Money

The CEO Of Blackstone Is Warning That “A Real Shortage Of Energy” Will Cause Social Unrest All Over The Planet

October 26, 2021October 26, 2021 by Michael

We are facing an unprecedented global energy crunch. Demand for energy is continually rising, and the production of energy is not keeping pace. One of the biggest reasons for this is that large financial institutions have become extremely hesitant to fund any new energy projects that will add more carbon emissions to the environment. Instead, they want to fund projects that will help us transition to the new “green economy”, but meanwhile we are getting to a point where we will soon see widespread shortages of traditional forms of energy. So now we all get to suffer. A lack of oil is pushing the price of gasoline to alarming heights, shortages of natural gas are already causing tremendous disruptions in Asia and Europe, we are being told that we are facing a propane “armageddon” this winter, and supplies of coal have dropped to dangerously low levels around the world.

In other words, we are potentially heading into the most painful global energy crisis in modern history.

When CNN asked Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman about this, he openly admitted that we are “going to end up with a real shortage of energy”…

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman warned Tuesday that high energy prices will likely set off social unrest around the world.

“We’re going to end up with a real shortage of energy. And when you have a shortage, it’s going to cost more. And it’s probably going to cost a lot more,” the private-equity billionaire told CNN International’s Richard Quest at a conference in Saudi Arabia.

When the power goes out, people are not going to be happy.

And people are really not going to be happy if it goes out for an extended period of time.

According to Schwarzman, we will soon see “very unhappy people” all over the globe…

“You’re going to get very unhappy people around the world in the emerging markets in particular but in the developed world,” Schwarzman said at the Future Investment Initiative. “What happens then, Richard, is you’ve got real unrest. This challenges the political system and it’s all utterly unnecessary.”

Sadly, he is right that this global energy crisis did not have to happen.

If the global elite had continued to fund traditional energy projects at the pace that was needed, we could have avoided this nightmare to a very large degree.

But traditional forms of energy are now being shunned, and billions of people will suffer as a result.

Meanwhile, prices throughout our economic system continue to rise at a very alarming pace. Just check out what has been happening to the price of turkey…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, released data recently showing the average wholesale price of Grade A frozen 8- to 16-pound turkey has spiked by 21.91% since last year. That means what cost $1.15 per pound a year ago will now ring at at $1.41. And just for context, the same would have cost 96 cents in 2019 and 84 cents in 2018.

If math isn’t your thing, that’s a 68% wholesale price increase in just two years.

Overall, we are being told that this upcoming Thanksgiving will be the most expensive Thanksgiving that any of us have ever experienced…

Matthew McClure paid 20% more this month than he did last year for the 25 pasture-raised turkeys he plans to roast at the Hive, the Bentonville, Arkansas, restaurant where he is the executive chef. And Norman Brown, director of sweet-potato sales for Wada Farms in Raleigh, North Carolina, is paying truckers nearly twice as much as usual to haul the crop to other parts of the country.

“I never seen anything like it, and I’ve been running sweet potatoes for 38 or 39 years,” Brown said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but in the end it’s all going to get passed on to the consumer.”

Unfortunately, more price hikes are on the horizon.

In fact, Kimberly-Clark is opening warning that they are going to be boosting prices even higher…

Prices of toilet paper, diapers, facial tissues and paper towels will likely rise in coming weeks as Irving-based consumer giant Kimberly-Clark warned Monday that inflation and supply chain concerns aren’t “likely to be resolved quickly.”

So I would stock up on paper products while you still can.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, inflation is eventually going to get far worse than what we witnessed during the 1970s.

At this point, even many top Democrats are warning that high inflation is with us to stay. Here is one recent example…

Former President Barack Obama’s chief of global development on Tuesday predicted inflation was here to stay, despite the Biden administration’s protestations to the contrary.

Prices “will go higher, and the Fed has misread the inflation dynamics in a big way,” former Global Development Council Chairman Mohamed El Erian said in an afternoon interview with Fox News’ Sandra Smith, adding that the Federal Reserve was “still hostage to this notion that it’s transitory.”

And the shortages that we are currently experiencing are ultimately going to get worse too.

Right now, we are already facing the worst shortage of alcoholic beverages since the 1930s. When asked about his empty shelves by a reporter, one gas station owner said that he has “never seen anything like this”…

Supply chain issues are impacting the alcohol supply in the U.S., and it’s making alcohol more expensive and difficult for bars and liquor stores to get.

“I have so many empty shelves. In the two years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything like this,” gas station chain owner Ali Ali said.

As I discussed yesterday, now Biden wants to take countless more truck drivers off the road, and that will make our supply chain headaches a whole lot worse.

And as energy prices escalate, that will push all prices throughout our economic system higher and higher and higher.

Yes, all of this is really happening.

This is not a drill.

We are in the early chapters of a full-blown economic meltdown of epic proportions, and nothing will ever be the same after this.

If you want to keep waiting for conditions to “return to normal”, you are going to be waiting for a really, really long time.

