Money

Economic Collapse Has Arrived In Germany. Will The U.S. Be Close Behind?

September 20, 2022 by Michael

Things are starting to get really crazy in Germany. The Germans are dealing with the worst inflation crisis that they have seen since the days of the Weimar Republic, and meanwhile economic activity is starting to shut down all over the nation. Of course other European countries are facing similar problems, but Germany was supposed to be the economic rock that the rest of Europe could always depend upon. Unfortunately, the decision by the Russians to cut off the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is hitting Germany extremely hard. If we could just get both sides to agree to end the war in Ukraine, that would greatly help matters, but that simply isn’t going to happen. In fact, it appears that Vladimir Putin has decided to greatly escalate matters, and the western powers will inevitably greatly escalate matters in response. What this means is that the economic turmoil that we are witnessing in Europe isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

This week, we got some inflation numbers out of Germany that are so high that it is difficult to believe that they are actually real…

German producer prices rose in August at the fastest rate since records began in 1949, data released by the Federal Statistical Office showed today, pointing to a further increase in consumer prices.

Producer prices of industrial products rose by 45.8 percent compared to the same month of last year. Compared to July 2022, prices rose 7.9 percent.

Soaring energy prices on the back of Russia’s war against the Ukraine remain the main driver behind rising prices.

If we continue to see monthly increases of around 8 percent, next year at this time we could be talking about a yearly jump of close to 100 percent.

Wow.

How bad do things have to get before we actually start using the term “hyperinflation”?

Energy prices are the biggest reason why inflation has gotten completely out of control, and the German government has been forced to nationalize a huge natural gas company in order to keep it from going under…

The German government is closing in on an agreement to nationalize gas giant Uniper SE, as Berlin moves to stave off a collapse of the country’s energy sector.

A provisional agreement between the government, Uniper and its main shareholder, Finland’s Fortum Oyj, has been reached, according to people familiar with the situation. While contracts haven’t been signed, Berlin is aiming for an announcement later this week.

According to the CEO of Uniper, the company has been losing about 100 million euros a day during this crisis.

Needless to say, the German government cannot save everyone, and so a lot of firms won’t survive this crisis at all.

For example, a manufacturer that has been making toilet paper for Germans for nearly 100 years is now headed into insolvency…

Hakle has been a German household name since 1928, but the Duesseldorf-based toilet paper manufacturer said all it took was this summer’s gas price shock to drive it into insolvency.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

According to the German central bank, the nation is moving into a “broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output”…

“Economic activity may pull back somewhat this quarter and shrink markedly in the autumn and winter months,” the central bank said, adding that it didn’t forecast this adverse scenario in a June report.

Bundesbank continued: “There are mounting signs of a recession in the German economy in the sense of a clear, broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output.” It said a contraction is expected in the third quarter with deeper declines in economic activity in the fourth.

“High inflation and uncertainty with regard to energy supply and its costs affect not only the gas and electricity-intensive industry and its export business and investments, but also private consumption and the service providers dependent on it,” the central bank said.

You can refer to such a scenario as a “recession” or a “depression” if it makes you feel better.

I call it an economic collapse.

The U.S. economy will soon be experiencing immense turmoil as well.

According to billionaire Barry Sternlicht, the Fed’s exceedingly foolish policies are pushing us toward a “serious recession”…

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday, Barry Sternlicht, the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital, said he believes Americans are facing a major recession if the Federal Reserve proceeds with several more rate hikes as a means of curbing inflation, which is reportedly the central bank’s plan.

“The economy is braking hard,” Sternlicht told the financial news outlet, according to the Daily Caller. “If the Fed keeps this up, they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs.”

He is right on target, but instead of saying “people will lose their jobs” he should have noted that lots of people are already being laid off. This is something that I have been documenting on my website for quite some time, and this week we learned that Gap has decided to lay off hundreds of corporate workers…

Gap Inc. is cutting about 500 corporate jobs as the clothing retailer struggles with declining sales.

The job cuts, which include open positions, will be primarily at Gap’s offices in San Francisco, New York and Asia and hit various departments, a representative for the retailer confirmed Tuesday. The moves were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Ouch.

In this environment, very few workers are truly safe.

At this point, even the entertainment industry is letting lots of people go…

The struggling TV and film industry continues to run face first into bad news. This week it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery was firing 100 TV ad salespeople at the same time that Paramount has considered ending offering Showtime as a standalone service, Bloomberg reported.

Netflix followed suit with their own layoffs, the report says. The company has reportedly let go hundreds of employees and abandoned some of its office space. At the same time, the firm’s stock price has collapsed and fallen more than 60% from its all time highs.

Back in 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs.

Will we see something similar in the months ahead?

And just like during “the Great Recession”, the housing market is really starting to slow down. In fact, we just learned that homebuilder confidence has now fallen for nine months in a row…

The confidence of builders of single-family houses fell again in September, the ninth month in a row of declines, “as the combination of elevated interest rates, persistent building material supply chain disruptions, and high home prices continue to take a toll on affordability,” the NAHB report said.

With today’s index value of 46, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index is now below where it had been in May 2006, on the way down into the Housing Bust.

This time around, it won’t just be a few areas of the planet that suffer.

At this moment we are literally witnessing economic implosions all over the planet, and the stage is being set for an immensely painful 2023.

The one thing that could really turn things around would be peace.

Unfortunately, global leaders on both sides seem absolutely determined to drag us into the type of cataclysmic global conflict that I have been warning about for years.

