Money

Americans Had To Borrow 88 BILLION Dollars To Cover Their Medical Bills Last Year

I know that the headline sounds outrageous, but it is actually true.  According to a brand new report that was just released, Americans had to borrow 88 billion dollars to cover their medical bills last year.  That is a truly astounding number, and it shows just how dramatically our current health care system has failed.  And even though the vast majority of Americans are covered by “health insurance”, millions of us are deathly afraid to go to the hospital because of what it might cost.  Today, two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are caused by medical bills, and most of the people going bankrupt actually had health insurance.  Overall, more than half a million American families are financially ruined by medical bills each year, and meanwhile our “representatives” in Washington are doing absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

Surveys have shown that up to two-thirds of the country is living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time, and an unexpected medical bill can be absolutely devastating for those that are just barely scraping by.

Without much of a financial cushion to fall back on, many families must borrow money when confronted with a large medical expense, and the scale at which this is happening is absolutely stunning…

Health care costs in the United States are generally measured as the highest in the world. Last year, many Americans could not afford their health care costs and so borrowed $88 billion to pay for that portion they could not afford.

According to a new West Health and Gallup poll, in a new report titled “The U.S. Healthcare Cost Crisis,” the $88 billion was borrowed in the year before the survey, which was done from January 14 to February 20. The poll was conducted via a random group of 3,537 adults over 18 living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

How in the world is this possible?

After all, more than 90 percent of all Americans have some form of health coverage.  So why did Americans need to borrow 88 billion dollars to cover their unpaid medical bills last year alone?

Well, first of all it is important to remember that health insurance deductibles have gotten obscenely huge.  The following numbers come from a CNN article about Obamacare…

The law sets a ceiling on how much consumers have to spend on health care. In 2019, it’s $7,900 for a single person and double that for a family. Some bronze plans peg their deductibles to those levels.

The average deductible for a 2019 bronze policy — which have higher deductibles, but lower premiums than other tiers of Obamacare plans — is nearly $5,900, while the average maximum of out-of-pocket limit is just under $7,000, according to Health Pocket, an online health insurance shopping tool. Family bronze plans have an average deductible of just under $12,200 and an average out-of-pocket maximum of nearly $14,000.

Secondly, even if you have surpassed your deductible, there is still no guarantee that your health insurance company will cover your medical bills.  If you do not jump through every single little hoop they want you to jump through, in many instances they will leave you high and dry.  When I was running for Congress I had personal conversations with so many people that had been screwed over by the health insurance companies.  The more claims they deny, the more money they make, and they have become masters at finding even the smallest loophole that will enable them to wiggle off the hook.

Of course there are some health insurance companies out there that are doing a good job, but the bad apples give the entire industry a very bad name.

We have a system that is deeply broken, and it greatly frustrates me that both political parties seem so uninterested in getting a solution through Congress.

Here are some more numbers that show the current state of the U.S. health care system…

–3.7 trillion dollars was spent on health care in the United States in 2018.  That breaks down to $10,739 per person.

-If our health care system was a country, it would have the fifth largest GDP on the entire planet.

–76 percent of Americans believe that they pay too much for the quality of health care that they receive.

-Out of the 36 counties in the OECD, the U.S. ranks 31st in infant mortality.

-Prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States today.

-Pharmaceutical companies spend approximately 30 billion dollars a year to market their drugs to all of us.

–Nearly half of all U.S. doctors are considering leaving the field of medicine, and health insurance companies are the primary reason.

-The median charge for visiting an emergency room in the United States is well over a thousand dollars.

When I was growing up, my mother took me and my siblings to the doctor constantly.  But I don’t know anyone that does that today, because it would be ridiculously expensive in most cases.

And one recent survey actually found that 41 percent of all Americans decided against an emergency room visit last year “due to cost”…

Another major personal financial concern among Americans is that 45% worry that a “major health care event” would leave them bankrupt, the West Health-Gallup survey found. Additionally, in the past year, 41% said they did not visit an emergency room due to cost.

Fifteen million Americans “deferred” purchasing prescription drugs in the past year because of costs as well. Finally, 76% believe the problem will become worse because health care costs will rise more over the next two years.

Fixing our horribly broken health care system needs to be a top national priority, but earlier today Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it abundantly clear that nothing will be done about Obamacare in the Senate until the 2020 election.  And of course the Democrats are not going to make any major moves on health care until the 2020 election either.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with what we have got for the moment.

Our health care crisis is a national nightmare that never seems to end, and it gets worse with each passing year.

So for now, just hope that nobody in your family becomes seriously ill, because if that happens there is a good chance you might go bankrupt.

