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Tent Cities Are Taking Over Vast Stretches Of Our Major Cities (And It Is Only Going To Get Worse)

August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Michael

If brighter days are ahead for the U.S. economy, why are so many tent cities popping up all over the nation? At this point things are so bad that even the New York Times is admitting that “America’s homelessness problem has the makings of an acute crisis”. That article goes on to explain that our homeless population is steadily rising. Tonight, hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans will be sleeping in tents, under bridges, in overcrowded shelters or in their vehicles. Of course there are many that are so addicted to drugs or alcohol that they just sleep wherever they end up passing out. This is a tragedy that is growing with each passing day, and it is only going to get worse in the months ahead as the U.S. economy slows down even more.

Earlier today, I was truly stunned by a Fox News article about what is going on in Portland right now. Tent cities are literally taking over entire neighborhoods, and many residents are “resorting to selling their homes” as a result…

Residents in a Portland, Oregon, neighborhood are resorting to selling their homes and moving due to homeless encampments right outside their front doors.

“It’s a little scary because I know there is mental illness and that concerns me,” North Portland resident Maria Inocencio told KGW8.

Residents of North Portland said at least three families on one street have left in recent days due to the homeless camps, and KGW8 reported seeing for-sale signs up and down streets.

Portland was once such a beautiful place, but now it has literally been transformed into a hellhole.

Needless to say, Portland is far from alone. From Seattle all the way down to San Diego, communities all along the west coast are being plagued by relentlessly growing encampments. In many cases, such encampments are magnets for drug addicts and other societal outcasts.

But this is not just a west coast problem.

Let me give you are couple of examples. In recent weeks, tent cities have been popping up all over Pittsburgh…

“We want immediate action. We want to see people in homes. There’s a humane way to deal with homelessness,” said Pittsburgh City Council president Theresa Kail-Smith.

Homeless camps are popping up all over the Northside.

You’ll see them on the Riverfront Trail to Millvale.

Another makeshift tent city popped up underneath the Andy Warhol Bridge.

And in Fayetteville, North Carolina one burgeoning homeless camp recently made news because it features quite a few registered sex offenders…

There are 843 registered sex offenders living in Cumberland County. For dozens in Fayetteville, their home is a tent alongside the road.

Deputies in the Sheriff’s Office Sex Offender Registration Enforcement Unit (SOREU) learned the group of offenders are homeless and stay in a tent community along where the busy Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway (Highway 87) goes over Gillespie Street. Some live under the overpass while others live in a nearby field beside Gillespie Street.

From coast to coast, this is becoming an enormous issue.

And the truth is that it is only going to intensify as the months roll along.

In 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs as the economy plunged into a major downturn.

Once those people lost their jobs, many of them could no longer afford their homes and soon found themselves on the streets.

I wish that we would never have to see anything like that again. It was truly a very dark chapter in our history, and countless people had their lives turned completely upside down.

Unfortunately, it is starting to happen again.

As I detailed earlier this month, large companies are starting to lay off workers in substantial numbers.

This even includes Facebook. This week, we learned that Facebook recently used a very unique method to lay off one group of workers…

A group of about 60 contractors who work with Facebook learned they were laid off this week after they were chosen ‘at random’ by an algorithm.

The layoffs are the latest example of Big Tech reining in spending and hiring, as just days ago Apple let go of about 100 recruiters.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also recently said he will weed out underperforming employees with ‘aggressive performance reviews’ as the company braces for a deep economic turndown.

I suppose that is one way to avoid personal responsibility for firing someone.

“Don’t blame me – it was the algorithm”.

If a big corporation that is swimming in cash like Facebook already feels forced to “thin the herd”, I think that is a very bad sign for the employment market as a whole.

In the months ahead, I think that there will be a lot more layoffs all over the country.

And this comes at a time when the housing market is starting to collapse.

Existing home sales in the United States have now fallen for six months in a row, and the numbers for the month of July were downright depressing…

Sales of previously owned homes fell nearly 6% in July compared with June, according to a monthly report from the National Association of Realtors.

The sales count declined to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.81 million units, the group added. It is the slowest sales pace since November 2015, with the exception of a brief plunge at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

Sales dropped about 20% from the same month a year ago.

I anticipated that home sales would be lower than last July, but a 20 percent drop is pretty catastrophic.

And as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, it is probably inevitable that the numbers will get even worse.

The stage is being set for a historic economic meltdown, and I would encourage you to do what you can to get prepared for it.

2008 and 2009 were extremely bitter.

What is coming will likely be even worse.

And as the economy deteriorates, tent cities will continue to take over more neighborhoods all over America.

