Drug

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

July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 by Michael

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Social Decay That Is Eating Away At America Like A Cancer Is Visible All Around Us

May 30, 2021May 30, 2021 by Michael

You probably don’t need me to tell you that society is coming apart at the seams all around us. If you live in a major city, you can just walk outside and watch it happen right in front of you. Prior to 2020, social decay was steadily eating away at our society, but once the pandemic hit many of our societal problems greatly accelerated. Even while the Federal Reserve was making sure that wealthy Wall Street investors were being taken care of well, poverty and homelessness were absolutely exploding in major cities all over the nation. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Americans have been turning to drugs to cope with their problems, and this has particularly been true in our urban areas.

At one time, Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan was quite lovely, but now it is being described as “lawless” and “drug-infested” because of the hordes of drug addicts that constantly hang out there…

A lawless, drug-infested Washington Square Park is horrifying even famously free-spirited Greenwich Village residents.

“We may be liberal but this has gone too far,” lamented Steven Hill, who has called the neighborhood home since 1980. “There have always been drugs in the park, mostly pot, but what’s emerged this spring is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

Just like so many other public spaces in major cities across the country, Washington Square Park is no longer a safe place for families.

These days, local residents are kept awake “until the wee hours” by the drug-fueled parties that take place night after night around the central fountain…

Washington Square Park’s northwest corner was overtaken in recent months by a crack-and-heroin-filled “drug den,” while boisterous, booze-soaked raves around the central fountain have kept neighbors up until the wee hours and left the historic green space trashed each morning.

Of course this sort of activity can be found all over New York City these days.

In fact, at this point even Times Square has been virtually taken over by drug addicts and homeless people…

Andy Hort, who runs a printing company in Times Square, said he now avoid the area whenever he can.

‘There’s a lot more crime and a lot more drug addicts and vagrants everywhere,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘In the last three months, I’ve seen three or four people shooting up right in front of me.’

What would you do if you started to see people regularly do heroin right in front of you?

Would you move?

That is what hundreds of thousands of New York residents have done, but even though so many people have moved out, crime rates in the Big Apple just continue to rise.

The days when NYC was one of our safest major cities seem so far away now. According to the latest NYPD data, crime in the city is up 30 percent so far in 2021…

In 2021, almost every type of violent crime is on the rise in New York City. According to recent figures from Compstat, the NYPD’s data gathering unit, crime is up 30 percent city wide.

At this stage, I don’t know why anyone would still want to live in New York.

If you can believe it, even New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is publicly admitting that the city has a “major crime problem”…

‘New Yorkers don’t feel safe and they don’t feel safe because the crime rate is up. It’s not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive – they are right,’ Governor Andrew Cuomo declared on Wednesday.

‘We have a major crime problem in New York City. Everything we just talked about, with the economy coming back, you know what the first step is? People have to feel safe.’

I write a lot about New York, but city after city all over the country is dealing with the exact same thing.

Crime rates are way up from coast to coast, and there is a new mass shooting in the news almost every single day now. The latest one comes to us from Miami…

Miami-Dade police are investigating a deadly mass shooting that left two people dead and 20 others injured in what detectives described as a “targeted act of violence.”

“This is a despicable act of gun violence,” said Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez. “A cowardly act.”

According to police, the shooting took place after a birthday party for a local rapper known as ABMG Spitta, birth name Courtney Paul Wilson.

The killers were specifically waiting for people to leave that birthday party.

It is being reported that “several gunmen sat in a white Nissan Pathfinder SUV in the parking lot for up to 40 minutes”, and when people started to pour out of the banquet hall they jumped into action…

Cellphone video shows the chaotic moments after the bullets stopped flying outside El Mula Banquet Hall. Up to 25 people were hit, and two were killed on the scene.

People who live nearby heard the barrage of gunfire about 12:30 a.m. near NW 67 Avenue on Miami Gardens Drive.

“It was like, ‘Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,’ and just kept going and then it stopped for a little bit, then it went a little bit more then it stopped,” explained neighbor Gianna Donoso

This is what our nation has become.

Our streets are soaked with the blood of the innocent, and millions of our young people are completely and totally out of control.

These days, it seems like kids are becoming violent at younger and younger ages. Earlier today, I was shocked as I read a news story about a 14-year-old that had stabbed a 13-year-old cheerleader 114 times…

Chilling new details have emerged about the fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old cheerleader who was found dead in a wooded area in Northeast Florida on Mother’s Day.

On Thursday, State Attorney for the 7th Circuit R.J. Larizza announced during a news conference that Tristyn Bailey was stabbed 114 times while fighting off her killer. He said at least 49 of the stab wounds were to her hands, arms and head and that they were “defensive in nature,” according to local media reports.

