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Why Does The United States Just Keep Getting Hit By One Historic Nightmare After Another?

July 28, 2022July 28, 2022 by Michael

Have you become numb to all the bad news yet? Almost every single day, something really horrible seems to happen in the United States. It is just one thing after another and it has been that way for months. It is as if we are in the midst of some sort of a “perfect storm” that never seems to end. In all my years of writing, I have never seen anything like this. There is so much bad news happening right now that it is literally impossible to keep up with it all. Events are starting to accelerate at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking, and I am extremely concerned about what the remainder of 2022 will look like.

For months, I have been writing extensively about the endless drought in the western half of the nation. We are being told that it is the worst multi-year megadrought that the region has experienced in 1,200 years, and it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Meanwhile, we are witnessing absolutely unprecedented flooding in the eastern half of the United States. For example, some parts of Kentucky were just pummeled by more than 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour period…

Heavy rain poured down across eastern Kentucky late Wednesday into Thursday, triggering flash flooding that caused mudslides, washed away homes and roadways and promoted a flash flood emergency. The deluge produced more than 10 inches over a 24-hour period in the hardest-hit areas and came only days after another disastrous flood inundated the St. Louis area.

In some areas, it literally looks like a tsunami has just come through. One local meteorologist admitted that he does not “have the words” to describe the incredible devastation that has taken place…

Chris Bailey, WKYT’s chief meteorologist said: ‘I don’t have the words to describe the amount of devastation daylight will uncover across eastern Kentucky.

‘This is likely to go down as one of the worst flash flood events to ever hit the state.’

Governor Andy Beshear is telling us that this was “one of the worst and most devastating events in Kentucky’s history”, and he isn’t sure why such bad things keep happening to his state…

Beshear described this as “one of the worst and most devastating events in Kentucky’s history” during the press conference. Beshear said the state was in the middle of an ongoing natural disaster and warned of the possibility for more rain to fall through Thursday night. Damage assessment and restoration were likely to continue for several days, but the dangerous flooding was hindering first responders’ ability to rescue residents, as well as allow utility workers to get power restored.

“I wish I could tell you why we keep getting hit here in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “I wish I could tell you why areas, where people may not have that much, continue to get hit and lose everything. I can’t give you the why, but I know what we do in response to it. And the answer is everything we can. These are our people. Let’s make sure we help them out.”

Of course this disaster in Kentucky came just one day after one of the worst flooding events in the history of the state of Missouri.

We are being told that we just witnessed “the wettest day ever for St. Louis”, and in some areas of the city the water actually got more than 8 feet deep…

One person died when a car in St. Louis was found covered in more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) of water. Several puppies drowned when a building became flooded at Stray Paws Adoptables, a stray dog rescue operation in St. Peters, a St. Louis suburb. Firefighters in boats rescued other dogs from the building.

Damage across the region was widespread after a massive downpour dropped more than 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in parts of St. Charles County and up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) elsewhere in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Most of the rain fell in a few hours shortly after midnight.

I really wish that we could take all of that water and give it to ranchers and farmers in the western half of the country, because the endless drought is absolutely crushing them.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is now dealing with two major simultaneous pandemics for the first time in my entire life.

Despite everything that health officials have tried, the first pandemic is still raging, and now another frightening disease is spreading like wildfire.

This current monkeypox outbreak began in Europe, but this week the U.S. officially became the world leader in confirmed cases…

With more than 18,000 cases worldwide, the monkeypox outbreak is now a global public health emergency, the World Health Organization declared this week. And the U.S. has recorded more monkeypox cases since the beginning of the year than any other country, according to the most recent statistics.

The number of confirmed cases continues to rise at an exponential rate, and this is one disease that you definitely do not want to get.

Many victims have described experiencing absolutely excruciating pain once skin sores start developing, and one man that has had both COVID and monkeypox is telling us that monkeypox is “100 times worse”.

On top of everything that I have already discussed, we just got confirmation that the U.S. economy has plunged into a recession…

The U.S. economy contracted for the second straight quarter from April to June, hitting a widely accepted rule of thumb for a recession, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product fell 0.9% at an annualized pace for the period, according to the advance estimate. That follows a 1.6% decline in the first quarter and was worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a gain of 0.3%.

Of course Joe Biden will never admit that a recession has now started.

According to him, everything is just great…

Biden noted that ‘both Chairman Powell and many of the significant banking personnel and economists say we’re not in a recession.’

‘Businesses are investing in American in record rates,’ Biden boasted.

But everyone can see what is happening to the economy, and we are being warned that we must endure some “short-term pain” in order to get inflation under control…

“We have to endure the short-term pain in the economy in order to get inflation back under control,” said Tara Sinclair, a senior fellow at the Indeed Hiring Lab. She compared the Fed hiking interest rates and tightening monetary policy to a medical treatment that might require patients to undergo something painful in order to have longer-term health. “Then, going forward, we can have a much more stable environment where we know prices are going to be growing about 2 percent per year, we have more certainty about that, we have a better sense of demand and supply coming together. That’s a better working environment for the economy as a whole, and businesses want that kind of certainty.”

