Societal Collapse

More than half of all Americans “plan to stockpile food and other essentials” for the chaotic months ahead

There was a time when preppers were relentlessly mocked, but nobody is laughing now.  Today, most Americans are thinking about stockpiling food, and this massive shift in our national mindset has been sparked by concern about what is going to happen in the months ahead.  Many Americans believe that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic is coming, others believe that our ongoing economic depression will get even deeper, and yet others are convinced that the upcoming election could produce widespread violence.  Of course there have always been people that have been deeply alarmed about future events, but we have never seen anything quite like this.  In fact, a brand new survey has found that over half of all Americans are currently planning “to stockpile food and other essentials”…

Slightly more than half of Americans in a recent poll from Sports and Leisure Research Group say they already have or plan to stockpile food and other essentials. The chief reason: fears of a resurgent pandemic, which could lead to disruptions such as new restrictions on businesses. On Oct. 2, the number of COVID-19 cases in the USA was its highest in almost two months.

People still remember the shortages that we witnessed earlier this year when the coronavirus pandemic first erupted in this country, and those that ended up being stuck at home without enough toilet paper would rather not repeat that experience.

So as the mainstream media continues to hype a new wave of the pandemic, we should expect to see Americans hitting the grocery stores really hard.  And according to data company Envestnet Yodlee, there is evidence that this is already happening…

Already, there’s some evidence that grocery sales are rising, according to data from industry sources. The typical bill for a trip to the grocery store rose to $72 for the week ended October 6, or 11% higher from the week before, according to data company Envestnet Yodlee.

“That’s the highest we’ve seen since the first week of June and the second-highest since we started tracking this in January,” said Bill Parsons, group president of data and analytics at Evestnet.

Fortunately, many grocery store chains anticipated a spike in demand in advance and started stocking up ahead of time.  The following comes from CNN…

Grocery stores across the United States are stocking up on products to avoid shortages during a second wave of coronavirus.

Household products — including paper towels and Clorox wipes — have been difficult to find at times during the pandemic, and if grocery stores aren’t stocked up and prepared for second wave this winter, runs on products and shortages could happen again.

During a time when other retailers all over the nation are failing at a pace that we have never seen before, many grocery store chains are actually experiencing booming sales.

And of course I have been warning that this would eventually happen for a very long time.  During a time of crisis, demand for food and other essentials tends to go up and demand for non-essential items tends to go down.

Needless to say, this is something that is not just happening in the United States.  All over the world we have seen demand for food on the rise, and this comes at a time when global food production has become increasingly stressed.

As a result, food prices all over the world are starting to escalate quite aggressively…

Food prices continue rising during the coronavirus pandemic, jeopardizing food security for tens of millions worldwide.

On Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said world food prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, led by surging prices for cereals and vegetable oils, reported Reuters.

FAO’s food price index, which tracks the international prices of the top traded food commodities (cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar), averaged 97.9 in September versus a downwardly revised 95.9 in August.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Global food supplies will continue to get even tighter, and global demand for food will just continue to shoot higher.

So I would stock up while you still can, because prices will never be lower than they are right now.

Meanwhile, our society continues to unravel right in front of our eyes.  You would think that the Lakers winning the NBA title would be a time to celebrate for the city of Los Angeles, but instead large crowds of young people used it as an opportunity to riot and attack police officers…

A crowd of more than 1,000 revelers descended into the area around Staples Center after the game. Unruly individuals mixed within the crowd began throwing glass bottles, rocks, and other projectiles at officers. That is when an unlawful assembly was declared, and only a limited number of people complied and began to disperse. A larger portion of the group broke off and began vandalizing businesses while continuing to engage in violent behavior, some aimed at responding officers.

In Portland, protesters just toppled statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln during a “day of rage”, but the mainstream media didn’t seem to think that this was any sort of a problem.

And in the middle of the country, the violence never seems to stop in the city of Chicago…

Five people were killed and 48 others were injured by gunfire this weekend in Chicago. Five of those wounded were teenagers.

Last weekend saw 37 people shot throughout the city, five of them fatally.

Of course things could soon get a whole lot worse.

According to one recent survey, 56 percent of all Americans expect “an increase in violence as a result of the election”.

Isn’t that incredibly sad?

Many are still hoping that such a scenario can be avoided if one of the candidates is able to build an extremely large lead on election night.  A large enough lead could potentially cause the candidate that is behind to concede fairly quickly, and that may ease tensions.

But I wouldn’t count on that.

At this point we are about 500 hours away from the election, and both sides are indicating that they are prepared to fight until the bitter end.

And the side that ultimately ends up losing is likely to throw a massive temper tantrum, and that won’t be good for our country at all.

So it makes sense that so many Americans are making extra preparations for the months that are ahead, because it definitely appears that they could be quite rocky.