Nobody can deny that our society is deeply sick, and just about every sort of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us.

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, there is no way that our story is going to end well.

As a society, we need to turn around and reverse course immediately.

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

We are like the drug addicts in Washington Square Park that just keep coming back for yet another hit.

We know that we are literally destroying ourselves, but we are so far gone that most of us don’t even care anymore.

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

If Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine, Why Do The Shortages Just Keep Getting Worse?

May 18, 2021May 18, 2021 by Michael

They keep telling us that economic conditions are improving, but if that is true why are the shortages worse than ever? For a moment, I would like to take you all the way back to 2019. Before the pandemic came along, we didn’t have any shortages. If you wanted something, you just went to the store and got it or you ordered it online. Prices were low, global supply chains were functioning smoothly, and to most people it seemed like it would stay that way for the foreseeable future. But then the pandemic hit, and “panic buying” caused short-term shortages of certain items such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer. It was understandable that people would want to hoard those things, because there was a lot of fear in the air. But we also knew that those shortages were only going to be temporary.

Now here we are in 2021, and we were told that things would be getting back to normal by now.

But instead, there are severe shortages everywhere around us.

In fact, the shortages are far worse than anything that we experienced in 2020.

For example, did you know that dozens of important drugs are in short supply? According to the official FDA website, there are shortages of more than 100 drugs in the United States right now…

If you found yourself in a situation like this, you can check the FDA’s drug shortage tracking system.

Right now there are currently about 120 drugs listed as having a shortage.

On the website, if you type in a drug name in the database search field you can see if and why it’s in short supply. You can also see whether it is scheduled to be discontinued, and when the supply may start flowing again.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Shortages just continue to get worse for the home building industry as well…

“Builders are delaying starting new construction because of the marked increase in costs for lumber and other inputs,” said Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association, in a report Tuesday.

He added that supply shortages for appliances are also putting a damper on new home building activity.

Just over our northern border, the shortages have gotten really severe. In some cases, the construction of homes “is months behind schedule” because the shortages have gotten so bad…

Home builders across Canada are getting hit by a string of supply-chain disruptions, resulting in widespread product shortages and explosive costs for the industry.

In some cases, home construction is months behind schedule as developers struggle to source everything from lumber to PVC pipes, insulation to windows. Builders are also holding back on presales, unable to accurately price their homes too far in advance, given that material costs can fluctuate wildly on a daily basis.

When asked about these shortages, one home building executive said that “it’s getting worse and worse every day”…

“The whole supply chain is out of whack,” said Matt McCurrach, president of Homex Development Corp. in Kamloops, B.C.

“It’s getting worse and worse every day,” added Sue Wastell, president of Wastell Homes in London, Ont. “Literally every day, we’re finding out something else is not arriving when it was scheduled to. … We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Of even greater concern is the global shortage of computer chips. This is something that I discussed extensively in my recent article entitled “A Severe Computer Chip Shortage Will Last ‘A Few Years’, And This Could Plunge The Global Economy Into Utter Chaos”. Just about every industry that you can name is extremely dependent on equipment that uses computer chips, and CNN is telling us that this shortage “is going from bad to worse”…

The shortage is going from bad to worse, spreading from cars to consumer electronics. With the bulk of chip production concentrated in a handful of suppliers, analysts warn that the crunch is likely to last through 2021.

According to Goldman Sachs, 169 US industries embed semiconductors in their products. The bank is forecasting a 20% average shortfall of computer chips among affected industries, with some of the components used to make chips in short supply until at least this fall and possibly into 2022.

Actually, as I pointed out the other day, many executives now expect the computer chip shortage to extend into 2023.

For automakers, this is rapidly becoming a complete and total nightmare. During the first quarter, global auto production was down by about 10 percent due to the chip shortage, but Ford has announced that production in the second quarter will be down by about 50 percent…

Investors have heard plenty about the current state of capacity problems for months. Roughly 2 million cars—or about 10% of quarterly global automotive production—weren’t built in the first quarter because of no chips. Ford Motor (ticker: F), one of the auto makers feeling the shortage most acutely, said in late April that it expects to lose about 50% of planned second-quarter production.

A 50 percent decline in production?

That is nuts!

If automakers can’t make vehicles, then they will have to start laying off workers.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what just happened at one factory in northern Illinois…

Some 1,600 jobs are being cut at a Jeep Cherokee factory in northern Illinois as automakers continue being plagued by the global shortage of semiconductors.

