Money

We Are In So Much Trouble

March 27, 2022 by Michael

What we are witnessing is truly the beginning of the end. In recent months I have focused a lot on the economic implosion that is now taking place, but what we are facing is so much broader than that. Our society is literally falling to pieces all around us, and now World War 3 has begun. Many regard the war that has erupted on the other side of the globe as just a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the truth is that it is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia. And since neither side seems much interested in diplomacy at this point, this proxy war could eventually become a shooting war between the two greatest nuclear powers on the entire planet.

Before the war started, events were already starting to accelerate substantially. Inflation was out of control, a new energy crisis had flared up, and global food supplies were getting tighter and tighter. But now we are truly in unprecedented territory. If you doubt this, just look at what is happening to the price of fertilizer.

Fertilizer prices 1993-present

The spike in the middle is the 2008 financial crisis

>it’s so over pic.twitter.com/MW0Csb1mXj

— Alexei Arora (@AlexeiArora) March 26, 2022

That chart should chill you to the core, because it clearly tells us that food shortages are coming.

In fact, even Joe Biden is now publicly admitting that food shortages are coming. On his show the other night, Tucker Carlson broke this down in a way that only Tucker Carlson can…

Before the war, some fertilizers had doubled in price and some had tripled in price.

In the video that you just watched, we are told that some fertilizer prices are now four to five times higher than they were a year ago.

Here in the western world, most farmers will simply bite the bullet and pay the higher prices. In turn, we will pay higher prices for food at the grocery store.

But in poorer parts of the globe, many farmers will use a whole lot less fertilizer or none at all. As a result, global food production will be way down in the months ahead.

To turn this crisis around, what we really need is for the proxy war in Ukraine to end. Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters instead.

For example, on Saturday Joe Biden shocked the entire world when he stated that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”…

President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” ratcheting up international pressure and further uniting NATO allies against Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.

“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said at the end of a sweeping speech in Poland. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”

That was a call for regime change in Russia.

Russian leaders were already paranoid about western intentions before, and now their paranoia is going to be off the charts.

Biden administration officials are trying to walk back Biden’s comments, but the damage has already been done.

Meanwhile, we just learned that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not spoken at all since February 15th…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have not spoken since February 15, over a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the State Department told Antiwar.com on Friday.

Earlier this week The Washington Post cited US officials who said Blinken hasn’t attempted to speak with Lavrov since the start of the conflict. When asked to confirm the story, a State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the last time Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke was on February 15.”

Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials always kept talking to the Russians.

So this is something that should alarm all of us greatly.

On top of everything else, Joe Biden just told U.S. troops in Poland that they will see what conditions in Ukraine are like “when you’re there”…

According to The Associated Press, Biden’s remarks were given in front of U.S. troops who “had been sent near Poland’s border [with Ukraine] to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO.” The words, “and you’re gonna see when you’re there,” were spoken right after the president mentioned the bravery of Ukrainian citizens. Later, the White House once again told reporters that U.S. troops would not be deployed to fight in the war in Ukraine.

Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes things even worse.

If he isn’t careful, he could drag the entire world into a global war. Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that Biden has decided to reaffirm “America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario” at such a tense moment…

President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.

As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks.

Many had thought that the war in Ukraine would help to unite America and would provide a boost to Biden’s extremely poor approval ratings.

And in the initial days of the war, that seemed to happen.

But now Biden’s approval ratings are falling once again…

President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings keep falling in his second year in the White House, with just 40% of Americans approving of the job that he is doing, a new NBC News survey finds.

That is the lowest rating Biden has seen in his presidency.

We were warned that 2022 would be a very troubled year, and we are still in the very early chapters.

If the Biden administration continues with all of this insanity, things are going to get a whole lot worse. I really like how Gerald Celente summarized matters during his recent interview with Greg Hunter…

“We are headed for an economic calamity the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. They are getting our minds off it with the war in Ukraine. . . . You know, I wrote in the magazine in the beginning of the year, we said that the Covid war would wind down by late March and mid-April. It’s winding down. . . . So, now, as we said in the magazine, we went from the Covid war to the Ukraine war, and now to world war. We are headed to World War III. . . . There is not a peep about a cease-fire. Biden is only bragging about more weapons being sent in. Biden says we are going to defeat the Russians. We are not backing down. No one is talking about a cease-fire, and no one is talking about peace. If we don’t unite for peace, we are all going to die in war.”

A thermonuclear war with Russia would be more horrible than most people could possibly imagine, and our leaders should be doing all that they can to prevent that from happening.

But right now Biden administration officials apparently don’t even see any point in talking with the Russians.

We are steamrolling down a road that leads to nuclear war, and meanwhile the global economy is starting to implode at frightening speed.

If you are still delusional enough to believe that everything will work out “just fine” somehow, then I really feel sorry for you.