But don’t look down on those that are living in tents.

With a run of bad luck, you could be one of them too.

***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.

Here Is Why 37 Percent Of U.S. Farmers In The Western Half Of The Country Are Killing Their Own Crops

August 17, 2022 by Michael

Food doesn’t just magically show up at the grocery store. If farmers and ranchers do not produce it, we do not eat. I know that I have been writing about the rapidly growing global food crisis a lot lately, but that is because this really is a big deal. All over the globe, agricultural production is going to be below expectations in 2022. As a result, those of us that live in wealthy countries will pay much more for food in 2023, while many of those that live in poor countries will either deeply suffer or die. In fact, children are already dropping dead from starvation in large numbers in some parts of Africa, but most Americans haven’t heard about this because they aren’t showing it on the news.

Of course this isn’t just a crisis for poor countries on the other side of the planet.

Here in the United States, the food that is not being grown in 2022 will cause immense economic pain in 2023.

There are 17 western states that collectively produce almost half of our food, and right now those 17 states are being absolutely devastated by the worst multi-year megadrought in 1,200 years…

The 17 states including and north of Texas, up along the Central Plains to North Dakota and west to California are vital to the U.S. agricultural sector, supporting nearly half of the nation’s $364 billion production by value. This includes 74% of beef cattle, responsible (in total) for 18% of U.S. agricultural production by value; 50% of dairy production, responsible (in total) for 11% of U.S. agricultural production by value, over 80% of wheat production by value and over 70% of vegetable, fruit and tree nut production by value. Drought conditions, which have persisted well into 2022, put production of these commodities at risk, along with the stability of farms, ranches and local economies reliant on crops, livestock and downstream products and services for income.

The American Farm Bureau Federation wanted to know how farmers in that half of the nation are faring during this drought, and so they conducted a survey.

And what they discovered is extremely alarming. Here is one example…

This year’s drought conditions are taking a harder toll than last year’s, as 37% of farmers said they are plowing through and killing existing crops that won’t reach maturity because of dry conditions.

Do you understand what that is saying?

37 percent of all farmers in the western half of the country are killing their own crops because those crops won’t even reach maturity because of the endless drought.

I was absolutely floored when I first saw that figure.

And that same survey also found that staggering numbers of ranchers in some western states have been selling off their cattle…

Farmers in Texas are being forced to sell off their cattle herds earlier than normal due to extreme drought — as water sources dry out and grass burns up. Farmers in the Lone Star state reported the largest reduction in herd size, down 50%, followed by New Mexico and Oregon at 43% and 41% respectively.

The cattle that are being slaughtered now are helping to stabilize short-term beef prices.

But in the long run we will see a much smaller cattle population and far higher beef prices.

In fact, some beef producers in Oklahoma are warning that “cheap ground beef could eventually top $50 per pound”…

Thanks to the unending economic symptoms of the pandemic and 2022’s inflation double-punch, average beef prices are currently about twice what they were in 2019. Add in the deepening widespread drought, a shortage of hay and feed, skyrocketing prices, transport costs, and various other metrics, some Southwest Oklahoma beef producers suggest cheap ground beef could eventually top $50 per pound.

Could you imagine paying 50 dollars for a pound of ground beef?

Even now, we are being told that U.S. consumers are increasingly switching to chicken…

Inflation-weary shoppers are pulling back on buying pricey steaks and switching to cheaper chicken at the grocery store.

Tyson (TSN), the meat processing giant, said Monday that “demand for chicken is extremely strong,” while demand for its higher-priced cuts of beef has softened.

Of course it isn’t just the United States that is moving into unprecedented territory.

We just learned that there will be crop losses in France of up to 35 percent…

France’s fruit and vegetable crops have fallen by nearly 35% due to the extreme drought this summer, Jacques Rouchausse, president of the French national association of vegetable producers, Legumes de France, said on Tuesday.

“We have losses on the yields. For the moment, we estimate that these losses are between 25% and 35 percent. We have to stress that if we want food sovereignty, if we want food security, we really have to find ways to continue producing on our territory,” Rouchausse said on air of Radio Franceinfo.

Yesterday, I discussed the fact that there will be crop losses in the UK of up to 50 percent in some cases.

And in Italy, it is being reported that there will be crop losses of up to 80 percent in certain areas.

As global food supplies get tighter and tighter, the wealthy countries will have enough money to import the food that they need.

But what will the poorer countries do?

At this point, tens of millions of Africans are already dealing with severe food shortages…

Drought is gripping the Horn of Africa, leaving some 26 million people facing food shortages in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia over the next six months. More than 7 million livestock animals have already been wiped out. Across East Africa as a whole, some 50 million people are facing acute food insecurity.

