decades, and now we get to pay the price.

So buckle up and hold on tight, because 2023 is not going to be pleasant at all.

***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 BlogEnd 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 “Mega-Bubbles” Have Started To Burst, And That Could Mean Unprecedented Financial Chaos Is Ahead

The Federal Reserve giveth, and the Federal Reserve taketh away.  In a desperate attempt to help the U.S. economy recover from the horrific economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them at or near the floor until 2022.  During that same time period, the Fed also created trillions of dollars out of thin air and pumped it into the financial system.  All of this new money had to go somewhere, and it created colossal financial bubbles that were unlike anything we had ever seen before.  There were a few voices that were warning that all of this foolishness would end very badly, but those voices were mostly drowned out by those that were super happy that asset values were absolutely exploding.  The Fed had essentially created the ultimate “get rich quick scheme”, and countless Americans were more than happy to take advantage of it.

But in 2022 inflation started to become exceedingly painful, and the Federal Reserve went into panic mode.  The flow of free money stopped, and the Federal Reserve began to aggressively hike interest rates.

Everyone knew that this sudden change of course by the Fed would crash the housing market, and that is precisely what is happening.  In fact, even the Wall Street Journal is now admitting that we are facing “a housing slump as severe, by some metrics, as that of 2007-09”

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases have brought on a housing slump as severe, by some metrics, as that of 2007-09, inflicting pain on prospective buyers, homeowners, builders and other industries linked to real estate.

For the Fed, this is a feature, not a bug: Slumping housing could help deliver the lower economic activity and inflation that the Fed wants in the coming year.

Home sales have been falling month after month, and it is being projected that they could soon fall below the levels that we witnessed during the last housing crash…

Sales of existing homes fell in November for a record 10th straight month. Economists at Fannie Mae and Goldman Sachs forecast they will drop below 4 million in 2023, lower than during the 2006-11 housing bust.

On Wednesday, we got some more bad news.

Pending home sales are one of the best leading indicators for where the housing market is going next, and at this point pending home sales have dropped to the lowest level ever recorded

Contracts to buy U.S. previously owned homes fell far more than expected in November, diving for a sixth straight month in the latest indication of the hefty toll the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are taking on the housing market as the central bank seeks to curb inflation.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said on Wednesday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on signed contracts, fell 4% to 73.9 last month from October’s downwardly revised 77.0. November’s was the lowest reading — aside from the short-lived drop in the early months of the pandemic — since NAR launched the index in 2001.

With interest rates so high, very few people want to buy homes right now.

So home prices are going to have to come down.

A lot.

In fact, George Gammon has demonstrated that we will need a crash in housing prices even larger than we witnessed during the last housing crash just to get back to the long-term trend line.

Do you think that our system will be able to handle a housing crash of that magnitude?

Of course not.

Meanwhile, the absurd cryptocurrency bubble that was created by the Fed’s easy money policies has already imploded.

I really like how Wolf Richter described what we have been witnessing over the past year in one of his most recent articles

And then come the copycats since anyone can issue a crypto currency. Suddenly there were a dozen of them, and then there were 100 of them then a 1,000, and suddenly 10,000 cryptos, and now there are over 22,000 cryptos, and everyone and their dog is creating them, and trading them, and lending them, and using them as collateral, and all kinds of businesses sprang up around this scheme, crypto miners, crypto exchanges, crypto lending platforms, and some of them went public via IPO or via merger with a SPAC.

And the market capitalization of these cryptos reached $3 trillion, trillion with a T, about a year ago, and then when the Fed started raising its interest rates and started doing QT, the whole thing just blows up. Companies go like POOF, and the money is gone, and whatever is left is stuck in bankruptcy courts globally possibly for years. Cryptos themselves have imploded. Many have gone to essentially zero and have been abandoned for dead. The granddaddy, bitcoin, has plunged by something like 73% from the peak. The whole crypto market is also down about 73%.

More than two trillion dollars of “crypto wealth” has already been wiped out.

Less than a trillion is left.

