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The Energy Crisis Escalates: The Dual Threat Of More War In The Middle East And Hurricane Isaias Damaging U.S. Refineries In The Gulf Is Pushing Oil Prices Even Higher

October 8, 2026October 8, 2026 by Michael

Just when it seemed like we had hit a period of relative calm, global events are starting to accelerate again. Within the past 24 hours, there have been a couple of absolutely enormous developments. First of all, Tropical Storm Isaias has become Hurricane Isaias and we are being told that it will make landfall along the Gulf Coast. That is potentially a major problem because the Gulf Coast accounts for over 50 percent of the crude oil refining capacity in the United States. If any of that capacity is taken offline for an extended period of time, that will drive fuel prices substantially higher. Meanwhile, Iran has been attacking tankers at a very alarming pace this week, and President Trump is reportedly considering a new wave of airstrikes on Iran…

The U.S. president and his national security team have discussed possibly resuming large-scale U.S. military operations in the coming weeks, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing a U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the talks.

Axios reported earlier in the day that a possible resumption in armed conflict could include “massive bombing” of Iranian energy, infrastructure and nuclear targets, adding that military aggression could influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

This is a major bombshell.

If the U.S. starts extensively bombing Iran again, the war in the Middle East could spiral completely out of control.

The good news is that President Trump is now pledging that the U.S. will not be bombing Iran until after the midterms…

But his statement also seems to imply that the U.S. will be bombing Iran after the midterms.

Will the Iranians just sit back and wait for that to happen?

It is never a good thing to let your enemy know what you plan to do.

And the Iranians have been threatening to conduct preemptive strikes if they are convinced that they are going to get attacked…

Iran’s army spokesman said on Wednesday that the armed forces were prepared to carry out pre-emptive strikes in the war against the US, as senior IRGC figures claimed tighter control over the Strait of Hormuz and Washington questioned how much authority Iran’s civilian leadership actually holds.

“Should circumstances require it, we will conduct pre-emptive operations down the line in order to prevent the enemy from committing any act of aggression or intrusion,” spokesman for Iran’s regular army Brigadier General Mohammad Akrami-Nia told the state-run IRNA news agency.

It is my opinion that the war in the Middle East is very far from over.

I am expecting some shocking escalations, and this is something that I will be writing a lot more about.

Needless to say, if the war in the Middle East does not get resolved, the global energy crisis will just continue to intensify.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Isaias is making a beeline for the Gulf Coast with landfall expected some time on Friday…

Hurricane Isaias continued its trek toward the U.S. Gulf Coast early Thursday, with a landfall expected late Friday as a dangerous hurricane, driving life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain.

Isaias is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, and forecast to be the first to strike the United States since Hurricane Milton in 2024.

This storm is rapidly strengthening, and it could potentially become even more powerful than forecasters are currently anticipating.

And that is not good news at all.

Over 50 percent of all crude oil refining capacity in the U.S. is located along the Gulf Coast, and if any of those facilities get damaged that could push fuel prices substantially higher…

The Gulf Coast accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s crude oil refining capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts alone make up 49% of the nation’s refining capacity.

The National Hurricane Center initially projected the center of Isaias could come onshore late Friday or early Saturday somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. Located in and around that zone are refineries, where crude oil gets turned into gasoline and diesel fuel.

If those Gulf Coast refineries are forced to halt or reduce production, fuel supplies would get tighter, leading to higher prices.

This is potentially a very big deal.

As the storm approaches, 25 percent of offshore production in the Gulf has already been temporarily shut down…

In the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have shut in about 500,000 bpd, or 25% of offshore production in the region, as Hurricane Isaias churns toward the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle.

Hopefully Hurricane Isaias will not turn into a monster storm and no refining facilities will be harmed.

But for the moment, investors are quite nervous about both Hurricane Isaias and the potential for renewed fighting in the Middle East.

On Thursday, oil prices jumped quite a bit higher…

The price of oil jumped sharply Thursday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to resume large-scale U.S. military operations against Iran in the coming weeks.

Brent crude oil rose more than 5% to more than $105 per barrel in early trading, while U.S. crude oil rose almost 5% to nearly $93 per barrel. Benchmark diesel futures jumped 4.5% in European trading. Heating oil, a proxy for jet fuel, rose more than 4%.

The move higher in oil prices also pushed up bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield, which heavily influences consumer borrowing rates, jumped to 5.35%. That level effectively reversed a drop in yields seen late Wednesday. The yield on every other Treasury bond also rose.

As oil prices rise, just about everything else is going to get more expensive too.

A year ago, it would have taken about $2,700 of diesel to transport a shipment of lettuce from California to New York. Now that same amount of diesel is going to cost about 50 percent more…

Transporting a shipment of lettuce from Salinas, California, to New York “is going to run somewhere around $10,000,” said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, and $4,200 of that is for diesel alone.

A year ago, Croke said, the same fuel would have cost about $2,700.

We are all going to pay for this.

When you go to the grocery store to get lettuce, it is going to cost more than it did before.

In fact, just about everything at the grocery store is going to cost more than it did before.

We really are witnessing a “perfect storm” for global food production.

World War 3 is raging, farmers are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a Super El Niño is causing all sorts of havoc, and diesel prices have gone absolutely nuts.

We have never seen anything quite like this.

A year ago, very few people would have believed that so many crazy things would happen in 2026.

Unfortunately, I am entirely convinced that 2027 will be far crazier.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The Next Global Financial Crisis Is Erupting Right Now As Bond Yields Skyrocket All Over The World – Will France Be The First To Collapse?

