Money

828 Million People Go To Bed Hungry Each Night, And That Number Will Soon Be Much, Much Higher

August 24, 2022August 24, 2022 by Michael

Will you go to bed hungry tonight? Probably not. Most of my readers are in the western world, and for now just about everyone in the western world still has enough to eat. But in other areas of the planet, hunger is spreading like wildfire. Multiple famines have already begun, and they are only going to get worse in the months ahead. As I have been carefully documenting in recent weeks, global food production is going to be way down in 2022. And the food that is not grown in 2022 will be a major global issue in 2023.

Of course we are already dealing with an extreme hunger crisis here in 2022. According to the World Food Program, 828 million people on this planet go to bed hungry each night…

As many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared – from 135 million to 345 million – since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.

That is a lot of people.

In fact, it is more than double the entire population of the United States.

The chief economist for the World Food Program says that this is a nightmare that is going “from bad to worse”…

“It’s the story that keeps getting from bad to worse,” U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) Chief Economist Arif Husain told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “When the World Food Programme is setting records, that’s not a good thing for the world. And we have been doing that since at least 2021.”

When is the last time that you saw an interview with a mother that just lost a child to starvation in eastern Africa on the nightly news?

You aren’t seeing it because that isn’t what they want you to focus on.

Instead, they want you to focus on the endless games that our politicians are playing.

But even though the nightly news is largely ignoring this crisis, it is very real.

According to McKinsey, several factors have combined to reduce the size of the global food supply dramatically in 2022, and things are supposed to get a whole lot worse in 2023…

In 2022 alone, these crises are expected to result in a deficit of roughly 15-20 million metric tons of wheat and corn from the global supply, according to research by McKinsey. That number is expected to nearly double by 2023.

There isn’t enough food for everyone in the world right now.

And next year there will be even less.

Even in the wealthiest countries, producing enough food is becoming a major problem. For example, just check out what is happening in Italy…

Massimo Saronni walks across his rice field, each step a loud crunch. This field should be flooded with water, flourishing with four-foot emerald green blades and golden rice panicles. Instead, the plants have taken on a yellow-brown tinge and the soil has hardened from lack of rain. Small patches of survivors dot the field, but they only reach his ankle.

“These crops are seriously damaged. They haven’t had water, so they’re not going to make it,” says Saronni, who has worked as a rice farmer for over 30 years. He cultivates different rice varieties, including carnaroli, a high-starch rice prized in Italian cuisine for the creamy risotto it makes.

Italians love their risotto, and so this is a really big deal over there.

Just like so much of the rest of western Europe, northern Italy desperately needs rain. At this point, we are being told that this is the worst drought that the region has experienced “in more than 70 years”…

Northern Italy is suffering from spiking temperatures and its worst drought in more than 70 years. Broad stretches of the Po, Italy’s longest river, have turned to sandy beaches. Its famed lakes, including Maggiore and Como, are also receding. Many canals that branch out of freshwater sources and feed agricultural fields like Saronni’s are now stagnant and drying up.

Other parts of Europe are being hit even harder, and this has caused widespread crop failures.

Overall, it is being reported that Europe is now dealing with the worst drought that it has seen “in at least 500 years”…

Europe is facing its worst drought in at least 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning – reducing inland shipping, electricity production and the yields of certain crops, a European Union agency said on Tuesday.

The August report of the European Drought Observatory (EDO), overseen by the European Commission, said 47 per cent of Europe is under warning conditions, with clear deficit of soil moisture.

Conditions are quite dire here in the United States as well. At this point, “66 percent of the area of the continental United States” is currently experiencing drought.

That number has been above 60 for 82 of the past 98 weeks.

As I discussed yesterday, this is the worst multi-year megadrought to hit the western half of the nation in 1,200 years, and countless farmers are deeply suffering.

In fact, it is being reported that nothing at all has been planted on 531,000 acres of farmland in the state of California alone…

California’s years-long megadrought has left more than 531,000 acres of the state’s farmland unplanted, the US Department of Agriculture has revealed – leading experts to warn that supplies of key crops could become scarce during next year’s harvest.

At-risk crops include wheat, cotton, rice, and alfalfa, officials say, due to dwindling water levels and supplies incurred by the dry spell, which has pressed on for the past three years.

The increase in unplanted land represents a 36 percent hike from this time last year, shortly before California water officials warned citizens to prepare for another dry year after experiencing a significant lack of snow that winter.

If farmers do not grow our food, we do not eat.

And in 2023, there will be much less food to go around.

But don’t worry, the elite have a plan. “Beetle-burgers” may not sound very appetizing, but they could soon start showing up at your local grocery store…

“Beetle-burgers” could soon be helping to feed the world, according to new research. A group of scientists say the insects’ larvae — better known as mealworms — can serve as an abundant meat alternative that helps to alleviate hunger around the globe.