***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.

The Skyrocketing Price Of Fertilizer Has Caused A Worldwide Nightmare That Global Leaders Can No Longer Deny

March 24, 2022March 24, 2022 by Michael

Please read this article very carefully, because it contains very important information that is going to affect you and your family. In fact, it is going to affect every man, woman and child on the face of the planet. For the past couple of years, I have been specifically warning that a major global food crisis was coming. In fact, in recent months I have been writing about this multiple times per week. At first, I think that a lot of people out there thought that I was exaggerating, but at this point the reality that we are heading into a major global food crisis has become undeniable. In fact, Joe Biden just told a press conference in Brussels that worldwide food shortages are “going to be real”…

President Joe Biden said that the world will experience food shortages as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and production increases were a subject of discussions at a Group of Seven meeting on Thursday.

“It’s going to be real,” Biden said at a news conference in Brussels. “The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”

And Biden is definitely not alone.

If you can believe it, things are already so serious in France that the government is actually considering implementing a food voucher system…

French President Emmanuel Macron said his government is considering food vouchers to help middle and low-income families afford to eat, calling the problem a “worldwide food crisis.”

“I want to put in place a food voucher [system] to help the most modest households and the middle class facing these additional costs,” Macron said in an interview with France Bleu radio on Tuesday.

Wow.

I was floored when I read that.

People need to understand that this is not a game.

One of the biggest reasons why the outlook for the months ahead is so grim is due to the soaring cost of fertilizer. The American Farm Bureau Federation is telling us that in some cases the price of fertilizer has risen 300 percent…

Fertilizer is a necessity for farmers, allowing them to achieve the high yields needed to meet demand and keep their operations afloat. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, fertilizer costs have risen as much as 300% in some areas — adding significant pressure to farmers’ pocketbooks.

As global energy prices continue to go higher, so will the price of fertilizer.

And now the war in Ukraine threatens to make things even worse, because Russia is such a key exporter of various fertilizers…

In 2021, Russia was the world’s top exporter of nitrogen fertilizers and the second-largest supplier of both potassic and phosphorous fertilizers, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Most Americans don’t understand that when we sanction other nations such as Russia we are also sanctioning ourselves.

We have unwisely become very dependent on the rest of the world for so many things, and that puts us in a very vulnerable position.

For the foreseeable future, the price of fertilizer is going to be incredibly high. As a result, farmers all over the globe will be using less fertilizer, and this will result in reduced agricultural production.

In other words, a lot less food will be grown.

And in some instances, farmers that are still willing to pay for fertilizer are not able to get it. In fact, in certain cases that is now even happening in the United States…

Corn and soybean farmer Jon Bakehouse faces a daunting question. In years past, he’s never had to ask for what he could get or what he could apply to his crops within the usual agriculture system. But now, the situation has completely shifted.

“For the first time, we’re talking about ‘it’s simply not available, fertilizer is simply not available, some chemicals are simply not available.’ For the first time, you kind of recognize you’re standing on a three-legged stool with one of the legs starting to weaken,” Bakehouse said.

In all my years, I have never heard of a corn farmer in Iowa being unable to buy fertilizer.

But here we are.

And Bakehouse is admitting that a lack of fertilizer would really impact the amount of corn that he is able to produce this year…

“If, for instance, we were only able to get half of our fertilizer needs, it would cut into the corn yields substantially, probably at least 30%, perhaps higher depending on the year,” Bakehouse said.

That is very alarming to hear.

Sadly, there are millions upon millions of other farmers all over the world that are being faced with incredibly difficult choices right now…

The pivot can be seen in agricultural powerhouse Brazil, where some farmers are applying less fertilizer to their corn, and some federal legislators are pushing to open protected indigenous lands for the mining of potash. In Zimbabwe and Kenya, small farmers are reverting to using manure to nourish their crops. In Canada, one canola farmer has already stockpiled fertilizer for the 2023 season in anticipation of even higher prices ahead.

Meanwhile, there are other major disasters that are also threatening food production.

The new bird flu pandemic that erupted inside the United States in February continues to escalate. In fact, we just learned that more than half a million broiler chickens in Nebraska will have to be put down…

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) announced on Tuesday that it has confirmed a case of the highly contagious bird flu in a commercial flock of 570,000 broiler chickens and that the birds will be “humanely depopulated and disposed of.”

NDA, in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), said in a press release the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was confirmed in a chicken flock in Butler County, Neb.

Overall, more than 12 million chickens and turkeys in the U.S. have already died as a result of this horrifying outbreak.

Needless to say, that will drive up the price of meat to even higher levels.

On the other side of the world, colossal swarms of locusts are devouring crops in Africa once again this year.

This time around, it is South Africa that is being hit the hardest…

Farmers in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape Karoo are struggling to control the locust swarms that have damaged and consumed thousands of hectares of grazing land.

According to Agri SA, this is one of the biggest locust swarms in years and, with the assistance of donors and the Department of Agriculture, farmers are trying everything to save their land and food.

There is so much more that I could say about the global food crisis, but I will stop there for today.

