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I am going to try to make as much noise about this crisis as I can, because we have never faced anything like this in modern times.  Global fertilizer prices have tripled, and we are being warned that this is going to have a catastrophic impact on food production all over the world.  On Monday, an article that I wrote about this went viral all over the Internet.  On Zero Hedge alone, my article has been viewed more than a quarter of a million times.  The reason why the article is so popular is because the corporate media in the United States is largely ignoring this story.  But it should be front page news all over the country, because this is going to affect every man, woman and child on the entire planet.

Some experts did warn us about this in advance.  For example, a European CEO told the media the following all the way back in November…

“I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest,” said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of the Oslo-based company. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis.”

Holsether says that a food crisis is coming because the cost to produce a ton of ammonia has gotten nearly ten times higher…

In Europe, the natural-gas benchmark hit an all-time high in September, with the price more than tripling from June to October alone. Yara is a major producer of ammonia, a key ingredient in synthetic fertilizer, which increases crop yields. The process of creating ammonia currently relies on hydropower or natural gas.

“To produce a ton of ammonia last summer was $110,” said Holsether. “And now it’s $1,000. So it’s just incredible.”

In order to fix this, we need to solve the global energy crisis.

Unfortunately, as I have been repeatedly warning my readers, the global energy crisis is only going to get worse.

So we have a really, really big mess on our hands.

In Africa, many farmers are not going to be able to afford fertilizer at all this year, and it is being projected that this will reduce production by enough “to feed 100 million people”…

With prices tripling over the past 18 months, many farmers are considering whether to forgo purchases of fertilizers this year. That leaves a market long touted for its growth potential set to shrink by almost a third, according to Sebastian Nduva, program manager at researcher group AfricaFertilizer.Org.

That could potentially curb cereals output by 30 million tons, enough to feed 100 million people, he said.

To make sure that their people won’t starve, African governments will need to import massive amounts of food from elsewhere…

“We are likely to see a scenario where yields are depressed and this will mean that either the government will have to readjust their budgets and import food or there will be food shortages,” Nduva said.

But agricultural production is going to be way down all over the globe.

So almost everyone is going to be looking to import food, and there won’t be a lot of exporters.

Many of you may not realize this, but the food crisis has already become quite severe in some parts of Africa…

Food scarcity is already reaching desperate levels in many regions. On Wednesday, Frédérica Andriamanantena, the World Food Program’s Madagascar program manager, appeared on a COP26 panel to describe the severity of the country’s drought and resulting famine. Andriamanantena, who is from Madagascar, said drought had this year reduced the harvest to one-third of the average of the past five years. Where families had once had comfortable meals, children are now subsisting on foraged plants and cactus leaves.

How would you feel if your own children were eating plants and leaves just to survive?

Of course this is just the beginning.  As I have warned for a very long time, we will soon get to a point where there is not nearly enough food for everybody.

What are we going to do then?

And if Russia and Ukraine go to war, that will take this crisis to a completely different level very rapidly…

A major casualty could be even higher food prices. Ukraine and Russia together are heavyweights in global wheat, corn and sunflower oil trade, leaving buyers from Asia to Africa and the Middle East vulnerable to more expensive bread and meat if supplies are disrupted. That would add to food-commodity costs that are already the highest in a decade.

Markets may be remembering what happened in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and wheat prices jumped even though shipments weren’t substantially affected. Russia and Ukraine’s share of world exports has increased since, with nations like Egypt and Turkey reliant on the Black Sea breadbasket.

But even without war, global food prices just keep going higher and higher and higher.

In fact, global grain prices have risen approximately 70 percent just since the middle of 2020…

Food inflation in the OECD hit 5.5% in November, the highest reading since 2009, data published by the Paris-based organization show.

Grain prices have jumped roughly 70% since mid-2020 as bad weather curbed harvests, China scooped up supplies and a fertilizer crunch added to farmers’ costs.

Sadly, most people don’t even realize that this is happening, because the mainstream media is not really talking about it.

Eventually, however, everyone will be talking about this crisis because it is going to be a really, really big deal.

There is no way out, and global food supplies are going to get tighter and tighter.

I would act on this information while you still can.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population is going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

It is becoming clear that we are in far more trouble than we are being told.  In recent months, all forms of traditional energy have become significantly more expensive, and this is fueling price increases all over the planet.  This new global energy crisis is directly responsible for the astounding rise in fertilizer prices, it has resulted in a tremendous amount of pain at the pump for millions of average Americans, and since virtually everything that we buy has to be transported it is a major contributing factor to the “inflation boom” that we are currently witnessing.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

I was recently contacted by a geologist that worked in the oil industry for more than a decade.

