9 Signs That Some Of America’s Long-Term Trends Are Starting To Become Very Serious Short-Term Problems

Ignoring long-term problems can work for a while, but eventually they catch up with you.  Over the years, I have written many articles about alarming long-term trends in our society that desperately needed to be addressed.  Of course the vast majority of those long-term trends never got much attention, because our political system tends to reward politicians that focus on short-term issues.  As a result, many of the long-term trends that I have written about previously have now gotten to a point where they have started to become very serious short-term problems.  In this article, I would like to share 9 examples of this with you.

#1 I have been warning about exploding debt levels for as long as I have been writing about the economy.  Most people know that the U.S. national debt has now crossed the 28 trillion dollar threshold, but hardly anyone is talking about the explosion of corporate debt that we have been witnessing in recent months.  According to the Federal Reserve, total corporate debt in the United States is now up to a whopping 11.2 trillion dollars

Before the pandemic, U.S. companies were borrowing heavily at low interest rates. When Covid-19 lockdowns triggered a recession, they didn’t pull back. They borrowed even more and soon paid even less.

After a brief spike, interest rates on corporate debt plummeted to their lowest level on record, bringing a surge in new bonds. Nonfinancial companies issued $1.7 trillion of bonds in the U.S. last year, nearly $600 billion more than the previous high, according to Dealogic. By the end of March, their total debt stood at $11.2 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve, about half the size of the U.S. economy.

#2 Needless to say, this level of corporate debt is not even close to sustainable, and we are starting to see a lot of prominent names go bankrupt.  In fact, one of the largest mall owners in the entire country officially filed for bankruptcy on Sunday

Washington Prime Group, a major mall owner of more than 100 locations across the United States, filed for bankruptcy, citing pandemic-related shutdowns.

The Columbus, Ohio-based company filed for Chapter 11 late Sunday, saying Covid-19 “created significant challenges” and that the move is “necessary.” Washington Prime secured $100 million in new funding to support its day-to-day operations so it can “continue in the ordinary course without interruption.”

#3 The standard of living in the United States has been going down for a very long time.  Here in 2021, inflation is growing at a much faster rate than wages are, and this is squeezing middle class families like never before.  One of the ways that families are dealing with this is by putting off major purchases, and that is one of the reasons why the average age of the vehicles on our roads has now reached an all-time record high

The average age of vehicles on U.S. roadways rose to a record 12.1 years last year, as lofty prices and improved quality prompt owners to hold on to their cars longer.

It was the first time the average vehicle age rose above 12 years, according to data released Monday by research firm IHS Markit. While the average vehicle age has risen steadily over the last 15 years, the trend accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic partly because of a drop in new-car sales, IHS said.

#4 America’s growing homelessness crisis has accelerated greatly during the pandemic, and the big cities in California are being hit the hardest.  At this point, it is really difficult to navigate through the streets of San Francisco without stumbling over a tent or stepping in human excrement

For a city as opulent as San Francisco, it’s long been jarring to see the extreme poverty of those experiencing homelessness on its streets. If you walk around downtown, tents, makeshift cardboard beds and human excrement can be seen littering the sidewalks. Impoverished people lie on the ground as a blur of highly paid professionals whiz by.

#5 The homelessness crisis is also one of the factors that is fueling the dramatic rise in crime rates that we have been seeing all over the nation.  Once upon a time, millions of eager tourists would flock to Venice Beach, but now the phrase “like hell went to hell” is being used to describe conditions at that once pristine tourist trap…

Year-to-date numbers show that robberies have nearly tripled since the same period last year. Homeless-related robberies are up 260 percent; homeless-related assaults with a deadly weapon is up 118 percent; property crimes and area burglaries are up 85 percent; and grand theft auto is up 74 percent.

According to Embrich, felony arrests are up 68 percent, while misdemeanor arrests have grown by 355 percent. But arrests aren’t enough: Suspects are often released back onto the streets within hours.

#6 The police are the ones that are supposed to protect us from crime and restore order when things get out of control, but now they are leaving public service in record numbers.  After being endlessly demonized by leftist activists and the mainstream media, police officers are either retiring or resigning at a staggering rate….

Police retirements have risen by 45 percent in the past year, with officers opting out of forces across the country amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations that fueled anti-cop rhetoric.

The alarming statistic was revealed by the Police Executive Research Forum on Sunday, with the organization also revealing that resignations rose by 18 percent during the same twelve month period.

#7 Have you noticed that many of our cities are becoming disgustingly filthy?  When I was growing up, I often heard the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness”, but you never hear anyone use it anymore.  These days, filth and grime are everywhere, and that has resulted in widespread infestations.  Many of our cities now have massive problems with rats and bed bugs, but Chicago is the worst of them all

The Windy City is known for quite a few things: hot dogs, deep dish, baseball. But here’s one thing you probably don’t associate with Chicago: bed bugs. Turns out these tiny hitchhiking pests are quite fond of our city, according to the latest numbers available through Atlanta-based Orkin, a company that specializes in pest control services.

