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5 Major Events That Have Happened Within The Last 100 Hours

September 27, 2022September 27, 2022 by Michael

If you think that nothing is happening, then you have not been paying attention. Within the past 100 hours, there has been a mysterious attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline system, two monster storms have threatened North America, NASA rammed a spacecraft into an asteroid in order to knock it off course, and our ongoing stock market crash reached a new level when the Dow Jones Industrial Average officially plunged into bear market territory on Monday. I would say that is a pretty active 100 hours, but of course this is just the beginning. I believe that global events will continue to accelerate during the months ahead, but meanwhile most of the general population is still assuming that things will eventually “return to normal” somehow.

We live during times when so many things are happening all at once that it is truly difficult to keep up with it all.

Personally, I fully expect things to get even more “interesting” now that summer is over, and we are certainly off to a flying start. The following are 5 major events that have happened within the last 100 hours…

#1 A series of explosions has caused “unprecedented” damage to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines…

The Nord Stream gas pipeline system endured “unprecedented” damage to three offshore lines on the bed of the Baltic Sea in one day, Nord Stream AG, the network’s operator, said on Tuesday.

The AG said it was impossible to estimate when the gas network system’s working capability would be restored.

“The destruction that occurred on the same day simultaneously on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented. It is not yet possible to estimate the timing of the restoration of the gas transport infrastructure,” the operator told reporters.

As I discussed in a previous article, these pipelines are very well constructed and are extremely thick. In order to damage them, very large explosions would be needed, and that is apparently exactly what happened. In fact, the explosions that damaged these pipelines were so large that they actually registered on the Richter scale. Many European officials are insisting that this could not have been an accident, and I agree with them.

But if this was not an accident, who was responsible?

#2 Fiona turned out to be a truly historic disaster for our neighbors to the north. It violently slammed into Nova Scotia on Saturday, and we are being told that it was one of the most powerful storms in the entire history of Canada…

Fiona, the most powerful storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, roared ashore in eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday as one of the strongest systems ever to hit the region, knocking out power, toppling trees and forcing residents to flee.

Across Nova Scotia, 414,000 households were without power, or about 80% of Nova Scotia Power’s customers. Thousands more were hit in neighboring areas as well.

This was definitely a “monster storm”, but it looks like an even bigger storm could be about to hit Florida…

#3 On Tuesday, Hurricane Ian strengthened into a “major Category 3 hurricane”, and forecasters are warning that it could actually turn into a Category 4 storm before it finally collides with the west coast of Florida on Wednesday…

The center of Ian could strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane as it continues to move over the Gulf, NBC News forecasters said.

Ian will continue to intensify today through Wednesday as it approaches the west coast of Florida on Wednesday “as an extremely dangerous major hurricane,” according to the National Hurricane Center.

Without a doubt, Ian is a very dangerous storm, and it has the potential to cause an immense amount of damage once it reaches shore.

#4 On Monday, NASA rammed a spacecraft into an asteroid for the first time in history in order to see if it could alter the trajectory of the giant space rock…

NASA’s DART mission slammed into Dimorphos, a smaller space rock circling a larger asteroid called Didymos, to see if it could throw off the orbit of a potential future asteroid that was threatening life on Earth. Scientists will be watching the Didymos system closely to see how much Dimorphos’ orbit actually changed – those results won’t come for at least another two months.

Confirmation of NASA’s successful planetary defense test came seconds after the 7:14 ET (00:14 BST) 14,000 mph collision, sparking applause among the ground team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. ‘Impact success!’ NASA tweeted after the DART spacecraft collided with the 560 foot asteroid, around 6.7 million miles away from Earth.

Is NASA conducting such a test for a specific reason?

If so, they would never actually admit it.

Personally, I have a feeling that this is a very important story that is far from over.

#5 U.S. stock prices continue to crash.

Unlike the crash of 2008, what we have witnessed so far in the fall of 2022 has been slow and steady.

But prices just keep going down.

On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average officially entered bear market territory.

And then on Tuesday the Dow fell some more.

Overall, the Dow has now fallen 21.2 percent from the previous all-time high, the S&P 500 is down 24.3 percent from the record it set in January, and the Nasdaq has plummeted more than 33 percent from the peak that it hit last November.

The amount of wealth that has already been wiped out is absolutely staggering. In fact, Forbes is reporting that the wealthiest tech tycoons have collectively lost 315 billion dollars over the past year…

Stock prices have dropped and inflation surged, making the members of The Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the U.S. a collective $500 billion poorer than last year. The wealthiest tech tycoons have taken the brunt of the beating: They have lost a combined $315 billion in net worth since the fall of 2021—accounting for nearly two thirds of the total drop in The Forbes 400’s wealth.

How would you feel if you and your friends lost 315 billion dollars in just one year?

Unfortunately, it appears that much more turmoil will be coming to Wall Street in the months ahead.

Economic problems are erupting all over the globe, more war is on the horizon, and our planet just keeps getting hit by one disaster after another.

It is almost as if we have entered some sort of a “perfect storm”, but most people out there still do not understand what is happening.

The strange events of the last 100 hours are not an anomaly.

