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Experts Are Warning That Empty Shelves And Food Shortages Are Going To Continue For Many Weeks To Come

January 17, 2022January 17, 2022 by Michael

The term “return to normal” is being thrown around a lot these days, but will things ever truly return to the way that they were before the pandemic came along? I don’t think so. From an economic standpoint, an extraordinary amount of lasting damage has been done over the past two years. A seemingly endless list of major problems has thrown thousands upon thousands of critical supply chains into a complete and utter state of chaos, and this has resulted in some very painful shortages. For quite a while, the mainstream media kept insisting that the shortages would soon be gone, but now they are being forced to admit the truth. If you can believe it, NPR has even published a major story about the growing shortages in this country…

No, you’re not imagining it. Some grocery store shelves are bare again, conjuring bad memories of spring 2020 for many.

Social media is rife with images of empty supermarket aisles and signs explaining the lack of available food and other items. Stores such as Aldi have apologized to customers for the shortages.

Nobody in the mainstream media ever imagined that the shortages would last this long.

For certain items such as computer chips, the duration of the shortages is now approaching two full years.

Of course fear of Omicron has made things even worse, and one expert interviewed by NPR suggested that supermarkets in the U.S. are now facing a “perfect storm”…

“We’re really seeing the perfect storm,” Phil Lempert, editor of the website SupermarketGuru.com, told NPR.

Isn’t it strange how that term just seems to keep popping up all over the place?

One of the major issues that supermarkets on the east coast are currently facing is greatly increased shipping costs.

Many Americans don’t realize this, but much of the fresh produce that we enjoy is actually grown in a handful of western states. In fact, “99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots” grown in the United States come from the state of California. To get all of that produce to stores in the east has always been a major production, but today it has also become exceedingly expensive…

Growers of perishable produce across the West Coast are paying nearly triple pre-pandemic trucking rates to ship things like lettuce and berries before they spoil. Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, which grows onions, watermelons and asparagus along the border of Idaho and Oregon, said he has been holding off shipping onions to retail distributors until freight costs go down.

Myers said transportation disruptions in the last three weeks, caused by a lack of truck drivers and recent highway-blocking storms, have led to a doubling of freight costs for fruit and vegetable producers, on top of already-elevated pandemic prices. “We typically will ship, East Coast to West Coast – we used to do it for about $7,000,” he said. “Today it’s somewhere between $18,000 and $22,000.”

Unfortunately, the issues that are plaguing the industry are not going to be cleared up any time soon.

According to the CEO of Conagra Brands, supply chain issues will continue to be a huge headache for his company for at least the next month…

Birds Eye frozen vegetables maker Conagra Brands’ CEO Sean Connolly told investors last week that supplies from its U.S. plants could be constrained for at least the next month due to Omicron-related absences.

And the CEO of Albertson’s is anticipating continued supply chain woes “over the next four to six weeks”…

Vivek Sankaran, CEO of the grocery store chain Albertson’s, said in an earnings call that the company had been hoping to recover from recent supply issues but omicron “put a dent in that.”

“There are more supply challenges, and we would expect more supply challenges over the next four to six weeks,” Sankaran said on Tuesday.

Of course these corporate leaders are anticipating that the Omicron wave will eventually fade and operations will start getting back to normal as warmer weather comes along.

But in order to do that, they are going to have to find a lot more workers from somewhere.

According to another industry expert, the consumer-packaged goods industry in the United States “is missing around 120,000 workers” right now…

The situation is not expected to abate for at least a few more weeks, Katie Denis, vice president of communications and research at the Consumer Brands Association said, blaming the shortages on a scarcity of labor.

The consumer-packaged goods industry is missing around 120,000 workers out of which only 1,500 jobs were added last month, she said, while the National Grocer’s Association said that many of its grocery store members were operating with less than 50% of their workforce capacity.

So where are they going to find enough people to restore service to normal levels?

They can’t exactly resurrect those that have died over the past year.

Now that millions of workers have seemingly “disappeared” from the system, companies all over America are fiercely competing with one another for anyone that still has a pulse and is available.

So if the food industry wants to hire thousands upon thousands of new workers, they are going to have to radically raise wages.

And if they do that, we will be paying even more to fill up our carts at the grocery store.

Today, a full shopping cart full of food can run more than 300 dollars in many areas.

Will that figure soon reach 400 or 500 dollars?

And what happens if our supply chain problems persist for many months to come like analysts at Deutsche Bank are now projecting…

‘For 2022, we expect supply pressures to likely linger for longer, perhaps until the second half of next year before gradually unwinding,’ Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note last Tuesday.

But just like everyone else, the analysts at Deutsche Bank are also assuming that conditions will “return to normal” eventually.

It would be really nice if that actually happened, but as Wolf Richter has pointed out, grocery stores have desperately been trying to “return to normal” for 20 months…

Grocery stores have been trying to stock up for 20 months now, to fill the holes and catch up with this historic surge in demand, but every time they make a little headway, new constraints and problems emerge, and they still don’t have enough inventory on hand to get over the hump, and they temporarily and sporadically run out of some items.

The elephant in the room that nobody really wants to talk about is the fact that our supply chains will never fully return to the way they were in 2019.

Too much has changed.

Yes, there will be a lot of ups and downs, but I actually believe that many of the problems that we are facing today will actually grow over time.

