Money

Are You Willing To Suffer Through A Recession For The Good Of “The Liberal World Order”?

July 1, 2022July 1, 2022 by Michael

How much are you willing to sacrifice for “the future of the liberal world order”? As you will see below, the Biden administration is trying to convince us that supporting the “liberal world order” is far more important than any short-term economic pain that we are experiencing right now. So are you willing to pay ridiculously high gas prices for the foreseeable future and suffer through a very serious economic downturn in order to put pressure on Vladimir Putin and Russia? Some Americans would be willing to do that, but most would not.

On Friday, we learned that the U.S. economy is heading in the wrong direction a lot quicker than most of the “experts” had anticipated. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is currently projecting that economic growth for the second quarter of 2022 will be negative 2.1 percent…

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is -2.1 percent on July 1, down from -1.0 percent on June 30. After this morning’s Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management and the construction report from the US Census Bureau, the nowcasts of second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 1.7 percent and -13.2 percent, respectively, to 0.8 percent and -15.2 percent, respectively.

U.S. GDP growth was negative during the first quarter, and if U.S. GDP growth is negative again in the second quarter that will mean that we are already in a recession right now.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model should be taken very seriously, because it has a very strong track record of accuracy…

“GDPNow has a strong track record, and the closer we get to July 28th’s release [of the initial Q2 GDP estimate] the more accurate it becomes,” wrote Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

If it is confirmed later this month that we are already in a recession, it won’t exactly be a surprise, but the good news is that so far this new economic downturn is not that severe.

Unfortunately, we continue to see more signs that things will soon get much worse.

The pace of layoffs is really starting to accelerate and this is especially true in the tech industry.

At this point, even Facebook is looking to thin the ranks…

In addition to the hiring freeze, Zuckerberg also noted the company was leaving some vacant positions at the company unfilled and “turning up the heat” on performance management to weed out staffers who are unable to meet certain KPIs.

“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg said, adding, “Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is OK with me.”

Meanwhile, we are seeing Americans cut back on their spending at a frightening pace.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that a whopping 83 percent of all Americans have “slashed personal spending due to soaring prices”…

Provident Bank, based in New Jersey, found that 83% of respondents slashed personal spending due to soaring prices of food and gasoline, with 23% indicating they had to make “drastic changes” to their spending for financial survival.

According to the survey results of 600 adults, 10.5% of respondents eliminated all non-essential purchases, and nearly 72% said they made at least some changes to personal travel habits.

And Wall Street seems to have finally gotten the message that very hard times are ahead.

The first half of 2022 was the worst first half of a year for the S&P 500 since 1970, and the index has now plunged into bear market territory…

This all came a day after the S&P 500 posted a more than 16% quarterly loss – its biggest one-quarter fall since March 2020. For the first half, the broader market index dropped 20.6% for its largest first-half decline since 1970. It also tumbled into bear market territory, down more than 21% from a record high set early January.

The Biden administration is openly admitting that more economic suffering is on the way, but we are being told that it is necessary.

On Wednesday, CNN interviewed a key economic adviser to Joe Biden named Brian Deese, and what Deese said during that interview is making headlines all over the globe…

CNN anchor Victor Blackwell interviewed Deese on Thursday and cited that Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Wednesday the war between Russia and Ukraine could be a “grinding struggle” for years.

Blackwell said, “I think everybody understands why this is happening, but is it sustainable? What do you say to those families who say, listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years? This is not sustainable.”

Deese – who was formerly the global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock – replied, “What we heard from the president today was about the stakes. This is about the future of the liberal world order, and we have to stand firm.”

No thank you.

I don’t want anything to do with a “liberal world order”, and I am sure that most of you don’t either.

In the old days they called it a “new world order”, but that phrase now has so many negative connotations to it that they decided to come up with something new.

Will someone please tell them that “liberal world order” is even worse?

These guys really stink at branding.

Why do we even need to have a “world order” in the first place?

Why can’t we just try to get along with everyone instead of trying to force our twisted values on the entire planet?

I really wish that the U.S. and Russia would have just left Ukraine alone and would have allowed them to determine their own fate.

Needless to say, that was never going to happen, and now the U.S. and Russia are engaged in a horrifying proxy war and countless Ukrainians are being sacrificed like pawns on a chessboard.

If both sides continue to escalate this conflict, it could ultimately bring us to the brink of nuclear war.

But at least we will be supporting “the future of the liberal world order”, and isn’t that what is really important?

Many of us have been relentlessly warning about where all of this foolishness will eventually lead us, but most of the population doesn’t want to listen.

Sadly, many will just continue to support “the current thing” no matter what the consequences are.

The first half of 2022 has been full of surprises, but I am expecting global events to accelerate even more during the second half of this year.

So hold on to your hats, because I believe that things are about to start getting really, really crazy out there.

***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.

Rationing Has Already Started In Europe As The Entire Globe Plunges Into A Horrific Economic Nightmare

June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 by Michael

If countries in Europe are already beginning to ration certain things due to “supply problems”, how long will it be before it starts happening in the United States? Up until the past couple of years, many of us in the western world always considered shortages to be something that only “unsophisticated” poor countries on the other side of the planet had to deal with. But the last couple of years have shown us that painful shortages can happen to wealthy countries in the western world too. At first we were told that they were “just temporary”, but the months went by and we just kept having more shortages. In fact, in 2022 “supply problems” have become so serious that many supermarkets in Europe have been forced to strictly ration essential items at various times. For example, it was being reported that due to the war in Ukraine flour, sunflower oil and sugar were all being rationed by stores in Greece…

After limiting the sale of some flours and sunflower oil online, Greek supermarkets are turning to rationing the sale of sugar as well, now including in their stores, over supply problems.