He patiently explained to me why things aren’t going to be getting any better.

I asked him if I could share some of what he sent to me with all of you, and he agreed.  After reading this, I think that you will agree that it is quite a sobering assessment of the current state of affairs…

I am a geologist who has worked in the oil industry for over ten years. I was just coming out of school in time for the shale revolution and worked in Denver on the Bakken play in North Dakota, and then I worked the Permian out of Midland. These were the two major shale plays, so I have firsthand knowledge. I now teach environmental science for high-schoolers in Amman, Jordan.

Anyway, back in 2015 I was starting to see reports coming out from analysts that the shale industry would run out of new places to drill shale oil wells in the Permian in 2021. These reports weren’t telling me anything new, just giving me a likely date. You see, shale drilling is drilling in poor rock quality. Prior to shale, we didn’t have to frac wells because the rock quality was great, but we drilled all that good rock up. So, it is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now and way back then, there was a recognition that it wouldn’t last forever. Oil is a limited resource. For a time, it was barely economic to drill shale wells because the margins of drilling in such poor rock was slightly better than what you could make on interest due to quantitative easing policy. Most of the shale companies however, were simply Ponzi schemes and the shale industry lost billions as a whole. But the result of this loss of capital was record production. Needless to say, Wall Street figured it out eventually that they were not making money and so the industry has been capital starved. That is one problem, the other is that there really aren’t many more drilling locations. All the good places have been drilled up which is why you don’t see a rush of shale companies returning to drilling even though oil prices are rising fast. This lack of investment will continue to push oil prices higher.

So much of America’s oil production now comes from shale wells. The problem with shale wells is that the oil production declines much faster than wells drilled in what we call “conventional” rock. Conventional oil production has been on the decline for a long time and shale as helped make up for production. The problem is, that now that drilling new wells slows, the rate of decline in oil production will be much steeper. Around the world, many countries that have not invested in shale (because it is sub-economic) have had their conventional resources continue to decline. Venezuela was a major oil exporter, so were Columbia and Mexico. Expect Saudi Arabia to not be far behind. They have been lying for years about just how much oil they really have left.

As you keep pointing out, add wars or natural disasters to this and we are in really big trouble. Oil is the number one resource upon which the entire global economy is built. High oil prices lead directly to bread riots and collapse of governments (think the Arab Spring). Politicians need cheap oil but we won’t be seeing it again. Some people in the industry keep thinking new technology will save us and help us develop new oil plays. They couldn’t be more wrong. The technology for frac’ing was first developed in the 60’s. I can tell you that there is no new technology being developed right now in the oil industry that will save us. Physics and geology are against us on this one, even if we could develop some technology. Wind & solar won’t save us either, it would require a larger investment of materials and energy than we have.

There is no way we are getting out of this.

What this means is that you are going to be paying much more to heat your homes.

And it means that you are also going to be paying much more to fill up your vehicle at the gas station.

Needless to say, you will be paying a lot more for food too.

In fact, food prices are already starting to go bananas.  Last week, Kraft Heinz announced that it will soon be raising prices on many of their most popular products by as much as 30 percent…

Kraft Heinz (KHC) said in a recent letter to its customers that it will raise prices in March on dozens of products, including Oscar Mayer cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, Velveeta cheese, Maxwell House coffee, TGIF frozen chicken wings, Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drinks.

The increases range from 6.6% on 12oz Velveeta Fresh Packs to 30% on a three-pack of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. Most cold cuts and beef hot dogs will go up around 10% and coffee around 5%. Some Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drink packs will increase by about 20%.

Of course Kraft Heinz is definitely not alone.

As our colleagues over at Zero Hedge have aptly pointed out, other major food companies will soon be jacking up prices as well…

Kraft Heinz is just the latest consumer manufacturer to announce plans to boost prices early in the year. Last week, P&G said that it would raise prices on Tide and Gain laundry detergents, Downy fabric softener and Bounce dryer sheets by an average of about 8% in February. Conagra, which makes such brands as Slim Jim, Marie Callender’s and Birds Eye, has said it plans to raise prices later this year.

For a long time, I have been specifically warning that food prices would go completely nuts, and now it is starting to happen right in front of our eyes.

And according to a new Gallup survey that was just released, a whopping 79 percent of all Americans expect even more inflation in the months ahead…

Gallup highlighted that the 79% surveyed in their Jan. 3-16 poll, who said they expected inflation to rise, was the highest they’ve measured in the two decades they’ve been asking the question.

“In the past, Americans have always been more likely to say inflation will increase rather than decrease, but the current expectation is higher than usual — in fact, it is the highest Gallup has measured in its trend,” the polling organization wrote in its release.