We have entered a truly horrible nightmare, and there will be no waking up from this.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) 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.

Business Leaders Are Begging Biden Not To Crash The Economy

October 25, 2021 by Michael

Is Joe Biden about to apply the finishing blow to the U.S. economy? If you don’t understand what I am talking about, just keep reading. Somehow it seems appropriate that “the Grim Creeper” is in charge during the dying days of the U.S. economic system. The U.S. dollar is being systematically destroyed, there are significant shortages all over the nation, a horrifying global energy crisis has suddenly erupted, and we are facing the most epic shortage of workers in our entire history. As a result of the worker shortage, thousands upon thousands of very basic tasks that need to get done in order for our economy to run smoothly simply aren’t getting done. This is one of the reasons why we are now facing the worst supply chain headaches that any of us have ever seen, and it is in this environment that Biden has chosen to deliver the coup de grâce.

As I have discussed previously, Biden’s absurd mandates will force millions upon millions of highly skilled Americans out of their jobs at a time when big companies all over the U.S. are already extremely desperate for workers. Over the past few weeks, scores of business leaders have been traveling to Washington to beg Biden to at least delay his mandates until after the holiday season…

Worried that President Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate for private companies could cause a mass exodus of employees, business groups are pleading with the White House to delay the rule until after the holiday season.

White House officials at the Office of Management and Budget held dozens of meetings with labor unions, industry lobbyists and private individuals last week as the administration conducts its final review of the mandate, which will require businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure they are vaccinated against Covid or tested weekly for the virus. It is estimated to cover roughly two-thirds of the private sector workforce.

But so far the White House has been unmoved.

It is almost as if Biden can’t wait to drop the hammer on the economy.

Needless to say, these mandates will make the unprecedented supply chain crisis that we are currently dealing with far, far worse. If you doubt this, just consider what the trucking industry is potentially facing…

The American Trucking Associations, which will meet with the OMB on Tuesday, warned the administration last week that many drivers will likely quit rather than get vaccinated, further disrupting the national supply chain at time when the industry is already short 80,000 drivers.

The trucking association estimates companies covered by the mandate could lose 37% of drivers through retirements, resignations and workers switching to smaller companies not covered by the requirements.

Okay, so let me get this straight.

We need 80,000 more truck drivers right now, and Biden wants to fire 37 percent of those that we currently have on the roads?

In the past I have written articles about what would happen if America’s trucks stopped running, and we might be on the verge of actually seeing about a third of them suddenly shut down.

If you think that our store shelves are empty now, just wait until that happens.

And the trucking industry is just a small part of the overall picture. Just imagine what our country would look like if millions upon millions of important workers suddenly vanished from the system.

When I said that Biden was about to deliver a “finishing blow”, I was not kidding.

Over in Europe, they are facing a problem of a different nature. A severe shortage of magnesium threatens to reach a major crisis point next month, and that could result in millions of jobs being lost…

Europe purchases 95% of its magnesium from China, will run out of the industrial metal used to strengthen aluminum by the end of November that could threaten millions of jobs in sectors from automobiles to aerospace to defense and much more, according to Bloomberg.

Three trade groups, including European Aluminium, Eurometaux, and industriAll, warn shipments from China are dwindling quick due to power cuts to energy-intensive magnesium smelters. They said if reserves of the industrial metal aren’t increased in the near term, it may result in trade production shortages, factory closures, and job losses.

Over the years, how many times did I warn that it was foolish to become so dependent on China?

Now Europe is about to learn this lesson the hard way.

So much of the pain that the western world is experiencing now could have been avoided if we would have made different policy decisions when we had the chance.

To a very large degree, our wounds are self-inflicted, and now Biden is going in for the kill.

Once his mandates go into effect, millions of hard working Americans will be ruthlessly fired and suddenly won’t have any paychecks coming in.

Meanwhile, inflation is starting to get out of control and the cost of living is absolutely soaring. Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that propane prices have skyrocketed to utterly insane levels…

Propane prices haven’t been so high heading into winter in a decade, which is bad news for the millions of rural Americans who rely on the fuel to stay warm.

At $1.41 a gallon at the Mont Belvieu trading hub in Texas, on-the-spot prices are about triple those of the past two Octobers. Of the two main U.S. propane futures contracts, one hit a high earlier this month and the other doesn’t have far to climb to eclipse the record it set during the blizzard of 2014. The average residential price tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration has jumped by 50% from a year ago, to $2.69 a gallon.

Unfortunately, propane supplies are supposed to become even tighter in the months ahead.

They keep telling us that this is going to be a “dark winter”, but for many Americans it will be a very cold winter too.

I am doing my best to sound the alarm, and so many of the things that I have warned about are now happening right in front of our eyes.

But most of the population still doesn’t want to believe that things are really this bad.

Most of them are still convinced that better days are just around the corner, and it would be wonderful if they were actually correct.

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

Is It Time To Start Talking About Hyperinflation?