This is a crisis that isn’t going away.

Not too long ago, UN Secretary General António Guterres openly admitted that it is likely that there will be “multiple famines” in 2023…

In a video message to the meeting, UN chief António Guterres commended the partners for joining forces at what he called “this critical moment”, noting that the number of people who are severely food insecure has doubled in the last two years.

“We face a real risk of multiple famines this year. And next year could be even worse. But we can avoid this catastrophe if we act now,” said Mr. Guterres.

Of course this is exactly what I have been saying for years.

Global famine is coming. There is no way to avoid it, and it is going to turn the entire global economy upside down.

When you know that a global famine is coming, the prudent thing to do is to get prepared. So I hope that all of you are taking action while there is still time to do so.

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

Will Catastrophic Crop Losses In 2022 Lead To Unprecedented Shortages In 2023?

August 16, 2022 by Michael

Crops are failing all over the globe this summer, but most people don’t even know that this is happening because the big television news channels aren’t talking much about it. Instead, they remain intensely focused on politics day after day. Without a doubt, the political realm is important, but there should also be plenty of time to discuss a raging global crisis which is going to deeply affect all of us. The food that is not being grown this year is not going to be on our plates next year, but the vast majority of the population doesn’t understand this. They see plenty of food in the stores now and they just assume that everything is going to be okay.

Unfortunately, everything is not going to be okay. Over in the UK, a major British news source is warning of “widespread crop failures across England”…

Experts have warned of widespread crop failures across England, as charities and farmers criticised water companies for dithering over hosepipe bans despite drought being declared across much of the country.

So what sort of losses are we talking about?

Well, it is now being projected that losses could reach up to 50 percent for a wide variety of crops…

Half of the potato crop is expected to fail as it cannot be irrigated, and even crops that are usually drought-tolerant, such as maize, have been failing.

The group was told “irrigation options are diminishing with reservoirs being emptied fast”, and losses of 10-50% are expected for crops including carrots, onions, sugar beet, apples and hops. Milk production is also down nationally because of a lack of food for cows, and wildfires are putting large areas of farmland at risk.

The British are assuming that they will just get enough food to feed their population from someone else.

But that is what everyone else is assuming too.

As global food supplies get tighter and tighter, the wealthy countries will buy up food at elevated prices, and many poor countries will be left out and will suffer tremendously.

Things are even worse in Italy. As I covered the other day, some farmers in Italy have already lost “up to 80% of their harvest”…

In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.

So where will Italy get enough food to feed their population?

Just like the British, the plan to get it from someone else.

But who is the someone else going to be?

Here in the United States, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations because of the endless drought that is plaguing about half the country.

Just yesterday, I wrote an article about how tomato production is being absolutely devastated in the state of California.

It is being reported that tomato paste prices have already increased by up to 80 percent, and we are being warned that if rain doesn’t come soon there simply will not be enough tomatoes to meet demand.

That means that there won’t be enough spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce to go around.

For a lot of my readers, that statement is really going to hit home.

Over in Texas, the cotton crop is going to be bitterly disappointing this year…

US cotton prices continued to surge above the boom days of 2010-11 after a massive crop estimate cut by the USDA, shocking Wall Street analysts and traders, due primarily to a megadrought scorching farmland of Texas, according to Bloomberg.

Futures in New York for December delivery were up 4.5% to $1.1359 a pound and up more than 21% this month.

Normally, there would be vast fields of cotton being grown all over the state at this time of the summer.

But this year many of those fields look like barren wastelands…

Last Friday, the USDA’s bigger-than-expected cut to domestic cotton crop stunned many on Wall Street. Crop output plunged to 12.57 million bales, the lowest in a decade. The cut also pushed down the US from the world’s third-largest producer to the world’s fourth.

Barbera said the western Texas region (around Lubbock and Lamesa), the epicenter of America’s cotton-growing belt, has “literally nothing” in fields that are just desert sand. He said fields that had drip irrigation were harvestable, but ones that weren’t weren’t salvageable.

So are we going to experience a shortage of cotton in 2023?

If so, that would be really bad news. Cotton is used in thousands of different products.

Without enough water, we cannot grow the things that we need.

I don’t know why this is so hard for people to grasp.

And the truth is that our entire way of life depends on sufficient supplies of fresh water. Right now, there are seven western states that are facing the prospect of emergency water restrictions in the months ahead because the Colorado River is rapidly drying up…

Two months ago, federal officials took the unprecedented step of telling the seven states that depend on Colorado River water to prepare for emergency cuts next year to prevent reservoirs from dropping to dangerously low levels.