***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 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.

The stage has been set for a historic national meltdown…

Everything that has happened in 2020 so far has set us up for a grand finale that none of us will ever forget.  This year we have already witnessed the worst public health crisis in about a hundred years, widespread lockdowns all over the nation, a crippling economic collapse and civil unrest in major cities across America.  To say that the American people are in a bad mood would be a major understatement.  Now we are less than a month away from a bitterly contested presidential election, and as you will see below, one survey recently found that a majority of Americans are expecting violence.  That is extremely unfortunate, but these are the times in which we live.  Our country is literally falling apart all around us, and nobody seems to have a way to stop it from happening.

And the worse economic conditions become, the worse the mood of the nation is going to get.  On Thursday, we learned that another 840,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

The latest jobless claims figures from the Labor Department, which cover the week ending Oct. 2, show that 840,000 workers sought aid last week, about four-times the pre-crisis level. More than 63 million Americans have sought jobless aid since the coronavirus lockdowns began in mid-March.

If someone had told me late last year that 63 million Americans would file new claims for unemployment benefits this year, I would have thought that person was crazy.

Prior to 2020, the worst number for a single week in all of U.S. history was 695,000, and now we have been way above that figure every single week of this pandemic.

Of course the layoffs just keep rolling along.  Right now, it is being reported that WarnerMedia expects to lay off thousands of workers in the coming weeks…

AT&T’s WarnerMedia is preparing a restructuring that seeks to reduce costs by as much as 20% as the COVID-19 panic drains income from movie tickets, cable subscriptions and TV ads, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The layoffs are expected to begin in the coming weeks and would result in thousands of layoffs across Warner Bros. studios and TV channels like HBO, TBS and TNT, the paper said.

Personally, I wouldn’t be saddened if WarnerMedia completely shut down on a permanent basis.  They produce an endless barrage of garbage programming that is corrupting the minds of millions of Americans, and our society would definitely be better off without them.

But at the same time that millions upon millions of Americans have been losing their jobs, those at the very top of the economic food chain have been getting even wealthier thanks to the Federal Reserve’s reckless intervention in the financial markets.

At this point, the top one percent of all Americans have more than 15 times more money than the bottom 50 percent combined…

According to the latest Fed data, the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion (or 30.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.), while the bottom 50% of the population holds just $2.1 trillion combined (or 1.9% of all wealth).

If you think that there isn’t a lot of resentment out there, then you haven’t been paying attention.

We are seeing the rise of a “Robin Hood mentality” among many that live in deeply impoverished areas, and when things get really crazy out there they are going to be hitting wealthy neighborhoods really hard.

Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that this upcoming election could potentially be the spark that sets off a lot more civil unrest.  Personally, I have such a bad feeling about what is going to happen, and I believe that having so many people voting by mail could cause all sorts of problems.

In fact, even the mainstream media is admitting that we could see a million ballots that are sent through the mail rejected for one reason or another…

Absentee ballot rejections this November are projected to reach historic levels, risking widespread disenfranchisement of minority voters and the credibility of election results, a USA TODAY, Columbia Journalism Investigations and PBS series FRONTLINE investigation found.

At least 1.03 million absentee ballots could be tossed if half of the nation votes by mail. Discarded votes jump to 1.55 million if 75% of the country votes absentee. In the latter scenario, more than 185,000 votes could be lost in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – states considered key to capturing the White House.

Any system of voting that could potentially disenfranchise a million voters is deeply broken and should not be used.

But at this point it is too late to do anything about it.  More than 6 million people have already voted, and more votes are being sent in with each passing day.

Of course millions of other Americans are also deeply concerned about the integrity of this election.  Just check out the results of a recent YouGov survey…

The YouGov poll of 1,999 registered voters found that nearly half – 47% – disagree with the idea that the election “is likely to be fair and honest.” And that slightly more than half – 51% – won’t “generally agree on who is the legitimately elected president of the United States.” The online poll was conducted Oct.1-2 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.56 percentage points.

In essence, about half the country believes that this election may not be legitimate.

That is a major national crisis right there.

In addition, YouGov has also found that 56 percent of Americans believe that there will be “an increase in violence as a result of the election”…

In addition, a YouGov poll of 1,505 voters found that 56% said they expect to see “an increase in violence as a result of the election.” That question had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.

This definitely is not the America that I grew up in.

In the old days, nobody would have ever imagined widespread violence after a presidential election.

Another recent survey discovered that a whopping 61 percent of Americans believe that “the U.S. could be on the verge of another Civil War”.

We have never seen anything like this before, and at this point it is undeniable that our society is breaking down all around us.

But instead of bringing us together, the results of this upcoming election are only going to deepen our divisions no matter who wins.

Everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build is at risk, and we are getting very, very close to crossing the point of no return.

