Painful

There Have Been More Than 300 Mass Shootings In The United States So Far In 2021

Did you know that the U.S. has averaged more than one and a half mass shootings a day so far this year?  I know that sounds crazy, but it is true.  Monday will be the 200th day of the year, and according to Wikipedia there have been 327 mass shootings up to this point in 2021.  And actually the information on Wikipedia does not include all of the most recent mass shootings, and so the true number is actually a little higher.  But you can’t really blame Wikipedia, because it is extremely difficult to keep up with all of the mass shootings that are happening these days.  In fact, each one barely even makes a blip in the news before the next one happens.  We have become a nation that is filled with violence from one end to the other, and many believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

On Saturday night, headlines were made all over the nation when a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the San Diego Padres was halted due to a mass shooting that took place right outside the ballpark…

Three people were shot outside of Saturday night’s Nationals game during the 6th inning, causing players to run off the field and fans toward the exits. According to Washington Nationals on Twitter, a shooting was reported outside of the Third Base Gate at Nationals Park.

Sadly, mass shootings are becoming way too common in D.C. these days.  Just the night before, there was a mass shooting in the city that took the life of a 6-year-old girl…

Police are pleading for information after a 6-year-old girl was killed and five others were injured in a shooting late Friday night in Washington, D.C.

The shooting took place shortly after 11 p.m. in the neighborhood of Congress Heights, according to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.

Not since the days of Marion Berry have we seen such extreme violence in the nation’s capital.

Carjackings in D.C. are up a whopping 74 percent so far this year, and the police union is admitting that the city has become a place where “violent crime permeates everything”…

The police union, however, heaped blame on the ‘elected officials’ who they said allowed DC to become lawless.

‘Welcome to Washington, D.C. Where violent crime permeates everything,’ they tweeted on Sunday morning.

‘It is a tragedy that elected officials won’t let us do our jobs.’

Mass shootings are becoming increasingly common in other large cities as well.  For example, Portland is rapidly becoming one of America’s most violent cities, and over the weekend there was a tragic mass shooting in the city in which eight people were shot…

On Saturday, July 17, 2021 at 2:10 a.m., Central Precinct officers responded to a report of multiple people shot in the 300 block of Southwest 3rd Avenue. When officers arrived they found many people injured. The officers initiated lifesaving measures and secured the scene for paramedics to respond. So far 8 patients have been located and transported to the hospital by ambulance. At least one is considered life threatening. There appeared to be both male and female adults hit by bullets.

The suspect or suspects left the scene before police were called and no one has been arrested. No suspect descriptions are being released at this time.

Portland was once such a beautiful place.

What in the world has happened to that city?

Of course Portland still has a long way to go before it gets as bad as Chicago.

On Saturday night, there was a mass shooting in Chicago that resulted in four children being hit…

Four children were among six people shot and wounded Saturday night in a drive-by shooting that targeted a group mingling outside a house party in Chicago, police said.

The shooting happened about 11:40 p.m. in the Austin neighborhood on the city’s West Side, according to the Chicago Police Department.

It should break all of our hearts when we hear of innocent young children getting shot.

In the old days, criminals had higher standards than this.  In most cases, they would at least wait until there were no children present to start shooting at their enemies.

But these days, hearts are so cold that people will start shooting whether children are around or not.

In fact, some gang members are so twisted that they actually relish the thought of taking down the children of their rivals.

At this point, I don’t know why anyone would still want to live in Chicago, because a drive by shooting could literally occur at any moment.  Here is an example that happened just last Wednesday…

Autry Phillips runs a community outreach center on a block in Gresham where people like to gather on the street and catch up with each other.

“It’s a good thing to do,” Phillips said. “We want people hanging out on our block.”

And that’s what people were doing Wednesday, standing and talking near a food mart at 79th and Justine streets when a silver car pulled out from an alley and three gunman opened fire shortly after noon.

And that wasn’t even the first mass shooting in the city that day.  A few hours earlier, a shooter gunned down four women and a man…

Hours earlier, four women and a man were shot in West Garfield Park on the West Side. As in Gresham, they were gathered on a sidewalk in the 4600 block of West Monroe Street when someone approached with a gun and shot them shortly after midnight, police said.

Once upon a time, a mass shooting like that would make headlines all across America.

But these days they are so common that each one barely gets noticed.

In order to make headlines these days, a mass shooting has to have an unusual element to it.  If the shooting that just happened in D.C. had not stopped a baseball game, it probably wouldn’t have gotten much notice at all.

If we are seeing this much violence now, what will this country look like once economic conditions become extremely harsh for an extended period of time?