The U.S. arm of Stellantis, formerly known as Fiat Chrysler, said Friday it was cutting one of the two work shifts at its Belvidere Assembly Plant as of July 26. That could result in the layoffs of 1,641 workers, company spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said.

The economic optimists keep telling us that better days are right around the corner, but those better days never seem to materialize.

Instead, employment is still way below pre-pandemic levels, global supply chains are in a state of complete and utter chaos, and we are facing severe shortages of just about everything…

Copper, iron ore and steel. Corn, coffee, wheat and soybeans. Lumber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. The world is seemingly low on all of it. “You name it, and we have a shortage on it,” Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive of engine and generator manufacturer Cummins Inc., said on a call this month. Clients are “trying to get everything they can because they see high demand,” Jennifer Rumsey, the Columbus, Indiana-based company’s president, said. “They think it’s going to extend into next year.”

The difference between the big crunch of 2021 and past supply disruptions is the sheer magnitude of it, and the fact that there is — as far as anyone can tell — no clear end in sight. Big or small, few businesses are spared. Europe’s largest fleet of trucks, Girteka Logistics, says there’s been a struggle to find enough capacity. Monster Beverage Corp. of Corona, California, is dealing with an aluminum can scarcity. Hong Kong’s MOMAX Technology Ltd. is delaying production of a new product because of a dearth of semiconductors.

If this is the “recovery”, what will things look like when the next severe economic downturn hits us?

In my entire lifetime, I have never seen such widespread shortages.

Those that are running things keep insisting that they have everything totally under control and that things will eventually get back to normal.

You can believe them if you want, but millions of others are preparing for a future in which their optimistic assessments of the future turn out to be very, very wrong.

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

America’s Worst Drug Crisis Ever Is Causing The Streets Of Many U.S. Cities To Look Like A “Zombie Apocalypse” Has Arrived

March 17, 2021March 17, 2021 by Michael

America has been battling illegal street drugs for decades, but we have never seen anything like this. When the COVID pandemic hit the U.S., illegal drug use dramatically surged, and that has carried over into 2021. As I discussed a few days ago, the amount of meth that CBP agents have seized is up 9 percent so far in fiscal year 2021 and the amount of cocaine that CBP agents have seized is up 64 percent so far in fiscal year 2021. But the largest increase has been in fentanyl traffic. At this point, CBP agents have seized “more than 4,900 lbs of fentanyl during the first five months of FY21, already surpassing the total for all of FY20”.

The big drug cartels absolutely love fentanyl for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it is extremely inexpensive to make, and it is very easy to move it long distances.

Secondly, it is exceedingly addictive, and so customers constantly come back for more.

But the only problem is that many of those customers don’t last too long. Tens of thousands of Americans are dropping dead from fentanyl overdoses, and this has become a major national crisis.

Once again tonight, vast hordes of addicts will congregate in urban areas where they know they will be able to score some fentanyl. One of those areas is Kensington Avenue in northeast Philadelphia…

The video looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie – dozens of disheveled people shivering in the middle of a winter night as they camp out around a trash bin on fire among a street strewn with litter.

But the footage isn’t a Hollywood production but a candid snapshot of Kensington Avenue in northeast Philadelphia – an area that has been likened to the infamous Skid Row section of Los Angeles.

The neighborhood has previously been dubbed the ‘East Coast’s largest open-air drug market’ by DEA officials, according to the New York Times.

You can see footage of Kensington Avenue at night right here. If you didn’t know better, you would probably be tempted to think that it was pulled right out of a post-apocalyptic horror film.

On Kensington Avenue, addicts can purchase a bag of fentanyl-laced heroin for as little as five dollars…

The Kensington section of Philadelphia, where anyone can buy a lethal dose of fentanyl-laced heroin for $5 a bag, has been known locally as the ‘ground zero’ of America’s opioid epidemic, Philadelphia Magazine reported.

It is not uncommon for locals who pass by the area to notice men lying motionless on the sidewalk.

Syringes and needles are also frequently seen out and used in plain sight.

Sometimes the men that are lying motionless on the sidewalk never get up, and that is because they have dropped dead from an overdose.

Of course scenes like this play out on a nightly basis all over America. At this point, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have become the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States…

In 2016, synthetic opioids, primarily illegal fentanyl, passed prescription opioids as the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths in the United States, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

It is incredibly easy to overdose on fentanyl. In fact, an amount of fentanyl equivalent to “two grains of salt” is apparently enough to put you in the grave…

Some families are facing a fentanyl crisis and law enforcement is sounding the alarm. The tasteless, odorless drug is driving up the number of fatal overdoses.

People who are battling a substance use disorder are being fooled by fentanyl. Lisa Smittcamp, the District Attorney in Fresno County, California, says the amount it takes to overdose is about the size of two grains of salt.