October 7, 2026 by Michael

We all knew that this would be coming eventually. For years, governments around the world have been engaging in the greatest debt binge in human history. Now they are absolutely drowning in debt and investors are no longer willing to lend them gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. Bond yields are skyrocketing, and that means that bond prices are crashing. That is really bad news for U.S. banks, because they are holding approximately $4.81 trillion in combined Treasury and agency securities. Banks in Japan and Europe are also holding gobs and gobs of bonds. The nightmarish state of bank balance sheets is going to become a major story in the coming days, and many financial institutions will fail. Meanwhile, consumers will be facing much higher rates for mortgages and other forms of borrowing. This will likely slow down economic activity substantially during the months ahead.

On Wednesday, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries and the yield on 30 year U.S. Treasuries both hit the highest level that we have seen in 24 years…

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was up more than 3 basis points at 5.307%. It had earlier hit its highest level since 2002. The 30-year Treasury bond rose more than 4 basis points to 5.684% and had also reached a 24-year high earlier.

The last time we witnessed anything like this was during the aftermath of the collapse of the Dotcom bubble.

The good news is that after spiking dramatically earlier in the day U.S. bond yields are being forced back down.

I am entirely convinced that this is due to government intervention.

Our officials have been buying Treasury bonds with billions of dollars that they have created out of thin air in a desperate attempt to keep bond yields under control.

In Europe, individual nations do not have that option. That is one of the reasons why I am concerned that France could be teetering on the brink of financial ruin.

Of course it isn’t just France that is facing a desperate situation. As Bull Theory has aptly pointed out, we are literally watching a global bond market implosion in real time…

Decades ago, France was one of the most financially stable countries in Europe.

But now we are being told that there is a very real risk of “a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy”…

France’s borrowing costs are surging as investors around the world wake up to the risk of a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy.

Stress in financial markets has now started to spread beyond its borders, raising fears that political dysfunction in France could cause a broader, regional problem.

Memories of the sovereign debt crisis that threatened the single currency’s survival 15 years ago are starting to stir. But is it really going to get that bad again?

The French thought that they could just keep borrowing and borrowing and that there would never be any consequences.

They were wrong.

During an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the head of the International Monetary Fund delivered a very blunt message to the French government: “get your house in order”.

She explained that the current crisis in France is “the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock” and that the French are on a “staircase that does not lead to heaven”…

Political instability in France has put pressure on the country’s government bonds, known as OATs. Investors now demand a higher yield than they do for bonds issued by the Italian government, with French 10-year bond yields rising by more than 100 basis points since the start of the year.

“What we see in France is a complication of, on one side, the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock, climbing on this staircase that does not lead to heaven, and on the other side, a political dynamic scene in France that creates more difficulties for the finance ministry to put a clear path for tightening,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told CNBC’s Lisa Kim on the sidelines of an event in Singapore.

She is right.

France is a financial mess, and that threatens the financial stability of the entire European Union.

Meanwhile, the French government has admitted that the level of of street violence has reached the highest level ever recorded…

The French Ministry of the Interior states that street violence has reached record levels fuelled in part by the violent student uprisings seen in multicultural hubs across the country in recent weeks.

Following another day of mass mobilisation of students in concert with far-left political parties and radical trade unions apparently intent on sparking more chaos, the Ministry of the Interior released statistics showing an unprecedented level of violence in public spaces.

According to government data, public violence incidents outside the home hit a record high of 20,000 per month in September, or nearly 700 per day, Le Figaro reported.

There is no end in sight.

Initially, we were told that “students” were protesting because they wanted smaller classrooms and better textbooks.

We can all see that is simply not true at this point.

Criminals dressed in black are rioting, looting and committing acts of violence in major cities all over the country…

French revolutionaries have been burning down schools and setting public buses and fire trucks ablaze. They have looted shops and stalked and preyed on women walking alone. They have attacked strangers with fireworks, mortars, and hydrochloric acid. They have beaten numerous teachers, doused some in gasoline, and set a few on fire. They have injured hundreds of law enforcement officers and firefighters, as well as students who want nothing to do with the mayhem. One witness to the destruction described the scene as “total anarchy” and “total war.”

Yes, a lot of teenagers are involved in the mayhem.

But in many cases the “protesters” are men in their twenties, thirties and forties.

These grown men have been proudly waving Palestinian, Algerian and Moroccan flags as they call for violence in the name of their god…

Paris and other cities are now awash with foreign flags as throngs of unassimilated youths scream their hatred for France itself.

“In the name of Allah, we can kill them all,” barked one masked thug, to the mob’s demented glee.

We are witnessing something extraordinary: an intifada in the heart of Europe.

It is easy to mock the French for what is happening, because it is the result of decades of bad immigration policies.

Of course the exact same thing could easily happen in the United States.

Recent polling has shown that 43 percent of U.S. voters under the age of 25 now have a positive view of Sharia law…

The polling, from Our Republic and Rasmussen, showed “a quarter of 18-35 voters polled would support a community implementing Sharia law as the legal code for the entire town, city, or state if the majority of residents living there desired its adoption.”

The polling said, “Overall, 21% of likely voters said they have a mostly or somewhat positive opinion of Sharia, compared with 57% who have a negative opinion. Positive views were much higher among younger Americans, including 43% of voters ages 18–24 and 39% of those ages 25–29.”

The polling cited a “generational divide” over Sharia, as seniors had a much higher level of opposition.

Reading that should chill you to the core.

We are on the same path that France has been on.

But only a very small segment of the U.S. population seems alarmed by this.

I think that France is cooked.