***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 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.

20 things that you must believe in order to convince yourself that everything is going to turn out okay somehow

Despite everything that we have already been through in 2020, the dominant narrative in our society right now is that everything is going to be just fine once we get past our temporary problems.  So many people that I hear from can’t understand why I am so “negative” about the future, because they are completely convinced that really great days are just around the corner.  As odd as this may sound, we are seeing this sort of wild optimism among both Democrats and Republicans, Christians and atheists, capitalists and communists.  Of course about half the country will have their optimistic hopes for the future brutally crushed by the results of the upcoming election, but we aren’t there yet.  For now, both sides are absolutely convinced that they are going to win, and both sides are envisioning a wonderful new era for our nation in which their values reign triumphant.

If only things were that easy.

The truth is that many of our largest problems have been steadily growing for decades, and they aren’t going to magically disappear just because a particular candidate wins an election.  Our debt levels are absolutely exploding, our economy has plunged into a depression, there is widespread civil unrest in our streets, our nation is more divided than it has ever been in my entire lifetime, and our society is literally coming apart at the seams as just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is growing rapidly all around us.

But there are a whole lot of people out there that want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be just fine.

If you would like to be just like them, the following are 20 things that you must believe in order to convince yourself that everything is going to turn out okay somehow…

#1 “Being 27 trillion dollars in debt is not a problem.  We can go into as much debt as we want, and future generations of Americans won’t mind at all that we are dumping all of our bills on them.”

#2 “The fact that the Federal Reserve creates trillions of dollars out of thin air whenever a major crisis erupts doesn’t really matter.  We can debase the reserve currency of the world as much as we want and the rest of the globe will continue to use it and the inflation rate in this country will never get out of control.”

#3 “Antifa is just an idea, and all of the rioting, looting and violence will somehow magically come to an end after the upcoming election.”

#4 “When I see people smashing windows, setting buildings on fire and shooting at police officers, I just remember to remind myself that those are really just peaceful protesters.”

#5 “It is perfectly okay that a former intern for Joe Biden will moderate the next presidential debate.  He has promised that he will be perfectly neutral, and I believe him.”

#6 “Kamala Harris will never become president if Joe Biden wins the election, because Joe Biden is so strong and vigorous that he could easily make it through two terms.”

#7 “The Democrats would never pack the Supreme Court, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are way too decent to ever allow that to happen.”

#8 “Once the election is over, the big social media companies will give us our freedom of speech back because that is the right thing to do.”

#9 “It makes perfect sense that the stock market has soared to record highs while the real economy has plunged into a horrifying depression.  This isn’t a bubble, and stock prices will just keep going up indefinitely.”

#10 “It is perfectly okay that 40 percent of U.S. children are being born outside of marriage.  America can certainly prosper without strong marriages and strong families because so many other great civilizations have shown that it can be done.”

#11 “Even though study after study has shown that antibodies fade very rapidly and that any immunity is very short-lived, a vaccine will save us from this pandemic.”

#12 “Once this virus has been eradicated, they won’t make us wear masks anymore, and they certainly wouldn’t try to force people to take vaccines if they don’t want them.”

#13 “Now that everyone has seen how much chaos this pandemic has caused, evil people would never purposely release more deadly viruses because they wouldn’t want to kick us while we are down.”

#14 “There is no need to worry that our relationships with Russia and China have gone down the tubes, because our military is so strong that nobody would ever dare getting into a military conflict with us.”

#15 “Even though the head of the UN World Food Program is warning that there will be famines of ‘biblical proportions’, I am sure that any food shortages are just temporary and everyone in the world will have plenty of food to eat in 2021 and beyond.”

#16 “More than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits this year, but most of those jobs will quickly come back, and we are on the verge of the greatest era of economic prosperity in U.S. history.”

#17 “The rapid rise in crime rates in cities all over the nation is just temporary.  I am sure that things will go back to normal in 2021.”

#18 “We can ignore the hundreds of earthquakes that are shaking the west coast, because ‘the Big One’ probably won’t happen for thousands of years.”

#19 “The fact that tens of millions of Americans will be mailing in their ballots won’t cause any issues at all.  All of the ballots will be counted quickly, efficiently and accurately, and the American people will remain perfectly calm while we wait for days or even weeks to find out the winner of the presidential election.”

#20 “Even though more than 60 million children have already been aborted, and even though every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, there will never be any serious consequences for our actions and the greatest days for America are still ahead of us even though we completely refuse to change our ways.”

***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 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.

15 Signs That America’s Economic Depression Is Accelerating As We Head Toward The Holiday Season

Hardly anyone expected that things would get this bad in 2020.  Once the pandemic hit and states all over the country started instituting lockdowns, economic activity collapsed dramatically.  U.S. GDP was down 31.4 percent during the second quarter of 2020, and that was a drop without parallel in all of U.S. history.  In fact, that decline was more than three times as large as the previous record.  But eventually states started to “reopen” their economies, and U.S. GDP for the third quarter is expected to show a significant rebound when the numbers are finally released.  Of course we still aren’t even close to where we used to be, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were in the second quarter.  But now as the fourth quarter begins, it appears that economic conditions are heading back in the wrong direction again.  The following are 15 signs that America’s economic depression is accelerating as we head toward the holiday season…

#1 All 546 Regal Cinema theaters in the United States are being shut down, and right now there is no timetable for reopening them.