The head of the UN World Food Program has said that this is the worst global food crisis that we have seen since World War II, and I very much agree with him.

But even though global leaders are now admitting that things are going to get really bad, most people in the western world still seem to think that everything is going to work out just fine somehow.

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

Shocking Numbers That Show That The Middle Class In The U.S. Is Being Systematically Destroyed

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022 by Michael

People often wonder why I get so upset about inflation. Well, the truth is that there are many reasons, but one of the big ones is because it destroys the middle class. This has been true for a long time, but here in 2022 prices are rising at a far faster rate than most of our paychecks are. That means that our standard of living is steadily going down. It is taking more out of our incomes to pay for essentials such as housing, food and gasoline, and that is leaving a lot less money for other things. Of course there are many Americans that are going into tremendous amounts of debt in order to maintain the standard of living that they are currently enjoying. But going into debt only brings more pain in the long run.

As our leaders have absolutely flooded the system with new money, those at the very top of the economic food chain have greatly prospered.

Meanwhile, the colossal gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us just continues to grow.

Today, almost 52 million American workers make less than $15 an hour…

With an effort by Democrats to boost the national minimum wage stalled, a new report finds that on average one in three U.S. workers is still making less than $15 an hour, while the share of women and people of color earning that amount is even greater.

Nearly 52 million U.S. workers — or 32% of the country’s workforce — earn less than $15 an hour, according to a report published Tuesday by Oxfam America. The data help quantify how many Americans could be impacted by the Raise the Wage Act, which would set a $15 federal hourly minimum and has been pending in Congress since January 2021.

Once upon a time, $15 an hour was a really good wage.

But thanks to inflation, in 2022 you simply cannot live a middle class lifestyle in the United States on less than $15 an hour.

The Social Security Administration compiles extremely detailed information about how much money American workers make each year. The final numbers for 2021 won’t be out for a number of months, but for 2020 the median yearly wage in the U.S. was just $34,612.04.

In other words, half of all American workers made more than $34,612.04 and half of all American workers made less than $34,612.04.

If you are making less than $34,612.04 per year, life is certainly not easy. When you break that down, that is less than $3,000 a month, and that is before taxes are taken out.

That isn’t a lot of money.

In the old days, the vast majority of U.S. adults could look forward to owning a nice home, but now housing prices are soaring to absolutely absurd levels. In fact, we just learned that the average price of a new home in the United States just rose above $500,000 for the first time ever…

New Home Sales are still down 6.2% YoY (down YoY for the ninth straight month)

And the average new home sales price topped $500k for the first time ever.

The primary reason why new home prices are spiking so dramatically is due to building costs.

Just about everything that goes into the construction of a new home has become insanely expensive, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

So buying a brand new home is now out of reach for many formerly middle class Americans, and this has caused the inventory of unsold homes to balloon to a very alarming level…

The inventory of new single-family houses for sale rose to 407,000 houses in February (seasonally adjusted), the largest unsold inventory since August 2008, up by 40% from a year ago. This represents 6.3 months of supply at the current rate of sales, according to data from the Census Bureau today.

Of course it isn’t just housing costs that are soaring to unprecedented heights.

As I have covered extensively in recent weeks, the price of food and the price of gasoline have both been surging.

Our lawmakers in Washington realize that U.S. consumers are deeply suffering, and so some of them want to send out another round of stimulus checks…

Americans already faced searing inflation when gas prices surged to an all-time high earlier this month. Now, some lawmakers want the federal government to offer stimulus payments or rebate checks to help reduce the pain at the pump.

Families with two children could get as much $300 per month as long as the nation’s average gas price exceeds $4 a gallon, according to one new bill proposed by Reps. Mike Thompson of California, John Larson of Connecticut and Lauren Underwood of Illinois. All three lawmakers are Democrats.

When members of Congress were considering the very first round of stimulus checks all the way back in 2020, I warned that if we let the genie out of the bottle we would never be able to put it back in.

Every time there is even a bit of pain or discomfort, there will be some that will clamor for more stimulus checks.

But every time our lawmakers borrow and spend money that we do not have, that creates even more inflation.

We just can’t keep flooding the system with more cash. It is complete and utter insanity. I really like how one prominent economics professor recently made this point…

“They’re flying blind, and are too little, too late,” Steve Hanke says in disbelief, an Applied Economics professor of John Hopkins University. “It’s utter rubbish and nonsense” that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sees supply chain issues as a root cause for inflation, he tells me, as we decipher the Federal Reserve’s latest official statements on the shape of the U.S. economy.

“The money supply in excess causes inflation, and the Federal Reserve appears to be almost clueless,” Hanke shares with me as we discuss last week’s conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Obviously the Chinese know this,” which is why their inflation rating is less than 1%, the former Senior Economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers articulates to me.

Inflation is always destructive.

Most of our leaders seem to think that “more money” is the solution to all of our problems, but they are systematically destroying the middle class and they are systematically destroying the reserve currency of the world.