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

A Volcano That Could Completely Cover Mexico City With Volcanic Ash Just Erupted 200 Times In A 24 Hour Period

The most dangerous volcano in Mexico just erupted 200 times in a 24 hour period, but there has been an almost total blackout about this in the U.S. media.  Authorities are saying that the odds of more volcanic activity at Mt. Popocatepetl are “immediate to high”, and if a full-blown Plinian eruption were to occur it would be the worst natural disaster in the modern history of North America.  Approximately 26 million people live within 60 miles of Popocatepetl’s crater, and so we are talking about the potential for death and destruction on a scale that is difficult to imagine.  In ancient times, Mt. Popocatepetl buried entire Aztec cities in super-heated mud, but then it went to sleep for about 1,000 years.  Unfortunately for us, it started waking up again in the 1990s, and now this is the most active that we have seen it ever since the volcano originally reawakened.

What we have witnessed over the last several days has been nothing short of stunning.  According to a British news source, a level three yellow alert was put into effect after “200 eruptions were recorded in just 24 hours”…

Popocatépetl volcano, just 35 miles from Mexico City and 20 miles from Puebla sent ash and plumes of smoke more than 1.5 miles high. Mexico’s National Centre for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED) has warned people to keep away from Popocatépetl after 200 eruptions were recorded in just 24 hours. A level three yellow alert has been issued meaning the chance of volcanic activity is immediate to high.

At this point a 7.5 mile “security radius” has been established around the volcano, and if things continue to get worse authorities will be forced to begin large scale evacuations.

Hopefully there will be enough warning before a Plinian eruption occurs, because several towns could be completely buried by super-heated mud traveling at 60 miles per hour…

While not every Plinian-sized eruption is alike in ferocity, all the volcanologists I spoke with provided grave details about Popo’s sure devastation. First, you would see 1,000-degree lahars and pyroclastic flows speeding down at 60 mph. Those flows would reach most, if not all, of the towns in the High Risk area, which today include Santiago Xalitzintla (population: 2,196), and San Pedro Benito Juarez (3,153), and Buenavista (814).

No human on the entire planet can run that fast.  If people are able to get to their vehicles in time they would have a chance, but in reality the highways would quickly become completely clogged as thousands of escaping vehicles all converged at the same time.

Mexico City would be out of range of the tsunami of super-heated mud, but the truth is that the volcanic ash would kill far more people.  Even just breathing in the volcanic ash could potentially be a death sentence…

The real threat, of course, begins after the lava halts. If the wind blew in Mexico City’s direction, a city-sized cloud of ash 20 centimeters thick would descend upon the buildings, dismantling roadways, shutting down airports and the Metro line. Breathing it in could kill you. And that’s just the first day. After that, seeping ash would clog Mexico City’s drainage lines, poisoning its water supplies, and ceasing electricity transmission via short-circuiting. With food supplies cut off, and no electricity, the dense metropolis would probably resemble something like the World Trade Center the night of September 11th, except with three times as many people attempting to flee. All under the veil of an ash-blackened sky.

Ultimately, we are talking about an event that would mean the end of the modern nation of Mexico as we know it today, and this is the most active that Mt. Popocatepetl has been in any of our lifetimes.

Are you starting to understand why I get so frustrated with the mainstream media?  What is happening to Mt. Popocatepetl should be front page news all over the county, and yet the mainstream media is almost completely ignoring it.

Meanwhile, a volcano in Washington state is starting to vent steam and gas.

I’ll bet you hadn’t heard about that either.

Mount Baker is 31 miles due east of Bellingham, Washington, and all throughout the month of March steam and gas have been pouring out of the volcano…

The state’s quartet of the potentially eruptive peaks are all part of the Cascade Mountain Range, and the northernmost is Mount Baker, which is located in Whatcom County, 31 miles east of Bellingham.

On March 4, the 10,781-foot-tall volcano began producing a number of steam plumes known as fumaroles. The expulsions have continued throughout the month since then and several have been highly visible from many miles away and widely captured in photographs and cell phone videos.

Those of you that are familiar with my work know that I am much more concerned about Mt. Rainier, and when that volcano starts venting steam and gas I am likely to really start freaking out.  But Mount Baker is a very serious threat too because of its “proximity to human population”…

Mount Baker last erupted in 1843, but in several recent publications, the U.S. Geological Survey has maintained that Washington state’s third-highest peak continues to present a serious threat due to the frequency of its eruptive history and the volcano’s proximity to human population.

We are seeing a rise in seismic activity all along the Ring of Fire, and as I have frequently warned, North America will not be immune from what is taking place.

The entire west coast lies directly along the Ring of Fire, and seismologists assure us that it is just a matter of time before we witness absolutely massive natural disasters.

