Money

A Shocking NBC News Report Says That Someday We Will Be Microchipping All Of Our Children

May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 by Michael

Would you allow microchips to be surgically implanted in your children if that would keep them safer? This is already being done to pets on a widespread basis, and a shocking local NBC News report is promoting the idea that if it is good for our pets, then we should be doing it to our children as well. As you will see below, the report even puts a guilt trip on parents by asking them this question: “How far would you go to keep your children secure?” Of course most parents very much want to keep their children safe, and a microchip would enable authorities to track them down if they were lost or stolen. But is this really a good idea? And where is all of this technology eventually leading? If you have not seen this very disturbing local NBC News report yet, you can view it right here…

In the video, the reporter says that our children could be implanted with microchips “the size of a grain of rice” and that there would be “little to no health risks” involved.

And near the end of the report, she insists that “we could see those microchips in everyone” eventually.

Wow.

I am speechless.

The report also quoted an electronics expert who claimed that testing of these microchips “is being done right now”…

The piece flips back to pushing the idea when it quotes electronics expert Stuart Lipoff, who asserts that microchipping children is safe and inevitable.

“People should be aware that testing is being done right now. The military is not only testing this out, but already utilizes its properties. It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when,” states Lipoff.

Of course if widespread microchipping of the population does start happening, at first it will likely be purely voluntary. But once enough of the population starts adopting the idea, it will be really easy for the government to make it mandatory.

Just imagine a world where physical cash was a thing of the past and you could not buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account without your government-issued microchip identification.

Will you allow yourself and your family to be chipped when that day arrives?

If not, how will you eat?

How will you survive?

What will you do when your children come crying to you for food?

I am certainly not saying that you should allow yourself to be chipped. I know that nobody is ever chipping me. But what I am saying is that people are going to be faced with some absolutely heart-breaking choices.

Just recently, I wrote about a new form of digital currency that is intended to replace the physical dollars that we use now and also replace alternative currencies such as Bitcoin. It was unveiled in front of about 100 top Wall Street executives recently during a secret meeting in New York City. To give you an idea of just how rapidly the concept of a cashless society is advancing, I want to share with you a brief excerpt from an article that I recently wrote about this new technology…

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Last month, a “secret meeting” that involved more than 100 executives from some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States was held in New York City. During this “secret meeting“, a company known as “Chain” unveiled a technology that transforms U.S. dollars into “pure digital assets”. Reportedly, there were representatives from Nasdaq, Citigroup, Visa, Fidelity, Fiserv and Pfizer in the room, and Chain also claims to be partnering with Capital One, State Street, and First Data. This “revolutionary” technology is intended to completely change the way that we use money, and it would represent a major step toward a cashless society. But if this new digital cash system is going to be so good for society, why was it unveiled during a secret meeting for Wall Street bankers? Is there something more going on here than we are being told?

None of us probably would have ever heard about this secret meeting if it was not for a report in Bloomberg. The following comes from their article entitled “Inside the Secret Meeting Where Wall Street Tested Digital Cash“…

On a recent Monday in April, more than 100 executives from some of the world’s largest financial institutions gathered for a private meeting at the Times Square office of Nasdaq Inc. They weren’t there to just talk about blockchain, the new technology some predict will transform finance, but to build and experiment with the software.

By the end of the day, they had seen something revolutionary: U.S. dollars transformed into pure digital assets, able to be used to execute and settle a trade instantly. That’s the promise of a blockchain, where the cumbersome and error-prone system that takes days to move money across town or around the world is replaced with almost instant certainty.

So it is not just Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog that is referring to this gathering as a “secret meeting”. This is actually how it was described by Bloomberg. And I think that there is a very good reason why this meeting was held in secret, because many in the general public would definitely be alarmed by this giant step toward a cashless society.

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Right now, more than 400 billion cashless transactions are conducted around the world each year, and that number is growing very quickly.

And when our system becomes entirely cashless, there will be no more stuffing your mattress with cash and we will all be forced to deal with the banks.

What that day arrives, all of a sudden the government will be able to serve as the gatekeeper for who is allowed to access the system and who is not.

It would be very easy to impose a tax, require some sort of loyalty oath, or mandate some form of microchip identification as a condition for participating in the cashless system.

When we get to that point, what will you do?

In the end, that is something that we all need to be considering very carefully…

*About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

40 Volcanoes Are Erupting Right Now As The Crust Of The Earth Becomes Increasingly Unstable

May 22, 2016May 22, 2016 by Michael

Have you noticed that our planet has begun to shake, rattle and roll? Over the past few days we have seen major volcanic eruptions in Costa Rica and Indonesia, and according to Volcano Discovery 40 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now as you read this article. Meanwhile, earthquakes continue to shake the globe with alarming regularity. Just last week, Ecuador was hit by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake and a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in rapid succession. Overall, there have been more than 3,000 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater within the past month globally. So yes, I write constantly about the rapidly accelerating deterioration of our financial system, but the coming “collapse” is not just about money. I am convinced that we are entering a “perfect storm” in which a confluence of factors will absolutely cripple society and bring about changes that most of us would not even dare to imagine right now.

Let’s talk about the volcanic eruptions that we have seen in recent days. The eruption down in Costa Rica took authorities completely by surprise, and a thick layer of dust and ash is coating vehicles and buildings 30 miles away in the capital city of San Jose…

A volcano has erupted in central Costa Rica, belching smoke and ash up to 3,000m (9,840ft) into the air.