In fact, Chicago ranked no. 1 on the 2021 list, according to Orkin, reclaiming the top spot for the first time since 2017, when it slipped to no. 3, just behind Baltimore and Washington. For the sixth year in a row, Orkin also ranked Chicago the “rattiest” city in America.

#8 I have been writing about the drought in the western half of the country for years, but here in 2021 it is the worst we have ever seen.  As I write this article, an astounding 88 percent of the West is officially in a state of drought…

Lakes at historically low levels, unusually early forest fires, restrictions on water use and now a potentially record heat wave: even before summer’s start the US West is suffering the effects of chronic drought made worse by climate change.

Eighty-eight percent of the West was in a state of drought this week, including the entire states of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada, according to official data.

#9 When drought gets bad enough, it leads to water shortages, and we will want to watch developments in California very closely.  Water supplies have gotten very tight throughout the state, and officials in Santa Clara County just officially declared “a water shortage emergency”

Santa Clara County is in extreme drought. We can’t afford to wait to act as our water supplies are being threatened locally and across California. We are in an emergency and Valley Water must do everything we can to protect our groundwater resources and ensure we can provide safe, clean water to Santa Clara County residents and businesses.

To better deal with these threats and the emergency they are causing, today my fellow Board Members and I unanimously declared a water shortage emergency condition in Santa Clara County. This declaration, which is among the strongest actions we can take under law, allows Valley Water to work with our retailers, cities and the county to implement regulations and restrictions on the delivery and consumption of water. We also are urging the County of Santa Clara to proclaim a local emergency and join us in underscoring the seriousness of the threats posed by the extreme drought.

Over the past few years, America has been hit by crisis after crisis, and many are yearning for a return to the good old days.  Unfortunately, that simply is not going to happen.

The United States is never going to be like it once was.  Too many things have changed, and our culture has been radically transformed over the past several decades.

Many of the items that I have shared in this article are simply symptoms of much broader cultural problems.  We are a deeply, deeply sick society, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

35 Reasons Why You Should Move Away From California

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a “reboot” button for an entire state?  Because the truth is that if an entire state ever needed to completely start over it is the state of California.  At this point it has become the epicenter for just about everything that is wrong with America, and each year it just keeps coming up with new ways to become an even worse cesspool of social decay and depravity.  Millions of people have already left the state, and millions more are thinking of leaving.  One recent survey found that 47 percent of all Californians are thinking about moving out of the state in the next five years, and a different survey discovered that 53 percent of those currently living in the state would like to leave.  If about half the people in your state are seriously considering leaving, it is safe to say that things have gone horribly wrong.  But instead of changing course, those running California continue taking the state down a very self-destructive path.

It is such a shame, because California should be one of the greatest places in the world to live.  The weather is wonderful most of the year, the state still possesses extraordinary natural beauty, and the tech industry provides plenty of high paying jobs.

When I was growing up, millions of young Americans dreamed of moving there and living “the California dream”, and when I was a young man I seriously explored the possibility of moving there myself.

And the truth is that a lot of great things have come out of the state.  The following comes from a recent article by Ann Coulter

In the last century, every great thing started in California: surfing, jeans, Disneyland, tax revolts, McDonald’s, movies, car culture, the Grateful Dead, right on red turns, Merle Haggard, skateboarding, Apple computer, and the last two elected Republican presidents not named “Bush.”

But now I don’t know why anyone would want to live there.

If you currently live in California, I am about to tell you a whole bunch of reasons why you should leave.  In fact, if I could get everybody to leave the state, I would.

However, if you feel specifically called to stay, then that is what you should do.  Without a doubt, light is needed the most where things are the darkest, and California needs as much light as it can get right now.

Unfortunately, I believe that it is too late for the state as a whole.  It is headed for a date with destiny, and most of the nearly 40 million people that live there have absolutely no idea what is coming.

If you live in the state and you do not know what you should do, I would get out while you still can.  The following are 35 reasons why you should move away from California…

1. Incredibly high taxes.  At this point, California has the highest marginal tax rate in the entire country.

2. Absurd housing costs.

3. The median home value in the state is now more than half a million dollars, and that is about twice as high as the national average.

4. It has been estimated that it now takes approximately $350,000 a year to live a middle class lifestyle in the city of San Francisco.

5. Endless wildfires.

6. Epic mudslides.

7. Horrific traffic jams.

8. Los Angeles has the worst traffic congestion in the entire world.

9. The education system is awful.

10. Medical tyranny.

11. One of the highest poverty levels in the United States.

12. Thousands of drug addicts are literally pooping in the streets.

13. Almost half of all the homeless people in the entire nation live in California.

14. The state is literally being overrun by millions of rats.

15. Los Angeles has been ranked as the second most rat-infested city in the country.

16. At this point things are so bad that even Los Angeles City Hall is being overrun by rats.

17. Illegal immigration is out of control, and the sanctuary cities in California are making things even worse.

18. Rising gang activity.

19. High crime rates.

20. There is now a law in California that protects shoplifters.  So for those that enjoy shoplifting, this might actually be a reason to move into the state.