And with all of the shaking that is currently going on, the truth is that time may be running out a lot more quickly than many of us had been anticipating…

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

Midwest Apocalypse: According To Satellite Data, “At Least 1 Million Acres Of U.S. Farmland” Have Been Devastated By Floods

We have never seen anything like this before.  According to satellite data that was just released by Reuters, “at least 1 million acres of U.S. farmland” were covered by water for at least seven days this month.  That is an agricultural disaster without equal in modern American history, and yet the mainstream media is treating this like it is some sort of second class story.  It isn’t.  This is the biggest news story of 2019 so far, and people want to know what is going on.  A few days ago, I posted a story entitled ‘“As Many As A Million Calves Lost In Nebraska” – Beef Prices In The U.S. To Escalate Dramatically In The Coming Months’, and it has already been shared on social media more than 145,000 times.  Farming communities all over the central part of the nation now look like war zones as a result of all this flooding, but the media elites on the east and west coasts don’t want to write about it.  And with more flooding on the way for the next two months, this crisis is only going to get worse.

This is the time of year when farmers are gearing up to plant wheat, corn and soybeans, and now a substantial portion of our farmland will not be able to be used at all this year.  According to Reuters, at least a million acres of farmland were covered by floodwaters for at least seven days this month, and that “will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year”…

At least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of U.S. farmland were flooded after the “bomb cyclone” storm left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water this month, satellite data analyzed by Gro Intelligence for Reuters showed.

Farms from the Dakotas to Missouri and beyond have been under water for a week or more, possibly impeding planting and damaging soil. The floods, which came just weeks before planting season starts in the Midwest, will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year.

And with “as many as a million calves” lost to the flooding, a lot less food than anticipated is going to be produced in the United States for the foreseeable future.

Between March 8th and March 21st, almost 1.1 million acres of cropland and over 84,000 acres of pastureland were covered by water for at least a week.  With more rain on the way, it is essentially going to be impossible for most of those acres to be usable this year.

In Iowa, 474,271 acres were covered by floodwaters for at least seven days in March, and Iowa farmers are facing some very tough deadlines.  Corn must be planted by May 31st and soybeans must be planted by June 15th in order to qualify for flood insurance.  For most Iowa farms that were covered by floodwaters, that is going to be impossible.

Overall, the recent flooding caused “at least $3 billion” in economic damage according to authorities, but many believe that the final number will be far higher.

Thousands upon thousands of farms have been completely destroyed, and thousands upon thousands of farmers will not plant any crops at all this year.

In addition to the vast agricultural devastation that we have witnessed, thousands upon thousands of homes have been destroyed as well, and now the National Ground Water Association is warning that “the safety of more than a million private water wells” could be compromised…

Record flooding in the Midwest is now threatening the safety of more than a million private water wells. The National Ground Water Association estimates that people living in more than 300 counties across 10 states have their groundwater threatened from bacterial and industrial contamination carried by flood waters.

If you live in the middle of the country and there is a chance that your well may have been compromised, please don’t take any unnecessary chances.  Contaminated water can be really, really bad news.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.  According to the NOAA, we are entering an “unprecedented flood season” that could potentially “impact an even bigger area of cropland”…

Spring floods could yet impact an even bigger area of cropland. The U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned of what could be an “unprecedented flood season” as it forecasts heavy spring rains. Rivers may swell further as a deep snow pack in northern growing areas melts.

In my previous article entitled ‘”200 Million People At Risk: National Weather Service Warns Apocalyptic Midwest Floods Are “A Preview Of What We Expect Throughout The Rest Of The Spring”’, I included a map from the NOAA which shows which areas of the central part of the country are projected to receive unusually high levels of rainfall over the next few months.

Unfortunately, there is a tremendous amount of overlap with areas that have already been devastated by flooding.

On Friday and Saturday, there will be “more heavy rains” in the Midwest, and Nebraska is in “the direct path” of the center of the storm…

From the Central Plains to the Midwest, it has been a disastrous spring for river flooding. A weather system slated to bring more heavy rains Friday into Saturday could aggravate the situation along and near the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

It’s a one-two punch that combines additional rainwater with fresh runoff from snowmelt. Perhaps worst off is Nebraska, in the direct path of Friday’s quick burst of moisture. Barely a week has passed since Gov. Pete Ricketts estimated the cost of ongoing flooding in that state at more than $1 billion.

This is it.  America is being hammered by one storm after another, and I very much encourage you to get prepared for a very rough ride ahead.

There is going to be a lot more flooding.  Prices for beef, dairy, wheat, corn and soy products are going to rise significantly, and just when you think they are way too high they are going to keep on rising.

This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and federal authorities are telling us that we should expect things to continue to get worse for at least two more months.

Perhaps the mainstream media will eventually decide to take this story seriously, but until they do those of us in the alternative media will do our best to keep you updated.