The states and managers of affected water agencies were told to come up with plans to reduce water use drastically, by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet, by mid-August. After weeks of negotiations, which some participants say have at times grown tense and acrimonious, the parties have yet to reach an agreement.

Nobody wants to give up their water.

In the end, all of those states are going to have to make severe sacrifices. At a minimum, the amount of water being taken from the Colorado River needs to be reduced by 2 million acre-feet, and that is an amount of water that is four times greater than the entire city of Los Angeles uses in an entire year…

The latest round of closed-door talks occurred Thursday in Denver. Participants said they wouldn’t publicly discuss the offers of water reductions made, but they acknowledged those offers have amounted to far less than 2 million acre-feet. For comparison, the total annual water use of Los Angeles is nearly 500,000 acre-feet.

Needless to say, this is going to affect agriculture in a major way.

Farmers and ranchers use a tremendous amount of water, and they are about to be hit with restrictions that will be extraordinarily painful.

Everything that I have discussed in this article is happening in the context of a horrifying global food crisis that is getting worse with each passing month.

But don’t worry, the elite have a plan.

For a long time they have touted the benefits of eating bugs, and now such products are actually on our store shelves…

On Sunday, carnivore diet guru Dr. Shawn Baker tweeted a photo of a bag of cheddar cheese puffs, only instead of being made of corn meal these snack foods were chock-full of insect protein.

The snack item from Canadian brand Actually Foods states the puffs are “powered by crickets” to the tune of 10 grams of protein per serving.

The ingredients label on the back of the bag indicates “organic cricket flour” was used in the puffs’ production, and an allergy warning on the back of the bag also cautions, “People who are allergic to shellfish may also be allergic to crickets.”

Doesn’t that sound delicious?

Instead of suffering through the nightmarish global famines that are coming, we can all eat “cricket puffs” instead.

Unfortunately, the truth is that they can’t make enough “cricket puffs” to rescue us from the “perfect storm” that has hit global food production.

There simply is not going to be enough food for everyone in 2023, and it will be the poorest countries that will suffer the most.

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

A “Housing Recession” Is Here, And It Isn’t Going To Be Fun…

August 15, 2022August 15, 2022 by Michael

Our concerns about the housing market have been confirmed. This week, the corporate news is full of headlines about the new “housing recession” that has officially arrived, but this shouldn’t surprise any of us. We were warned over and over again that if the Federal Reserve aggressively hiked interest rates that it would absolutely crush the housing market. In so many ways, what we are currently witnessing seems so similar to 2008. After a period of very rapid growth, home prices all over the nation are starting to fall. Meanwhile, much higher mortgage rates are pushing millions of potential homebuyers out of the market and home builders are starting to panic. If nothing is done, it won’t be too long before large numbers of Americans are once again underwater on their mortgages and this crisis starts to reverberate on Wall Street.

On Monday, we received some news that was extremely troubling…

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which measures the pulse of the single-family housing market, fell for the eighth consecutive month to 49, marking the worst stretch for the housing market since the 2008 financial crisis.

8 months in a row.

Needless to say, that is clearly a trend.

And if you want to thank someone for this, you can thank officials at the Federal Reserve, because they have pushed us into yet another “housing recession”…

“Tighter monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and persistently elevated construction costs have brought on a housing recession,” NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz said.

The only way out of this mess is lower interest rates.

But Fed officials aren’t going to reduce rates.

Instead, they are going to keep hiking them, and that means much more doom and gloom for the housing market in the months ahead.

Looking more deeply at the numbers that were just released, I am particularly alarmed by what has happened to buyer traffic…

Of the index’s three components, current sales conditions dropped 7 points to 57, sales expectations in the next six months fell 2 points to 47 and buyer traffic fell 5 points to 32.

Despite higher costs for land, labor and materials, about 1 in 5 builders in August reported lowering prices in the past month in an effort to increase sales or limit cancellations. The average drop reported was 5%.

A very low level of buyer traffic indicates that sales will be depressingly low during the weeks and months to come.

So if you are trying to sell a house right now, that is really bad news.

And for homebuilders the outlook is downright apocalyptic.

Those that build homes have to make plans far in advance. If they guess right, they can be rewarded handsomely. But if they guess wrong, the pain can be immense.

Unfortunately, homebuilders are being hit by a double whammy right now. Input costs have been going higher and higher, and meanwhile home prices overall are about to steadily fall all over the nation thanks to much higher mortgage rates.

If you can believe it, 30 year rates have almost doubled over the past 12 months…

The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage climbed to 5.22% for the week ending Aug. 11, according to recent data from mortgage lender Freddie Mac. That is significantly higher than just one year ago when rates stood at 2.86%.