October 24, 2021October 24, 2021 by Michael

Our leaders have been creating, borrowing and spending dollars at a pace that is far beyond anything that we have ever seen before in U.S. history, and yet they would have us believe that the terrible inflation that they have created is just “temporary”. They must think that we are really stupid or really gullible (or both), because anyone with even a shred of common sense can see that this is going to end badly. I have been warning about this for years, and many others have also been sounding the alarm for a very long time. But at this point, you don’t have to be any sort of an “expert” to see what is happening. In fact, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey just posted a tweet on his official account warning that “hyperinflation” is coming…

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey weighed in on escalating inflation in the U.S., saying things are going to get considerably worse.

“Hyperinflation is going to change everything,” Dorsey tweeted Friday night. “It’s happening.”

Hyperinflation is going to change everything. It’s happening.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) October 23, 2021

I didn’t think that I would ever utter these words, but Jack Dorsey is right.

Our leaders are systematically destroying the reserve currency of the planet, and nothing will ever be the same again after this.

Needless to say, Dorsey’s tweet caused quite an uproar, and he later clarified what he meant by stating that “it will happen in the US soon”…

Responding to user comments, Dorsey added Friday that he sees the inflation problem escalating around the globe. “It will happen in the US soon, and so the world,” he tweeted.

What would cause Dorsey to make statements like these?

Some apologists for the establishment are suggesting that Dorsey has gone off the deep end, but the truth is that the cold, hard numbers do not lie.

For example, the following chart comes straight from the Federal Reserve, and it shows that M2 has been rising at an exponential rate…

The people that are criticizing this recklessness are not the ones that are crazy.

The ones that are crazy are those that are doing this to the rest of us.

Increasing the money supply at an exponential rate was inevitably going to cause very painful inflation, and that is precisely what we are witnessing all across the country right now…

You’ve already noticed prices going up at the supermarket and the drugstore. Unfortunately, more sticker shock could be around the corner.

What’s happening: Companies that make consumer goods are announcing price increases left and right. Faced with persistent higher costs, they don’t expect the situation to moderate any time soon.

But those in charge continue to insist that everything is going to be just fine.

In fact, even though Janet Yellen admits that inflation “will remain high into next year”, she fully expects things to return to normal eventually…

“I don’t think we’re about to lose control of inflation,” Yellen said.

“On a 12-month basis, the inflation rate will remain high into next year because of what’s already happened. But I expect improvement by the middle to end of next year… second half of next year,” she added.

Do you believe her?

I don’t.

Our leaders continue to flood the system with more new money, and that is going to continue to create more inflation.

We have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and that is creating shortages and forcing prices to absurd heights. During a recent interview with Fox Business, billionaire supermarket owner John Catsimatidis made this stunning prediction about food prices…

“I see over 10% [price increase] in the next 60 days,” he said.

10 percent in 60 days?

I think that would qualify as “hyperinflation”, don’t you?

Over on CNBC, billionaire Paul Tudor Jones boldly declared that inflation is now “the single biggest threat” to our society…

Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones believes inflation is here to stay, posing a major threat to the U.S. markets and economy.

“I think to me the No. 1 issue facing Main Street investors is inflation, and it’s pretty clear to me that inflation is not transitory,” Jones said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “It’s probably the single biggest threat to certainly financial markets and I think to society just in general.”

These are not just random people from off the street we are talking about.

These are billionaires that have a very deep understanding of our financial system.

When CNBC’s Jim Cramer was asked about inflation, he referenced what Paul Tudor Jones had said, and he also admitted that it is “much worse than we thought”…

“Yeah. I mean, look, I think Paul Tudor Jones, as always, is right about inflation. It’s much worse than we thought,” he said. “I keep hoping that the capacity will come on and make it so that it’s not as bad, but it just can’t seem to come on as fast enough.”

All of these “experts” are starting to sound just like The Economic Collapse Blog.

Needless to say, that is a sign that we are very late in the game.

If our leaders wanted to get inflation under control, they would stop flooding the system with enormous mountains of new money.

But as Egon von Greyerz has pointed out, they can’t do that because it would crash the economy…

The central bankers can either squash the chronic inflation by tapering and at the same time create a liquidity squeeze that will totally kill an economy in constant need of stimulus. Or they can continue to print unlimited amounts of worthless fiat money whether it is paper or digital dollars.

If central banks starve the economy of liquidity or flood it, the result will be disastrous. Whether the financial system dies from an implosion or an explosion is really irrelevant. Both will lead to total misery.

Without a doubt, “total misery” is definitely coming.

Eventually, prices will be so high that the big corporations will start putting armed guards on food trucks.

Throughout human history, every time a nation has started to create money at an exponential rate it has always ended in tragedy.

Now it is our turn, and a day of reckoning is fast approaching.