Hundreds of people have gone to hospital, complaining of breathing difficulties and skin problems.

Some schools were shut and some flights into the country cancelled or diverted.

People in the capital San Jose, about 45km (30 miles) west of the Turrialba volcano, said layers of ash had coated buildings and cars and there was a fierce smell of sulphur.

Leading up to this eruption, there were “swarms of small earthquakes” in the vicinity of the volcano, but scientists assured the public that these earthquake swarms were “not signs of an imminent eruption.”

Keep that in mind, because later in the article I am going to show you something.

But first let us talk about the other major eruption that is happening right now. Down in Indonesia, Mount Sinabung has violently erupted, and this is causing all sorts of chaos…

The death toll from a volcanic eruption in western Indonesia has climbed to six, an official said Sunday, with fears more could have been trapped by the hot ash.

Three people also remain in a critical condition after Mount Sinabung, a highly-active volcano on Sumatra island, unleashed a series of fresh eruptions on Saturday afternoon, disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

“Nine people were struck by the hot clouds. Six died, and three others remain critical with burns,” he said, adding the injured had been taken to hospital.

According to one report, “torrents of lava” are pouring out of the volcano, and this is just one example of how volcanoes that were once considered to be “inactive” are coming to life all over the world. In fact, prior to 2010 Mount Sinabung had been dormant for about 400 years.

Meanwhile, there is “unprecedented” activity at Iceland’s very dangerous Baroabunga volcano. This one is not erupting quite yet, but we definitely want to keep an eye on it, because a major eruption there would have serious implications for Europe.

To finish this article, I would like to provide an update to a piece that I posted last week on End of the American Dream. Just prior to the eruption of the Turrialba volcano in Costa Rica, there were significant earthquake swarms in the vicinity of the volcano. Well, the exact same thing is happening at three major volcanoes in the United States right now.

I would like to share three images with you that come from Google Earth via the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. This first image shows the earthquake activity that has taken place in the area around Mt. St. Helens in recent days. Over the past month there have been 95 earthquakes in the region, and most of them have been centered right along the core of the volcano…

This next image shows what has been happening at Mt. Rainier. Those that follow my work closely already know that I consider it to be the most dangerous mountain in America and that I believe that a major eruption of the volcano is coming in the not too distant future. There have been 36 earthquakes at Mt. Rainier over the past month, and once again most of them have occurred right along the core of the volcano…

Mt. Hood is also a very dangerous volcano. There have been 126 earthquakes in the vicinity of Mt. Hood in recent days, and in this image you can see that the earthquakes have been centered very tightly on a spot on the south face of the mountain. This is alarming because it was also the south side of Mt. St. Helens that violently erupted back in 1980…

When there are major volcanic eruptions or major earthquakes in other parts of the globe, many Americans don’t seem to care too much because they don’t think that this rise in global seismic activity is any sort of a threat to them personally.

But the truth is that the entire west coast of the United States lies along the Ring of Fire, and virtually every other section of the Ring of Fire is roaring to life these days.

At some point, there will be historic earthquakes on the west coast.

At some point, there will be historic volcanic eruptions on the west coast.

Scientists assure us that these things are inevitable.

So let us certainly hope for the best, but putting our heads in the sand and pretending that these dangers do not exist is not going to help matters one bit.

Get prepared while you still can, because at some point time will run out.

Amerigeddon: Are You Ready For The Chaos That Will Ensue When The Power Grid Is Brought Down?

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016 by Michael

What would America look like with absolutely no electricity? Could you survive in a world with no lights, no cell phones, no computers, no televisions, no ATMs, no cash registers and no refrigerators? Such a world is not as far away as you might think. A very powerful nuclear blast directly over the center of the continental United States could potentially fry electronic equipment from coast to coast, and it would take months or even years to fully restore power. During that time, the entire country would be plunged into chaos and experts tell us that tens of millions of Americans would die. But even if we are never attacked by a nuclear weapon in that manner, scientists assure us that it is inevitable that a massive electromagnetic blast from the sun will produce a similar result someday anyway. In fact, back in 1859 a giant solar storm that came to be known as “the Carrington Event” fried telegraph machines all across North America and Europe. If a similar event happened today, life as we know it would be brought to an abrupt halt, and chaos would ensue from coast to coast.

In two days, a bold new movie will be released in theaters that portrays what the aftermath of such an event would look like in this country. It is entitled “AMERIGEDDON”, and it was directed by Mike Norris, the son of Chuck Norris. You can view the official trailer for the film right here…

I wish that more movies like this would come out, because most of what Hollywood produces these days is absolute garbage. Our entertainment-addicted society needs films like this that educate and inform, and I hope that as many Americans as possible get a chance to see it because this threat is very real.

In 2001, Congress established a commission to study the EMP threat, and those on the commission examined this problem quite extensively for a number of years. In 2008, members of the commission reported to Congress that they had come to the conclusion that the consequences of such an event would be absolutely catastrophic for this nation…

In 2008, the commission warned that “a high altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences.” If such an attack were to cause a nationwide blackout lasting as long as a year, up to 90 percent of the American people could die due to starvation, disease and societal collapse.

Personally, I think that the 90 percent figure is too high.

But what if it was just 50 percent of all Americans that died? We are still talking about the most horrific disaster in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and it would essentially mean the end of the Republic.

So what has Congress done about this threat?

Next to nothing, and this has many of the experts quite upset.