We are literally committing national financial suicide, and so I don’t understand why more Americans are not deeply upset about all of this.

Once upon a time, the U.S. had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world.

Now the middle class is dying, and our politicians seem absolutely determined to speed up that process.

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

Is The U.S. Economy On The Brink Of Yet Another Recession?

March 22, 2022 by Michael

Memories of the very painful recession of 2020 are still quite fresh, and now we are being warned to brace ourselves for the possibility of yet another recession in 2022. Unfortunately, a lot of things are going wrong all at the same time. The Federal Reserve and other global central banks are likely to continue to raise interest rates in an attempt to bring inflation down, a major war has erupted on the other side of the globe, and we are simultaneously facing an epic global energy crisis and an epic global food crisis. The Biden administration had been promising us that better days were ahead, but instead it appears that a tremendous amount of economic trouble is on the horizon.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, perhaps you will believe Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi…

The risks of recession have risen quite considerably… With Russia invading Ukraine, the spike in oil and other commodity prices, inflation expectations have taken off here and the Federal Reserve, as we could see from [Jerome] Powell’s speech yesterday is now on high alert.

That certainly doesn’t sound good.

And legendary investor Carl Icahn just told CNBC that he believes that what we are heading into could be “a recession or even worse”…

Famed investor Carl Icahn said Tuesday an economic downturn could be on the horizon and he is loaded on protection against a steep sell-off in the market.

“I think there could very well could be a recession or even worse,” Icahn said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” to Scott Wapner. “I have kept everything hedged for the last few years. We have a strong hedge on against the long positions and we try to be activist to get that edge… I am negative as you can hear. Short term I don’t even predict.”

The Federal Reserve flooded the system with trillions of fresh dollars to help pull us out of the last recession, and that is one of the factors that has created a tsunami of inflation.

Now the Fed is under pressure to get inflation under control, but at the same time the U.S. economy is slowing down once again. CNBC’s Jim Cramer is convinced that Fed chief Jerome Powell has been “dealt an insanely bad hand”…

“Powell’s been dealt an insanely bad hand. So of course he’s fallen behind. Hence why he’s said that the Fed will move with alacrity from here on out,” the “Mad Money” host said. “So feel free to blame him for not seeing what was coming. If he has to do a [50 basis point interest rate hike], he will.”

“Never forget that Powell’s been asked to do the impossible here: Figure out how fast to raise interest rates when so many things should be slowing the economy and cooling inflation naturally, yet nothing has worked out the way we expected,” he added.

Perhaps Powell is holding a bad hand.

But to a very large degree it is a hand of his own making.

The Fed has gone absolutely nuts over the past two years, and now we are feeling the consequences on a daily basis. For example, on Tuesday the average price of a gallon of gasoline in Los Angeles crossed the six dollar threshold…

Los Angeles on Tuesday became the first major city in the U.S. to reach an average gas price of $6 or more.

As the price of gasoline shoots higher, criminals are increasingly drilling into gas tanks in order to steal fuel. Here is an example from Ohio that I came across earlier today…

The site user wrote: “My friend went to get into his work truck this morning and found that someone drilled a hole in the gas tank and stole all of his gas.”

Commenters suggested that the thieves drilled the plastic tank because he had a tamper-proof fuel cap.

The man could be left with a bill of $2000 to $4000 to replace the tank.

The price of food continues to surge higher as well. Fertilizer prices have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in price, and this is pushing food prices up to stunning levels all over the planet.

But the good news is that the elite are alarmed by what is happening and they want us to know that they are here to help. In fact, an economics professor that is affiliated with the World Economic Forum has some practical advice for you…

To deal with gas prices, it’s worth reconsidering public transportation if it’s an option where you live. Fares are up about 8% compared with 38% for gasoline. Now may even be the time to sell your car. It certainly isn’t the time to buy a new or used one. Prices have stabilized a bit, but used-car prices are still up more than 40% from a year ago, and new ones are up 12%.

When it comes to food, don’t be afraid to explore. Prices for animal-based food products will certainly increase. Ukraine and Russia supply a significant amount of corn and barley to the world market, mainly to feed livestock for human food. Meat prices have increased about 14% from February 2021 and will go up even more. Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.

You don’t really need a car, do you?

And you don’t really need to eat meat, do you?

Needless to say, the elite have no plans to alter their lifestyles. They just want people like you and me to adjust how we live.

Unfortunately, many Americans will soon be forced to make major changes because we are moving into very rough times.

We will be quite fortunate if a “recession” is all that we have to deal with for the rest of 2022, because it certainly wouldn’t take too much to push us into a full-blown depression.

Things are going haywire all around us, and each new day seems to bring even more bad news. We truly are in a “perfect storm”, but most Americans still do not fully understand what is happening.