So there isn’t going to be peace, and that means that things are going to get really bad in 2023 and beyond.

But I also believe that you were put at this specific moment in history for a reason.

It is when times are the darkest that the greatest good can be done, and that is something that we will all need to remember during the very dark times in front of us.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

Why Are So Many Historic Natural Disasters Suddenly Hitting Our Planet As We Reach The End Of Summer?

September 19, 2022September 19, 2022 by Michael

Just over the past few days, our planet has been hit over and over again by major natural disasters. So why is this happening? At this moment, we are reaching the end of a summer that many of us will remember for a long time to come. The western United States, Europe and China are all in the midst of the worst droughts that they have experienced in centuries, and meanwhile relentless flooding has absolutely devastated other areas. For example, unprecedented flooding resulted in a third of the entire nation of Pakistan being under water for an extended period of time. We could definitely use a break, but instead the past few days have brought us an extremely alarming series of historic disasters. For example, the western coast of Mexico was just hit by an extremely powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake…

A powerful earthquake struck near the coast of western Mexico on Monday on the anniversary of two devastating temblors, shaking buildings and sending residents of Mexico City scurrying onto the streets for safety.

Shortly after 1 p.m. local time, the quake registered at 7.6 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey hit near the coast on the border region of the states of Michoacan and Colima at a depth of around 15 km (9 miles).

Interestingly, this quake happened on the exact same date that enormous earthquakes hit Mexico in 1985 and 2017.

Is that just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?

Meanwhile, Hurricane Fiona continues to cause “catastrophic” damage in the Caribbean…

Hurricane Fiona bore down on the Dominican Republic on Monday after knocking out the power grid and unleashing floods and landslides in Puerto Rico, where the governor said the damage was ‘catastrophic’.

Fiona was forecast to swipe the Dominican Republic early Monday and then northern Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands with the threat of heavy rain. It could threaten the far southern end of the Bahamas on Tuesday.

Hurricane warnings were posted for the Dominican Republic’s eastern coast from Cabo Caucedo to Cabo Frances Viejo, and for the Turks and Caicos.

It is going to take Puerto Rico many years to recover from the utter devastation that has been caused by this exceedingly intense storm.

At the same time, “one of the worst typhoons the country has ever seen” is literally forcing millions of people to evacuate from their homes in Japan…

Nine million people have been told to evacuate their homes as Japan is battered by one of the worst typhoons the country has ever seen.

The super typhoon Nanmadol has killed two people and injured almost 90.

It hit Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, on Sunday morning, and is set to reach Honshu, the largest island, in the coming days.

We aren’t hearing too much about this “super typhoon” in the United States, but it is truly one of the worst disasters in the modern history of Japan.

Not too far away, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit Taiwan on Saturday, and that was followed by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on Sunday…

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake rattled much of Taiwan on Sunday, which followed a 6.4 magnitude earthquake Saturday, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

The magnitude 6.8 quake hit around 2:44 pm local time (0644 GMT), with an epicenter in Taitung county, a town in the eastern part of the island nation. CWB said the quake was recorded at a relatively shallow depth of 7 kilometers (4 miles).

The US Geological Survey initially reported that the quake registered a 7.2 magnitude but revised it to 6.9 — still a higher reading than CWB’s estimate.

These quakes caused quite a bit of destruction, and of course this comes at a really bad time as Taiwanese authorities feverishly prepare for a potential Chinese invasion.

Also on Saturday, Alaska was hit by a storm that was so immense that it was actually ripping homes right off of their foundations…

The western coast of Alaska was hit with historic storms on Saturday, causing extreme flooding that led to several homes being ripped from their foundations.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska declared the crisis a disaster emergency at a Saturday press conference where he also confirmed that had been zero reported injuries.

“Just now, I verbally declared a disaster for communities impacted by the West Coast storm. SEOC (State Emergency Operations Center) has received no reports of injuries at this time. We will continue to monitor the storm and update Alaskans as much as possible,” the Republican governor said.

Meanwhile, we continue to see a tremendous amount of volcanic activity all over the planet.

According to Volcano Discovery, there are 26 volcanoes that are currently erupting around the globe right now.

I have been relentlessly warning my readers that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and that process seems to be accelerating as we approach the final days of summer.

So will the months ahead bring even more devastation?

Sadly, as with so many other things, many people out there simply assume that things will eventually “return to normal” somehow.

Of course there are others that acknowledge that conditions are changing, but they believe that humanity can fix what is wrong if we just pass enough laws.

Needless to say, those people are completely and utterly delusional.

Nothing that we can do will alter the changes that are happening.

The giant rock that we all live on is starting to go haywire, and the shaking that we are experiencing now is going to get a whole lot worse during the years that are ahead of us.

Earthquakes will increase in power and frequency, volcanic eruptions will become more common, great storms will cause unprecedented destruction, and immense droughts and floods will continue to ravage much of the planet.

And through it all, many of the “experts” will continue to insist that everything is completely “normal” even to the bitter end.

You can believe them if you want.

Of you can believe the evidence that is happening right in front of your eyes.

The choice is up to you.

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

Why Are Walmart And Other Major U.S. Retailers Canceling BILLIONS Of Dollars In Orders As Summer Comes To An End?