The AB Vassilopoulos is setting a maximum limit on the purchase of all brands of corn and sunflower oil and of flour per customer while Mymarket put a ceiling on sunflower oil purchases and Sklavenitis has added sugar to the rationed sales of corn oil through its online store, with a maximum of four packs, the products in high demand from restaurants, some of which said they have to stop selling french fries and other fried foods.

Over the past few months we have seen similar measures implemented in other major European nations as well. For example, the war in Ukraine prompted some pretty severe rationing in Spain…

Sporadic shortages of products like eggs, milk, and other dairy products also hit Spain since the war in Ukraine began. And major supermarkets including Mercadona and Makro began rationing sunflower oil earlier this month.

Now, stores will temporarily be allowed to limit “the number of goods that can be bought by a client,” according to information in the Official State Gazette published on Wednesday.

Looking forward, natural gas rationing is the next big thing that many people in Europe are talking about. The flow of Russian natural gas into Europe has been cut back, and it appears that this may soon cause widespread rationing in Italy…

Italy may start rationing natural-gas consumption to certain industrial giants, after Russia’s Gazprom halved supplies on Friday.

On the weekend, the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the Italian government and energy industry would meet Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the crisis, with the likely outcome being the introduction of a state of alert under the country’s gas emergency protocol.

And CNN is reporting that Germany is “one step closer to rationing supplies” now that Russia has decided to reduce the flow of natural gas going to that country…

Europe’s biggest economy is now officially running short of natural gas and is escalating a crisis plan to preserve supplies as Russia turns off the taps.

Germany on Thursday activated the second phase of its three-stage gas emergency program, taking it one step closer to rationing supplies to industry — a step that would deliver a huge blow to the manufacturing heart of its economy.

Of course there are other parts of the globe that are dealing with problems that are far, far more serious than what Europe is facing right now.

As I discussed in an article that I posted earlier this week, significant numbers of people are starting to literally drop dead from starvation in portions of eastern Africa. Global food supplies just keep getting tighter, and the head of the UN is openly telling us that the world is heading into an “unprecedented global hunger crisis”.

So if you have plenty of food to eat tonight, you should be thankful.

Here in the United States, economic conditions are deteriorating fairly rapidly, and most Americans are completely and totally unprepared for any sort of a major economic downturn. Earlier today, I came across yet another survey that shows that about 60 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck…

“We find that consumers in all income brackets — including those who make more than $100,000 annually — are living paycheck to paycheck. PYMNTS’ research finds that 61% of U.S. consumers were living paycheck to paycheck in April 2022, marking a 9 percentage point increase from 52% in April 2021, meaning that approximately three in five U.S. consumers devote nearly all of their salaries to expenses with little to nothing left over at the end of the month.”

So what is going to happen when those people start losing their jobs in large numbers?

Already, we have seen the number of tech layoffs greatly accelerate over the last couple of months.

Sadly, the layoffs will get much worse in the months ahead.

And as inflation continues to systematically eat away at our standard of living, Americans are turning to credit cards at a record pace…

As Americans grapple with the highest inflation in 40 years, the number of new credit cards have surged as more Americans rely on them to keep up with high prices. According to a recent report from the Federal Reserve, revolving credit (credit cards and lines of credit) increased by 19.6% from the previous year to $1.103 trillion.

Going into credit card debt is not a solution.

At best, it can buy you a little bit of time.

And it is especially a bad idea to go into credit card debt as we plunge into a recession.

At this point, almost everyone realizes that things are going to get bad. According to one recent poll, a whopping 85 percent of all Americans believe that the U.S. is “headed in the wrong direction”…

The national dissatisfaction is bipartisan. Most Americans, 85%, say the country is headed in the wrong direction. A majority of Republicans have been unhappy with the direction of the country since Biden’s election. Democrats had been positive about how things were going, but now 78% say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

I was astounded to see that 78 percent of Democrats believe that the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction with a Democrat in the White House.

I have never seen a number like that ever before.

But this is just another indication that the hour is late and that things are about to start getting really crazy out there.

For the moment, life is still at least somewhat normal in the western world.

Sadly, it won’t stay that way for long, and so I would recommend using your time wisely.

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

The Most Optimistic Woman On Wall Street Now Says That The U.S. Economy Has Entered A Recession

June 28, 2022June 28, 2022 by Michael

Even the most wild optimists are starting to sound like “doom and gloomers”. In fact, even the most optimistic woman on Wall Street is now telling us that the U.S. economy is in a recession right now. At one time, Cathie Wood seemed like she could do no wrong. Many of her wildly optimistic stock predictions kept coming true, and she gained hordes of Internet followers that hung on her every word. In 2020, her ARK Innovation fund outperformed the S&P 500 by a very wide margin, and pundits such as Jim Cramer were calling her a “genius”…

In 2020, Wood’s predictions appeared to be on their way to coming true. She was riding high atop the Fed-driven bull market: Her ARK Innovation fund, often known by its ticker as ARKK, returned some 157 percent during that first year of the pandemic, compared to just 18 percent for the S&P 500 as a whole. It was a legendary performance that drew accolades from various market watchers, including CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who in February of last year tweeted, “Cathie Wood is a genius.”