21. The drug war that has been raging in Mexico is increasingly spilling across the border.

22. California has been ranked as the worst state in the nation to do business year after year.

23. California is also one of the most litigious states in the entire country.

24. The once pristine beaches in the state are now being “completely overrun with fecal bacteria”.

25. Nancy Pelosi.

26. Kamala Harris.

27. Governor Gavin Newsom.

28. The lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the secretary of state and the state treasurer are all Democrats.

29. Democrats make up nearly two-thirds of the California State Senate.

30. Democrats make up more than two-thirds of the California State Assembly.

31. Both of the U.S. senators and 46 out of the 53 members of the House of Representatives that California sends to Washington are Democrats.

32. Much of the population is openly hostile to those that identify as conservatives.

33. California has been on the cutting edge of America’s moral decay for decades.

34. There have been more than 100,000 earthquakes in the state so far this year.

35. One day the “Big One” will hit California, and the geography of the state will be dramatically altered.  The devastation will be unlike anything we have ever witnessed, and the death toll will be unimaginable.

If Donald Trump wins the next presidential election, there is a group of activists in California that plan to get a “Calexit” referendum on the ballot for the following election.

Those activists don’t want to be part of a country that would elect Trump two times, because they consider their values to be completely and utterly incompatible with Trump’s values.

But what is happening in this nation is far bigger than just Trump.

To me, it would be wonderful if the rest of the nation decided that their values were completely and utterly incompatible with California’s values.  We desperately need to turn America around, and the way to do that is to head in a completely opposite direction from the way that California is going.

Sadly, it does not appear that is going to happen.  California may be racing ahead of most of the rest of the country, but our final destination will be the same.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of 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 have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. 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. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. 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.

It Is Time To Go: Over Half Of All California Voters “Have Considered Leaving The State”

Why in the world does anyone still want to live in California?  Great weather and good paying jobs are the two biggest positives that residents often point out, but the high cost of living and the absolutely ridiculous housing prices often eat up all of the extra money that Californians think that they are making.  In fact, it was recently reported that it now takes approximately $350,000 a year to live a middle class lifestyle in the city of San Francisco.  If you have a ton of money, it can partially insulate you from the problems that are increasingly ravaging the state, but unless you never go out in public nothing is going to insulate you completely.  Cities all over the state are degenerating into drug-infested, crime-ridden hellholes that are literally being overrun by millions of rats.  California has some of the worst traffic in the entire world, unchecked illegal immigration is causing a whole host of social problems, and gang activity has become a massive problem.  On top of everything else, California is being constantly hit by wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters.  In fact, scientists tell us that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” hits, and that is probably one of the best reasons to leave California while you still can and never look back.

Yes, there are some California residents that continue to insist that it is a great place to live.

But if California is so wonderful, why have more than half of all California voters “considered leaving the state”?  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times

Just over half of California’s registered voters have considered leaving the state, with soaring housing costs cited as the most common reason for wanting to move, according to a new poll.

Young voters were especially likely to cite unaffordable housing as a reason for leaving, according to the latest latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. But a different group, conservatives, also frequently suggested they wanted to leave — and for a very different reason: They feel alienated from the state’s political culture.

With the way the state is being run, conservatives have been moving out of California in large numbers for years.  In fact, I have a number of really good friends that left the state for political reasons and will never return.

On the other hand, California’s reputation for handing out free goodies has been a magnet for another class of people.  Today, almost half of all homeless people in the entire nation live in the state of California, and this has become such a huge crisis that it literally makes headlines all over the globe.

For example, the following comes from an article in a British news source

Cali Carlisle admits she is a heroin addict — ‘but in a healthy way,’ she insists, even if the visual evidence belies that claim.

Her nose is the brightest shade of red imaginable. She constantly picks at scabs all over her body. Her home is a makeshift bed beneath Interstate 80 in Sacramento.

And Monday was her 26th birthday. Not that you would ever guess. Anyone looking at her would think she is at least 15 years older.

This is the cold, hard reality of the glorious drug lifestyle that so many go to California to experience.

Every year, thousands upon thousands of young people that once had bright futures ahead of them end up on the streets, in prison or dead due to this raging epidemic.

And one of the places where it is the worst is in the capital of the state itself.  Not too long ago, a salon owner in Sacramento made headlines all over the nation when her rant about homelessness on social media went viral

“I just want to tell you what happens when I get to work,” stated Liz Novak, a local salon owner, to the media about what she’s had to deal with trying to conduct business in Sacramento.

“I have to clean up the poop and the pee off of my doorstep. I have to clean-up the syringes. I have to politely ask the people who I care for – I care for these people that are homeless – to move their tents out of the way of the door to my business.”

She ultimately had to move her salon completely because it became clear that things were not going to get better any time soon.

In the state of California today, virtually everything has been defiled.

At one time, California was teeming with natural beauty.  But today the entire state has become a trash dumpster, and that includes California’s once pristine beaches.  Just check out what Dr. Drew Pinsky recently told Laura Ingraham

“There is an organization out here called Heal the Bay which keeps tabs on safety of our beaches in Southern California, from Orange County to Ventura. Since the rains last Winter, [Heal the Bay] has been giving our beaches C’s to F’s, and F means completely overrun with fecal bacteria. What comes with that are other things like syringes, Hepatitis A and other infectious diseases.”