The “experts” at the Federal Reserve thought that they could absolutely flood our financial system with money without any severe consequences.

Similarly, our politicians in Washington thought that they could borrow and spend trillions upon trillions of dollars without wrecking our currency.

They were both wrong, and now the American people are going to be absolutely shocked by the level of economic pain that we will soon be enduring.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

They just have to suffocate anything that smells like freedom, don’t they?  After alienating and persecuting so many other groups of Americans, now the Biden administration is coming after cryptocurrency owners.  Biden administration officials are promising to bring “coherency” to the industry, but just like everything else that they touch it is far more likely that they are going to ruin the industry.  One of the positive things about the cryptocurrency industry has been how relatively free from regulation it has been all these years, but now Biden and his minions are absolutely determined to change that.  In fact, Bloomberg has reported that Biden is going to issue a cryptocurrency executive order as soon as next month…

The Biden administration is readying an executive order for release as early as next month that will outline a comprehensive government strategy on cryptocurrencies and ask federal agencies to determine their risks and opportunities, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Barron’s has also had a White House source tell them that this executive order is on the way…

The Biden administration is preparing to release an executive action that will task federal agencies with regulating digital assets such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a matter of national security, a person familiar with the White House’s plan tells Barron’s.

If you actively trade cryptocurrencies, it is officially time to starting freaking out, because this could change everything.

We are being told that the Biden administration intends to impose a “cohesive regulatory framework” for the sake of “national security”…

The order is set to come under the umbrella of national security efforts as the administration seeks to analyze cryptocurrencies and employ a cohesive regulatory framework that would cover Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and NFTs, Barron’s reported Thursday.

Are you kidding me?

The cryptocurrency industry doesn’t pose any sort of a threat to “national security”.

But it does pose a threat to the U.S. dollar.

And it is very interesting to note that we learned about this executive order one day after the Federal Reserve released a paper discussing the possibility of creating a “central bank digital currency” for the United States…

The news about the executive order emerged a day after the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) released a discussion paper that explores the pros and cons of creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the U.S., which seeks public comment through May 20, 2022. The White House apparently is looking to seize the initiative, taking a central role in setting U.S. government policy on cryptocurrencies.

Could this be the real motive for the coming crackdown?

Do they want to completely neuter the competition so that everyone will use the coming “central bank digital currency” instead?

We are being told that “senior officials” in the administration have already held “multiple meetings” about the new regulatory framework that will soon be imposed.

And we are being told that “the State Department, Treasury Department, National Economic Council, and Council of Economic Advisers, as well as the White House National Security Council” will all be involved in regulating cryptos.

This is really going to happen, and so I urge you to act accordingly.

And apparently this is just the start.  Because digital assets are owned all over the globe, the Biden administration intends “to work with other countries on synchronization” so that no crypto owner can escape their rules…

“This is designed to look holistically at digital assets and develop a set of policies that give coherency to what the government is trying to do in this space,” a person familiar with the White House’s plan told Barron’s. “Because digital assets don’t stay in one country, it’s necessary to work with other countries on synchronization.”

Once Biden got into the White House, it was probably inevitable that this sort of thing was going to happen.

They hate the fact that the crypto industry has thrived outside of their tightly controlled system, and so now they intend to bring it fully under their dominion.

In fact, a major step has already been taken.  Back in November, most crypto owners didn’t even realize that the signing of the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” was going to change things for them so dramatically…

Before U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law in November, many groups spoke out against a provision that broadens the tax code’s definition of “broker.” But there is another hidden cryptocurrency provision in this new law that amends part of the tax code in a way that will greatly expand financial surveillance, criminalize certain cryptocurrency transactions and, in my view, violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

This provision alters Section 6050i of the tax code, which requires businesses that receive more than $10,000 in cash to collect identity details of the person paying in cash and report the transaction to the government. Failure to comply can be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expanded 6050i to include anyone who, in the course of conducting business, receives over $10,000 in digital assets.

If you actively trade cryptos, you should read those two paragraphs again.

Because you really don’t want to end up committing a felony “punishable by up to five years in prison”.

Ultimately, millions of crypto owners are not going to understand these new rules, and they are going to be an enormous hassle to try to comply with…

Currently, the U.S. government collects information from cryptocurrency exchanges and other institutions that serve as the on-ramps and off-ramps where people buy, sell, exchange and store cryptocurrency. The updated law will impose reporting requirements on many other participants in the cryptocurrency ecosystem – from developers to traders to miners to end users. These participants will be required to collect sensitive identity details of counterparties, securely handle that sensitive information and turn it over to the government – or potentially face criminal penalties.