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

The UN Is Warning That We Are Heading Into The Worst Global Food Crisis Since World War 2

March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 by Michael

The executive director of the UN’s World Food Program is saying that we are now facing “a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe”. Unfortunately, he is not exaggerating. The global price of food was skyrocketing even before the war on the other side of the globe erupted, and now many of the countries that are extremely dependent on agricultural exports from Ukraine and Russia are going to have to turn elsewhere for answers. Meanwhile, severe drought is threatening production in the other major “breadbasket” of the world. We are being warned that the winter wheat harvest in the U.S. could be “disastrous” this year, and that is very unwelcome news. Because if some sort of a miracle does not happen, we will soon see hunger and famine on a scale that once would have been unimaginable to many people.

We really are facing a “perfect storm” as far as global food production is concerned. The following comes from a recent New York Times article…

Ukrainian farms are about to miss critical planting and harvesting seasons. European fertilizer plants are significantly cutting production because of high energy prices. Farmers from Brazil to Texas are cutting back on fertilizer, threatening the size of the next harvests.

China, facing its worst wheat crop in decades after severe flooding, is planning to buy much more of the world’s dwindling supply. And India, which ordinarily exports a small amount of wheat, has already seen foreign demand more than triple compared with last year.

The new global energy crisis just keeps pushing fertilizer prices higher and higher.

This is something that I have been warning about for months, and now the mainstream media is finally acknowledging that we have a truly historic challenge on our hands.

In fact, they are not openly admitting that fertilizer prices have “more than doubled or tripled in price over the past year”…

In another ominous signal to fertilizer customers, earlier this month European fertilizer producers said they were slowing or halting production because of soaring energy prices. Many fertilizers are made with natural gas.

The world’s major fertilizers have now more than doubled or tripled in price over the past year.

Actually, in some cases fertilizer prices have actually quadrupled.

How are the poorer parts of the world supposed to deal with that?

It is easy to tell them to use less fertilizer, but using less fertilizer will mean less food is grown.

Sadly, absurd fertilizer prices will result in dramatically reduced agricultural production all over the globe this year, and the executive director of the UN’s World Food Program is publicly warning that we are heading into the worst global food crisis “since World War II”…

The looming disaster is laying bare the consequences of a major war in the modern era of globalization. Prices for food, fertilizer, oil, gas and even metals like aluminum, nickel and palladium are all rising fast — and experts expect worse as the effects cascade.

“Ukraine has only compounded a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe,” said David M. Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, the United Nations agency that feeds 125 million people a day. “There is no precedent even close to this since World War II.”

There will be famine in many parts of the globe in 2022.

Starting on page 44 of my latest book, I specifically warned that we were heading into a time of global famine.

Now even the United Nations is admitting that it is upon us, and things are only going to get worse in the months ahead.

But many Americans simply will not care about this crisis until it affects them personally.

Of course the truth is that many Americans are now starting “to feel the financial squeeze” of rapidly raising food prices. The following comes from the Washington Post…

As war continues to ravage Ukraine, Americans, particularly those who live paycheck to paycheck, are beginning to feel the financial squeeze on their food prices from the conflict half a world away.

It began with a rapid rise in gas prices. Now, with Russian oil banned in the United States and energy scarcity heightened globally, experts say shoppers can expect their grocery bills to rise in coming months – especially if Ukraine misses its wheat planting season.

The good news is that nobody is facing starvation in the United States at this point.

But lines at our local food banks are starting to get quite long once again…

Food bank officials are reporting growing lines at their distribution centers nationwide. Rates of reported hunger have been increasing since early August, when nearly 8 percent of respondents said they “sometimes” or “often” did not have enough to eat, according to data from the Census Household Pulse Survey.

In early February, 10 percent of those polled said their household sometimes doesn’t have enough to eat. That uptick is more significant for households with children, rising to 13 percent, although off from pandemic peaks.

In the months ahead, do you think that global energy prices will go up or down?

To me, the answer to that question is quite obvious.

If global energy prices continue to rise, that means that fertilizer prices will continue to rise.

And the higher fertilizer prices shoot up, the worse this new global hunger crisis will become.

Ever since the start of the COVID pandemic, the number of people around the world that do not have enough food to eat has been steadily rising.

Now the war in Ukraine has taken things to an entirely new level, and experts such as David Beasley are openly admitting that we simply are not going to be able to feed everyone.

So what happens if another “black swan event” takes place?

For example, what will happen if China invades Taiwan?

Or what will happen if another global pandemic suddenly erupts?

We are so vulnerable right now, and it isn’t going to take much to push our world into a complete and utter food production nightmare.

***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 Snyder 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.

Severe Drought And “Dust Bowl Conditions” Threaten To Create A Disastrous Winter Wheat Harvest In The U.S.

March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Michael

Food prices in the U.S. have already been soaring, and now we are on track for an absolutely horrible winter wheat harvest. Of course this comes at a time when the war on the other side of the globe is going to greatly reduce wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine. Over the last 12 months, the price of wheat has already risen 69 percent, and now this crisis threatens to go to an entirely new level. In all my years of writing, I have never seen anything like this, and I am deeply concerned about what the months ahead will bring.