So is Spain, and so is Germany.

The EU is headed for financial collapse.

Of course the same thing could be said for Japan and the United States too.

It will take some time for the global bond crisis to fully play out, but without a doubt an enormous amount of pain is in our future.

Food Shortages In 2027? The ICC Warns That Global Food Prices Could Rise By Close To 70% – I Asked AI What Would Happen Next

October 5, 2026 by Michael

All over social media, people want to know if there will be food shortages in 2027. Coming into this year, the UN was warning that global hunger had reached an unprecedented level. Now we are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a global energy crisis, widespread droughts, a Super El Niño and World War III all at the same time. Of course global hunger is going to get even worse in the months ahead. Nobody can deny that. Wealthy nations such as the United States will theoretically be in the best shape, but even here in the U.S. approximately 1 out of every 7 people already live in food insecure households. Rapidly rising food prices will definitely be very painful for us, but for millions of people that live in deeply impoverished countries much higher food prices could suddenly make it impossible for them to buy enough food to properly feed their families.

How would you feel if members of your family were extremely hungry but you didn’t have anything to give them?

For many of us, that would be unimaginable.

Unfortunately, such a scenario could soon become a reality in needy households all over the planet.

For months, I have been warning that the global energy crisis and the global fertilizer crisis were going to have an enormous impact on food production.

Now harvest season is here, and the consequences are starting to become apparent. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Hormuz Gridlock Risks Global Food Crisis, International Chamber of Commerce Chief Says”…

Disruptions to a vital shipping route in the Middle East have created an energy shock. Now, a global food security crisis is brewing, warns the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce is a man named John Denton.

He is a legal expert on international trade and investment, and he is projecting that global grain prices could potentially increase by up to 80 percent…

The monthslong conflict between Iran and the US has curbed the flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway many countries rely on for imports of critical inputs like fertilizers and natural gas.

According to Denton, if the strait is not reopened, grain prices could rise by up to 80%, which would be particularly hard on the economies of import-dependent countries. He added that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz has caused a shortage of about 2.7 million tons of fertilizer on the world market.

Less fertilizer means less food.

That is the bottom line.

If we do see such a spike in global grain prices (and they have already been rising), an ICC-commissioned model determined that global food prices overall could increase by close to 70 percent…

A prolonged disruption to fertiliser and energy markets linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push global cereal prices sharply higher, with potentially severe consequences for food security and public health, according to new modelling commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

In the study’s most severe scenario, global cereal prices rise by as much as 81% above 2020 levels. The shock also feeds through sharply to households, with consumer food prices in East Asia, the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa rising close to 70% above a 2020 baseline.

In recent years, the world has not even come close to producing enough food for everyone.

Now global food supplies are going to get substantially tighter.

As a result, there will be a mad scramble for whatever is available, and this will really drive up prices.

In the end, a lot more people will be malnourished and a lot more people will die from starvation…

Conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen and Scotland’s Rural College, the modelling shows how the shock would work its way through the global food system. Higher fertiliser and energy costs reduce nitrogen fertiliser use by approximately 37% and cereal productivity by up to 10%, tightening supply and raising prices for consumers.

For poorer households, these price increases translate into lower calorie consumption, less diverse diets and higher rates of underweight. Under the same severe and sustained scenario, the modelling suggests that the shock could contribute to approximately one million additional dietary health-related deaths in 2030 and leave 67 million more people underweight.

The burden would fall overwhelmingly on lower-income regions. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and the Pacific would account for around 80% of the additional mortality and more than 90% of the additional underweight burden. Modelled health outcomes would change little in higher-income regions.

The poorest nations will get hit the hardest.

But we will all be affected.

I asked Google AI to tell me what would happen if the type of scenario that the ICC is envisioning actually plays out. This is what I was told…

Massive Food Inflation: Retail prices for bread, cereal, and packaged goods would skyrocket globally.
Surging Meat Prices: Livestock feed costs would soar, forcing ranchers to cull herds and driving up the cost of beef, pork, and poultry.
Severe Humanitarian Crisis: Lower-income nations that rely heavily on grain imports would face immediate, widespread food insecurity and potential famine.
Geopolitical Instability: Historically, drastic food price spikes trigger civil unrest, protests, and political revolutions (similar to the 2011 Arab Spring).
Protectionist Trade Policies: Major grain-exporting countries would likely ban or restrict exports to safeguard their domestic food supplies, worsening the global shortage.

That sounds about right.

There are some people out there that are touting the fact that they warned about this months in advance.

Of course there are others that were warning about all of this years in advance.

As long as commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains restricted, the global fertilizer crisis and the global energy crisis will both just continue to intensify.

Unfortunately, the Iranians are telling us that they will keep attacking commercial vessels that are traveling through the Strait of Hormuz until the United States agrees to their entire list of demands…

The Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed until the United States accepts Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the waterway, Iran’s top negotiator and parliament speaker has said.

Iranian state-linked news agency Nournews, quoting ⁠Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reported on Sunday that Washington made “some proposals through a mediator” days after the US replied ⁠to Iran’s diplomatic proposal.

The US should know “that the era of wasting time and dictating unilateral demands is over”, Ghalibaf said, adding Iran’s position remains “clear and definite”.

There is no way that the Trump administration will ever agree to all of Iran’s demands.

So on and on we go.

I realize that food prices are absurdly high now, but they are going to go even higher.

But as long as you have enough to eat, you should be very thankful, because there are many on the other side of the planet that are desperately hungry right now.

Yes, there will be food shortages in 2027.

At this stage, the debate is about how intense they will become.