One of them is former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry. He now serves as the executive director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, and he recently had the following to say about the threat that we are potentially facing…

Ours is an electronic civilization. Electricity runs everything, including the economy. Electricity sustains the lives of 320 million Americans.

Terrorists could inflict “The greatest injury on the greatest number” by attacking the national electric grid and blacking-out all the life sustaining critical infrastructures.

A nationwide blackout would, in effect, turn the “off switch” for the United States. A terror blackout that lasts one year could kill so many people and cause such chaos that the lights might never come back on.

No less than two congressional commissions, the EMP Commission (2008) and the Strategic Posture Commission (2009) and numerous independent studies, including the recent books Lights Out and Blackout Wars, warn that an attack on the grid is an existential threat. A terror blackout could have such catastrophic consequences as to challenge the continued existence of our civilization.

And remember, no attack is even necessary in order for the power grid to be brought down. In fact, most Americans have absolutely no idea that our planet barely missed being fried by a massive EMP burst from the sun in both 2012 and 2013. Those two “near misses” were both extremely close, and if either of them had hit us directly you would not be reading this article today.

So please help spread the word about this new movie. Here is some more information about it that comes directly from the official website…

AMERIGEDDON, coming to theaters nationwide May 13, 2016, has been described as “the movie the establishment doesn’t want you to see.” Showing what happens when a not-so-future U.S. government conspires with the United Nations to stage an attack on the energy grid, AMERIGEDDON depicts a country ruled by martial law in which citizens are stripped of their constitutional rights and their guns. A group of patriots fight back and rescue the country from slipping into irreversible chaos.

AMERIGEDDON’s release in an election year is not coincidental. The film illustrates a dystopian future all patriots must guard against and is a call to action to preserve the Second Amendment and stop executive rule by fiat. Director Mike Norris, son of Chuck Norris, asks for like-minded Americans to support the film.

“The fact that a recent poll showed a majority of Americans are enraged with the federal government points to a frenzy of unrest with the dictatorial way in which our country has been run,” said Norris. “My family has long been involved in protecting the rights of Americans. We are concerned about the future and and see this film as a call to action. We urge people to join us in theaters and show Hollywood and politicians that true patriots will fight for their rights and want to see their values represented on-screen.”

A collaboration between Norris and entrepreneur and writer Gary Heavin, AMERIGEDDON seizes on fact-based threats and asks the ultimate question, “What happens when government turns on the people it’s supposed to protect?”

The sad thing is that the experts tell us that we could go a long way toward protecting our power grid from an EMP event for just a few billion dollars.

But there is absolutely no urgency among our leaders to get this done. They would rather waste our tax dollars in thousands of other ways.

And unfortunately, there is not much urgency to address this threat among ordinary Americans either. There are a variety of reasons for this, but I would like to touch on one. There seems to be a belief among many Americans that God would never allow something this bad to happen to us since we are so special. Of course this is complete nonsense, and anyone that doubts this should check out my new article in which I point out the parallels between modern America and Nazi Germany.

The executive producer of AMERIGEDDON, Gary Heavin, also pointed out the absurdity of this belief during a recent appearance on one of the biggest Christian shows in America…

Over the years, I have repeatedly written about this EMP threat. There is a chapter in “Get Prepared Now” about it, and I extensively warn that a day of reckoning is coming for America in my new book.

Sadly, most people are not listening.

Most people just seem to believe that everything is going to be okay somehow.

But as far as this EMP threat is concerned, the experts assure us that it is absolutely certain that a massive burst from the sun will inevitably fry our electronics someday even if we are never attacked with a nuclear device. In addition, sources in the intelligence community are telling us that foreign hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and that someday they could bring down our power grid with just the push of a button. This is something that Ted Koppel is so alarmed about that he wrote an entire book about it.

So I don’t know why Barack Obama doesn’t want to do anything about this.

And I certainly can’t figure out why Congress doesn’t want to do anything about this.

It is almost as if a cloud of insanity has descended upon the land and nobody can think straight.

Let us hope that our leaders wake up and start addressing this threat, because someday we will most certainly have to deal with an event of this nature.

It is just a matter of time.

All Of A Sudden, Fish Are Dying By The MILLIONS All Over The Planet

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016 by Michael

Why are millions upon millions of dead sea creatures suddenly washing up on beaches all over the world? It is certainly not unusual for fish and other inhabitants of our oceans to die. This happens all the time. But over the past month we have seen a series of extremely alarming mass death incidents all over the planet. As you will see below, many of these mass death incidents have involved more than 30 tons of fish. In places such as Chile and Vietnam, it has already gotten to the level where it has started to become a major national crisis. People see their coastlines absolutely buried in dead sea creatures, and they are starting to freak out.

For example, just check out what is going on in Chile right now. The following comes from a Smithsonian Magazine article entitled “Why Are Chilean Beaches Covered With Dead Animals?“…

Compared to other countries, Chile is almost all coast, and that geographical fluke means that the country is known for its beautiful beaches. But that reputation may be on the wane thanks to a new sight on Chilean shores: dead animals. Lots of them. Heaps of them, in fact. As Giovanna Fleitas reports for the Agence France-Presse, the South American country’s beaches are covered with piles of dead sea creatures—and scientists are trying to figure out why.

Tales of dead animals washing up on shore are relatively common; after all, the ocean has a weird way of depositing its dead on shore. But Chile’s problem is getting slightly out of hand. As Fleitas writes, recent months have not been kind to the Chilean coast, which has played host to washed-up carcasses of over 300 whales, 8,000 tons of sardines, and nearly 12 percent of the country’s annual salmon catch, to name a few.

