Money

Now Even The Elite Are Openly Admitting That America Is Facing An Absolutely Enormous Economic Crisis

June 1, 2022 by Michael

Not too long ago, the elite were trying to put a happy face on our growing economic problems. It was obvious that things were trending in a very alarming direction, but they kept assuring us that any bumps in the road were just temporary and that a new golden age of prosperity was just around the corner. Needless to say, there were dead wrong, and now some of them are publicly admitting the truth. For example, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon just publicly stated that an economic “hurricane” is rapidly approaching…

Jamie Dimon is no meteorologist, but the JPMorgan Chase CEO is predicting an economic “hurricane” caused by the war in Ukraine, rising inflation pressures and interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

“Right now it’s kind of sunny, things are doing fine. Everyone thinks the Fed can handle this,” Dimon said at a Bernstein conference. “That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way.”

JPMorgan Chase is one of the most important financial institutions in the entire world.

So it is a really big thing for Dimon to make a statement like this.

Of course he is right on target. An economic hurricane is coming, and it is going to be far more horrible than most Americans could possibly imagine right now.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also just said something that is making a lot of headlines.

Last year she insisted that high inflation would just be “transitory”, but now she is openly admitting that she “was wrong”…

“I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy […] that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand.”

.@SecYellen on inflation being transitory: “I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy […] that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand.” https://t.co/AlrXn4kT0r pic.twitter.com/9tqxo0iA3B

— The Hill (@thehill) June 1, 2022

It isn’t exactly a surprise that she turned out to be completely wrong about high inflation being transitory.

We knew that she was wrong when she said it.

But I will give her credit for publicly admitting a mistake. Many in Washington will never do such a thing under any circumstances.

At this point, it should be obvious to everyone that we are in the midst of an absolutely horrifying inflation crisis.

On Wednesday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States jumped another nickel to $4.67. But the real story is the crazy prices that we are starting to see out on the west coast. For instance, one gas station in Los Angeles is now charging more than 8 dollars a gallon for regular gasoline…

A Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles on the corner of Alameda Street and Cesar E. Chavez Avenue is charging customers over $8 for regular gasoline causing some locals to complain about price gouging, KTTV Los Angeles reported on Tuesday.

In a statement to KTTV, Chevron pointed out that the majority of its California branded stations are independently owned and that “unique” factors are contributing to gas prices in the Golden State.

How soon will we see someone break the 10 dollar a gallon threshold?

Will it be by the end of the summer?

In some cities, the price of a gallon of gasoline is already higher than the hourly minimum wage.

That is nuts!

Of course diesel prices have been rising even faster, and this is putting a tremendous amount of financial strain on America’s farmers. If you doubt this, just check out what Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller just told Maria Bartiromo…

When Bartiromo noted “filling a tractor daily now costs farmers $1,000 – twice what it was a year ago,” Miller responded, “it’s through the roof, but it’s not just diesel.”

“It’s fertilizer prices. It’s parts. We can’t get new tractors, new combines. We can’t get new tillage equipment,” he stressed. “So we have to keep running our older equipment, which we can’t get parts for. And so it’s just a whole comedy of errors, and it just multiplies on top of itself.”

When costs go up for farmers, they inevitably get passed on to consumers.

And we have already been seeing food prices spike dramatically. Just check out these numbers from April…

Food grains—including corn and wheat—were up 2.8 percent for the month and 45 percent compared with a year ago. Feed grain prices increased 7.8 percent from the prior month and 33 percent from a year ago.

The poultry and egg index jumped 22 percent from March and 94 percent from a year earlier. The April market egg price, at $2.21 per dozen, is 81.0 cents higher than March and $1.64 higher than April 2021. The price of chickens raised for meat, at $1.05 per pound, is 15.3 cents higher than March and 49.7 cents higher than a year ago. At 95.3 cents per pound, the April turkey price is 2.5 cents higher than the previous month and 18.5 cents higher than April 2021.

Milk prices climbed 4.12 percent in April and are up 47 percent compared with a year earlier.

In the entire history of our nation, we have never seen anything like this.

But as I keep warning my readers, this is just the beginning.

In fact, one prominent Texas farmer is warning that food prices “are going to double”…

“People don’t realize what’s fixing to hit them,” said Texas farmer Lynn “Bugsy” Allen.

“They think it’s tough right now, you give it until October. Food prices are going to double.”

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine what it will do to our country if food prices double from their already extremely inflated levels?

People will go absolutely bananas.

But this is exactly the type of scenario that I have been warning about for years.

Eventually, food will become such a prime target for thieves that we will actually see armed guards escorting grocery store delivery trucks.

And civil unrest will erupt all over the planet as millions upon millions of poor people get hungrier and hungrier.

Unfortunately, even though so many are now sounding the alarm, the vast majority of the population still has no idea what is coming our way.

***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.

Are You Upset About Inflation? If So, You Aren’t Alone.