It took decades of incredibly bad decisions to get us to this point, and the gross incompetence being displayed by our leaders in Washington does not give me confidence that things will turn around any time soon.

The years ahead are not going to be pretty, and I would advise you to prepare accordingly.

***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.

What In The World Is Happening To Our Planet? One Of The Most Catastrophic Disasters In Modern History Should Be A Wake Up Call For All Of Us

January 16, 2022January 16, 2022 by Michael

Why does our planet keep getting hit by “historic disaster” after “historic disaster”? Over the past couple of years, an extremely unusual series of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions has rocked the globe. Authorities keep telling us that “everything is normal”, but the truth is that there is absolutely nothing about any of this that is “normal”. Major changes appear to be happening to our planet, and that has enormous implications for our future. Unfortunately, the corporate media gives very little attention to the major disasters that take place outside of the United States, and so most Americans don’t even understand the seriousness of what we are facing.

Over the weekend, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga experienced a “once in a thousand years explosion”. This eruption sent a 3 mile wide mushroom cloud of red hot ash, steam and gas 12 miles into the air.

To put that in perspective, the entire island of Manhattan is only 2.3 miles wide.

This eruption was so massive that it actually created an entirely new island, and the sonic boom from the blast could be heard 6000 miles away in Alaska…

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption that took place on Saturday evening, with a huge plume of ash, steam and gas.

A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

In Tonga, it triggered tsunami waves that crashed ashore and sent people rushing to higher ground.

One of the most remarkable things about this disaster is the incredible amount of volcanic lightning that it produced.

It is being reported that there were approximately “200,000 lightning events” during the first hour of the eruption alone.

1-min CG lightning plot of #Tonga eruption pic.twitter.com/Dt0exOhvG7

— William Churchill (@ChurchillWx) January 15, 2022

Just think about that.

We are talking about an event that truly belongs in the history books.

Unfortunately, once it became clear that the tsunami waves that were going to hit the west coast would not be that serious, the corporate media largely began downgrading this story.

But needless to say, this is probably the biggest event to ever hit the nation of Tonga. When the tsunami arrived, many residents of Tonga had no warning at all…

One Tongan resident, Mere Taufa, spoke to the New Zealand news site Stuff.co.nz and said the eruption hit as her family was preparing for dinner.

“My first instinct was to take cover under the table. I grabbed my little sister and screamed at my parents and others in the house to do the same.”

Taufa said that, suddenly, water started filling her home.

Fortunately for those living on the west coast of the United States, the tsunami waves were not very high by the time they traveled all the way across the Pacific Ocean from Tonga.

In fact, the largest wave that was reported on the west coast was just 4.3 feet tall…

A wave of 4.3 feet was reported in Port San Luis California, according to the National Weather Service. Large waves were also reported in King Cove, Alaska, La Push, Washington, and several other locations.

Two people were transported to the hospital after being swept into the water Saturday afternoon at San Gregorio State Beach, according to local fire officials. One was taken by helicopter.

We should be thankful that there were only a few injuries in the U.S., but let this event also serve as a warning.

In previous articles I have warned that the west coast is extremely vulnerable to tsunamis, and it is just a matter of time before a really big one comes along.

As for Tonga, life in that island nation of 105,000 people will never be the same after this.

At this moment, it is absolutely covered in volcanic ash, and the tsunami has caused immense devastation.

But we won’t know the full extent of the catastrophe for some time, because phone and Internet links to the country have been severed…

Tsunami-hit Tonga remained largely uncontactable on Sunday with telephone and internet links severed, leaving relatives in faraway New Zealand praying for their families on the Pacific islands as casualty reports had yet to come through.

A lot of people dream of living in an “island paradise” such as Tonga, but many of those “island paradises” were originally created by volcanic activity.

And now that once dormant volcanoes are roaring to life all over the globe, sitting on top of an area known for past volcanic activity may not be a great place to be.

Just ask those that decided to move to the Canary Islands before the most recent eruption.

In my entire lifetime, we have never seen an event such as this happen in the Pacific. One expert that was interviewed about this disaster called it “humbling and scary”…

Dave Snider, the tsunami warning co-ordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both ‘humbling and scary’.

I really do hope that a lot of people are “scared” by this disaster, because that may be what it takes to finally wake them up.

According to Volcano Discovery, more than two dozen volcanoes are erupting around the world right now.

And as I have discussed in recent weeks, major earthquakes are happening with increasing regularity all along the Ring of Fire.

Just before Christmas, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck just off the coast of northern California.

But I’ll bet that most of you have already forgotten about that quake.

And that is because we have already witnessed several other natural disasters that were much more severe since then.

It seems like almost every few days another “historic disaster” is happening somewhere in the world.

As I said at the start of this article, this is not “normal”, and I believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

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

Is Someone About To Light The Match Which Will Spark A War With Russia?

January 14, 2022 by Michael

What if the Russians aren’t bluffing? Western leaders seem to think that they can just keep provoking the Russians over and over again without any consequences. It was pretty obvious that western hands were behind the recent riots in Kazakhstan, and now the head of NATO has come out and publicly said that a decision has already been made to make Ukraine and Georgia members of NATO. He was referring to a decision that was made many years ago, but publicly reaffirming that decision in this exceedingly tense environment is extremely counterproductive if the goal is peace. The Russians have repeatedly warned that adding Ukraine to NATO is a red line that must never be crossed. And unlike many western leaders, Russian officials tend to be deadly serious about their “red lines”.