We live at a time when really weird things are happening on a regular basis, and I have a feeling that the remainder of 2023 will bring us a lot more surprises.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, 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 digital copies as gifts through Amazon 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 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 ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

This Thanksgiving, Supplies Of Turkey, Eggs And Butter Will Be Extremely Tight In The United States

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022 by Michael

If you love to cook, this upcoming Thanksgiving may be a real challenge for you. Thanks to a resurgence of the bird flu, supplies of turkey are getting tighter and tighter. Sadly, the same thing is true for eggs. And as you will see below, reduced milk production is sending the price of butter into the stratosphere. Thanks to soaring prices, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner will be out of reach for millions of American families this year, and that is extremely unfortunate. Of course all of this is happening in the context of a horrific global food crisis that is getting worse with each passing day. Yes, things are bad now, but they will be significantly worse this time next year.

The bird flu pandemic that has killed tens of millions of our chickens and turkeys was supposed to go away during the hot summer months, but that didn’t happen. And now that the weather is starting to get colder again, there has been a resurgence of the bird flu and this is “devastating egg and turkey operations in the heartland of the country”…

Turkeys are selling for record high prices ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday as a resurgence of bird flu wipes out supplies across the US.

Avian influenza is devastating egg and turkey operations in the heartland of the country. If just one bird gets it, the entire flock is culled in order to stop the spread. Millions of hens and turkeys have been killed in recent weeks. As a result, prices for turkey hens are nearly 30% higher than a year ago and 80% above pre-pandemic costs. Just as concerning are inventories of whole turkeys, which are the lowest going into the US winter holiday season since 2006. That means there will be little relief from inflation for Thanksgiving dinner.

In the months ahead, we could see tens of millions more chickens and turkeys get wiped out.

Egg prices have already tripled in 2022 and the price of turkey meat is up 60 percent. Unfortunately, this is likely just the beginning…

Turkey hens are $1.82 a pound this week, according to Urner Barry, compared to $1.42 last year and $1.01 before the pandemic. Meanwhile, wholesale egg prices are at $3.62 a dozen as of Wednesday, the highest ever, up from a previous record of $3.45 a dozen set earlier this year, said John Brunnquell, chief executive officer of Egg Innovations, one of the biggest US producers of free-range eggs. Consumers have seen prices for eggs at grocery stores triple this year, while turkey meat rose a record-setting 60%, according to a Cobank report.

Meanwhile, supplies of butter are steadily getting tighter as well…

Lower milk production on U.S. dairy farms and labor shortages for processing plants have weighed on butter output for months, leaving the amount of butter in U.S. cold storage facilities at the end of July the lowest since 2017, according to the Agriculture Department.

Tight supplies have sent butter prices soaring at U.S. supermarkets, surpassing most other foods in the past year. U.S. grocery prices in August rose 13.5% during the past 12 months, the largest annual increase since 1979, according to the Labor Department. Butter outstripped those gains, rising 24.6% over the same period.

The trends that are driving up the price of butter aren’t going away any time soon, and so we are being warned to brace ourselves for “elevated” prices for the foreseeable future…

The forces at work in butter highlight the challenge of curtailing inflation. Economic pressures fueling high prices for livestock feed, labor shortages and other factors could persist, keeping prices for the kitchen staple elevated longer term.

To me, slathering a piece of warm bread with a huge chunk of butter is one of the best things about Thanksgiving.

And most of us will continue to buy butter no matter how high it goes.

But the truth is that rapidly rising food prices are forcing vast numbers of Americans to adjust their shopping habits. Here is one example…

For Carol Ehrman, cooking is a joyful experience.

“I love to cook, it’s my favorite thing to do,” she said. She especially likes to cook Indian and Thai food, but stocking the spices and ingredients she needs for those dishes is no longer feasible. “When every ingredient has gone up, that adds up on the total bill,” she said.

“What used to cost us $250 to $300 … is now $400.” Ehrman, 60, and her husband, 65, rely on his social security income, and the increase was stretching their budget. “We just couldn’t do that.”

The global food crisis is starting to hit home for many ordinary Americans, and we need to understand that this crisis is still only in the very early chapters.

David Beasley is the head of the UN World Food Program, and he is actually using the word “hell” to describe what is potentially coming in 2023…

“It’s a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm,” Beasley said. “And with the fertilizer crisis we’re facing right now, with droughts, we’re facing a food pricing problem in 2022. This created havoc around the world.”

“If we don’t get on top of this quickly — and I don’t mean next year, I mean this year — you will have a food availability problem in 2023,” he said. “And that’s gonna be hell.”

The World Food Program keeps sounding the alarm, but very few of us in the western world seem to be taking those warnings very seriously.

People are literally dropping dead from starvation in some areas of the globe right now, and a new report that the WFP just released says that there are 19 “hotspots” where we could see a “huge loss of life” between October and January…

World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are out with a new report outlining countries that “are either already starving or on the brink of disaster.”

WFP and FAO found 19 hunger hotspots worldwide, with most countries in Africa, the Middle East, and even some in Central America. They call for urgent humanitarian action between October 2022 and January 2023 to avoid “huge loss of life.”

Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, and Haiti are labeled “hotspots of highest concern,” facing catastrophic hunger levels.

The sort of famines that we were warned about are already starting to happen right in front of our eyes, but most people simply will not care as long as they are not going hungry themselves.

What those people do not realize is that this global food crisis is going to continue to spread.