But the party was fun while it lasted, right?

Sadly, all of the bubbles are starting to burst, and 2023 is going to be a really painful year.

Normally, major economic downturns take just about everyone by surprise.  But this time around, almost everyone can feel that really bad times are coming.  The following is what Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics recently had to say about this…

“Usually recessions sneak up on us. CEOs never talk about recessions,” said Zandi. “Now it seems CEOs are falling over themselves to say we’re falling into a recession. … Every person on TV says recession. Every economist says recession. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He is right.

We’ve never seen anything like this before, and that is because the coming crisis is going to be really bad.

Many among the elite can sense that what is approaching will be truly nightmarish, and so they have been feverishly preparing for the worst

Though a recent poll found that four-in-ten Americans believe we are ‘living in the end of times,’ it’s not just the everyman who is fearing the apocalypse these days – billionaires have been prepping themselves for the apocalypse with elaborate doomsday bunkers for years.

As the world still reels from the scars of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change-driven storms lash American coastlines and flood inland cities, and Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to talk of using nuclear weapons to devastate Ukraine, a Pew Research Center survey of more than US 10,000 adults found that 39 percent called these the ‘end times.’

The world’s wealthiest are among those cautious of a coming calamity, including billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman, who have famously laid down routes in remote New Zealand with the express purpose of riding out the end of days.

Yes, things will soon get really crazy as global events spiral completely out of control.

But that doesn’t mean that you should curl up into a fetal position and throw a pity party for yourself.

When I was growing up, I was told that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

So get prepared for some really rough years ahead.

The clock is ticking, and just about everything that can be shaken will be shaken in 2023 and beyond.

***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 BlogEnd 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.

Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To Us?

I suppose that this is a fitting way to end the year.  2022 has been a year of war, plagues, natural disasters, shortages and severe economic troubles, but up until this month we had not been able to add “an apocalyptic winter storm” to the list yet.  Unfortunately, what we have just been through over the last week definitely qualifies.  A “monster storm” that covered almost the entire country at one point brought blizzard conditions to much of the U.S. over the past several days.  Temperatures dipped down to minus 50 degrees in some areas, and extremely high winds and heavy snow combined to create truly nightmarish conditions in certain cities.  For example, we are being told that this was the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history”

“We had to send specialized rescue crews to go get the rescuers,” Poloncarz told “CNN This Morning” Monday, adding it was the worst storm he could remember. “It was just horrendous, and it was horrendous for 24 hours in a row.”

“We’re used to snow here, we can handle snow,” he said. “But with the wind, the blinding views – it was complete whiteouts – and the extreme cold, it was some of the worst conditions that any of us have ever seen.”

The storm has drawn widespread comparisons to Buffalo’s famous blizzard of 1977. Poloncarz said in Monday’s news conference the current storm’s “ferocity … was worse than the blizzard of ’77.” And in a news conference Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called this storm the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history.”

Buffalo has had a lot of really bad storms over the years.

But this one takes the cake.

According to a local news report, Buffalo has already received about 4 feet of snow, and snow is going to continue to fall until the middle of the day on Tuesday…

The blizzard began Friday, dumping nearly 4 feet of snow in the Buffalo area and making many roads impassable.

The snow is still falling. Some parts of the county could see another 8 to 12 inches by 1 p.m. Tuesday.

I have never seen anything quite like this.

Of course I have been using that phrase a lot lately.

So far, at least 27 people have been killed by the storm in Erie County, and the overall national death toll from the storm is up to 55.

But both of those numbers will inevitably go much higher because right now there are countless drivers stranded in their vehicles on highways all over the United States.

What part of “don’t drive during this storm” did people not understand?

Many others are without power and are slowly freezing as they find themselves trapped inside their own homes by colossal mountains of snow.

Those that are in need of rescue could use our prayers right about now.

Sadly, it seems like whenever there is some sort of a major natural disaster in this country there are hordes of looters ready to take advantage of it.