Unfortunately, it appears that time for making peace may be coming to an end. On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the press that Russia has “run out of patience” with the games that western leaders are playing, and he wants some straight answers within a week…

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow has “run out of patience” with the West and expects a written response to its demands for security guarantees within a week after diplomatic talks with NATO and the United States failed to make headway on the issue amid a buildup of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.

So what is going to happen if western leaders refuse to give the Russians the answers that they are seeking?

Will the Russians make a move?

According to Lavrov, if western leaders are not serious about coming to an agreement the Russian government will consider all of their “options”…

Lavrov said Russia, too, wants the standoff over security in Europe to be resolved with mutual respect and a balance of interests, but has warned it will consider various options to respond if the West spurns Russia’s security proposals.

I don’t know why the corporate media in the western world is not paying more attention to all of this, because this is a really big story.

Within the last 24 hours, government websites in Ukraine were hit with a massive cyberattack…

Ukraine was hit by a cyberattack that splashed a warning across government websites to “be afraid and expect the worst”, while Russia, which has massed 100,000 troops on its neighbour’s frontier, released pictures of more of its forces on the move.

Were the Russians behind that cyberattack?

It is entirely possible.

But of course it is also possible that it was the work of western intelligence agencies.

At this point, it is not really clear who was responsible.

Also within the last 24 hours, the Pentagon accused the Russians of getting ready to launch a “false flag attack” in order to have a pretext for invading Ukraine…

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Defense Department has credible information indicating Russia has “prepositioned a group of operatives” to execute “an operation designed to look like an attack on them or Russian-speaking people in Ukraine” in order to create a reason for a potential invasion.

The allegation echoed a statement released by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense on Friday, which said that Russian special services are preparing provocations against Russian forces in an attempt to frame Ukraine. National security adviser Jake Sullivan hinted at the intelligence during a briefing with reporters on Thursday.

Without a doubt, the Russians are fully capable of pulling off false flag attacks.

But history has shown that the U.S. frequently likes to use that page in the playbook as well.

Of course we wouldn’t even be talking about a potential conflict with Russia if western leaders were willing to come to some sort of an agreement.

Theoretically, it should be really easy. Russia would promise to never invade Ukraine if western leaders would promise to never add Ukraine to NATO and to never move western missiles into that nation.

To me, this is something that could be over and done with in an hour.

But western leaders seem to want this confrontation with Russia. In fact, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg just publicly reaffirmed the fact that a decision to add Ukraine to NATO has already been made…

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated that the alliance has already made the decision that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of the bloc. In an interview for the Italian news outlet La Repubblica, Stoltenberg said that the decision had been made in 2008 during a summit of NATO states.

The NATO chief noted, however, that nothing was said about when either of the states will be accepted into the alliance’s ranks. Neither Ukraine, nor Georgia has been accepted into the bloc so far and no timeline has been given for it to happen.

Why would he say something like that?

Does he actually want to push the Russians over the edge?

Now that the Russian media has learned of his comments, they are going to have a field day with this.

Nobody that I know wants a war with Russia. But if the American people don’t wake up and start objecting to the foolishness that is going on, we might just get one.

At this point, the Biden administration is even publicly telling us what they plan to do if they are successful in provoking the Russians into an invasion of Ukraine.

First of all, the Biden administration plans to hit them with some really tough “sanctions”…

Economic sanctions remain one of the most powerful tools the United States has in its foreign policy arsenal. And as Russian forces continue to amass along the border with Ukraine, officials in the U.S. hope the threat of those sanctions can deter a full-scale invasion.

“The thing about sanctions is they’re most effective if you don’t have to use them,” said Olga Oliker, program director, Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group. “They’re most effective if you can credibly threaten something that the other guy doesn’t want enough that they don’t then do whatever it is you’re trying to keep them from doing.”

Secondly, the Biden administration is suggesting that they may fund an “insurgency” in Ukraine after the Russians have invaded…

Now, in what would be a major turnaround, senior Biden administration officials are warning that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia invade Ukraine.

How the United States, which just exited two decades of war in Afghanistan, might pivot to funding and supporting an insurgency from fighting one is still being worked out. But even a conversation about how far the United States would go to subvert Russian aims in the event of an invasion has revived the specter of a new Cold War and suddenly made real the prospect of the beginnings of a so-called great power conflict.

I can’t even begin to tell you how stupid this is.

Whether it is chess or foreign policy, you never tell the other side what you are going to do if they make a certain move.

If U.S. officials really believe that a Russian invasion is imminent, the best thing to do would be to leave them guessing about our response.

Fear of the unknown can be a very powerful thing.

But if the Russians know precisely how the U.S. will respond, that actually makes a Russian invasion far more likely.

As I discussed yesterday, Joe Biden is surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history.

And that is saying a lot.

At this hour, tensions continue to rise, and Russia continues to conduct very alarming military exercises along the Ukrainian border…

The exercises took place at the Kuzminsky and Kadamovsky training grounds in the south-western Russian region of Rostov Oblast, on the border with Ukraine.