The fabric of our society is literally being ripped to shreds all around us, and we are headed for a very, very painful future.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

They Warned Us That There Would Be A Collapse Of Civilization In Our Generation, And They Were Right

Even some of our brightest scientific minds are projecting that there is absolutely no positive future for our civilization if we stay on our current course.  Perhaps one of the reasons why our society has become so obsessed with short-term results is because most of us can’t bear to think about the long-term consequences of our actions.  I have a website that focuses on “economic collapse”, but it isn’t just the economy that is headed for catastrophe.  Virtually every aspect of our society is coming apart at the seams all around us, and the era that we are moving into will be more nightmarish than most people would dare to imagine.  But our political leaders continue to insist that everything is going to work out just fine somehow, and most people choose to believe them.

This week, an old MIT study from 1972 that projected that our civilization will collapse at some point during the 21st century made headlines on several major news sites…

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse. Their system dynamics model published by the Club of Rome identified impending ‘limits to growth’ (LtG) that meant industrial civilization was on track to collapse sometime within the 21st century, due to overexploitation of planetary resources.

In particular, the study identified a period of time “around 2040” when societal collapse would be very likely…

The study was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040.

Of course events are not going to transpire exactly as they foresaw, but as far as the big picture is concerned they were right on the money.

Our society is now in the process of collapsing all around us, and you can see evidence of this everywhere that you look.

This week, civil unrest is causing widespread chaos in the streets in Cuba, South Africa, Beirut and Paris.  We have entered a period of time when it seems like people are perpetually angry, and the wild scenes that are playing out around the globe are absolutely shocking.

Here in the United States, we are in the midst of a crazy crime wave.  Murder rates in our major cities rose by an average of 30 percent in 2020, and they are up another 24 percent so far in 2021.  Extreme violence has become a way of life in many of our largest metropolitan areas, and this is particularly true in the city of Chicago…

A Chicago rapper died after suffering as many as 64 bullet wounds to his head and other parts of his body in what police are calling an ambush shooting just as he was released from jail.

Londre Sylvester, 31, who is known by his stage name KTS Dre, was one of three people who were shot just outside Cook County Jail in the Little Village section of Chicago on Saturday.

Chicago police seem powerless to stop the endless violence, but of course the same could be said about many other police departments around the country.

The streets of our biggest cities are becoming war zones, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

Meanwhile, we are dealing with the worst epidemic of illegal drugs in our history.  If you can believe it, drug overdose deaths were up nearly 30 percent last year…

Drug-overdose deaths in the U.S. surged nearly 30% in 2020, the tragic result of a deadlier supply and the destabilizing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to preliminary federal data and public health officials.

The estimated 93,331 deaths from drug overdoses last year, a record high, represent the sharpest annual increase in at least three decades, and compare with an estimated toll of 72,151 deaths in 2019, according to provisional overdose-drug data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Drug overdose deaths were already at an all-time high coming into 2020.

So for the number of deaths to rise 30 percent above that level in just one year is really, really tragic.

At the same time, our system of public education continues to rapidly deteriorate.

Earlier today, I was shocked to learn that 41 percent of all high school students in Baltimore have a grade point average that is below 1.0…

Project Baltimore obtained a chart assembled by Baltimore City Schools. The chart shows the average GPA for every high school grade in the city – freshman through senior. In the first three quarters of this past school year, according to the chart, 41% of all Baltimore City high school students, earned below a 1.0 grade point average. In other words, nearly half of the 20,500 public high school students in Baltimore earned less than a D average.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Patterson. “If almost half of our kids are failing, what options do they have after high school? This is really disheartening. It’s sad to see this.”

I don’t just want to single out Baltimore, because that isn’t fair.

All across this once great country of ours, public schools are completely and utterly failing our kids.  The vast majority of our high school graduates cannot read, write or speak coherently, and that simply should not be happening in the wealthiest nation on the entire planet.

Switching gears, authorities up in Canada are dealing with a different form of social decay.  For years, I have been warning that Christians in the western world would soon face the same sort of extreme persecution that Christians in other parts of the globe are forced to endure, and now it is starting to happen.

In recent weeks, individuals that are apparently motivated by a deep hatred for Christians have been setting churches on fire all over Canada…

Terrorists are attacking and burning down churches across Canada with impunity.

It’s a reality most Canadians only thought possible for Middle Eastern countries like Syria, where ISIS has bombarded and razed dozens of Christian heritage sites in the name of Islam.

We haven’t seen anything quite like this before.  According to Keean Bexte, a total of 45 Canadian churches have been burned just since the beginning of June…

The Counter Signal has kept a close eye on these terrorist attacks, reporting on the scene just hours after a fire in a refugee church.

Our information shows that since June, there have been 45 attacks on Christian and mainly Roman Catholic congregations. Of those, 17 of them have been scorched or burnt to a crisp in suspicious circumstances.

The corporate media should accept responsibility for their role in provoking these attacks.

For years, the corporate media has been relentlessly demonizing conservative Christians, and churches are the most visible symbols of conservative Christian culture in our society.