On Monday, the rampant looting that we just witnessed in Buffalo made headlines all over the globe

Videos posted online show brazen thieves taking advantage of the chaos, trudging over mounds of snow to get into abandoned storefronts — like a Dollar General where shelves were overturned and items were scattered across the ground.

Residents filmed some of the thieves as they entered the store and left with handfuls of items like paper towels and toilet paper, as one shameless woman even posted a Facebook Live of her and her friends grabbing items from the store.

Others were filmed hauling televisions out of stores, and security footage caught one man breaking the glass of a liquor store door, where he allegedly stole $500 worth of goods.

Zero Hedge has posted lots of videos of the vicious looting, and those videos are prime examples of just how far we have fallen as a society.

As I have said so many times before, the thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing.

If a truly horrific long-term disaster were to erupt that causes law and order to break down on a widespread basis, we will devolve into a “Mad Max society” very quickly.

Speaking of crime, someone just attacked four more electrical substations in Washington state

Thousands of homes were left in the dark after four electrical substations in western Washington were vandalized on Christmas Day, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was unknown if the incidents were connected.

The attacks on Sunday cut power to more than 14,000 utility customers in south Pierce County, near Tacoma, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.

The burglaries were reported at two substations belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities and two belonging to Puget Sound Energy.

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the number of these attacks has reached an all-time record high this year, and they are happening all over the nation.

Utility companies are going to have to start hiring 24 hour security to guard their equipment, because this is a problem that isn’t going to go away.

And that will mean even higher utility bills for all of us.

I truly wish that our society was not coming apart at the seams all around us.

But this is where we are at, and denying reality is not going to make things any better.

So why is our society in such bad shape?

And why do so many bad things keep happening to us?

The end of the year is often a time of self-reflection for individuals, and it should also be a time of self-reflection for our nation as a whole.

Because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, the pain that we will experience in the years ahead will be far more severe than what we have been through already.

Good decisions lead to good consequences.

And bad decisions lead to bad consequences.

Wake up America, because time is quickly slipping away.

***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 BlogEnd 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.

Horrifying Pestilences Are Starting To Run Wild All Over The Globe

How many millions have to die before people start to realize what is happening?  For years, I have been persistently warning that we would soon enter an era of great pestilences, and now it is here.  Sadly, what we have witnessed over the past few years is just the tip of the iceberg.  At this point we have been perfectly primed for future pandemics because vast numbers of people all over the planet are now running around with compromised immune systems.  That means that diseases will now be able to spread even more easily, and this is a trend that we have already started to see all throughout 2022.

Strep A is the latest illness to run wild in the western world.  The number of children being admitted to the hospital with Strep A is way above normal in the U.S., and this appears to particularly be true in the western half of the country

A deadly wave of Strep A infections in children looks set to take off in the US — weeks after the UK was hit by a spate of deaths.

At least two children have died in Colorado after suffering the normally-mild illness, and pediatric hospitals in five states — Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Washington and West Virginia — are reporting much higher levels of admissions than usual.

At the country’s largest pediatric hospital in Texas, doctors are already handling four times more Strep A patients than last year.

But this has not been a typical Strep A outbreak.

In fact, hospitals are reporting that children are coming in with very strange symptoms that are not usually associated with Strep A at all…

One of the largest children’s hospitals in Missouri is seeing an influx of children with bizarre Strep A symptoms – as the outbreak continues to spread in the US.

Children’s Mercy Kansas City Hospital has had seven children in recent weeks come in with symptoms like a ‘stuck’ eye, lumps behind the ear and trouble swallowing – which led to drooling.

Doctors were initially perplexed by the cases – but further testing found each child was suffering from Strep A. The normally-mild bacterial infection is causing a spate of hospitalizations across the US, UK and Europe.

So what is going on?

Is this a new form of Strep A that is more severe than we have ever seen before?

Right now there is so much that we do not know.

But what we do know is that Strep A is also spreading like wildfire in the UK and elsewhere.

This is an outbreak that we will want to keep a very close eye on, because it could end up killing a lot of kids.