For a number of years, this was primarily a problem in the eastern half of the nation, but that has all changed.

Fentanyl use is now spreading like wildfire in the western half of the country, and that spike is pushing the overall death toll dramatically higher. The following comes from NPR…

The spike in fentanyl deaths in the West contributed to a record number of fatal overdoses last year, with roughly 72,000 Americans dead.

“It’s just getting worse, and it’s killing too many people,” said Matthew Donahue, deputy chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Sadly, the final number for 2021 is expected to be even higher.

These are deaths that do not need to happen, but Americans don’t seem to be getting the message that fentanyl use is extremely dangerous.

In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic the number of Americans testing positive for fentanyl use has absolutely skyrocketed…

Use of methamphetamine and fentanyl shot up after the pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, with a particularly sharp spike for the latter, according to a new report by drug testing company Millennium Health.

The adjusted positivity rate of urine drug screens was up 78% for fentanyl and 29% for methamphetamine during the first 9 months of the pandemic compared with the same period in 2019, according to the report. While cocaine and heroin saw small increases initially, both fell below pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2020.

This is yet another example of how the fabric of our society is unraveling all around us, and it is only going to get worse.

For years, much of the fentanyl being used in the U.S. was coming in from China, but then international pressure forced the Chinese to ban the sale of fentanyl.

Unfortunately, since that time vendors in China have found ways around that ban…

Under international pressure, China’s government banned the production and sale of fentanyl and many of its variants in May 2019, resulting in a significant reduction in the country’s illicit fentanyl trade.

But more than a year later, Chinese vendors have tapped into online networks to brazenly market fentanyl analogs and the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, and ship them directly to customers in the U.S. and Europe as well as to Mexican cartels, according to an NPR investigation and research from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, or C4ADS, a nonprofit data analysis group.

This is one of the reasons why we need strong security on our southern border.

Right now the Mexican cartels are flooding our streets with fentanyl, and the new administration does not seem too concerned about doing anything to stop this from happening.

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

We Have Never Seen An Economic Collapse Quite Like This, And It Is Largely A Self-Inflicted Wound

April 23, 2020 by Michael

The rate at which the U.S. economy is unraveling is absolutely breathtaking. On Thursday, we learned that another 4.4 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, and that means that a grand total of more than 26 million Americans have lost their jobs during this pandemic so far. To get an idea of just how dramatically this record-setting unemployment spike dwarfs what we witnessed during the last recession, check out these charts. Prior to this year, the record for new unemployment claims in a single week was just 695,800, and now each of the last five weeks has been at least four times larger than that old record. And as I discussed in an article earlier today, millions of those workers have absolutely no incentive to go back to work any time soon, because thanks to Congress they are bringing home more money now than when they were actually working. So even if efforts are made to return the economy “to normal”, millions of workers will want to stay home until the $600 per week “unemployment bonus” finally expires. The sad thing is that this new economic crisis is largely a self-inflicted wound, and I will explain why that is true later in this article.

But first let’s talk about where things currently stand. Based on the unemployment claim numbers that we have been seeing, experts are now projecting that the current rate of unemployment in the U.S. “is about 16 percent”…

With a labor force that totals about 162 million people, the claims figures suggest the unemployment rate is about 16 percent, or roughly one in six Americans — significantly higher than the 10 percent peak seen during the 2008 financial crisis. The previous one-week high for jobless claims was 695,800 in 1982.

For a long time I have been warning that the next crisis would make the last recession look like a Sunday picnic, and now that has actually happened.

In addition to an unprecedented number of initial claims for unemployment benefits, we have also absolutely smashed the all-time record for the number of “continuing claims”…

A person who has filed an “initial claim” for Unemployment Insurance (UI) and still doesn’t have a job a week later is added to “insured unemployment.” The number of the “insured unemployed” – often called “continued claims” – skyrocketed to 15.98 million, by far the highest in the history of the data series. The high before this Covid-19 era was 6.63 million in May of 2009.

And now that Congress has given workers a tremendous financial incentive to stay unemployed, the number of “continuing claims” is likely to keep going higher with each passing week.

Of course this isn’t just happening in the United States. Over in Europe, business activity is falling at the fastest pace ever recorded…

“The eurozone economy suffered the steepest falls in business activity and employment ever recorded during April as a result of measures taken to contain the coronavirus outbreak,” it said.

The company’s purchasing manager’s index (PMI) dived to a record low of 13.5 in April, from the previous all-time low of 29.7 in March, confirming private sector gloom that is savaging the 19-nation eurozone.

To put those numbers in perspective, any reading below 50 indicates a contraction.