We really need mortgage rates to start coming back down.

But thanks to the Fed they are just going to keep going up.

Buying a home in the United States has never been more unaffordable than it is right now, and it is only going to get worse as we head toward 2023.

Many Americans that would like to buy a home are currently choosing to rent instead, but rent prices are also becoming less affordable.

As I discussed yesterday, the median monthly rent in the United States has now risen above $2,000 a month for the very first time.

I was stunned when I first read that.

I can still remember renting a nice apartment for $300 a month many years ago.

There is no way that rents should be as high as they are now.

The greed that we are seeing in the industry has gotten completely out of hand. According to one recent survey, almost 60 percent of all renters have had their rent payments increased over the past year…

If you are feeling the pinch of higher rents, you’re not alone.

Nearly 60% of renters saw a rent increase during the past year, while just 38% said they saw their income increase, according to a study from Freddie Mac. And renters were less likely than all employed respondents to have gotten a raise. As a result, nearly 1 in 5 who experienced a rent increase said they are now “extremely likely” to miss a payment.

This is going to end quite badly.

As the U.S. economy slows down, millions of people will ultimately lose their jobs.

And a lot of those people that are no longer working will eventually lose their homes.

Do you remember the tremendous suffering that we witnessed during 2008 and 2009? Well, as I have been persistently warning, we are going to see it happen again.

Whenever the housing market crashes, there are countless people that have their lives turned upside down as a result.

So much of the pain that is coming could have been avoided if our leaders had made much different decisions.

But that didn’t happen, and so now a “housing recession” is here.

And it isn’t going to be fun at all.

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

People Are Going To Go Absolutely Insane When Food Prices Double Or Triple From Current Levels

August 14, 2022August 14, 2022 by Michael

If you think that people are getting pretty crazy now, just wait until the cost of food skyrockets to levels that hardly anyone ever anticipated. Most people don’t realize this, but to a very large degree we are still eating the food that was grown in 2021. Unfortunately for all of us, far less food is being grown in 2022 than originally projected, and that is going to cause immense global stress in 2023. Nightmarish droughts are absolutely devastating crops in the United States and Europe, the major war that is happening on the other side of the globe is greatly restricting the flow of agricultural goods from Ukraine, and the fact that some fertilizers have now more than quadrupled in price is deeply affecting farmers all over the planet. In 2023, there is going to be a lot less food to go around, and we are all going to pay a lot more for it. Needless to say, this is not good news.

Of course the cost of living has already gotten completely out of control. According to Zero Hedge, the median rent in the United States has now surpassed $2,000 a month for the very first time…

The cost of rent in the U.S. is moving higher at the highest pace in three decades, the report notes, blowing past a median of $2,000 per month for the first time ever. Rents are now above where they were prior to the pandemic in most major cities.

Areas just outside cities, which saw a large influx of new renters during the pandemic, have seen their rents rise disproportionately higher. People returning to large cities, post-pandemic, have also not helped prices cool off.

Who can afford to pay $2,000 a month for rent?

According to the Social Security Administration, the median yearly income for U.S. workers in 2020 was just $34,612.04.

No wonder most families need to have more than one income just to survive these days.

This is what I mean when I say that our standard of living is being systematically destroyed.

Many people have to work as hard as they possibly can just to pay the bills each month.

Yes, the top 10 percent are still doing well, but the vast majority of the country is really struggling.

And that is why the soaring price of food is such a big deal right now. The latest numbers that we just got from the government tell us that the cost of “food at home” has been rising at the fastest rate since 1979…

The food-at-home index, which represents food purchased in places like grocery stores for consumption at home, jumped by an annual 13.1 percent, which is the fastest pace since March 1979.

“Consumers are getting a break at the gas pump, but not at the grocery store,” Bankrate Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “Food prices, and especially costs for food at home, continue to soar, rising at the fastest pace in more than 43 years.”

But the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet.

What we see at the grocery store right now is largely a reflection of what happened last year.

Let me give you an example that illustrates what I am talking about.

In the last few days, the mainstream media has been buzzing about the fact that there is now a potato shortage in Idaho. But what most people don’t realize is that this shortage was caused by a tremendous heat wave that happened last summer…

Idaho has a potato shortage. If you haven’t heard about it already or noticed fewer and fewer potatoes in your grocery store’s produce section, you will soon.

So, what’s the problem? The weather. Not this year’s weather, mind you. It’s the weather from over a year ago that’s to blame.