September 18, 2022September 18, 2022 by Michael

Do they know something that they aren’t telling us? As you will see below, Walmart, Target and other major U.S. retailers are literally canceling billions of dollars in orders ahead of the coming holiday season. I have never heard of such a thing happening before, and under normal conditions it wouldn’t make any sense at all. The holiday season is typically the busiest time of the year for retailers, and at this time in 2021 there was actually a great deal of concern that there wouldn’t be enough inventory due to global supply chain problems. But now everything has changed. All of a sudden major retailers are feverishly canceling orders, and this would only make sense if a severe economic downturn was imminent.

For example, Walmart is admitting that it has canceled “billions of dollars in orders” as we approach the upcoming holiday season…

John David Rainey, Walmart’s EVP and CFO, said it had cleared most summer inventory, was reducing exposure in electronics, home and sporting goods, and canceled “billions of dollars in orders” to realign inventories. He said, “Our actions in Q3 will allow us to make significant progress toward rationalizing absolute levels and mix, which will enable our stores to be well positioned ahead of the holiday season.”

It is extremely odd that Walmart would decide to do such a thing.

Recently I had an opportunity to stroll through a Walmart, and there were plenty of inventory holes.

So what would make them suddenly cancel “billions of dollars” in orders that they thought that they were going to need for the holiday season?

Perhaps some enterprising reporter will be willing to ask them such a question.

Meanwhile, we just learned that Target has also canceled “more than $1.5 billion” in orders…

Target said it had reduced its “inventory exposure in discretionary categories” throughout Q2 by canceling more than $1.5 billion of orders in these categories and marking down products.

Target is much smaller than Walmart is, and so for Target to cancel so many orders is a really big deal.

And it turns out that Kohl’s and Under Armour have also been canceling large numbers of orders as well…

Kohl’s has also pulled back on order receipts and increased promotions to get through an inventory glut.

“We have taken action to address inventory, including increasing promotions, being aggressive on clearing excess inventory and pulling back on receipts,” said Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm in a call with investors.

Under Armour also said it made some proactive cancellations due to supply chain constraints to ensure that “the right inventory was coming in at the right time,” said interim president and CEO Colin Browne in a call with investors.

These retailers are obviously scared that they will end up stuck with massive amounts of inventory that they cannot sell.

Do they believe that economic activity during the months ahead will be much lower than they originally anticipated?

One corporate executive that is actually publicly admitting that he believes that a recession is coming is FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam…

FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday that he believes a recession is impending for the global economy.

“I think so. But you know, these numbers, they don’t portend very well,” Subramaniam said in response to Cramer’s question of whether the economy is “going into a worldwide recession.”

The CEO’s pessimism came after FedEx missed estimates on revenue and earnings in its first quarter. The company also withdrew its full year guidance.

Sadly, he is right on target.

For months, I have been warning that the economic numbers were telling us that big trouble was on the way, and now everyone can see it.

But unlike the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009, this time we are also going to have to deal with raging inflation even as economic activity slows down all around us.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is ominously warning that U.S. consumers “are set to pay even more this winter” as heating costs continue to soar to absolutely ridiculous levels…

U.S. utility customers, faced with some of their largest bills in years, are set to pay even more this winter as natural-gas prices continue to climb.

Natural-gas prices have more than doubled this year because of a global supply shortage made worse by the war in Ukraine, and they are expected to remain elevated for months as fuel is needed to light and heat homes during the winter. The supply crunch has made it substantially more expensive for utilities to purchase or produce power, and those costs are being passed on to customers.

The cost of living has been rising much faster than our paychecks have for quite some time now, and a lot more pain is on the horizon.

I really like how Brandon Smith recently summarized the current state of the U.S. economy…

A common refrain from people who are critical of alternative economists is that we have been predicting crisis for so long that “eventually we will be right.” These are generally people who don’t understand the nature of economic decline – It’s like an avalanche that builds over time, then breaks and quickly escalates as it flows down the mountain. What they don’t grasp is that they are in the middle of an economic collapse RIGHT NOW, and they just can’t see it because they have been acclimated to the presence of the snow and cold.

Economic decline is a process that takes many years, and while you might get an event like the market crash of 1929 or the crash of 2008, these moments of panic are nothing more than the wreckage left behind by the great wave of tumbling ice that everyone should have seen coming far in advance, but they refused.

That is so true.

We are already in the midst of a raging economic crisis, but things will get so much worse during the months and years to come.

Walmart, Target and other major retailers are working really hard to get prepared for what is coming.

Are you?

I hope so, because at this point it should be glaringly obvious to everyone that exceedingly challenging times are on the way.

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

We Just Witnessed Something That Hasn’t Happened Since 2008, And It Is Causing The Housing Market To Crash

September 15, 2022September 15, 2022 by Michael

This didn’t have to happen. The reckless behavior of the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington created a horrifying inflation spiral, and now the Fed is feverishly raising interest rates in a desperate attempt to get inflation back under control. But everyone knows that rapidly raising rates is going to absolutely crush the housing market. When the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, that puts upward pressure on mortgage rates. And as mortgage rates go higher, more and more potential homebuyers will be forced on to the sidelines. With fewer potential homebuyers in the market, that will put downward pressure on home prices. This is basic stuff that you would learn in an ECON 101 class, but Fed officials can’t seem to understand that what they are doing is going to be extremely destructive to the U.S. economy as a whole.

Do you remember the pain that we went through in 2008?

That entire crisis was precipitated by a collapse of the housing market, and now a similar scenario is starting to unfold right in front of our eyes.

In fact, something just happened that we haven’t seen in all of the years since 2008…

The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose above 6 percent for the first time since the financial crisis, according to federal data released Thursday.