Meanwhile, a “mystery disease” that causes “bleeding from the mouth and nose” has erupted in Afghanistan…

An unknown pathogen has infected more than 80 people and killed two children in the Afghan province of Zabul, Taliban authorities said. The disease causes intense fever and bleeding from the mouth and nose.

Taliban public health chief Abdul Hakim Hakimi said that clinics in the Shahjoy district of the province have seen a sharp increase in the numbers of people suffering from the “suspicious” disease in recent weeks, Afghanistan’s Hasht-e Subh Daily reported on Tuesday.

Hopefully this illness will be able to be contained in Afghanistan, because it sounds like it is really bad.

In China, health officials are dealing with a “thermonuclear” outbreak of COVID.  According to one projection, there will soon be 800 million Chinese cases

CHINA is facing a “thermonuclear” Covid outbreak says one expert, as hospitals and crematoriums start to overflow.

According to one estimate, Covid could spread rapidly until there are 800 million cases in 90 days after the Zero Covid policy of harsh lockdowns was ditched.

Video has emerged showing patients rammed into a hospital sleeping on floors and bodies stored in corridors, in a chilling echo of the when Covid first hit China.

If this is just one of the usual strains of COVID that is currently circulating around the globe, the number of cases should not get anywhere close to 800 million.

So precisely what is going on in China right now?

We are being warned that this new outbreak “could kill up to one million people”, and it is being reported that even now crematoriums are literally running out of space for all the dead bodies that are coming in

Crematoriums across China said Tuesday they were straining to deal with an influx of bodies, as the country battles a wave of Covid cases that authorities have admitted is impossible to track.

Hospitals are struggling and pharmacy shelves have been stripped bare in the wake of the Chinese government’s sudden decision last month to lift nearly three years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing.

In Chongqing – a city of 30 million where authorities this week urged people with ‘mild’ Covid symptoms to go to work – one crematorium told AFP they had run out of space to keep bodies.

I am going to be watching developments in China very carefully, because I am not entirely convinced that we are getting the whole story.

On top of everything else, we are being told that the bird flu has become a “worldwide problem” as it continues to spread rapidly across the globe.

Here in the United States, the total death toll has now reached 58 million

The highly contagious bird flu spread like wildfire across the US poultry stock this year, killing about 58 million birds – the deadliest outbreak in American history, according to US Agriculture Department data.

The bird flu is the main reason why turkey, chicken and eggs have become so absurdly expensive.

If you can believe it, the wholesale price of Midwest large eggs actually hit an all-time record high of $5.36 a dozen this month.

It wasn’t too long ago when I could buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents at the local grocery store.

Things are changing so rapidly now, and none of our lives are ever going to be the same again.

Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that life expectancy in the United States fell once again last year

The death rate for the U.S. population increased by 5%, cutting life expectancy at birth to 76.4 years in 2021 from 77 years in 2020. The CDC in August released preliminary estimates demonstrating a similar decline. Before the pandemic, in 2019, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.8 years. The decline in 2020 was the largest since World War II.

Unfortunately, life expectancy is going to go a lot lower than that as the death rate continues to rise.

Countless numbers of people will die as various plagues and pestilences sweep across our planet in the years ahead.

But most people still don’t understand that conditions have fundamentally changed, and so they continue to expect that life will eventually “return to normal”…

***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 BlogEnd 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.

15 Facts Which Prove That A Massive Economic Meltdown Is Already Happening Right Now

Economic conditions just keep getting worse.  As we prepare to enter 2023, we find ourselves in a high inflation environment at the same time that economic activity is really slowing down.  And just like we witnessed in 2008, employers are conducting mass layoffs as a horrifying housing crash sweeps across the nation.  Those that have been waiting for the U.S. economy to implode can stop waiting, because an economic implosion has officially arrived.  The following are 15 facts that prove that a massive economic meltdown is already happening right now…

#1 Existing home sales have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.

#2 Existing home sales are down 35.4 percent over the last 12 months.  That is the largest year over year decline in existing home sales since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#3 Homebuilder sentiment has now dropped for 12 consecutive months.