Due to extreme drought, winter wheat is in very bad shape in states such as Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The following comes from one of the most prominent agricultural websites in the entire country…

Some farmers in southwestern Kansas, the top U.S. wheat producing state, have not received much measurable rain or snow since October. Winter wheat is planted in autumn, lays dormant in winter and begins sending up green shoots in spring. Proper soil moisture is critical at this stage for the crop to thrive.

More than half of Kansas was classified as under severe drought or worse as of March 8, the driest conditions since 2018, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Severe drought is also covering three-quarters of Oklahoma and more than two-thirds of Texas, both of which also are large wheat producers.

If that sounds really bad, that is because it is really bad.

Farmers are praying for rain, because they desperately need it.

That same article also discussed the fact that winter wheat was severely damaged by a wind storm “that brought ‘Dust Bowl’ conditions to Kansas”…

The coming weeks will be critical for the southern Plains wheat crop, said Lucas Haag, extension agronomist at Kansas State University. Many farmers apply fertilizer to maximize crop potential, but moisture is needed to carry nutrients to plant roots, he said.

Wheat plants damaged by the December wind storm that brought “Dust Bowl” conditions to Kansas face additional drought problems because plants have been weakened either by the sand-blast effect of blowing dust and dirt or by soil nutrient loss from the 100 mph (161 kph) winds.

How many years have I been warning that “Dust Bowl conditions” would return to the middle of the country?

Now it has happened.

And forecasters are telling us that “abnormally dry” conditions will likely continue across much of the nation for the foreseeable future…

Abnormally dry to exceptional drought conditions are expected to persist across 60% of the continental U.S. as spring in the Northern Hemisphere begins. Forecasters expect little to no rain for certain parts of the western U.S. through June.

From April to June, above-average temperatures are expected from Southwest to the East Coast and north through the Midwest, according to a new outlook published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA’s map shows a greater than 50% chance of drought persistence for nearly 60% of the continental U.S.

We have been witnessing very strange weather patterns all over the globe in recent months, and that is one of the reasons why major agricultural commodity prices have been spiking dramatically…

Over the past year, wheat prices are up 69 percent. Among other major food exports of Russia and Ukraine, corn prices are up 36 percent and barley 82 percent.

Now war in Ukraine has created an immense “supply shock”, and this is going to have ripple effects that are felt all across the planet.

Ukraine is normally one of the key “breadbaskets” of the world, but now the invasion has changed everything…

Ukraine’s top agricultural export products are corn and wheat. Before the invasion, Ukraine was the second-largest supplier of grains for the European Union and one of the largest suppliers for emerging markets in Asia and Africa. Breaking down the numbers, Ukraine produced 49.6% of global sunflower oil, 10% of global wheat, 12.6% of global barley, and 15.3% of global maize.

Collectively, Russia and Ukraine typically account for a very large chunk of all global agricultural exports…

For the global food market, there are few worse countries to be in conflict than Russia and Ukraine. Over the past five years, they have together accounted for nearly 30 percent of the exports of the world’s wheat, 17 percent of corn, 32 percent of barley, a crucial source of animal feed, and 75 percent of sunflower seed oil, an important cooking oil in some parts of the world.

So what are we going to do now?

I haven’t found a single person that has a reasonable solution to that question.

When it comes to wheat, there are a whole bunch of countries that usually get most of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine…

Armenia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Eritrea have imported virtually all of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine and must find new sources. But they are competing against much larger buyers, including Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh and Iran, which have obtained more than 60 percent of their wheat from the two warring countries.

What are they supposed to do?

Due to an unprecedented spike in the price of fertilizer, the outlook for global agricultural production was already extremely grim before the war erupted, and now we truly are staring into an abyss.

Those that have been following my articles on a regular basis already know that global hunger has been escalating rapidly over the past few years, and one UN official just admitted that this crisis is now reaching a crescendo…

“For the last three years, global rates of hunger and famine have been on the rise. With the Russian invasion, we are now facing the risk of imminent famine and starvation in more places around the world,” Fakhri said in a statement.

Read that part about “imminent famine and starvation” again.

In other words, there isn’t going to be nearly enough food for everyone.

This is exactly what we have been warned about, and we will soon see the global price of food reach heights that would have once been unimaginable.

In light of these developments, I am encouraging all of my readers to take action.

Stock up while food prices are still relatively stable, because it looks like things are about 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.***

You May Want To Figure Out Where You Want To Spend Your Days When World War 3 Fully Erupts

March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Michael

The growing desire for war that we are witnessing in Washington D.C. right now should greatly alarm all of us. In this environment, voices of reason such as Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard are being accused of “treason” just because they are calling for peace. Well, you can add me to that list because I am calling for peace too. I don’t want nuclear war. I don’t want billions of people to die. You would think that we should all be able to agree on those things, but unfortunately the warmongers in Washington seem absolutely determined to keep escalating matters. That is a very dangerous game, and it is going to be way too easy for someone to make a huge mistake. Before that day arrives, you may want to figure out where you want to spend your days when global war fully erupts.