The average mortgage rate for the benchmark home loan rose to 6.02 percent as of Thursday, according to Freddie Mac, up 0.13 percentage points from last week and 3.16 percentage points above its level a year ago. It’s the first time the 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate was above 6 percent since the week of Nov. 20, 2008.

When mortgage rates get really high, the wealthy can still afford to buy homes because many of them don’t even need mortgages.

But for the rest of us, much higher mortgage rates make a world of difference…

Already, it has ushered in a sea change in the housing market by adding hundreds of dollars or more to the monthly cost of a potential buyer’s mortgage payment, slowing what was a red-hot market not so long ago. Higher rates are forcing some would-be buyers to continue renting. Since the start of the year, the average mortgage payment has risen 38.5% to $2,306 from around $1,700 at the start of the year.

Demand for mortgages is drying up really fast.

Last week, the number of mortgage applications was 29 percent lower than it was during the same week one year ago.

And the number of applications to refinance mortgages has seemingly dropped off a cliff…

As mortgage rates rise and home prices remain high, home sales are slowing.

With rates essentially double where they were a year ago, applications for home loans have dropped and applications to refinance into a lower payment have fallen off a cliff, down 83% from a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

If you work in the mortgage industry, I feel really badly for you right now.

Of course everyone involved in real estate is going to be feeling a tremendous amount of pain in the months ahead. According to the chief economist at Redfin, this is the “sharpest” downturn that we have seen since the meltdown of 2008…

“This is the sharpest turn in the housing market since the housing market crash in 2008,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s Chief Economist.

Billionaire Barry Sternlicht is even more pessimistic.

He just told CNBC that he believes that the Fed’s policies will cause a “major crash” in the housing market, and he is also warning that we could soon find ourselves in a “serious recession”…

“The economy is braking hard,” the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.

“If the Fed keeps this up they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs,” he added.

Sadly, he is right on target.

Even if the Federal Reserve stopped raising rates right here, we would still have a real nightmare on our hands.

But the Fed isn’t going to stop.

Fed officials have repeatedly told us that they are going to keep raising rates until inflation is under control, and that could take quite a while.

In fact, we are being warned that next week we could potentially see “the biggest Fed rate hike in 40 years”, and that would really shake up the financial markets.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?

If you are selling a home, I would recommend trying to sell it as rapidly as you can while home prices are still ridiculously high.

If you are looking to buy a home, I would recommend waiting until home prices come down quite a bit.

And something that we can all do is to prepare for the “serious recession” that Billionaire Barry Sternlicht says could be coming.

During the crisis of 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Without any income coming in, all of a sudden a lot of those people couldn’t pay their bills and many formerly middle class Americans also ended up losing their homes.

You don’t want to suffer the same fate.

So I have been encouraging my readers for a very long time to build up a sizable emergency fund.

A large emergency fund will allow you to continue paying your bills no matter what comes along.

And it will also keep you from losing your home.

In addition, I would encourage everyone not to take on additional debt at this time.

When hard times come, you will want your finances to be as “lean and mean” as possible.

Now is not a time to party.

Now is a time to batten down the hatches financially.

Very rough weather is headed our way, and everyone can see it coming.

The wise will prepare in advance, but those that are foolish will do nothing because they assume that our leaders have everything under control.

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

Violence In California Reaches “Epidemic” Levels As Our Society Rapidly Deteriorates All Around Us

September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 by Michael

I can’t understand why anyone would still want to live in California. Yes, there are lots of high paying jobs and the weather is very nice, but crime is completely and utterly out of control. As you will see below, a new report that has just been issued is warning that violence in the state has now reached “epidemic” levels. The police are doing what they can to try to contain the violence, but at this point they are vastly outnumbered by the predators. Sadly, this is the end result of literally decades of cultural rot, and what is happening in California is going to happen to the rest of the nation if we do not take urgent action to turn things around.

Originally, I was going to write about something else today. Tens of thousands of rail and port workers are threatening to go on strike, and this could definitely cause some substantial economic disruptions…

America is bracing for chaos as tens of thousands of railway, port, and hospital workers look set to strike over the winter – plunging the country into further disruption.

As many as 60,000 railway workers, 15,000 nurses, and 22,000 West Coast port workers are plotting mass walkouts as they seek better working conditions.

Several US freight railroads said they were preparing for widespread strike and service interruptions Friday, a deadline set by two holdout labor groups in protracted talks with railroad carriers about better benefits.

But even though these strikes could cause severe short-term problems, they will eventually be resolved.

So in the greater scheme of things, they really aren’t a major concern.

On the other hand, our cultural decay is a massive ongoing crisis that isn’t going to go away.

As I mentioned earlier, a brand new report that was just released is warning that violence in the state of California has risen to “epidemic” levels…

The Golden State is losing its luster. A troubling new report labels physical and sexual violence in pandemic-era California a statewide “epidemic.” To put it simply, violence is on an alarming rise.

According to the new annual report from the California Study on Violence Experiences across the Lifespan (CalVEX), violence statistics have seen a significant increase since COVID-19 emerged. The report, conducted by scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, reports more than one in six Californians (18%) experienced either physical or sexual violence in just the past year.

If you live in one of the biggest cities in California, this isn’t news to you.

Once upon a time, the state was a place of great beauty and great tranquility, but now it has been transformed into a crime-infested hellhole.