#4 Home construction costs have risen more than 30 percent since the beginning of 2022.

#5 The number of single-family housing unit permits has fallen for nine months in a row.

#6 The Empire State Manufacturing Index has plunged “to a reading of negative 11.2 in December”.  That figure was way, way below expectations.

#7 In November, we witnessed the largest decline in retail sales that we have seen all year long.

#8 Even the biggest names on Wall Street are starting to let workers go.  In fact, it is being reported that Goldman Sachs will soon lay off approximately 4,000 employees.

#9 The Federal Reserve is admitting that the number of actual jobs in the United States has been overstated by over a million.

#10 U.S. job cuts were 417 percent higher in November than they were during the same month a year ago.

#11 A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that approximately two-thirds of all Americans expect the economy to get even worse next year.

#12 A newly released Bloomberg survey has discovered that 70 percent of U.S. economists believe that a recession is coming in 2023.

#13 Inflation continues to spiral wildly out of control.  At this point, a head of lettuce now costs 11 dollars at one grocery store in California.

#14 Overall, vegetable prices in the United States are more than 80 percent higher than they were at this same time last year.

#15 Thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, 63 percent of the U.S. population is now living paycheck to paycheck.

In a desperate attempt to get inflation under control, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically increasing interest rates.

Those interest rate hikes are what has caused the housing market to crash, but Fed officials insist that such short-term pain is necessary in order to tame inflation.

But meanwhile our politicians in Washington are busy creating more inflation by borrowing and spending money at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented in our entire history.

This week, an abominable 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill is being rammed through Congress, but not a single member of Congress has read it.

The bill is 4,155 pages long, and U.S. Senator Rand Paul just held a press briefing during which he wheeled it out on a trolley…

After the grossly bloated $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill advanced in the Senate by a vote of 70-25, GOP Senator Rand Paul held a press briefing during which he wheeled in the “abomination” on a trolley and demanded to know how anyone would be able to read it before the end of the week.

Paul, along with the only other dissenting Senate Republicans Mike Braun, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott highlighted how ludicrous the fast tracking of the bill has been.

Unfortunately, this absurd spending bill has broad support on both sides of the aisle, and that just shows how broken Washington has become.

Our system of government has failed time after time, and our politicians continue to spend money on some of the most ridiculous things imaginable.

The following examples that were pulled out of the 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill were discovered by the Heritage Foundation

-$1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”
-$1.2 million for “services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College.
-$477k for the Equity Institute in RI to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs.”
-$1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color.”
-$3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City.
-$3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia.
-$750k for the for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing” in Albany, New York.
-$856k for the “LGBT Center” in New York.

And have you noticed that our politicians often prefer to push these types of bills through just before major holidays when hardly anyone is paying attention?

No matter who we send to Washington, the story remains the same.

As long as our politicians are borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, Fed officials won’t be able to win their war against inflation.

The Fed can send interest rates into the stratosphere, but inflation will continue to remain high because our politicians insist on showering the nation with giant mountains of cash.

We should all be deeply, deeply offended by what is happening, but most Americans simply do not know enough to care.

But once economic conditions get even worse than they were in 2008 and 2009, the majority of the U.S. population will become extremely angry.

Of course things could have turned out much differently if we had made better decisions during the years leading up to this crisis.

Unfortunately, we have run out of time to change course, and that means that a tremendous amount of pain is ahead for all 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 BlogEnd 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.

This Is Not Normal! The Nation Braces For A ‘Bomb Cylcone’ That Will Bring ‘The Coldest Air In Decades’

We are only at the very beginning of winter, and we are already being hit by a storm that will bring “the coldest air in decades” to many parts of the country.  In fact, there will be some areas where wind chill temperatures drop so low that it will literally be “life-threatening” to be outside.  Needless to say, we could really use some of that “global warming” they keep talking about right now, because conditions are going to be bitterly cold all over the U.S. this week.  For years, I have been warning that global weather patterns are starting to go completely nuts, and this winter is certainly off to an extremely bizarre beginning.  If you live in a place that will get hit really hard this week, please be safe.