At some point, the shooting in Ukraine will end. Either Russia will achieve total victory, or more likely there will be some sort of a ceasefire agreement.

But when the shooting in Ukraine stops, don’t be fooled into thinking that everything is okay. The truth is that a much bigger conflict between the United States and Russia has now begun, and both sides are beginning to realize that this is ultimately a struggle for all the marbles.

World War 3 is here, and now we must hope that we can keep both parties from “going nuclear” for as long as possible.

Of course there are some that would like to see the U.S. and Russia shooting at each other very soon. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky begged Congress to establish a “humanitarian no-fly zone” over Ukraine…

The t-shirt-attired Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress by video on Wednesday and asked for the United States to send warplanes into the sky over Ukraine to create a “humanitarian no-fly zone” or, failing that, to provide Ukraine itself with warplanes.

“Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people,” Zelensky told Congress.

Zelensky knows very well that the establishment of a “humanitarian no-fly zone” would require U.S. forces to shoot down Russian jets.

And he also understands that this would spark a shooting war between the United States and Russia.

But you can’t blame Zelensky for trying. He is trying to save his own skin, and the best way to do that is to drag the United States into the war.

Needless to say, the establishment media in the western world absolutely adored Zelensky’s speech. The following example comes from CNN…

Zelensky’s words are not only destined for the history books. They will likely energize support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine and reverberate across the US.

When America’s top Democrats and Republicans rose side by side to give Zelensky a standing ovation, we knew the Ukrainian President had made his mark. Zelensky, reminding Americans what freedom really means after the country has spent years devaluing it in petty political battles, proves there is a new seriousness in the nation.

And most members of Congress ate it up as well. Following the speech, Senator Jeanne Shaheen boldly declared that “more must be done to assist Ukraine”…

“It is clear that more must be done to assist Ukraine and hold Putin to account,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, said in a statement following Zelenskeyy’s virtual address. “The images we watched today underscore the horrific violence – the war crimes – being committed by Putin. He will pay for what he has done.”

And Senator Joni Ernst said that Zelensky’s speech made her want to put on a uniform and “go help”…

‘It’s hurtful to see anything like, you know, thinking about if it were my child, if that were my family, that were my people. You know, I’d be doing the exact same thing that President Zelensky is,’ Ernst said.

‘I would be appealing to every nation possible to get whatever it takes to defeat the Russians and get them the heck out of my country. You know, it makes me want to throw on my uniform, you know, and go help.’

Actually, I would love to see that.

In fact, I would love to see U.S., Ukrainian and Russian politicians all flown to an island where they would resolve this conflict “Battle Royale” style.

But instead, all of the politicians are safe and warm while millions upon millions of Ukrainians deeply suffer.

One of the biggest warmongers in the U.S. Senate, Lindsey Graham, has decided that it is time to start calling Vladimir Putin “a war criminal”…

“It’s time for him to go. He’s a war criminal,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an erstwhile standard bearer for the Republican Party’s Reagan-era foreign policies, told reporters shortly after Zelenskeyy’s address. “I am asking the Russian people to rise up and end his rein of terror.”

Joe Biden also referred to Putin as a “war criminal” on Wednesday, and he announced that an additional 800 million dollars in military aid would be given to the Ukrainian government.

To be honest, it is quite an impressive list that the Ukrainians will be receiving…

800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
2,000 Javelin, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems
100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems
100 grenade launchers, 5,000 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 400 machine guns and 400 shotguns
Over 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenade launcher and mortar rounds
25,000 sets of body armor
25,000 helmets

But of course this is not nearly enough for some of the warmongers in Congress.

In fact, 40 Republican senators just signed a letter “in which they strongly disagreed with the decision to not transfer aircraft and air defense systems to Ukraine from Poland”.

Biden was hesitant to take such a step because it might start a shooting war with Russia, but apparently that is a risk that most Republican senators are willing to take.

Thankfully, most Americans do not actually want a shooting war with Russia.

But according to one new survey, more than a third of all Americans “would favor military action even if it risks nuclear conflict with Russia”…

However, most Americans (62%) say they would oppose the U.S. “taking military action even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.” About a third (35%) of Americans say they would favor military action in this scenario. Comparable shares in both parties (36% of Republicans, 35% of Democrats) say they would favor military action even if it risks nuclear conflict with Russia.

Those of us in the majority need to be much louder than those in the minority, because if the warmongers get their way we could eventually find ourselves in the middle of a nuclear conflict.

And if that happens, there won’t be a future for our country.

Speaking of World War 3, Joe Biden is also escalating matters with China by sending thousands of U.S. troops to Australia…

The Pentagon is to deploy over two thousand troops to Australia by September to join an established rotational force of 200 in anticipation of a conflict with China, according to reports.

The Daily Mail notes that “The contingent is part of an ongoing US initiative in the Indo-Pacific region to prepare for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan in coming years.”