As supplies of food get tighter and tighter, prices will continue to soar and shortages will become more common.

We truly are in unprecedented territory, and the pain that is ahead will greatly shock all of the lemmings that just kept assuming that everything would work out just fine somehow.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

They Know That They Are Killing The Economy, But They Are Doing It Anyway…

September 21, 2022 by Michael

They know exactly what they are doing. The “experts” that run the Federal Reserve know that if they dramatically hike interest rates it will cause countless American workers to lose their jobs and it will absolutely crush the housing market. And even though those two things are already starting to happen, they just announced another massive rate hike. If there was a school for central bankers, one of the very first things that they would teach you is that you should never, ever raise rates as an economy is plunging into a recession. Every Fed official knows what has happened in the past when rates have been hiked at the beginning of an economic slowdown, but they are doing it anyway. To call this “economic malpractice” would be a major understatement, and the American people should be deeply alarmed about what they are doing to us.

After everything that has already happened, it is hard to believe that Fed officials would continue to be so reckless. On Wednesday, it was announced that rates would be raised by another 75 basis points…

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points for the third straight month as it struggles to bring scorching-hot inflation under control, a move that threatens to slow U.S. economic growth and exacerbate financial pain for millions of households and businesses.

The three-quarter percentage point hikes in June, July and September — the most aggressive series of increases since 1994 — underscore just how serious Fed officials are about tackling the inflation crisis after a string of alarming economic reports. Policymakers voted unanimously to approve the latest super-sized hike.

It was a unanimous vote.

There wasn’t even one dissenting voice.

Have they gone completely mad?

Wall Street certainly did not like this decision. The Dow plunged hundreds of points immediately after it was announced…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 522.45 points, or 1.7%, to close at 30,183.78. The S&P 500 shed 1.71% to 3,789.93, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.79% to 11,220.19.

The S&P ended Wednesday’s session down more than 10% in the past month and 21% off its 52-week high. Even before the rate decision, stocks were pricing in an aggressive tightening campaign by the Fed that could tip the economy into a recession.

For ages, the Fed coddled the financial markets, but now it is almost as if they don’t even care anymore.

Personally, I am far more concerned about what will happen to ordinary hard working Americans in the months ahead. Even Jerome Powell is admitting that “an increase in unemployment” is likely because of what the Fed is doing…

“I think there’s a very high likelihood we will have a period of … much lower growth and it could give rise to an increase in unemployment,” he said.

Will that mean a recession?

“No one knows whether that process will lead to a recession or how significant a recession it will be,” Powell said. “I don’t know the odds.”

Actually, we are in a recession right now.

And Powell and his minions just made things a whole lot worse.

Even Democrats understand this. After the rate hike was announced, Senator Elizabeth Warren went on Twitter and warned that “millions of Americans” could soon lose their jobs…

.@federalreserve’s Chair Powell just announced another extreme interest rate hike while forecasting higher unemployment. I’ve been warning that Chair Powell’s Fed would throw millions of Americans out of work — and I fear he’s already on the path to doing so.

This is one of the rare occasions when Elizabeth Warren is right on target.

As I have been documenting on my website for weeks, large numbers of Americans have already been getting laid off.

In fact, things are already so bad that even Facebook is trimming their numbers…

As growth stalls and competition intensifies, Facebook parent Meta has begun quietly cutting staff by reorganizing departments, while giving ‘reorganized’ employees a narrow window to apply for other roles within the company, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing current and former managers familiar with the matter.

By shuffling people around, the company achieves staffing cuts “while forestalling the mass issuance of pink slips.”

So why would the Fed choose to raise rates when layoffs are already beginning to spike?

Higher rates are also having a devastating impact on the housing market.

This week, we learned that sales of existing homes have now fallen for seven months in a row…

Home sales declined for the seventh month in a row in August as higher mortgage rates and stubbornly high prices pushed prospective buyers out of the market.

Sales of existing homes — which include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — were down 19.9% from a year ago and down 0.4% from July, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

Someone should start putting “Jerome Powell did this” stickers on for sale signs all over the nation.

Because this didn’t have to happen.

Now the housing market is already in a “deep recession”, and the Fed just keeps making things even worse…

The prolonged downturn in confidence shows the housing market has been “in a tailspin for the whole of this year,” according to Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson.

“Activity tracks mortgage applications with a lag, and the early September numbers are grim, even before the full hit from the rebound in mortgage rates in recent weeks works through,” Shepherdson said in a note to clients on Monday.

“In short, the housing market is in a deep recession, which is already hammering homebuilders and will soon depress housing-related retail sales,” he added.

The Fed seems determined to kill the economy.

But why?

Why would they do this?

One analyst that was just quoted by Fox Business is warning that “times are going to get tougher from here”…

“With the new rate projections, the Fed is engineering a hard landing — a soft landing is almost out of the question,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist of Principal Global Investors. “Powell’s admission that there will be below-trend growth for a period should be translated as central bank speak for ‘recession.’ Times are going to get tougher from here.”

Yes, times are definitely going to get tougher from here.

In fact, we are eventually headed for a meltdown of epic proportions.

But instead of working to prevent a historic crisis, the Federal Reserve is actually encouraging one.