But these days Cathie Wood sounds like she could be writing for The Economic Collapse Blog. The value of her ARK Innovation fund is down 67 percent over the past year, and she just did an interview with CNBC in which she stated that she believes that the U.S. economy has already plunged into a recession…

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood said Tuesday that the U.S. is already in an economic downturn, and she admitted that she underestimated the severity and lasting power of inflation.

“We think we are in a recession,” Wood said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Tuesday. “We think a big problem out there is inventories… the increase of which I’ve never seen this large in my career. I’ve been around for 45 years.”

Of course she is far from alone.

Economist Stephen Moore also believes that the U.S. economy has entered a recessionary period…

Economist Stephen Moore warned on Monday that the United States is already in a “soft recession,” noting that the “real question” is now whether the Federal Reserve can achieve a soft landing.

Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, provided the insight on “Varney & Co.” Monday, reacting to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers contradicting President Biden on Sunday by saying that a recession was “almost inevitable” in the next two years.

Peter Schiff is even more pessimistic.

In fact, he is using the word “crash” to describe what is ahead for our economy…

Stockbroker Peter Schiff, the chief economist and global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, went a step further a couple of weeks ago by tweeting that most citizens have given up on the thought of a soft landing for the economy after the Fed’s interest rate hikes and now expect a harder fall.

“The only landing possible is a crash, where everyone on board dies,” Schiff tweeted. “That’s why the Fed won’t even attempt to land and give up its pretend inflation fight.”

Sadly, all three of them are correct.

At the moment, what we are currently experiencing could definitely be described as a “soft recession”, and it will inevitably get a whole lot worse.

And U.S. consumers certainly are not hopeful about the future at this point. On Friday, we learned that U.S. consumer confidence has now dropped to the lowest level ever recorded…

A closely followed University of Michigan survey released Friday found that US consumer sentiment hit a new record low in June -— the lowest recorded level since the university started collecting the data 70 years ago.

The June index saw a 14.4% drop since May as consumers became increasingly alarmed about inflation. About 79% of those consumers said they expected bad times for business conditions in the upcoming year, the highest level for that metric since 2009.

Just think about that for a moment.

In 70 years, U.S. consumers have never been more pessimistic than they are right now.

That is incredible.

Unfortunately, most consumers are also highly vulnerable.

One recent survey found that 58 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. So when harder times come and many start losing their jobs, a lot of them are going to be in financial trouble very rapidly.

The pace at which things are now changing really is breathtaking.

Exactly one year ago, it seemed like the U.S. economy was riding high and stock prices would keep going up forever.

But now it appears that the first half of 2022 will end up being the worst first half of a year for the stock market since 1970…

Stocks are about to turn in the worst first half in fifty years when the second quarter wraps on Thursday as inflation sits at a 40-year high.

The S&P 500, the broadest measure of stocks, is down nearly 18% this year the worst since 1970, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. That makes 2022 the fifth-worst half performance on record.

Trillions upon trillions of dollars of paper wealth has already been wiped out, and we continue to get more bad economic news with each passing day.

And now that the Federal Reserve has decided to foolishly raise rates just as an economic downturn is picking up speed, there is no hope that things will turn around any time soon.

The reckless optimists on Wall Street didn’t see this coming in advance. If Cathie Wood had understood which direction things were about to go, her fund would not be down 67 percent over the past year.

But of course there are countless others on Wall Street that have been hit extremely hard as well.

The end of a party can often come very abruptly. In this case, many investors that didn’t get out in time are now feeling an extraordinary amount of pain.

Unfortunately, a lot more pain is coming for Wall Street and for the economy as a whole.

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

Global Famine Is Not Just A Theoretical Scenario Anymore

June 27, 2022June 27, 2022 by Michael

The head of the United Nations just warned that we are heading into an “unprecedented global hunger crisis”, and people are already dropping dead of starvation in Africa. For months I have been documenting the signs that severe food shortages were on the way, and now they have begun. Of course there are many reasons why we are facing such a dire situation. Weather patterns have gone completely haywire all over the planet, the COVID pandemic has played havoc with global supply chains, and the war in Ukraine is greatly restricting the flow of agricultural resources out of one of the key breadbaskets in the entire world. Unfortunately, what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

On Friday, UN chief Antonio Guterres publicly warned that there will be an “unprecedented global hunger crisis”…

The world faces the prospect of a mass starvation “catastrophe” driven by unprecedented food shortages, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned Friday.

Guterres pointed to the conflict in Ukraine as exacerbating disruptions caused by “climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and inequality” to produce an “unprecedented global hunger crisis” already affecting hundreds of millions of people.

According to Google, “unprecedented” means “never done or known before”.

In other words, Guterres is saying that what we are heading into will be unlike anything that any of us have ever seen.

And he is also openly admitting that 2023 “could be even worse” than 2022…

“There is a real risk that multiple famines will be declared in 2022,” he said in a video message to officials from dozens of countries gathered in Berlin. “And 2023 could be even worse.”

Actually, I think that it is safe to say that 2023 will definitely be worse than 2022 based on the information that we currently have.

Of course things have already gotten really bad in some parts of the globe. In Somalia, one deeply suffering mother has already lost four of her children to starvation in 2022…

No mother should have to lose her child. Owliyo Hassan Salaad has watched four die this year. A drought in the Horn of Africa has taken them, one by one.