According to the Weather Channel, the giant storm that has begun to sweep across the nation is known as “Winter Storm Elliott”, and it could “become a bomb cyclone over the Great Lakes later this week”…

A​ major storm – named Winter Storm Elliott by The Weather Channel – could become a bomb cyclone over the Great Lakes later this week and bring blizzard conditions to parts of the Midwest as well as high winds to the East Coast, snarling travel in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday weekend.

T​his developing storm will also usher in bitterly cold air to much of the nation as far south as Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida.

So exactly what is a “bomb cyclone”?

Well, normally a storm is considered to have undergone bombogenesis “if its minimum surface pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less”

A​s a rule of thumb, meteorologists refer to a strengthening low as “bombing out” or undergoing bombogenesis if its minimum surface pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less, though that criteria also depends on a storm’s latitude.

Meteorologists frequently discuss pressure in terms of millibars, rather than inches of mercury.

The reason this all matters beyond just a weather geeky statistic is the lower the pressure in a storm, the more intense it is. And the greater difference in pressure over an area, the stronger the winds.

Of course we have seen “bomb cyclones” before, but this one is truly a monster.

If you can believe it, this storm will cover nearly the entire country east of the Rocky Mountains later this week.

I have never seen anything quite like this.

This storm will bring tremendous amounts of snow to many areas, but the main threat that it poses are the extremely cold temperatures that it will bring.

According to AccuWeather, some parts of the nation will shortly be experiencing “the coldest air in decades”

A burst of Arctic air that AccuWeather meteorologists have been monitoring since last week is poised to plunge the eastern two-thirds of the United States into a deep freeze ahead of Christmas, bringing the coldest air in decades to some areas and causing heating demands to sky rocket.

Subfreezing and, in some cases, subzero temperatures are expected to grip areas from the northern Rockies to the Plains, East and South. The mercury could dip to 25-50 degrees Fahrenheit below late-December averages during the height of the cold.

Some of the forecasts that I have seen are more than a little bit frightening.

For instance, Accuweather is telling us that temperatures in Montana and North Dakota “could dip as low as 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero”…

By the middle of the week, a reinforcing burst of Arctic air will send temperatures well below zero. Temperatures could dip as low as 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero in some areas of Montana or North Dakota, which would come close to a stretch of extreme cold observed back in 1983 and 1989. Records from the cold outbreaks during those years still set the standard for cold air around Christmastime in much of the northern and eastern U.S.

That is cold!

And we are being warned that temperatures in Minnesota could also reach 40 degrees below zero near the end of the week

Meteorologists in the Twin Cities forecasted wind chills as cold as minus 40 F Thursday through Friday. Even locations as far south as Orlando, Florida, could potentially see below-freezing conditions this week, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex DaSilva.

These extraordinarily low temperatures will also be accompanied by high winds.

This will create extreme blizzard conditions in some portions of the country, and in some cases we will see wind chill temperatures that look like they have been pulled out of a Hollywood disaster film.

In some areas, the snow has already begun.

For instance, it was being projected that some parts of Washington state would receive “up to 24 inches of additional snow” on Tuesday.

By the time we get to the weekend, nearly the entire nation will have been hit by this colossal storm.

I wish that I could tell you that this is just an anomaly.

But it isn’t.

Global weather patterns have been going haywire for quite a while, and it just keeps getting worse with each passing year.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what happens in 2023 and beyond…

***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 BlogEnd 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 U.S. Has Spawned An Entire Generation Of “Kidults” That Simply Refuse To Grow Up

Do you know any adults that still live at home with their parents?  If you are like most Americans, you probably know lots of them.  Sadly, that is because the percentage of young adults that are living with at least one parent has been trending upwards for decades.  Of course the cost of housing is one factor that is driving this phenomenon.  At one point in 2022, housing was more unaffordable than it had ever been in the entire history of our country.  So the truth is that many of the multi-generational households that exist today have formed due to economic necessity.  But in other cases, “kidults” that simply refuse to grow up have moved back home with Mom and Dad because it is easier than trying to live independently.