The American people deserve some answers, because there is something about all of this that really stinks.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Economic Collapse Has Arrived In Germany. Will The U.S. Be Close Behind?

September 20, 2022 by Michael

Things are starting to get really crazy in Germany. The Germans are dealing with the worst inflation crisis that they have seen since the days of the Weimar Republic, and meanwhile economic activity is starting to shut down all over the nation. Of course other European countries are facing similar problems, but Germany was supposed to be the economic rock that the rest of Europe could always depend upon. Unfortunately, the decision by the Russians to cut off the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is hitting Germany extremely hard. If we could just get both sides to agree to end the war in Ukraine, that would greatly help matters, but that simply isn’t going to happen. In fact, it appears that Vladimir Putin has decided to greatly escalate matters, and the western powers will inevitably greatly escalate matters in response. What this means is that the economic turmoil that we are witnessing in Europe isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

This week, we got some inflation numbers out of Germany that are so high that it is difficult to believe that they are actually real…

German producer prices rose in August at the fastest rate since records began in 1949, data released by the Federal Statistical Office showed today, pointing to a further increase in consumer prices.

Producer prices of industrial products rose by 45.8 percent compared to the same month of last year. Compared to July 2022, prices rose 7.9 percent.

Soaring energy prices on the back of Russia’s war against the Ukraine remain the main driver behind rising prices.

If we continue to see monthly increases of around 8 percent, next year at this time we could be talking about a yearly jump of close to 100 percent.

Wow.

How bad do things have to get before we actually start using the term “hyperinflation”?

Energy prices are the biggest reason why inflation has gotten completely out of control, and the German government has been forced to nationalize a huge natural gas company in order to keep it from going under…

The German government is closing in on an agreement to nationalize gas giant Uniper SE, as Berlin moves to stave off a collapse of the country’s energy sector.

A provisional agreement between the government, Uniper and its main shareholder, Finland’s Fortum Oyj, has been reached, according to people familiar with the situation. While contracts haven’t been signed, Berlin is aiming for an announcement later this week.

According to the CEO of Uniper, the company has been losing about 100 million euros a day during this crisis.

Needless to say, the German government cannot save everyone, and so a lot of firms won’t survive this crisis at all.

For example, a manufacturer that has been making toilet paper for Germans for nearly 100 years is now headed into insolvency…

Hakle has been a German household name since 1928, but the Duesseldorf-based toilet paper manufacturer said all it took was this summer’s gas price shock to drive it into insolvency.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

According to the German central bank, the nation is moving into a “broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output”…

“Economic activity may pull back somewhat this quarter and shrink markedly in the autumn and winter months,” the central bank said, adding that it didn’t forecast this adverse scenario in a June report.

Bundesbank continued: “There are mounting signs of a recession in the German economy in the sense of a clear, broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output.” It said a contraction is expected in the third quarter with deeper declines in economic activity in the fourth.

“High inflation and uncertainty with regard to energy supply and its costs affect not only the gas and electricity-intensive industry and its export business and investments, but also private consumption and the service providers dependent on it,” the central bank said.

You can refer to such a scenario as a “recession” or a “depression” if it makes you feel better.

I call it an economic collapse.

The U.S. economy will soon be experiencing immense turmoil as well.

According to billionaire Barry Sternlicht, the Fed’s exceedingly foolish policies are pushing us toward a “serious recession”…

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday, Barry Sternlicht, the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital, said he believes Americans are facing a major recession if the Federal Reserve proceeds with several more rate hikes as a means of curbing inflation, which is reportedly the central bank’s plan.

“The economy is braking hard,” Sternlicht told the financial news outlet, according to the Daily Caller. “If the Fed keeps this up, they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs.”

He is right on target, but instead of saying “people will lose their jobs” he should have noted that lots of people are already being laid off. This is something that I have been documenting on my website for quite some time, and this week we learned that Gap has decided to lay off hundreds of corporate workers…

Gap Inc. is cutting about 500 corporate jobs as the clothing retailer struggles with declining sales.

The job cuts, which include open positions, will be primarily at Gap’s offices in San Francisco, New York and Asia and hit various departments, a representative for the retailer confirmed Tuesday. The moves were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Ouch.

In this environment, very few workers are truly safe.

At this point, even the entertainment industry is letting lots of people go…

The struggling TV and film industry continues to run face first into bad news. This week it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery was firing 100 TV ad salespeople at the same time that Paramount has considered ending offering Showtime as a standalone service, Bloomberg reported.

Netflix followed suit with their own layoffs, the report says. The company has reportedly let go hundreds of employees and abandoned some of its office space. At the same time, the firm’s stock price has collapsed and fallen more than 60% from its all time highs.

Back in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs.

Will we see something similar in the months ahead?

And just like during “the Great Recession”, the housing market is really starting to slow down. In fact, we just learned that homebuilder confidence has now fallen for nine months in a row…

The confidence of builders of single-family houses fell again in September, the ninth month in a row of declines, “as the combination of elevated interest rates, persistent building material supply chain disruptions, and high home prices continue to take a toll on affordability,” the NAHB report said.

With today’s index value of 46, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index is now below where it had been in May 2006, on the way down into the Housing Bust.

This time around, it won’t just be a few areas of the planet that suffer.

At this moment we are literally witnessing economic implosions all over the planet, and the stage is being set for an immensely painful 2023.