Without a doubt, we desperately need to do something about inflation because it is absolutely eviscerating those at the bottom of the economic food chain.

For example, just consider the plight of one woman that was recently interviewed by CNN…

For 17 years, Ana Duran worked full time as a travel counselor. Late last year she lost that job, shortly before seeing the price of eggs rise to $7.99 a dozen and the price of a single avocado rise to $2.99 at her local store. In June, it cost her $94 to fill up her gas tank, instead of the $50 it cost her last year.

Duran has been receiving unemployment benefits and working part-time as a caregiver for a resident at a senior center. To make ends meet, she’s also been selling her own gold jewelry and crushing aluminum cans to recycle for extra cash.

Unfortunately, what the Fed is trying to do isn’t going to work. The inflation rate will likely stabilize, but we aren’t going back to a low inflation environment.

However, dramatically raising interest rates will definitely crash the housing market.

Ultimately, we are going to get to enjoy 1970s-style inflation and a repeat of the housing crash of 2008 all at the same time.

Won’t that be fun?

A historic economic meltdown of epic proportions has begun, and it is going to get a whole lot worse.

We seem to be in the midst of some sort of a “perfect storm” with no end in sight.

So why is this happening to us?

Why does the United States just keep getting hit by one historic nightmare after another?

We appear to have entered an ominous new chapter in our history, and I believe that events will accelerate even more during the difficult months that are ahead 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.***

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.

Oh Goody! Now We Get To Have Rampant Inflation And A Housing Collapse At The Same Time!

July 27, 2022 by Michael

Under normal circumstances, this would never happen. Normally, you would never have raging inflation and a housing crash at the same time. But thanks to the Federal Reserve that is precisely what we are now facing. The Fed has created a colossal inflation monster which is going to be exceedingly difficult to tame, and meanwhile the most epic housing bubble in the history of our country is starting to burst. This combination is going to cause immense pain for U.S. consumers in the months ahead, and there is no short-term hope on the horizon.

If you have been to the grocery store lately, you have probably noticed that prices are a lot different than they were just a few short months ago.

Unfortunately, some of our largest corporations are telling us that they are going to continue to pass cost increases along to consumers…

Consumers looking for relief from higher prices might have to wait a while.

The makers of Coca-Cola beverages, Dove shampoo, Huggies diapers and Big Macs have been raising prices as their costs increase on everything from wood pulp to wages. The executives behind these global brands on Tuesday said they would keep passing along those costs to shoppers, for now. Consumers are continuing to buy even as inflation takes a toll on households, these executives said.

In a desperate attempt to get the inflation spiral that they created under control, officials at the Federal Reserve keep raising interest rates.

In fact, on Wednesday we witnessed another historic interest rate increase…

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday enacted its second consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate increase as it seeks to tamp down runaway inflation without creating a recession.

In taking the benchmark overnight borrowing rate up to a range of 2.25%-2.5%, the moves in June and July represent the most stringent consecutive action since the Fed began using the overnight funds rate as the principal tool of monetary policy in the early 1990s.

Fed officials seem to think that they can tame inflation just like Paul Volcker and his minions did in the early 1980s.

But the truth is that the environment is completely different this time around.

In the early 1980s, the money supply was relatively stable.

Today, we are coming off two years in which our leaders behaved very foolishly. Our politicians borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, and the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of fresh dollars that they created out of thin air into the financial system.

No matter how high the Fed pushes interest rates, it isn’t going to make all of that new money magically disappear.

In addition, we are dealing with some very serious long-term supply issues that would have been unimaginable in the early 1980s.

I expect that those supply issues will intensify over time, and this will especially be true if more military conflicts erupt around the globe.

If officials at the Fed think that they can solve our inflation crisis by just crushing demand, they are simply being delusional.

But raising interest rates will certainly do one thing.

It will absolutely eviscerate the housing market, and that is already starting to happen.

On Wednesday, we learned that pending home sales in the U.S. were 20 percent lower this June than they were last June…

Signed contracts to purchase existing homes dropped 20% in June compared with the same month a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.

That is the slowest pace since September 2011, with the exception of the first two months of the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, when sales plunged briefly and then rebounded sharply.

On a monthly basis, pending home sales fell a wider-than-expected 8.6% in June. A Dow Jones survey of economists had predicted a 1% drop.

Those numbers are absolutely horrible, and they were much worse than expected.

And everyone agrees that this is happening because the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates.

At this point, things are particularly bad in “Zoomtowns” such as Boise, Idaho…

During the pandemic-fueled housing boom, Boise emerged as one of America’s hottest “Zoomtowns,” communities that experienced a spike in population from an influx of remote workers.

Now, the housing boom around Idaho’s capital city has ground to a halt. Buyers are balking at record prices and mortgage rates that last month hit a 13-year high. Sixty-one percent of listings in the Boise metro area had a price cut in June, the highest rate out of 97 metro areas surveyed, according to brokerage Redfin Corp. Home builders who couldn’t keep up with demand last year are cutting back on construction.