Hunger is on the rise all over the planet, and the higher food prices go the worse it will get.

It Has Begun: They Have Launched A New Military Operation Involving 100,000 Soldiers To Wipe Out The Houthis And Take Back Control Of Yemen

October 4, 2026 by Michael

The Great Middle East War has just entered a very dangerous new chapter. 100,000 troops under the control of the internationally-recognized government of Yemen are going to attempt to end the Houthi threat once and for all. Saudi Arabia will be assisting by conducting constant airstrikes on Houthi positions. In other words, all-out war is coming to the Arabian Peninsula. The United States will be providing intelligence and targeting data for this operation, but officials are telling us that the U.S. military will not be directly involved at this time. However, Axios is reporting that the U.S. could join the operation at a later date “should it go south”.

What this means is that there isn’t going to be an end to the Great Middle East war for a long time to come.

One of Iran’s core demands has always been an end to the fighting on all fronts.

Needless to say, what we are witnessing is the opposite of that.

Even in the most wildly optimistic scenario, it would take months to totally defeat the Houthis.

In a televised speech, Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi announced that this new military operation will continue “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia”…

Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government said on Sunday it was launching a major military campaign to recapture all areas of the country controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The government’s armed forces would press the offensive “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia,” Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi said in a televised address. A military spokesman later called on the Houthis to lay down their weapons.

The Houthis are crazed religious zealots.

They will never, ever lay down their weapons.

So there will be no surrender.

The Houthis will fight until they are either wiped out or they are victorious.

It appears that this will be the biggest conflict in the entire modern history of Yemen.

It is being reported that over 100,000 soldiers could be mobilized to battle the Houthis…

More than 100,000 Yemeni troops could be mobilized in the offensive, depending on the scale, the officials all said.

Riyadh has concluded it cannot enter new Yemeni peace negotiations with the Houthis while they remain in control of Bab al-Mandab, giving them significant global leverage, the Western diplomats and a Gulf official said.

The Houthis have a core group of around 20,000 to 30,000 dedicated fighters, but they can easily mobilize more.

They have been in control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014, and all previous efforts to dislodge them have failed.

Recently, they captured vast amounts of territory along the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and they haven’t been allowing Saudi oil tankers to travel through that very important chokepoint.

Now the goal is to take it all back.

The U.S. was asked to join this military operation, but that request was denied.

According to Axios, an anonymous U.S. official is insisting that our military “is not going to take kinetic action for now”…

On Thursday, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid Bin Salman called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to brief him on the planned operation and ask again for U.S. airstrikes against Houthi targets, the U.S. official said.
A U.S. official said that the U.S. “is not going to take kinetic action for now.”
Last week, President Trump was close to ordering a strike on the Houthis after a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), but eventually decided to hold off.

However, we will be assisting the operation by providing “intelligence and targeting data”…

And apparently the door is being left open for the U.S. military to get involved in the operation at a future date “should it go south”…

The US could join Saudi Arabia’s operation against the Houthis should it go south, despite several previous refusals, Axios reported on Friday, citing American officials.

The operation, expected to be launched in the coming weeks in response to the increased assault by the terrorist organization on Saudi Arabia as well as its storming of Bab al-Mandab, will be led by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces on the ground and supported by Saudi air strikes.

I think that there is a very good chance that the operation will not go well.

The Houthis have had the upper hand for weeks, and in the last 48 hours they got even closer to Yemen’s third largest city…

In the last 48 hours, the Houthis have also made gains against government and local forces on strategic hilltops near Yemen’s Taiz, military sources said, advancing on the last road between the city and Aden on the southern coast.

Houthi control over the Taiz-Aden road would lead to an effective siege of the city, Yemen’s third-largest, inhabited by hundreds of ⁠thousands of civilians and where thousands of government forces are also stationed.

The fall of Taiz would be catastrophic for Yemen’s internationally-recognized government.

I don’t think that Saudi Arabia was eager for an all-out war with the Houthis, but at this stage they probably felt that they had no choice.

So now that one of their key allies is faced with all-out war, how will the Iranians respond?

Will they just sit on their hands as the Houthis get pummeled, or will they take action?

We shall see.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Iran’s enemies that his nation is prepared to strike back “stronger than before”…

“If our enemies again choose the path of military confrontation, our response will be stronger than before, and we will defend ourselves with even more force,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a gathering of foreign ambassadors.

“There is no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions,” he continued, adding “only negotiations based on justice and fairness” could end the conflict.

If the Houthis are able to hold their own, the Iranians may not get directly involved in what is happening on the Arabian Peninsula.

But if the Houthis start losing ground, Iran may feel compelled to intervene.

In any event, it has become clear that there will be no peace.

The Great Middle East War will be three years old this week, and now it has escalated to yet another new level.

The death and destruction that we have already witnessed has shocked the world, but much worse is coming.

The U.S. Is Sending A Third Aircraft Carrier And A Second Marine Division To The Middle East As The Global Energy Crisis And The Global Food Crisis Both Intensify

October 1, 2026 by Michael

The months ahead are shaping up to be a time of war, economic problems, food shortages and global chaos. There is no end in sight for the war in the Middle East or the war with Russia. Meanwhile, global energy supplies and global food supplies both continue to get even tighter. We desperately need some sort of a diplomatic miracle, but talks with the Iranians have totally broken down and tensions between the Russians and our allies in Europe are higher than ever. Our deteriorating economy is the number one political issue in the U.S. during this election season, but the economic pain that we have experienced so far will be absolutely dwarfed by what is ahead.