Now she cradles her frail and squalling 3-year-old, Ali Osman, whom she carried on a 90-kilometer (55-mile) walk from her village to Somalia’s capital, desperate not to lose him too. Sitting on the floor of a malnutrition treatment center filled with anxious mothers, she can barely speak about the small bodies buried back home in soil too dry for planting.

That is one of the saddest things that I have read in a very long time.

If reading that doesn’t make you incredibly sad, you should check to see if you still have a heart.

What is even more tragic is that countless others will soon starve to death in Somalia, and conditions have also greatly deteriorated in Ethiopia and Kenya…

More than 200,000 people in Somalia face “catastrophic hunger and starvation, a drastic increase from the 81,000 forecast in April,” a joint statement by U.N. agencies said Monday, noting that a humanitarian response plan for this year is just 18% funded.

Somalia isn’t alone. In Ethiopia’s drought-affected regions, the number of children treated for the most severe malnutrition — “a tip of the crisis” — jumped 27% in the first quarter of this year compared to last year, according to UNICEF. The increase was 71% in Kenya, where Doctors Without Borders reported at least 11 deaths in a single county’s malnutrition treatment program earlier this year.

I have always warned that it would be the poorest parts of the globe that would be hit the hardest.

But as the food shortages intensify, western nations will feel the pain as well.

The biggest problem is all the food that is not going to be grown this year. Many fertilizer prices have approximately tripled from a year ago, and that is going to dramatically impact agricultural production all over the planet…

Over the coming months, a major challenge will be access to fertilizers which may impact food production across many crops in different regions. Fertilizer prices surged in March, up nearly 20% since January 2022 and almost three times higher compared to a year ago. Russia and Belarus are major fertilizer exporters, accounting for 38% of potassic fertilizers, 17% of compound fertilizers, and 15% of nitrogenous fertilizers.

Here in the United States, many farmers have gone ahead with normal planting despite the high fertilizer prices, but now extreme drought is ruining crops all over the western half of the nation.

For example, just check out what is happening in Kansas. The following comes from NPR…

ELIZABETH REMBERT, BYLINE: Usually, Kansas is known for its fields of waist-high golden wheat. But this year, the blistering conditions have withered some of the crop into short, patchy straw. Standing in one of his fields in northwest Kansas, Chris Tanner wonders if it’ll even make it through harvest.

CHRIS TANNER: I mean, like, this head down here, there’s going to be nothing in it. It’ll blow out the back of the combine. You can see the seeds kind of exposed there. It’ll shatter out even before we get here.

REMBERT: It’s fields like these leading industry groups to predict a 100 million bushel drop in Kansas’ wheat harvest this year. That’s 30% less than last year’s harvest.

And as I discussed last week, conditions are even worse in Colorado and Texas.

So buckle up and hold on tight, because things will soon start getting really crazy.

Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention. In Oregon, authorities are bracing for an “explosion” of crop-devouring insects…

The Oregon Legislature last year allocated $5 million to assess the problem and set up a Mormon cricket and grasshopper “suppression” program. An additional $1.2 million for the program was approved earlier this month.

It’s part of a larger effort by state and federal authorities in the U.S. West to deal with an explosion of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets that has hit from Montana to Nevada. But some environmental groups oppose the programs, which rely on the aerial spraying of pesticides across large swaths of land.

This is a problem that has really been growing in recent years, and one rancher that was interviewed described the outbreaks that he has experienced as “truly biblical”…

Rancher Skye Krebs said the outbreaks have been “truly biblical.”

“On the highways, once you get them killed, then the rest of them come,” he explained. Mormon crickets are cannibalistic and will feast on each other, dead or alive, if not satiated with protein.

It seems like we get more bad news about U.S. food production with each passing day.

Unfortunately, most Americans still don’t seem to grasp what is happening.

If farmers and ranchers don’t produce our food, there won’t be anything to buy at the grocery store.

We have never faced anything like what we are dealing with now, and this crisis is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

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

The Biggest Temper Tantrum In U.S. History Has Begun

June 26, 2022June 26, 2022 by Michael

There have been many times in the history of this country when we have seen tremendous outbursts of anger, but most of those faded fairly quickly. For example, the rioting that we witnessed in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd was horrifying, but it only lasted for a matter of weeks. This time around, we are facing a national temper tantrum that won’t be measured in weeks or months. Unless the Supreme Court reverses course on abortion, and I don’t expect that will happen any time soon, the temper tantrum that we are witnessing now is not likely to have an ending point. Millions of hellish ghouls have been stirred up into a state of immense rage, and the entire nation is going to pay the price.

The violence that happened over the weekend is just the beginning. From this point forward, no pro-life organization in America will be safe.

Very early on Saturday morning, police discovered that a pro-life center in a very conservative area of Virginia had been attacked…

Vandals targeted a pro-life center in Lynchburg, Virginia, with threatening graffiti and broken windows following the U.S. Supreme Court voting to overturn Roe. V. Wade on Friday.

“If abortion ain’t safe, you ain’t safe,” red graffiti states on an entrance area of the Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center, photos posted by local police show.

Lynchburg Police responded to the pregnancy center at about 10:40 a.m. on Saturday. Officers found “that the building had been spray painted with graffiti, and multiple windows had been broken out. Security camera footage shows four masked individuals committing the acts.”