May 31, 2022 by Michael

All of a sudden, just about everyone is upset about inflation. It would have been nice if everyone would have been this upset back when our leaders were making the exceedingly foolish decisions that resulted in this crisis. In May 2012, the federal government was 15 trillion dollars in debt. Now we are 30 trillion dollars in debt, but our politicians continue to spend money as if tomorrow will never come. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars that they created out of thin air into the financial system in recent years. For a very long time, I passionately denounced what our leaders were doing, because I knew what would happen. Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and millions upon millions of Americans are absolutely desperate for things to return to normal. Unfortunately, that simply is not going to happen.

In May 2020, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was less than two dollars.

Today, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached a brand new record high of $4.62, and we are being warned that it could soon go to “$5 a gallon or more”…

The national average for unleaded gas hit another new high of $4.62 per gallon Tuesday, according to AAA data. Prices are up more than 50% compared with last year.

Analysts say gasoline prices usually peak by mid-May, but this year prices at the pump could continue to rise into July and reach about $5 a gallon or more.

Most of the time, the vast majority of the population doesn’t pay much attention to economics.

But this is where the rubber meets the road, and two recent polls show very clearly that Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated…

An NBC News poll released earlier this month found that 33 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 23 percent approve of his handling of the cost of living.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll in early May found that more than 9 in 10 Americans are concerned, at a minimum, about the rate of inflation, which has been at a 40-year high for months. That included 44 percent who say they are “upset” about the problem.

In addition, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index has now fallen to the lowest reading that we have seen since the end of the Great Recession…

Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index measured -45 in May, down from -39 in each of the previous two months. It is the lowest reading in Gallup’s trend during the coronavirus pandemic, and likely the lowest confidence has been since the tail end of the Great Recession in early 2009.

When things go bad, who are people going to blame?

More than anyone else, people are going to blame the guy in the White House.

And right now the Biden administration is absolutely desperate “to contain the political damage caused by inflation”…

The White House launched a new push Tuesday to contain the political damage caused by inflation after President Biden complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades.

Aiming to demonstrate to the public that it is responding to its concerns, Biden met with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in the Oval Office, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about inflation and sent top aides across major networks to push the administration’s economic message.

What is Biden’s “economic message” exactly?

I have been sitting here pondering that question, and I honestly cannot answer it.

Every day, the story seems to change. A while back, Biden promised to do all that he could to lower gasoline prices, and he foolishly released a million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

That didn’t work.

So what now?

One insider told Politico that high gasoline prices are “a really difficult issue to message around”, because “you can’t deny the reality”…

The White House’s focus on gas prices is bred from two sobering political conclusions top officials have made. The first is that they have little control over the problem. The second is that as prices rise at the pump, so do Democrats’ odds of a midterm wipeout — especially as the average U.S. gallon of gas hits fresh record highs.

“There really isn’t one silver bullet,” said one person familiar with the discussions. “It’s a really difficult issue to message around when you can’t deny the reality.”

If Joe Biden asked me what he should do in order to reduce gasoline prices, the first thing I would say would be to stop doing things that are counterproductive. The following comes from a recent editorial by Marc A. Thiessen…

If the Biden administration cared about high gas prices, they would be doing everything in their power to increase domestic production. After a federal judge invalidated an offshore oil and gas lease sale in January, the administration chose not to appeal and has since canceled three transactions in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska — taking millions of acres off the auction block. The Post called the move “a victory for climate activists intent on curbing U.S. fossil fuel leasing,” which “effectively ends the possibility of the federal government holding a lease sale in coastal waters this year.” Worse, the administration is about to let the nationwide offshore drilling program expire next month without a new plan in place.

Moving forward, we need to remove mountains of regulations that have made it extremely difficult to build and operate new refineries in the United States.

And we need far more exploration and far more drilling as soon as possible.

Of course the truth is that this isn’t just a U.S. problem.

Energy prices are out of control all over the world, and they are actually much higher in Europe than they are here.

In fact, soaring energy prices are a big reason why inflation in the European Union just hit a brand new record high…

Following Germany’s post-Weimar record high inflation print, the European Union’s consumer price inflation data this morning surged to a record high at +8.1% YoY (notably hotter than the +7.8% YoY expected).

Most Americans don’t realize this, but Europe is actually much closer to a full-blown economic meltdown than we are.

I expect the euro to fall below parity with the dollar in the not too distant future.

And I expect a nightmarish energy crunch in Europe as supplies from Russia are restricted or cut off completely. Unless something changes, next winter is going to be a really challenging time for many European nations.

We have entered the worst energy crisis in modern history, but what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

Much worse is ahead, and the American people will become increasingly frustrated as prices just keep going higher and higher.

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

“Accidental Fires” Continue To Happen At Food Processing Facilities All Over The United States

May 30, 2022 by Michael

We are supposed to believe that what we are witnessing is just one “tragic accident” after another. We aren’t supposed to see any sort of a pattern, and we aren’t supposed to ask any questions. Last month, I wrote an article about 16 mysterious fires that have happened at important food industry facilities in the United States since the start of 2022. Unfortunately, this trend has continued since that time. In fact, there have been more “accidental fires” in recent days, and I believe that the American people deserve some answers.

On Saturday night, a “massive” fire erupted at a commercial egg farm in Minnesota.

We are being told that the structure that burned down contained “tens of thousands of chickens”…

Massive flames burned down a barn with tens of thousands of chickens in Wright County.