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

This Winter, We Could Potentially Be Facing Simultaneous Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 by Michael

I realize that the headline that I have chosen for this article may sound a bit wild to many of you, but keep reading because what we are potentially facing is extremely serious. Right now, we are already in the midst of an epic global energy crisis. There have already been significant power outages all over the planet, and prices are spiking at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. With each passing day, it seems like supplies of oil, natural gas, propane and coal just keep getting tighter, and what is really odd is that it is happening so early in the year. Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the heart of winter in the northern hemisphere is still several months away. So if things are this bad already, what are things going to look like when we get into January and February?

This morning, I was stunned when I pulled up the Drudge Report and saw that one gas station in California was now selling gasoline for $7.59 a gallon…

Gas keeps getting more and more expensive, especially in California. But perhaps nowhere is it pricier than the remote central coast community of Gorda.

The town’s only gas station is offering regular unleaded for $7.59. Premium is nearly $8.50.

The good news is that a gallon of gasoline is not nearly that high in most of the rest of the nation.

But the bad news is that prices are rising aggressively from coast to coast. As of yesterday, Fox News was reporting that the price of gasoline had risen “for 22 straight days”.

The main reason why prices are skyrocketing is because supplies are starting to get really tight. In fact, it is being reported that the crude oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma could be “effectively out of crude” in just a few weeks…

In a note predicting the near-term dynamics of the oil market, JPMorgan’s commodity Natasha Kaneva writes that in a world of pervasive nat gas and coal shortages which are forcing the power sector to increasingly turn to oil (boosting demand by 750bkd during winter and drawing inventory by 2.1mmb/d in Nov and Dec), Cushing oil storage – which just dropped to 31.2mm barrels, the lowest since 2018…

… may be just weeks from being “effectively out of crude.” The bank’s conclusion: “if nothing were to change in the Cushing balance over the next two months, we might expect front WTI spreads to spike to record highs—a “super backwardation” scenario.”

Needless to say, we have never seen anything like this happen before.

In such a scenario, how high could the price of oil potentially go?

And if oil price records are being shattered in the months ahead, what will ordinary Americans have to pay when they go to fill up their vehicles?

I have a feeling that we are about to enter uncharted territory.

Meanwhile, one expert recently told Bloomberg that we could soon be facing “propane-market armageddon”…

In the report by Bloomberg, Ang says prices for the first quarter of 2022 are already far above later supplies, saying, “it may indicate players are preparing for propane-market armageddon.” He added that some areas could see outright shortages before winter ends.

To add to the stress, Poynter says some weather forecasts are already calling for a colder than normal winter, thanks to the La Nina effect. Experts call for an 87% chance of the system bringing an early and harsh winter season.

The use of the term “outright shortages” definitely alarms me, because there are millions of Americans that use propane to heat their homes.

If the propane runs out in the middle of the winter, what are those people supposed to do?

On the other side of the globe, a tightening of natural gas supplies has become an enormous problem. According to Global News, natural gas prices in Europe and Asia “have more than tripled” in 2021…

Regional natural gas markets in the United States are seeing prices for this winter surge along with global record highs — suggesting that the energy bills causing headaches in Europe and Asia will hit the world’s top gas producer before long.

Gas prices in Europe and Asia have more than tripled this year, causing manufacturers to curtail activity from Spain to Britain and sparking power crises in China.

In addition to a lack of natural gas, a severe coal shortage has also contributed to the economic chaos that we are witnessing in China at the moment.

Just recently, CNN reported that energy shortages had already spread to 20 different provinces…

Power shortages have spread to 20 provinces in recent weeks, forcing the government to ration electricity during peak hours and some factories to suspend production. These disruptions resulted in a sharp drop in industrial output last month and weighed on the outlook for China’s economy.

India is being hit really hard by the global coal shortage as well.

In fact, we are being told that most of India’s coal plants “have critically low levels of coal inventory”…

Most of India’s coal-fired power plants have critically low levels of coal inventory at a time when the economy is picking up and fueling electricity demand.

Coal accounts for around 70% of India’s electricity generation.

So the truth is that my headline for this article is not over the top at all.

The shortages aren’t something that we have to wait for. They are already here, and they are going to get a lot worse.

Of course this new energy crisis is going to make our global supply chain headaches even more frustrating.

In our economic system, it takes energy to literally do just about anything, and as energy becomes more expensive virtually every form of economic activity will also become more expensive.

That means that all of the stuff that is made for us in Asia and shipped halfway around the planet is going to start costing a lot more.

As toy shortages intensify heading into the holiday season, we are already seeing some resellers pricing toys at nearly 400 percent of their normal levels…

American Girl’s sold-out blonde winter princess doll, which retailed for $250, is now going for up to $999 on platforms such as Mercari and eBay.

The cat-themed Gabby’s Dollhouse, which is all the rage for this year’s preschoolers, has nearly quadrupled on some sites from its original $55 price tag.

This is the “new normal”, and so you might as well get used to it.

I am shocked that things have deteriorated so rapidly, and this new global energy crisis is definitely setting the stage for so many things that I have been warning about.