On Thursday, it was being reported that the U.S. has decided to deploy a third aircraft carrier and a second Marine division to the Middle East…

The Trump administration has decided to deploy a third aircraft carrier to the Middle East, along with a second Marine division, a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt and an additional division of US Marines will deploy to US Central Command’s area of operations.

The move means that, until the US midterm elections, US President Donald Trump will have significantly greater military capabilities and a wider range of options for potential action against Iran.

Many were hoping that an end to the war was near.

These moves are an indication that a major escalation could be coming.

The Iranians have not backed down and they are not going to back down.

On Tuesday, they attacked three more commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz…

Three vessels reported being struck on Tuesday, September 29, in the area around the Strait of Hormuz as Iran appears to be lashing out to demonstrate that it is still threatening vessels. While it brings the total number of vessels struck to four so far this week, observers point to increasing oil flows and vessel traffic in the region.

UK Maritime Trade Operations reported the incidents, although few details were provided. It said that the information had come from verified sources but was delayed in being transmitted. It was unclear when the strikes took place. It identified all three incidents as involving tankers without details on the extent of the damage, while an unconfirmed report said one of the vessels was an LNG carrier.

Two of the vessels were identified in the tracking by the International Maritime Organization, with both being crude oil tankers flying the Liberian flag and sustaining damage. One VLCC, the Mersin Prosperity (299,319 dwt), is operated by ADNOC. The other tanker appeared to be a smaller vessel, possibly involved in the shuttle operations that have arisen to get oil from the Gulf states to tankers waiting south of the Strait in the Arabian Sea. This tanker was identified as Sinbad (115,949 dwt), and it was last reported at Fujairah. Both tankers appeared to be making the transit dark.

We have been able to get some oil through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks.

But not nearly enough.

It would be wonderful if the Iranians were willing to make a reasonable deal, but they just aren’t budging.

In fact, talks with the Iranians went so poorly when Iranian officials came to New York that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered them to leave early…

After little progress was made in weekend meetings between Iranian and Qatari mediators, Rubio lost patience and told the Iranians on Monday that Araghchi and his delegation had to leave New York immediately, according to the two officials, who were familiar with the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration process.

Rubio, according to one official, determined that the Iranians had “overstayed their welcome” and that since the high-level meetings at the U.N. were over, they should leave.

Ararghchi and his team departed New York very early Tuesday.

What this means is that the global energy crisis is going to continue to get worse.

Earlier today, we learned that the Chinese “have suspended exports of oil products to ‌regions beyond Hong Kong and Macau until further notice”…

Chinese refiners have suspended exports of oil products to ‌regions beyond Hong Kong and Macau until further notice from ‌Beijing, four people briefed on the matter said on Thursday.

As China looks to safeguard domestic supplies, state oil major PetroChina cancelled on Wednesday a handful of its gasoline and jet fuel shipments that were planned for October, three of the sources said.

This pushed the price of Brent crude above 101 dollars a barrel and the price of U.S. crude above 92 dollars a barrel.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have announced that the U.S. will be releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and they are strongly pressuring our allies in Europe to follow suit…

The Trump ⁠administration ⁠has told Germany and France to draw down ⁠emergency diesel inventories to help ease soaring global fuel prices or face a potential US diesel export ban, according to three people close to the discussions.

The warning marks an escalation in pressure on Europe as US President Donald Trump considers a potential ‌ban to help bring down US fuel prices ‌ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Even though fuel prices in Europe have risen to absolutely insane levels, European leaders have been hesitant to authorize the release of more strategic reserves.

One anonymous U.S. official told Reuters that it is “in ⁠Europe’s best interest to work with the United States”…

The International Energy Agency, the West’s energy watchdog, has not yet asked Germany to release stocks, Germany’s economy ministry said. It was not clear when the ⁠IEA ⁠might meet next.

The US administration has ⁠been particularly frustrated with France and Germany, which US officials believe have not fully followed through on earlier commitments to release emergency oil and petroleum product stocks, Reuters has reported previously.

“It is in ⁠Europe’s best interest to work with the United States as we pursue multiple pathways to boost the supply of refined products and lower costs for consumers,” one of the sources, a US official, told Reuters.

As global supplies of fuel get extremely tight, we are seeing things happen that are absolutely unprecedented.

This week, the crack spread for diesel was hovering in a range of $108 to $122 per barrel.

The soaring cost of diesel is hitting farmers all over the planet extremely hard, and it is one of the factors that is driving up global food prices.

Zero Hedge is reporting that the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index increased by a whopping 13 percent during the third quarter of this year…

The Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index (BCOMAGSP) posted its largest quarterly gain since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, as Black Sea disruptions, a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, and mounting El Niño risks have formed what could be considered a perfect storm poised to drive food prices higher.

BCOMAGSP, which tracks 10 major crops including corn, soybeans, wheat, coffee, sugar, cotton, cocoa, and others, jumped 13% in the third quarter.

When food prices rise in the United States, that is painful, but most of us still have enough food to eat.

In nations where poverty is widespread, higher food prices can mean the difference between eating and not eating for millions of people.

Ominously, the foreign minister of India is now warning that a “major food crisis” is coming in the months ahead…

India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar has warned that the world faces a “major food crisis” in the coming months, as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East compound the effects of a super El Nino.

Speaking at an event organised by the Asia Society in New York, Mr Jaishankar said the two conflicts had “a devastating impact” on the economies of the Global South, and that energy, food, fertiliser and finance were all under strain at once.

“If you have energy as a big crunch and then food and fertilisers on top of it, and finance, because every time there’s a conflict, money moves towards safe harbours and away from the Global South, the net result of it has been really very, very stressful,” he said.