#2 It is being reported that AMC Entertainment (the largest movie theater chain in the U.S.) will “run out of liquidity” in 6 months.

#3 Over the weekend, I was told by someone that works in the industry that he expects most movie theaters in the country to eventually close down permanently because of this pandemic.

#4 The average rent on a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco is 20.3 percent lower than it was one year ago.

#5 During the 3rd quarter, the number of vehicles delivered by General Motors was down about 10 percent from a year ago.

#6 It is being reported that Anheuser-Busch will be laying off 400 employees in Loveland, Denver, Littleton and Colorado Springs.

#7 Allstate has just announced that they will be laying off 3,800 workers.

#8 JCPenney says that it will be cutting approximately 15,000 jobs as we approach the holiday shopping season.

#9 At least one-fourth of the 28,000 layoffs that Disney will be conducting will happen in Florida.

#10 Collectively, American Airlines and United Airlines let 32,000 employees go last week.

#11 On Thursday, we learned that another 787,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week.

#12 Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits so far in 2020.  That number is far higher than anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.

#13 Retail store closings in the United States continue to surge along at a pace that is absolutely unprecedented.

#14 Bankruptcy filings in New York City have risen 40 percent so far in 2020.

#15 This number is hard to believe, but it is being reported that almost 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their full rent for the month of August.

None of this was supposed to happen.

By now, we were supposed to be well into a “V-shaped recovery” that would soon have Americans forgetting all about the dark days in the middle of 2020.

But instead, millions upon millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are facing a deeply uncertain future.  One of those Americans is an unemployed cook named Juan Jose Martinez Camacho…

Juan Jose Martinez Camacho, 59, has been a cook for 30 years, since he was asked to fill in one day when he was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant.

He has worked as a cook at the Crowne Plaza in Redondo Beach, California, for 22 years. When he was laid off on March 23, he was thinking it would be only two or three months before things got back to normal. But late last month he was notified he had permanently lost the job, which paid $22 an hour. He has been looking for other cooking jobs without any luck.

Can you imagine doing the same thing for 30 years and suddenly being out of a job?

Like most Americans, he assumed that the pandemic would soon pass and he would be going back to his old routine.

But that hasn’t happened, and so he is among the millions of restaurant workers that are not bringing in any income right now.

With so many Americans out of work, food banks around the country have been dealing with a tsunami of demand.  In previous articles, I have written about the absolutely massive lines that we have been seeing in certain portions of the nation.  In some cases, people have started lining up at 2 AM in the morning and the lines have gotten up to 2 miles long.

And every week we see more gigantic lines at food banks all over America.  The following is how one local news source described the massive lines that have been consistently forming in the state of Texas…

Thousands of cars form tightly packed lines across the state every week now to receive food. From Chihuahuan Desert border towns and cities to the staked plains of the panhandle, across the piney wood of deep East Texas, down to the Rio Grande and back cars stack, growing into steel and fiberglass caterpillars, hungry.

These events have distributed tens of millions of pounds of food over the past six months.

If you still have your job and you haven’t been forced to visit a food bank during this crisis, you should be thankful for your blessings.

Just like in the 1930s, we are witnessing colossal lines for food all over the nation, and this is just the beginning.

If you have been waiting for a “recovery”, you can stop waiting, because what we witnessed during the third quarter was about all the “recovery” that we are going to get.

Now we are less than a month away from a presidential election that promises to be incredibly chaotic, and the extremely deep divisions that already exist in our nation are likely to get even worse.  Many believe that this election will produce even more civil unrest, and that will likely depress economic activity even further.

I truly wish that economic conditions would “return to normal” and that all of us could get back to our old patterns.

But there isn’t going to be any “return to normal” any time soon.

Instead, very dark days are ahead, and those very dark days will shake this nation to the core.

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

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 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.

America 1950 vs. America 2020

If you could go back to 1950, would you do it?  There would be no Internet, no cellphones and you would only be able to watch television in black and white.  But even though they lacked many of our modern conveniences, people genuinely seemed to be much happier back then.  Families actually ate dinner together, neighbors knew and cared about one another, and being an “American” truly meant something.  Today, we like to think that we are so much more “advanced” than they were back then, but the truth is that our society is in the process of falling apart all around us.  Could it be possible that we could learn some important lessons by looking back at how Americans lived 70 years ago?