As the corporate media continues to blame conservative Christians for society’s ills, it is inevitable that there will be more attacks on churches in the future.

But of course there will be more violence everywhere around us as our society continues to steadily unravel.

I have never seen as much anger, frustration and hate as I am seeing right now, and there is no future for a society in which virtually everyone is filled with rage.

The years ahead are going to be extremely chaotic, and I would suggest that you plan accordingly.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

This Is The Worst Inflation Since The 1970s, And The Stage Is Being Set For The Total Collapse Of The U.S. Economy

How does it feel to live in a country with double-digit inflation?  On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us that the consumer price index has risen 5.4 percent over the past 12 months, and such a high number shocked a lot of people.  But in order to make a fair comparison to the past, we have to account for the fact that the way inflation is calculated has been changed literally dozens of times over the past several decades.  According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1990, the official rate of inflation over the past 12 months would be about 9 percent.  And if inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation over the past 12 months would be well into double-digits.

Everyone that has been warning that we could soon see inflation rise to levels that we haven’t witnessed since the the Jimmy Carter years can stop, because we are already there.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is committing fraud, because the numbers that they give us are almost meaningless.  For example, U.S. home prices have risen 20 percent over the past year, but the “shelter component of inflation” makes up only a tiny fraction of the overall consumer price index…

We’ll get the latest read on inflation Tuesday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out its consumer price index for the month of June. As you may recall, the May report showed the biggest annual increase in consumer prices, 5%, in 13 years. But if you’re looking for the recent jump in home prices to show up in that number, you’re likely to be disappointed. The shelter component of inflation, as measured by the CPI, has stayed pretty steady, from around 2% to 3.5%, for the past decade. And some economists have a problem with that.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your mortgage payment accounted for only 3.5 percent of your overall budget each month?

Needless to say, such a figure is completely and totally unrealistic.

For most of us, housing is the single biggest expense that we face on a regular basis.  And as I have documented in many previous articles, housing costs have been soaring into the stratosphere in recent months.

Car prices are also rising at an extremely alarming pace.  According to CNN, the average price of a new car has shot up 12 percent over the past year…

In May, the average new car price hit a record $38,255, according to JD Power, up 12% from the same period a year ago. About two-thirds of car buyers paid within 5% of the sticker price in May, with some paying even more.

Instead of buying a new vehicle, you could purchase a used one instead, but used car prices increased 10.5 percent in just the last month…

Last month alone, average used car prices soared 10.5 percent – the largest such monthly increase since record-keeping began in January 1953. That spike accounted for about one-third of the monthly increase for the third straight month.

Renting vehicles has gotten a lot more expensive as well.

In fact, average rental rates are up a whopping 86 percent since this point in 2020…

Daily car rental rates have increased 86% compared to this time last year and 140% more than 2019, according to Julie Hall, a spokesperson for AAA.

The “5.4 percent inflation” fairly tale that the Labor Department is trying to sell us is absolutely laughable.

And as long as they keep putting out such doctored numbers, they are going to have zero credibility.

Everyone can see that prices are skyrocketing all around us.  In such an environment, a restaurant in New York can charge 200 dollars for French fries and some people will actually pay that price…

Serendipity3, the iconic Upper East Side restaurant, set a Guinness World Records title for making the “Most Expensive French Fries” — just in time to celebrate National French Fry Day Tuesday!

Serendipity3’s Creative Director and Chef Joe Calderone and Corporate Executive Chef Frederick Schoen-Kiewert are the masterminds behind the “Creme de la Creme Pommes Frites,” which cost a whopping $200.

Our leaders thought that they could pump trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the system without any serious consequences.

Sadly, they were dead wrong.

Inflation is wildly out of control, and one economist just told Breitbart News that the U.S. is starting “to look a little bit like a Latin American country”…

Desmond Lachman, an economist and senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told Breitbart News on Sunday that the U.S. is beginning to resemble a Latin American country given its inflation, government spending, and printing of money.

“[The U.S. is] in [a]very bad position from a long-term point of view. I don’t see how this can end well when we’re running — now — budget deficits something like 15 percent of GDP,” Lachman said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak. “This is beginning to look a little bit like a Latin American country.”

It is actually much worse than that.

The truth is that we are in the terminal phase of the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and at such a critical moment U.S. officials have decided to systematically destroy the value of the reserve currency of the planet.

Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. government was stealing more than a hundred million dollars an hour from future generations of Americans, but now our politicians have upped that rate to more than 300 million dollars an hour.

And when the next major crisis comes along, they will pass even more “emergency packages”, because spending money is the only solution they have.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to pump giant mountains of money into the financial system.  Since September 2019, the size of the Fed balance sheet has more than doubled, and that should be considered a crime against humanity.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans don’t even know what the Federal Reserve is, and only a small fraction of the population actually understands what they are currently doing to our financial system.