The fire started late Saturday night at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, causing major damage.

Like so many of the other mysterious fires that I have reported on, this fire grew to an absolutely enormous size very, very rapidly…

The Trebesch family thought they would spend Saturday night around their bonfire, but just after 10 p.m. they noticed massive flames across the field at Forsman Farms.

“It was unbelievable how quick it grew, it was insane,” Andy Trebesch said. “It was the whole sky, it was quite large.”

We are being told that there was no foul play.

Just another senseless accident.

Nothing to see here.

Of course the same explanation is being given for a “dramatic fireball” that burned a grain silo to the ground in Washington state just a few days ago…

A spectacular fire demolished M & E Seed and Grain Co. in Prosser and left one person with burns.

A smoldering pile of twisted metal and charred lumber was all that remained Thursday morning after firefighters battled the blaze in downtown Prosser all night.

A few firefighters remained at the scene to monitor the fire.

They are assuring us that this sort of thing happens all the time.

So don’t try to apply common sense to any of this, because that will just confuse you.

A few days before that tragedy in Washington state, 43 rail cars that were carrying much needed potash derailed in Alberta…

About 43 westbound Canadian Pacific (CP) Rail cars carrying potash derailed northeast of Fort Macleod, Alta., Sunday morning, RCMP say.

At 8:15 a.m., Mounties responded to a train derailment between Range Roads 251 and 252, near Highway 3. Fire crews and CP Rail also came to the scene, according to police.

So what are Canadian authorities telling us about this incident?

You guessed it!

Apparently it was just another “accident”.

🚨#BREAKING: Massive train derailment in Alberta Canada

📌#Alberta l #Canada
⁰Authorities in Alberta Canada are at the scene and currently underway cleaning up after a massive train derailment with 43 CP Rail train cars carrying potash detailed no injuries were reported pic.twitter.com/fVqXEqWCdd

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) May 23, 2022

People sure are getting careless these days, because “accidents” just keep happening time after time after time.

And all of this is taking place at a moment in history when we are being told that we are about to enter an absolutely horrifying global food crisis.

During recent testimony in front of the UN Security Council, the CEO of Gro Intelligence warned that “the lowest grain inventory levels the world has ever seen” are getting even lower…

Menker said estimates from official government agencies from across the world show that wheat inventories at 33% of annual consumption, but added that models created by Gro Intelligence show that the figure may actually be closer to 20%, a level not seen since 2007 and 2008.

“It is important to note that the lowest grain inventory levels the world has ever seen are now occurring while access to fertilizers is highly constrained,” she said. “And drought in wheat growing regions around the world is the most extreme it’s been in over 20 years. Similar inventory concerns also apply to corn and other grains.”

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

As I noted yesterday, we are being told that one-fifth of the entire population of the globe could soon descend into poverty and hunger…

For months, the specter of a global hunger crisis has been looming. The war in Ukraine is a compounding factor, blocking key value chains for food and fertilizer just as the world reckons with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global hunger.

Add the pervasive effects of climate change to the mix, and the result is what the United Nations is calling a “perfect storm” that risks one-fifth of the global population – as many as 1.7 billion people – falling into poverty and hunger.

I am not the one saying that one-fifth of the global population is heading into poverty and hunger.

It is the United Nations that is saying this.

Of course it is quite true that I have been warning that a “global famine” was coming for a very long time, and now it is here.

David Beasley, the head of the UN World Food Program, says that his organization is already taking food away from the hungry to feed the starving.

So what is he going to do when countless millions are starving all over the planet?

Global trends have been pushing us in this direction for years, but now the events of 2022 have greatly accelerated the development of the “perfect storm” that we are now facing.

We are being told that things will be far worse by the end of 2022 than they are now, and you probably don’t even want to hear about what the outlook for 2023 looks like.

You can try to ignore this growing crisis if you want, but it is not going away.

A nightmare of epic proportions has begun. Unfortunately, this is a nightmare that is not going to end any time soon.

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

The Worst Energy Crisis In U.S. History Is Going To Get Even Worse In The Months Ahead

May 29, 2022May 29, 2022 by Michael

Are you ready for what is coming next? Are you ready to pay six dollars for a gallon of gasoline? Are you ready to pay much higher prices for everything at our major stores as the price of diesel goes haywire? Are you ready for widespread blackouts all over the U.S. this summer? Unfortunately, we are being warned that all of these things are coming. The worst energy crisis in U.S. history is poised to get even worse in the months ahead, and there is no “silver bullet” on the horizon which is going to magically solve our problems. The refineries that we need are not being built and the drilling that needs to be done is not really happening. Of course energy supplies are getting tighter and tighter all over the globe, and things will go to an entirely new level once the next major war starts.

Needless to say, things are bad enough already. On Sunday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States set a brand new all-time record high of $4.61 a gallon…

Gas prices in the US soared to record heights again Sunday, reaching an all-time high of $4.61 per gallon.

The number is more than 50 percent higher than the cost of a gallon a year ago. It comes as gas prices have continued to climb during Joe Biden’s presidency, and as millions of Americans are poised to travel by road for Memorial Day weekend.

A 50 percent increase in just one year.

Just think about that.