As global energy supplies get tighter and tighter, all of us will feel the pain.

And the experts are telling us that things are not going to turn around any time soon.

So I hope you have a plan for this winter and beyond, because things are really starting to get crazy out there.

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

Our Epic Supply Chain Crisis Just Hit Another Level, And Biden Is Considering Calling In The National Guard To Help

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021 by Michael

It is the month of October, and right now many Americans are more scared by the state of our national supply chains than by anything else. Some of the things that I am going to share with you in this article are truly frightening, and I would very much encourage you to take them seriously. Our economic infrastructure is failing on a massive scale, and officials are openly admitting that things will get even worse in the months ahead. We are in uncharted territory, because none of us has ever seen anything like this before. If our leaders cannot get this fixed, 2022 is going to be a truly nightmarish year.

Of course just last week Joe Biden gave a big speech in which he assured all of us that he was implementing measures which would soon turn things around.

Unfortunately, just like with Afghanistan, the southern border, inflation and so many other problems, our supply chain crisis has gotten even worse now that Biden is personally involved. On Tuesday, it was being reported that the number of vessels backed up off the coast of southern California has just hit a brand new record high…

The nation’s largest ports shattered more records Monday as massive bottlenecks at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to wreak supply chain havoc.

The Marine Exchange of Southern California reported 100 vessels berthed October 18, topping the previous record of 97 set September 19.

A single container ship can hold thousands upon thousands of enormous shipping containers, and so we are talking about a backlog of absolutely immense proportions.

It would take many months just to work through a backlog of this magnitude even if the ports in southern California were making progress in paring it down.

But instead of making progress, the backlog just continues to get even deeper.

As the supply chain crisis escalates, the Biden administration has actively been considering using the National Guard on an emergency basis…

White House officials have explored in recent weeks whether the National Guard could be deployed to help address the nation’s mounting supply chain backlog, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The idea appears unlikely to proceed as of now, the people said, but reflects the extent to which internal administration deliberations about America’s overwhelmed supply chain have sparked outside-the-box proposals to leverage government resources to address the issue.

This is how serious things have become.

Our supply chains are in such a state of chaos that the Biden administration is actually thinking of doing something that has never been done before in American history.

Of course publicly they are still trying to put a happy face on things, but privately administration officials are really freaking out.

And things could soon get a lot worse.

Today, approximately 85 percent of all magnesium production in the world happens in China. We should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on China, because now we are facing a critical shortage of magnesium, and that could result in a nightmarish shortage of aluminum…

The source of the shortage is China’s monopoly on global magnesium production. Production curbs of energy-intensive smelters have reduced the industrial metal’s output, resulting in dwindling stockpiles in Europe and North America.

Barclays analyst Amos Fletcher told clients in a note that “there are no substitutes for magnesium in aluminum sheet and billet production.” He warned if “magnesium supply stops,” the entire auto industry will grind to a halt.

Oh.

That is bad.

What I first read that, I just sat there stunned for a moment.

Are things really that crazy already?

Yes, they are. In fact, we are being told that magnesium reserves in Europe will be completely exhausted “at the end of November 2021 at the latest”…

“It is expected that the current magnesium reserves in Germany and throughout Europe will be exhausted in a few weeks at the end of November 2021 at the latest,” the group said. “In the event of a supply bottleneck of this magnitude, there is a risk of massive production losses.”

Needless to say, it wouldn’t just be the auto industry that grinds to a halt.

Just think of how many food and beverage products come in aluminum cans.

I don’t know if I even have sufficient words to describe how serious this is.

Meanwhile, it is also being reported that we are potentially facing a propane “armageddon” this winter…

The expanding energy crisis is causing propane to rocket higher (read: here) as supplies dwindle to below seasonal levels as research firm IHS Markit Ltd. warns of “armageddon” during the Northern Hemisphere winter.

IHS analyst Edgar Ang told attendees during a virtual presentation on Tuesday that US propane inventories are at a record low and will be extremely tight as cold weather is ahead.

That isn’t good.

Millions of Americans use propane to heat their homes. So what are those millions of Americans going to do when supplies of propane run out?

If you use propane to heat your home and you don’t have a back up plan, you need to start developing one right now.

As if things weren’t bad enough already, the absurd mandates that our politicians are pushing on all of us threaten to make things far, far worse.

Let me give you just one example…

Union Pacific Railroad is the latest company to board the mandatory vaccine train.

The company’s 31,000 employees across 23 states have been given just under two months to comply or face additional consequences.

We are already having enormous problems getting things transported across the country, and trains are a key part of that equation.

So what would happen if thousands upon thousands of highly experienced railroad workers are suddenly railroaded out of their jobs?

Of course similar scenarios will be playing out in industry after industry in the months ahead.

The stage is perfectly being set for so many of the things that I have been warning about, and I am entirely convinced that we will soon see extreme economic pain all across the nation.

In this sort of an economic environment, there is no way that our politicians should even be considering any sort of mandates.