Facing no significant resistance, our politicians will continue to get us into staggering amounts of debt, and the Fed will continue to transform the U.S. dollar into toilet paper.

Sadly, what they are doing is setting the stage for the collapse of the late, great U.S. economy, and the economic pain that is ahead will affect every single man, woman and child on the entire planet.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

5 Specific Reasons Why You Should Stockpile Food Right Now

For decades, Americans have not needed to be concerned about food prices.  Yes, prices would always go up by a little bit each year, but in general we have been extremely blessed for a very long time.  Our supermarkets have always been packed with food, and we could always count on the fact that prices would be about the same a month or two down the road.  Unfortunately, things are now changing, and not in a good way.  A massive wave of inflation has hit agricultural commodities, and food producers have felt forced to pass those cost increases along to consumers.  Unfortunately, many experts are anticipating that the price hikes that we are currently witnessing are just the beginning.

So even though food prices have already become quite painful, they are never going to be any lower than they are at this moment.

Looking forward, there are several factors that are likely to combine to cause food inflation to accelerate even more in the months ahead.  The following are 5 specific reasons why you should stockpile food right now…

#1 Supermarkets are feverishly stockpiling food, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that they are doing this in anticipation of “the highest price increases in recent memory”…

Supermarkets are stocking up on everything from sugar to frozen meat before they get more pricey, girding for what some executives anticipate will be some of the highest price increases in recent memory.

This only makes good business sense.  If you can get inventory now for significantly less than you will be able to get it for later, that will help your bottom line.

The Wall Street Journal is admitting that all of this stockpiling “is driving shortages of some staples”, but it is expected that these shortages will just be temporary.

I can’t remember a time when we have seen anything quite like this.  At this point, some companies are purchasing up to 25 percent more food than normal…

David Smith, CEO of the US’s largest wholesaler Associated Wholesale Grocers, told the Wall Street Journal they have been buying 15 to 20 percent more goods – particularly packaged foods with long shelf lives.

‘We’re buying a lot of everything. Our inventories are up significantly over the same period last year,’ said Smith.

At SpartanNash in Michigan, the retailer has bought up around 20 to 25 percent more than normal including frozen meat.

#2 The U.S. government is going to continue recklessly spending money, and the Federal Reserve is going to keep pumping more giant mountains of fresh cash into the financial system.

The Biden administration doesn’t seem to have an “off button”, and neither does the Fed.  The U.S. national debt is moving up toward the 29 trillion dollar mark very rapidly, and the Fed’s balance sheet has more than doubled over the past year.

Unless there is some sort of a dramatic reversal, and I don’t see why there would be, this continual flow of new money will continue to push food prices even higher.

#3 Gas prices keep surging, and this is making it more expensive to transport food around the country.

According to the AAA Gas Price Index, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is up 56 percent from what it was last May…

Transport costs are also rising with gas prices rising 56 percent in May from a year ago.

On Friday, the AAA Gas Price Index pegged the national average gas price at $3.086, up from $2.171 one year ago.

#4 The endless “megadrought” in the western states just continues to intensify.

If you look at the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, it is a horror show.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, and water levels are dropping dangerously low.

For example, the water level in Great Salt Lake is expected to hit the lowest level in 170 years this summer…

The lake’s levels are expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes as the drought has the U.S. West bracing for a brutal wildfire season and coping with already low reservoirs. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, has begged people to cut back on lawn watering and “pray for rain.”

For the Great Salt Lake, though, it is only the latest challenge. People for years have been diverting water from rivers that flow into the lake to water crops and supply homes. Because the lake is shallow — about 35 feet (11 meters) at its deepest point — less water quickly translates to receding shorelines.

Because there is not enough water, many farmers are having to dramatically reduce the amount of crops that they are growing.

Small farmer Mindy Perkovich is only growing produce on one of her seven acres at this point, and she openly admits that she doesn’t know if she will even have enough water for that…

Perkovich typically grows things like turnips, squash and tomatoes for the local market on seven acres. This season, though, she’s had to cut her crops down to less than a single acre.

“We don’t know if we’re gonna have water to keep that alive,” she says. “Financially, I can’t really even express how dramatic it’s changed in the last couple years, water-wise, because without water, we can’t grow crops without crops, we have nothing to sell to our consumers.”

Agricultural production in the western states will be lower than originally anticipated this year, and that will also put upward pressure on food prices in the coming months.

#5 On top of everything else, an enormous plague of grasshoppers is now causing massive headaches for farmers in our western states.

As I discussed on Sunday, the extremely hot and extremely dry conditions are perfect for grasshoppers, and they have been multiplying like crazy.

In some areas, the swarms are so thick that “it can appear the earth is moving”, and there are times when the swarms are so large that they are actually appearing on radar.