According to The Russian Ministry of Defense, a total of over “2,500 servicemen of the Southern Military District took part in the combat training events, and around 100 T-72B3 tanks were involved.”

For years, I have been warning about the steady deterioration of U.S. relations with Russia, and now events appear to be building up to a grand crescendo.

But a war doesn’t have to happen.

It should be so easy to reach an agreement with Russia that will bring stability to the region.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration can’t seem to do anything right, and pretty soon someone might end up crossing a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

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

11 Reasons Why This Was Joe Biden’s Worst Week EVER

January 13, 2022January 13, 2022 by Michael

Joe Biden has had a lot of bad weeks over the last 12 months, but this week has got to take the cake. In fact, it is hard to remember the last time that any president had a week that was this bad. But this wasn’t supposed to happen. Democrats were promising a return to “normalcy” after the Trump years, but instead virtually everything seems to be going wrong. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you should be able to admit that Joe Biden’s presidency is not going very well at all. At this point, even many Democrats are using the word “failure” to describe Biden, and this is fueling rumors that Hillary Clinton may run again in 2024.

Yes, Biden’s presidency has been such a complete and utter disaster that the absolutely unthinkable could actually become a reality.

Just when you think that things can’t get any worse, somehow they do. The following are 11 reasons why this was Joe Biden’s worst week ever…

#1 The OSHA Mandate

On Thursday, we learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had voted 6 to 3 to strike down Biden’s cherished OSHA vaccine mandate…

President Biden urged businesses to bring in vaccine mandates on their own and pushed states to ‘do the right thing’ after the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to block his sweeping rules on private companies in a crushing blow to his pandemic response.

The high court did however allow a vaccine mandate for employees at health care facilities receiving federal dollars to go into effect.

The OSHA mandate would have covered approximately 80 million American workers, and countless workers all over the country that would have lost their jobs under this mandate are greatly celebrating right now.

#2 The Filibuster

Biden was desperately hoping that all of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate would agree to kill the filibuster so that he could get the “voting rights bill” through Congress, but Senator Kyrsten Sinema just made it exceedingly clear that she is not willing to do that…

First, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a fellow Democrat, announced that although she supports the voting rights bill, she’s not willing to do what it would take to make it happen. The filibuster. I’m talking about killing the filibuster.

This came only two days after the president made such an impassioned speech in support of knocking off the filibuster that Republicans essentially called it offensive. And even one Democratic senator said Biden, who pledged a year ago to unite Americans, went too far in the speech.

When she was elected, I never imagined that the day would come when I would be thankful for Kyrsten Sinema.

But today I am definitely very thankful that she has taken this stand.

#3 Inflation

This week, it was announced that the inflation rate had hit a 40 year high, and Americans are blaming Biden for this.

And as I pointed out in an article that I posted on Wednesday, if inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation in this country would be above 15 percent at this point.

#4 Shortages

In December, Joe Biden told the nation that the supply chain crisis was over.

Of course that was not true, and now store shelves are so empty that “BareShelvesBiden” has been trending on social media throughout this entire week.

#5 Joe Biden’s Approval Rating

At the beginning of his presidency, Biden actually had very strong approval ratings, but now they just continue to sink lower and lower.

As I pointed out yesterday, the seven most recent Quinnipiac polls show a very clear trend…

President Biden’s overall approval rating in the last seven Quinnipiac polls: 49%, 46%, 42%, 38%, 37%, 36%, 33%.

#6 Fauci’s Approval Rating

Dr. Fauci was Biden’s handpicked choice to lead the U.S. out of this pandemic, but he has been steadily losing the trust of the American people.

According to a NewsNation poll that was just conducted, only 31 percent of all Americans still believe what he is telling us about the pandemic.

#7 Omicron

During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden repeatedly promised that he would “shut down the virus”, but in recent days the number of COVID cases has soared to all-time record highs in the United States. At this point things are so bad that even Biden administration officials are admitting that essential services are in danger of totally breaking down…

Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock gave U.S. lawmakers an ominous warning this week: The nation needs to ensure police, hospital and transportation services don’t break down as the unprecedented wave of omicron infections across the country forces people to call out sick.

“It’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get Covid,” Woodcock testified before the Senate health committee on Tuesday. “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”

#8 The Lack Of COVID Tests

Even CNN and MSNBC have been roasting Biden this week for not having enough COVID tests for the American people.

Now the Biden administration is telling us that millions of new tests are on the way, but by the time they arrive the Omicron wave may be over.

#9 Russia

Foreign policy takes a great deal of finesse, and that is something that Biden’s team is sorely lacking.

When I first started warning that Biden was surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating.

But now the truth is becoming very clear, and a potential war with Russia that nobody wants is closer than ever…

Talks to find a diplomatic solution to the worsening situation between Russia and Ukraine are on the brink of collapse after Thursday’s meeting as a key US ambassador warned ‘the drumbeat of war is sounding loud.’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken hit the airwaves on Thursday morning where he also weighed in on the crisis, claiming the ‘jury is still out’ on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive military buildup on Ukraine’s border will end with an invasion.

#10 Kamala Harris

Is even Kamala Harris turning against Biden?

This week, a reporter asked Harris if the Democrats would have the same presidential ticket in 2024.

Normally, that would be a really easy question for any vice-president to answer.