I was particularly alarmed by the numbers on sexual violence in this new report…

While more than 1.5 million adults in California admit to committing acts of sexual violence in the past year, men were more than two times as likely as women to report that they perpetrated sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

Women also showed greater mental health impacts and life disruptions due to violent experiences, with 82 percent of women reporting anxiety or depression as a result of physically aggressive, coercive or forced sexual behavior.

Of course much of this violence is being fueled by illegal mind-altering drugs.

Some of these drugs are so immensely powerful that they literally put people into catatonic states for an extended period of time…

Can anyone explain to me why Democrat voters enjoy seeing this so much they just keep voting for more? pic.twitter.com/hq4unJn0S8

— 🗽🐷Piglosi’s Peaks🗻🐘 (@StokingFreedom) September 13, 2022

I will never understand why people would willingly do that to themselves.

Today, we are facing the biggest drug crisis that we have ever seen in American history, and addicts will often do whatever it takes to get another fix.

Sadly, this is one of the factors that is contributing to skyrocketing rates of shoplifting all over the nation…

We are all painfully aware of the huge rise in shoplifting and even violent robberies of stores. We watch the videos of thugs brazenly raiding stores, and read about the organized crime rings that have sprung up to profit from the trend. Shoplifting has become a big, if criminal business. Chances are that if you use eBay to purchase a wide range of products at reduced prices you have unwittingly purchased stolen goods. No good way for eBay to stop the practice.

One homeless man that originally came from Alabama recently admitted that he regularly shoplifts in order to fund his heroin use…

People say high rent causes homelessness but Ben, who has been homeless in San Francisco for 7 years, says the “vast majority” are homeless due to addiction. Just 6-7% are from SF. Ben says he “boosts” (shoplifts) and breaks into cars to pay for his $60/day heroin habit. pic.twitter.com/uewKTtBuOS

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 6, 2022

There have been homeless addicts in the streets of San Francisco for years, but now we have reached a point where they are seemingly everywhere.

The following is what one reporter witnessed during a recent journey through the city…

I saw complete hopelessness in the eyes of haunted souls dragging themselves down the street looking for their next fix.

I saw men and women of all ages hunched over on the sidewalks with open wounds all over their bodies.

I saw the filthy tent cities stinking with human excrement and strewn with needles and pipes.

I saw children staring in horror at people dying right in front of them.

At one time, such activity was limited to the bad portions of the city.

But now addicts that have been drugged out of their minds are pulling down their pants and crapping in the streets right in front of some of the most expensive real estate in San Francisco.

This has made the wealthy people really angry, and Mayor Breed says that she is finally going to “get serious” about this crisis.

Of course “getting serious” doesn’t mean arresting a bunch of people and throwing them into prison.

That just wouldn’t be very “progressive”.

Instead, authorities in San Francisco are getting ready to launch a “soft-touch” program that will seek to “interrupt” drug trafficking…

City supervisors released a resolution for a vague ‘soft-touch’ initiative called ‘San Francisco Recovers.’

And here’s the catch, and it’s a doozy: the plan is being touted as, ‘a way that nobody’s going to jail but we’re doing an effective job of interrupting the drug market and drug scenes.’

Is this a sick joke?

Yes, it certainly sounds like a sick joke to me.

Good luck with all that.

If major cities such as San Francisco actually want to have a chance of turning things around, they need to send the police out to round up all the drug dealers.

Unfortunately, police forces in many of our biggest cities are rapidly getting smaller.

In fact, a whopping 122 officers have left the Seattle Police Department in 2022 alone…

The liberal city of Seattle is losing police officers amid a major spike in crime, 770 KTTH reported.

“We’re screwed,” former King County Sheriff John Urqhart said, according to 770 KTTH.

In total, 122 officers have left the Seattle Police Department in 2022, including six that left in August, 770 KTTH reported, citing a police source. Since the city council voted to defund the police department in 2020, nearly 500 police officers have left the force.

I wouldn’t want to be a police officer in a major west coast city at this point either.

They are underpaid, the politicians treat them with tremendous disdain, and they are often hindered by absolutely ridiculous regulations which keep them from doing their jobs effectively.

We like to think that we are so “advanced”, but the truth is that if you compare video footage from major cities on the west coast from decades ago to video footage from today there is absolutely no comparison.

Our society is melting down right in front of our eyes, and if we stay on the path that we are currently on there is no future for our country.

But the politicians insist that people like me have it all wrong.

They continue to tell us that things are better than ever and that a glorious future for our nation is dead ahead.

You can believe that if you want, but the truth of what is really happening to our society is on display for the whole world to see.

America is dying, and we are quickly running out of time to turn things around.

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

Just Like In September 2008, Many Investors Fear That A Dangerous Chain Reaction Is Starting On Wall Street

September 13, 2022September 13, 2022 by Michael

Do you remember the panic that swept through Wall Street in September 2008? Well, a lot of people believe that it is starting to happen again. And once selling starts to spiral out of control, it is going to be incredibly difficult to stop. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,276 points. That was the seventh biggest single day decline in history, and on a point basis it was actually larger than anything that we witnessed back in 2008. Investors were bitterly disappointed by the monthly inflation report, because it showed that everything that the Fed has done so far has not worked. It appears to be inevitable that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates in a desperate attempt to get inflation under control, and that has put Wall Street in a very sour mood.

The widespread selling that we saw on Tuesday was more than just a little bit frightening. The Dow just kept plunging throughout the day, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq actually performed even worse than the Dow did…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1,276.37 points, or 3.94%, to close at 31,104.97. The S&P 500 dropped 4.32% to 3,932.69, and the Nasdaq Composite sank 5.16% to end the day at 11,633.57.