Seven states are being hit particularly hard, and the federal government is going to begin a large scale spraying campaign.  The spraying may reduce the plague, but all of the experts agree that it will not stop it.

Grasshoppers will continue to eat our crops on a massive scale for many months to come, and this is another factor that will be driving up food prices.

So, to summarize, the outlook for the months ahead is rather bleak.

A number of factors are going to combine to push prices significantly higher, and so if you can afford to stock up you should be doing so.

Our leaders continue to insist that this bout of inflation is just “transitory”, and you can believe them if you like.

But the truth is that high inflation is here to stay, and what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

Home Prices Just Did Something That They Have Never Done Before

Everyone knew that home prices were going crazy, and now we have some solid numbers that are simply incredible.  Home prices are rising faster than they ever have before, and so if you are shopping for a home in this environment I truly feel sorry for you.  In many parts of the country, average hard working American families have already been completely priced out of the market.  Prior to the pandemic, the largest price bubbles were in major urban areas along both coasts, but now desirable rural and suburban communities all over the nation are red hot.  In some cases, we have seen wild bidding wars that result in buyers paying more than a million dollars over asking price, and this unprecedented frenzy is pushing home prices to dizzying heights.

On Tuesday, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price data for the month of April was released, and it quickly made headlines all across America…

U.S. home prices jumped the most in more than 30 years in April.

Nationally, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values climbed 14.6% from a year earlier, according to a statement Tuesday, the biggest gain in data going back to 1988. That came after 13.2% increase in March, and was the 11th straight month that price gains accelerated.

This particular series of data only goes back to 1988, and in all that time we have never seen a rise of this magnitude.

One expert that is being quoted by CNBC is calling the rise in prices “truly extraordinary”…

“April’s performance was truly extraordinary. The 14.6% gain in the National Composite is literally the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Redfin has also released new numbers, and their numbers show an even faster rate of increase for home prices…

… it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two last month that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale prices to an all time high…

… as a record 58% of all houses sell within two weeks of listing, of which 45% sell for more than their listing price, also a record.

But don’t worry about these numbers.  Officials at the Federal Reserve insist that inflation is “low” and that they have everything under control.

If you can’t afford to buy a home, you can still try to rent a place, but rent prices are also starting to explode in many areas around the country…

Leading the trend is Boise, ID, where rents grew another 6 percent in June and are now up 39 percent since the start of the pandemic. But the fastest single-month rent growth took place in Spokane, WA, where prices shot up 8.1 percent in June and sit 31 percent above pre-pandemic levels. After that, a handful of fast-growing cities have experienced roughly 20 percent price appreciation over the last year and a half. With the exception of Virginia Beach, VA, all of them are located in the Western United States, absorbing the rental demand overflowing from nearby, pricey metros like the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.

Those that are having their rents jacked up will be just fine as long as their paychecks are increasing at the same rate.

Oh, but that isn’t happening for most people, is it?

Vehicle prices are getting crazy too.  According to the Wall Street Journal, some dealers are now selling new vehicles for “thousands of dollars” above the sticker price…

Some buyers say they have encountered dealerships asking for thousands of dollars above MSRP. And analysts and dealers say the practice is becoming more widespread and occurring on a wider range of vehicles, including more mainstream models that typically wouldn’t be targeted for such price increases.

In the old days, the goal was to negotiate a deal that was as far below sticker price as possible.

Unfortunately, these days many customers are willingly making offers that are much higher than the MSRP….

“I was shocked,” said Ken Baird, a 61-year-old Boca Raton, Fla., resident who was recently shopping for a Kia Telluride. The window sticker on the particular model he was looking at read $45,000, and he said he offered to pay $3,000 over that knowing the vehicle was in high demand.

Needless to say, food prices are getting very painful as well.

In fact, an official at one food bank in Chicago says that their food purchasing budget “has doubled” over the past 12 months…

Soaring food prices aren’t just impacting financially strapped families and the working poor. They’re also affecting the mission of US food banks who are spending a lot more on food than ever before.

“We’re already spending a lot more on food than we have in years past,” said Greg Trotter, a spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a large food bank, who spoke with VOA News. “Our food purchasing budget has doubled this year.”

All of this has been caused by the actions of our leaders.  Our politicians in Washington decided to go on the greatest spending binge in history and the Fed decided to pump trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system in order to “save the economy”, and now we have rip-roaring inflation as a result.

In addition to very painful inflation, we are also now dealing with widespread shortages.  For example, as the holiday weekend approaches many locations around the nation are once again running out of gasoline…

Gas stations across the country are running out of gasoline just as 43 million Americans are preparing to hit the road for the July 4th holiday weekend.

Those that do manage to find gas are likely to find some of the highest prices in almost seven years, with gas now averaging $3.10 a gallon across the US – the highest since October 2014.