But they are pushing ahead anyway, and we are all going to feel the consequences very deeply.

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

Now We Are Being Warned That A “Recession” Could Be Coming During The “Dark Winter” That Is Ahead

October 18, 2021 by Michael

We are just coming out of “the COVID recession”, and now we are being told that another recession could be just around the corner. Thanks to overly harsh pandemic restrictions, widespread shortages and millions of workers that appear to have disappeared from the system somehow, economic activity is slowing down once again. We just learned that U.S. industrial production has fallen for a second month in a row, and the production of motor vehicles and parts is falling at a pace that is extremely alarming. After adding trillions upon trillions of dollars to the national debt, all our politicians were able to buy us was a short-term economic sugar high and rampant inflation. I hope that you enjoyed the sugar high while you could, because the months ahead are looking rather bleak indeed.

You may have noticed that officials are starting to use the term “dark winter” again. Here is one example…

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the U.S. could be facing another “dark winter,” though this can be avoided if Americans get vaccinated to a “very high degree” in the coming months.

And as we head toward the winter months, the word “recession” is increasingly starting to pop up in the mainstream media.

In fact, one prominent economist made headlines when he warned that he believes that the U.S. has already entered a new recession…

America has already slipped into a recession that could be as bad as the 2008 financial meltdown according to key consumer data, a Dartmouth College professor has warned.

David Blanchflower, of Dartmouth, and Alex Bryson, of University College London, say that every slump since the 1980s has been foreshadowed by 10-point drops in consumer indices from the Conference Board and University of Michigan.

Unfortunately, we already surpassed both of those benchmarks long ago. At this point, the declines are of a similar magnitude to what we witnessed just before the financial crisis of 2008…

The Conference Board has measured a 25.3-point drop in 2021, while UM has recorded an 18.4-point slump. This compares to a 19-point and a 21-point dip for the indices respectively ahead of the 2008 global financial crash.

That doesn’t mean that another recession is guaranteed.

Our politicians in Washington could borrow and spend several trillion more dollars, and that would likely buy us a little bit more time.

But right now the immediate future does not look good, and most Americans are clearly not prepared for any sort of a major downturn…

As the new recession dawns, many Americans are not prepared to weather bad economic stagnation. As of late last year, nearly two-thirds of families lived paycheck to paycheck, and more than half have less than three months’ worth of savings. A quarter have effectively none at all.

Are you prepared for economic pain in 2022?

I hope so.

Even now, economic conditions continue to deteriorate and shortages continue to get worse all over the nation.

The following is what one local NBC News reporter found during surprise visits to some local retailers…

News4Jax visited Target and Publix in the San Jose area. Typically where shoppers can find snacks, canned goods, and pet food, the shelves were bare and nearly empty.

In Target, fruit snacks were limited, protein bars were nearly gone too, and Lunchables were low in stock.

We saw the least amount of available frozen foods at Publix and snack foods like beef jerky were running low.

Auto parts are in really short supply too.

If you need to get a vehicle fixed, I would do it now, because things are really starting to get crazy out there.

In some cases, consumers are having to wait weeks just for one part to come in…

The challenge of finding spare parts as mundane as oil filters or carpeting has forced repair shops to hoard inventory, find workarounds and plead with customers for patience until a shipment comes in. Typical delays of a day or two have stretched into weeks in some cases, shop owners say.

I have heard from a number of industry insiders in recent weeks, and one theme that I keep hearing is that our supply chains were under a great deal of stress even before the pandemic came along.

Now we are witnessing epic supply chain breakdowns all over the globe, and there aren’t going to be any easy fixes.

In fact, Moody’s Analytics is ominously warning us that things “will get worse before they get better”…

Computer chip shortages. Epic port congestion. And a serious lack of truck drivers. The world’s delicate supply chains are under extreme stress.

The supply chain nightmare is jacking up prices for consumers and slowing the global economic recovery. Unfortunately, Moody’s Analytics warns supply chain disruptions “will get worse before they get better.”

When I used to warn my readers that “the system is failing”, a lot of people thought that I was just being overly dramatic.

But I wasn’t being overly dramatic at all. On a very basic level, our economic infrastructure is failing us, and the politicians that are now running the show are utterly clueless.

The empty suits in Washington can continue to throw giant mountains of money at our problems, but that isn’t going to make them go away. At best, it will just give us a few more months when people have money in their pockets to spend.

It took decades for America to reach this stage, and a day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Just today, I received an email from an industry insider that warned that 2022 could be “unthinkable” if our supply chain problems are not properly addressed.

So I would very much encourage you to stock up now while you still can, because the coming “dark winter” could potentially lead into an entire year that will be filled with economic nightmares.