Just five stocks in the S&P 500 finished in positive territory. Tech stocks were hit particularly hard, with Facebook-parent Meta skidding 9.4% and chip giant Nvidia shedding 9.5%.

This was the worst day for stocks since the early days of the pandemic.

But one bad day does not make a crisis.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

But when you compare the current behavior of the stock market to how it behaved just prior to the crash of 2008, the similarities are astounding.

If you doubt this, just check out this chart.

It certainly isn’t going to take much to spark a massive rush for the exits. If a bad inflation number can cause the sort of stampede that we witnessed on Tuesday, what would happen if we received some really bad news?

Not that I am downplaying the severity of the inflation report. Consumer prices have now been going up for 27 months in a row, and what is happening to food is especially alarming…

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that prices on all items in the United States increased by 8.3 percent from August of 2021 to August of 2022, with the price of gasoline rising 25.6 percent, the price of electricity rising 15.8 percent and the price of food rising 11.4 percent.

The report indicated that the 11.4 percent year-to-year increase in the price of food was the highest in 43 years.

If you have been to the supermarket lately, you already know that food prices have risen to very painful levels.

And some of our most important staples such as milk, flour and eggs are leading the way…

Americans browsing the supermarket aisle will notice most food items are far more expensive than they were a year ago. Egg prices soared 39.8%, while flour got 23.3% more expensive. Milk rose 17% and the price of bread jumped 16.2%.

Meat and poultry also grew costlier. Chicken prices jumped 16.6%, while meats rose 6.7% and pork increased 6.8%. Fruits and vegetables together are up 9.4%.

The “experts” at the Fed don’t seem to understand that hiking interest rates won’t fix this.

We are in the early stages of a historic global food crisis that is going to be with us for a long time to come. The biggest reason why food prices are increasing so aggressively is because there simply isn’t enough supply.

So the Fed can try to hammer demand as much as it wants, but people are still going to have to buy food and hiking interest rates is not going to help us produce any additional food.

If anything, higher rates may put a damper on food production.

This is a totally different environment from the early 1980s, and those that believe that higher rates will tame inflation like they did back then are just being delusional.

But just like we saw back in 2008, higher rates will crush the U.S. housing market and the economy as a whole.

During a recent interview, billionaire John Catsimatidis asked the Federal Reserve to stop raising rates because if we stay on the path that we are on it will “destroy the rest of the country”…

So I call upon the Federal Reserve…If we keep raising interest rates, we’re going to destroy the rest of the country.

Somebody has to stand up and say it doesn’t have to happen. And they’re going to destroy the rest of the country. And there is a recession, it could turn into a depression.

Are you willing to go through an economic depression just to get the inflation rate back down to acceptable levels?

If not, that is too bad, because the Federal Reserve is not accountable to you.

And we are already starting to see signs that higher rates are having a really negative impact on hiring plans…

Based on the latest data from U.S. small businesses (SMBs), the demand for labor has declined again, with nearly two out of every three (63%) putting their hiring on hold because they can’t afford to add staff, and 10% of that group is laying off workers.

This decline is quite significant, as it’s 18% higher than it was in July (at just 45%). Beyond that, the percentage reducing their staff jumped 6% to 10% this month from just 4% in July.

Just like in 2008, vast numbers of Americans will lose their jobs in the months ahead.

Are you sure that your job is secure?

Economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating all around us, and our short-term problems could get a whole lot worse if 100,000 railroad workers decide to initiate a work stoppage on Friday…

President Biden and senior administration officials are working with others in the transportation industry, including truckers, shippers, and air freight, for “contingency plans” if a rail shutdown materializes at the end of the week, a White House official told Bloomberg.

The administration is trying to understand what supply chains could be disrupted the most — and how to utilize other forms of transportation to ensure commodities and consumer goods continue to flow across the country.

More than 100,000 railroad workers could walk off the job on Friday if freight-rail companies and unions don’t reach labor agreements.

Let us hope that such a work stoppage can be avoided.

But even if it can, there is no short-term hope on the horizon.

Our current crop of leaders is the worst in all of U.S. history, and they have us on a path that leads to national economic suicide.

So many of us have been pleading with Fed officials to stop raising rates, because higher rates will absolutely cripple our economy.

Unfortunately, they don’t really care what any of us think, and they have made it quite clear that more extremely foolish rate hikes are dead ahead.

I would encourage you to brace yourself for a full-blown national economic meltdown, because that is precisely where the Fed’s policies will take us.

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

Over The Past Week We Have Gotten Several Steps Closer To A Nuclear War With Russia

September 12, 2022September 12, 2022 by Michael

I am so horrified by what is going on in Ukraine right now. The world desperately needs peace in Ukraine, but instead both sides are going for the throat. The Russians and the western powers are both absolutely determined to win in Ukraine, and so now we are witnessing a very dangerous game of “chicken” that could ultimately lead to nuclear conflict. Western leaders seem quite sure that the Russians are bluffing and that there is no possibility that they would actually use nukes if backed into a corner. Meanwhile, Russian leaders seem to believe that there is a limit as to how far NATO powers will go to support Ukraine. But what if both sides are wrong?

A series of miscalculations led up to this war, and another miscalculation scuttled a peace agreement that the Russians were ready to agree to back in April…

Most Americans are unaware how close Russia and Ukraine came to ending the current war in April.