Authorities in Chile are scrambling to come up with a reason for why this is happening, but nobody appears to be quite sure what is causing this tsunami of death.

In Vietnam, things are even worse. At this point, so many dead fish and clams have been washing up along the coast that soldiers have been deployed to bury them…

Millions of fish have washed up dead along a 125-kilometre stretch of the Vietnamese coast in one of the communist country’s worst environmental disasters.

Soldiers have been deployed to bury tonnes of fish, clams and the occasional whale that began dying in early April along the north-central coast, including some popular tourist beaches.

Vietnamese officials facing growing anger over the disaster have not announced the official cause of the deaths, which have affected the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.

Elsewhere in Asia, there have been similar incidents. For example, CNN is reporting that one lake in southern China is currently dealing with 35 tons of dead fish…

At least 35 tons of dead fish appeared in a lake in southern China, leaving residents stunned.

The piles of fish washed up in a lake in Hainan province on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported.

Residents expressed concerns on pollution, but local authorities said the fish died as a result of salinity change.

On the other side of the world, similar incidents have also happened in major lakes. Here is one example from Bolivia…

Thousands of dead fish have washed up onto the shores of a lake in Bolivia.

Just before they died, some of the fish had just hatched from their eggs in lake Alalay, in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

No one yet knows the number of dead fish, but they have stockpiled five cubic metres (177 cubic feet) so far, so it’s possible there is over a tonne of dead fish in the lake.

And here is an example from Brazil…

More than 200 tons of dead fish were removed from the Furnas Lake on Sunday (1st) in Alfenas (MG). According to the Military Police of the Environment, both fish raised in ponds, networks and those who are released, all of the tilapia species in the lake were affected. The damage to the psicultores is estimated at around R $ 900 thousand.

I could go on and on all day with examples such as these.

Just within the last month, 40 tons of fish died in India, 65 tons of fish died in Cambodia, 70 tons of fish died in Colombia, and millions of fish “suddenly died” in Indonesia.

So why is this happening?

I don’t know.

Could it be possible that these mass deaths are somehow related to the alarming earth changes that we see happening all around us?

Without a doubt, we have seen a dramatic rise in seismic activity during the early portions of 2016. There has been a series of very destructive earthquakes around the world in recent months, and once dormant volcanoes are coming to life all over the globe with distressing regularity.

Of course humanity has done much to destroy the planet as well, and we continue to deal with the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I do think that it is very interesting to note that most of these mass fish deaths have happened in nations that border the Pacific Ocean.

I am certainly not claiming to have an answer for why so many fish are dying. All I know is that millions upon millions of dead fish are washing up on shores all over the globe, and people are really starting to freak out about this.

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and major disasters seem to be getting more frequent and more intense. Just look at what is happening up in Alberta right now.

I believe that we are entering the “perfect storm” that myself and so many others have been warning about for so long.

Or could it be possible that I am just being overly dramatic?

Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

Welcome To Hell: The Giant Fort McMurray Fire Is The Worst Blaze In Canadian History

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016 by Michael

The gigantic wildfire that has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta has been nicknamed “the Beast“, and mainstream news reports are telling us that it is now approximately 25 percent larger than New York City. 88,000 people have already been forced out of their homes, at least 1,600 buildings have been destroyed, and smoke from the fire has been spotted as far away as Iowa. To say that this is a “disaster” is a massive understatement. Northern Alberta is “tinder dry” right now, and authorities say that high winds could result in the size of the fire doubling by the end of the weekend. One-fourth of Canada’s oil output has already been shut down, and the edge of the fire is now getting very close to the neighboring province of Saskatchewan. This is already the most expensive natural disaster in the history of Canada, and officials fully expect to be fighting this blaze for months to come.

At this point, only rain is going to stop this fire. Canadian authorities insist that they are not going to be able to defeat this raging inferno no matter how many resources they throw at it. The best that they can hope for is to try to steer it away from heavily populated areas until the rain comes.

Nobody knows precisely how this tragedy is going to end, but everyone agrees that it is going to last for quite some time. According to the Washington Post, this fire has the potential to keep on burning “for months”…

The images are ones of devastation — scorched homes, virtually whole neighborhoods burned to the ground. And Canadian officials say they expect to fight the massive wildfire that has destroyed large parts of Alberta’s oil sands town for months.

There’s fear the growing wildfire could double in size and reach a major oil sands mine and even the neighboring province of Saskatchewan.

I have relatives that live up in Alberta, and this is the biggest thing to hit that part of the world in many, many years.

This massive fire is making headlines all over the planet, and some of the video footage that is emerging is so shocking that it can be hard to believe. Some of the terms being used to describe the devastation are “hell”, “the end of the world” and “Armageddon”…

“It was something like Armageddon,” said Morgan Elliott, who traveled with his fiancee, Cara Kennedy, and their baby, Abigail. “Everything was burnt, houses gone. Leaving the city, it was like a scene out of a movie. It reminded me of the TV show ‘The Walking Dead’ where you’re going on the highway, and there’s just abandoned vehicles everywhere; hundreds of cars, just abandoned vehicles.”

In this YouTube video, you can watch vehicles attempt to escape Fort McMurray as hot embers from towering flames just a few feet away rain down on them. What would you do in this kind of situation?…

The amount of resources that has been committed to fighting this fire has been unprecedented, and yet it just continues to rage wildly out of control. The following comes from CNN…

The blaze is moving in a northeast direction and could reach the border with Saskatchewan by the end of Saturday, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said.