We are experiencing a global fertilizer crisis, soaring diesel prices, extreme droughts in Central America and other key agricultural regions, the most powerful Super El Niño ever recorded and World War III all at the same time.

The food shortages that are coming will shock everyone.

The wealthy nations will hoard whatever food happens to be available just like they are starting to hoard fuel right now.

But many impoverished nations will not have that option.

The number of acutely hungry people in the world was already at an all-time high coming into 2026, and now global hunger is going to go to an entirely new level.

What we are facing is extremely serious, and there are no easy solutions on the horizon.

This Is What A Catastrophic Bond Crisis Looks Like – All Of A Sudden, U.S. Treasury Bonds Are Starting To Trade Like Memecoins

September 30, 2026 by Michael

U.S. Treasury bonds are supposed to be among the most stable financial instruments in the entire global financial system. When they begin to trade like memecoins, that is a very clear indication that the next major financial crisis has arrived. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted that he would be able to keep bond yields under control. Obviously that did not happen. Now we have a gigantic mess on our hands, and it is going to affect every man, woman and child in this country.

When bond yields soar, so do mortgage rates.

The national average for a 30 year fixed mortgage has risen to a whopping 7.54 percent.

Do you understand what this is going to do to the housing market?

Good luck if you want to buy a home.

Good luck if you want to sell a home.

And if you have an adjustable rate mortgage, you should be bracing for a lot of pain.

Credit card rates and auto loan rates are going to go up too.

The era of “easy borrow, easy spend” is coming to a crashing halt.

This will directly impact all of us.

Needless to say, it is going to be a lot more expensive for the federal government to borrow money too.

We are already spending way over a trillions dollars a year just on interest on the national debt, and so there is no way that we can afford for bond yields to spike.

But it is happening anyway.

Banks and financial institutions all over the nation are holding gobs and gobs of U.S. Treasuries.

They were supposed to be extremely safe investments.

But when bond yields soar to crazy levels, bond prices crash.

As a result, banks and financial institutions from coast to coast now have balance sheets that look like horror movies.

Is your bank at risk of failing?

You might want to look into that.

The stage is also being set for a derivatives meltdown of epic proportions.

If bond yields continue to skyrocket, we are going to see things happen in the derivatives marketplace that we have never seen before.

I am talking about the type of scenario where analysts are using words like “nuclear” and “apocalypse” to describe what is occurring.

Are you starting to understand what is at stake?

We desperately, desperately need bond yields to stop rising.

But that isn’t likely to happen, is it?

According to the Wall Street Journal, 10 year U.S. Treasures and 30 year U.S. Treasuries both rose to “their highest levels since 2002” yesterday…

Today is the final day of a quarter that’s been marked by a relentless selloff in government bonds.

The rout has driven U.S. Treasury yields—which move inversely to prices—to multidecade highs. Both the 10- and 30-year Treasury yields settled yesterday at their highest levels since 2002.

In 2002, the federal government was 6 trillion dollars in debt.

Today, the federal government is 40 trillion dollars in debt.

Big difference.

Today, things got even worse.

Just a little while ago, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries hit 5.302 percent…

To most Americans, this means absolutely nothing, because they don’t understand all of the stuff that I just shared with you above.

Of course it isn’t just 10 year U.S. Treasuries that have begun to trade like memecoins.

The charts for 20 year U.S. Treasuries and 30 year U.S. Treasuries look like they were pulled out of a video game…

This is not supposed to happen.

Ever.

The really bad news is that bond yields have been spiking all over the world.

Today was no different…

Many people see green and they think that must be a good sign.

But as those bond yields go up, bond prices are collapsing.

In France, the yield on 10 year bonds just rose to the highest level since 2008…

France’s messy politics are spooking the bond markets. On September 29th yields on ten-year bonds rose to 4.8%, their highest level since 2008. The surge in borrowing costs has pushed the spread between French ten-year bonds and German Bunds up by 44 basis points in September, to 122 points—the highest level for 14 years. France now pays more to borrow than Greece and Italy, once the euro zone’s most worrisome members. It is increasingly looking like the currency area’s biggest problem, and things could get worse.

Italy is also becoming an absolutely enormous problem.

Simultaneously, Europe is on the verge of a major financial meltdown, Japan is on the verge of a major financial meltdown, and the U.S. is on the verge of a major financial meltdown.

Which area of the world will spiral out of control first?

As borrowing costs rise and the global energy crisis intensifies, we are going to want to watch for signs that economic activity is slowing down.

For example, a lot of trucking companies in the U.S. are starting to file for bankruptcy…

More than a dozen American trucking companies have filed for bankruptcy in the past month, according to an industry news report.

Some 16 firms, accounting for more than 250 jobs, have filed for Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 proceedings, FreightWaves reported earlier this month.

Diesel prices, the lifeblood of the trucking industry, hit a record average of $6.53 a gallon on September 22 amid the impact of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. Diesel has increased $2.76 over the past year, according to motor club AAA.

The performance of the trucking industry often tells us where the economy as a whole is headed.

Without a doubt, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

We are facing a global energy crisis, a global fertilizer crisis, a global food crisis, a Super El Niño and World War III all at the same time.

Meanwhile, we continue to get hammered by one major natural disaster after another.

There are so many elements of “the perfect storm” that we are currently experiencing, and this storm is only going to get more intense as we move forward.