On top of everything else, seismic activity is a constant threat.

There have been more than 1,500 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the past 7 days, and these days that is considered to be a slow week.

Of course most of the earthquakes are very small, but scientists assure us that one of these days “the Big One” will hit the state.  When that day arrives, the geography of the state will be radically changed, and the death and destruction will be off the charts.

We live at a time when our planet is being greatly shaken, and many believe that what we have seen so far is just the beginning.

The coastline of the state of California lies directly along the infamous “Ring of Fire”, and scientists have been persistently warning us that the San Andreas fault is “locked and loaded” and could possibly “unzip all at once”.

It is such a shame what has happened to the state.  California should be one of the most beautiful, prosperous and enjoyable places to live in the entire world.  Unfortunately, Californians have been making exceedingly poor choices for decades, and the consequences of those decisions will be extremely bitter indeed.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time. Of course the most important thing that we can share with people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you would like to learn more about how you can become a Christian I would encourage you to read this article.

“The Skid Is Everywhere”, And We Just Received More Confirmation That The Worst Is Yet To Come

All over America, large portions of our major cities are being transformed into stomach-churning cesspools of squalor.  Thousands of tens cities are popping up from coast to coast as the homeless population explodes, even the New York Times admits that we are facing “the worst drug crisis in American history”, there were more than 28,000 official complaints about human feces in the streets of San Francisco last year alone, and millions of rats are currently overrunning the city of Los Angeles.  And yet the authorities continue to insist that the economy is in good shape and that everything is going to be just fine.

Perhaps everything may seem “just fine” if you live in a heavily sanitized wealthy suburban neighborhood and you only get your news from heavily sanitized corporate media sources, but in the real world things are getting really bad.

The other day, LZ Granderson authored an editorial in which he described what life is like in Los Angeles right at this moment…

LA spent nearly $620 million in tax dollars last year to address the issue, and yet the number of homeless people increased by 16%, reaching nearly 60,000 people.

As a Los Angeles resident, I am among those who wonder what the mayor’s office is doing. When I lived downtown it was virtually impossible to walk a full block in any direction without seeing a homeless person. In Silver Lake where I live now, there are tent cities. On my drive to work I see people living underneath the highway overpasses. It’s no longer Skid Row here. The skid is everywhere.

Of course that phrase, “the skid is everywhere”, could also apply to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia and countless other U.S. cities.

But without a doubt, L.A. is particularly disgusting at this point.  In fact, last weekend a columnist for the Los Angeles Times admitted that “Los Angeles has become a giant trash receptacle”

A swath of Los Angeles has devolved into a wasteland with rats scurrying among piles of decaying garbage and squalid tent cities, according to a series of stomach-churning photos that the Los Angeles Times says depict the “collapse of a city that’s lost control.”

“The city of Los Angeles has become a giant trash receptacle,” columnist Steve Lopez complained on Sunday.

We are seeing this happen at a time when we are being told that the U.S. economy is still relatively stable.

And I will concede that point.  Right now, the U.S. economy is a whole lot more stable than it will be in the months ahead.

So if things are this bad already in our major cities, what are those cities going to look like once we get deep into the next economic downturn?

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that 75,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in May.  That number is consistent with the extremely disappointing figure that ADP reported a few days earlier, and it is well below the number of jobs that we need just to keep up with population growth each month.

Prior to this latest report, there were already more working age Americans without a job than at any point during the last recession, and now things just got even worse.

But the government conveniently categorizes the vast majority of working age Americans without a job as “not in the labor force”, and so officially the unemployment rate is “very low” right now.

What a joke.

The truth is that the middle class has been steadily shrinking for an extended period of time, and all of the numbers that have been rolling in seem to indicate that an economic slowdown has begun.

For instance, when economic activity is expanding demand for key industrial resources such as copper, zinc and lumber increases and prices tend to go up.

But when economic activity is contracting, demand for those key industrial resources diminishes and prices tend to go down.

And right now we are seeing prices for copper, zinc and lumber decline precipitiously

Copper prices have fallen 6% in just the past month while zinc is down 8.5%. Copper and zinc are big components for many industrial and technology companies. People pay so much attention to copper as a barometer that traders jokingly call it Dr. Copper, as if it has a PhD in economics.

Lumber prices are falling as well, plunging about 10% in the past month. That could be viewed as a sign that the housing market — particularly new home construction — is weakening.

If you were looking for some exceedingly clear indications of where the U.S. economy is heading in the near future, you just got them.

But most Americans will continue to live in denial until the very end.  And even though 59 percent of the population is living paycheck to paycheck, people continue to rack up debt as if there was no tomorrow.

In fact, we just learned that the average size of a new vehicle loan in the U.S. just hit a brand new record high

People buying a new vehicle are borrowing more and paying more each month for their auto loan.

Experian, which tracks millions of auto loans each month, said the average amount borrowed to buy a new vehicle hit a record $32,187 in the first quarter. The average used-vehicle loan also hit a record, $20,137.

People ask me all the time about how they can prepare for the next economic downturn, and one of the key pieces of advice that I always give is to not take on more debt.