The response has been massive. Notley said more than 500 firefighters are battling the blaze around Fort McMurray, with the help of 15 helicopters and 14 air tankers. More than 1,400 firefighters and 133 helicopters are fighting blazes across the province.

Unfortunately, a lot of Americans simply are not going to care what is happening up in Alberta because it is in Canada.

But let us not forget that 2015 was the worst year for wildfires in all of U.S. history. Last year more acres burned in the United States than we had ever seen before, and 2016 is already shaping up to be another very bad year.

In fact, according to the National Interagency Fire Center we are already more than a million acres ahead of the pace that was set last year.

I just checked the U.S. Drought Monitor, and much of the western third of the country is still extremely dry. Conditions are certainly ripe for another horrible wildfire season, and so let us pray for lots of rain between right now and the end of the summer.

Because all we have to do to see what a worst case scenario looks like is to watch what is going on in Fort McMurray right now.

To me, this is the closest thing that we have seen to “hell on Earth” in a very long time…

Scary stuff from Fort McMurray this week pic.twitter.com/Ns0dq4fkk8

— David Schawel (@DavidSchawel) May 7, 2016

The End Of America?: 13 Catastrophic Events Which Could Soon Lead To An American Apocalypse

May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 by Michael

Is the strongest and most powerful nation on the planet headed for an apocalypse which will bring it to its knees? We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and apocalyptic themes have become very common in books, movies, television shows and video games. It is almost as if there is an unconscious understanding on a societal level that something very big and very bad is coming, even if the vast majority of the population cannot specifically identify what that is going to be. Last week, the Global Challenges Foundation released a new report entitled “Global Catastrophic Risks 2016” in which they discussed various apocalyptic events that they believe could wipe out more than 10 percent of the population of our planet, and they warned that these types of events “are more likely than we intuitively think”…

Sebastian Farquhar, director at the Global Priorities Project, told the Press Association: “There are some things that are on the horizon, things that probably won’t happen in any one year but could happen, which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.

“History teaches us that many of these things are more likely than we intuitively think. Many of these risks are changing and growing as technologies change and grow and reshape our world. But there are also things we can do about the risks.”

According to this new report, we are five times more likely to die from the various apocalyptic catastrophes that they analyzed than we are from a car accident.

In this article, I want to discuss some of the most important threats that they analyzed, in addition to adding some of my own to the list. But first I want to mention that I do not believe that the Global Challenges Foundation is correct to identify climate change as one of the most significant catastrophic threats that humanity is facing. Our climate has always been changing, and I do believe that we will see wild climate shifts in the years ahead. However, human activity plays an exceedingly small role in all of this, and there is not very much that we can do to prevent what is going to happen either. Most of the climate change that we are going to see in our future is going to be as a result of other catastrophes in this list, so I have not included it as a separate item.

With that being said, let’s quickly examine some of the potential threats identified by the Global Challenges Foundation…

Supervolcanoes

In various locations around the globe, there are gigantic supervolcanoes which could dramatically change the course of human history in a single moment by erupting. In the United States, the Yellowstone supervolcano is becoming increasingly active, and a full-blown eruption could potentially be up to 2,000 times more powerful than the eruption of Mount St. Helens back in 1980. As I mentioned the other day, major metropolitan areas such as Salt Lake City and Denver would be essentially destroyed, food production in this country would be virtually wiped out, and a “volcanic winter” would cool global temperatures by up to 20 degrees for up to several years.

Asteroids And Comets

This is something that the Obama administration is actually quite concerned about. During his tenure, NASA has established a “Planetary Defense Coordination Office” that is in charge of tracking giant space rocks, and NASA is working to develop a method to destroy incoming asteroids using nuclear weapons.

Scientists admit that they only know about a small fraction of the near-Earth objects that are actually out there, and we get hit “by surprise” all the time. If we were to get hit at just the right place by a very large object, like say just off the east coast of the United States, the consequences would almost be too horrible for words.

Today, 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline, and most of those people are along the east coast. According to the University of California at Santa Cruz website, if a huge asteroid did slam into the Atlantic Ocean, it could potentially produce a 400 foot high tsunami that would sweep inland for many, many miles and kill millions upon millions of Americans in the process.

Natural Pandemics

The flu pandemic of 1918 killed approximately 50,000,000 people worldwide, and scientists assure us that it will happen again one day.

Yes, we have come a long way in fighting disease, but as we learned during the recent Ebola outbreak, a really nasty virus can grip the entire world with fear in a very short period of time.

Engineered Pandemics

This is probably even a bigger threat than natural pandemics, because now we have the technology to genetically alter naturally occurring diseases and make them even stronger.

Whether it is on purpose or by accident, it is only a matter of time before a genetically-modified superbug gets released into the general population, and when that day arrives it may make all previous pandemics look like a Sunday picnic.

Artificial Intelligence

Could someday entities that we have created turn on us and start killing us?

Some might refer to this as “the Terminator scenario”, and it is becoming more realistic with each passing day as our technological capabilities continue to increase at an exponential rate.

Geoengineering

The human race now has the capability to purposely modify the weather, and this means that we also have the capability to do a tremendous amount of damage.

Have you ever looked up and noticed long white trails criss-crossing the sky? This is being done on purpose, and when they spray chemicals into our atmosphere it could have some very severe long-term consequences that the authorities may not be anticipating.

Nuclear War

Back during the Cold War, most Americans would have probably named this as the number one catastrophic threat facing America, but these days most people tend to believe that “the Cold War” is over.