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

Beef Will Now Be A “Luxury Product”, And Cheap Chicken Dinners “Are Coming To An End”

October 14, 2021October 14, 2021 by Michael

The “reset economy” is coming, and it isn’t going to be very pleasant. Rather than viewing the economic chaos caused by the pandemic as a negative thing, many among the worldwide elite consider it to be a golden opportunity to fundamentally transform the global economy according to their values. As they radically reshape our economic system, one of their primary goals will be to make any products that are “bad for the environment” cost a lot more. In other words, behaviors that produce a lot of carbon emissions must be punished. That is particularly bad news for those that love to eat a lot of meat, because the production of meat is considered to be particularly “harmful” for the environment.

In recent months, you may have noticed that the price of meat has already been rising quite aggressively. This fits very well with what they are trying to do, because they want people to start eating a lot less of it.

In fact, one prominent CEO was recently quoted as saying that beef is going to be “a luxury product” from now on…

“Beef is not going to be super climate friendly,” Danish Crown Chief Executive Officer Jais Valeur said in an interview with Danish newspaper Berlingske. “It will be a luxury product that we eat when we want to treat ourselves.”

Valeur said pork would be a more climate-friendly protein. Danish Crown is one of Europe’s largest pork producers, although it is also a player in the beef market.

So if you are accustomed to eating beef on a regular basis, I guess you are just going to be out of luck.

Of course they will offer lots of “burgers” and “steaks” made out of microalgae or bugs that you can try instead.

I am afraid that chicken is on the chopping block too. The head of the biggest chicken producer in the UK just warned that the days of cheap chicken dinners “are coming to an end”…

Britain’s biggest chicken producer said that the country’s 20-year cheap food binge is ending and food price inflation could hit double digits.

“The days when you could feed a family of four with a 3 pound ($4) chicken are coming to an end,” Ranjit Singh Boparan, owner of the 2 Sisters Group, said.

But don’t worry, they are working really hard to develop some squishy plant-based “chicken alternatives” that will surely have your mouth watering.

These new “alternatives” won’t be cheap either, but the truth is that the price of just about everything is spiking these days. Just check out these numbers from a local CBS News report…

The price increases have hit certain industries particularly hard over the last year. Used car prices are up about 24 percent. The cost of meat has gone up 12 percent in 12 months. Home heating oil is up an estimated 43 percent. Another area on the top of many commuters’ minds: gas prices, which have risen by more than $1 a gallon.

As I discussed yesterday, heating bills are going to put a lot of financial stress on millions of American families this winter.

Unfortunately, a lot of people still aren’t taking this new global energy crisis seriously enough. The truth is that this is a really, really big deal. If you doubt this, just take a look at what is already happening in India and China…

Meanwhile, Coal India, the world’s biggest coal miner, said it had temporarily stopped supplying non-power users as India battles one of its worst ever power supply deficits.

China’s power crisis, caused by shortages of coal, high fuel prices and booming post-pandemic industrial demand has halted production, including at factories supplying big brands such as Apple.

Needless to say, a global energy crisis will be a perfect opportunity for the global elite to push their “green energy solutions” on all of us.

In order for most people to be willing to accept a radical “solution” they often need to be faced with a major problem first, and the global elite understand this very well.

Speaking of major problems, the global supply chain crisis just continues to get worse, and one prominent executive is now warning that it could “last well into 2022”…

Dutch navigation and digital mapping company TomTom warned that supply chain problems in the auto sector could last well into 2022.

“Collectively we have underestimated how big the supply chain issues, and especially for semiconductor shortages, have been or have become”, TomTom Chief Financial Officer Taco Titulaer told Reuters.

That is certainly bad news, and it looks like I will definitely have a lot to write about in the months ahead.

Sadly, it appears that the Biden administration is not approaching these issues with the seriousness that they deserve. In fact, White House chief of staff Ron Klain seems to think that they are just “high class problems”…

White House chief of staff Ron Klain endorsed former Obama administration economist Jason Furman’s claim that the country’s inflation, supply chain, and other economic problems only affect a small part of the U.S. population.

Furman, the chairman of former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and an economics professor at Harvard University, tweeted Wednesday night that “most of the economic problems we’re facing … are high class problems.”

Really?

Are empty shelves all across America a high class problem?

Are soaring heating bills a high class problem?

As I discussed yesterday, nearly 40 percent of all U.S. households “have faced serious financial problems” within the last few months.

Is that a high class problem too?

The truth is that the stage is set for a global economic nightmare of epic proportions, and what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

But like I said, the global elite don’t fear the changes that are happening. In fact, they intend to engineer even more change.

Many of them truly believe that human activity must be very tightly constrained for the good of the planet, and so they envision a future in which our behaviors are very closely monitored, tracked and controlled.

So it may not be too long before highly advanced meters independently control the temperature levels in your home, you are not allowed to purchase certain products you used to buy because they are “bad for the environment”, and your food is made out of some of the most disgusting things imaginable.

Many would consider such a society to be a “utopia”, but it sounds like an endless dystopian nightmare to me.