Right now everyone should be building up their financial cushions, because what is coming is not a joke.

Unfortunately, most Americans are still completely in denial about what is happening, and they will find themselves ill-prepared to handle the very harsh economic environment that is ahead.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Which Major West Coast City Is Being Overwhelmed By Rats, Drugs, Crime, Piles Of Garbage And Hordes Of Homeless People?

Can you name the major west coast city that has become a rotting, decaying hellhole and is being completely overwhelmed by rats, drugs, crime, piles of garbage and hordes of homeless people?  Of course San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, “all of them” and “any of them” would all be correct answers, but in this article we are going to talk about Los Angeles.  Once upon a time, millions of young Americans flocked to “sunny L.A.” in order to experience “the California Dream”, but these days Los Angeles seems to be on the cutting edge of many of our most critical societal problems.  L.A. has been known for Hollywood, the porn industry and world class traffic congestion, but now it is also becoming famous for “rat-infested piles of rotting garbage”

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city’s most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA’s busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

Today, approximately 18.7 million people live in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and many fear that the rat population may exceed the human population at this point.

When garbage and filth are everywhere, rats can breed exceedingly quickly.  In fact, under ideal conditions two rats can become 482 million rats in just three years.

So you would think that L.A. would want to get this rat problem under control, but an NBC Los Angeles investigation discovered that “there is no plan or program to control the growing rat population”

But in Los Angeles, the I-Team learned there is no plan or program to control the growing rat population that feasts at trash piles like the one on Ceres Avenue.

“It’s something that we’ll look into,” said Pepe Garica, of Los Angeles’ bureau of sanitation.

Lovely, eh?

In a previous article, I noted that the rats have now even conquered Los Angeles City Hall

Officials at Los Angeles’ City Hall are considering ripping all of the building’s carpets up, as rats and fleas are said to be running riot in its halls.

A motion was filed by Council President Herb Wesson on Wednesday to enact the much needed makeover amid a typhus outbreak in the downtown area.

Wesson said a city employee had contracted the deadly bacterial disease at work, and now he’s urging officials to investigate the ‘scope’ of the long-running pest problem at the council building.

Meanwhile, the homeless population continues to multiply as well.

The number of homeless people living in L.A. has risen by at least 75 percent since 2012, and authorities cleaned up nearly 15,000 homeless encampments last year alone…

Nearly 15,000 homeless encampment cleanups were conducted last year in Los Angeles, a process that begins with officers clearing people from the area before sanitation workers remove trash and other items.

The cleanups cost taxpayers millions of dollars, but some residents who live near the encampments said they are usually repopulated soon after sanitation crews are done. It’s a seemingly endless cycle that leads neighbors to ask whether there are better ways to spend that tax money.

In other words, Los Angeles is cleaning up an average of 41 homeless encampments every single day.

Overall, Los Angeles spent a whopping 619 million dollars on the homeless problem last year, but it just continues to get even worse.

Of course wherever there is homelessness there is crime, and those that live in downtown L.A. are getting fed up

“Everyone living, working in, or visiting downtown has noticed the rapidly deteriorating conditions,” downtown resident Catherine Tomiczek told the committee. She said a friend was beaten and robbed on the street and a neighbor was stabbed in her building.

Councilman Paul Krekorian, who heads the committee, said he would request the information sought by the group. Major crimes downtown increased 6.7 percent this year compared with the same period in 2018, according to LAPD crime data through April 13.

Much of the violent crime is fueled by the drug trade, and according to DEA agent Bob Thomas Los Angeles is definitely a national hub for drug activity…

In a middle class neighborhood in Los Angeles a house is surrounded by crime tape. A young man had lost his life to drugs inside.

It’s happened a record 72,000 times last year in the United States and Los Angeles is a big part of the problem.

“Drug cartels send their stuff to LA, where it’s distributed across the nation,” DEA agent Bob Thomas said.

Further up the California coastline, northern California is being absolutely overwhelmed by a meth epidemic that is completely out of control.  Just consider these shocking numbers

Since 2011, emergency room visits related to meth in San Francisco have jumped 600% to 1,965 visits in 2016, the last year for which ER data is available. Admissions to the hospital are up 400% to 193, according to city public health data. And at San Francisco General Hospital, of 7,000 annual psychiatric emergency visits last year, 47% were people who were not necessarily mentally ill — they were high on meth.

“As California goes, so goes the nation” is a phrase that people like to use, but we better hope that it isn’t true, because California is going down the toilet.

And as our planet continues to become increasingly unstable, scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before “the Big One” hits the state.  Earlier today, northern California was shaken by a magnitude 3.8 earthquake, and one of these days a truly catastrophic quake is coming.

In recent years, approximately five million people have packed up and moved to another state, and you can’t really blame them for leaving.

At this point I can’t really think of any reason why anyone would want to live in California.

Can you?