The corporate media would have us believe that extremely high inflation and widespread shortages are signs that the U.S. economy is “booming”.

But to me, it sounds way too much like a rerun of the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

Sadly, this is just the start of the pain.  The politicians in Washington continue to spend money like drunken sailors, and the Federal Reserve continues to pump more fresh cash into the financial system each week.

So the short-term outlook is quite bleak, and the long-term outlook is even worse.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

They Are Gaslighting Us! Nightmarish Inflation Is Already Here But The Fed Is Denying That It Even Exists

They would like us to believe that what we can see happening right in front of our eyes is not actually real.  Over the past year, our politicians in Washington have gone on the largest spending binge in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and the Federal Reserve has created the most enormous financial bubble of all time by pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial markets.  Of course this was going to cause very painful inflation, and prices are rising very aggressively all around us.  But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other leaders in Washington are trying to convince us that even though they added all of this money to the system it has hardly affected the overall rate of inflation at all.  They are “gaslighting” us, and it is absolutely infuriating.

If you are not familiar with the term “gaslighting”, the following is how Wikipedia defines it…

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement.

This is precisely what they are trying to do to all of us.  Everyone can see that nightmarish inflation is already here, but they are trying to manipulate us into thinking that it is not.

Just look at home prices.  Everyone needs a place to live, and existing home prices have risen 23.6 percent over the past year…

The median existing-home price rose 23.6% in May from a year earlier to $350,300, a record high, NAR said. The annual price appreciation was the strongest in data going back to 1999. Median sales prices have climbed sharply since rising above $300,000 for the first time last July.

At this point, homes are absolutely flying off the market.  In fact, the average time that a home stays on the market has hit a record low…

Homes are selling quickly. The typical home that sold in May spent 17 days on the market, matching the record low reached in April, NAR said.

Buyers with limited cash for down payments are struggling the most to compete. Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a NAR survey.

But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists that everything is just fine and that the Fed is perfectly capable of keeping inflation around 2 percent…

“When Congress spends trillions of dollars and the Fed prints money, something’s got to give,” Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.) said. He asked Mr. Powell whether the price increases seen in recent months are “the start of something that could be as bad as the ‘70s,” when inflation reached double digits.

Mr. Powell said such a scenario is “very, very unlikely,” in part because the central bank “is strongly prepared to use its tools to keep us around 2% inflation.”

What an insane thing to say.

How can you claim that you are going to “keep us around 2% inflation” when inflation is already out of control?

As John Williams of shadowstats.com has documented, if honest numbers were being used the official rate of inflation would already be well into double digits.

Of course for certain categories we are now seeing triple digit inflation.  For instance, at one point in May the price of lumber was four times higher than it was at the same time last year…

The price of lumber, which shot up to $1,600 per thousand board feet in May from $400 early last year, is making renovations more expensive – especially projects that involve kitchens cabinets, hardwood floors and additions that require framing.

But Powell just told Congress that he is not troubled by any of this…

“If you look behind the headline and look at the categories where these prices are really going up, you’ll see that it tends to be areas that are directly affected by the reopening,” Mr. Powell said in a hearing before a House subcommittee. “That’s something that we’ll go through over a period. It will then be over. And it should not leave much of a mark on the ongoing inflation process.”

These days, Powell is definitely starting to sound a lot like Frank Drebin.

We are supposed to believe that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, but meanwhile the wholesale price of chicken wings has more than tripled…

“The [wholesale] price of wings a year ago was as low as 98 cents,” per pound, Charlie Morrison, Chairman and CEO of Wingstop Restaurants Inc., told CNN Business. “Today, it’s at $3.22. So it’s a meaningful difference.”

Our leaders insist that this is perfectly normal.

Nothing to see here.

Please move along.

To me, one of the craziest examples of inflation in our economy is what is happening to used car prices.

At this point, some used vehicles are now selling for more than they sold for when they were brand new…

When it was new, the window sticker price on a typical 2019 Toyota Tacoma SR double cab pickup was just under $29,000. Two years later, dealers are paying almost $1,000 more than that to buy the same vehicle, even though it’s used. Then they’re selling it to consumers for more than $33,000.

Welcome to the wacky world of U.S. car and truck sales, where the pandemic and a global shortage of computer chips have pushed prices to record levels.

I was absolutely floored when I first read that.

We have never seen anything happen like this before in all of U.S. history.

But Fed officials are going to continue to tell you that everything is just fine in the months ahead even as economic conditions continue to go haywire all around us.

I warned that extremely painful inflation was coming in my last book, and I will be warning about it again in the new book that I will soon be releasing.

Our leaders consciously made the decision to flood the system with new money in a desperate attempt “to save the economy”, and they should just be honest with us about the consequences of that decision.