Of course there has never been any era in our history when everything has been perfect.  But without a doubt, things are vastly different today than they were back in 1950…

In 1950, Texaco Star Theatre, The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy were some of the most popular shows that Americans watched on television.

In 2020, a Netflix film entitled “Cuties” is so trashy and so disgusting that four states have sent a letter to Netflix asking for it to be removed because it is “fodder for those with criminal imaginations, serving to normalize the view that children are sexual beings.”

In 1950, television networks would not even show husbands and wives in bed together.

In 2020, “adult websites” get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.

In 1950, people would greet one another as they walked down the street.

In 2020, Americans are too enamored with their cellphones to be bothered with actual human contact.

In 1950, gum chewing and talking in class were some of the major disciplinary problems in our schools.

In 2020, kids are literally gunning down police officers in the streets.

In 1950, people would make an effort to dress up and look nice when they would go out in public.

In 2020, most of the population has become utter slobs and “People of Walmart” has become one of our most popular memes.

In 1950, the typical woman got married for the first time at age 20 and the typical man got married for the first time at age 22.

In 2020, the typical woman gets married for the first time at age 27 and the typical man gets married for the first time at age 29.

In 1950, a lot of people would leave their homes and their vehicles unlocked because crime rates were so low.

In 2020, many that live in urban areas are deathly afraid of all the civil unrest that has erupted, and gun sales have soared to all-time record highs.

In 1950, Americans actually attempted to parent their children.

In 2020, we pump our kids full of mind-altering drugs and we let our televisions and our video games raise our children.

In 1950, Baltimore was one of the most beautiful and most prosperous cities on the entire planet.

In 2020, Baltimore regularly makes headlines because of all the murders that are constantly occurring.  Of course the exact same thing could be said about many of our other major cities.

In 1950, 78 percent of all households in America contained a married couple.

In 2020, that figure has fallen below 50 percent.

In 1950, about 5 percent of all babies in the United States were born to unmarried parents.

In 2020, about 40 percent of all babies in the United States will be born to unmarried parents.

In 1950, new churches were regularly being opened all over the United States.

In 2020, it is being projected that 1 out of every 5 churches in the U.S. “could be forced to shut their doors in the next 18 months”, and the mayor of Lubbock, Texas just said that opening a new Planned Parenthood clinic is like starting a church.

In 1950, we actually had high standards for our elected officials, and people actually did research on the candidates before they cast their votes.

In 2020, more than 4,000 people in one county in New Hampshire voted for a “transsexual Satanic anarchist” in the Republican primary, and she is now the Republican nominee for sheriff in Cheshire County.

In 1950, children would go outside and play when they got home from school.

In 2020, our parks and our playgrounds are virtually empty and we have the highest childhood obesity rate in the industrialized world.

In 1950, front porches were community gathering areas, and people would regularly have their neighbors over for dinner.

In 2020, many of us don’t know our neighbors at all, and the average American watches more than five hours of television a day.

In 1950, Americans used words such as “knucklehead”, “moxie” and “jalopy”.

In 2020, new terms such as “nomophobia”, “peoplekind” and “social distancing” have been introduced into the English language.

In 1950, the very first credit card was issued in the United States.

In 2020, Americans owe more than 930 billion dollars on their credit cards.

In 1950, one income could support an entire middle class household.

In 2020, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and filed for unemployment, and more than half of all households in some of our largest cities are currently facing “serious financial problems”.

In 1950, the American people believed that the free market should govern the economy.

In 2020, most Americans seem to believe that the government in Washington and the Federal Reserve must endlessly “manage” the economy.

In 1950, “socialists” and “communists” were considered to be our greatest national enemies.

In 2020, most of our politicians in Washington have eagerly embraced socialist and communist policy goals.

In 1950, the U.S. Constitution was deeply loved and highly revered.

In 2020, anyone that actually admits to being a “constitutionalist” is considered to be a potential domestic terrorist.

In 1950, the United States loaned more money to the rest of the world than anybody else.

In 2020, the United States owes more money to the rest of the world than anybody else.

In 1950, the total U.S. national debt reached the 257 billion dollar mark for the first time in our history.

In 2020, we added 864 billion dollars to the national debt in the month of June alone.  In other words, we added over three times more to the national debt in that one month than the total amount of debt that had been accumulated from the founding of our nation all the way to 1950.

In 1950, most Americans were generally happy with their lives.

In 2020, the suicide rate is at an all-time record high, and it has been rising every single year since 2007.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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.

We Should Mourn For What Is Happening To America

This week it was Kenosha, Wisconsin and next week it will probably be somewhere else.  Yet another senseless police shooting was followed by more rioting, looting and violence.  Of course rioting, looting and violence have basically become a nightly occurrence in America at this point anyway.  The protests never seem to end in some cities, and crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing all over the country.  Much of what is written about all of this chaos is focused on trying to pin the blame on someone, but even if we correctly identify who is to blame, will that actually stop the violence?  I don’t believe that it would.  In fact, I don’t think that anything is going to stop the violence any time soon.