Last March 27, Ukraine president Zelensky told his people “Our goal is obvious – peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible.”

He was hinting at what went unsaid: Ukraine and Russia, brokered by NATO member Turkey, reached a tentative fifteen-point peace plan to end the month old war.

Key points were Russia withdraw from all Ukraine except for breakaway Donbas and Crimea. Ukraine would pass on future NATO membership, pledging neutrality between Russia and NATO. Donbas and Crimea would undergo political transition based on self-determination to be recognized by both combatants. Ukraine security would be guaranteed by neighboring countries but no foreign troops would enter Ukraine.

The Biden administration and the other western powers convinced Ukraine to reject the agreement.

They wanted this war and they thought that they could win it.

For months things looked quite grim. The Russians were steadily taking territory and the number of Ukrainian dead bodies just kept piling up.

But now the Ukrainians have suddenly found a huge source of new manpower, and they have launched a stunning counter-offensive that has successfully taken a tremendous amount of territory that the Russians had previously captured…

The Ukraine military’s stunning offensive gained momentum Monday, reclaiming several more northeastern villages and forcing the retreat of overwhelmed Russian troops from the region.

A Russian-installed official in the Kharkiv region said Ukrainian forces outnumbered Russian troops by 8-to-1 and had broken through to the Russian border. Vitaly Ganchev told the state-owned Rossiya-24 television channel on Monday “the situation is becoming more difficult by the hour.”

After suffering such staggering losses over the course of the war, how could the Ukrainians suddenly find enough bodies to outnumber the Russians by 8 to 1 in that area of the front?

Some Russian pundits are claiming that this new counter-offensive is being led by “Western mercenaries”…

The Rossiya-24 news channel on Monday interviewed Vitaly Ganchev, a Russian-appointed official in the Kharkiv region, who said that Russian troops in the province had been outnumbered “eight times over.” He also said, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian forces had been bolstered by “Western mercenaries”.

And right now social media is filled with videos of fighters that are involved in the counter-offensive that appear to have very strong American accents…

more and more videos of foreign fighters in the kharkov counteroffensive coming out. it seems that the reports that a significant amount of mercs were used as the tip of the spear there were mostly true pic.twitter.com/zjQMJc8sQV

— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) September 12, 2022

From the very beginning of the war, there have always been some western fighters in Ukraine.

But now there seems to be tens of thousands of them.

Certain Russian sources have been alleging that special operations units from the U.S., the UK and other NATO powers are at the tip of the spear of this new counter-offensive.

Of course western leaders would completely deny this.

So the truth is that we don’t really know what is going on.

But what we do know is that Ukraine suddenly has large numbers of highly trained and highly competent soldiers that are giving the Russians all they can handle.

If military units from western powers have been secretly deployed in Ukraine, that would represent a massive escalation.

In response to the counter-offensive, the Russians have hit power plants all over Ukraine with cruise missiles…

A shocking new video is believed to show a massive explosion at a Ukrainian power plant after a Russian missile strike which plunged the region into darkness.

The video shows the blast at Kharkiv’s CHPP-5 power plant, which is followed by a devastating shockwave that ripples out in all directions, rattling the house the person filming is standing in.

Other videos show strikes on several power stations, which collectively shut off power to almost one third of Ukraine.

Up to this point in the war, the Russians had avoided going after critical civilian infrastructure such as power plants.

These strikes also represent a massive escalation.

Following the attacks on Ukrainian power plants, all of a sudden Azerbaijan started shelling Armenia…

Large clashes broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces along the border between the two countries on Monday night, according to Azerbaijani and Armenian Defense Ministries.

Azerbaijani artillery and UAVs reportedly targeted sites in Vardenis, Goris, Sotk and Jermuk in eastern Armenia.

I am convinced that Azerbaijan was encouraged by the Biden administration to do this.

Russia is committed to protecting Armenia, and if this conflict were to flare up it would force the Russians to divert resources from Ukraine.

🔥🇦🇿🇦🇲Azerbaijani resources publish footage of a missile salvo on the territory of Armenia. It is not yet possible to confirm the authenticity of the video. pic.twitter.com/8awBHPnrJ7

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZmilitary1) September 12, 2022

Both sides just keep escalating matters, thinking that the other side will eventually be forced to back down.

But what if that never happens?

Numerous top U.S. politicians have publicly stated that the only acceptable end to the war is the full liberation of Ukraine.

And Russian politicians are saying similar things. For example, Dmitry Medvedev just said that “the total surrender of the Kyiv regime on Russia’s terms” is the goal…

A former president and prime minister of Russia on Monday dismissed reports of Ukrainian gains and warned the Kremlin might ultimately demand “total surrender” of the Kyiv regime. Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of his nation’s Security Council, alluded to Zelenskyy’s refusal to conduct a dialogue “with those who put forward ultimatums.”

“The current ‘ultimatums’ are a warm-up for kids, a preview of demands to be made in the future,” Medvedev said. “He (Zelenskyy) knows them: the total surrender of the Kyiv regime on Russia’s terms.”

Why does it have to be this way?

Both sides are determined to go down a road that could very easily lead to nuclear war.

This is madness.

Why can’t both sides sit down and come up with a peace agreement that is similar to what was almost agreed to back in April?

Countless lives would be spared and it would be a tremendous boon to the global economy.

Unfortunately, such a peace agreement is not going to happen.

Both sides are now completely obsessed with victory, and so we continue to march ever closer to a cataclysmic nuclear showdown.