Needless to say, these absolutely horrific statistics are the result of the coronavirus lockdowns, but were these lockdowns actually necessary in the first place?

As I discussed yesterday, the only reason why any sort of a lockdown should be implemented is if the hospitals in a particular area are being overwhelmed, because if people are unable to get medical treatment that could definitely push the ultimate death toll from the pandemic higher than it otherwise would have been.

But in most parts of the U.S. and Europe right now, hospitals are not being even close to overwhelmed.

Keeping everyone at home is not going to defeat this virus or end this pandemic. When you are dealing with a virus that spreads from person to person this easily, there is no way that you are going to contain it. In fact, the U.S. just had 31,900 newly confirmed cases in the 24 hour period that just ended even though most of the nation has already been locked down for weeks.

Yes, these lockdowns have temporarily slowed down the spread of the virus, but the lockdowns have also extended the duration of this pandemic. Ultimately, this pandemic is never going to be over until it sweeps through the population and “herd immunity” is achieved. And as I discussed yesterday, 70 to 90 percent of the population is going to have to develop antibodies in order to get to that point.

And if you are waiting for a “vaccine” to get us out of this mess, you are going to be waiting for a very, very long time. There has never been a successful vaccine for any coronavirus in all of human history, and the task of trying to develop one for COVID-19 has become exceedingly more difficult now that scientists have discovered that there are 30 different strains of the virus.

So the truth is that this outbreak is going to rip through our population, and nothing that our politicians can do will be able to stop that from happening.

But the good news is that new numbers from New York seem to indicate that we are closer to “herd immunity” than we previously thought…

Preliminary results from New York’s first coronavirus antibody study show nearly 14 percent tested positive, meaning they had the virus at some point and recovered, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. That equates to 2.7 million infections statewide — more than 10 times the state’s confirmed cases.

The study, part of Cuomo’s “aggressive” antibody testing launched earlier this week, is based on 3,000 random samples from 40 locations in 19 counties. While the preliminary data suggests much more widespread infection, it means New York’s mortality rate is much lower than previously thought.

However, another study that was conducted in L.A. County found that only 4 percent of their residents had developed antibodies, and that is probably more representative of the nation as a whole.

In any event, everyone agrees that the vast majority of the U.S. population has not developed antibodies, and that means that there will be many more cases and many more deaths in the months ahead.

And that is going to happen no matter how our politicians respond to this crisis.

So as long as our hospitals are not being overwhelmed, there isn’t a need for any lockdowns. The final case total and the final death toll will be roughly the same whether there are lockdowns or not.

But these lockdowns are definitely killing our economy, and tens of millions of American workers now find themselves unemployed.

And if we continue to try to keep the U.S. economy shut down for a few more months, the economic damage will be incalculable.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that we should sacrifice lives in order to save the economy. What I am saying is that about the same number of people are eventually going to die whether we have the lockdowns or not. And if we can’t handle this, how in the world are we going to deal with what else is coming?

If you are elderly, have a compromised immune system or are in some other high risk group, you are going to have to quarantine yourself for the foreseeable future, but that would be true whether there are lockdowns or not. The mortality rates for high risk groups are much, much higher than for the general population as a whole, and the danger is very real.

But everyone else should be allowed to get back to work, because most of the population is eventually going to catch this virus no matter what we do. As long as our hospitals can handle it, we should proceed with life as normal.

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. Most of the current lockdowns are going to remain in place for quite some time, and this new economic depression is just going to get deeper and deeper.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all many people as we possibly can.

The UN Is Now Admitting That This Coronavirus Pandemic Could Spark Famines Of “Biblical Proportions”

April 21, 2020April 21, 2020 by Michael

What the head of the UN’s World Food Program just said should be making front page headlines all over the globe. Because if what he is claiming is true, we are about to see global food shortages on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history. Even before COVID-19 arrived, armies of locusts the size of major cities were voraciously eating crops all across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, and UN officials were loudly warning about what that would mean for global food production. And now the coronavirus shutdowns that have been implemented all over the planet have brought global trade to a standstill, they are making it more difficult to maintain normal food production operations, and they have forced countless workers to stay home and not earn a living. All of this adds up to a recipe for a complete and utter nightmare in the months ahead.

David Beasley is the head of the UN’s World Food Program, and on Tuesday he warned that we could actually see famines of “biblical proportions” by the end of this calendar year. The following comes from ABC News…

The coronavirus pandemic could soon double hunger, causing famines of “biblical proportions” around the world by the end of the year, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Beasley warned that analysis from the World Food Programme, the U.N.’s food-assistance branch, shows that because of the coronavirus, “an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.”