The one thing that could really turn things around would be peace.

Unfortunately, global leaders on both sides seem absolutely determined to drag us into the type of cataclysmic global conflict that I have been warning about for years.

So there isn’t going to be peace, and that means that things are going to get really bad in 2023 and beyond.

But I also believe that you were put at this specific moment in history for a reason.

It is when times are the darkest that the greatest good can be done, and that is something that we will all need to remember during the very dark times in front of us.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Why Are So Many Historic Natural Disasters Suddenly Hitting Our Planet As We Reach The End Of Summer?

September 19, 2022September 19, 2022 by Michael

Just over the past few days, our planet has been hit over and over again by major natural disasters. So why is this happening? At this moment, we are reaching the end of a summer that many of us will remember for a long time to come. The western United States, Europe and China are all in the midst of the worst droughts that they have experienced in centuries, and meanwhile relentless flooding has absolutely devastated other areas. For example, unprecedented flooding resulted in a third of the entire nation of Pakistan being under water for an extended period of time. We could definitely use a break, but instead the past few days have brought us an extremely alarming series of historic disasters. For example, the western coast of Mexico was just hit by an extremely powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake…

A powerful earthquake struck near the coast of western Mexico on Monday on the anniversary of two devastating temblors, shaking buildings and sending residents of Mexico City scurrying onto the streets for safety.

Shortly after 1 p.m. local time, the quake registered at 7.6 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey hit near the coast on the border region of the states of Michoacan and Colima at a depth of around 15 km (9 miles).

Interestingly, this quake happened on the exact same date that enormous earthquakes hit Mexico in 1985 and 2017.

Is that just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?

Meanwhile, Hurricane Fiona continues to cause “catastrophic” damage in the Caribbean…

Hurricane Fiona bore down on the Dominican Republic on Monday after knocking out the power grid and unleashing floods and landslides in Puerto Rico, where the governor said the damage was ‘catastrophic’.

Fiona was forecast to swipe the Dominican Republic early Monday and then northern Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands with the threat of heavy rain. It could threaten the far southern end of the Bahamas on Tuesday.

Hurricane warnings were posted for the Dominican Republic’s eastern coast from Cabo Caucedo to Cabo Frances Viejo, and for the Turks and Caicos.

It is going to take Puerto Rico many years to recover from the utter devastation that has been caused by this exceedingly intense storm.

At the same time, “one of the worst typhoons the country has ever seen” is literally forcing millions of people to evacuate from their homes in Japan…

Nine million people have been told to evacuate their homes as Japan is battered by one of the worst typhoons the country has ever seen.

The super typhoon Nanmadol has killed two people and injured almost 90.

It hit Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, on Sunday morning, and is set to reach Honshu, the largest island, in the coming days.

We aren’t hearing too much about this “super typhoon” in the United States, but it is truly one of the worst disasters in the modern history of Japan.

Not too far away, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit Taiwan on Saturday, and that was followed by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on Sunday…

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake rattled much of Taiwan on Sunday, which followed a 6.4 magnitude earthquake Saturday, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

The magnitude 6.8 quake hit around 2:44 pm local time (0644 GMT), with an epicenter in Taitung county, a town in the eastern part of the island nation. CWB said the quake was recorded at a relatively shallow depth of 7 kilometers (4 miles).

The US Geological Survey initially reported that the quake registered a 7.2 magnitude but revised it to 6.9 — still a higher reading than CWB’s estimate.

These quakes caused quite a bit of destruction, and of course this comes at a really bad time as Taiwanese authorities feverishly prepare for a potential Chinese invasion.

Also on Saturday, Alaska was hit by a storm that was so immense that it was actually ripping homes right off of their foundations…

The western coast of Alaska was hit with historic storms on Saturday, causing extreme flooding that led to several homes being ripped from their foundations.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska declared the crisis a disaster emergency at a Saturday press conference where he also confirmed that had been zero reported injuries.

“Just now, I verbally declared a disaster for communities impacted by the West Coast storm. SEOC (State Emergency Operations Center) has received no reports of injuries at this time. We will continue to monitor the storm and update Alaskans as much as possible,” the Republican governor said.

Meanwhile, we continue to see a tremendous amount of volcanic activity all over the planet.

According to Volcano Discovery, there are 26 volcanoes that are currently erupting around the globe right now.

I have been relentlessly warning my readers that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and that process seems to be accelerating as we approach the final days of summer.

So will the months ahead bring even more devastation?

Sadly, as with so many other things, many people out there simply assume that things will eventually “return to normal” somehow.

Of course there are others that acknowledge that conditions are changing, but they believe that humanity can fix what is wrong if we just pass enough laws.

Needless to say, those people are completely and utterly delusional.

Nothing that we can do will alter the changes that are happening.

The giant rock that we all live on is starting to go haywire, and the shaking that we are experiencing now is going to get a whole lot worse during the years that are ahead of us.

Earthquakes will increase in power and frequency, volcanic eruptions will become more common, great storms will cause unprecedented destruction, and immense droughts and floods will continue to ravage much of the planet.

And through it all, many of the “experts” will continue to insist that everything is completely “normal” even to the bitter end.

You can believe them if you want.

Of you can believe the evidence that is happening right in front of your eyes.