But instead of answering “of course”, this is how Harris responded…

REPORTER: “Are we going to see the same Democrat ticket in 2024?”

HARRIS: “[long pause] I’m sorry but we are thinking about today”

Wow.

I think that this is another very clear sign that there is far more going on behind the scenes than we are being told.

#11 Hillary Clinton

Biden is such a failure that some Democrats are already suggesting that Hillary Clinton should be the Democratic nominee in 2024.

Seriously.

On Wednesday, a pro-Hillary piece authored by two key Democratic operatives named Douglas E. Schoen and Andrew Stein appeared in the Wall Street Journal. In their article, they listed a number of different reasons why they believe that Hillary would be a good choice for the next election cycle…

‘Several circumstances – President Biden’s low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice President Harris’s unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024 – have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill,’ they write.

So could we actually see a rematch between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

Of course we still have three more years of the Biden/Harris administration to get through first, and that won’t be pleasant.

Decades of very foolish decisions set the stage for where we are today, and now Biden and his minions have us steamrolling down a highway that doesn’t lead anywhere good.

By the time we get to 2024, this country could be completely unrecognizable.

Biden’s first year has been absolutely terrible, and the next three years are likely to be even worse.

But there is no “exit button” on this ride, and so we are all going to have to endure whatever is coming next.

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

The Dollar Has Entered A Death Spiral, And A Lot More Inflation Is On The Way

January 12, 2022 by Michael

Did anyone out there actually expect things to turn out differently? When the federal government kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, we were warned that this day was coming. And when the Federal Reserve kept pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system, we were warned that this day was coming. So why is anybody surprised by what is happening at this point? On Wednesday, it was being reported that in December the U.S. consumer price index rose at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years…

Inflation rose at the fastest pace in nearly four decades in December, as rapid price gains fueled consumer fears about the economy and sent President Biden’s approval rating tumbling.

The consumer price index rose 7% in December from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Wednesday, marking the fastest increase since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 0.5% in the one-month period from November.

They keep telling us that the consumer price index was actually increasing at a faster rate back in 1982, but whenever the corporate media makes such a claim they are not being honest.

The way that the consumer price index is calculated has been changed more than two dozen times since 1980, and every single time it has been changed the goal was to make the rate of inflation look smaller.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the consumer price index was still calculated the way it was back in 1990, the official rate of inflation would be above 10 percent right now.

And if the consumer price index was still calculated the way it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be above 15 percent right now.

But 7 percent sounds a whole lot better than 15 percent, doesn’t it?

We can get a better picture of what is really going on out there when we start looking at individual categories. The following category numbers were posted earlier today by Citizen Free Press…

Gasoline up 56%
Heating oil up 42%
Used cars: 37.3%
Car rental: 36%
Natural gas up 31%
Hotels: 27.6%
Beef: 18.6%
Pork: 15.1%
Furniture: 13.8%
New cars: 12%

Unfortunately, it looks like the price of gasoline will soon go even higher.

In fact, Reuters is telling us that some analysts are projecting that the price of oil could soon exceed 100 dollars a barrel…

Oil prices that rallied 50% in 2021 will power further ahead this year, some analysts predict, saying a lack of production capacity and limited investment in the sector could lift crude to $90 or even above $100 a barrel.

It takes energy to transport virtually all of the goods that we purchase on a regular basis, and so a higher price for gasoline will cause inflationary pressure throughout our entire economy.

Some companies are responding to this crisis by giving their customers less for the same price that they were charging before.

For example, if you order chicken wings from Domino’s Pizza you will only get a package of eight from now on…

Domino’s Pizza customers ordering chicken wings will soon get fewer of them for the same price.

The pizza chain said it’s cutting the number of wings in its $7.99 carry out offer from 10 pieces to just eight because of rising food and labor costs. Wings will also become an online exclusive, meaning customers can no longer order them via phone.

All around us, there is evidence that our standard of living is rapidly going down.

The cost of living is increasing much, much faster than paychecks are, and that is an extremely alarming trend. According to Zero Hedge, real average hourly earnings have now declined for 9 months in a row…

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Main Street, real average hourly earnings fell (down 2.4% YoY) for the 9th straight month…

So the next time a politician tries to tell you to be grateful that your wages are going up or you can move to a new higher paying job, just remind him that the surge in the cost of living is outpacing wage gains, thanks to The Fed’s money-largesse and Congress’ lockdown policies and helicopter money have crushed the quality of life for millions.

In other words, most Americans are getting poorer.

Meanwhile, the appalling nationwide shortages that have erupted continue to make headlines all over the nation.

According to USA Today, the following are some of the most severe shortages that we are witnessing right now…

-Baby formula shortage

-Cream cheese shortage

-Aluminum shortage

-Cat food, dog food shortages

-Chicken tender shortage

-Lunchables shortage

-Toilet paper shortage

-Beer shortage

And it turns out that fear of Omicron has also sparked a really bad shortage of cold medicine…

Stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are facing cold medicine shortages as flu season picks up and the omicron variant of the coronavirus continues.

“The new toilet paper shortage,” an employee at an East Dallas pharmacy told Fox 4 of the empty shelves.

One pharmacist at a CVS location in East Dallas said that customers with symptoms appearing to be the coronavirus or flu have been buying up cold medicine and cough syrup, while others are coming in to just stock up.