To my knowledge, we have never seen anything like this before.

If you can believe it, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 25 cents over the past six weeks.

That is crazy, but we are being warned to expect significantly higher prices “by the end of the summer”…

Experts say that number will likely surpass the $6 mark by the end of the summer – as pump costs in West Coast cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco already meeting that mark earlier this month.

I still remember when I could get 20 gallons of gas for 20 dollars.

Soon, 20 gallons of gas will cost all of us 120 dollars.

Who can afford that?

The price of diesel has been increasing at an even faster pace.

In fact, it has risen a staggering 75 percent since last Memorial Day…

Diesel prices are up as well – by a whopping 75 percent from Memorial Day last year – at around $5.50 a gallon, also an all-time record.

The rising cost of the fuel – commonly used by truckers for their rigs – has further hampered America’s embattled economy, driving up prices of good being transported cross-country by truckers, who are now electing for shorter routes due to the ‘unprecedented’ increase.

‘I can pretty much count on setting on fire $5-$700 a day…minimum,’ 22-wheel driver Eric Jammer told NPR Saturday of the rise in diesel costs seen over the past 12 months.

The trucks and trains that bring our goods to the stores run on diesel.

Diesel is only going to get more expensive from here, and America’s companies are going to pass those costs along to the consumers.

Yes, that will be quite painful.

Thanks to the soaring cost of fuel, airline fares are also shooting up dramatically…

Domestic airline fares for summer are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24 percent percent higher than this time in 2019, before the pandemic, and a full 45 percent higher than a year ago, according to travel-data firm Hopper.

One survey that was conducted just a few days ago found that approximately a third of all Americans say that their travel plans for Memorial Day were affected by high energy prices.

Joe Biden promised to do all that he could to drive down gasoline prices, and in order to try to keep that promise he foolishly took enormous amounts of fuel out of our strategic reserve.

Obviously that didn’t work, and now we are being told that Biden is running out of options…

President Joe Biden has vowed to do everything in his power to fight record-setting gasoline and diesel prices, but he’s up against a stark reality: There are few options for taming the surge.

While Biden has unleashed an unprecedented amount of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, other tools at the administration’s disposal would come at the expense of environmental protection and have little effect on fuel costs stoked by strained crude supplies and a global shortage of refining capacity. And the one sure-fire fix — for Americans to stop driving so much — is largely outside his control.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Joe Biden is not going to save us from this crisis.

In the short-term, nobody is going to save us from this crisis.

We need more refineries, we need more drilling, and ultimately we are going to need some major technological breakthroughs because the way that we are currently doing things is not even close to sustainable.

On top of everything else, our rapidly aging power grids were never designed to handle so much demand. According to CBS News, we could potentially be facing widespread outages during the summer of 2022…

In its annual summer assessment released this week, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation noted that the Upper Midwest is facing a capacity shortfall leading to a “high risk of energy emergencies.” The entire Western U.S. also could face a power outage emergency in the event of spikes in energy use.

“We’ve been doing this for close to 30 years. This is probably one of the grimmest pictures we’ve painted in a while,” John Moura, NERC’s director of reliability assessment and performance analysis, told CBS MoneyWatch.

What will you do if the power in your area goes out for an extended period of time?

We all know that California has been experiencing problems for years, but in 2022 we are being told that the middle of the nation is actually at greatest risk…

In a large swath of the grid stretching from Illinois to Minnesota, the summer’s power demands are projected to exceed the grid’s capacity. That’s because this area of the grid — known as the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO — has lost about 2% of its generation capacity since last year as plants have retired; a key transmission line is also down for maintenance.

Perhaps you think that my headline is a little too dramatic.

Perhaps you do not yet believe that we are facing the worst energy crisis in U.S. history.

If that is the case, give it a few months.

By the end of the summer, I think that everyone will understand that we truly have entered a nightmare with no end in sight.

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

It Is Worse Than We Thought

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022 by Michael

The U.S. economy is slowing down more quickly than almost all of the experts had anticipated. As I detailed yesterday, U.S. consumers have been getting hit extremely hard by this economic slowdown, and at this point most Americans believe that a recession is coming. But could it be possible that a recession has already begun? As you will see below, the numbers seem to indicate that such a scenario is quite likely. But whether we are already officially in a recession or not, the truth is that whatever we are experiencing now is nothing compared to the pain that is eventually coming down the road.

Do you remember how painful it was for our society when the first housing bubble spectacularly imploded back in 2008?

Well, it is starting to happen again. On Thursday we learned that pending home sales in the United States have now fallen for six months in a row…

Pending home sales slipped in April, as contract activity decreased for the sixth consecutive month, the National Association of Realtors® reported. Only the Midwest region saw signings increase month-over-month, while the other three major regions reported declines. Each of the four regions registered a drop in year-over-year contract activity.

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI),* www.nar.realtor/pending-home-sales, a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, slid 3.9% to 99.3 in April. Year-over-year, transactions fell 9.1%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001.

Earlier in the week, I discussed the fact that new home sales were 26.9 percent lower this April than they were last April.

We are clearly past the peak of the housing bubble, and now the rollercoaster is very rapidly headed in a downward direction.