If you are trying to sell a house right now, I feel really bad for you.

As mortgage rates go even higher, even more potential buyers will be pushed out of the marketplace.

Meanwhile, we are starting to see an alarming surge in foreclosures as the overall economy slows down. Just check out these very alarming figures…

Looking specifically at foreclosure starts, this metric was up 26.6% in June on a monthly basis, but up 440.91% year-over-year. Starts also represented the highest share (4%) of serious delinquencies since March 2020, but less than half the rate in the years leading up to the pandemic.

440 percent on a year over year basis?

Are you kidding me?

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And we all remember what happened in 2008.

A new housing crash is here, and the Federal Reserve is making things even worse by dramatically hiking interest rates.

What in the world are they thinking?

You don’t raise interest rates when a recession has already begun. That is completely and utterly insane.

But that is precisely what they are doing.

I am concerned that economic conditions in America could soon very closely resemble my first novel.

Economic activity is slowing down everywhere that you look, layoffs are on the rise, the housing market is collapsing, but meanwhile prices for essentials such as food and energy continue to keep rising.

The people that are going to get hurt the most by all of this are those at the bottom of the economic food chain.

A very dark chapter in American history has begun, and the months ahead are going to be filled with pain.

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

We Are Going To See Energy Prices Go Absolutely Nuts This Winter Just As We Plunge Into A Horrifying Global Economic Crisis

July 26, 2022July 26, 2022 by Michael

How would you feel if your power bill went up by 50 percent this winter? How about 100 percent? Unfortunately, these kinds of price increases are already being announced. The world was heading into a major energy crisis even before the war in Ukraine started, and now that conflict threatens to create an extremely severe energy crunch that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, it is going to be a really, really cold winter for countless people in the western world.

The Russians have been trying to use energy as leverage, and on Monday they announced that the amount of natural gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will be reduced “to just 20% of its capacity”…

The Biden administration is working furiously behind the scenes to keep European allies united against Russia as Moscow further cuts its energy supplies to the European Union, prompting panic on both sides of the Atlantic over potentially severe gas shortages heading into winter, US officials say.

On Monday, Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom said it would cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany in half, to just 20% of its capacity. A US official said the move was retaliation for western sanctions, and that it put the West in “unchartered territory” when it comes to whether Europe will have enough gas to get through the winter.

In essence, Vladimir Putin is “turning the screws”, and it may just be a matter of time before he cuts off the gas completely.

The Europeans never should have allowed themselves to become so dependent on Russian energy, and now a major crisis is staring them in the face.

Last Wednesday, a modest rationing plan for the member states of the EU was introduced…

The “Save Gas for a Safe Winter” plan announced Wednesday sets a target for the 27 member states to reduce their gas demand by 15% between August and March next year. That reduction is based on countries’ average gas consumption during the same months over the previous five years.

The plan is focused on curtailing demand by businesses and in public buildings, rather than private homes. Among the proposed measures, the EU Commission is encouraging industry to switch to alternate energy sources — including coal where necessary — and to introduce auction systems that compensate companies for reducing their gas consumption.

Of course such a plan is going to be almost impossible to enforce, and even if all of the member states meet their goals it still won’t be enough if the Russians stop the flow of gas entirely.

The U.S. has been ramping up exports to Europe in an effort to help, and one official is openly admitting that this could cause a dramatic increase in prices here in the United States…

“This was our biggest fear,” said the US official. The impact on Europe could boomerang back onto the US, spiking natural gas and electricity prices, the official said. It will also be a major test of European resilience and unity against Russia, as the Kremlin shows no signs of retreating from Ukraine.

Sadly, we are already starting to see the price of natural gas rise to very alarming levels.

According to Wolf Richter, the price of U.S. natural gas has “more than doubled” over the past year…

So here we go again. This morning, natural gas futures jumped to $8.29 per million Btu, adding to the jumps over the past week. The price has regained much of the lost spike, and is up about 30% from a month ago, and has more than doubled from a year ago.

Ouch.

Needless to say, U.S. consumers are going to be feeling a tremendous amount of pain this winter.

For example, just check out the rate hikes that were just announced in New Hampshire…

Electricity bills in New Hampshire are about to get higher.

Eversource is raising its energy supply rate by about 50% on Aug. 1. With customers using, on average, 25% more energy in the summer, a typical customer could expect to see a $70 monthly increase, the utility said.

The energy service rate for New Hampshire Electric Co-op will go up 77%, Liberty Utilities will jump 100% and Eversource’s rate will rise by 112%.

In the coming months, we will see similar rate hikes all over the nation.

So are you ready for your power bill to soar into the stratosphere?

And all of this comes at a time when the percentage of U.S. adults that are “having difficulties paying their bills” has just hit a brand new high…

The share of Americans who report having difficulties paying their bills has surpassed its 2020 pandemic peak in a US Census Bureau survey, underscoring the toll of soaring prices on budgets.