Unfortunately, as we have seen in recent weeks, these sorts of attacks are often not limited to just broken windows and graffiti.

In Colorado, we just witnessed another incident in which radicals actually tried to burn a pro-life organization to the ground…

A fire which occurred at a Christian pregnancy clinic in Colorado is being treated as arson after chilling messages were spray painted onto the walls and ground outside.

‘If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you,’ read one. ‘Bans off our bodies’ said another by the entrance at the Life Choices clinic in Longmont, northeast of Boulder.

The fire broke out in the middle of the night at 3:17am on Saturday morning. Authorities believe the fire was set deliberately.

State legislatures will also be targets in the days ahead. On Friday night, a group of crazed protesters actually tried to break into the Arizona Senate building while bills were actually being voted on…

Law enforcement officers in Phoenix, Arizona used tear gas to break up a sizable group of protesters outside the state’s Senate building following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade.

“Protesters threatened to break the AZ Senate entryway glass,” Republican Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers tweeted, as members were in the middle of voting on a series of bills.

The situation escalated into a “hostage” situation as lawmakers were instructed not to exit the building, Republican Arizona State Senator Kelly Townsend said.

And then they came back again on Saturday night…

On Saturday night, hundreds of anti-lifers attempted another insurrection upon the Arizona Capitol for the second night in a row.

Moments before the violence began, one rioter told our correspondent that “people are about to start shit,” and another said, “That’s what I’ve been waiting for.” Others were overheard saying that they wanted a police conflict.

At about 11:30 pm MST, the leftist radicals began breaching the Capitol fences in preparation to storm the Capitol. They were chanting, “No justice, no peace!”

After multiple warnings from State DPS officers, a fleet of police cars turned their sirens on, and the rioters immediately scattered. “Get on the ground!” yelled the officers before arresting or detaining everybody still on the property.

CNN and MSNBC have given endless coverage to the events of January 6th, 2021.

So why do they seem so hesitant to cover what is happening in Arizona?

In New York City, protesters vandalized the headquarters of Fox News, and some were even suggesting that it should be burned down…

In New York, at least 25 people were arrested on Friday after around 17,000 descended on Washington Square Park before marching through the streets to Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Bryant Park.

They also stopped outside News Corp headquarters – home to Fox News and the The New York Post – and yelled ‘Burn it down! Burn it down! F*** Tucker Carlson!’ Vandals also sprayed ‘F*** Fox’ on the side of the building.

Fox News isn’t even that conservative.

But these days anyone that is considered to be associated with the pro-life movement in any way will be a potential target.

In Los Angeles, a group of very angry liberals decided to shut down the 110 Freeway, and one of them actually attacked a police officer with “a homemade flamethrower”…

Pro-abortion protesters shut down the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angles. El American field journalist Anthony Cabassa captured the moment a vehicle drove through the blockade, and a man slams the car with a pole.

Pro-abortion activists clashed with LAPD officers. Fireworks were launched at police officers, and a man attempted to burn cops with a homemade flamethrower, Post Millennial editor Andy Ngo reported.

The officer that was attacked with the flamethrower had to go to the hospital to be treated for his injuries.

Up in Portland, there were violent protests on both Friday night and Saturday night. Quite a few buildings had their windows smashed, and that included a Starbucks Coffee outlet.

Don’t they understand that Starbucks is super liberal?

Sadly, when these radicals get riled up they don’t seem to discriminate when it comes to destroying things.

Of course some of the largest protests have been in Washington. At one point, one particularly angry group of protesters was openly suggesting that the Supreme Court should be burned down…

Antifa-linked pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge vowed to undertake a “night of rage” after the Supreme Court’s ruling on allowing states to make the final call about abortion. Black bloc protesters wielding umbrellas marched through the streets of Washington, D.C.

The group chanted slogans such as, “If abortion ain’t safe, neither are you,” “If we don’t get it, burn it down,” “Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground,” and “F*** the church, f*** the state, we won’t let them decide our fate.” The protesters burned American flags.

From this point forward, authorities are going to have to guard the Supreme Court building 24 hours a day.

And the same thing goes for the Supreme Court justices and their families.

Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that angry radicals are openly discussing what can be done to hunt them down…

One of the top posts in a socialist subreddit featured the addresses of Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Reddit users in the anti-capitalist group discussed hunting down Supreme Court justices at their churches and possibly sending them mail bombs.

The alarming threats were made in r/WorkersStrikeBack – a self-described “leftist, anti-capitalist, socialist subreddit that is dedicated to support worker strikes, protests and unions all over the world, address the obvious problems related to an average worker’s workplace, offer advice to a fellow worker struggling with their workplace problems and mock or satirize any kind of anti-worker sentiment.”

This isn’t going to go away.

These people are absolutely furious, and they are going to be relentless.

Those that regularly follow my work know that I have been warning for years that great civil unrest would be coming to America.

Now it is here.

So stay safe out there and watch your back, because things are going to start getting really crazy.

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

Summer Preview: Rolling Blackouts, Higher Gas Prices, Natural Gas Rationing In Europe And A Historic Diesel Crisis

June 23, 2022June 23, 2022 by Michael

Almost everyone has heard about the rapidly growing global energy crisis by now, but most people assume that this crisis will eventually go away because they think that authorities have everything under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. This crisis has taken our leaders by surprise, and now many of them have shifted into panic mode because they realize that there will be no easy fixes. Decades of neglect and foolish decisions have brought us to the precipice of a nightmare, and many of us are going to be absolutely astonished by some of the things that happen in the months ahead.