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

“As Many As A Million Calves Lost In Nebraska” – Beef Prices In The U.S. To Escalate Dramatically In The Coming Months

According to Agriculture Secretary Sunny Purdue, there “may be as many as a million calves lost in Nebraska” due to the catastrophic flooding that has hit the state.  This is not a rumor, this is not an exaggeration, and this is not based on any sort of speculation.  This number comes to us directly from the top agriculture official in the entire country, and it means that the economic toll from the recent floods is far greater than most of us had anticipated.  You can watch Purdue make this quote on Fox Business right here, and it is important to remember that this number is just for one state.  It is hard to imagine what the final numbers will look like when the livestock losses for all of the states affected by the flooding are tallied up.  This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and the National Weather Service is telling us that there will be more catastrophic flooding throughout the middle portion of the nation for the next two months.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts says that this is the worst flooding that his state has ever experienced.  Ricketts originally told us that 65 out of the 93 counties in his state have declared a state of emergency, but that number has now risen to 74.  Hundreds of millions of dollars of damage has been done in his state alone, and that is just an initial estimate.

It deeply offends me that the big mainstream news channels have spent so little time covering this disaster.  This is the biggest news story of 2019 so far by a very wide margin, but because it happened in the middle of the country they are not giving it the attention that it deserves.

In the short-term, food prices will not rise too dramatically because the stores are selling the food that has already been produced.  But as the months roll along, you will start to notice food prices steadily increase.  Millions of bushels of wheat, corn and soybeans have been destroyed by the flooding so far, and thousands of farmers will not be able to plant crops at all this year.  And the livestock losses that we have already experienced will be felt for many years to come.

Beef will never be lower in price than it is right now.  So if you are a beef lover, you may want to stock up.

When the flooding initially came, it happened so fast that many farmers were powerless to do anything about it.  In Sherman County, farmer Richard Panowicz says that ice and debris were “exploding from the river”…

“Within 15 minutes it was devastation,” Panowicz said, with water, ice and debris exploding from the river with nothing to stop it.

He described some ice chunks as 3 feet thick and the size of an extended-cab pickup.

Panowicz said a lot of the dead calves he’s picked up have had broken legs. Many of the carcasses were found by neighbors.

In other cases, farmers were faced with a heartbreaking choice between saving their animals or saving their neighbors.  One farmer that rushed to help his neighbors ended up losing 30 calves to the floodwaters…

Before Mahon could think about his animals, he needed to help his neighbors. As the water rose, he rescued one with his tractor, the floodwater lifting it up and spinning him 180 degrees. He helped save three more people — including an 85-year-old woman and a 9-month-old baby — with a boat, he said.

Then he could start counting his losses. He estimated the flood carried away 30 calves and almost as many cows, nearly $50,000 out of his pocket. It might be more.

Can you imagine the grief that these farming families are enduring right now?

Many of them are financially ruined and will never be able to go back to farming again.

Dave Eaton’s family has been farming the same plot of land for 152 years.  But now the Missouri River has swallowed his farm, and with much more flooding still to come, he anticipates that his farm with be underwater “all year”…

The farm has been in his family 152 years. He was born there. He’s been thinking about what he’s learned about the Missouri’s upstream reservoirs and the mountain snowpack, and what it means for his land.

“It’s not like I’m new to the area,” he said. “My gut feeling is we’re going to be under water all year.”

And he is definitely not the only one that has had his year ruined.

Panowicz says that the hay and silage that were meant to feed his cattle this season were soaked “in 3 to 4 feet of water”…

The hay and silage to feed his cattle are soaked after sitting in 3 to 4 feet of water.

Sand now covers much of the pastureland he uses to graze his herd of commercial Angus cows and purebred Charolais bulls.

And 40 of his recently born calves died in the flood.

So what is he supposed to do?

Some Nebraska ranchers will bravely try to rebuild, but for Panowicz it appears that the end has come…

“I’ll probably sell the (remaining) cows and calves and get out of the cattle business,” said Panowicz, 65. “I’ve been around cows since the early 1970s.”

I could go on and on, but I think that you definitely get the point.

America’s farmers have been utterly devastated.  America’s cattle producers have been utterly devastated.  Food production is going to be way, way below expectations, and food prices are going to escalate dramatically in the coming months.  This is the kind of scenario that I have been warning about, and this crisis is going to continue to get worse as all the snow from one of the snowiest winters on record melts.  In Minnesota, there are still more than 20 inches of snow on the ground in some places, and all of that water has to go somewhere.

This is the biggest national crisis that has hit the United States in many years, but the mainstream media and millions of Americans that do not live in the affected areas still do not seem to get it.