“I’m not sure if you remember last June, but we had some just unbelievably hot temperatures here in Idaho. It did a number on our potato crop,” said Jamey Higham, president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission. “And so, our yields were significantly down last year.”

So did you catch that?

A bad harvest in 2021 is now being felt in the latter stages of 2022.

Looking ahead, what our farmers are experiencing right now will be felt very keenly in 2023.

For example, it is being reported that the price of some fertilizers has now more than quadrupled…

“Last year [fertilizer] was around $270 per ton and now it’s over $1,400 per ton,” Meagan Kaiser, of Kaiser Family Farms and farmer-director of the United Soybean Board, told NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt.”

“It’s scary. It turns my stomach a little bit to think about the amount of risk that our family farm is taking right now.”

Farmers are finding themselves forced to pass some of those costs along to customers, resulting in higher grocery prices.

When those cost increases get passed along to us in 2023, a lot of people are going to be screaming bloody murder.

But at least we will have food to eat. On the other side of the globe, there simply will not be enough food for everyone.

For years, I have been trying to explain that global famines would inevitably be coming, but I still don’t think that it is sinking in for many people out there.

And of course famine is just one of the elements of “the perfect storm” that we are now facing. Recently, Egon von Greyerz listed some of the other major elements…

Debts at levels that can never be repaid – sovereign, corporate & private
Epic global bubbles in stocks, bonds & property – all about to collapse
Major geopolitical conflicts with no desire for peace – major wars likely
Energy imbalances and shortages, most self inflicted
Food shortages leading to major famine and civil unrest
Inflation, leading to hyperinflation & global poverty

We have got a giant mess on our hands.

And conditions are going to get worse and worse and worse in the months ahead.

As things deteriorate, a lot of people out there are going to go completely nuts.

In fact, a lot of people are already going completely nuts. Let me give you an example that just happened…

An unidentified man reportedly set his car on fire by driving into a U.S. Capitol barricade early Sunday morning. He then got out of his car and began firing a weapon indiscriminately before shooting himself, police say.

U.S. Capitol police say officers immediately responded when they heard the sound of gunfire at roughly 4 a.m. There were no reported injuries aside from the driver.

The only reason you would do something like that is if you have lost all hope.

And in the months and years ahead, much of the general population will lose all hope.

Let us endeavor to be beacons of hope, because hope will be greatly needed during the times that are 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.***

A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe

August 11, 2022August 11, 2022 by Michael

We really are reaching a major crisis point. Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen. In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere. A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now, but just wait. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.

Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe.

According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe…

In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.

How are those farmers going to survive?

Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get…

In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.

That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added.

Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal, because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…

France is the fourth-largest exporter of wheat and among the top five exporters of maize globally. Poor harvests due to drought may heap further pressure on grain supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global shockwaves.

The situation in Germany is also extremely dire.

It is being reported that things are already so bad that some sections of the Rhine River have dropped to dangerously low levels…

Germany’s most-important river is running dry as Europe suffers through a drought that is on course to become its worst in 500 years, with terrifying wildfires burning once again in France.

Water levels in the Rhine – which carries 80 per cent of all goods transported by water in Germany, from its industrial heartlands to Dutch ports – are now so low that it could become impassable to barges later this week, threatening vital supplies of oil and coal that the country is relying upon as Russia turns off the gas tap.

Of course the U.S. is dealing with severe drought too.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, about half of the nation is experiencing some level of drought at this moment, and we are being told that the ongoing megadrought in the Southwest is the worst in 1,200 years.

Things are particularly bad in Texas. If you can believe it, Dallas just had a stretch in which they had no measurable rain at all for two straight months…

The daily highs in Dallas have been 95 degrees or higher for three straight weeks, much hotter than normal for this time of year. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has even more problems amid an extreme drought going as far back as May 17. One hundred percent of Dallas County is in an extreme drought, while 21 percent of the whole state is experiencing exceptional drought — the most intense category of drought — according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

A 67-day stretch with no measurable rain came to an end in Dallas on Wednesday when 0.41 of an inch of rain fell. That was the second-longest dry streak at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The standing record was 85 consecutive days that spanned much of the summer of 2000.

The lack of moisture has been crippling for the state’s absolutely massive agriculture industry. There are 247,000 farms and ranches in Texas, and nearly all of them are deeply suffering right now…

The drought pressing Texas’ agriculture industry — which is responsible for 10 percent of the state’s gross domestic product — is pushing farmers and ranchers to the brink. The state’s 247,000 farms and ranches covering 127 million acres haven’t had a whole year of rain since 2017. Almost 24 million of Texas’ population lives in drought-facing areas.

As of the first of August, less than 1 percent of the state was not facing some level of drought or abnormal dryness.