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Wealthy Elitists Freak Out As Hordes Of Homeless People Take Over Their Neighborhoods All Over The West Coast

The elite are very “tolerant” of the homeless until they start showing up in their own neighborhoods.  Even though the mainstream media keeps telling us that the U.S. economy is “booming”, the number of Americans living on the streets continues to grow very rapidly, and this is particularly true in our major west coast cities.  More than half a million Americans will sleep on the streets of our cities tonight, and they need help, care and shelter.  Sadly, as economic conditions deteriorate that number is likely to double or even triple.  Of course many among the elite are all in favor of doing something for the homeless, as long as they don’t have to be anywhere around them.

For example, let’s talk about what is going on in Los Angeles.  No city on the west coast has a bigger problem with homelessness than L.A. does, and many in the homeless population enjoy camping out on the beautiful beaches in the L.A. area at night.

But of course many of the elite that paid millions of dollars for beachfront property are not too thrilled about this.  Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten was a key symbol of anti-establishment rebellion in the 1970s, but now he is freaking out because homeless people are making life very difficult for him and his wife in Venice Beach, and what he recently told Newsweek’s Paula Froelich is making headlines all over the nation

He told her the homeless situation in his swanky LA neighborhood is so bad that thieves are tearing the bars from the windows of his multimillion-dollar home, lobbing bricks, setting up unsightly tent cities and littering the beach with syringes.

“A couple of weeks ago I had a problem,” the former punk prince opined. “They came over the gate and put their tent inside, right in front of the front door. It’s like . . . the audacity. And if you complain, what are you? Oh, one of the establishment elite? No, I’m a bloke that’s worked hard for his money and I expect to be able to use my own front door.”

It is more than just a little bit ironic that a man that used drugs, sex and rock and roll to shoot to global fame now sounds like a tired old crank that just wants to get the hippies off of his front lawn.

And he also says that the beach in front of his home is almost unusable because of all the needles and human poop in the sand

Rotten added of the punks: “They’re aggressive, and because there’s an awful lot of them together they’re gang-y. And the heroin spikes . . . You can’t take anyone to the beach because there’s jabs just waiting for young kids to put their feet in — and poo all over the sand.”

Well, Johnny might as well become accustomed to his new neighbors, because the situation is only going to get worse as our national homelessness crisis intensifies.

In Los Angeles, the number of homeless people that have died has risen 76 percent over the past five years, and this has happened during supposedly “good economic times”.

So how bad will things get when the economy really starts going downhill?

Up the coast in San Fransisco, some wealthy residents are fighting tooth and nail to keep a proposed homeless shelter out of their wealthy neighborhood.  The following comes from CBS News

Some San Francisco residents are turning to crowdfunding to raise money to fight a proposed homeless shelter in their wealthy neighborhood. As of Monday morning, the effort had raised over $80,000 of its $100,000 goal.

Calling itself “Safe Embarcadero for All,” the organizer is appealing to residents of South Beach, Rincon Hill, Bayside Village, East Cut and Mission Bay, saying the money will be directed to a legal fund to pay for efforts to fight the homeless shelter. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast-track the building of the Navigation Center, which would house 200 homeless people a stone’s throw from Google’s San Francisco offices and Gap’s headquarters.

How wonderfully “tolerant” of them, eh?

Of course it is hard to blame them.  The streets of San Francisco are littered with thousands upon thousands of used syringes, and the number of official complaints about human feces in the streets is going up with each passing year.

But instead of changing course, it looks like San Francisco officials will probably extend their free syringe program

San Francisco officials are debating if they should continue a needle exchange program that has left city streets littered with hazardous waste.

We have made an uncomfortable observation on social media: Thousands of needles are scattered on city streets, most likely came the Department of Public Health’s needle exchange program.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors expects to approve a seven-year extension of the exchange program, could cost taxpayers a whopping $26 million.

Overall, the city handed out 5.8 million free syringes in 2018, and a large number of those were simply thrown on to the streets when addicts were done using them.

Up in Seattle, neighborhood after neighborhood has been taken over by homeless encampments, and many residents are saying enough is enough

In the past two weeks, Seattle Is Dying has garnered 38,000 shares on Facebook and nearly 2 million views on YouTube. The report has clearly resonated with anxious, fearful, and increasingly angry Seattle residents. Exhausted by a decade of rising disorder and property crime—now two-and-a-half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s—Seattle voters may have reached the point of “compassion fatigue.” According to the Seattle Times, 53 percent of Seattle voters now support a “zero-tolerance policy” on homeless encampments; 62 percent believe that the problem is getting worse because the city “wastes money by being inefficient” and “is not accountable for how the money is spent,” and that “too many resources are spent on the wrong approaches to the problem.” The city council insists that new tax revenues are necessary, including a head tax on large employers, but only 7 percent of Seattle voters think that the city is “not spending enough to really solve the problem.” For a famously progressive city, this is a remarkable shift in public opinion.

With all of the money that they have, you would think that the major cities on the west coast would be showing the rest of the nation how to deal with homelessness, but instead things continue to get worse with each passing year.

And of course what we have seen so far is just the beginning.  During the next recession, the homelessness crisis will be far, far worse than it is today.