Of course the economy as a whole is starting to head in a downward direction. On Thursday we also learned that U.S. GDP for the first quarter of 2022 had been revised even lower…

First-quarter gross domestic product declined at a 1.5% annual pace, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was worse than the 1.3% Dow Jones estimate and a write-down from the initially reported 1.4%.

Downward revisions for both private inventory and residential investment offset an upward change in consumer spending. A swelling trade deficit also subtracted from the GDP total.

Many experts are assuring us that GDP growth will bounce back into the green for the second quarter.

But it if doesn’t, that would mean that GDP has contracted for two quarters in a row, and that would officially confirm that we are in a recession right now.

Of course even if GDP does bounce back this quarter, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

In fact, a survey of 500 prominent CEOs just found that 75 percent of them expect a recession to begin by the end of next year…

At this time last year, the Fortune 500 CEOs we surveyed were breathing a collective sigh of relief as profits and revenues came roaring back from the ravages of the pandemic. This spring, that roar sounds uncomfortably loud, as companies cope with soaring inflation and the growing likelihood that sky-high prices and labor shortages will help tip the economy into recession. In all, 75% said they expected the next recession to begin by the end of 2023, though only 32% believed it would start in this calendar year.

Just about everyone can feel that economic troubles are in our future, and that will especially be true if the Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates.

Unfortunately, the Fed feels forced to raise rates because inflation has gotten wildly out of control.

If you can believe it, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has risen by 47 cents in just the past month alone…

Gas prices have increased by over 47 cents in the last month alone as the U.S. continues to smash gas price records day by day under President Joe Biden’s leadership.

On Wednesday, May 25, the U.S. recorded yet another all-time high, as the average price of gas stands at $4.599 for regular gas. This reflects an over 47 cent rise in the last month alone. One month ago, the gas price average stood at $4.123.

That is insane!

And U.S. natural gas prices have risen almost 150 percent so far in 2022…

U.S. natural gas prices have skyrocketed nearly 150% this year while inventory levels have shrunk, signaling more consumer pain ahead of the summer season.

The Henry Hub natural gas spot price, an indicator of nationwide prices, stormed past $9.30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) Thursday, up from its early January price of $3.74 per MMBtu and the highest level since 2008, according to government data.

Food prices continue to soar into unthinkable territory as well.

This week, a single trip to the grocery store cost me 309 dollars, and I was trying to be very frugal.

309 dollars!

I remember a time when you could buy a used vehicle for that kind of money.

For years, I have been warning that our leaders were destroying our currency and setting the stage for nightmarish inflation, and now that time has arrived.

And all of the borrowing and spending that our politicians have been doing has made our national long-term financial problems exponentially worse…

Over the past two years, $4.6 trillion has been provided by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact on inflation, particularly the timing of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021, is subject to some debate, but what cannot be denied is the impact this spending has had on the interest paid on the national debt. Between 2011-2018, interest on debt held by the public averaged $272 billion annually. Between 2019-2021, annual interest on the debt averaged $389 billion, an increase of $117 billion, or 43 percent. The president’s fiscal 2022 budget, which is the first to project deficits of more than $1 trillion for 10 consecutive years, estimates that FY 2022 interest on debt of $26.3 trillion will be $305 billion and reach $941 billion in FY 2031, or more than triple the amount for the current fiscal year. By that time, interest payments will account for 59 percent of the projected $1.6 trillion deficit.

We could have avoided all of this if we had taken a different path.

But we didn’t.

Instead, we kept sending the big spenders back to Washington time after time.

We thought that we could keep kicking the can down the road and get away with it, but instead we have literally destroyed America’s financial future.

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

Here Are 11 Statistics That Show How U.S. Consumers Are Faring In This Rapidly Deteriorating Economy

May 25, 2022 by Michael

Prices are soaring, there are widespread shortages of certain items such as baby formula all over the nation, and at the same time U.S. economic activity appears to be really slowing down. Considering all of that, it makes perfect sense why the American people are feeling so negative about the economy right now. In fact, a whopping 85 percent of all Americans believe that there will be a recession within the next year. These days, it is virtually impossible to get Americans to overwhelmingly agree about anything, and so the fact that 85 percent of us are anticipating a recession is a really big deal. Just about everyone realizes that economic conditions are going to get worse, but for those of you that still doubt where we are headed here are 11 statistics that show how U.S. consumers are faring in this rapidly deteriorating economy…

#1 According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll that was recently conducted, 56 percent of Americans say that their financial situations are getting worse, and only 20 percent of Americans say that their financial situations are improving.

#2 Another new survey has just discovered that 66 percent of Americans “have avoided social events because they’ve felt embarrassed or uncomfortable” about their financial situations.

#3 The housing bubble appears to be bursting. At this point, sales of new single family homes are falling at a very frightening pace…

Sales of new single-family houses in April plunged by 16.6% from March and by 26.9% from a year ago, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000 houses, the lowest since lockdown April 2020, according to the Census Bureau today. Sales of new houses are registered when contracts are signed, not when deals close, and can serve as an early indicator of the overall housing market.

#4 After breaking the all-time national record in March, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has gone 42 cents above the old record and is now sitting at $4.59.