The choice is up to you.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Why Are Walmart And Other Major U.S. Retailers Canceling BILLIONS Of Dollars In Orders As Summer Comes To An End?

September 18, 2022September 18, 2022 by Michael

Do they know something that they aren’t telling us? As you will see below, Walmart, Target and other major U.S. retailers are literally canceling billions of dollars in orders ahead of the coming holiday season. I have never heard of such a thing happening before, and under normal conditions it wouldn’t make any sense at all. The holiday season is typically the busiest time of the year for retailers, and at this time in 2021 there was actually a great deal of concern that there wouldn’t be enough inventory due to global supply chain problems. But now everything has changed. All of a sudden major retailers are feverishly canceling orders, and this would only make sense if a severe economic downturn was imminent.

For example, Walmart is admitting that it has canceled “billions of dollars in orders” as we approach the upcoming holiday season…

John David Rainey, Walmart’s EVP and CFO, said it had cleared most summer inventory, was reducing exposure in electronics, home and sporting goods, and canceled “billions of dollars in orders” to realign inventories. He said, “Our actions in Q3 will allow us to make significant progress toward rationalizing absolute levels and mix, which will enable our stores to be well positioned ahead of the holiday season.”

It is extremely odd that Walmart would decide to do such a thing.

Recently I had an opportunity to stroll through a Walmart, and there were plenty of inventory holes.

So what would make them suddenly cancel “billions of dollars” in orders that they thought that they were going to need for the holiday season?

Perhaps some enterprising reporter will be willing to ask them such a question.

Meanwhile, we just learned that Target has also canceled “more than $1.5 billion” in orders…

Target said it had reduced its “inventory exposure in discretionary categories” throughout Q2 by canceling more than $1.5 billion of orders in these categories and marking down products.

Target is much smaller than Walmart is, and so for Target to cancel so many orders is a really big deal.

And it turns out that Kohl’s and Under Armour have also been canceling large numbers of orders as well…

Kohl’s has also pulled back on order receipts and increased promotions to get through an inventory glut.

“We have taken action to address inventory, including increasing promotions, being aggressive on clearing excess inventory and pulling back on receipts,” said Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm in a call with investors.

Under Armour also said it made some proactive cancellations due to supply chain constraints to ensure that “the right inventory was coming in at the right time,” said interim president and CEO Colin Browne in a call with investors.

These retailers are obviously scared that they will end up stuck with massive amounts of inventory that they cannot sell.

Do they believe that economic activity during the months ahead will be much lower than they originally anticipated?

One corporate executive that is actually publicly admitting that he believes that a recession is coming is FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam…

FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday that he believes a recession is impending for the global economy.

“I think so. But you know, these numbers, they don’t portend very well,” Subramaniam said in response to Cramer’s question of whether the economy is “going into a worldwide recession.”

The CEO’s pessimism came after FedEx missed estimates on revenue and earnings in its first quarter. The company also withdrew its full year guidance.

Sadly, he is right on target.

For months, I have been warning that the economic numbers were telling us that big trouble was on the way, and now everyone can see it.

But unlike the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009, this time we are also going to have to deal with raging inflation even as economic activity slows down all around us.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is ominously warning that U.S. consumers “are set to pay even more this winter” as heating costs continue to soar to absolutely ridiculous levels…

U.S. utility customers, faced with some of their largest bills in years, are set to pay even more this winter as natural-gas prices continue to climb.

Natural-gas prices have more than doubled this year because of a global supply shortage made worse by the war in Ukraine, and they are expected to remain elevated for months as fuel is needed to light and heat homes during the winter. The supply crunch has made it substantially more expensive for utilities to purchase or produce power, and those costs are being passed on to customers.

The cost of living has been rising much faster than our paychecks have for quite some time now, and a lot more pain is on the horizon.

I really like how Brandon Smith recently summarized the current state of the U.S. economy…

A common refrain from people who are critical of alternative economists is that we have been predicting crisis for so long that “eventually we will be right.” These are generally people who don’t understand the nature of economic decline – It’s like an avalanche that builds over time, then breaks and quickly escalates as it flows down the mountain. What they don’t grasp is that they are in the middle of an economic collapse RIGHT NOW, and they just can’t see it because they have been acclimated to the presence of the snow and cold.

Economic decline is a process that takes many years, and while you might get an event like the market crash of 1929 or the crash of 2008, these moments of panic are nothing more than the wreckage left behind by the great wave of tumbling ice that everyone should have seen coming far in advance, but they refused.

That is so true.

We are already in the midst of a raging economic crisis, but things will get so much worse during the months and years to come.

Walmart, Target and other major retailers are working really hard to get prepared for what is coming.

Are you?

I hope so, because at this point it should be glaringly obvious to everyone that exceedingly challenging times are on the way.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

We Just Witnessed Something That Hasn’t Happened Since 2008, And It Is Causing The Housing Market To Crash

September 15, 2022September 15, 2022 by Michael

This didn’t have to happen. The reckless behavior of the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington created a horrifying inflation spiral, and now the Fed is feverishly raising interest rates in a desperate attempt to get inflation back under control. But everyone knows that rapidly raising rates is going to absolutely crush the housing market. When the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, that puts upward pressure on mortgage rates. And as mortgage rates go higher, more and more potential homebuyers will be forced on to the sidelines. With fewer potential homebuyers in the market, that will put downward pressure on home prices. This is basic stuff that you would learn in an ECON 101 class, but Fed officials can’t seem to understand that what they are doing is going to be extremely destructive to the U.S. economy as a whole.