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

As The Global Energy Crisis Explodes, They Are Warning That Heating Bills Will Be Extremely Painful This Winter

October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Michael

Whether you like it or not, a major global energy crisis is here, and it is going to hit all of us right in the wallet. Today, markets for energy are truly global, and that means that price spikes in one part of the planet will inevitably filter elsewhere. For example, a lot of natural gas that is produced in the United States is now heading for Europe, and that is pushing up prices here. As energy supplies get tighter and tighter, power bills are going to go higher and higher. In fact, the U.S. government is now warning American citizens to expect heating bills to rise more than 50 percent this winter. Needless to say, a lot of families out there simply cannot afford that.

For a while, the mainstream media was trying to deny what was happening, but now they are openly using the term “energy crisis” to describe what we are facing. Here is one example…

Far from emerging from the COVID shock awash with fuel, as might be expected after an economic slowdown, the world is entering a new energy crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen since the 1970s.

European and Asian gas prices are at an all-time high, the oil price is at a three-year high, and the price of coal is soaring on the back of energy shortages across China, India and Germany.

Global demand for energy is only going to increase in the months ahead. Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the middle of winter is still months away.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until we get into early 2022.

At this point, even CNN is admitting the truth…

Astronomical increases in natural gas prices. Skyrocketing coal costs. Predictions of $100 oil.

A global energy crunch caused by weather and a resurgence in demand is getting worse, stirring alarm ahead of the winter, when more energy is needed to light and heat homes. Governments around the world are trying to limit the impact on consumers, but acknowledge they may not be able to prevent bills spiking.

So exactly what kind of “spiking” are we talking about?

Well, this week the federal government announced that it is now projecting that heating bills for U.S. consumers will be 54 percent higher this winter…

Get ready to pay sharply higher bills for heating this winter, along with seemingly everything else.

With prices surging worldwide for heating oil, natural gas and other fuels, the U.S. government said Wednesday it expects households to see their heating bills jump as much as 54% compared to last winter.

Actually, if heating bills only go up by 54 percent this winter I think that we will be extremely fortunate.

Many believe that they will shoot up a lot higher than that, because energy prices here in the U.S. have already been going completely nuts…

Natural gas in the United States, for example, has climbed to its highest price since 2014 and is up roughly 90% over the last year. The wholesale price of heating oil, meanwhile, has more than doubled in the last 12 months.

Another reason for the rise is how global the market for fuels has become. In Europe, strong demand and limited supplies have sent natural gas prices up nearly 350% this year. That’s pushing some of the natural gas produced in the United States to head for ships bound for other countries, adding upward pressure on domestic prices as well.

I know what a lot of you are thinking. Millions of families are not going to be able to afford these price increases, and that is going to cause widespread financial hardship.

Even before this new energy crisis erupted, a large portion of the U.S. population had to “forego expenses for basic necessities” in order to pay their power bills…

To make ends meet, families are cutting deeply. Nearly 22% of Americans had to reduce or forego expenses for basic necessities, such as medicine or food, to pay an energy bill in at least one of the last 12 months, according to a September survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite all of the money that the federal government has thrown at people over the past couple of years, much of the nation is still deeply suffering.

According to another recent survey, close to 40 percent of all U.S. households “have faced serious financial problems” within the past several months…

Nearly 40% of US households have faced serious financial problems, including struggling to afford medical care and food, in the last few months, according to a survey published on Tuesday.

The survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health also showed that in those last few months, as the US struggled to contain the infectious Delta coronavirus variant, the percentage of households reporting serious financial problems rose to 59% when they had an income under $50,000 a year.

Normally, a number like that would indicate that unemployment is rampant.

But as I discussed the other day, the U.S. is actually in the midst of an epic shortage of workers right now.

If you want a job, you can go out and get one.

Of course the vast majority of the jobs that are available are very low paying jobs, and rampant inflation is devaluing the wages paid to such workers a little bit more with each passing day.

On Wednesday, we learned that on a year-over-year basis inflation is rising at the fastest pace in 30 years…

Consumer prices increased slightly more than expected in September as food and energy price rises offset declines in used cars, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The consumer price index for all items rose 0.4% for the month, compared with the 0.3% Dow Jones estimate. On a year-over-year basis, prices increased 5.4% versus the estimate for 5.3% and the highest since January 1991.

Needless to say, the official government numbers greatly understate the real rate of inflation.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if inflation was still calculated the way it was in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be well into double digits at this point.

And now this new energy crisis is going to make things even worse. Virtually everything that we buy has to be physically transported, and now shipping stuff around the country is going to become significantly more expensive.

In my last two books I specifically warned that inflation would spin wildly out of control, and now it is happening right in front of our eyes.

The experts are telling us that this is going to be a really cold winter, and a lot of American families are going to be forced to make some very difficult choices.

Many will decide to keep their thermostats uncomfortably low, but as long as the power stays on most of us will make it through the coming months okay.

The real danger would come if we start having blackouts like other parts of the globe are already experiencing. As we witnessed in Texas last winter, the loss of power for an extended period of time during a cold stretch can have absolutely disastrous consequences.

***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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