Four in ten adults said it has been somewhat or very difficult to cover usual household expenses in a poll conducted end of June and early July. That’s the highest since the Census started asking the question in August 2020. It implies that more than 90 million families are struggling, up from about 60 million a year ago.

As I discussed yesterday, a recession in the United States is already here.

Will the entire world soon follow?

On Tuesday, the IMF warned that we could be on the verge of a major global economic slowdown…

The global economy is already in trouble, yet risks keep piling up.

In a report released Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund once again lowered its world economic forecast as it predicted major slowdowns in the three biggest economies: the United States, China and Europe.

Those downturns, combined with the ongoing war in Ukraine, inflation surging faster than expected, and tighter monetary policy around the world have continued to slam the already fragile global economy, it said.

It is often said that “energy is the economy”, and global supplies of energy just keep getting tighter and tighter.

There isn’t any short-term help on the horizon, and if we stay on the path that we are on this new global energy crisis is just going to get worse and worse.

Of course there is also the possibility that something could come along that could greatly accelerate our energy problems.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is likely to happen at some point, and I have been warning that a war between Israel and Iran will erupt sooner rather than later.

In either case, our new global energy crisis would rapidly evolve into a global energy nightmare.

So enjoy this relatively quiet summer while you still can, because I have a feeling that this upcoming winter is going to be quite crazy.

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

The Gaslighting Has Escalated To Extremely Absurd Levels As The Biden Administration Desperately Attempts To Move The Goalposts

July 25, 2022 by Michael

They are trying to do it to us again. Over the past two years, they have lied to us over and over again, and now they are going back to the same old playbook one more time. Everyone is anticipating that Thursday’s GDP number will show that the U.S. economy has now contracted for two quarters in a row, and when that happens that will mean that we have fallen into an economic recession. In fact, if you go to Google and type in “recession definition”, this is what you will find: “a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.” But the Biden administration doesn’t like that definition for obvious reasons. If everyone starts throwing around the word “recession” to describe what is going on, the outlook for the Democrats in the midterm elections is likely to get even bleaker.

So instead of facing reality, Biden administration officials are now attempting to move the goalposts. Just check out how Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen responded to a question posed to her by Chuck Todd of Meet The Press on Sunday…

“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Yellen: “If the technical definition is two quarters of contraction, you’re saying that’s not a recession?”

“That’s not the technical definition,” Yellen responded. “There is an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data in deciding whether or not there is a recession. And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong.

“I would be amazed if they would declare this period to be a recession, even if it happens to have two quarters of negative growth,” Yellen said.

Okay, so can Yellen show us a time when the U.S. economy contracted for two quarters in a row without it being considered a recession?

Someone should ask her that question.

Meanwhile, an article that has been posted on the official White House website is also trying to convince us that what we are experiencing is not actually a “recession”…

What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data—including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes. Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.

Really?

Let’s take a look at some of the economic news that has recently come out…

-The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has fallen for four months in a row.

-The number of Americans submitting new claims for unemployment benefits is the highest that it has been in eight months.

-Sales of previously owned homes have now dropped for five months in a row.

-Home prices are starting to rapidly fall all over the nation.

-One recent survey found that 35 percent of all small business owners in the U.S. “could not pay their rent in full or on time in June”.

You can find more troubling numbers like these in an article that I posted just yesterday.

All of the trends are clearly pointing in one direction, and we received more bad news on Monday. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

Another day, another set of disappointing data confirming the ‘r’ word is imminent. Both the Dallas Fed and Chicago Fed dropped some truth bombs in their surveys of local and national (respectively) economic activity.

The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook Level of General Business Activity tumbled further in July, dropping to -22.6 from -17.7 (and worse than expected)…

That is an absolutely horrible number, and the Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index has now fallen for two months in a row for the very first time since the early days of the COVID pandemic…

Shifting from local pain to national pain, The Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index signaled a second straight month of contraction in June (first time since early 2020). The smoothed index dropped into negative territory for the first time since May 2020.

Sadly, the Democrats will deny that we are in a recession until they are blue in the face because they want to do well in November.

I can understand that.

But do they really think that the American people are stupid enough to believe them?

Everywhere around us, economic activity is slowing down.

Even Walmart is starting to experience the pain. The following numbers were just posted on the official corporate Walmart website…

Operating income for the second-quarter and full-year^2,3 is expected to decline 13 to 14% and 11 to 13%, respectively. Excluding divestitures¹, operating income for the full year² is expected to decline 10 to 12%.

Adjusted earnings per share⁴ for the second quarter and full year is expected to decline around 8 to 9% and 11 to 13%, respectively. Excluding divestitures¹, adjusted earnings per share⁴ for the full year is expected to decline 10 to 12%.

Of course this is just the beginning.

The Biden administration would have us believe that any bumps in the road are just temporary and that a golden new age of prosperity for America is just around the corner.

Alternatively, I am entirely convinced that we are heading into a historic economic meltdown of epic proportions.

Someday let’s look back and see who was right and who was wrong.

Honestly, I would love for the Biden administration to be correct.

If we really were moving into a time of great peace and prosperity, I would absolutely love it.