So nobody has really objected while the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal has been reduced by about 95 percent, and Barack Obama insists that he would like to reduce it even further.

Meanwhile, both the Russians and the Chinese are rapidly modernizing their nuclear forces, and they both have developed hypersonic glide vehicles that can defeat any missile defense system that the U.S. can put up.

Our relationship with Russia has already gone down the tubes, and our relationship with China is rapidly deteriorating. In fact, China just rejected a request for the USS John C. Stennis to make a routine port call at Hong Kong. Most Americans assume that a war with either one of them is impossible, but the truth is that we may find ourselves in a conflict with both of them at the same time eventually.

The catastrophic threats above were ones that were mentioned in the report from the Global Challenges Foundation. Below are some additional items that I would like to add to the list…

Islamic Terror

It isn’t just ISIS that we need to be concerned about. Islamic terror is exploding all over the planet, and according to Wikipedia there have already been 95 such attacks globally so far in 2016.

Up until now, they have been killing us with guns and bombs, but what happens when they inevitably get their hands on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons?

Terror attacks using weapons of mass destruction could literally turn our society completely upside down virtually overnight, and it is only a matter of time until this starts happening.

Power Grid Failure

Someday you may wake up and discover that the power grid has totally failed. Just try to imagine a world without any lights, cell phones, computers, televisions, ATMs, heating and cooling systems, credit card readers, gas pumps, cash registers, refrigerators or hospital equipment. A massive electromagnetic pulse, either from the sun or as the result of a nuclear blast, could instantly plunge society back into the 1800s.

The EMP Commission spent years studying this, and they told Congress back in 20o8 that up to 90 percent of the U.S. population could be dead within one year of such an event due to starvation, disease and the breakdown of society. So this is a threat that people better start taking seriously.

Cyberwar

World War III will not be fought like previous wars, and the Internet is one area where we are particularly vulnerable. The Chinese, the Russians and the North Koreans have all been working very hard to develop their cyberwarfare capabilities, and I was recently told by someone that has deep connections inside the U.S. intelligence community that our power grid could be taken down with just the push of a button. That is how easy it would be.

With each passing year, we are all becoming more and more dependent on the Internet. So what would our lives be like if it was suddenly gone?

That is something to think about.

Economic Collapse

If you want to watch society melt down right in front of your eyes, just take away all of the goodies. On The Economic Collapse Blog I have written more than a million words about the coming economic problems in this country. We got a very small taste of what is approaching in 2008 and 2009, and yet most people do not seem to have taken that warning seriously. Since that time, our long-term economic and financial problems have grown far more dire, and now the early chapters of a new economic crisis are unfolding right in front of our eyes, and yet still most people don’t seem to be alarmed.

If you want to see how devastating an economic collapse can be on a nation, just pick up a history book and start reading about the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unfortunately, what we are heading for is going to be a whole lot worse than that.

Civil Unrest & Martial Law

As the economy collapses and other things on this list start happening, people are going to be absolutely freaking out. A whole host of polls and surveys have shown that anger and frustration have been building up to unprecedented levels in this country, and at some point there is going to be a huge explosion.

Desperate people do desperate things, and we got small previews of what is coming in Ferguson and in Baltimore. Violent crime rates are already rising in our major cities, and many among the elite are getting out while the getting is good. In fact, 3,000 millionaires left the city of Chicago last year alone.

Of course whenever civil unrest erupts, the government responds by trying to regain control, and eventually things are going to get so bad in this nation that we will start to see martial law imposed in various areas. We saw a little bit of this in Ferguson and in Baltimore, but that was nothing compared to what we will eventually experience.

Catastrophic Earthquakes

A historic earthquake along the New Madrid fault seismic zone, the Cascadia Subduction zone or any of the major faults in California could affect millions of lives, cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, and literally change the geography of our continent.

Personally, I believe that those of us that are fortunate enough to live long enough will witness historic earthquakes in all of those areas, and scientists assure us that all three zones are way overdue for major seismic events.

Even if just one of the catastrophic events that I have discussed above were to take place, it would completely change society.

Unfortunately, I believe that we are entering an era of history in which a “perfect storm” that consists of a confluence of these catastrophic events will shake this nation to the core.

So what do you think?

Do you agree or disagree?

Please feel free to add your voice to the discussion by posting a comment below…

The Future Of America? – More Than Half Of All U.S. Adults Under Age 30 Now Reject Capitalism

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 by Michael

A shocking new survey has found that support for capitalism is dying in America. In fact, more than half of all adults in the United States under the age of 30 say that they do not support capitalism at this point. You might be tempted to dismiss them as “foolish young people”, but the truth is that they are the future of America. As older generations die off, they will eventually become the leaders of this country. And of course our nation has not resembled anything close to a capitalist society for quite some time now. In a recent article, I listed 97 different taxes that Americans pay each year, and some Americans actually end up returning more than half of what they earn to the government by the time it is all said and done. So at best it could be said that we are running some sort of hybrid system that isn’t as far down the road toward full-blown socialism as most European nations are. But without a doubt we are moving in that direction, and our young people are going to be cheering every step of the way.

When I first heard of this new survey from Harvard University, I was absolutely stunned. The following is from what the Washington Post had to say about it…

The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.

It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

Could it be possible that young adults were confused by the wording of the survey?

Well, other polls have come up with similar results…

The university’s results echo recent findings from Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who surveyed 1,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 and found that 58% of respondents believed socialism to be the “more compassionate” political system when compared to capitalism. And when participants were asked to sum up the root of America’s problem in one word, 29% said “greed.”