The Steady Erosion Of The Middle Class In America Resembles A Very Twisted Game Of Musical Chairs

September 29, 2026 by Michael

Have you lost your spot in the middle class yet? Most Americans do not aspire to become rich and they certainly do not want to be poor. Most of the U.S. population just wants to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle just like their parents did. Unfortunately, there is a huge problem. Since the beginning of this decade, virtually everything has been getting a lot more expensive. So even if your income has been going up, if it hasn’t been going up as fast as the cost of living has you are still falling behind. Chasing “the American Dream” has essentially become like playing a really twisted game of musical chairs. Every single month most Americans are just barely scraping by, and every single month more chairs are being removed from the game. If you still have your seat, you should be very thankful, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable because another major economic downturn is rapidly approaching.

If you are going to live a middle class lifestyle, you have got to have a home.

But homes are now more unaffordable than they have ever been before.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average sales price for a new home in the U.S. was $502,700 as of the second quarter of 2026.

And the national average for a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage is now way over 7 percent.

Who can afford that?

The top 10 percent of all income earners can still afford that, but that is about it.

If you purchased a home prior to the beginning of this current decade, you are in good shape.

But if you are a young adult that is just starting out, you are out of luck.

That is one of the reasons why more than 25 million U.S. adults under the age of 35 are still living with their parents…

A record number of adult children under 35 in the U.S. are moving back in with their parents, either because they can’t afford homes of their own or because they want to save money amid the rising cost of living, according to a recent study.

In 2025, 25.2 million adults under 35 lived at home, according to Realtor.com, which found that the share of adults living with their moms and dads was higher than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of these adults moving back in with their parents are employed, but their wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Among the 25- to 34-year-olds living at home, roughly 7 in 10 have jobs, the online real estate firm found.

A lot of those young adults have no hope of buying a home for the foreseeable future.

This is life in America in 2026.

As our standard of living has eroded, more Americans than ever are living in an RV.

In fact, the number of Americans that are living in an RV has more than doubled since 2021…

About 486,000 people live full time in an RV, which appears to be more than twice as many as in 2021, according to survey data from the RV Industry Association. About a third have children, and a vast majority earn less than $75,000 a year.

Of course a lot of Americans can’t even afford an RV.

I asked Google to give me the total number of Americans that are sleeping in their vehicles, and this is what I was told…

An estimated 1 million to 3 million Americans regularly sleep in a car, van, or RV due to housing affordability and the ongoing housing crisis.

The truth is that it is quite difficult to get a really accurate number because a lot of people that are sleeping in their vehicles don’t like to be counted.

But we can all see that the numbers have been growing.

In fact, some major cities now have vast parking lots where people that sleep in their vehicles can rest safely at night.

We never had such a thing when I was growing up.

Overall, the number of homeless in this country has reached a truly frightening level.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a total of 1,456,923 Americans “were either homeless or living in taxpayer subsidized/funded housing for the homeless” as of the beginning of last year…

745,652 individuals were homeless on a single night in January 2025
266,320 individuals were living unsheltered on a single night in January 2025
1,456,923 individuals were either homeless or living in taxpayer subsidized/funded housing for the homeless

I am sure that when the final numbers for 2026 are released they will be even higher.

Meanwhile, food just continues to become even more expensive and the number of Americans that are going hungry just continues to grow.

According to the Alliance to End Hunger, 47.9 million Americans live in food insecure households…

47.9 million people lived in food insecure households.
This number reflects that 14.4 % of the population, or roughly 1 in 7 people in the U.S. lived in food insecure households.
14.1 million children lived in food insecure households.

Those numbers are a bit old, and so I am sure that they are even higher today.

Every time I go to the grocery store, it seems like more prices have been changed.

I know that all of you are noticing the same thing.

Our ability to feed our families is being eviscerated right in front of our eyes.

One recent study found that it now takes a single person in New York City $158,954 a year just to “afford the basics”…

For example, the median household income across New York City in 2025 was $86,900. However, a SmartAsset study found that single New Yorkers needed to make at least $158,954 that year to afford the basics (such as housing, groceries, utilities, and transportation) and cover the costs of a couple of hobbies.

This is one of the reasons why our young adults are so hesitant to get married and have children.

It just costs so much money.

And now the economy is moving in the wrong direction again.

This month, the Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence “fell sharply”…

Consumer sentiment fell sharply in September as an inflation-weary public took a dimmer view on the labor market and the impact higher prices would have on their finances, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.

The board’s Consumer Confidence Index tumbled to 81.9, a decline of 6.7 points and a reading well below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 89.

Of course this reading is perfectly consistent with other surveys.

Earlier this month, the University of Michigan’s index of consumer confidence fell to the second lowest level ever recorded…

The Conference Board’s reading is in keeping with similar surveys. The University of Michigan’s consumer survey showed sentiment fell 7% in September to its second-lowest reading on record.

The American people hate what is happening to the economy.

Why is that so difficult for “the experts” to comprehend?

Sadly, dissatisfaction with the economy has pushed some Americans toward socialism.

In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that the percentage of Americans that have a positive view of socialism has reached an all-time high…

Forty-three percent of Americans now have a positive view of socialism, marking the first time this figure has exceeded 39% in Gallup’s trend since 2010. Socialism still trails capitalism and free enterprise in public favorability but now ranks ahead of big business. Small business remains the clear leader among the five economic concepts tested, with 95% viewing it positively.

Needless to say, socialism is not the answer to anything.

But most Americans perceive that our current system is deeply broken, and that is because it is deeply broken.

We need to return to the basics.

We need to return to the economic values that were embraced by our founders.

Will that ever happen?

We better hope so, because right now the middle class in this country is steadily shrinking.