America should not have more than half a million people living in the streets, but we do, and those in power do not seem to have any solutions.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Nobody Does It Better: The Amount Of Human Feces On San Francisco Streets Is Going Up Every Single Year

Sometimes the best metaphors come from real life.  Today, San Francisco has eclipsed Los Angeles and has become the most important city in America’s most heavily populated state.  It is the central hub of our tech industry, in many ways it is one of the epicenters of our national moral decay, and the most powerful Democrat in the entire country calls it her home.  So somehow it seems appropriate that the city is literally covered in human feces, and the problem is getting worse with each passing year.

In 2011, there were 5,547 reported incidents of human feces found on the streets of San Francisco, and by 2018 that figure had risen to 28,084.  The following numbers originally come from the San Francisco Department of Public Works

2011: 5,547
2012: 6,338
2013: 8,793
2014: 10,644
2015: 13,326
2016: 18,276
2017: 20,668
2018: 28,084

And the important thing to remember is that these numbers only represent “reported incidents”.  As Business Insider has noted, the true amount of human feces on the streets “is likely even higher”…

Notably, this is a chart of only documented reports — the actual amount of feces on San Francisco’s streets is likely even higher than these statistics suggest.

“I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed told NBC in a 2018 interview. “That is a huge problem, and we are not just talking about from dogs — we’re talking about from humans.”

If all of this crap is a metaphor, would could it be a metaphor for?

One of the things that initially came to my mind is that it could be a political metaphor.  San Francisco gave us Nancy Pelosi, and as Speaker of the House she is currently the most powerful Democrat in the entire nation.  And without a doubt, she certainly represents an ideology that is taking America straight down the crapper.

But of course the Democrats certainly don’t have a monopoly on corruption.  Here in Idaho, there are prominent Republicans that are giant moral sleazebags, and even the “good conservatives” won’t say anything about the corruption because they are concerned about the political ramifications.

San Francisco’s human feces problem could also be a metaphor for our tech industry.  In particular, social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have been hit by scandal after scandal in recent years, and the extreme censorship that they have been hitting us with has been absolutely nauseating.  So it would definitely not be too much of a stretch to equate the current state of the tech industry with a giant pile of crap.

Last but not least, could it be possible that all of this poop is a metaphor for the moral decay that is emanating out of San Francisco?  Certainly Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C. are playing starring roles in our national moral decay as well, but there is something about San Francisco that seems to attract the worst of the worst.

As I noted the other day, San Francisco handed out 5.8 million free syringes in 2018 alone.  And in a recent article by John Stossel we are told that addicts can shoot up in full public view and the police won’t even do anything about it…

San Francisco is a pretty good place to “hang out with a sign.” People are rarely arrested for vagrancy, aggressive panhandling or going to the bathroom in front of people’s homes. In 2015, there were 60,491 complaints to police, but only 125 people were arrested.

Public drug use is generally ignored. One woman told us, “It’s nasty seeing people shoot up — right in front of you. Police don’t do anything about it! They’ll get somebody for drinking a beer but walk right past people using needles.”

Each day in San Francisco, an average of 85 cars are broken into.

Could you imagine trying to raise young children in an environment like that?

At this point, addicts are even shooting up in the bathrooms of San Francsico’s public libraries

In San Francisco, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of homeless people like Martinez come to the libraries daily. Around the Bay Area, that number runs into the thousands.

This can be a problem, when someone who’s mentally ill rants in the aisles or addicts shoot up in the bathroom. But many libraries around the nation have learned to keep those issues to a minimum — thanks largely to a pioneering program in San Francisco that stationed a social worker on-site to help the desperate, instead of just keeping a lid on them with police interventions.

It has been said that “as California goes, so goes the nation”.  So you may be able to take solace in the fact that these things are not happening in your area yet, but as our nation continues to go downhill it is just a matter of time before virtually everywhere is just like San Francisco.

The only way that we are going to take our country back is if we stand up and do something.  Unfortunately, there is so much apathy among good people out there these days, and meanwhile there is a tremendous amount of passion among those that would like to take America even further down the crapper.

You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.  And unfortunately there is no time to waste because our society is deteriorating a little bit more with each passing day.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

San Francisco, Los Angeles And Seattle: 3 Formerly Beautiful West Coast Cities Have Literally Been Transformed Into Hellholes

Once upon a time, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle were three of the most beautiful cities on the entire planet.  I know that this is hard to imagine today, but there was a time when millions of people eagerly moved out to the west coast for a better quality of life.  Sadly, the reverse is true today.  Millions of people are moving away from our major cities on the west coast because of the hellholes that they have become.  A former Seattle police officer that was recently interviewed by a reporter from KOMO News  was very honest about the fact that he would never want to raise a family in Seattle because of the hellhole that it has become.  Every night he saw the worst of Seattle firsthand, and he finally felt forced to quit because city officials would not allow him to effectively do his job.  An explosion of homelessness in our major west coast cities has fueled a wave of crime, drugs and human degradation unlike anything we have seen before, and in many cases our law enforcement officials have their hands tied and are literally being prevented from cleaning up the streets.

Right now, more than half a million people are homeless in the United States.  As the economy gets worse, that number will continue to rise.

Many homeless Americans are law-abiding citizens that have just had a tough break. Everyone gets knocked down in life at some point, and we need to do all that we can to help those law-abiding citizens get back on their feet.