He described what we are facing as “a hunger pandemic”, and he insisted that urgent action must be taken in order to avoid a nightmare scenario.

But in some parts of the globe a nightmare scenario is already unfolding. For example, close to half the population of South Sudan is currently facing starvation, and for many of them the only food that is available is what gets dropped from the sky…

The villagers hear the distant roar of jet engines before a cargo plane makes a deafening pass over Mogok, dropping sacks of grain from its hold to the marooned dust bowl below.

There is no other way to get food to this starving hamlet in South Sudan. There are no roads, and the snaking Nile is miles away.

Over in South Africa, the “chronic food shortages” have already become so severe that they are starting to spark rioting, looting and civil unrest…

UNREST broke out in parts of South Africa amid chronic food shortages sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

Looters raided shops, attacked each other, the army and police after breaching one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the mobs but local community leaders fear more outbreaks of violence are imminent.

Here in the western world we don’t have to worry about such things yet, but without a doubt the number of needy people is rapidly rising.

This past Saturday, vehicles literally began lining up at 2 AM in the morning for a food distribution event at the San Antonio Food Bank…

The San Antonio Food Bank teamed up with Atascosa County to feed meals and hope to hundreds of people Saturday morning. Vehicles began to line up around 2 AM Saturday outside the county courthouse, winding through neighborhoods at least two miles away.

I have never heard of people lining up so early before.

I have heard of vehicles lining up at the crack of dawn around the country in recent days, but 2 AM is absolutely nuts.

But these people realize that when the food is gone there will be no more handouts that day, and there are many that are absolutely desperate to get something to feed their families.

As this coronavirus pandemic has created an enormous amount of fear all over the country, empty shelves have been reported in frozen food sections all over the nation, and the fact that an increasing number of meat processing plants are being temporarily closed down is certainly not helping things. According to CBS News, at least 17 meat processing plants in the United States have been shut down so far…

Coronavirus infections in at least 17 meat processing plants across nine states are contributing to a spike in confirmed cases in the Midwest. Although 13 plants are already closed temporarily or operating at reduced capacity, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds says shutting down plants would hurt farmers and the national food supply.

In a desperate attempt to keep as many facilities in her state open as possible, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has enlisted the help of the National Guard…

Hundreds of National Guard personnel are being activated in Iowa as coronavirus sweeps through meat-processing plants in a state that accounts for about a third of U.S. pork supply.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said 250 National Guard members have been moved to full-time federal duty status and could help with testing and contact tracing for workers at plants operated by Tyson Foods Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.

The good news is that authorities are telling us that any product shortages should just be temporary and that all of these processing plants will eventually be brought back on line.

But for the planet as a whole, life is not going to be getting back to “normal” any time soon.

In fact, Takeshi Kasai of the World Health Organization is warning that we need to accept “a new way of living” until a vaccine finally arrives…

“At least until a vaccine, or a very effective treatment, is found, this process will need to become our new normal,” he said.

“Individuals and society need to be ready for a new way of living.”

But now that scientists have discovered approximately 30 different strains of this virus, that is going to greatly complicate matters.

Coming up with a successful vaccine for any coronavirus would be a historic feat, and now scientists also have to hope that they will pick the particular strain of COVID-19 that will become dominant in the future.

And of course many people around the globe will not want to take any vaccine that is developed under any circumstances.

So those that are thinking that there will be an easy way out of this crisis are likely to be deeply disappointed.

Meanwhile, the global economic downturn is getting deeper with each passing day, and global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter.

A global famine is coming, and the UN is sounding the alarm.

Unfortunately, most people in the western world are still not listening.

Killed By The Coronavirus Lockdowns: 1000s Of U.S. Businesses That Were Shut Down Will Be Closed Permanently

April 19, 2020 by Michael

This economic downturn is turning out to be far deeper and far more severe than most experts were originally anticipating. More than 22 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment benefits, and economists are telling us that the U.S. economy is contracting at the fastest rate that we have seen since the Second World War. We are already starting to see some high profile companies move toward bankruptcy, but the real story is what is happening to thousands upon thousands of small and mid-size businesses because of the lockdowns. Many of them were barely surviving even before this pandemic, and now these lockdowns have delivered a death blow.

The restaurant industry is a perfect example. Prior to the pandemic, there were more than a million restaurants in the United States, and about half of them were independent. Those independent restaurants employed approximately 11 million workers, and now the vast majority of those workers have been laid off.