Thanks to the “kidult” trend, approximately half of all U.S. adults in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket are currently living with at least one parent…

In July 2022, half of adults ages 18 to 29 were living with one or both of their parents. This was down from a recent peak of 52% in June 2020 but still significantly higher than the share who were living with their parents in 2010 (44% on average that year) or 2000 (38% on average).

So what do parents think about all of this?

Well, some like it, but even more don’t like it

The share of adult children who live with their parents has ticked up in recent years. This just in: The parents don’t like it.

recent Pew survey found two-fifths of dads believe parents hosting adult children is bad for society, while only 12 percent think it’s a good thing. Moms agree, albeit to a lesser degree.

Overall, the Pew survey discovered that Americans have very mixed feelings about this phenomenon…

Over a third of Americans (36%) say that more young adults living with their parents is bad for society, while 16% say it is good for society. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say it doesn’t make a difference.

Of course every story is different.

Some adults are living at home because they just cannot afford homes of their own.

These days, millions of young people graduate from college with massive amounts of debt, and when all of that debt forces them to go back to living with their parents they are referred to as “boomerang kids”.

If you are a young person that has been financially crippled by student loan debt, I certainly don’t blame you for trying to save money so that you can turn your life around.

Ultimately, trying to get out of debt is a really good thing.

But of course there are millions of other young adults that simply refuse to grow up.

In fact, they have become so numerous that the toy industry has created a special term for them.  They are called “kidults”, and these days they are spending billions of dollars on toys

There are two things keeping the toy industry afloat right now: inflation and a consumer group known as “kidults.”

These kids at heart are responsible for one-fourth of all toy sales annually, around $9 billion worth, and are the biggest driver of growth throughout the industry, according to data from the NPD Group.

Have you ever met an adult that has a special room for all of his Star Wars collectibles?

If so, then you probably have a really good idea of the type of person that I am talking about.

“Kidults” are shelling out so much money for toys that toy companies have actually begun to create “product lines just for these consumers”

Kidults, who tend to spend more on toys, have a great fondness for cartoons, superheroes and collectibles that remind them of their childhood. They buy merchandise such as action figures, Lego sets and dolls that might typically be considered “for kids.” However, in recent years, toy makers have created product lines just for these consumers, realizing that demand is high for this generation of adults who still want to have fun.

I am all for having fun.

But this is getting ridiculous.

Sadly, men are much more likely to be “kidults” than women are.

Needless to say, this is one of the reasons why many women find it so difficult to find someone suitable to marry.

The labor force participation rate for men has been trending down for decades, and meanwhile the labor force participation rate for women has been trending up for decades.

Of course the systematic emasculation of the male population is another reason why this has been happening, but that is a topic for another article.

Once upon a time, it was extremely unusual for an able-bodied male to be doing nothing if he was capable of working.

But now we have millions upon millions of men that have simply dropped out of the labor force completely.

Some of those men are now living with their parents, and that isn’t good for our society.

Unfortunately, as economic conditions deteriorate, even more young adults will move back home with Mom and Dad.  According to a Wall Street Journal poll that was just released, approximately two-thirds of Americans believe that “the nation’s economic trajectory is headed in the wrong direction”…

A majority of voters think the economy will be in worse shape in 2023 than it is now and roughly two-thirds say the nation’s economic trajectory is headed in the wrong direction, the latest Wall Street Journal poll shows.

The survey, conducted Dec. 3-7, suggests a recent burst of positive economic news—moderating gas prices and a slowing pace of inflation—haven’t altered the way many feel about the risk of a recession, something many economists have forecast as likely.

The coming year is definitely going to be quite rough, and the outlook for beyond that is even worse.

As the economy crumbles and global events spiral out of control, we are going to need men to be men.

But a lot of the “kidults” out there simply don’t want to be men, and that is extremely unfortunate.

***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 BlogEnd 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.