But instead, they are just going to keep trying to spin the truth for as long as they can.

Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking, and time is not on their side.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

We Should Be Shocked By What Inflation Is Doing To Home Prices, Because We Have Never Seen This Before

If you are shopping for a home right now, I really do feel sorry for you.  Home prices in many areas of the country have officially crossed the line into “absurd” territory, and they just keep going higher.  Thanks to wild spending by the federal government and the economic malpractice that has been happening at the Federal Reserve, we now have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services.  Inflation is showing up in every sector of our economy, but it is not showing up equally in all sectors.  One area where inflation threatens to spiral completely out of control is in home prices.  Right now we are seeing the wildest bidding wars in U.S. history, and in many, many cases buyers end up paying way over listing price.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  When a fairly ordinary three bedroom home in Berkeley, California was recently listed for more than a million dollars, the real estate agent that listed the property was absolutely stunned by what happened next…

A three bedroom, mid-century home on a cul-de-sac in Berkeley, California, with an expansive view of the San Francisco Bay was nearly a one-of-a-kind property, said Jill Carrigan, an agent with The Grubb Company who listed it this spring.

“It ticked all the boxes for a lot of people,” she said. “I’ve never had a property with 29 offers and buyers were upping their offers without us even countering. The Bay Area is always competitive, but this was something I’d never seen before.”

This wasn’t a property that was particularly special.  You can see a photo of it right here.  In my opinion, there is no way in the world that such a house should ever sell for a million dollars.

Of course it didn’t sell for a million dollars.

When the dust finally settled, it sold for 2.3 million dollars…

Listed at $1.15 million, the home sold in two weeks for $2.3 million in cash, double the asking price.

You might think that such extreme bidding wars are rare, but they aren’t.

In fact, CNN is reporting that 940 U.S. homes sold for more than half a million dollars above listing price in March, and 310 U.S. homes sold for more than a million dollars above listing price in that month alone.

That is just one month!

Now that our leaders have turned the U.S. dollar into “wheelbarrow money”, this is the sort of thing that is going to happen.

In this sort of an environment, a “fixer upper” in Colorado Springs that was completely trashed by a former tenant can sell for $590,000…

A ‘formerly majestic’ Colorado Springs home left in ruin and covered in graffiti by an angry former tenant has gone on the market for $590,000.

Listed as an ‘investor special’ on Zillow, the 3,598 square-foot home is advertised as a fixer upper after it was destroyed by the prior tenant who covered the walls with spray-painted messages including ‘evict me b***h’ and left a pile of rotten meet in a freezer.

As long as this frenzy continues, I am going to recommend that young couples look to rent instead of buy, but rents are going up rapidly too.  This week we learned that rental prices just increased at the fastest pace in 15 years during the month of April…

Single-family rents were up 5.3% year over year in April, rising from a 2.4% increase in April 2020, according to CoreLogic. That is the largest gain in nearly 15 years.

Rents for single-family detached homes (not townhomes), were up an even stronger 7.9% compared with a year ago, as millennials in particular seek more outdoor space. Nearly half of millennials surveyed by Corelogic, and 64% of baby boomers, said they, “strongly prefer” to live in a single, stand-alone home.

Yes, the U.S. has wrestled with inflation at various times in the past, but what we are witnessing here in 2021 is completely insane.

Just look at what is happening in the restaurant industry.  In upstate New York, the cost of chicken wings has gone up 99 percent and the cost of fryer oil has gone up more than 120 percent so far in 2021.

How are you supposed to run a profitable restaurant with prices spiking like that?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our leaders have pumped trillions and trillions of fresh dollars into the system, and all of that money is creating a tremendous amount of inflationary pressure.  At this point, things have already gotten so crazy that pieces of “artwork” that Hunter Biden has created are selling for up to $500,000…

President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has taken a turn into artistry and the first paintings he’s selling are going for as high as $500,000.

The first son’s first foray into the art world has seen his pieces picked up by art dealer Georges Berges, who has priced the younger Biden’s artwork between $75,000 and $500,000 depending on the size and scope of the collage artwork.

Now that Hunter Biden is trying to go clean and sober, I suppose that he has to try to make a living somehow.

But are there people that will actually be willing to pay half a million dollars for a piece of his “art”?

I find that hard to believe, but of course I find a lot of things hard to believe these days.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve finally took a few very small steps in the direction of acknowledging the crisis that we are facing…

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee unanimously left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after saying in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.” The raised expectations come amid the biggest rise in consumer prices in about 13 years.

Of course those moves by the Fed won’t actually do anything to get the “inflation monster” that they have created under control.

As long as our politicians in Washington continue their wildest spending binge ever, and as long as the Fed continues to pump more money into the financial system, the “inflation monster” will continue to grow.

So if you are looking to buy a home, there might not be any relief for the foreseeable future.