At this point, conditions are so dry in Texas that many ranchers have been forced to “panic sell” their herds. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Ranchers Are Selling Off Their Cattle In Unprecedented Numbers Due To The Drought, And That Has Enormous Implications For 2023”.

Other states in the Southwest are also being hit extremely hard by this drought.

Over in Utah, the size of the Great Salt Lake just continues to get smaller and smaller due to the relentlessly dry conditions…

The warm arid desert in the West certainly had its fair share of the summer heat. Salt Lake City International Airport recorded a high of 100 degrees on July 28, marking the 16th day that month of triple-digit temperatures and breaking the previous record of 15 in July 1960. Last month, the city tied its record for the hottest recorded temperature of 107 degrees for the fourth time, according to NOAA weather data. The other occasions on which the mercury rose to 107 in Salt Lake City were in June 2021, July 2002 and July 1960. Record-keeping began there in 1874.

That intense heat hasn’t just made the residents of Utah sweat though — it has also magnified the ongoing megadrought, which has contributed to the dire state of the Great Salt Lake. Between July 2021 and 2022, the average daily water level of the lake dropped by about one foot, a historic low, and is expected to fall even farther.

There have always been times of drought all throughout history, but in modern times we have never seen the United States and Europe simultaneously experience such a severe drought for such an extended period.

For years I have been warning that we are moving toward a time when global famines will become quite common, and widespread crop failures throughout the western world this year would greatly accelerate that process.

We are being told that a child dies every 11 seconds from malnutrition.

But as food supplies get tighter and tighter, global hunger is going to get far, far worse than it is now.

In 2023, there simply is not going to be enough food for everyone.

I hope that you are getting prepared for that, because next year is just around the corner.

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

The Price Of Eggs Is Up 47 Percent As Food Costs In The U.S. Spiral Out Of Control

August 10, 2022August 10, 2022 by Michael

Now they are trying to convince us that dramatically higher prices are good news. Are you kidding me? Our standard of living is being systematically destroyed, and more Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day. The government just announced that in July the consumer price index was 8.5 percent higher than it was the previous July. Of course many have challenged the value of the inflation numbers that the government is giving us because the way inflation is calculated has been changed many times over the years. As John Williams of shadowstats.com has pointed out, if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980 it would be far higher than anything that we experienced during the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s. You can spin that any way that you want, but it is still a raging national crisis.

Yes, energy prices in the U.S. have fallen a bit, and many Americans are very thankful for that.

This reprieve won’t last indefinitely, and so don’t celebrate too much.

Meanwhile, food costs continue to spiral out of control…

“The food index increased 10.9 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending May 1979,” BLS said.

Some grocery store items have seen prices rise even faster, though.

“The food at home index rose 13.1 percent over the last 12 months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending March 1979,” BLS said. “The index for other food at home rose 15.8 percent and the index for cereals and bakery products increased 15.0 percent over the year. The remaining major grocery store food groups posted increases ranging from 9.3 percent (fruits and vegetables) to 14.9 percent (dairy and related products).”

Those numbers are absolutely abysmal.

I am sure that you have noticed that prices are going up when you visit the grocery store. Personally, I still remember the days when I could fill up an entire shopping cart full of food for just 25 dollars.

What will 25 dollars get you today?

In the old days, eggs were always a fairly inexpensive option, but the government is telling us that the price of eggs has risen 47 percent over the past year…

Inflation is wreaking havoc on breakfast, with egg prices at grocery stores soaring a whopping 47% in July over last year, according to retail analytics firm Information Resources Inc.

47 percent!

That is nuts.

Of course the bird flu pandemic that has killed tens of millions of our chickens is the primary reason for that price spike.

As I detailed a few days ago, a number of major problems have combined to create a “perfect storm” for global food production. The war in Ukraine, skyrocketing fertilizer prices and extremely bizarre weather patterns are just some of the reasons why global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter.

So the truth is that food inflation is not going away any time soon.

In fact, I expect global food prices to be substantially higher in 2023 because food production all over the planet will be way below expectations in the months ahead.

We could handle rising prices if our paychecks were going up just as fast.

Needless to say, that isn’t happening. As Zero Hedge has pointed out, real average weekly earnings are “now down 16 straight months as inflation eats away at any wage gains”.

So even the highly manipulated numbers that the government is giving us show that our standard of living has been falling for 16 months in a row.

Ouch.

In the months ahead, I expect this trend to accelerate. It is being projected that heating costs are going to greatly accelerate all over the western world, and that is certainly not going to help matters.