Nobody can deny that the crypto industry is headed for big trouble.

Each new regulation they impose will suffocate the industry a little bit more, and it won’t be too long before the stage will be perfectly set for the introduction of “Fedcoin”.

This should deeply anger all of us, but most Americans are so dazed and confused that they don’t even care that our freedoms are eroding a little bit more with each passing day.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

This was supposed to be the year that things “got back to normal”, but here we are at the end of January and things have only gotten worse.  As we move forward into February and beyond, there are two key global shortages that we are going to want to keep a very close eye on.  One of them is the rapidly growing fertilizer shortage.  A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ominously warned that “high fertilizer prices are weighing on farmers across the developing world”…

From South America’s avocado, corn and coffee farms to Southeast Asia’s plantations of coconuts and oil palms, high fertilizer prices are weighing on farmers across the developing world, making it much costlier to cultivate and forcing many to cut back on production.

That means grocery bills could go up even more in 2022, following a year in which global food prices rose to decade highs. An uptick would exacerbate hunger—already acute in some parts of the world because of pandemic-linked job losses—and thwart efforts by politicians and central bankers to subdue inflation.

According to the International Fertilizer Development Center, exceedingly high fertilizer prices could result in a reduction of agricultural output in Africa alone “equivalent to the food needs of 100 million people”.

So this is a really, really big deal.

And this crisis is going to deeply affect us here in the United States too.  The following comes from a recent piece authored by U.S. Senator Roger Marshall…

It’s no secret farmers are faced with a fertilizer crisis. Prices for phosphorus-based and potassium-based (potash) fertilizers have more than doubled in Kansas while Nitrogen-based fertilizers have more than quadrupled. Fertilizer is vital to feeding not only the country, but the world. It contains essential nutrients for plant life, and without it, American agricultural yields will quickly suffer as well as food prices in local grocery stores.

As I discussed the other day, these crazy prices for fertilizer are going to make it impossible for many U.S. farmers to profitably plant crops this year.

That means that a lot less food is going to be grown.

On the other side of the world, the North Korean government is asking their citizens to start creating “homemade” fertilizer from their own waste…

State-run media has also been encouraging people to make “homemade” manure, The Daily Beast reported. A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK that residents had started “producing fertilizer from human waste” after authorities launched a 10-day drive to increase production.

Perhaps U.S. citizens should give this a try, because a lot of us are certainly full of crap.

The other major shortage that I want to highlight in this article is the ongoing computer chip shortage.

According to a report that was just put out by the Department of Commerce, chip inventories around the nation have become dangerously thin…

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce released the results from the Risks in the Semiconductor Supply Chain Request for Information (RFI) issued in Sept. 2021. Key findings from the report provided data-driven information about the depths of the semiconductor shortage and underscored the need for the President’s proposed $52 billion in domestic semiconductor production.

The RFI showed that median inventory held by chips consumers (including automakers or medical device manufacturers, as examples) has fallen from 40 days in 2019 to less than 5 days in 2021. If a COVID outbreak, a natural disaster, or political instability disrupts a foreign semiconductor facility for even just a few weeks, it has the potential to shut down a manufacturing facility in the U.S., putting American workers and their families at risk.

At this point, computer chips used to produce automobiles and medical devices are particularly in short supply.

In a blog post, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimando explained that a lack of chips resulted in “$210 billion in lost revenue” for automakers in 2021…

“In 2021, auto prices drove one-third of all inflation, primarily because we don’t have enough chips,” Raimando wrote in her blogpost. “Automakers produced nearly 8 million fewer cars last year than expected, which some analysts believe resulted in more than $210 billion in lost revenue.”

If there is additional disruption to chip production this year, 2022 could easily be even worse.

Many may wonder why we just don’t plop down a bunch of factories and start pumping out more chips.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy.  Chip factories take a very long time to build, and we are being warned that it could take “until 2023” before things return to normal…

But industry executives aren’t optimistic that the funding would help alleviate the crisis, the Washington Post reported. They argued federal funding could help build up the long-term supply of chips but wouldn’t help in the short term because chip factories take years to build.

Chip consumers that were surveyed by the department similarly estimated that shortages wouldn’t go away in the next six months, and some suggested it could take until 2023.

We should have never become so dependent on chip production in Asia.

Today, Taiwan accounts for a whopping 63 percent of all computer chip production in the world…

The majority of chip factories are currently based in Asia, which houses about 87% of the market share of semiconductor factories (with Taiwan alone accounting for some 63%), separate industry data indicates. The political climate in the region, and tensions between Taiwan and China, has come under renewed scrutiny as the shortage has exposed how much U.S. industry relies on these sources.