But because of their ultra-liberal policies, some of the major cities on the west coast have become magnets for drug addicts, serial criminals, sex offenders, illegal immigrants and people that have simply heard about all of the “free benefits” that are being offered.  As a result, the streets of those cities have become a showcase for the social decay that is sweeping across our nation.

Let’s start with San Francisco.  According to one report, it is home to more than 28,000 homeless people, and that would make San Francisco the city with the third largest homeless population in the United States.

Others feel like that number is way too low, and the truth is that it is exceedingly difficult to count the homeless.

After all, how are you supposed to accurately count people that don’t want to be counted?

What we do know is that San Francisco is a huge magnet for drug addicts.  The city handed out 5.8 million free syringes in 2018, and that number would seem to suggest a homeless population far in excess of 28,000.

And as all those drug addicts aimlessly wander through the streets, many of them use those streets as their own personal toilets.  Over the past 8 years, more than 118,000 reports of human feces in the streets have been filed with city authorities

Since 2011, there have been at least 118,352 reported instances of human fecal matter on city streets.

New mayor, London Breed, won election by promising to clean things up. However, conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of reports spiked to an all-time high at 28,084. In first quarter 2019, the pace continued with 6,676 instances of human waste in the public way.

In addition to endless piles of poop, the drug addicts are also endlessly committing property crimes in order to pay for their drug habits.

Each year, there are more than 6,000 property crimes per 100,000 residents in San Francisco.  That is about four times the rate of property crime that New York City has reported.

Mayor Breed would like to get a lot of these homeless people off of the streets, but finding a place to put them has been problematic.  Residents of one wealthy liberal neighborhood are currently fighting like mad to keep a proposed homeless shelter away from their gated mansions…

A wealthy liberal neighborhood in San Francisco whose residents cast the most votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election is fighting against a proposal to build a new homeless shelter near their gated mansions.

Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast track a homeless shelter that would house 200 people. However, wealthy liberals living in the affected area have set up a GoFundMe to stop the project which has already hit $80,000 of its $100,000 target.

Things are certainly not any better in Los Angeles.

According to the same report mentioned above, L.A. has nearly twice as many homeless people as San Francisco

Los Angeles has the second largest population of people exploring homelessness, according to a new report.

The LA area contains 55,200 homeless people, according to data released by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

The homeless population in L.A. has surged 75 percent in six years, and this has happened during a time when the economy has been relatively stable.

So how bad are things going to become when the economy starts getting really bad?

When I was running for Congress, one of the people that came to help the campaign had spent a lot of time in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles.  He told me about the public drug use, the constant crime and the human degradation that is seemingly everywhere.  This greatly saddened me, because Los Angeles was once a magnificent city.  In fact, at one point in my life I wanted to live there.

But not anymore.  Today, millions of people are leaving California and never looking back because of the utter hellhole the entire state has become.

Further up the coast, the city of Seattle is experiencing similar issues.  Not too long ago, a veteran Seattle reporter named Eric Johnson produced an hour-long documentary entitled “Seattle Is Dying”, and if you have not seen it yet I would strongly recommend taking the time to watch it.

Since it was first released, it has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube

In the past two weeks, Seattle Is Dying has garnered 38,000 shares on Facebook and nearly 2 million views on YouTube. The report has clearly resonated with anxious, fearful, and increasingly angry Seattle residents. Exhausted by a decade of rising disorder and property crime—now two-and-a-half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s—Seattle voters may have reached the point of “compassion fatigue.” According to the Seattle Times, 53 percent of Seattle voters now support a “zero-tolerance policy” on homeless encampments; 62 percent believe that the problem is getting worse because the city “wastes money by being inefficient” and “is not accountable for how the money is spent,” and that “too many resources are spent on the wrong approaches to the problem.”

One of the moments in the documentary that really touched me was when a concerned resident described how drug addicts have been leaving needles and human waste in the graveyard near his home.  The homeless have erected tents all around the graveyard, and he can clearly smell urine whenever he walks down the streets.

He would like to fix things, and he is fed up enough that he has decided to run for city council.  But he is facing an uphill battle, because Seattle has been entirely taken over by socialists.  The following comes from Mac Slavo

The entire video is about an hour long, but it is pretty easy to see where Seattle continues to go wrong. A heavy tax burden, regulations that push out businesses, and a power-hungry group of totalitarian sociopaths have been slowly eroding the city. The decay of Western civilization can be seen up and down the entirety of the West coast. Some say it’s by design, others disagree. But the commonality is that all of the cities are being pushed into poverty by illusions and lies of socialists. Calling Seattle anything other than a leftist’s paradise would be inaccurate. The city has all of the laws the socialists want, yet it’s killing itself because of it.

In life, the decisions that we make have consequences, and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle are now experiencing the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions.

But of course they are far from alone.  All across the country there are thousands of communities where social decay is exceedingly evident, and it is getting worse with each passing year.

If we want to change the trajectory of our future, we have got to start doing things differently.

Because if we keep doing the same things, we are going to keep getting the same results, and our country is going to continue falling apart right in front of our eyes.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.