Unfortunately, that is not the truth.

At this point, the vast majority of Americans can see that hard times are coming, and the Biden administration is going to be powerless to stop the nightmare that is now coming straight at us.

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

14 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Poised To Crash Really Hard During The Second Half Of 2022

July 24, 2022July 24, 2022 by Michael

It looks like we are going to get official confirmation that a recession has already begun when the GDP number for the second quarter comes out later this week. But that isn’t what we should be focusing on. Yes, things weren’t great during the first half of 2022, but they are going to be significantly worse during the second half. Small businesses are starting to fail all over the country, a housing crash of potentially epic proportions has started, layoffs are on the rise from coast to coast and economic activity is really slowing down all around us. So if you think that things are bad now, just wait, because they will soon be a whole lot more painful.

In recent days we have gotten more new numbers which seem to confirm that a major economic slowdown is upon us. The following are 14 signs that the U.S. economy is poised to crash really hard during the second half of 2022…

#1 One survey that was just released discovered that 35 percent of all small business owners in the U.S. “could not pay their rent in full or on time in June”.

#2 A different survey found that 51 percent of all small businesses owners in the U.S. believe that rising prices could “force them to close their businesses within the next six months”.

#3 It is being reported that 45 percent of all small businesses in the U.S. have already decided to freeze the hiring of new workers.

#4 Sales of previously owned homes dropped 5.4 percent during the month of June. That is now the fifth month in a row that we have seen a decline.

#5 In three-fourths of the metro areas that Redfin tracks, at least 25 percent of home sellers reduced their asking price during the month of June.

#6 Blackstone has prepared a war chest of 50 billion dollars so that it can scoop up depressed real estate all over the country after housing prices have crashed in the months ahead.

#7 The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits has risen to the highest level in eight months.

#8 Employment postings for software development jobs have dropped off by more than 12 percent during the past four weeks.

#9 The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now fallen for four months in a row.

#10 The S&P Global Flash U.S. PMI Composite Output Index just went negative for the very first time since the last recession.

#11 The latest number for the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index came in at -12.3, and that was much worse than what most experts were anticipating. Any reading below zero indicates contraction, and needless to say this reading was way below zero.

#12 Inflation continues to rage out of control even as economic activity in the U.S. significantly slows down. If you can believe it, the average price of a used vehicle in the United States has now risen to a whopping $33,341.

#13 The Atlanta Fed is now projecting that U.S. economic growth for the second quarter will come in at -1.6 percent. If it is ultimately confirmed that the U.S. economy has already been contracting for two quarters in a row, that would mean that we are officially in a recession right now.

#14 Thanks in part to the rapidly tanking economy, Joe Biden’s approval rating has plunged all the way down to 31 percent.

At this point, even the tech giants are extremely concerned about what is coming.

For years, nothing could seem to quash the relentless optimism of the big tech companies, and their stocks soared to absolutely absurd heights.

But now everything has changed as we head into the second half of this year. The following comes from the Washington Post…

Big Tech is bracing for an economic recession and an uncertain future. That, in turn, is triggering more economic angst.

The biggest tech firms, most of whom report quarterly earnings next week, have offered recent hints they are hunkering down. News of layoffs and hiring slowdowns have become commonplace across Silicon Valley. Start-ups are saying capital is drying up. Workers are being put on notice that businesses are changing.

I don’t remember ever seeing such pessimism from Silicon Valley.

Incredibly, even the Biden administration is admitting that the economy is slowing down, but Janet Yellen insists that what we are witnessing is quite “appropriate” for a “healthy economy”…

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged Sunday that the U.S. is experiencing an economic “slowdown” but downplayed the potential for a recession, arguing that the country is in a period of “transition” following rapid economic growth.

“The economy is slowing down,” Yellen said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding that a correction is “appropriate” for a healthy economy.

You can believe her if you want.

But she also told us that inflation would be “transitory”, and we can all see how that prediction turned out.

Even though we are still only in the early stages of this new recession, lines are already getting really long at food banks all over the nation. The cost of living continues to soar to unprecedented heights, and this is hitting the poor harder than anyone.

In the months ahead, we should expect to see a tsunami of layoffs, stunning declines in housing prices, hordes of small businesses going under and a tremendous spike in the number of bankruptcies.

Needless to say, all of this will not be good for the financial markets either.

The stage is clearly set for the sort of historic economic meltdown that I have been warning about for a long time, and the pain that our society will experience will be extremely severe.

I hope that you are using this summer to get prepared for the difficult times that are ahead of us.

The remainder of 2022 is not going to be pleasant, and 2023 is going to be even worse.

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

Doomsday Approaches: Scientists Say That The Earth Will Run Out Of Usable Topsoil In 60 Years

July 21, 2022 by Michael

What will we do when we inevitably run out of topsoil? This month, I have written a number of articles that show that the clock is ticking for humanity. We are systematically destroying the planet that we live on, and we are already witnessing mass extinctions of plankton, insects and birds. Our food is full of poisons, our water is full of poisons and the air that we breathe is full of poisons. And it gets worse with each passing year. But one thing that I haven’t talked about recently is the loss of our topsoil. 95 percent of the food that we eat comes from the soil, and so if we have no soil we have no food. This is a crisis that has been building for decades, and now we are rapidly approaching a major crisis point.