#5 The average age of a car on U.S. roads has reached an all-time record high of 12.2 years. Many Americans continue to delay replacing their current vehicles because new vehicles have become so unaffordable.

#6 Millions of American families are struggling with rapidly rising food prices…

The index for food away from home increased 7.2% over the last year, the Labor Department reported earlier this month. Food prices were up 9.4% in April from the same time last year — the biggest jump since April 1981, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported. And grocery store prices increased 10.8% for the year ended in April.

#7 U.S. natural gas futures just crossed the nine dollar threshold – the highest level that we have seen since the financial crisis of 2008. That means that much higher energy costs are on the way for U.S. consumers.

#8 Multiple Fed surveys are showing that manufacturing activity in the U.S. is really slowing down…

The slowdown in manufacturing activity on display in reports from the Federal Reserve banks of New York and Philadelphia was confirmed by a survey from the Richmond Fed indicating that factory activity contracted in the mid-Atlantic region in May.

The Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity index dropped 23 points from a positive reading of 14 in April to a minus nine, the lowest reading since May 2020, when much of the economy was still reeling from the onset of the pandemic and lockdowns.

#9 Zero Hedge is reporting extremely depressing news about U.S. macro data: “Other than April 2020 – when the entire economy was closed – May’s serial disappointment in US Macro data is the worst since Lehman”

#10 Thanks to plunging stock prices, approximately 20 trillion dollars in household net worth has been “wiped out” so far this year.

#11 A new CBS News/YouGov survey has found that 74 percent of Americans believe that things are going badly in this country and that 51 percent of Americans actually believe that Joe Biden is “incompetent”.

Right now, conditions are so similar to what we witnessed just before the financial crisis of 2008.

If we had addressed our long-term problems back then, perhaps we would be in a much different place at the moment.

But instead, we appear to be poised to repeat history in a lot of ways.

In fact, many experts believe that the crisis that is staring us in the face will be even worse than what we went through more than a decade ago. For example, just check out what Peter Schiff is saying…

This one is going to be even bigger because the economy has a lot more debt now than it did in 2008. And Americans are less able to pay it when interest rates rise because the balances are much greater. So, we’re in much worse shape as a result of all the bailouts and all the stimulus that papered over the last crisis. So, now the one we’re dealing with is going to be much worse because we kicked the can down the road instead of solving the problem when we had a chance.”

He makes some really great points.

Every time there has been some sort of a crisis in our society, our leaders responded by showering the system with even more money.

In 2008, the U.S. national debt crossed the 10 trillion dollar threshold.

In 2022, the U.S. national debt has crossed the 30 trillion dollar threshold.

Our politicians have been systematically destroying our future, and most Americans didn’t seem to care.

Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and it is going to be immensely painful.

There is no silver bullet that is going to cure inflation.

The Federal Reserve is going to try to tame inflation by hiking interest rates, but that will just destroy the housing bubble and dramatically slow down the economy.

And there is no silver bullet that is going to end the shortages that we are currently facing.

We are now experiencing some of the consequences of decades of mismanagement, and a lot more pain is 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.***

The Level Of Evil In Our Society Is Off The Charts

May 24, 2022 by Michael

What in the world has happened to our society? Every day I scour dozens of news websites as I do research for my articles and upcoming books, and every day I am horrified by all of the evil that I encounter. We are a deeply, deeply sick society, and more symptoms emerge with each passing day. For example, what would cause an 18-year-old to walk into an elementary school and start gunning down young children? When I was growing up, I never once imagined something like that could possibly ever happen in any of the public schools that I attended. But now this sort of thing is becoming a regular occurrence in America, and the great tragedy that we witnessed on Tuesday quickly made headlines all over the nation…

A gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde on Tuesday, killing 14 students and one teacher, Gov. Greg Abbott said. The gunman, identified by law enforcement as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was also killed, Abbott said. Ramos was reportedly a student at Uvalde High School or was a former student, Abbott said. Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo said it appears that Ramos acted alone.

It was not immediately clear how many people, in addition to the dead, were wounded, but Arredondo said there were “several injuries.”

It is also being reported that Ramos actually shot his own grandmother before going over to the school…

The suspect also allegedly shot his grandmother before entering the school and again opening fire, Abbott said. He did not say anything further about her condition.

Decades ago, this sort of incident would have been talked about for years.

But most Americans will forget all about this shooting a few days from now, and that is because school shootings have become incredibly common in our day and time.

In fact, this was the 27th school shooting in the United States so far this year.

How many of them can you name?

Our schools are not safe anymore, and this is one of the big reasons why so many parents are turning to homeschooling.

Of course it isn’t just our schools that have become danger zones. At this point, major urban areas all over the country are rapidly being transformed into war zones. According to the CDC, the number of firearm homicides jumped almost 35 percent just from 2019 to 2020…

The United States suffered 19,350 firearm homicides in 2020, up nearly 35 percent compared to 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest data.

Sadly, getting shot and killed is not the only thing our kids have to be concerned about these days.

There is also the possibility that they could be abducted and forced into sex slavery. This actually happened to one extremely unfortunate 15-year-old girl that attended a Dallas Mavericks game a few weeks ago…

A 15-year-old Texas girl was rescued by police 10 days after she was kidnapped at a basketball game while using the bathroom, then trafficked by pedophiles.