So if you were thinking of stocking up on Benadryl for some reason, I would go out and grab some while you still can.

The corporate media seems absolutely stunned that our politicians in Washington and the magicians at the Federal Reserve have lost control of our economy.

But we were warned for years that what they were doing would kill the U.S. dollar, and the death spiral that we have now entered is going to become exceedingly painful.

What we are experiencing now is not just another short-term economic crisis.

This truly is the beginning of the end for the U.S. economy, and I would recommend that you prepare accordingly.

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

“It’s Like A Soviet Store”: Americans Are Absolutely Horrified By Empty Shelves From Coast To Coast

January 11, 2022 by Michael

A year ago, we were promised that the Biden regime would be leading us into a new golden era of prosperity. Obviously, that has not happened. Instead, we are dealing with bare store shelves and painfully high prices from coast to coast. Many are comparing this crisis to the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, but we didn’t have persistent shortages for months on end back then. At this point, nobody can deny what is happening. Even the Washington Post is admitting that “social media is swamped with pictures of empty grocery shelves”. The Biden administration promised to resolve our supply chain problems, but they just keep getting worse. When Fox News asked one grocery shopper about the empty shelves, he delivered a chilling response that many of us will not forget any time soon: “It’s like a Soviet store during 1981. It’s horrible.”

Prior to the pandemic, many Americans believed that it was impossible for something like this to ever happen in the United States of America.

But it is happening.

Another shopper that was interviewed by Fox News actually used the word “starving” in his response…

Larry, another D.C. shopper, told Fox News: “Whatever it is, I know they need to hurry up and get this straightened out because people will be starving. It’s going to get rough if it keeps on continuing like that.”

Multiple shoppers rattled off a litany of groceries they couldn’t find, ranging from milk to beverages to produce.

“Everything, meat, egg, dairy, certain breads were out, most vegetables, it was all fresh items,” one man said as he left a Giant grocery store.

No, nobody in this country is going to be “starving” in the near future, but without a doubt things are starting to get really crazy.

In fact, things are so bad that even CNN has been forced to admit that our store shelves are being “wiped clean”…

Grocery store shelves across America are wiped clean, and they’re staying empty as stores struggle to quickly restock everyday necessities such as milk, bread, meat, canned soups and cleaning products.

Disgruntled shoppers have unleashed their frustration on social media over the last several days, posting photos on Twitter of bare shelves at Trader Joe’s locations, Giant Foods and Publix stores, among many others.

If fear of Omicron can do this, what would our country look like during a major long-term national emergency?

You might want to start thinking about that.

Grocery chains are very much aware that a wave of “panic buying” has erupted around the nation, and so they are trying to do what they can to keep it from getting even worse…

Grocery stores certainly are aware of the empty shelves, Lempert said, and they are trying to mitigate panic buying, which only worsens it the situation.

One strategy: Fanning out products. They’re doing this by putting out both limited varieties and limited quantities of each product in an attempt to prevent hoarding and stretch out their supplies between deliveries.

But fanning out products isn’t really going to fool anyone.

We can all see what is going on, and all of the photos that are going up on social media are just going to fuel the frenzy even more.

The good news is that at least things are better in this country than they are in much of the rest of the globe.

For example, people in Cuba are now waiting up to 11 hours in line just to get some food…

“I spent almost all night here just to buy something. It is not easy, it is a big sacrifice just to be able to eat,” shopper Edelvis Miranda, 47, told AFP at a market in Havana last week.

The homemaker had taken her place in the queue at about 1:00 am, and finally left around 11 hours later, just before noon.

So be thankful for the blessings that we still have.

Hopefully we will get some short-term relief and store shelves will start to look better once this wave of Omicron fades and warmer temperatures arrive.

But nothing is going to keep inflation from continuing to spiral out of control. According to CNBC, the median income in this country has actually fallen over the past two years even as the cost of living has risen substantially…

As consumers pay more for everything from groceries to gasoline, household income is failing to keep pace with a higher overall cost of living, according to recent reports.

Over the past two years, median income fell 3% while the cost of living rose nearly 7%, due, in part, to rising housing and medical costs.

In an attempt to keep making ends meet, U.S. consumers have now gone into more debt than ever before…

The average U.S. household with debt now owes $155,622, or more than $15 trillion altogether, including debt from credit cards, mortgages, home equity lines of credit, auto loans, student loans and other household obligations — up 6.2% from a year ago.

In America today, most people are just barely scraping by from month to month.

Living paycheck to paycheck is not a good place to be, but that is reality for the vast majority of our population.

So when economic conditions get extremely bad in this country, most Americans are not going to have any sort of a financial cushion to fall back on.

And since the vast majority of our population is not “prepping” in any way, shape or form, any sort of long-term food shortage would get exceedingly painful very, very quickly.

For years, I have been encouraging my readers to make common sense preparations for the time when economic chaos would rock our nation.

Now that time has arrived, and most of our fellow citizens are completely and utterly unprepared for what is happening.