The amount of land that is used for agriculture all over the world has been steadily climbing for decades, and the intensive farming techniques that have been employed have resulted in a staggering loss of topsoil…

But beneath the feet of Iowa’s farmers, a crisis is unfolding. The average topsoil depth in Iowa decreased from around 14-18 inches (35-45cm) at the start of the 20th Century to 6-8 inches (15-20cm) by its end. Relentless tilling and disturbance from farm vehicles have allowed wind and water to whisk away this priceless resource.

The same picture is seen on farms worldwide. Soils are becoming severely degraded due to a combination of intensive farming practices and natural processes. As the layer of fertile topsoil thins, it gets increasingly difficult to grow crops for food. Without altering agricultural practices and urgently finding ways to preserve soil, the global food supply starts to look precarious.

According to Time Magazine, “soil is being lost at between 10 and 40 times the rate at which it can be naturally replenished”, and the outlook for the future is extremely bleak.

Sadly, this is even true here in the United States. When early Americans first started to settle in the Midwest, a very thick layer of extremely dark topsoil was there to greet them.

But now that topsoil is rapidly disappearing, and what remains is soil that is “often much lighter in color”…

The soil that’s darkest in color is widely known as topsoil. Soil scientists call this layer the “A-horizon.” It’s the “black, organic, rich soil that’s really good for growing crops,” says Evan Thaler, a Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

It’s full of living microorganisms and decaying plant roots, also called organic carbon. When settlers first arrived in the Midwest, it was everywhere, created from centuries of accumulated prairie grass. Plowing, though, released much of the trapped carbon, and topsoil was also lost to wind and water erosion. The soil that remains is often much lighter in color.

I remember the thick, black soil that I could dig my hands into when I was a child.

I would love to experience that again, but the soil in the Midwest is far different today.

In fact, it is being estimated that the Midwest has lost 57.6 billion metric tons of topsoil already…

Since farmers began tilling the land in the Midwest 160 years ago, 57.6 billion metric tons of topsoil have eroded, according to a study published recently in Earth’s Future. The loss has occurred despite conservation efforts implemented in the 1930s after the Dust Bowl, and the erosion rate is estimated to be double what the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says is sustainable. Future crop production could be severely limited if it continues, reports Rachel Crowell for Science News.

“Future crop production could be severely limited” is a nice way of saying that everyone is going to starve if something doesn’t change.

And that could happen a whole lot sooner than many people think.

According to the UN, all of our topsoil could be gone “within 60 years”…

Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday.

About a third of the world’s soil has already been degraded, Maria-Helena Semedo of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told a forum marking World Soil Day.

Maria-Helena Semedo actually made that statement back in 2014.

So that means that we don’t actually have 60 years left.

If that projection is accurate, we only have 52 years remaining until all the topsoil is gone.

And one expert recently told CNBC that there are actually some places in the world that “have already lost all of their topsoil”…

“There are places that have already lost all of their topsoil,” Jo Handelsman, author of “A World Without Soil,” and a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told CNBC.

The impact of soil degradation could total $23 trillion in losses of food, ecosystem services and income worldwide by 2050, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

2050 is only 28 years away.

Of course horrifying global famines will inevitably arrive long before we get to that point.

And we are actually hastening the demise of our soil by our own behavior.

Today, agricultural lands all over the planet are being saturated by trillions upon trillions of microplastics.

The amount of plastic that we produce continues to rise at an exponential rate, and that means that the amount of microplastics raining down on our farms will continue to rise at an exponential rate.

As the level of plastic in the soil keeps going up, it is going to become increasingly difficult to grow much of anything.

I know that the information in this article is difficult to take in, but it is vital that you understand what is ahead of us.

We aren’t just facing an economic collapse.

The truth is that what we are actually facing is the collapse of everything.

When I say that the clock is ticking for humanity, I am not exaggerating one bit.

Unless something really dramatic happens, we are heading into a future that is going to be far more horrible than most people would dare to imagine.

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

A Disease That Can Make It Feel Like Someone Is Peeling Your Skin With A Potato Peeler Is Spreading At An Exponential Rate

July 20, 2022 by Michael

I would highly recommend that you take this new global monkeypox outbreak very seriously. On May 6th, there was one case. Now it has spread to 78 countries and there are 14,945 cases. In nation after nation we have seen monkeypox cases take off at an exponential rate, and that includes the United States. Monkeypox cases have now been confirmed in 45 U.S. states, and the total number of U.S. cases has jumped to 2,102. Any chance of containing this disease is gone, and that is really bad news.

Many have pointed out to me that this virus has been spreading primarily among those that are engaged in certain types of risky sexual activity, but that is not the only way that it spreads.