I just feel so sad today.  We are literally watching the meltdown of our society, and that process is going to continue no matter what happens in November.  I have never seen so much anger in America, and the frightening thing is that the level of anger seems to just keep growing.

I wish that we could learn to truly forgive one another, love one another and come together as a society.  For years I have been telling my readers that civil unrest like this was coming, and there is an entire chapter in my new book entitled “Civil Unrest and Martial Law”.  So many of the things that myself and others have been warning about are now playing out right in front of our eyes, but there is absolutely no joy in being correct.  There is only sadness.  I love the United States of America and what I see happening to our nation grieves me very deeply.

Whenever I write articles about our need to love one another, those articles tend not to get much attention at all.  In America today, we would much rather hate our enemies than love them.  The corporate media has trained us to hate those “on the other side”, and they have done that job very well.  They have been stirring the pot for years, and now much of the population has been perfectly primed to explode.

In such an environment, it was inevitable that there would eventually be eruptions of violence.  On Sunday night, it was Kenosha’s turn…

Armed rioters shut down streets in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday night as the city fell into chaos after a police-involved shooting earlier in the evening.

A large group of rioters – including at least two armed rioters – blocked a police armored car from proceeding down a street. After a standoff, the police began throwing tear gas canisters from the top of the vehicle to disperse the crowd. Moments later, gunshots rang out after one of the protesters appeared to open fire.

The police shooting that caused these riots only happened a few hours earlier.

That means that some of these rioters were already armed and were ready to cause chaos on very little notice.

And it seems that these sorts of riots are almost always accompanied by widespread looting…

The violence quickly spread and eventually large mobs began looting shops and stores throughout the city.

Later in the night, vehicles at several car dealerships were set ablaze. Including one at a dealership next to a church which displayed a Black Lives Matter sign.

And just like in so many other cities, police officers in Kenosha quickly became targets.  In fact, it was reported that one officer was actually knocked down with a brick.

Protesters were promising to come back Monday night, but Governor Tony Evers called out the National Guard in a desperate attempt to keep that from happening…

In a bid to stave off another night of chaos, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said 125 members of the National Guard would be in Kenosha on Monday night with responsibility for ‘guarding infrastructure and making sure our firefighters and others involved are protected.’

The Kenosha Police Department declared a state-of-emergency curfew for Monday night beginning at 8pm until 7am the following morning, according to a post on the police department’s Twitter feed.

Meanwhile, we witnessed yet another senseless riot in Portland on Sunday night…

A tumultuous weekend in Portland ended late Sunday night with Portland Police declaring a riot outside of the bureau’s North Precinct.

Police said they made 23 arrests over the course of the night on various charges like interfering with a peace officer and rioting.

During the riot, protesters were literally hurling anything that they could find at the police…

Demonstrators lit dumpsters on fire, and threw fireworks, rocks, and “sharp chunks of ceramic” at officers, police said.

Just after 10:30 p.m., police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly.

Sadly, a similar scene unfolded in Denver just the night before…

Dozens of armed Black Lives Matter anarchists descended on the Denver Police Headquarters and damaged buildings, set fires and shot fireworks at cops.

The mob, consisting of between 50 to 75 demonstrators, were said to be wielding numerous weapons — from axes to guns — during the incident.

Of course the riot in Denver didn’t even make many headlines around the nation because this sort of thing has become so commonplace in our major cities at this point.

We have basically entered a period of semi-permanent civil unrest.

And now that lawlessness has been unleashed in our streets, new eruptions of violence will be easily sparked with each new incident that comes along.

I am particularly concerned about this upcoming election season.  It is easy to imagine quite a few scenarios which would unleash widespread rage and fury.

I just wish that things could be different.

Americans should not be fighting other Americans in the streets, and it deeply grieves me whenever I see it happening.

If everyone simply treated others the way that they would like to be treated, we wouldn’t see senseless police shootings and there wouldn’t be rioting and looting in our streets.

Unfortunately, the very basic values that this nation was founded upon were rejected by our society long ago, and now we are paying a very great price for that choice.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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.

Does America Worship “A God Of Money”?

The one that you serve the most is the one that you really worship.  In America today, we don’t actually get down on our knees and pray to our stock market portfolios and the money in our bank accounts, but has our wealth become more important to us than anything else?  It is well known that material comfort greatly motivates most Americans.  We tend to vote for the politicians that we perceive will be the best for our economy, we religiously track the performance of our investments, and for many of us our financial goals are more important to us than any of our other goals.  We desperately want to “do well”, and we tend to exalt others that are “doing well”.  Of course “doing well” is defined primarily in financial terms in our society, and that is extremely unfortunate.  A poor man that has greatly loved his family and those around him his entire life is generally not considered to be “successful”, while a billionaire that may actually be living in emotional misery every day of his life is lifted up as an example for all of us to follow.  Our priorities are all messed up, and I believe that we will ultimately deeply regret the great love that we have developed for the debt-fueled “prosperity” that we have been enjoying for so many years.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned us that we cannot serve two masters…

“No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Unfortunately, most Americans gave up on trying to serve God long ago.  Today, most of us are primarily interested in pursuing money, and this has created a society that is filled with endless greed.