So what is going to happen to our economy if China invades Taiwan and our main supply of computer chips gets completely cut off?

I have been warning for years that military conflict with China is coming, and now we are closer than ever.

What is our economy going to look like if a Chinese invasion of Taiwan this year instantly puts us into a state of war with the Chinese?

How in the world will we even be able to function as a society?

You might want to start thinking about such questions, because what was once “unimaginable” threatens to become reality in 2022.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

How would you feel if the value of your investments dropped by half in just a couple of months?  Fortunately, those that have invested in stocks and bonds are not suffering that sort of pain (yet), but another class of investors has been absolutely eviscerated in recent weeks.  For a long time, cryptocurrency investors laughed at all the rest of us as the value of their investments soared into the stratosphere.  Many of them felt that they were living proof that you really could “get rich quick”, but as I have always warned my readers you only make money in the markets if you get out in time.

And needless to say, the vast majority of them did not get out in time.

Since setting all-time record highs in November, several of the most prominent cryptocurrencies have crashed harder than Hunter Biden after a cocaine-fueled night with a Russian hooker…

Bitcoin, the world’s largest virtual currency, briefly plunged below $33,000 Monday to its lowest level since July. It’s since recovered back above the $36,000 mark, but is still down almost 50% from a record high of nearly $69,000 in November.

Meanwhile, the entire crypto market has shed more than $1 trillion in value since bitcoin’s all-time high, as top tokens such as ether and solana followed the No. 1 digital currency to trade sharply lower. Ether has more than halved in value since reaching its peak in November, while solana has suffered an even steeper decline, falling 65%.

To me, those numbers are absolutely stunning.

A trillion dollars in crypto wealth is suddenly gone.

Wow.

Things are so bad that some in the financial world have broken out the term “crypto winter” to describe what is happening…

“There’s this question of how do we characterise that and the nearest analogy is probably 2018, which is this idea of a crypto winter,” said UBS head of foreign exchange research James Malcolm.

“It looks likely to be a fairly difficult and potentially prolonged period and therefore, the crypto winter analogy is quite good. Remember, the crypto winter in 2018 wasn’t just over the Northern Hemisphere winter months. It basically extended for a whole year – so it was a crypto winter that lasted effectively a year.”

Many were concerned that this would be the week when stocks began crashing really hard as well, but two remarkable bounces have kept that from happening.

On Tuesday, the Dow was down a total of 819 points before rebounding in a major way…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down Tuesday, but well off its session lows in another rollercoaster session as the Federal Reserve prepares investors for tighter monetary policy.

The blue-chip average shed 67.77 points, or 0.2%, to close at 34,297.73. The index swung from a nearly 819-point deficit at its lows to a roughly 226-point rally at its highs during the session. The S&P 500 dipped 1.2% to 4,356.45. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 2.3% to 13,539.30.

And on Monday, the Dow was actually down 1,115 points before bouncing back all the way into the green…

The Nasdaq Composite Index turned positive after being down as much as 4.9% earlier in the session. The Dow rallied after being down 1,115 points at one point. The S&P 500 closed in the green after briefly hitting a correction earlier in the session, falling more than 10% from its Jan. 3 record close.

Monday marked one of the best market comebacks in a long time. The session was the first time since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008 that the Nasdaq Composite had been down more than 4% on the session and closed up. For the Dow, which was down 3.25% at its low, it was the biggest intraday comeback since the wild trading of March 2020.

This sort of volatility is not a good sign.

When markets are calm, they tend to trend in an upwards direction.

But when markets get extremely choppy, they tend to trend down.

We will see what happens in the days ahead.  Of course there are some talking heads on television that are insisting that everything is just fine.  One of those talking heads is CNBC’s Jim Cramer…

We must not panic. It will feel great to sell but can you get back in?

Hopefully he is right.

Hopefully a way can be found to stabilize confidence in the short-term and things will start to settle down.

Let’s watch and see how the the market responds to what the Federal Reserve does.

I think that the Fed feels forced to do something about the nightmarish inflation that they have unleashed upon us, but maybe they can do it in a way that won’t totally freak out investors.

Then again, maybe they can’t.

You might want to grab some popcorn for this one.

In the long-term, there is no way out for the Federal Reserve.

In order to keep the “superbubble” in the financial markets going, they would need to keep interest rates pressed to the floor and they would need to keep pumping trillions of fresh dollars into the system.

But the Fed seemingly can’t go that direction, because the Fed’s easy money policies have already created the worst inflation crisis since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

Fed officials can either try to tame inflation or have an artificially pumped up market.