Mixed with sugar, they taste just like the real thing, according to the South Korean team. The study contends that mealworms could soon be an alternative in convenience foods such as sausages or chicken nuggets, since they are also a tasty source of extra protein.

I’ll bet you can’t wait to put a couple of those burgers on the grill.

Unfortunately, normal food is just going to keep getting more and more expensive.

I just heard from a friend that said that she was handed a bill for more than 50 dollars after her and her husband had a couple of burgers at a popular chain restaurant recently.

She also told me that she isn’t going back.

But the truth is that what we have experienced so far is just the very beginning of this crisis.

Global food supplies are going to get tighter and tighter and tighter.

So if you plan to stock up, I would do it now.

Things are starting to get really crazy out there, and I expect global events to accelerate even more once the summer is over.

***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.

Are We On Some Sort Of A Cycle? Exactly 14 Years Later, Another Housing Crash Has Arrived

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Michael

Do you remember what happened precisely 14 years ago? In 2008, the housing market collapsed and the subprime mortgage meltdown made national headlines day after day as unprecedented panic swept through Wall Street. To many of those that were working in the financial industry at that time, it seemed like the world was ending. Of course the world was not actually ending, but without a doubt it was an extremely painful episode for our nation. Countless Americans lost jobs or homes (or both), and the ripple effects of that crisis can still be felt today.

But did you know that there was another housing crash exactly 14 years before the one that we witnessed in 2008?

In 1994, surging mortgage rates caused new home sales to plunge dramatically…

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate increased by around 2 percentage points in 1994, ending the year north of 9%. New home sales slumped. In December 1993, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of new single-family-home sales was 812,000. A year later, in December 1994, it had fallen over 20% to 629,000.

That kind of sounds like what we are experiencing right now.

And if you go back 14 years before that, you will find another housing crash.

The U.S. housing market was booming in 1978 under Jimmy Carter, but higher interest rates caused things to cool off in 1979, and then in 1980 home sales really began to tumble. Ultimately, the level of existing home sales tumbled by about 50 percent over a four year period…

From the peak of 4 million existing-home sales in 1978, there was -50% drop in home sales over the next four years, so that by 1982 only 2 million homes were sold (data here, Table 7). It took almost two decades, or until 1996, before home sales exceeded the 1978 level of 4 million units.

The Federal Reserve knows what has happened in the past when they have aggressively hiked rates.

But they are doing it again anyway.

So here we are 14 years after the last housing crash, and it is starting to happen again. We just learned that sales of new single-family homes were about 30 percent lower this July than they were last July…

The plunge in home sales is just stunning. Sales of new single-family houses collapsed by 12.6% in July from the already beaten-down levels in June, and by nearly 30% from July last year, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 511,000 houses, the lowest since January 2016, and well below the lockdown lows, according to data from the Census Bureau today.

Those numbers are absolutely horrible, and every region of the country is getting monkey-hammered…

Northeast: -37%
West: -50%
Midwest: -23%
South: -21%

Sales of new single-family homes have now dropped for six of the last seven months.

That is clearly a trend.

Of course sales of previously owned homes have been falling quite rapidly as well…

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.

They are calling this a “housing recession”, but that isn’t what we are actually facing.

The truth is that we are in the early stages of another full-blown housing crash.

Just like we experienced in 2008.

Just like we experienced in 1994.

Just like we experienced in 1980.

Things are particularly bad in the markets that were once the hottest.

For example, just check out what has been going on in Boise, Idaho…

Nearly 70% of home sellers in Boise, Idaho cut the asking price on their house in July, Redfin reports; a remarkable turn for the once-hot real estate market.

Nationally, 32 percent of all home sellers cut their asking price last month.

Needless to say, prices are still way too high and they are likely to come down a lot more in the months ahead.

If you bought a house near the peak of the market, I really feel sorry for you.

Lots of people locked in mortgages at vastly elevated prices.

And now a lot of those same people are deeply regretting those decisions…

As the U.S. housing market cools, feverish competition for homes in the past couple of years has left 72% having regrets about their home purchases, according to a recent survey from Clever Real Estate.

The number-one reason for the buyer’s remorse: 30% of respondents said they spent too much money.

The exact same thing happened last time around too.

We never seem to learn from our mistakes, and now the stage is set for what could be the biggest housing crash of them all.

We shall see what the Federal Reserve chooses to do.

If they stop raising rates, that will help.

But if they decide to keep aggressively hiking rates, that will be absolutely catastrophic for the housing industry.

I have been warning that this sort of thing was coming for a long time, and now it is here.

If you are looking to sell a home, try to do it as quickly as you can.

Because prices are going to continue to fall all over the nation, and it won’t be too long before vast numbers of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages.