A bartender in Dallas named Luke Shannahan recently got monkeypox, and he is not quite sure how he contracted it…

He’s not sure exactly how he got it, but Luke was contacted by the Dallas Health Department who told him he may have been exposed to monkeypox.

“I was at bars. I was going to pool parties. I did attend a music event over the weekend and recently all of those people have been becoming positive,” Luke said. “Apparently it was a contact tracing phone call.”

It is entirely possible that he was engaged in sexual activity that he is not admitting.

But if it is true that a lot of people that were at the same music event ended up contracting monkeypox, that would suggest that it is spreading fairly easily even in casual settings.

After the call from the Dallas Health Department, he was given a monkeypox vaccine, but that didn’t prevent what came next…

Shannahan was administered a monkeypox vaccine after he was diagnosed, but still became bedridden for two days and felt so ill he feared for his life.

I keep making the same point, but most people out there still don’t seem to get it.

This is not the same monkeypox that we have dealt with before.

Scientists are telling us that there are approximately 50 key mutations that set this virus apart from previous strains of monkeypox…

But in the new study, when microbial genomics researcher João Paulo Gomes of Portugal’s National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA) and his colleagues compared 15 virus samples from the current outbreak with viruses isolated from people who traveled to West Africa in 2018 and 2019, they found that the present-day virus had mutated about 50 times in just four years.

So the truth is that we may be starting from square one because this virus is radically different from anything that we have previously faced.

And as I have warned in previous articles, this is a virus that you definitely do not want to catch.

According to Shannahan, any time that one of the sores on his skin touched something, it felt like “someone is taking a potato peeler to your skin”…

Revealing his illness, Shannahan told KHOU 11: ‘It’s just the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had. It’s the worst sick I’ve ever been.

‘You have these blisters that are inflamed and anytime it grazes something or touches something, it literally feels like someone is taking a potato peeler to your skin.’

It turns out that Shannahan has also had COVID, but he says that monkeypox is “100 times worse”…

‘The pain and tenderness was constant,’ he said.

Asked whether it was like Covid, he said: ‘Oh, 100 times worse. this was a totally different level of extreme fatigue.’

If the number of cases continues to rise at an exponential rate, it won’t be too long before monkeypox is literally everywhere.

So what will we do then?

If it can spread among people gathered at a music festival, then it can also spread at a church, at a store or at a school.

Will health authorities ultimately decide that extended lockdowns are necessary?

And will the general public start clamoring for such lockdowns?

Let’s hope not. Personally, I don’t want to see lockdowns in the United States ever again for any reason.

But once people start to understand the sort of pain this virus causes, there will be a lot of panic among the general public. Shannahan says that during his worst days it was as if “someone took a ball of needles and kept on stabbing you with it”…

“The pain and tenderness was constant,” Shannahan said. “It’s like if someone took a ball of needles and kept on stabbing you with it.”

Of course Shannahan is not the only victim that is speaking out.

Another victim named Gabriel Morales says that he spent eight days alone in his apartment in “excruciating pain” after he contracted the virus…

Although he was covered with lesions, it took four hours of phone calls, and then five hours in a Harlem emergency room, for Gabriel Morales to be tested for the monkeypox virus earlier this month. And that was just the beginning of his wait.

Mr. Morales was sent home and told the Department of Health would call with his results in less than a week. The call never came.

He spent the next eight days alone in his apartment in what he described as excruciating pain, trying to find someone to prescribe him pain medication and a hard-to-access antiviral drug.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

If this virus is not contained, we could soon have millions upon millions of victims suffering through the most intense pain that they have ever experienced in their entire lives.

And just about everyone else could be in a state of full-blown panic because they are so fearful of catching the virus themselves.

There is a very real possibility that this plague could cause even more panic than COVID, and so it is absolutely imperative that authorities get this thing under control.

Unfortunately, many experts are now entirely convinced that it will be impossible to do so…

It has been a mere nine weeks since the United Kingdom announced it had detected four cases of monkeypox, a virus endemic only in West and Central Africa. In that time, the number of cases has mushroomed to nearly 13,000 in over 60 countries throughout Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, new parts of Africa, South Asia, and Australia.

The growth in cases and the geographic spread has been rapid and relentless.

Now, even as global health officials race to curb spread of the virus, most experts polled by STAT said they don’t believe it will be possible to contain it.

For the record, I specifically warned that something just like this would happen.

Now that day has arrived.

I am still hoping that the numbers will start to level off and that this crisis will start to fade.

But I have been closely watching the numbers each week and so far that has not happened.

In fact, I believe that the WHO will soon officially declare that we have another global pandemic on our hands.

An era of great pestilences is here, and none of our lives will ever be the same again.

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

We Are About To Experience An Absolutely Epic Housing Crash The Likes Of Which America Has Never Seen Before

July 18, 2022July 18, 2022 by Michael

You may not want to buy a house right now. What goes up must eventually come down, and we have just entered the “down” side of that equation. Over the past two years, home prices in the United States have gone up nearly 40 percent. Now mortgage rates are rising at a pace that is truly frightening, and they are likely to go even higher in the months ahead as the Federal Reserve continues to fight a relentless war against inflation. Needless to say, higher mortgage rates mean higher potential mortgage payments for prospective home buyers, and so millions of Americans are being priced out of the marketplace right now. The only thing that is going to bring those buyers back into the marketplace is for home prices to go down, and that is already starting to happen in some areas of the nation.