But if you think that this is the worst that can happen to us, just wait, because the truth is that what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

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

As Store Shelves Get Barer, Food Industry Insiders Are Warning That Supplies Will Get Even Tighter In The Weeks Ahead

January 10, 2022January 10, 2022 by Michael

It is happening again. In December, Joe Biden stood in front of the American people and boldly declared that he had defeated the supply chain crisis, but of course that wasn’t true. There have been persistent shortages for months on end, and now fear of Omicron is taking things to an entirely new level once again. On Monday, the hashtag #BareShelvesBiden was trending on Twitter, and that is because shelves are alarmingly bare in supermarkets from coast to coast. We are being told that these shortages are only “temporary”, but of course that was what we were told when nationwide shortages first began to pop up all the way back in early 2020.

Unfortunately, food industry experts are warning us that supplies are going to get even tighter in the weeks to come. For example, the following is what billionaire John Catsimatidis just told Fox News…

“Omicron is taking its toll at different levels of the supply chain, whether it’s the warehouses, whether it’s the selectors, the drivers the loaders – and as they call in sick there are interruptions in the system,” Catsimatidis told Todd Piro during an appearance on “Fox & Friends First.”

Catsimatidis went on to say that many of these interruptions will continue over the next 6 weeks as the COVID-19 variant impacts the labor market. The United Refining Company owner added that the Northeast in particular is seeing the price of various products, including eggs, poultry, and beef, go up because of low supply and high demand.

That sounds rather ominous.

Of course he is not alone. Egg Innovations CEO John Bruunquell is specifically warning that current conditions are likely to prevent his industry from supplying enough eggs to the general population…

Meanwhile, Egg Innovations CEO John Bruunquell, who acquired the first U.S. patent for reduced fat and cholesterol eggs, echoed Catsimatidis’ sentiment on “Fox & Friends” with co-host Ainsley Earhardt, warning that an uptick in demand coinciding with labor, freight and vendor issues may soon hamper egg supply.

So if shelves that normally hold meat and eggs are already bare in your area, they may be staying that way for a while.

And if the shelves that normally hold meat and eggs are not bare in your area, you may want to grab what you can while you still have the opportunity to do so. The shortages are escalating, and shelves appear to be getting emptier with each passing hour. According to Zero Hedge, Americans from coast to coast have been posting photographs of bare shelves on social media…

Before Christmas eve, President Biden declared his administration’s efforts to eliminate supply-chain bottlenecks ahead of the holiday season had succeeded. Ten days into the new year, we can firmly say that is not the case.

The hashtag “BareShelvesBiden” has been trending on Twitter for the last 24 hours. The hashtag ranked on Twitter’s most trending list as of late Sunday evening.

People from around the country tweeted pictures and videos of bare supermarket shelves as Biden’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force fails to address pandemic-induced disruptions.

In recent months I have been writing a lot of articles about this supply chain crisis, but even I didn’t anticipate that things would be this bad in early 2022.

Outside Annapolis, Maryland today pic.twitter.com/hJrQylV2ns

— BB_RN (@bbisback_4) January 9, 2022

Apocalypse now pic.twitter.com/j48ALuYtoQ

— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) January 9, 2022

If we simply had enough workers to do all of the jobs that needed to be done, that would go a long way toward resolving this crisis.

In industry after industry, vast numbers of workers seem to have “disappeared” from the system, and this is causing a whole host of problems. For instance, FedEx is warning that a lack of staff will result in significant delays…

FedEx Corp warned on Friday that rising cases of Omicron variant has caused staff shortage and delay in shipments transported on aircraft.

“The explosive surge of the COVID-19 Omicron variant has caused a temporary shortage of available crew members and operational staff,” the company said.

I don’t know why FedEx is using the word “temporary”, because they have been operating without enough people for many months.

Of course it is just human nature to want to put a positive spin on things. So many people out there want to believe that the future is going to be brighter, because the last couple of years have really stunk.

In fact, just check out the words that Americans used when one recent survey asked them to describe 2021…

Among the words volunteered in response to the open-ended question to describe 2021 in a single word:

1. Awful/terrible/bad/sucked – 23%

2. Chaos/confusing/turmoil – 12%

3. Challenging/hard/rough – 11%

4. Disaster/train wreck/catastrophe – 6%

4. (Tied) Okay/good – 6%

Looking ahead, our economy is now the number one thing that Americans are concerned about…

The U.S. economy is the top priority for Americans, with inflation worries rising and pandemic-related fears waning, a poll released Monday showed.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans mention the economy in some way when asked an open-ended question about the top five priorities for the government to work on in 2022, according to a year-end poll taken by the Associated Press. Just 37 percent cited the virus, down from 53 percent a year earlier.

The American people want the supply chain crisis to be resolved, they want inflation to go back down, and they want life to return to the way that it used to be.

Unfortunately, none of those things are going to happen.

It has become exceedingly clear that our health authorities are completely incapable of defeating the pandemic, and it has also become exceedingly clear that our leaders in Washington are completely incapable of fixing the economy.

And if you think that things are bad now, just wait until we get a few more years down the road. Virtually everything that Joe Biden and his minions do makes things even worse, and we still have at least three more years of either him or Kamala Harris in the White House.

If you are waiting for the government to pull us out of this mess, you are going to be waiting an awfully long time.

Decades of very foolish decisions have brought us to this point, and it would take a miracle of epic proportions to turn things around now.