Next Stop 6 Percent – The Treasury Bond Crisis Is Officially Out Of Control, And It Is Starting To Look A Lot Like 2008 All Over Again

September 28, 2026 by Michael

A historic Treasury bond crisis has erupted and hardly anyone that doesn’t work in the financial world has any idea what is actually going on. We are literally witnessing the most dramatic financial crisis since 2008, and it isn’t even on the radar of most people in the general population. But it soon will be, because it is going to have tremendous implications for all of us. Economic conditions were very painful for several years after the financial chaos of the fall of 2008, and it appears that we are headed for a similar scenario now.

When average people on the street hear that bond yields are going up, most of them think that must be a good thing.

But bond yields and bond prices move inversely to one another, and so when bond yields are spiking that means that bond prices are crashing.

And when bond prices crash, that is not good at all.

Investors were waiting to see whether or not the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasury bonds would smash through the 5 percent barrier, and that is precisely what happened.

Subsequently, investors have been closely watching the 5.25 percent barrier, because historically that is when market conditions really begin to go haywire…

When the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond rises well above 5.25%, the market landscape undergoes a marked shift. Subsequently, bond‑market volatility—and by extension, equity volatility and credit spreads—tend to increase substantially.

That means bonds are no longer a hedge against equities. The transmission chain unfolds in a tightly linked sequence: as U.S. Treasuries lose their appeal as portfolio‑hedging instruments, marginal buyers become more price‑sensitive, and the market’s responsiveness to capital flows intensifies; investors then turn to options to hedge U.S. Treasuries, driving up implied volatility—leading Treasury yields to rise first, which was precisely the official rationale the U.S. Treasury cited last month when it announced an expansion of its repurchase program (to safeguard Treasury liquidity).

Next, equity‑index volatility cannot remain unaffected: the mutual amplification of gains and losses between stocks and bonds will further destabilize rebalancing flows and push the VIX higher; rising demand for stock‑option hedging will also support implied volatility. The third channel is particularly critical today—bond‑market volatility has heightened uncertainty around discount rates for cash flows, while historically low cross‑stock correlations suggest that the market has scarcely priced in “long‑term interest rates,” the single most dominant source of factor risk.

I realize that all of that sounds quite complicated.

The bottom line is that when the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries climbs above 5.25 percent, stocks and bonds often start dropping together.

In other words, that level acts as a “line in the sand” beyond which everyone tends to panic.

Well, on Monday the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries hit 5.25 percent for the very first time since 2007…

Of course it isn’t just 10 year U.S. Treasuries that are the problem.

At this stage, yields on all long-term U.S. Treasuries are spiking…

Bond charts are never supposed to look like that.

U.S. Treasuries are supposed to be among the most stable financial instruments in the entire world.

As I discussed above, when the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries reaches 5.25 percent, stocks and bonds often start dropping simultaneously.

At one point on Monday, U.S. stocks had lost a whopping $720,000,000,000 in value…

Thankfully, the markets have settled down a bit in the last couple of hours.

That is probably because there is some intervention going on behind the scenes.

But without a doubt, things are moving in a very troubling direction, and the consequences could be extremely severe during the weeks ahead.

Right now, our banks are holding vast amounts of U.S. Treasuries.

So when bond yields spike, the value of the U.S. Treasuries that they are carrying plummets.

There are a lot of banks that now have balance sheets that resemble a horror show, and that means that more bank failures are on the way.

In 2025, only two U.S. banks failed.

On Friday, we witnessed the sixth bank failure of 2026 so far…

ANOTHER BANK JUST FAILED…

California’s Nano Banc just failed. Shut down Friday. FDIC appointed receiver.

That makes SIX U.S. bank failures this year, versus two in all of 2025.

California cited years of mismanagement at Nano. Beyond this bank, I’m watching lenders heavily exposed to commercial property.

The FDIC itself has flagged high interest costs and vacant buildings making property debt harder to refinance and repay.

If borrowers can’t pay, losses eat through bank capital. That’s how more failures could follow, one balance sheet at a time.

They like to quietly announce these bank failures on Fridays so that they get as little attention as possible.

Unfortunately, if bond yields continue to soar they won’t be able to contain the panic for long as one bank after another comes apart like a 20 dollar suit.

In addition, rising bond yields could potentially set the stage for a nightmarish derivatives crisis.

Interest rate derivatives are the biggest segment of the derivatives marketplace by a a very wide margin, and if interest rates move up fast enough it could cause a cascading wave of defaults.

Let me put it another way.

If interest rates rise with sufficient velocity, rapid mark-to-market shifts can outpace liquidity buffers, threatening a systemic chain reaction of counterparty failures.

And that would be a massive disaster.

Rising interest rates will also have an enormous impact on U.S. consumers.

The national average for a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage has already jumped above 7 percent.

That is considered to be an extremely important psychological level.

Very few potential homeowners want to pay 7 percent, and home sales are likely to be depressed even more than they have been.

Meanwhile, credit card rates are going to go up, and auto loans are going to become a lot more expensive.

Collectively, all of this is going to slow down economic activity.

Economic activity was already starting to slow down thanks to the global energy crisis, and rising rates will just intensify that slowdown.

This is going to be such a catastrophe.

We are potentially facing a financial crisis and a major economic slowdown at the same time.

If that sounds a lot like 2008, that is because it is a lot like 2008.

Meanwhile, we are forced to deal with a global energy crisis, a global fertilizer crisis and a Super El Niño.

On top of everything else, World War III is raging on the other side of the planet.

Decades of bad decisions have brought us to this point, and now we all get to pay the price.

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