Once the lockdowns are over, it would be wonderful if all of those independent restaurants would spring back to life, but the results of a recent survey suggest that simply is not going to happen. In fact, that survey found that 28 percent of all independent restaurants are probably not going to survive if the lockdowns last for another month…

A survey released Thursday by the James Beard Association found independent restaurants laid off 91% of their hourly employees and nearly 70% of salaried employees as of April 13 – double-digit increases in both categories since March. The poll of 1,400 small and independent restaurants found 38% of have closed temporarily or permanently, and 77% have seen their sales drop in half or worse.

Perhaps most troubling: 28% of restaurants said they don’t believe they can survive another month of closure, and only 1 out of 5 are certain they can sustain their businesses until normal operations can resume.

28 percent of 500,000 is 140,000, and so if these lockdowns are not lifted soon we could be facing a scenario is which tens of thousands of independent restaurants are lost forever.

Of course a lot of restaurants that do reopen will face a really tough struggle because fear of the coronavirus is going to keep customers away for the foreseeable future. So even if all of the lockdowns were lifted tomorrow, the restaurant industry would still not fully recover.

Sadly, the same could be said for the fitness industry. In fact, we just learned that one of the biggest fitness chains in the nation is getting ready to file for bankruptcy…

Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness is working with advisors at investment bank Lazard and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to weigh options including a bankruptcy that could come as soon as the next few months, people familiar with the matter tell CNBC.

The chain is grappling with a heavy debt load, deteriorating performance and a coronavirus pandemic that forced it to shut its more than 400 clubs.

Yes, a certain segment of the population is quite eager to resume all of their normal pre-pandemic activities, but even a 20 or 30 percent drop off in revenue will be fatal for many gyms.

And the truth is that a lot of people are simply not going to be in the mood to share exercise equipment with others for a long time to come.

The entertainment, tourism and retail industries have also been hit extremely hard by this pandemic. The other day I was quite stunned when I learned that Neiman Marcus “is reportedly ready to file bankruptcy”…

Neiman Marcus Group, one of the largest retailers in the United States, is reportedly ready to file bankruptcy amid the COVD-19 pandemic after defaulting millions in bond payments last week and furloughing 14,000 employees.

Neiman Marcus would become the first major US department store to crumble amidst the economic set backs from the coronavirus outbreak.

No, things are definitely not going to be returning to “normal” in America, and there will be a lot more big corporate names among the victims in the days to come.

At this point, even some of the most prominent corporations in the entire country are “indefinitely” sidelining their workers…

Indefinite furloughs began this weekend for more than 100,000 Disney, Best Buy and CarMax workers as businesses make cuts to survive the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent mandatory closures.

But most Americans are not in any position to handle “indefinite furloughs”.

In fact, one survey discovered that a whopping 50 percent of all Americans will run through their savings “by the end of April”…

One of the largest concerns on most homeowners minds right now is how they are going to pay bills — specifically their monthly mortgage payments. 50% of Americans reported their savings will run out by the end of April. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, 30% of homeowners had less than $1,000 in an emergency fund, with 22% reporting they didn’t have enough in savings to cover their mortgage payment for one month.

Just like during the last recession, countless numbers of Americans will go from living a comfortable middle class lifestyle to being desperately needy in just a matter of weeks.

I have been writing a lot about the absolutely massive lines that we have been seeing at food banks all over the nation, and we just witnessed another example in Miami. In one of the wealthiest areas of the entire city, vehicles were lined up for a mile as people waited patiently to receive handouts from a local food bank…

Talk about a Norman Rockwell painting idea come to life — a parade of cars filled with hungry people in Miami … smack dab in the middle of two of the city’s ritziest hotels.

Check out this surreal scene down in Miami Beach, where a MILE-long line of cars were arranged in a giant U-curve in between the W Hotel and Setai Hotel — two of MB’s most high-end go-to spots for celebrity out-of-towners … like Kim K, Justin Bieber and more.

You can see photos from that event right here, and if you look closely you will see that some of those vehicles are quite nice.

As I have warned so many times over the years, if you don’t have any sort of a financial cushion you can “suddenly” find yourself in a whole lot of trouble when disaster finally strikes.

Unfortunately, we have now entered a time when there will be one crisis after another, and every new crisis will significantly escalate our woes.

For a very long time, there have been very loud warnings that our debt-fueled economic bubble would burst, and now it has happened.

The road ahead is going to be filled with immense pain, and most Americans are not going to be able to handle it.