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

BREAKDOWN: Basic Services And Supply Chains Are Rapidly Breaking Down All Over The Globe

January 9, 2022January 9, 2022 by Michael

I warned you that things would get even worse in 2022, and that is exactly what is happening. Throughout the latter stages of 2022, I documented how basic services were breaking down all across the country, but this was a trend that was largely ignored by the mainstream media until now. Fear of the Omicron variant has taken things to an entirely new level, and at this point things have gotten so bad that even the mainstream media is full of stories about this crisis. For example, over the weekend this was one of the Drudge Report’s main headlines: “NATIONWIDE BREAKDOWN OF SERVICES”. The following is an excerpt from that story…

Ambulances in Kansas speed toward hospitals then suddenly change direction because hospitals are full. Employee shortages in New York City cause delays in trash and subway services and diminish the ranks of firefighters and emergency workers. Airport officials shut down security checkpoints at the biggest terminal in Phoenix and schools across the nation struggle to find teachers for their classrooms.

The current explosion of omicron-fueled coronavirus infections in the U.S. is causing a breakdown in basic functions and services — the latest illustration of how COVID-19 keeps upending life more than two years into the pandemic.

This is happening almost everywhere, and it is deeply affecting industry after industry.

Last week, I wrote about how one man in St. Louis had to wait 10 hours for an ambulance to show up.

I still can’t get over that.

And once people get to our hospitals, often they can’t get treated in a timely manner because there aren’t enough workers. Of course hospitals are trying to hire as fast as they can, but finding qualified people is extremely difficult these days. For example, one hospital in Nebraska has been advertising for an ultrasound technician for six months and still has not received one single application…

Troy Bruntz runs Community Hospital, a 25-bed critical access facility in McCook, Nebraska. He’s been trying to recruit a third ultrasound technician for at least six months without getting a single application.

For lower-level positions, the hospital competes with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising. He monitors the pay offered by the retailer as well as the other large local employers, a hose manufacturer and an irrigation equipment supplier.

Isn’t that nuts?

There are more than 10 million open jobs in the United States today, but the U.S. economy only added 199,000 workers during the month of December…

The US economy added 199,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported Friday. That was the fewest jobs added in any month of 2021.

That was a major disappointment: Economists had forecast jobs growth of double that number.

So how could forecasts be so off again?

In the old days, adding 199,000 workers would have barely kept up with population growth.

But we can’t really talk about “population growth” these days, can we?

Our hospitals are being absolutely overwhelmed with the sick and the dying, but most of those same hospitals are now severely undermanned thanks to Biden’s absurd mandate for healthcare workers.

As a result, members of the National Guard are being forced to serve hospital duty in quite a few states…

An incoming tide of patients is slowly drowning UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the US military’s National Guard is working to plug the gaps. In wave after daily wave, the emergency crews pull up to the ambulance bay, dropping off patients for which there is no room.

“It’s just the perfect storm for a nightmare here in the emergency department,” says Dr. Eric Dickson, the CEO of the hospital and an emergency physician.

So if you show up at your local emergency room because you are dying, you may get “treated” by a member of the National Guard with no medical training whatsoever.

Meanwhile, our nightmarish supply chain crisis just continues to escalate.

In the waning days of 2021, optimists assured us that the computer chip shortage would soon go away, but the numbers are telling us that it has gotten even worse. In fact, the wait time for chip delivery is now the longest that it has ever been…

Delivery times for chips jumped in December, signaling the semiconductor shortage is worsening into the new year, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group.

On average, lead times increased six days to approximately 25.8 weeks last month compared with November. This is the longest wait time since the firm began monitoring the data in 2017.

And thanks to fear of Omicron, we are starting to see very alarming shortages of meat and eggs at supermarkets from coast to coast…

SEVERAL American supermarkets are reporting incidents of “bare shelves” as fears grow over an imminent meat and egg shortage amid a surge in Omicron cases.

Food chains have been one of the first to be disrupted by the new super strain as workers fall ill and productivity drops.

If you are a “meat and potatoes” kind of person, I have some more bad news for you.

It turns out that there is a “growing global potato shortage” too…

There’s a growing global potato shortage — a real problem for a planet addicted to french fries and chips.

A number of popular items, including marmite and cream cheese, have faced scarcities amid supply chain disruptions wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and extreme weather. Potatoes are the latest to join the list, becoming unevenly available in some countries and fast-food chains because of a confluence of factors.

I tried to warn everyone that this was coming. If you don’t want a spoiler about where all of this is eventually headed, then definitely don’t read my latest book.

The economic optimists assured us that the shortages would be gone by 2022, but instead we are starting to see truly bizarre things happen.

In Norway, the military is actually issuing used underwear to the troops because shortages have become so intense…

Coronavirus supply chain issues have hit fuel supplies, led to shortages of masks, vaccines and electronic components, and snarled up holiday gift deliveries. In Britain, truck driver shortages led to fears last summer of pubs running dry.

Now, Norway’s military is facing a supply shortage that is particularly personal: New recruits are being asked to wear previously used undergarments – including socks, bras and underwear – returned by conscripts after they complete their service.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

Unfortunately, if you are in the military you have to do what you are told to do.

Of course our politicians seem to think that they can treat all of us like we are in the military these days.

They just keep imposing more rules, more restrictions and more mandates.

And the more they clamp down, the more our society is going to break down.

2022 is certainly off to an inauspicious start, and the weeks ahead certainly do not look very promising at all.

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

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