They can’t have both.

In the end, who will the Fed choose to save?

Will it be Wall Street or will it be the American people?

They have a real conundrum on their hands, and the stage is being set for a meltdown of epic proportions.

We should have never put so much power into the hands of a group of unelected central bankers.

But we did.

Now they have created a nightmarish mess that doesn’t seem to have a solution, and they have nobody to blame but themselves.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Are we about to stumble into a war that nobody wants?  As I will explain below, it would be so easy to avoid a military conflict with Russia, but the people running our foreign policy have ruled out any easy solutions.  Instead, they seem absolutely determined to have some sort of a macho showdown with Russia, and that is extremely dangerous.  Sadly, these days most Americans can’t even identify our current Secretary of State, and the name “Jake Sullivan” means absolutely nothing to the vast majority of the population.  But these are the guys that are telling the senile old guy in the Oval Office what to do about Russia.

What the Russians want is not complicated.

They don’t want western missiles in Ukraine, and they don’t want Ukraine to join NATO.

Those two requests are not unreasonable.  Just imagine how we would feel if Canada joined a military alliance with Russia and all of a sudden there were Russian missiles stationed all along the U.S.-Canadian border.

We wouldn’t like that very much, would we?

Well, that is how the Russians feel about the situation in Ukraine.

The Russians have put their requests into two draft treaties, but those two draft treaties have been firmly rejected by the Biden administration…

Speaking to reporters following talks in Geneva with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Friday, Blinken said that the American side had given a “firm and substantive” response to two draft treaties proposed by Moscow.

“I made clear to Minister Lavrov that there are certain principles that the US, our partners and allies, are committed to defend. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade-space there – none,” he said.

If Blinken, Sullivan and the rest of Joe Biden’s national security team were actually competent, this crisis could be over by now.

But instead they have made it clear that there will be absolutely no compromises.

So where do we go from here?

The following are 10 signs that indicate that the U.S., the UK, Israel and NATO all believe that we are on the precipice of war with Russia…

#1 The U.S. State Department has issued a formal travel advisory warning that Americans should stay out of Ukraine.

#2 The U.S. and the UK are both reducing embassy staffing levels in Kyiv.

#3 Family members of U.S. embassy personnel in Kyiv are being evacuated.

#4 Israel is planning a “mass evacuation” of Jewish people from Ukraine.

#5 CNN is reporting that as many as “8,500 US troops have been put on heightened alert for a possible deployment to Eastern Europe”.

#6 The New York Times is reporting that the Biden administration is also considering sending “warships and aircraft” into the region.

#7 Other western European nations are also preparing to send forces to eastern Europe…

Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain will send warships and could send fighter jets to Bulgaria; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania.

#8 A British news source is reporting that “hundreds of military trains packed with Russian troops” have been moving into Belarus.

#9 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is alleging that the Russians are planning a “lightning war that could take out Kyiv”.

#10 The U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has announced that they have obtained information “suggesting that the Russian government is plotting to install a pro-Kremlin leader in Kyiv”.

Despite all of the hysteria, I personally do not believe that war will erupt immediately.

But without a doubt, the stage is definitely being set for the sort of military conflict with Russia that I have been warning about for many years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. also continues to provoke China.

This weekend, two U.S. aircraft carrier groups “began operations in the South China Sea”…

Two US aircraft carrier groups have entered the disputed South China Sea as Chinese Air Force planes continue to fly near Taiwan, which China also claims.

The US Navy says two carrier strike groups, led by the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, began operations in the South China Sea on Saturday.

If you really want to piss off China, that is a great way to do it.

In response, the Chinese sent large numbers of warplanes into Taiwanese airspace on Sunday and Monday…

On Monday, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense said 13 Chinese planes flew into the country’s Air Defense Identification Zone. Taiwan reported 39 Chinese Air Force planes in the protected air space on Sunday.

I know that the Russians are getting far more attention from the mainstream media right now, but we are also getting dangerously close to a military conflict with the Chinese.

The national security team that Joe Biden has surrounded himself with are extremely incompetent, and they are also a bunch of warmongers.

Needless to say, that is an exceedingly combustible combination.

It is the worst national security team in the history of the United States by a wide margin, and I am entirely convinced that they are going to spark a war.

Hopefully it will not be next week or even next month, but without a doubt the clock is ticking.