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

The Stage Is Being Set For A Massive Global Rice Shortage

September 11, 2022September 11, 2022 by Michael

This wasn’t supposed to happen. For months, I have been writing article after article about the rapidly growing global food crisis, but even though drought is devastating so many other crops all over the planet I thought that there would be plenty of rice in 2023. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As you will see below, some of the biggest rice producers in the entire world are being hit really hard, and rice production is going to be way below expectations this year. Of course rice is one of the primary staples that poor nations depend upon, and so this is a really big deal. If there is a serious shortage of rice in 2023, that is going to have enormous implications for all of us.

An announcement that India just made should be front page news all over the globe right now.

India usually accounts for over 40 percent of all worldwide rice shipments, but now they have placed severe restrictions on all future exports this year…

India banned exports of broken rice and imposed a 20% duty on exports of various grades of rice on Thursday as the world’s biggest exporter of the grain tries to augment supplies and calm local prices after below-average monsoon rainfall curtailed planting.

India exports rice to more than 150 countries, and any reduction in its shipments would increase upward pressure on food prices, which are already rising because of drought, heat-waves and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Did you catch that last sentence?

150 different nations depend on rice from India.

So where are they going to get their rice?

Normally, India exports more rice than the next four largest exporters combined…

India’s rice exports touched a record 21.5 million tons in 2021, more than the combined shipments of the world’s next four biggest exporters of the grain: Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and the United States.

Europe certainly isn’t going to make up the difference.

Italy is the biggest rice producer in the European Union, and it is being projected that rice production in that nation will be down about 30 percent this year due to the endless drought that Europe is currently experiencing…

The unfavorable weather has already taken a serious toll on the rice industry. Estimates say farmers are expecting to lose around 30 percent of their yields this year, and the industry has already hemorrhaged around $3 billion as a result of the drought. Many of the most stricken fields are in the regions of Lombardy and Piedmont, which together produce around 90 percent of Italy’s rice.

Rice production is going to be way down in the United States as well.

California usually produces about 20 percent of all U.S. rice, but this year a severe lack of water for agricultural purposes is making things exceedingly difficult for rice growers in the state…

Rice farmers in Colusa County, 60 miles north of Sacramento, received 18% of the federal water shipments to which they are entitled, far less than normal and too little for many to grow the crop at all.

“Even in a drought, rice farmers have been able to get a fairly high percentage of the water they had rights to,” said Tim Johnson, chief executive of the California Rice Commission. “Now they are experiencing drought at a level they’ve never seen before.”

What we are witnessing is truly unprecedented.

I know that this may be hard to believe, but it is being reported that “about 300,000 out of the 550,000 acres committed to rice growing in California will go without harvest” in 2022. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

New satellite imagery shows a large swath of California’s rice fields has been left barren without harvest as fears of a ‘mini dust bowl’ emerge due to diminishing water supplies.

Kurt Richter, a third-generation rice farmer in Colusa, the rice capital of California, told San Francisco Chronicle that fields upon fields of the grain have already transformed into a “wasteland.”

A report via the US Department of Agriculture shows about 300,000 out of the 550,000 acres committed to rice growing in California will go without harvest. This could potentially drive up sushi prices nationwide because most of the rice produced in the state is for just that.

Of course many other crops are being hit extremely hard as well.

California normally produces approximately a third of our vegetables and about two-thirds of our fruits and nuts, and the lack of production this year is already starting to show up on our store shelves…

High temperatures in the Western U.S. are hitting the produce industry, damaging crops, shrinking shipments, and leaving fewer leafy greens and fruits on supermarket shelves.

A California grower said some of his lettuce leaves are turning brown and melting in the fields because of crop diseases intensified by the high temperatures. In Pennsylvania, a retailer said its stores went a week without having strawberries to sell. A New York distributor has substituted honeydew melons for watermelons, which have become scarce.

Supermarkets say they are giving less shelf space to products with weather-induced discolorations, bruises or burns. Stores are cutting prices on poor-quality items to avoid getting stuck with them, and increasingly receiving products from Canada, Florida, New Jersey and Ohio instead of California, long the go-to source for U.S. grocers.

This crisis is only going to get worse in the months ahead.

I have been encouraging my readers to get prepared for a very long time, and I hope that you have taken that advice.

All over the planet, agricultural production is going to be way below original projections this year. For example, just check out what is happening to olive oil production in Spain…

In July, temperatures broke records to top 40 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. By early August, sweltering heat and a lack of rainfall had pushed almost two-thirds of land in the European Union into drought conditions, according to the European Drought Observatory.

Olive oil producers have been hit hard. Kyle Holland, a pricing analyst for oilseeds and grains at Mintec, a commodities data company, expects a “dramatic reduction” of between 33% and 38% in Spain’s olive oil harvest that begins in October.

Spain is the world’s biggest producer of olive oil, accounting for more than two-fifths of global supply last year, according to the International Olive Council. Greece, Italy and Portugal are also major producers.

For a lot more data points on the rapidly growing global food crisis, please see my previous article entitled “A List Of 33 Things We Know About The Coming Food Shortages”.

None of us have ever faced anything like this.

The food that will not be harvested in the months ahead will not be on our store shelves in 2023.

Food prices are going to rise to absolutely ridiculous levels, and the head of the UN is already warning of “multiple famines” next year.

This is not a drill. Food shortages really are coming, and our world will be changing in wild and unpredictable ways.

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

+ More