Of course once food prices start getting painfully high at our supermarkets everyone will start complaining, but there will not be any easy solutions.

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

Government Warns Of Historic, Widespread Flooding “Through May” – Food Prices To Skyrocket As 1000s Of Farms Are Destroyed

We have never seen catastrophic flooding like this, and the NOAA is now telling us that there will be more major flooding for at least two more months.  On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that “historic, widespread flooding” would “continue through May”.  More than 90 percent of the upper Midwest and Great Plains is currently covered by an average of 10.7 inches of snow, and all of that snow is starting to melt.  That means that we are going to transition from one of the worst winters in modern history to a flood season that has already taken an apocalyptic turn for farmers all across America.  At this moment, millions of acres of farmland are already underwater.  Thousands of farmers are not going to be able to plant crops this year, and thousands of other farmers that have been financially ruined by the floods will never return to farming again.  This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and it is going to get a whole lot worse.

I posted an article about this crisis yesterday, and I am troubled by the fact that most Americans don’t seem to understand the gravity of what we are facing.

Millions of bushels of wheat, corn and soybeans have been destroyed by flood waters, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of livestock have been lost, and all of us will soon be feeling a lot more pain at the grocery store.

And this would be a complete and utter national nightmare even if the flooding was all over, but the NOAA just told us that we should expect more catastrophic flooding for the next two months…

Our 2019 is out today: Historic, widespread flooding to continue through May. Find map, highlights video & more at https://bit.ly/2JqDsIG  @NWS

In fact, the NOAA is using the words “unprecedented flood season” to describe what is coming, and they are warning that “more than 200 million people” are at risk…

Forecasters warned the floods would likely to continue through May, and could worsen in the coming weeks.

“This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk,” Ed Clark, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said on Thursday in the agency’s spring outlook.

Of all the natural disasters that we have seen in recent years, this is the biggest, and U.S. food production is going to be dramatically affected because many farmers will not be able to grow crops at all in 2019…

“The reality is this isn’t going to be over for a very long time,” Jorgenson said. “It took years after 2011 for people to come back. For me as a farmer, there are flooded acres here that to think that I’ll be able to plant a crop in 45 days is just virtually impossible.”

And many farmers will never recover from this disaster at all.

According to one farmer in Iowa, somewhere around half of the farmers in his entire county will not be able to come back from this…

“I would say 50% of the farmers in our area will not recover from this,” Dustin Sheldon, a farmer in southwestern Iowa’s flood-devastated Fremont County near the swollen Missouri River, said this week.

I said it yesterday, and I will say it again.  This is the worst blow to U.S. agriculture that I have seen in my entire lifetime.

The amount of food that has just been lost is absolutely staggering.  Due to the trade war, farmers were storing more wheat, corn and soybeans than ever before, and now the floodwaters have destroyed much of what had been stored…

As prices plummeted last year amid the ongoing trade fight, growers, faced with selling crops at a loss, stuffed a historic volume of grain into winding plastic tubes and steel bins. Some cash-strapped families piled crops inside their barns or outside on the ground.

Farmers say they are now finding storage bags torn and bins burst open, grain washed away or contaminated. Jeff Jorgenson, a farmer and regional director for the Iowa Soybean Association, said he has seen at least a dozen bins that burst after grains swelled when they became wet.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, any wheat, corn or soybeans that are contaminated by flood waters must be destroyed.

I know that I shared the following quote yesterday, but in order to give you an idea of the scope of the losses we are looking at, I want to share it again…

As of Dec. 1, producers in states with flooding – including South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois – had 6.75 billion bushels of corn, soybeans and wheat stored on their farms – 38 percent of the total U.S. supplies available at that time, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

And remember, the flooding is just getting started.

In just one county in Iowa, 1.8 million bushels of corn and soybeans have already been destroyed.  Nationwide, the losses are off the charts.

Needless to say, prices will be going way up at the grocery store, and they will keep going up for the rest of the year.

Sadly, even after the flood waters are gone the damage that has been done to our agricultural infrastructure will take years to repair…

As the waters began to recede in parts of Nebraska, the damage to the rural roads, bridges and rail lines was just beginning to emerge. This infrastructure is critical for the U.S. agricultural sector to move products from farms to processing plants and shipping hubs.

The damage to roads means it will be harder for trucks to deliver seed to farmers for the coming planting season, but in some areas, the flooding on fields will render them all-but-impossible to use.

In Nebraska alone, hundreds of miles of rural roads have been completely washed out, and farmers such as Annette Bloom are having an extremely difficult time just getting to a main road…

“We are having to travel three miles through pasture and cropland just to get out because our roads are gone,” she says. “And the corn fields are going to be devastating to get in and plant and get that going, because usually we’re planting within the next two weeks and it’s not going to happen.”