We were already in a historic housing bubble heading into 2020, and over the past two years we have witnessed another housing bubble develop on top of the previous housing bubble.

Overall, home prices in the U.S. rose 37 percent between March 2020 and March 2022.

That is insane.

Of course our incomes have not been going up as fast as home prices have. In fact, it is being reported that “home prices have gone up four times faster than incomes” over the past year…

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas put the real estate industry on edge this spring after they published a paper titled Real-Time Market Monitoring Finds Signs of Brewing U.S. Housing Bubble. Why the renewed concern? Over the past year alone, home prices have gone up four times faster than incomes. Simple economic theory, which dictates that neither home prices nor incomes can outgrow the other for very long, tells us that isn’t sustainable.

There is no way that this could continue for long, and we have reached a point where home prices in the United States are “overvalued” by almost 25 percent…

The analysis conducted by Moody’s Analytics aimed to find out whether economic fundamentals, including local income levels, could support local home prices. On a national level, Moody’s Analytics finds U.S. home prices are “overvalued” by 24.7%. In other words, U.S. home prices are 24.7% higher than they would historically trade at given current income levels.

Does this mean that home prices will come down by 25 percent?

Well, it all depends on what the Federal Reserve chooses to do.

If the Fed decides to stop raising interest rates by the end of this year, the damage could potentially be minimized.

But if the Fed continues to raise interest rates throughout 2023, we are likely to see carnage that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Personally, I have been stunned by how rapidly mortgage rates have risen. According to Peter Schiff, the last time that average 30 year mortgage rates crossed the 6 percent threshold was just before the last housing crash…

Average 30-year mortgage rates have pushed to nearly 6.4%. The last time we saw mortgage rates over 6% was right before the housing crash of 2008. Until mid-April, mortgage rates were in the 4% to 5% range. Just one month ago, rates were 5.49%.

Lower-income homebuyers have already been priced out of the market by spiking mortgage rates. The houses that are selling tend to be in higher price ranges.

Officials at the Federal Reserve can see what is happening, but they consider taming inflation to be a much higher priority right now.

So the housing bubble will inevitably continue to implode, and the numbers for the industry will just get even uglier. Here is more from Peter Schiff…

Air is hissing out of the housing bubble faster and faster every week.

Pending sales plunged in June and the inventory of homes on the market jumped as mortgage rates continue to rapidly rise.

Pending home sales plunged by 16% year-over-year in June. This follows on the heels of a 12% drop in May and a 9% dip in April. June marked the 10th straight month of year-on-year declines in pending sales.

Some of the hottest markets in the country have started to cool off really fast.

For example, just look at what is happening in California…

The pace of California home sales plunged 21% in June from a year earlier as soaring mortgage rates took a bite out of buyer interest, the state Realtors group reported Monday.

And what we are witnessing in Boise is really alarming.

Boise was once one of the hottest markets in the entire nation, but now sales are dropping faster than Joe Biden’s approval rating…

Before governors relaxed stay-at-home orders two years ago, white-collar professionals were already fleeing their exorbitantly priced apartments in cities like San Francisco and Seattle. The biggest beneficiary of that WFH homebuying wave was undoubtedly Boise—where home prices skyrocketed 53%. You could even call it the poster child of the pandemic housing boom.

But that Boise honeymoon is over. While spiking mortgage rates have pushed the overall U.S. housing market into a slowdown, it has delivered a particularly hard blow to the Boise housing market. That has seen both Boise home sales plummet—down 28% on a year-over-year basis—and inventory levels surge—up 161% this year. It’s also chipping away at home values. According to Zillow, the median Boise home sales price fell 3.5% in June.

This downturn is going to have enormous implications for home builders as well.

Sales are falling, and a key measure of home builder confidence just declined for the seventh month in a row…

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which measures the pulse of the single-family housing market, fell for the seventh consecutive month to 55, the lowest level since May 2020. It is the second-biggest, one-month decline in the survey’s 37-year history.

The only time that the index has fallen more in a single month was during the very early stages of the COVID pandemic.

National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard fears that things will continue to get worse in the months ahead, and he is warning that “we’re going to go into a recession” unless something dramatic happens…

“For the last seven straight months it has been going down and this is a huge drop – and I think all it says is, ‘Somebody do something or we’re going to go into a recession,’” Howard said.

I am sorry to tell you this Jerry, but we are already in a recession right now, and it is going to get really bad.

Our leaders have been making decisions that have been mind-numbingly bad for a long time, and now we are all going to suffer the consequences.

If you are searching for an easy way out of this mess, you can stop looking, because there isn’t one.

What we are heading for is going to make 2008 and 2009 look like a Sunday picnic, and it will shake our nation to the core.

***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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