In such an environment, it is easy to understand how the stock market has become such a national idol.  We take great pride in the performance of the stock market, and on Tuesday headlines all over the nation gleefully trumpeted the fact that the S&P 500 closed at an all-time record high…

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 3,389.78, eclipsing its previous Feb. 19 high to finish at the highest closing level on record. That means this year’s bear market, or a drop of more than 20% from a peak, from the February high to the lows on March 23 was the shortest in history, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Of course it doesn’t actually make any sense at all that stock prices are hitting all-time highs right now.

We are in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and 56.2 million workers have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the last 21 weeks.

But the Federal Reserve was absolutely determined to rescue the financial markets when they started to implode during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Fed has been successful in accomplishing that mission.

In particular, the big tech stocks have really benefitted from this latest rally, and on Wednesday Apple actually became the first 2 trillion dollar company in U.S. history…

High-flying stocks like Apple, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet have powered this year’s rally, far outpacing the rest of the market as investors bet heavily they could prevail in a stay-at-home economy. On Wednesday, tech giant Apple was the first publicly traded company to top a $2 trillion valuation.

As stock prices have soared, this has sent the net worths of America’s tech billionaires into the stratosphere.

In fact, if you add up the wealth of America’s 12 wealthiest billionaires, it now comes to a total of more than 1 trillion dollars…

New research published Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the dozen richest American billionaires now collectively own more than $1 trillion in wealth, a finding one analyst described as “a disturbing milestone in the U.S. history of concentrated wealth and power.”

According to IPS, a progressive think tank, the 12 top U.S. billionaires have seen their combined wealth soar by 40%—or $283 billion—since the coronavirus began spreading rapidly across the U.S. in mid-March, sparking widespread economic shutdowns and mass job loss.

To most people in our society, these billionaires are people to be greatly admired.

In fact, most of them are treated like celebrities.

These days, names like Gates, Musk and Zuckerberg make national headlines even more frequently than our most cherished Hollywood stars.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of “ordinary” Americans are deeply suffering.  We have never had a year when more than 56 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and more Americans are losing their jobs with each passing day.

Mortgage delinquencies are rising at a very frightening pace, tens of millions of Americans can no longer pay their bills, food prices are starting to get totally out of control, and hordes of people are moving away from the major cities on both coasts.

For decades, the U.S. middle class has been eroding, and now that process is rapidly accelerating.  In fact, one new study has found that the average American now needs 53 weeks of income per year just to pay for the basics…

As Bank of America points out, while the recent covid shutdowns has thrown the economy into disarray with millions laid off and living on government stimulus checks, life for the vast majority of workers – i.e., those who comprise the country’s middle class – was already precarious before the pandemic, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Cost of Thriving Index.

Consider that in 1985 it took 30 weeks at the median wage to pay for big fixed costs like housing, health care, a car, and education; fast forward to today when it takes a mathematically impossible 53 weeks of a 52-week year to buy those things.

Needing 53 weeks of income just to pay for the basics is a huge problem, because there are only 52 weeks in a year.

Unfortunately, this new economic crisis is just getting started.  Conditions are going to get much, much worse in the years ahead, and the economic pain is going to be off the charts.

So what do you think is going to happen to our society when our “god of money” finally crumbles?

When Americans realize that the thing that they have been living for more than anything else has been taken from them, we are going to see a nationwide temper tantrum that will be unlike anything that we have ever seen before.

In the end, life is not about how much stuff we can acquire or about how much money we can stash in our accounts.

Unfortunately, we have raised several generations of Americans that don’t understand what really matters in life, and our entire society will pay a very great price for our negligence.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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.

A Mass Exodus Away From Big Cities On Both Coasts

In all of U.S. history, we have never seen anything like “the mass exodus of 2020”.  Hundreds of thousands of people are leaving the major cities on both coasts in search of a better life.  Homelessness, crime and drug use were already on the rise in many of our large cities prior to 2020, but many big city residents were willing to put up with a certain amount of chaos in order to maintain their lifestyles.  However, the COVID-19 pandemic and months of civil unrest have finally pushed a lot of people over the edge.  Moving companies on both coasts are doing a booming business as wealthy and middle class families flee at a blistering pace, and most of those families do not plan to ever return.