Many of America’s farmers will bravely keep going after this disaster, but for many others a financial breaking point has arrived.

Farm bankruptcies had already surged to the highest level since the last recession prior to all of this flooding, and now this crisis will end up driving many of them away from the profession for good.  The following comes from NBC News…

Some farmers in Fremont County will probably not return to till their soil, many farmers here said.

“Lot of folks won’t be able to continue after this,” said Julius Schaaf, 66, who said 1,500 of his 4,000 acres were currently under water.

In the end, it is going to be a while before we know the full extent of the damage to America’s farms and our food supply, but all of the experts agree that it will be unprecedented.

Food prices are already high, but the truth is that this is as low as they are going to get.  Much less food will be produced in our heartland this year, and that will mean skyrocketing prices at our grocery stores.

And this is just one element of “the perfect storm” that is emerging.  Our society is starting to be shaken in many different ways, and 2019 is certainly shaping up to be a very “interesting” year.

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

Weather Patterns Go Crazy: Nebraska Flooding Has Broken 17 Records And Farmers Are Being Absolutely Devastated

One record breaking disaster after another has been hitting America in recent months.  At this moment, Nebraska is dealing with the worst flooding that it has ever experienced, and the economic damage being done by all of this flooding is going to be absolutely crippling for many farmers.  Of course the floods are the result of the “bomb cyclone” that brought hurricane-like winds and blizzard conditions to the central part of the country last week.  Sadly, this was just the latest chapter in a very cold and very bitter winter that can’t end soon enough as far as many of us are concerned.

Unfortunately, a change in the seasons is not going to be enough to restore our weather patterns to normal.  Prior to this winter, I repeatedly warned that this was going to be an extraordinarily cold and snowy winter, and it turns out that I was exactly correct.

So how did I know this would happen?

Well, it is actually very simple.  I listened to the scientists that were warning us that our sun is exhibiting very unusual behavior, that Earth’s north magnetic pole has been shifting, and that global weather patterns are changing dramatically.

It is not an exaggeration to say that weather patterns here in the United States are literally going crazy.  Los Angeles just had the coldest February that it has seen in 60 years, Seattle just had their snowiest February in 70 years, and some parts of California received more than 500 inches of snow this winter.

And now we are being warned that we could have a very rainy spring, but it is hard to imagine that things could get any worse than they currently are in the central part of the nation.

If you can believe it, some parts of the Missouri River are going to break previous flood records by up to 7 feet…

The Missouri River was still rising on Saturday evening, local TV station KMTV reported, with a record crest of more than 47 feet expected early on Tuesday in Brownville, Nebraska, about 70 miles south of Omaha in the eastern corner of the state.

“We’re looking at 4, 5, 6, 7 feet above the highest it’s ever been,” Wight said.

So far, a total of 17 records have already been set, and according to CNN some of those records have been standing for nearly 60 years…

Some of the records go as far back as 1960 and some are as recent as 2011, according to a press release from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA. The majority of the records NEMA listed involved the Missouri River, which crested between 30 and 47.5 feet in different areas throughout the state since Tuesday, breaking previous records by 1 to 4 feet.

The Platte River in Louisville is expected to crest Sunday at 14.3 feet, breaking its 1960 record by 1.9 feet, NEMA said. The Elkhorn River at Waterloo crested at 24.6 feet on Saturday, breaking its 1962 record by 5.5 feet.

Other states have been hit by flooding as well, but nobody got hit quite as hard as Nebraska.

After surveying the immense devastation caused by the flooding, Governor Ricketts attempted to convey the scope of the damage…

Gov. Pete Ricketts and other state officials witnessed a helicopter rescue mission, saw wiped-out bridges, islands of stranded cattle and towns engulfed by water during a flyover of flooded areas Friday.

The expanse of the flooding made detecting the main channels of the Elkhorn and Platte rivers difficult in some areas, he said.

“This may be the most widespread flooding devastation we’ve had in our state in the last half-century,” Ricketts said.

Sadly, the truth is even worse than that.

This is now the worst flooding that some parts of Nebraska have ever experienced, and with their fields inundated by water many farmers may not be able to plant their spring crops…

While this extreme weather affects everyone in the area, farmers see some of the worst effects. Blizzard conditions and flooding can kill cattle and hogs, and the water-soaked fields may persist for weeks, preventing Midwestern farmers from being able to plant a timely spring crop. Planting delays can lead to lower crop yields or even force farmers to give up planting some fields, which could cut into U.S. corn production this year.

America’s farmers just can’t seem to catch a break.  The trade war has small farmers all across the country on the verge of bankruptcy, and farm debt delinquencies have already reached the highest level that we have seen in 9 years.