This will be particularly true over in Europe. Becoming so dependent on Russian natural gas was a very foolish thing to do, and now the war in Ukraine has changed everything.

For example, over in the UK it is being projected that absurdly high heating bills will push a significant proportion of the population into financial hardship this winter. The following comes from CNN…

Nearly one third of households in the United Kingdom will face poverty this winter after paying energy bills that are set to soar again in January, campaigners say.

About 10.5 million households will be in fuel poverty for the first three months of next year, according to estimates from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) published on Tuesday — meaning that their income after paying for energy will fall below the poverty line.

The UK is supposed to be one of the wealthiest nations on the entire planet.

But thanks to the war in Ukraine, household energy bills are about to soar to absolutely unprecedented heights…

The predictions are based on new estimates from research firm Cornwall Insight, also published Tuesday, which show that the average household energy bill is expected to hit £3,582 ($4,335) a year from October, and £4,266 ($5,163) from January — equating to about £355 ($430) a month.

If the war in Ukraine is causing this much pain, what will happen to global energy markets when Iran and Israel go to war?

And what will happen when the United States goes to war with China?

I keep trying to sound the alarm, because it is just a matter of time until those conflicts also erupt.

Meanwhile, food production all over the planet will continue to be ravaged by drought, floods, crippling fertilizer costs and persistent global supply chain problems.

Our leaders told us that inflation would just be “transitory”, but that turned out to be totally false.

Now they are telling us that next year will be better.

You can believe that if you want.

But right now global food production is being hit by major crisis after major crisis, and as a result food prices are likely to continue their upward spiral for quite some time to come.

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

This Is The Real Reason Why They Raided Mar-a-Lago

August 9, 2022 by Michael

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you should be absolutely horrified by what the FBI just did. When one political party weaponizes the law in order to crush their main opposition, the legitimacy of the government disappears. At this point it is clearer than ever that the United States has become a banana republic, and it greatly pains me to say that. From the time of the Founding Fathers up to today, so many Americans have sacrificed so much for our once great nation. But now we are the generation that gets to witness the death of the American experiment.

When I hear Democrats say that “nobody is above the law”, it makes me laugh.

How do you think the Bidens and the Clintons have stayed out of prison all these years?

Of course they are above the law.

But all of our other politicians have broken the law at some point too. We literally have more laws, rules and regulations than any other society in the history of the world has had. So if you look close enough, you will find that everyone has slipped up somewhere.

Needless to say, the vast majority of the time that our politicians violate the law, there are no consequences. If they are good boys and girls and go along with the program, they will generally be left alone.

However, those that prove to be serious threats to the establishment are singled out. It is all about selective enforcement. In recent years we have seen this pattern play out repeatedly, and now it is happening again.

They aren’t going after Donald Trump because he is guilty and everyone else in Washington is innocent.

Rather, they are going after Donald Trump because they think that they have found a way to keep him from ever running for president again. The following is what 18 U.S. Code § 2071 says…

(a)Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b)Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

If they can convict Trump under this section, he will be permanently banned from the presidency.

And that is exactly what they want.

This is the first time in history that the private home of a former president has ever been raided, and Trump is absolutely horrified that this has happened…

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said. “It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.”

“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” Trump said, alleging that the FBI agents broke into his safe.

I don’t blame him.

I would be horrified too.

They didn’t even treat Richard Nixon like this.

And some prominent Democrats are drooling with glee over the prospect that Trump could eventually end up in prison…

Donald Trump is probably the target of a criminal investigation and the raid on his Mar-a-Lago mansion shows it, a former acting US Solicitor General has said.

Neal Katyal, who was appointed by Barack Obama to represent the government in front of the Supreme Court between 2010 and 2011, told MSNBC on Monday night that if he were Trump’s lawyer, he would be telling him to ‘prepare for jail time’.

It isn’t enough for them just to defeat Trump politically.

They want to destroy him, just like they have destroyed so many others.

These guys are playing hardball. After experiencing four years of Trump in the White House, they want to make absolutely certain that such a “mistake” never, ever happens again.

So the full power of the FBI and the Justice Department are now being directed at Trump, and they aren’t going to show any mercy.

In light of what has just transpired, a statement that Attorney General Merrick Garland made recently now sounds even more ominous…

As Garland recently said, federal prosecutors are now engaged in the “most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into…We have to get this right.”

They aren’t going to stop until they win.

And if “another Trump” arises, they will give that individual the same treatment.

If you love this country, what we are witnessing should deeply sadden you.

Our system of government was once an inspiration to people all over the globe, but now it is starting to come apart at the seams at a staggering rate.

If corruption wins, there will be no future for our system of government, and that should greatly alarm all 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.***

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