Here in the United States, we have neglected to properly invest in our power grids for a very long time, and now they are at a breaking point.

We are being warned that there could be widespread “rolling blackouts” this summer, and the situation is particularly dire in Midwest states such as Michigan…

The Lansing Board of Water and Light, or BWL, warned in a press release on Tuesday that the company is preparing for potential ‘rolling black-outs’ this summer.

The Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, or MISO, is Michigan’s power grid regulator. MISO will have to ‘load-shed’ if they see expected energy shortages during peak usage times due to hot weather. Load-shedding is purposefully shutting down electric power in some areas of a power-distribution system to prevent the entire system from failing when it is strained by high demand.

Meanwhile, the price of gasoline is likely to continue to go up.

For quite some time, the amount of oil that is being produced around the world each day has been lower than the amount of oil that is being used around the world each day, and as a result supplies have been getting tighter and tighter…

Fast forward to today, and where are we? Intrinsic demand is thought to be around 103 million barrels a day now, owing to 1% per year global population growth, plus increased wealth–and demand should keep growing at roughly that pace. But supplies aren’t nearly keeping up. We’re currently producing around 100.6 million barrels (reflecting the loss of about a million barrels from Russia), and the resulting spike in prices is already constraining demand to around 101 million barrels, according to Majcher.

When demand is greater than supply, either prices go up or eventually you have shortages.

And sometimes both things happen.

Bank of America is telling us that oil inventories have reached a “dangerously low point”, and until that changes prices are likely to continue to rise…

The result is a market that for the second straight year is under-supplied, and drawing down inventories as a result–on top of the drawdown in strategic reserves approved by political leaders to try and lower prices. Bank of America is already warning that global oil inventories have fallen to a “dangerously low point,” with certain gasoline and diesel supplies in particular at “precarious levels” as we head into peak U.S. driving season. U.S. oil inventories are already 14% below their five-year average, BofA notes, while distillates (like diesel) are 22% below.

I wish that I could tell you that there is hope that things will turn around eventually.

But at this point the CEO of Exxon is actually warning us to expect “up to five years of turbulent oil markets”…

Consumers must be prepared to endure up to five years of turbulent oil markets, the head of ExxonMobil said Tuesday, citing under-investment and the coronavirus pandemic.

Energy markets have been roiled by the Ukraine war as Russia has reduced some exports and faced sanctions while Europe has announced plans to wean itself off dependency on Russian fossil fuels in coming years.

If you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what happens after a major war erupts in the Middle East.

Then things will really start getting crazy.

Speaking of war, over in Europe a looming natural gas shortage due to the war in Ukraine is likely to cause immense economic problems in the months ahead.

Now that Russia has significantly reduced the flow of natural gas to Germany, it looks like the Germans will soon be forced to ration it, and the Wall Street Journal is telling us that authorities expect “a gas shortage by December”…

The German government moved closer to rationing natural gas on Thursday after Russia cut deliveries to the country last week in an escalation of the economic war triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Berlin triggered the second of its three-step plan to deal with gas shortages after the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom, the country’s biggest gas exporter, throttled delivery via the Nordstream pipeline by around 60% last week. Germany’s gas reserves are at 58% capacity, and the government now expects a gas shortage by December if supplies don’t pick up, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.

It would be difficult for me to overstate the seriousness of this problem. Energy prices have already gone completely nuts in Europe, and one German official is actually comparing this crisis to the collapse of Lehman Brothers…

With energy suppliers piling up losses by being forced to cover volumes at high prices, there’s a danger of a spillover effect for local utilities and their customers, including consumers and businesses, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Thursday after raising the country’s gas risk level to the second-highest “alarm” phase.

“If this minus gets so big that they can’t carry it anymore, the whole market is in danger of collapsing at some point,” Habeck said at a news conference in Berlin, “so a Lehman effect in the energy system.”

Needless to say, it isn’t just Germany that is being affected…

The crisis has spilled far beyond Germany, with 12 European Union member states affected and 10 issuing an early warning under gas security regulation, Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s climate chief, said in a speech to the European Parliament.

“The risk of a full gas disruption is now more real than ever before,” he said. “All this is part of Russia’s strategy to undermine our unity.”

If the war in Ukraine could be brought to a peaceful resolution, that would greatly help matters.

But we all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

On top of everything else, global supplies of diesel fuel get squeezed a little bit more with each passing day. The price of diesel fuel is 75 percent higher than it was a year ago, and here in the United States we have been warned that the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel”…

The upward pressure on diesel and jet fuel prices in particular is getting attention in the White House, Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects told Squawk Box yesterday. Diesel prices are up a whopping 75% from a year ago, and the spread between diesel and gasoline prices has also widened considerably. The high cost is creating huge strains on truckers and the supply chain; the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel,” FreightWaves warned two weeks ago.

Even though there could be a historic supply crunch, we won’t completely run out of diesel fuel.

However, as I detailed in an article that has gone extremely viral, we are potentially facing really severe shortages of both diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil if solutions cannot be found.

Urea is required to produce diesel exhaust fluid, and the U.S. doesn’t produce enough. We are normally one of the largest importers of urea in the entire world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters. Our leaders have decided that we don’t want urea from Russia, and China has restricted exports.