The report notes that 1000 marines have already arrived in the country.

The battle lines are being drawn.

Once World War 3 fully erupts, it will be the United States on one side, and Russia and China on the other.

If Americans truly understood what was at stake, there would be massive demonstrations in the streets of every major U.S. city right now.

But the general population just doesn’t get it.

They just assume that war is something that happens on the other side of the globe and that our leaders have everything under control.

Unfortunately, our leaders most definitely do not have everything under control, and when World War 3 fully erupts the death and destruction that we will witness will be absolutely unimaginable.

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

Oh Great, Now We Could Lose The Petrodollar…

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 by Michael

The economic sanctions that have been imposed upon Russia have caused immense damage, but a loss of the petrodollar would be absolutely devastating for the U.S. economy. Since making an agreement with the Nixon administration in 1974, the Saudis have traded oil exclusively for U.S. dollars. Today, approximately 80 percent of all oil produced in the entire world is traded for dollars, and the “petrodollar” has become one of the foundational pillars of the current global financial system. Most Americans don’t realize this, but far more dollars are actually used outside of the United States than inside the United States, and having the reserve currency of the world is a massive advantage for us. Up to this point, there has been an insatiable demand for U.S. dollars all over the planet, and that has allowed us to enjoy a standard of living that is way above what we actually deserve.

Unfortunately, all of that could be about to change. As I have stated many times over the past year, Joe Biden is surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history, and that is really saying something.

Thanks to this catastrophically bad foreign policy team, our relations with both Saudi Arabia and China have greatly deteriorated, and this has resulted in them developing closer relations with one another. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it looks like the Saudis could soon start pricing the oil that it sells to China in Chinese currency…

The U.S. dollar may be on its way out as the global reserve currency.

Saudi Arabia is actively engaging in negotiations with Chinese officials to price oil sales to China in yuan instead of the U.S. dollar, the Wall Street Journal reported.

If the two countries decide to conduct business using the Chinese yuan instead of the U.S. dollar, this could mean trouble for America’s dominance as the global economic hegemon.

This would be a tremendous blow to the U.S., and the Saudis know it.

So perhaps Biden should not have called Saudi Arabia a “pariah”, and perhaps his foreign policy team should not have angered the Saudis multiple times over the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, the Chinese still understand the art of diplomacy, and they are reportedly offering “everything you could possibly imagine” for the Saudis to make this move…

“The dynamics have dramatically changed. The U.S. relationship with the Saudis has changed, China is the world’s biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom,” said a Saudi official familiar with the talks.

“China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom,” the official said.

In retrospect, we now know the reason why MBS wasn’t taking Biden’s phone calls.

At one time, the Chinese may have been afraid to threaten U.S. interests so openly, but not anymore.

As I discussed a few days ago, U.S. relations with China are rapidly falling apart. One of the reasons for this is because of how strongly aligned China has become with Russia…

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made clear during talks with his Chinese counterpart on Monday that the U.S. has “deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time.”

He was direct about “the potential implications and consequences of certain actions,” a senior administration official said.

Sullivan should definitely have “deep concerns”, because he is one of the key figures that has helped to create this mess.

After what he has pulled over the years, there is no way that he should ever be hired for another government job under any circumstances.

But instead, he is the national security adviser to the president of the United States.

What in the world was Biden thinking when he picked him?

Sullivan is deeply disliked all over the globe, and it certainly isn’t an accident that he was put on the list of U.S. officials that the Russians sanctioned on Tuesday…

US President Joe Biden
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley
National security adviser Jacob Sullivan
CIA Director William Burns
White House press secretary Jen Psaki
Daleep Singh, Biden’s deputy national security adviser for international economics
United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power
President Biden’s son Hunter Biden
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo
Reta Jo Lewis, president and chairman of the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank

Ultimately, this was just a symbolic move by the Russians.

Those sanctions won’t really hurt anyone on that list.

However, another move that Vladimir Putin made this week will definitely cause a bit of pain for the western world…

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will allow Russian airlines to take control of hundreds of the Western-built planes leased from international firms, Russian news agency TASS reported, per The Wall Street Journal.

The jets will be added to the country’s aircraft register and be deployed on domestic routes, according to Reuters. The news comes on the heels of the island of Bermuda revoking the airworthiness certificates for over 700 leased aircraft in Russia, which went into effect Saturday night.

Western powers and the Russians both continue to escalate the economic war that has now begun, and that is a very dangerous game.

But in the long-term, what the Chinese and the Saudis are up to could have far graver implications.

Currency is the number one thing that the U.S. exports, and if the rest of the world decides it doesn’t need our currency anymore we will be in really big trouble.

Everything would change. If you think that inflation is bad now, just wait until that happens.

Previous administrations understood the importance of the petrodollar, and they were often willing to go to great lengths to defend it.

Unfortunately, now Biden and his team of nitwits is in charge, and everything that they touch seems to get ruined.

***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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