U.S. Economy Contracting “At Its Sharpest Pace Since World War Two” And “The Worst Is Yet To Come”

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 by Michael

Fear of COVID-19 has unleashed economic chaos on a scale that has already surpassed anything that we witnessed during the last recession, and as you will see below, we are now being warned that “the worst is yet to come”. Many Americans are hoping that things can start to return to normal as the U.S. economy “reopens” in the weeks ahead, but the truth is that we are still in the very early chapters of this crisis. In fact, it is being estimated that we are only one-tenth of the way through this pandemic, and by “flattening the curve” we have actually extended the economic pain. You see, the truth is that most Americans are going to end up catching this virus one way or another. All of the “shelter-in-place” orders have temporarily slowed down the spread of this coronavirus, but once they are lifted it is inevitable that we will see new waves of people becoming infected. And if you think that a vaccine will be the golden ticket that gets us out of this mess, you might want to reconsider that belief, because there has never been a successful vaccine for any coronavirus. Of course it is possible that scientists could come up with something this time around, but if the virus mutates significantly that could render any potential vaccine absolutely useless.

In the days ahead, there will be a tremendous amount of debate about the correct way to fight this virus, but meanwhile the U.S. economy will continue to deteriorate.

In fact, Reuters is reporting that economists are now projecting that the U.S. economy is contracting “at its sharpest pace since World War Two”…

The deepening economic slump was also amplified by other data on Thursday showing manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region plunged to levels last seen in 1980 and homebuilding tumbling by the most in 36 years in March.

The reports followed dismal reports on Wednesday of a record drop in retail sales in March and the biggest decline in factory output since 1946. Economists are predicting the economy, which they believe is already in recession, contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace since World War Two.

Yesterday, I documented the fact that we are in the midst of the largest tsunami of job losses in U.S. history by a very wide margin.

In fact, we are absolutely obliterating the old records, and that truly puts us in unchartered territory. And as bad as things have already gotten, one prominent expert told Reuters that “the worst is yet to come”…

Economists are estimating the economy contracted as much as 10.8% in the first quarter, which would be the steepest drop in gross domestic product since 1947. They say the massive fiscal package will likely provide little cushion for the economy.

“The economy is in a downward spiral where job losses beget job losses and the federal government emergency relief checks will not be enough to turn the tide,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. “The recovery is looking less V-shaped by the day as the deeper we fall, the harder it will be for the nation to climb back out of this deep hole the pandemic has dug for the economy. The worst is yet to come.”

As areas around the country start “reopening for business”, some of the jobs that were lost will come back.

But the truth is that millions of those jobs are gone permanently, and large numbers of the businesses that were closed down will never open again.

For the foreseeable future, a lot of Americans are going to avoid going to restaurants, bars, movie theaters, shopping malls and other businesses that require close human interaction. One expert that was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times says that for the next few years we need to accept the fact that the world “will be totally different than what we are used to”…

“The world that we are going to live in for at least the next two to three years will be totally different than what we are used to,” said Sung Won Sohn, president of SS Economics and professor at Loyola Marymount University.

“Because of the psychological shock that we have experienced, we are going to be more cautious, and we will probably spend less and save more, and we will have fewer contacts with other individuals,” he said. “We are going to be suspicious about things, [such as] whether people we are meeting have the virus and will the economy fall back down again.”

The fear that this pandemic has created is going to be with us for a very long time, and it is going to cause enormous shifts in economic behavior even after the U.S. starts “reopening”.

In an environment like this, very few people are buying vehicles, the housing market is already imploding all over the nation, and retailers are having a very difficult time envisioning any sort of a positive future for their industry at this point.

But at least we will all be getting big, fat socialist bailout checks from the government, right?

Actually, they won’t be that big, and for most Americans the checks will only get them through about one month.

So once that money is gone, will the federal government send us another round of “universal basic income” checks?

Now that they have gone down this rabbit hole, the federal government is in danger of sparking civil unrest if they don’t keep the checks coming. In fact, Jim Rickards is entirely convinced that large scale “social disorder” is on the way…

Looting, burglary and violence in the midst of a state of emergency are the shape of things to come.

The veneer of civilization is paper-thin and easily torn. Most people don’t realize how fragile it is. But they’re going to learn that lesson, I’m afraid.

Expect social disorder to get worse long before it gets better.

Unfortunately, Rickards is right on point, and I have also been warning about “great civil unrest” for a very long time. The delicately balanced debt-fueled prosperity that we had been enjoying for so many years has now been shattered, and things are going to get really ugly in this country.

And this coronavirus pandemic is not going away any time soon. Over the last 24 hours, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has jumped by more than 30,000 and the death toll has risen by more than 2,400 even though most of the nation is currently shut down.

Ending the lockdowns will give a boost to the economy, but it will also cause the virus to start spreading faster, and once that happens we could see another round of lockdowns.

In the end, our battle with COVID-19 will not be over until the virus has swept through most of the population, and we are not going to reach that point for quite a while.

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