The unidentified teenager’s father raised the alarm shortly after she left to use the restroom and didn’t return to her seat at a Dallas Maverick game in the American Airline Center on April 8.

She was one of the lucky ones.

There are countless others that are never rescued.

But at least our kids should be safe in church, right?

Wrong.

There are sexual predators there too, and sometimes they are even in the pulpit.

On Sunday, a woman named Bobi Gephart that had her virginity taken by a pastor when she was just 16 years old confronted him in front of the entire congregation…

Turning to Lowe, she continued: ‘I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor. Do you remember that? I know you do.

‘You did things to to my teenage body that should have never been done. If you can’t admit the truth, you have to answer to God. You are not the victim here.’

I can’t even begin to describe how evil this is.

And her husband stated that this abuse lasted for a total of nine years…

Bobi’s husband Nate then added: ‘This is a lie. This is not just adultery.

‘It’s another level. It happened for nine years. When she was 15, 16, the grooming started.’

I wish that this was an isolated incident, but it isn’t.

In fact, a new report has revealed widespread sexual misconduct in one of the largest Christian denominations in the entire nation…

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention publicly apologized to victims of sexual abuse within the denomination and vowed to make public a private database of offenders in response to an explosive report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct and cover-up.

On Tuesday, SBC leaders gathered to discuss a historic investigation report from Guidepost Solutions that found that the denomination’s leadership mishandled widespread sexual abuse allegations, ignored and silenced victims and engaged in an abusive pattern of intimidation largely to avoid liability.

This shouldn’t be happening.

People go to church to find God, but in way too many instances they are encountering predators instead.

We have become a deeply, deeply wicked country, and it is getting worse with each passing year.

It is in this sort of environment that exceedingly wicked leaders can emerge. In fact, the guy currently in the White House has been telling mammoth lie after mammoth lie for decades…

Stumbled across this montage from the doomed Biden ‘88 campaign and I’m crying at the McLaughlin Group reactions at the end. pic.twitter.com/A9etqn8J4H

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) May 23, 2022

If we lived in a just society filled with decent people, such a man could never have a career in politics.

Of course the entire world is headed in the same direction, and that has enabled someone like Klaus Schwab to become one of the most important leaders on the entire planet…

Not concerning at all the guy who wants to take over the world has a bust of Lenin on his bookshelf. pic.twitter.com/krmtSrfKiW

— Jesse Kelly Show (@JesseKellyShow) May 24, 2022

This week, Schwab boldly told the elite gathered at Davos that “the future is being built by us”…

NEW – Klaus Schwab tells attendees at his World Economic Forum in Davos that “the future is being built by us.” pic.twitter.com/yIqB4jclNd

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) May 23, 2022

Sadly, to a very large degree he is correct.

They are trying to construct their version of “utopia”, but their plans are starting to crumble as a “perfect storm” of war, economic troubles, food shortages, energy problems and major pestilences hammers their efforts from all sides.

As I have tried to explain for many years, ultimately they will fail.

They have destroyed everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build, and in the end their efforts will be destroyed as well.

But right now just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is flourishing in our society, and that should deeply sicken all 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.***

The Apocalyptic Global Food Crisis That We Were Told To Prepare For Has Already Started In 2022

May 23, 2022 by Michael

There isn’t going to be enough food for everyone this year. We have been waiting for the nightmarish global food crisis that so many have warned us about, but we don’t have to wait for it anymore because it is already here. Millions upon millions of people around the globe will be desperately hungry tonight, but what we are experiencing right now is just the tip of the iceberg because things will be so much worse by the end of 2022. If you don’t want to believe me, hopefully you will believe some of the experts that I quote in this article.

For example, the CEO of Gro Intelligence just told the UN Security Council that we are facing a “seismic” crisis that will reach an extremely painful phase in about 10 weeks…

The world has only 10 weeks’ worth of wheat left to deal with the crisis, according to Sara Menker, CEO of Gro Intelligence.

“This is seismic,” Menker said during a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “Even if the war were to end tomorrow, our food security problem isn’t going away anytime soon without concerted action.”

Of course many others are issuing similar warnings. A top aide to Vladimir Putin named Maksim Oreshkin says that a worldwide famine “will occur closer to autumn”…

“It is important that in the conditions, for example, of a global famine that will occur closer to autumn, by the end of this year all over the world, Russia should not suffer, but be fully provided with food,” Oreshkin said.

On the other side of the conflict, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning that the war in his nation is going to have a catastrophic impact all over the globe…

“Russia has blocked almost all ports and all, so to speak, maritime opportunities to export food – our grain, barley, sunflower and more. A lot of things,” Zelenskyy said Saturday. “There will be a crisis in the world. The second crisis after the energy one, which was provoked by Russia.”

“Now it will create a food crisis if we do not unblock the routes for Ukraine, do not help the countries of Africa, Europe, Asia, which need these food products,” he added.