This trend among our young people is very real, and you can see it in their support of Bernie Sanders. For millions upon millions of young adults in America today, Hillary Clinton is not nearly liberal enough for them. So they have flocked to Sanders, and if they had been the only ones voting in this election season, he would have won the Democratic nomination by a landslide.

Sadly, most of our young people don’t seem to understand how socialism slowly but surely destroys a nation. If you want to see the end result of socialism, just look at the economic collapse that is going on in Venezuela right now. The following comes from a Bloomberg article entitled “Venezuela Doesn’t Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money“…

Venezuela’s epic shortages are nothing new at this point. No diapers or car parts or aspirin — it’s all been well documented. But now the country is at risk of running out of money itself.

In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.

Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.

We are losing an entire generation of young people. These days, there is quite a lot of talk about how we need to get America back to the principles that it was founded upon, but the cold, hard reality of the matter is that most of our young people are running in the opposite direction as fast as they can.

And Americans under the age of 30 are not just becoming more liberal when it comes to economics. Surveys have found that they are more than twice as likely to support gay rights and less than half as likely to regularly attend church as the oldest Americans are.

So why is this happening?

Well, the truth is that our colleges and universities have become indoctrination centers for the progressive movement. I know, because I spent eight years at public universities in this country. The quality of the education that our young people are receiving is abysmal, but the values that are being imparted to them will last a lifetime.

And of course the same things could be said about our system of education all the way down to the kindergarten level. There are still some good people in the system, but overall it is overwhelmingly dominated by the progressives.

Meanwhile, the major entertainment providers in the United States are also promoting the same values. In a recent article entitled “Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become“, I discussed a Nielsen report which detailed how much time the average American spends consuming media on various electronic devices each day…

Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

Overall, the average American spends about 10 hours a day consuming one form of entertainment or another.

When you allow that much “programming” into your mind, it is inevitable that it is going to shape your values, and our young people are more “plugged in” than any of the rest of us.

So yes, I believe that it is exceedingly clear why we should be deeply concerned about the future of America. The values that are being relentlessly pounded into the heads of our young people are directly opposed to the values that this nation was founded upon, and it is these young people that will determine the path that this country ultimately takes.

Earth Changes In 2016? How To Get Prepared For The Coming Earthquakes And Volcanic Eruptions

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016 by Michael

All over the world seismic activity is increasing. In recent weeks we have seen a dramatic earthquake in Ecuador, more than 600 earthquakes have experts extremely alarmed about what is happening to Japan’s southern Island, and 37 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now. Most of the large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that we have witnessed lately have come along the Ring of Fire, which is an area of seismic instability which roughly encircles the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately the west coast of the United States has been spared so far, but scientists tell us that tension has been building up along the San Andreas fault and the Cascadia Subduction Zone for decades, and they assure us that it is only a matter of time before we see a major event. What that day arrives, will you be prepared?

There were a couple of notable seismic events which took place on Monday. First of all, the largest volcano in Russia’s Far East known as Klyuchevskaya Sopka violently erupted. Steaming hot ash was shot more than three miles up into the air, but fortunately it is not a heavily populated area. This represents yet another major volcanic eruption along the Ring of Fire, and this has some scientists extremely concerned about what may be coming next.

Here in the United States, an unusual swarm of 21 earthquakes along the Arizona-Nevada border is also raising eyebrows…

More small earthquakes shook northwest Arizona Sunday adding to the list of temblors that have struck the area since March 29.

The Arizona Geological Survey said two quakes occurred, including a magnitude 2.6 quake at 12:07 a.m.

There has been a swarm of 21 quakes in an area along the Arizona-Nevada line south-southwest of Littlefield, AZ, which is also close to southwestern Utah and the frequency and span puzzles geologists.

The good news is that we have not had a truly historic earthquake in the U.S. for decades, and there have been no major volcanic eruptions since Mount St. Helens exploded back in 1980.

But scientists assure us that we are living on borrowed time, and there are three extremely dangerous volcanoes in North America that I am keeping a close watch on right now…

#1 Mt. Popocatepetl

Popocatepetl is an Aztec word that can be translated as “smoking mountain”, and more than 25 million people live within range of this extraordinarily dangerous mountain. Experts tell us that during the time of the Aztecs, entire cities were completely buried in super-heated mud from this volcano. In fact, the super-heated mud was so deep that it buried entire pyramids. In the event of a full-blown eruption, Mexico City’s 18 million residents probably wouldn’t be buried in super-heated mud, but it would still be absolutely devastating for Mexico’s largest city.

#2 Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier has been dubbed a “time bomb“, “the most dangerous mountain in the United States” and “one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world” because it sits so close to Seattle, Tacoma and other major cities along the coast of Washington state. In the event of a full-blown eruption, countless numbers of people would literally be buried alive in a tsunami of super-heated mud. These tsunamis of super-heated mud are known as “lahars”, and scientists believe that Mt. Rainier is capable of producing lahars that could move at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. I am so convinced that an eruption of Mt. Rainier is in our future that I even put one in my novel.

#3 The Yellowstone Supervolcano

Many of us that are a bit older still remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens back in 1980. Well, scientists tell us that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would have up to 2,000 times the power of that eruption. Salt Lake City would be toast, anything caught outside in Denver would probably be dead in pretty short order, and a layer of volcanic ash at least 10 feet deep would be dumped on everything even up to 1,000 miles away. Food production in America would be virtually wiped out, and a “volcanic winter” would cool global temperatures by up to 20 degrees for an extended period of time.