So that puts us in a really tough position. If you have a diesel vehicle, I would highly recommend stocking up on diesel exhaust fluid while you still can.

As for diesel engine oil, there are several key additives that are in short supply right now due to major problems at several manufacturers. An article that Mike Adams just posted goes into the details. This is a very serious situation that is not going to be resolved any time in the near future.

The bottom line is that supplies of diesel fuel are going to get very tight, and there may be times when diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil are not available at all.

All three are required in order for diesel vehicles to operate, and as I explained yesterday, the U.S. economy runs on diesel.

If we were suddenly unable to use our diesel vehicles, all of our supply chains would collapse and we would no longer have a functioning economy.

So hopefully our leaders are working really hard to find some solutions.

Because it looks like this summer could be quite difficult, and the outlook for the months beyond is even less promising.

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

A Warning About The Coming Shortages Of Diesel Fuel, Diesel Exhaust Fluid And Diesel Engine Oil

June 22, 2022June 22, 2022 by Michael

What I am about to share with you is a developing situation, and I hope to share more once the facts become clearer. It appears that a very serious diesel crisis is coming in the months ahead, and that will have a dramatic impact on our economy. As you will see below, we are being warned that there will be shortages of diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil. Most diesel vehicles require all three in order to run, and so a serious shortage of any of them would be a major disaster. Needless to say, simultaneous shortages of all three could potentially be catastrophic. Most Americans don’t spend much time thinking about diesel, but without it our supply chains collapse and we don’t have a functioning economy. In a recent Time Magazine article discussing the coming diesel fuel shortage, we are told that “the U.S. economy runs on diesel”…

Though most consumers shake their heads at the cost of gasoline and complain about the cost of filling up their car tanks, what they really should be worried about is the price of diesel. The U.S. economy runs on diesel. It’s what powers the container ships that bring goods from Asia and the trucks that collect goods from the ports and bring them to warehouses and then to your home. The farmers who grow the food you eat put diesel in their tractors to plow the fields, and the workers that bring construction equipment to build your home put diesel in their trucks.

Since January, supplies of diesel fuel have been steadily getting tighter.

As supplies have gotten tighter, prices have skyrocketed. The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel hit $5.50 a gallon in early May, and it has remained above that level ever since.

One of the biggest reasons for the supply crunch is a serious lack of refining capacity. Back in 1980, the U.S. had twice as many refineries…

There are also fewer refineries, which process crude oil into diesel and other products, in the U.S. than were just a few years ago. There are just 124 now operating, down from twice as many in 1980, and down from 139 in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. The northeast region is particularly spare, with just seven refineries today, down from 27 in 1982.

There have already been some temporary outages of diesel fuel at a few locations around the country, and we are being warned that disruptions are likely to intensify during the summer months.

But the good news is that we aren’t going to run out of diesel fuel. It may become a lot more expensive, and there may be painful temporary shortages, but we won’t run out of it.

Unfortunately, the crisis that we are facing with diesel exhaust fluid is potentially much more serious.

If you have just been skimming this article, this is the part where you need to start really paying attention.

Newsweek is telling us that the United States “could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid”…

The U.S. could soon experience a severe shortage of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), impacting U.S. drivers already hit with soaring fuel prices.

DEF is a solution made up of urea and de-ionized water that is needed for almost everything that runs on diesel. It reduces harmful gases being released into the atmosphere and works by converting nitrogen oxide produced by diesel engines into nitrogen and steam.

If you have a diesel vehicle that was sold in the United States after 2010, your vehicle could technically run without DEF, but in most cases your vehicle will simply not let you start it if the DEF tank is dry…

Can we call it a DEF jam? Everything is in short supply as supply chains continue to unlink. The latest commodity reportedly hit is DEF, or the blue diesel exhaust fluid that every diesel sold in the U.S. after 2010 needs to cut emissions. This means that every diesel truck, diesel RV, SUV, and car owner will likely have to look harder, and pay more for, DEF. A diesel engine can technically run without DEF, but your diesel vehicle likely won’t let you start it if the DEF tank is empty.

A lack of urea is the biggest reason for the growing shortage of DEF.

The United States is one of the largest importers of urea in the world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters. In previous years that wasn’t a problem, but now the war in Ukraine has dramatically changed things…

A major portion of our urea comes from Europe, and because of the war in Ukraine we’re seeing a shortage of it, according to Newsweek. Russia is one of the world’s major exporters of it. China, too, is a major exporter of it, and it has suspended exports. Weather, too, has caused supply chain disruptions. Since it’s also a major component in fertilizers, there’s intense competition for urea.

Without enough DEF, our economy is going to be in for a world of hurt.

Meanwhile, Mike Adams is reporting on the growing shortages of diesel engine oil that are starting to happen all over the nation…

Retailers, customers and distributors are all reporting shortages in diesel engine oil. This is not an imaginary problem, it is a real problem that is so far entirely ignored by the corporate media.

Apparently there are some diesel engine oil additives that are in extremely short supply, and one industry insider is telling us that this problem isn’t going to be resolved any time soon.

So what this means is that people are going to start running out of diesel engine oil.

In fact, it is already being reported that the trains in Sri Lanka will soon have to completely shut down because of a lack of diesel engine oil…

Sri Lanka Railways said that it will NOT be possible to operate trains in the future due to the lack of engine oil. A senior official at Sri Lanka Railways said that the current level of engine oil would only last for another two months.