Do you remember the pain that we went through in 2008?

That entire crisis was precipitated by a collapse of the housing market, and now a similar scenario is starting to unfold right in front of our eyes.

In fact, something just happened that we haven’t seen in all of the years since 2008…

The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose above 6 percent for the first time since the financial crisis, according to federal data released Thursday.

The average mortgage rate for the benchmark home loan rose to 6.02 percent as of Thursday, according to Freddie Mac, up 0.13 percentage points from last week and 3.16 percentage points above its level a year ago. It’s the first time the 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate was above 6 percent since the week of Nov. 20, 2008.

When mortgage rates get really high, the wealthy can still afford to buy homes because many of them don’t even need mortgages.

But for the rest of us, much higher mortgage rates make a world of difference…

Already, it has ushered in a sea change in the housing market by adding hundreds of dollars or more to the monthly cost of a potential buyer’s mortgage payment, slowing what was a red-hot market not so long ago. Higher rates are forcing some would-be buyers to continue renting. Since the start of the year, the average mortgage payment has risen 38.5% to $2,306 from around $1,700 at the start of the year.

Demand for mortgages is drying up really fast.

Last week, the number of mortgage applications was 29 percent lower than it was during the same week one year ago.

And the number of applications to refinance mortgages has seemingly dropped off a cliff…

As mortgage rates rise and home prices remain high, home sales are slowing.

With rates essentially double where they were a year ago, applications for home loans have dropped and applications to refinance into a lower payment have fallen off a cliff, down 83% from a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

If you work in the mortgage industry, I feel really badly for you right now.

Of course everyone involved in real estate is going to be feeling a tremendous amount of pain in the months ahead. According to the chief economist at Redfin, this is the “sharpest” downturn that we have seen since the meltdown of 2008…

“This is the sharpest turn in the housing market since the housing market crash in 2008,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s Chief Economist.

Billionaire Barry Sternlicht is even more pessimistic.

He just told CNBC that he believes that the Fed’s policies will cause a “major crash” in the housing market, and he is also warning that we could soon find ourselves in a “serious recession”…

“The economy is braking hard,” the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.

“If the Fed keeps this up they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs,” he added.

Sadly, he is right on target.

Even if the Federal Reserve stopped raising rates right here, we would still have a real nightmare on our hands.

But the Fed isn’t going to stop.

Fed officials have repeatedly told us that they are going to keep raising rates until inflation is under control, and that could take quite a while.

In fact, we are being warned that next week we could potentially see “the biggest Fed rate hike in 40 years”, and that would really shake up the financial markets.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?

If you are selling a home, I would recommend trying to sell it as rapidly as you can while home prices are still ridiculously high.

If you are looking to buy a home, I would recommend waiting until home prices come down quite a bit.

And something that we can all do is to prepare for the “serious recession” that Billionaire Barry Sternlicht says could be coming.

During the crisis of 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Without any income coming in, all of a sudden a lot of those people couldn’t pay their bills and many formerly middle class Americans also ended up losing their homes.

You don’t want to suffer the same fate.

So I have been encouraging my readers for a very long time to build up a sizable emergency fund.

A large emergency fund will allow you to continue paying your bills no matter what comes along.

And it will also keep you from losing your home.

In addition, I would encourage everyone not to take on additional debt at this time.

When hard times come, you will want your finances to be as “lean and mean” as possible.

Now is not a time to party.

Now is a time to batten down the hatches financially.

Very rough weather is headed our way, and everyone can see it coming.

The wise will prepare in advance, but those that are foolish will do nothing because they assume that our leaders have everything under control.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Violence In California Reaches “Epidemic” Levels As Our Society Rapidly Deteriorates All Around Us

September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 by Michael

I can’t understand why anyone would still want to live in California. Yes, there are lots of high paying jobs and the weather is very nice, but crime is completely and utterly out of control. As you will see below, a new report that has just been issued is warning that violence in the state has now reached “epidemic” levels. The police are doing what they can to try to contain the violence, but at this point they are vastly outnumbered by the predators. Sadly, this is the end result of literally decades of cultural rot, and what is happening in California is going to happen to the rest of the nation if we do not take urgent action to turn things around.

Originally, I was going to write about something else today. Tens of thousands of rail and port workers are threatening to go on strike, and this could definitely cause some substantial economic disruptions…

America is bracing for chaos as tens of thousands of railway, port, and hospital workers look set to strike over the winter – plunging the country into further disruption.

As many as 60,000 railway workers, 15,000 nurses, and 22,000 West Coast port workers are plotting mass walkouts as they seek better working conditions.

Several US freight railroads said they were preparing for widespread strike and service interruptions Friday, a deadline set by two holdout labor groups in protracted talks with railroad carriers about better benefits.

But even though these strikes could cause severe short-term problems, they will eventually be resolved.

So in the greater scheme of things, they really aren’t a major concern.

On the other hand, our cultural decay is a massive ongoing crisis that isn’t going to go away.