In other words, life as we know it would come to an end.

That is why the extremely unusual activity going on at Yellowstone right now is such a concern. If it decides to blow, world history will make a dramatic turn in a single moment.

So what should we do?

As always, we should never give in to fear. There are definitely going to be major earthquakes and historic volcanic eruptions in North America, and we are going to have to deal with them. Doing some common sense things in advance will give you and your family the best chance of calmly and smoothly making it through such a crisis.

Below, I have shared some tips that come directly from the CDC. This first set of tips suggests things that you and your family can do to get prepared for a major earthquake…

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Gather Emergency Supplies

Stock up now on emergency supplies that can be used after an earthquake. These supplies should include a first aid kit, survival kits for the home, automobile, and workplace, and emergency water and food. Store enough supplies to last at least 3 days.

Evacuation Plans

If an earthquake occurs, you may need to evacuate a damaged area afterward. By planning and practicing for evacuation, you will be better prepared to respond appropriately and efficiently to signs of danger or to directions by civil authorities.

Take a few minutes with your family to discuss a home evacuation plan. Sketch a floor plan of your home; walk through each room and discuss evacuation details.
Plan a second way to exit from each room or area, if possible. If you need special equipment, such as a rope ladder, mark where it is located.
Mark where your emergency food, water, first aid kits, and fire extinguishers are located.
Mark where the utility switches or valves are located so that they can be turned off, if possible.
Indicate the location of your family’s emergency outdoor meeting place.

Establish Priorities

Take time before an earthquake strikes to write an emergency priority list, including:

important items to be hand-carried by you
other items, in order of importance to you and your family
items to be removed by car or truck if one is available
things to do if time permits, such as locking doors and windows, turning off the utilities, etc.

Write Down Important Information

Make a list of important information and put it in a secure location. Include on your list:

important telephone numbers, such as police, fire, paramedics, and medical centers
the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of your insurance agents, including policy types and numbers
the telephone numbers of the electric, gas, and water companies
the names and telephone numbers of neighbors
the name and telephone number of your landlord or property manager
important medical information, such as allergies, regular medications, etc.
the vehicle identification number, year, model, and license number of your automobile, boat, RV, etc.
your bank’s or credit union’s telephone number, account types, and numbers
radio and television broadcast stations to tune to for emergency broadcast information

Gather and Store Important Documents in a Fire-Proof Safe

Birth certificates
Ownership certificates (automobiles, boats, etc.)
Social Security cards
Insurance policies
Wills
Household inventory, including:
- list of contents
- photographs of contents of every room
- photographs of items of high value, such as jewelry, paintings, collectors’ item

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Preparing for a volcanic eruption requires a strategy that is a little bit different. Here are more tips from the CDC…

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If you are told to evacuate

Follow authorities’ instructions if they tell you to leave the area. Though it may seem safe to stay at home and wait out an eruption, doing so could be very dangerous. Volcanoes spew hot, dangerous gases, ash, lava, and rock that are powerfully destructive.

Preparing to evacuate

Tune in the radio or television for volcano updates.
Listen for disaster sirens and warning signals.
Review your emergency plan and gather your emergency supplies. Be sure to pack at least a 1-week supply of prescription medications.
Prepare an emergency kit for your vehicle with food, flares, booster cables, maps, tools, a first aid kit, a fire extinguisher, sleeping bags, a flashlight, batteries, etc.
Fill your vehicle’s gas tank.
If no vehicle is available, make arrangements with friends or family for transportation, or follow authorities’ instructions on where to obtain transportation.
Place vehicles under cover, if at all possible.
Put livestock in an enclosed area. Plan ahead to take pets with you, but be aware that many emergency shelters cannot accept animals.
Fill your clean water containers.
Fill sinks and bathtubs with water as an extra supply for washing.
Adjust the thermostat on refrigerators and freezers to the coolest possible temperature. If the power goes out, food will stay cooler longer.

As you evacuate

Take only essential items with you, including at least a 1-week supply of prescription medications.
If you have time, turn off the gas, electricity, and water.
Disconnect appliances to reduce the likelihood of electrical shock when power is restored.
Make sure your automobile’s emergency kit is ready.
Follow designated evacuation routes—others may be blocked—and expect heavy traffic and delays.

If you are told to take shelter where you are

Keep listening to your radio or television until you are told all is safe or you are told to evacuate. Local authorities may evacuate specific areas at greatest risk in your community.
Close and lock all windows and outside doors.
Turn off all heating and air conditioning systems and fans.
Close the fireplace damper.
Organize your emergency supplies and make sure household members know where the supplies are.
Make sure the radio is working.
Go to an interior room without windows that is above ground level.
Bring your pets with you, and be sure to bring additional food and water supplies for them.
It is ideal to have a hard-wired (non-portable) telephone in the room you select. Call your emergency contact—a friend or family member who does not live near the volcano—and have the phone available if you need to report a life-threatening condition. Remember that telephone equipment may be overwhelmed or damaged during an emergency.

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In the end, you have got to do what you feel is best for you and your family.

Personally, I would be extremely hesitant to live in very high risk areas along the west coast or near the Yellowstone supervolcano. This is especially true considering how dramatically global seismic activity is increasing.

But others point to the fact that these “danger areas” have not seen any major events in decades, so they wonder what all of the fuss is about.

So what do you think? Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below…

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