So all of this flooding is coming at a really bad time, and on top of everything else more rain and snow is in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday.

Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know that I talk a lot about how our planet is becoming increasingly unstable.  Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are becoming more frequent, and global weather patterns are doing things that we haven’t seen before.

There is a very complicated relationship between the sun, the Earth’s magnetic field and our rapidly shifting weather patterns.  If the behavior of the giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around continues to become even more erratic, that is going to have enormous implications for every man, woman and child in the entire world.

So keep a close eye on the sun.  Most discussions about “climate” assume that our sun will behave the way that it always has, but that is not a safe assumption.

Things are changing, and the catastrophes that we have seen so far are just the beginning…

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

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocks God: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe”

49 people were just ruthlessly gunned down at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is using it as an opportunity to mock God.  As you will see below, in response to the mass shootings she posed this question on Twitter: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?”  Conservatives were obviously her intended target, but her statement implies that either God won’t listen to our prayers and stop these terror attacks or that He simply can’t do it because He lacks the power to do so.  Either way, her statement is a direct attack on God and believers all across America are deeply, deeply offended by her statement.

What just happened in New Zealand is yet another example that demonstrates that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing.  Shooter Brenton Tarrant is a horribly deranged man who decided that he would gain worldwide fame by shooting a whole bunch of innocent people in cold blood.  And it turns out that he wasn’t even from New Zealand…

A 28-year-old Australian man who was charged with murder was remanded without plea until his next appearance in court on April 5, while two others remain in police custody. NBC’s Australian subsidiary, Channel 7, say police sources have named one of the suspects as Brenton Tarrant.

The charged individual “traveled sporadically to New Zealand and stayed for varied amount of time,” but was not a resident of Christchurch, Ardern said in a statement.

In this day and age, this sort of thing can literally happen anywhere.  No community is truly “safe”, and we all need to understand that our world has fundamentally changed.

When a great tragedy like this happens, it is not time to jump on social media and try to use it to score political points.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left have been doing.  Here is her full statement about “thoughts & prayers” in context…

At 1st I thought of saying, “Imagine being told your house of faith isn’t safe anymore.”

But I couldn’t say “imagine.”

Because of Charleston.
Pittsburgh.
Sutherland Springs.

What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?

If she had simply mocked gun owners, conservatives or her political opponents, that would have been bad enough.

But she didn’t stop there.

She mocked almighty God by implying that our thoughts and prayers are worthless.

There is no room in Congress for someone that would make such a statement, and I am calling on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to immediately resign.

Others on the left are relentlessly pointing their fingers at conservatives in the aftermath of this attack, but Brenton Tarrant was not a conservative.  In fact, he made this explicitly clear in the manifesto that he left behind…

The terrorist gunman who killed 49 Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand said in his own manifesto that he wanted “no part of” conservatism, describing himself as an “eco-fascist” and expressing admiration for Communist China.

Answering the question “Were/are you a conservative?”, Brenton Tarrant wrote, “No, conservatism is corporatism in disguise, “I want no part of it.”

But you aren’t hearing that on the mainstream news, are you?

In his manifesto, Tarrant also expressed disdain for Donald Trump, and he openly admitted that the “nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.”

That would make him a far left communist more than anything else.  But the mainstream media just keeps using terms such as “right wing extremist” to describe him.

Tarrant also made it abundantly clear in his manifesto that he wants to see “a civil war in the United States”…

At three points in his manifesto, the shooter also states his intention to spark a civil war in the United States by triggering crackdowns on the Second Amendment. In his laundry list of motivations, the shooter spends the most amount of time discussing this goal, which he believes will ultimately lead to a “fracturing” of the U.S. along “cultural and racial lines.”

As he describes it, his attack will “Create conflict between the two ideologies within the United States on the ownership of firearms in order to further the social, cultural, political, and racial divide within the United States.”

Without a doubt, our nation is more divided today than we have ever seen in modern American history, and the stage is set for the mass societal chaos that I depicted in “The Beginning Of The End”.  I am stunned by all of the anger, frustration and hatred that I see throughout our society, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

If we don’t learn how to love one another, we simply are not going to make it as a society.

Loving others does not mean that you always have to agree with them.  We must always contend for the truth, but at the same time we have got to find a way to love those that are opposed to us.

Hatred never leads anywhere good, and Tarrant is a perfect example of that fact.  Sadly, our world is filled with more hate than ever before, and that is going to have very serious consequences for all of us.

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

World War 3 Coming? Israel Is On The Brink Of War With Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria And Iran All At The Same Time

On Thursday, rockets were fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since 2014, and Israel responded by hammering Hamas with airstrikes.  This latest exchange has brought Israel closer to another war with Hamas than ever.  But as you will see below, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.  And on top of everything else, the most pivotal election in Israel in many years is on April 9th.  If more rockets are fired at Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford to look weak because that could cost him a lot of votes in this very tight election.  But he must walk a very fine line, because a military response that is seen as too harsh could potentially spark a major regional conflict.