Los Angeles is a perfect example of what I am talking about.  Once upon a time it attracted wealthy and famous people from all over the globe, but in 2020 it is “a city on the brink“…

Today, Los Angeles is a city on the brink. ‘For Sale’ signs are seemingly dotted on every suburban street as the middle classes, particularly those with families, flee for the safer suburbs, with many choosing to leave LA altogether.

British-born Danny O’Brien runs Watford Moving & Storage. ‘There is a mass exodus from Hollywood,’ he says.

Almost half of the entire homeless population of the entire country now lives in the state of California, and a large proportion of them are addicted to drugs.  Needless to say, this has created a nightmarish environment…

Junkies and the homeless, many of whom are clearly mentally ill, walk the palm-lined streets like zombies – all just three blocks from multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific.

Stolen bicycles are piled high on pavements littered with broken syringes.

Could you imagine trying to raise a family in such a community?

I certainly couldn’t.

And the worse economic conditions become, the worse the problem gets.  Crime is skyrocketing in L.A., and some residents have been shocked to discover strangers actually “defecating in their front gardens”…

TV bulletins are filled with horror stories from across the city; of women being attacked during their morning jog or residents returning home to find strangers defecating in their front gardens.

Of course Los Angeles is definitely not the only major city dealing with such issues.

On a per capita basis, drug use is even worse in San Francisco, and it is being reported that there is “a mass exodus of people looking to get out of San Francisco real estate”…

According to online real estate company Zillow, there is a mass exodus of people looking to get out of San Francisco real estate – as the housing market is on fire in the Bay Area suburbs, all the way to Lake Tahoe.

According to the company’s “2020 Urban-Suburban Market Report,” home prices in the city have fallen 4.9% year-over-year, while inventory has jumped 96% during the same period, as a flood of new listings hit the market.

In the end, a lot of people may have to take losses on their homes, but it will be worth it simply to get out of California.

And the state legislature has apparently decided that the mass exodus is not happening fast enough, because a bill is being introduced that would impose a new “wealth tax” on the very wealthy…

Fast forward to today when the ultra-liberal state of California is now ready to take this “socialist” idea from concept to the implementation phase, with the SF Chronicle reporting that a group of CA state lawmakers on Thursday proposed a first-in-the-nation state wealth tax that would hit about 30,400 California residents and raise an estimated $7.5 billion for the general fund.

The proposed tax rate would be 0.4% of net worth (most likely ended up far higher), excluding directly held real estate, that exceeds $30 million for single and joint filers and $15 million for married filing separately.

In the old days, a lot of Californians would just head north to Portland or Seattle, but those two cities are not exactly desirable options at this point.

The civil unrest in Seattle never seems to end, and Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf recently said that there had been “twelve official riots” in the first ten days after federal law enforcement officials left Portland.

Sadly, the east coast has experienced plenty of chaos as well, and the mass exodus out of New York City has been particularly dramatic.

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the the New York Times had reported that 420,000 New Yorkers had moved out of the city between March 1st and May 1st.

But the exodus certainly didn’t end there.

According to the local Fox affiliate, between May and July there was “a 95 percent year over year increase in interest in moving out of Manhattan”…

According to the most recent data from United Van Lines, between May and July, there was a 95 percent year over year increase in interest in moving out of Manhattan. That compares with a 19 percent increase in moving interest in the U.S., overall.

The top destinations for people who moved out of New York City between March and August were Florida and California – which together comprised 28 percent of relocations. Texas and North Carolina made up 16 percent of moves.

And it isn’t just residents that are leaving.

Business after business is shutting down, and that includes some of the most iconic retailers in the city…

J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus, the anchor tenants at two of the largest malls in Manhattan, recently filed for bankruptcy and announced that they would shutter those locations.

The Subway restaurant chain has already closed dozens of locations in New York City in recent months,

Le Pain Quotidien has permanently closed several of its 27 stores in the city and plans to leave others closed until more people return to the streets, an executive at the chain’s parent, Aurify Brands, told the Times.

Earlier today, I watched a video that someone had taken of all the boarded up shops along 5th Avenue.

If you have not seen that video yet, you can watch it right here.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  At one time 5th Avenue was a playground for the elite of the world, but now it essentially looks “like a demilitarized zone”…

De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.

The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.

“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.

In about six months, most of the progress that New York City has made since the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s has completely disappeared.

Homelessness and poverty are both exploding, and crime rates are shooting into the stratosphere.

If you can believe it, the number of shootings in July was 177 percent higher than for the same month last year.

If the deplorable conditions in our major cities were just going to be temporary, I don’t believe that we would be seeing such a mass exodus.

But at this point it should be clear to all of us that things aren’t going to turn around any time soon, and many people are convinced that things are just going to continue to get even worse.

Our major cities are degenerating right in front of our eyes, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope of reversing this process now that it has started.

In life, the decisions that we make always have consequences, and the consequences for the decisions that we have made as a nation as a whole will be very bitter indeed.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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.

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