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

The Layoff Tsunami Has Begun: 50% Of U.S. Companies Plan To Eliminate Jobs Within The Next 12 Months

August 22, 2022August 22, 2022 by Michael

If half of the firms in the entire country really do cut jobs over the next year, what will our economy look like afterwards? All over America, companies are anticipating that a major economic downturn is coming in 2023, and a lot of them are already planning to shed workers in order to cut costs. Of course this sounds so much like what we went through back in 2008 and 2009. Millions of Americans lost their jobs during the “Great Recession”, and it was truly a very dark time in our history. So are we right on the verge of seeing a repeat?

Let hope that isn’t the case.

Unfortunately, a brand new survey that was just released has discovered that 50 percent of all U.S. companies plan to eliminate jobs within the next 12 months. The following comes from CNBC…

Meanwhile, 50% of firms are anticipating a reduction in overall headcount, while 52% foresee instituting a hiring freeze and 44% rescinding job offers, according to a PwC survey of 722 U.S. executives fielded in early August.

These are executives’ expectations for the next six months to a year, and therefore may evolve, according to Bhushan Sethi, co-head of PwC’s global people and organization group.

Can those numbers be accurate?

I knew that things were bad because I write about this stuff on a daily basis.

But I didn’t think that half of the firms in the entire nation were already looking to cut workers.

Wow.

At this moment, I am at a loss for words.

It’s going to get bad out there. If you have a good job right now, try to do whatever you can to hold on to it.

Sadly, some of the biggest names in the corporate world have already started to lay off workers. For example, Ford Motor just announced that it will be laying off “roughly 3,000 white-collar and contract employees”…

Ford Motor confirmed Monday it is laying off roughly 3,000 white-collar and contract employees, marking the latest in its efforts to slash costs as it makes a longer-range transition to electric vehicles. Ford sent an internal email Monday to employees, saying it would begin notifying affected salaried and agency workers this week of the cuts. The email was viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Wayfair has also decided that now is the time for mass layoffs…

Home goods company Wayfair decided to cut approximately 870 workers to help manage operation costs and “realign its investment priorities” following the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press (AP) reported this week.

I thought that Wayfair was doing quite well.

I guess not.

In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, Peloton has also chosen to lay off “hundreds of workers”…

Seeking to cut costs and end a flood of red ink, Peloton is planning to raise prices on key products, shutter stores and lay off hundreds of workers, according to a memo from CEO Barry McCarthy.

And even Groupon is getting in on the act. 500 of their workers will now be updating their resumes…

Chicago-based Groupon today laid off more than 500 of its employees — 15% of its 3,416-person headcount — according to posts from former employees on social media. The reduction impacted workers in teams including merchant development, sales, recruiting, engineering, product and marketing.

Other big names that have announced layoffs in recent weeks include Best Buy, HBO Max, Shopify, Re/Max and Walmart.

Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

As this new economic downturn deepens, countless more Americans will lose their jobs.

And as that happens, all of a sudden there will be vast numbers of people that can’t pay their mortgages or make their rent payments, and that will make our new housing crash even worse.

We are now very clearly past the peak of the housing bubble, and the ride down is going to be really painful.

Last year at this time, the housing market in California was extremely hot, but now the numbers are definitely heading in the other direction…

Sales volume of single-family houses (SFH) in California plunged by 14% in July from June, seasonally adjusted, and by 31% from a year ago, the 13th month in a row of year-over-year declines, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Sales volume of condos plunged by 18% in July from June, and by 36% from a year ago.

Prices eventually follow volume: The median price of single-family houses dropped 3.5% in July from June, down for the second month in a row, slashing the year-over-year gain to just 2.8%.

If you are trying to sell a house right now, I would encourage you to try to get that done as quickly as possible before prices fall precipitously.

Speaking of declines, the Dow was down another 643 points on Monday…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply Monday, in its worst day since June, as the summer rally fizzled out and fears of aggressive interest rate hikes returned to Wall Street.

The Dow fell 643.13 points, or 1.91%, to 33,063.61. The S&P 500 dropped 2.14% to 4,137.99, and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.55% to 12,381.57, respectively. It was the worst day of trading since June 16 for the Dow and the S&P 500.

I think that a lot of people want to get out of the market before the summer ends.

Needless to say, there are many out there that are anticipating that the last few months of this year will not be kind to the financial markets.

On September 29th, 2008 the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777 points. That was a brand new record at that time, and it was a spark that set off mass panic on Wall Street.

Could we see something similar once summer is over?

Only time will tell.

But what we do know is that the U.S. economy is really starting to implode, and the stage is being set for the sort of historic economic meltdown that I have portrayed in my books.

At this point, everyone should be able to see that really hard times are on the horizon.