As I mentioned earlier, a brand new report that was just released is warning that violence in the state of California has risen to “epidemic” levels…

The Golden State is losing its luster. A troubling new report labels physical and sexual violence in pandemic-era California a statewide “epidemic.” To put it simply, violence is on an alarming rise.

According to the new annual report from the California Study on Violence Experiences across the Lifespan (CalVEX), violence statistics have seen a significant increase since COVID-19 emerged. The report, conducted by scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, reports more than one in six Californians (18%) experienced either physical or sexual violence in just the past year.

If you live in one of the biggest cities in California, this isn’t news to you.

Once upon a time, the state was a place of great beauty and great tranquility, but now it has been transformed into a crime-infested hellhole.

I was particularly alarmed by the numbers on sexual violence in this new report…

While more than 1.5 million adults in California admit to committing acts of sexual violence in the past year, men were more than two times as likely as women to report that they perpetrated sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

Women also showed greater mental health impacts and life disruptions due to violent experiences, with 82 percent of women reporting anxiety or depression as a result of physically aggressive, coercive or forced sexual behavior.

Of course much of this violence is being fueled by illegal mind-altering drugs.

Some of these drugs are so immensely powerful that they literally put people into catatonic states for an extended period of time…

Can anyone explain to me why Democrat voters enjoy seeing this so much they just keep voting for more? pic.twitter.com/hq4unJn0S8

— Piglosi’s Peaks (@StokingFreedom) September 13, 2022

I will never understand why people would willingly do that to themselves.

Today, we are facing the biggest drug crisis that we have ever seen in American history, and addicts will often do whatever it takes to get another fix.

Sadly, this is one of the factors that is contributing to skyrocketing rates of shoplifting all over the nation…

We are all painfully aware of the huge rise in shoplifting and even violent robberies of stores. We watch the videos of thugs brazenly raiding stores, and read about the organized crime rings that have sprung up to profit from the trend. Shoplifting has become a big, if criminal business. Chances are that if you use eBay to purchase a wide range of products at reduced prices you have unwittingly purchased stolen goods. No good way for eBay to stop the practice.

One homeless man that originally came from Alabama recently admitted that he regularly shoplifts in order to fund his heroin use…

People say high rent causes homelessness but Ben, who has been homeless in San Francisco for 7 years, says the “vast majority” are homeless due to addiction. Just 6-7% are from SF. Ben says he “boosts” (shoplifts) and breaks into cars to pay for his $60/day heroin habit. pic.twitter.com/uewKTtBuOS

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 6, 2022

There have been homeless addicts in the streets of San Francisco for years, but now we have reached a point where they are seemingly everywhere.

The following is what one reporter witnessed during a recent journey through the city…

I saw complete hopelessness in the eyes of haunted souls dragging themselves down the street looking for their next fix.

I saw men and women of all ages hunched over on the sidewalks with open wounds all over their bodies.

I saw the filthy tent cities stinking with human excrement and strewn with needles and pipes.

I saw children staring in horror at people dying right in front of them.

At one time, such activity was limited to the bad portions of the city.

But now addicts that have been drugged out of their minds are pulling down their pants and crapping in the streets right in front of some of the most expensive real estate in San Francisco.

This has made the wealthy people really angry, and Mayor Breed says that she is finally going to “get serious” about this crisis.

Of course “getting serious” doesn’t mean arresting a bunch of people and throwing them into prison.

That just wouldn’t be very “progressive”.

Instead, authorities in San Francisco are getting ready to launch a “soft-touch” program that will seek to “interrupt” drug trafficking…

City supervisors released a resolution for a vague ‘soft-touch’ initiative called ‘San Francisco Recovers.’

And here’s the catch, and it’s a doozy: the plan is being touted as, ‘a way that nobody’s going to jail but we’re doing an effective job of interrupting the drug market and drug scenes.’

Is this a sick joke?

Yes, it certainly sounds like a sick joke to me.

Good luck with all that.

If major cities such as San Francisco actually want to have a chance of turning things around, they need to send the police out to round up all the drug dealers.

Unfortunately, police forces in many of our biggest cities are rapidly getting smaller.

In fact, a whopping 122 officers have left the Seattle Police Department in 2022 alone…

The liberal city of Seattle is losing police officers amid a major spike in crime, 770 KTTH reported.

“We’re screwed,” former King County Sheriff John Urqhart said, according to 770 KTTH.

In total, 122 officers have left the Seattle Police Department in 2022, including six that left in August, 770 KTTH reported, citing a police source. Since the city council voted to defund the police department in 2020, nearly 500 police officers have left the force.

I wouldn’t want to be a police officer in a major west coast city at this point either.

They are underpaid, the politicians treat them with tremendous disdain, and they are often hindered by absolutely ridiculous regulations which keep them from doing their jobs effectively.

We like to think that we are so “advanced”, but the truth is that if you compare video footage from major cities on the west coast from decades ago to video footage from today there is absolutely no comparison.

Our society is melting down right in front of our eyes, and if we stay on the path that we are currently on there is no future for our country.

But the politicians insist that people like me have it all wrong.

They continue to tell us that things are better than ever and that a glorious future for our nation is dead ahead.

You can believe that if you want, but the truth of what is really happening to our society is on display for the whole world to see.

America is dying, and we are quickly running out of time to turn things around.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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