That’s in line with the warning we’re hearing in the states: About 8 weeks of diesel engine oil remaining in the pipeline.

Just solving one of the shortages that I have described in this article will not be enough.

As I noted in the opening paragraph, a diesel vehicle requires diesel fuel, diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil in order to operate.

You need all three.

This is a story that I will be following very closely. Needless to say, there are enormous implications for our supply chains and for our economy as a whole if solutions cannot be found.

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

Disaster In The Heartland: Wheat Crops In Kansas Are Failing On A Massive Scale

June 21, 2022 by Michael

Did you know that Kansas is known as “the Wheat State”? In 2021, it produced nearly one-fourth of all wheat that was harvested in the United States. Needless to say, we really need Kansas to come up big again this year because the war in Ukraine and a number of other factors have combined to bring us to the precipice of an absolutely horrifying global food crisis. Unfortunately, things are not going well in Kansas this year. In fact, wheat crops in much of the state are failing on a massive scale…

This time of year, the wheat growing in this part of western Kansas should be thigh-high and lush green.

But as a months-long drought continues to parch the region, many fields tell a different story.

“There’s nothing out there. It’s dead,” farmer Vance Ehmke said, surveying a wheat field near his land in Lane County. “It’s just ankle-high straw.”

At this point, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is telling us that 41 percent of all wheat in Kansas is in “poor” or “very poor” condition.

The situation is particularly dire in the western portion of the state. It is being reported that many fields of wheat in western Kansas now resemble “barren wastelands”…

Across western Kansas, many fields planted with wheat months ago now look like barren wastelands. The gaping spaces between rows of brown, shriveled plants reveal hardened dirt that’s scarred with deep cracks from baking in the sun.

Of all the years for drought to hit western Kansas wheat farmers, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Even though the price of wheat has soared to crazy levels, it is being estimated that somewhere around 10 percent of all wheat fields in Kansas will not even grow enough crops to bother harvesting them.

That is really bad news, but the truth is that things are even worse in Colorado and Texas…

To the west in Colorado, projections say nearly one-third of wheat fields won’t produce enough to bother harvesting. In Texas, around three-quarters of the crop will likely be abandoned.

Please read that again.

This is enormous news, and it is going to deeply affect all of us in the months ahead.

At the worst possible time, wheat crops are failing on a massive scale all over the western half of the nation.

We have been stuck in a pattern of drought that resembles the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s for many years now, and things are starting to happen which would have once been unthinkable.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell have both dropped to all-time record lows, and the drinking water for tens of millions of Americans is now in jeopardy.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the 2 largest reservoirs in the US, which provide water to over 40 million Americans in Nevada, Arizona and California, are at their lowest levels ever.

This will have unprecedented consequences and require drastic water restrictions never seen before. pic.twitter.com/VSb6ZMtPRq

— US StormWatch (@US_Stormwatch) June 15, 2022

I wish that more people would understand the gravity of what we are potentially facing.

Down in Mexico, residents of Monterrey are already being limited to six hours of water a day because shortages have already become so severe…

In the sprawling metropolitan area of Monterrey, home to some 5.3 million people, the drought and years of below-average rainfall have led to citywide water shortages.

“We’re in an extreme climate crisis,” Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia said at a news conference last week. “Today, we’re all living it and suffering.”

The city in June began limiting water access to six hours a day, forcing schools to adjust class schedules and sparking panic buying of bottled water that emptied supermarket shelves.

The western half of North America is in the midst of the worst multi-year drought that it has experienced in 1,200 years, and experts are telling us that it isn’t going to end any time soon.

Meanwhile, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed is warning us that the planet is potentially facing “a food crisis of global proportions” in 2023…

First, time is short to prevent a food crisis of global proportions next year. We must stabilize global markets, reduce volatility and tackle the uncertainty of commodity prices. There can be no effective solution to the global food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine’s food production, as well as the food and fertilizer produced by the Russian Federation into world markets — despite the war. To avert a food availability crisis in 2023, we must restore fertilizer availability, especially for smallholder farmers now.

Global food production is going to be way below expectations all over the world this year, and we really are heading into a nightmarish worldwide food crisis.

I hope that you are preparing accordingly.

Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention.

Authorities are telling us that an absolutely massive sunspot known as AR3038 “is now facing Earth”…

An enormous sunspot that has doubled in size in only 24 hours is now facing Earth—meaning it could send a solar flare our way.

This particular sunspot has actually doubled in size for each of the past three days, and at this point it is approximately 2.5 times the size of our entire planet.

And we are being warned that it could “potentially send an M-class solar flare” directly at us…

“Yesterday, sunspot AR3038 was big. Today, it’s enormous,” reads the SpaceWeather.com website. “The fast-growing sunspot has doubled in size in only 24 hours.”

The magnetic field associated with the sunspot means it could potentially send an M-class solar flare at Earth—the second-strongest type. However, it is not known whether this will be the case.

Scientists are assuring us that we probably don’t have anything to be concerned about, and hopefully they are correct.

But let’s keep a close eye on this sunspot anyway.

As I have always warned, it is just a matter of time before another Carrington Event comes along.

We live during such unusual times, and things seem to be getting crazier with each passing week.

The “perfect storm” that so many have been warning about is now here, and the months ahead will be filled with chaos and uncertainty.

***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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