Those that are prudent will do what they can to get prepared in advance.

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

A Major Food Crisis Coming In 2023? – “Prices Will Be On Steroids After The Election”

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022 by Michael

We are being warned that food prices in the U.S. are going to go absolutely haywire after the election in November. I am taking such warnings very seriously, and I believe that you should too. Global officials have been telling us over and over again that we are heading into an unprecedented global food crisis, and I have been writing about this again and again in recent weeks. But so far, the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously. Agricultural production is going to be way below expectations all over the planet in 2022, and that means that there will be far less food to go around in 2023.

Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about. Just within the last couple of days, it has been reported that there will be crop losses “of up to 50 percent” in the German state of Baden-Württemberg…

Crop losses of up to 50 percent are now expected in parts of Germany due to drought, farmers in affected regions have claimed.

Up to half of the crops in parts of the German state of Baden-Württemberg are likely to be lost due to drought, farmers in the region have claimed, with problems to do with the prices of fuel, fertiliser, and pesticides connected to the green agenda and war in Ukraine also reportedly causing problems for those in the region.

These are crop losses that haven’t happened yet.

These are crop losses that will happen in the fall if sufficient rain does not arrive soon…

With the losses expected to materialise in the autumn, the farming chaos may end up being another crisis facing Germany’s floundering political class as fuel shortages combined with a freefalling economy hit a public already suffering from officials’ poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just within the past week, I have written about how authorities are also projecting similar crop losses in key areas of the UK, France and Italy.

And here in the United States, 37 percent of farmers in the western half of the country say that they will be killing their own crops because there is no chance that they will come to maturity due to the endless drought.

All of these crop losses haven’t hit the food system yet.

So none of these crop losses are reflected in grocery store prices yet.

That won’t happen until the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

With all of that in mind, I would like to share with you a comment that was just posted on one of Southern Prepper’s videos…

Just a heads up. I have a family member who works in the corporate pricing department for groceries. This company has been in business 40 years. Meeting was called 1 day ago and they were told prices will be on steroids after the election. Owner said he’s never seen what’s headed our way in 40 of business. They just hired 10 more people and can not keep up with data input.

All hands on deck and overtime. included. Get your house in order. Buy Holiday grocery products while you can find and afford them. Boss told employees to stock up now. Please pay attention folks.

It would be easy to dismiss that comment because we don’t know who it is from and so we can’t verify the specific claims that are made.

But this is entirely consistent with everything else that I am hearing.

Food prices have been rising rapidly in recent months, but the really big deal is all the food that is not being grown right now. This lack of production is going to push prices to levels that would have once been unthinkable.

Most people simply do not realize how much our farmers are hurting right now. Just check out these numbers…

Nearly three quarters of US farmers say this year’s drought is hurting their harvest — with significant crop and income loss, according to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, an insurance company and lobbying group that represents agricultural interests.

The survey was conducted across 15 states from June 8 to July 20 in extreme drought regions from Texas to North Dakota to California, which makes up nearly half of the country’s agricultural production value. In California — a state with high fruit and nut tree crops — 50% of farmers said they had to remove trees and multiyear crops due to drought, which will affect future revenue.

This is going to affect all of us.

If farmers and ranchers don’t produce our food, we do not eat.

Things are even worse in western Europe, and the war in Ukraine is greatly restricting the flow of agricultural goods from eastern Europe.

In 2023, there is going to be a mad scramble for whatever food that is available, and global prices are going to go nuts.

We have already started to see food riots and civil unrest is some areas of the globe, but I anticipate that things will get much worse next year.

Even here in the United States, I expect that there will be a lot of anger and frustration. And as we have seen, it certainly doesn’t take much for our major urban areas to explode.

Things aren’t even that bad yet, and already we are seeing people behave in ways that are extremely bizarre. For example, just consider a very strange incident that just happened in Los Angeles…

The gang of people ransacked the store while shouting, completely destroying the COVID-19 safety screen that had been set up to grab as much as they could in Los Angeles, California.

A group entered the convenience store near Figueroa Street and El Segundo Boulevard, with surveillance footage showing the looters shouting at each other, on August 15.

They can be seen running across the store and grabbing drinks, cigarettes, lottery tickets, bags of chips and other items.

Approximately 100 young people were involved in the violence.

When I read about this sort of a thing, it makes me very sad. I have been strongly warning that such unrest would be coming to America, and eventually it will get completely out of control.

As food prices surge to crazy heights, those at the bottom of the economic food chain will not be happy.

The coming food crisis will be a difficult time for our nation, and for the world as a whole.

If you understand what is coming, it gives you an opportunity to get prepared.

Sadly, most of the population doesn’t want to listen to the warnings, and that is extremely unfortunate.

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

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.***

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.***

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