Everyone knows that Israel is simply not going to tolerate rockets being fired at Tel Aviv, and so it was quite a shock to learn what had happened on Thursday.  The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

The Israeli military confirmed that two rockets were fired towards central Israel on Thursday evening, with at least two loud explosions heard in the Gush Dan region.

According to the IDF, although the Iron Dome missile defense system was activated, there were no interceptions as both rockets fell in open territory.

It was the first time sirens were activated in Tel Aviv since the last war with Gaza in 2014 and several Israelis were treated for shock.

It was inevitable that there would be a substantial response from the Israeli military, and airstrikes were conducted very rapidly.  According to Fox News, a Hamas naval base was one of the primary targets…

The strikes were occurring in Khan Younis, roughly 15 miles south of Gaza City, according to The Associated Press. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

A Hamas naval base was targeted, the outlet reported, citing Palestinian media.

Originally, Hamas had seemed to deny responsibility for the rocket attacks, but the IDF later confirmed that they were fired by Hamas…

We can confirm that the rockets fired from at earlier tonight were launched by the Hamas terrorist organization.

If Hamas doesn’t fire any more rockets, this will probably be the end of it for now.

But with Hamas, things are never truly over.

Meanwhile, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah in the north.

In recent days, Israel has been dealing with massive tunnels that Hezbollah has constructed for the purpose of rapidly moving military forces into northern Israel.  So far, five tunnels have been discovered, but there are probably a lot more.

We are being told that the tunnels are absolutely enormous.  Reportedly, they are large enough “to move heavy military equipment”…

For the first time since 1973, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confronts the very real prospect of a sizable incursion. Years of fighting alongside Russian and Iranian forces in Syria have transformed Hezbollah into a formidable military force capable of launching such a raid, relying on coordinated infantry, artillery, and even armor and drones. This represents a major leap from Hezbollah’s small hit-and-run tactics in the 2006 Lebanon war.

The tunnels are integral to this new threat. Built in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 prohibiting Hezbollah’s rearmament in this area, they are reportedly wide enough to move heavy military equipment and large troop units.

Hezbollah’s leadership continues to threaten Israel with a new war, and it has been estimated that they have built up an arsenal of approximately 150,000 missiles for the next conflict.

Israel is roughly the same size as New Jersey.  Just imagine what would happen if 150,000 missiles were suddenly fired at towns and cities all over New Jersey, and you will have some idea of what Israel is potentially facing.

Of course the Israeli military is far superior to Hezbollah’s forces, but if Israel has to fight Hamas and Hezbollah simultaneously that would be a real challenge.

And then there is Syria.  After eight years of civil war, you would think that Syria would have had enough fighting by now.

Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a previous article, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad just threatened to attack Israel if the Israelis do not leave the Golan Heights.  The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

Syria vowed to attack Israel unless it withdraws from the Golan Heights, World Israel News reported on Thursday.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official warning to the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund, in what seemed to be an attempt to prevent official US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan.

Can you imagine the stress that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be going through right now?  A major election is less than a month away and he is literally fighting for his political life, and meanwhile several of Israel’s neighbors appear to be preparing for war with his nation.

And Iran appears to be eager for a fight too.  A few weeks ago, a top Iranian general threatened to completely wipe Israel off the map…

Asked by a reporter in Tehran about Israeli threats to strike Iranian forces deployed in Syria, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted by Iranian news outlets as saying, “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map. And it seems that, considering the evil that Israel is doing, it is bringing itself closer to that.”

He added: “We announce that if Israel does anything to start a new war, it will obviously be the war that will end with its elimination, and the occupied territories will be returned. The Israelis will not have even a cemetery in Palestine to bury their own corpses.”

And Netanyahu also seems to anticipate that a conflict with Iran is coming.  The following comes from NBC News…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled Iranians and even the White House on Wednesday with a strident call for Israeli-Arab action against the government in Tehran that was translated by his office as urging “war with Iran.”

Although Israeli officials tried to soften the reference by altering the English translation, the provocative comment was likely to further the perception that Israel, its Gulf Arab neighbors and the United States are interested in using military action to topple the government of Iran.

I have been warning that a major war is coming in the Middle East for a long time, and now we are closer than ever.

Let us hope for peace, but as we have seen in the past, any peace in the region is always just temporary.

Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are all fundamentally committed to the complete and total destruction of the state of Israel and nothing is going to change that.  War is coming at some point, and it is going to be extremely bloody.

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

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