These warmongers are making colossal mistake after colossal mistake, and it won’t be too long before we all pay a great price for their ineptitude.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Death is in the air.  Unless you have been living in a cave for the past 12 months, you already know that this is true.  Old people are dying, young people are dying, famous people are dying, and countless hard working Americans that make up the backbone of our economy are dying.  For months, I have been writing articles about “the mystery of the missing workers”.  For the very first time in U.S. history, we have a severe shortage of able-bodied workers, and this is one of the biggest reasons why we are facing an unprecedented supply chain crisis today.  Millions of Americans that were working prior to the pandemic seem to have “disappeared” from the system, and now it has become clear that a lot of them have simply died.

Before I discuss the new life insurance numbers that have been revealed, I want to do a quick review.

Earlier this month, I wrote an article about a large life insurance company in Indiana that announced that the death rate for working age people covered by their policies was up 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels…

The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

A 40 percent increase in the death rate is really bad news for a life insurance company, because they make money when people don’t die.

In fact, Davison said that a 40 percent increase in a single year “is just unheard of”…

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”

Davison’s remarks sent shockwaves all over the Internet, because they were one of the first hard pieces of evidence confirming the fact that Americans are dying in unusually large numbers.

But of course it was going to be extremely important for other life insurance companies to confirm that such a dramatic shift was indeed taking place, and now that is starting to happen.

According to Reuters, the amount of money paid out by global life insurance companies absolutely skyrocketed during the first three quarters of 2021…

The global life insurance industry was hit with reported claims due to COVID-19 of $5.5 billion in the first nine months of 2021 versus $3.5 billion for the whole of 2020, according to insurance broker Howden in a report on Jan 4, while the industry had expected lower payouts due to the rollout of vaccines.

“We definitely paid out more than I had anticipated at the beginning of last year,” said Hannover Re board member Klaus Miller.

Let’s assume that claims in the fourth quarter of 2021 came in at the same pace as the first three quarters of 2021.

That would add another 1.83 billion dollars, and it would give us a grand total of 7.33 billion dollars for the year.

Wow.

So basically the amount of money that global life insurance companies will pay out for 2021 will be approximately double what they paid out for 2020.

Needless to say, that suggests that the death rate for those covered by such policies roughly doubled.

In that same article, it was reported that one life insurance company actually had its claims in the Americas more than triple during the third quarter…

Dutch insurer Aegon, which does two-thirds of its business in the United States, said its claims in the Americas in the third quarter were $111 million, up from $31 million a year earlier.

This isn’t normal.

But you already knew that.

Reuters is telling us that claims for MetLife and Prudential also “rose”, but we were not given specific numbers for those two insurance giants…

U.S. insurers MetLife (MET.N) and Prudential Financial (PRU.N) also said life insurance claims rose. South Africa’s Old Mutual (OMUJ.J) used up more of its pandemic provisions to pay claims and reinsurer Munich Re raised its 2021 estimate of COVID-19 life and health claims to 600 million euros from 400 million.

So now we have solid confirmation.

A lot of people really are dying.

Interestingly, an entirely separate investigation by The Epoch Times has also shown that deaths were unusually high in 2021.  They analyzed death certificate data from the CDC, and they came to the conclusion that the number of deaths among Americans aged 18 to 49 “increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019″…

Health departments in several states confirmed to The Epoch Times that they are looking into a steep surge in the mortality rate for people aged 18 to 49 in 2021 — a majority of which are not linked to COVID-19.

Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the pandemic, according to an analysis by The Epoch Times of death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This is bombshell information.

Americans are dying in enormous numbers, and that trend is almost certainly going to continue throughout the coming year.

Most of you that are reading this article know people that have died over the last 12 months.  Every time that I hear that someone that I was personally familiar with has passed away, it deeply grieves me.  What we are witnessing is such a great tragedy, and a lot more death is on the horizon.

Every moment that we are given is a precious gift, and so let us endeavor to make the most out of every single day.

Many people assume that they will live to a ripe old age, but that isn’t always true.

Death unexpectedly came for countless Americans in 2021, and countless more will also die in 2022.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Over the past couple of years, we have been hit by one thing after another.  Whenever it seems like things may be calming down, another crisis suddenly erupts, and as a result a lot of Americans have developed a really bad case of “crisis fatigue” at this point.  According to Google, crisis fatigue is “a burnout response to prolonged exposure to unexpected and stressful events”. Perhaps you can identify with that definition because it sounds exactly like what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, the truth is that what we have been through so far is just the beginning.  As I have been warning for years, as “the perfect storm” gets rolling it is just going to keep getting worse and worse.

This week, I was shocked to learn that we are now facing a major agricultural nightmare in the state of Florida.  According to Fox Business, it is being projected that this will be “the smallest Florida orange crop since World War II”…

Government agricultural forecasters said they expect the smallest Florida orange crop since World War II, touching off a rally in juice futures that were already at their highest level in years because of the pandemic.