Let me give you one more source. The head of the UN World Food Program is telling us that global food shortages are “worse” than anything that we witnessed back in 2011…

Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, David Beasley, executive director at the UN World Food Programme, warned the world’s food security conditions are “worse” than what was observed during Arab Spring over a decade ago.

He is particularly concerned about the lack of exports from Ukraine, because that country “normally feeds 400 million people”…

“What happens when you take a nation [Ukraine] that normally feeds 400 million people and sideline that … it’s devastating to global food security,” he warned.

This crisis is very real, and it is going to affect every man, woman and child on the entire planet.

The truth is that we were heading toward a horrifying global food crisis even before the war in Ukraine erupted, and that is because fertilizer prices have gone absolutely crazy. Of course the war has made things even worse, because Russia alone normally accounts for approximately 20 percent of all global nitrogen fertilizer exports. And it would be extremely difficult to overstate the importance of nitrogen fertilizer…

In fact, according to noted Canadian energy researcher Vaclav Smil, two-fifths of humanity –more than three billion people—are alive because of nitrogen fertilizer, the main ingredient in the Green Revolution that supercharged the agricultural sector in the 1960s. The chemical fertilizer trifecta that tripled global grain production—nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—enabled the greatest human population growth the planet has ever seen. Now, it is in short supply, and farmers, fertilizer companies, and governments around the globe are scrambling to avert a seemingly inevitable tumble in crop yields.

“I’m not sure it’s possible any more to avoid a food crisis,” says World Farmers’ Organization President Theo de Jager. “The question is how wide and deep it will be. Most importantly, farmers need peace. And peace needs farmers.”

Here in the United States, soaring fertilizer prices are putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress of our farmers.

One farmer in Indiana named Rodney Rulon is horrified by how much more he has to pay this year…

Rodney Rulon is better off than many farmers this year. A progressive farmer in Arcadia, Indiana, he has been using no-till techniques, cover crops, and chicken litter on his family’s 7,200 acres of corn and soybean fields since 1992. Combined with extensive soil testing each year, he’s cut his chemical fertilizer use 20 to 30 percent, he says—but it’s still his largest input.

“We’re making big cuts to what we’re spending on fertilizer this year,” Rulon says. “It’s $1,200 a ton for P and K. It was $450 last year. Nitrogen was $500-550 a ton last year. Now it’s well over $1,000. You just took our biggest expense and doubled it.”

Most farmers in the western world will bite the bullet and pay the higher prices.

But in poorer nations all over the globe it is going to be a different story. Many farmers in those countries will either be greatly cutting back on fertilizer or won’t be using any at all this year.

As a result, production will be way down.

And that will mean that global food supplies will be getting tighter and tighter.

You may be tempted to think that hunger is an issue for the other side of the planet, but the reality of the matter is that it is already starting to hit home in some of the wealthiest nations.

For example, one recent survey found that approximately a quarter of all Britons are already “skipping meals”…

A quarter of Britons have resorted to skipping meals as inflationary pressures and a worsening food crisis conflate in what the Bank of England recently dubbed an “apocalyptic” outlook for consumers.

More than four in five people in the U.K. are worried about rising living costs and their ability to afford basics necessities like food and energy over the coming months, according to a new survey released Tuesday.

Here in the United States, the nationwide out of stock level for baby formula just hit another alarming new high…

Out-of-stock percentage for baby formula stood at 45% nationwide for the week ending on May 15, according to retail data firm, Datasembly.

In April, baby formula shortages hit 30% before jumping to 40% at the end of the month, according to Datasembly. By early May, the out-of-stock rate rose to 43%.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

The real problem will be the food that is not grown and not harvested in the months ahead.

Winter wheat will soon be harvested in the U.S., and thanks to the historic drought in the western half of the country it is being projected that the total amount harvested will be “the smallest since 1963”…

Some farmers already are writing off losses from parched grains. The US Department of Agriculture expects lower yields in Kansas, the top-growing state for hard red winter wheat, a staple relied on for bread flour. The shortfall is seen by USDA as pushing national production to the smallest since 1963, fueling fear of global food shortages as war in Ukraine and weather challenges elsewhere puts supplies at risk.

In 1963, the population of the United States was 189 million.

Today, the population of the United States is 329 million.

On top of everything else, skyrocketing energy prices are also making things extremely difficult for our farmers.

On Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached another all-time record high…

Prices at the pump have hit another record high on Monday, the same day President Joe Biden discussed the United States’ and the world’s ‘incredible transition’ away from fossil fuels.

The new nationwide average now at just under $4.60 per gallon, the highest ever recorded by the American Automobile Association (AAA)’s gas price tracker.

But if you think that $4.60 is bad, you should check out the prices in California.

At one station in Los Angeles, consumers were being charged $7.29 a gallon.

That is nuts!

And as things get worse and worse, the American people are becoming increasingly restless. In fact, a CBS/YouGov survey that was just released discovered that just 6 percent of Americans believe that things are going “very well” in this country.

6 percent.

So what will that number look like six months from now when global food supplies are much tighter than they are at the moment.

In my entire lifetime, we have never faced anything like this, and so the vast majority of us have absolutely no frame of reference for what is about to happen.

A “perfect storm” is here, and the vast majority of the population is completely and utterly unprepared for it.

***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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