We are going down the same road that the Weimar Republic once did, but our leaders keep insisting that somehow we will get a much different result.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

Inflation Is Starting To Get Really Crazy – And It Is Worse Than You Think

Inflation is making headlines all over the country, but the mainstream media is not being honest about the true severity of the crisis.  We are being told that the official rate of inflation is still in single digits, but what we aren’t being told is that the way inflation is calculated has changed dramatically over the years.  In fact, according to Forbes “the government has changed the way it calculates inflation more than 20 times” over the past 30 years.  The rate of inflation directly affects so many other things in our system, and the government would like to keep that number as low as possible.  So they tinkered and tinkered with the formula until they got it just where they wanted it.

But even with the highly modified formula that they are now using, the rate of inflation still rose at the fastest pace in almost 13 years last month…

The consumer price index, which represents a basket including food, energy, groceries, housing costs and sales across a spectrum of goods, rose 5% from a year earlier. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a gain of 4.7%.

The reading represented the biggest CPI gain since the 5.3% increase in August 2008, just before the financial crisis sent the U.S. spiraling into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

We all remember what happened in the months following August 2008.

Hopefully we will not have a repeat of that.

Of course the truth is that consumer prices are not just rising at a 5 percent rate in the United States right now.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1990, it would be above 8 percent right now.

And if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would currently be sitting at about 13 percent.

But 5 percent inflation sure sounds a whole lot better than 13 percent, doesn’t it?

One thing that I am keeping a very close eye on is food inflation.  Earlier today, I came across a story from one CBS affiliate in which they used the term “sticker shock” to describe what consumers are now experiencing at the grocery store…

You may have noticed a significant jump in prices at the grocery store.

More and more grocery shoppers are experiencing sticker shock every day. The price of food — especially meat, fruit and vegetables — is going up.

If prices were increasing at just a 5 percent annual rate, that wouldn’t be a big deal.

Sadly, the reality is much worse than that, and that is especially true for meat prices.  According to one deli owner, the true rate of inflation for meat prices is “probably closer” to 20 or 30 percent…

Jeff Cohen, a deli owner and meat wholesaler, said those factors are making the price of meat out of control.

“They said on national news it’s 10 percent. But that’s not true. it’s probably closer 20, 30 percent,” Cohen said.

We will continue to get a lot of happy talk from the Biden administration and from the Federal Reserve, but this is becoming a real national crisis.

When CBS News interviewed one shopper in Maryland, she said that she is now spending about twice as much on groceries as she did before…

Abby Walter said she started noticing her grocery bill creeping up earlier this year. Prior to January, the Maryland resident had typically spent about $75 a week on groceries. Now her bill is averaging about $150 or even more.

I still remember when I could get an entire shopping cart of food for just 25 dollars.

Now if I can get an entire cart of food for less than 200 dollars, I consider that to be a monumental achievement.

I try really hard to take advantage of sales and make every dollar stretch as far as I can.  But these days some of the sale prices are higher than the old regular prices.

As global commodity prices have exploded higher in recent months, companies have been forced to pass those increases along to consumers, but they are attempting to use language that will not cause widespread alarm…

If you ask Pampers maker Procter & Gamble Co., it’s not raising prices, it’s “taking pricing.” Rival Unilever, known for Dove soap and Axe body spray, says it’s been “very active with pricing.” The prize for creativity — so far at least — has been home-improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos., whose finance chief told investors Wednesday that it was “elevating our pricing ecosystem.”

What in the world is a “pricing ecosystem”?

I would love to have a representative from Lowe’s define that for me.

Executives from General Mills are also using language that borders on the absurd…

Then there’s cereal maker General Mills Inc., whose jargon includes arcane phrases like “strategic revenue management” and “holistic margin management,” which is not language you’d ever find on the back of a box of Lucky Charms. The company uses those terms so often, in fact, that its CEO now just refers to them by the acronyms SRM and HMM.

Why can’t they just say that they are “raising prices”?

These days, I cringe whenever I go down the cereal aisle.  It is hard for me to believe that cereal prices are so high now, but I know that they will eventually get a whole lot higher.

We have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and instead of taking emergency measures to get inflation under control our leaders seem intent on making things even worse.

The Biden administration wanted to spend 2 trillion dollars on infrastructure, but a group of U.S. Senators is currently working on a “compromise deal” that would only provide 1.2 trillion dollars in new infrastructure spending.

This is on top of the trillions upon trillions of dollars that we have already borrowed and spent during this crisis.

We can’t do this anymore.

It is complete and utter insanity.

But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to care.  They are going to continue to borrow and spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, and the Federal Reserve is going to continue to shovel enormous gobs of cash into the financial system.

So more inflation is on the way, and the standard of living for most Americans is going to continue to go down.

***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 End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter 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.

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