The U.S. Agriculture Department said last week that it expects Florida to produce 44.5 million 90-pound boxes of oranges this year, trimming its already low expectations and predicting that the crop will wind up smaller than the one that was ruined by 2017’s Hurricane Irma. If the forecast is accurate, it will be the smallest harvest since 1945.

In 1945, there were 139 million people living in the United States.

Today, there are 329 million people living here.

So we are actually going to have less than half as many Florida oranges per person as they did in 1945.

Let that sink in for a moment.

At a time when food supplies are already getting very tight, we are being told that the orange harvest in Florida is going to be at a frighteningly low level.

The primary reason why the harvest is going to be so bad is due to a plague called “citrus greening disease”…

The big culprit this time around, the Florida Department of Citrus said, is citrus greening, an incurable disease that thins the crowns of trees and saps their vitality. Spread by invasive tree lice, greening has plagued Florida’s groves since it was first detected there in 2005. In a report on Wednesday, the Agriculture Department said a lot more oranges than usual are on the ground, and the fruit that is being harvested is unusually small.

Needless to say, this is going to impact all of us.

There will be less oranges in our grocery stores, and those that are available will be much more expensive…

“You have your classical supply-demand mismatch,” said Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, which specializes in agricultural commodities analysis. Because of that, consumers should expect “much higher prices at the supermarket.”

Orange juice is already ridiculously expensive.

I can’t even imagine what a “much higher price” for orange juice would look like.

Meanwhile, nationwide shortages of cold medicine and cough syrup continue to intensify.  The following comes from an article about what is going on in north Texas…

Shoppers in North Texas are noticing stores running out of cold medicine and cough syrup. Many stores are selling out of the items as soon as new shipments arrive.

Chains say they are still struggling with disruptions to the supply chain.

Many in the mainstream media are insisting that many of the painful shortages that we are now experiencing will begin to subside once warmer weather arrives.

You can believe that if you wish.

But the truth is that there are several factors which could soon make our supply chain headaches even worse.

For example, a strict new vaccine mandate for truckers going into or out of Canada just went into effect.

A similar mandate for truckers going into or out of the United States will be implemented on January 22nd.

And unfortunately the trucking industry was given very little time to prepare for these mandates…

When questioned about this, Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc says the trucking industry “has had adequate time to prepare for this.”  Keep in mind, the mandate was announced 45 days ago (November 30th).  According to the Canadian government, changing the structural rules for all the logistics and commerce in cross border shipping, 45 days is enough notice.

Needless to say, this is going to cause even more supply chain problems, but at this point nobody is quite sure how bad things will get…

The truth is no one knows how bad the disruption will be.  What we do know is that there will be disruption, and there is no infrastructure for a level of rig-switching at the border crossing region that could accommodate changing rigs, drop-offs and/or pick-ups or driver transfers on the scale that is being discussed.   The logistics here are a total mess.

Personally, I think that Canada will be hit harder by this than the U.S. will.

When the CEO of Canadawide Fruits was asked about the new mandates, he said that transportation costs increased by 25 percent last week alone…

The mainstream media is finally warning that the trucker vaccine mandate will likely increase the costs of fruit and vegetables. The CEO of Canadawide Fruits told Bloomberg that the cost of transporting produce climbed 25% last week.

Another major factor which is going to make things even more difficult in 2022 is the new energy crisis which has erupted in recent months.

All traditional forms of energy are becoming more expensive, and that includes the price of oil.  In fact, the price of West Texas Intermediate just hit the highest level in seven years…

Crude prices rose to their highest level since the 2014 shale-induced oil crash, a milestone in a rally that is gathering momentum as geopolitical tensions threaten to knock supply.

Futures for West Texas Intermediate, the main grade of U.S. crude, added $1.61 per barrel, or 1.9%, to $85.43 on Tuesday. That marks the highest closing level since October 2014, when oil prices were moving in the opposite direction as a gusher of U.S. crude flooded the market.

It takes energy to produce the food that we eat, and it takes energy to transport that food to the stores.

So higher energy prices will inevitably lead to higher food prices.

Of course it isn’t just the price of food that is going to be shooting up.

Just about everything is going to cost quite a bit more in 2022, and the inflationary spiral that has now begun is going to be exceedingly difficult to deal with.

But our leaders in Washington insist that they have everything under control, and they want you to continue to trust their judgment.

***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.  During this season, I would like to encourage you to send digital copies of my new book to your family and friends as gifts.  That will help to support the work that I am doing, and it will help to multiply the impact of the book.  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)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.