Elon Musk

If We Are Experiencing Severe Shortages Now, How Bad Will Things Get When The Economy Starts Tanking Again?

Inflation and shortages are the two big stories for the U.S. economy this week.  In recent days I have done multiple articles about inflation, and so today I want to focus on the widespread shortages that we are currently witnessing.  At this moment, the U.S. economy is experiencing more shortages than it did at any point during 2020.  I know that statement sounds quite outlandish, but it is true.  During the early stages of the pandemic, there were temporary shortages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and other items, but now there are severe shortages throughout many sectors of the economy, and quite a few of those shortages will not be so temporary.

On Thursday, Business Insider published a list of some of the most serious shortages that we are going through at the moment…

-Computer chips
-Used cars and rental cars
-Gas
-Plastics and palm oil
-Truckers and rideshare drivers
-Homes and vacation houses
-Lumber
-Household products like toilet paper and tampons
-Furniture
-Chicken
-Bacon and hot dogs
-Imported foods like cheese, coffee, and olive oil
-Chlorine
-Corn

That is quite a list!

The COVID pandemic suppressed output for many industries for an extended period of time, and meanwhile our “leaders” have been pumping trillions and trillions of fresh dollars into the system.

So now we have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and this is causing tremendous inflation and very painful shortages.

Just look at what is happening to the steel industry.  Changes in supply and demand have pushed up the price of steel to “nearly triple the 20-year average”…

After bottoming out around $460 last year, US benchmark hot-rolled coil steel prices are now sitting at around $1,500 a ton, a record high that is nearly triple the 20-year average.

Steel stocks are on fire. US Steel (X), which crashed to a record low last March amid bankruptcy fears, has skyrocketed 200% in just 12 months. Nucor (NUE) has spiked 76% this year alone.

Much more importantly for the average American, there are now chicken shortages all over the country, and prices have soared into the stratosphere…

After a year promoting takeout wings and crispy chicken sandwiches, restaurants including KFC, Wingstop Inc. and Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. say they are paying steep prices for scarce poultry. Some are running out of or limiting sales of tenders, filets and wings, cutting into some of their most reliable sales.

Independent eateries and bars have gone weeks without wings, owners say. Chicken breast prices have more than doubled since the beginning of the year, and wing prices have hit records, according to market-research firm Urner Barry.

“Weeks without wings?”

Oh the humanity!

If we don’t get this crisis under control soon, the U.S. may not be able to set yet another all-time record for obesity in 2021.

Propane tanks and chlorine tablets are also in short supply.  As a result, many Americans may not be able to enjoy their grills and their pools as they normally do this summer…

A nationwide shortage of pool products is making chlorine tablets and propane tanks hard to come by and increasing prices right as the summer months approach.

“In this heat, if you don’t take care of your pool properly algae will start growing,” said David Sarafyan, a pool supply store employee. “Your pool will pretty much become a swamp.”

Hopefully at least some of these shortages will start to disappear in the weeks ahead.

But if we are seeing this many shortages during a “recovery”, what in the world is our economy going to look like when things start getting really bad again?

This should be a wake up call for all of us, because things are going to start getting really bad again a lot sooner than many people think.

But for now, Americans are swimming in cash thanks to the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been showered on them.

All of that money has to go somewhere, and unfortunately it is going into some of the most ridiculous things imaginable.

My regular readers already know how I feel about Dogecoin.  It is not a “currency” by any stretch of the imagination.  I have been tempted to call it a “collectible”, but normally a “collectible” is something that you can hold in your hands.

At least speculators were chasing something real during “Tulip mania” in 1636 and 1637.  Dogecoin is just a bunch of digital ones and zeros.

Dogecoin does not have any innate value whatsoever, but thanks to Elon Musk and a bunch of Reddit fanboys, the price of Dogecoin is up more than 100 percent this week alone.

For the year, it is up more than 14,000 percent…

That means an investor who paid in $1,000 on January 1 would now have around $120,000.

This year alone it has soared over 14,000%, from $0.00468 on December 31, taking it past more widely used cryptocurrencies such as the Tether stablecoin and XRP to become the fourth-largest by market capitalization.

Yesterday I wrote about something that makes me want to vomit, but now I think that I have found something that may make me want to vomit even more.

If you can believe it, Dogecoin now has a market capitalization that is greater than Moderna, Ford Motor Company or Twitter…

A market capitalization of $78 billion puts Dogecoin, founded in 2013, ahead of other more well established brands and companies including Sherwin-Williams which is valued at $75.8 billion; Dell Technologies, value $75 billion; Moderna, value $63.1 billion; Ford Motor Company, valued $45.2 billion; and Twitter, value $42.1 billion.

The mascot from Pets.com eventually came to symbolize the collapse of the dotcom bubble, and I think that the stupid dog on the Dogecoin logo should symbolize this current financial bubble when it finally implodes.

Tomorrow, more keyboard commandos will pour their stimulus checks into Dogecoin hoping to get rich quick.

Those that invested early and get out in time will make a killing.  But anyone that does not get out in time is going to take a major bath.

Of course the exact same thing could be said for our financial markets as a whole.  Everyone knows that a crash is inevitable, and when it happens it will be the greatest loss of paper wealth in all of U.S. history.

But for now, speculators look like geniuses, and happy days are here again on Wall Street.

Enjoy it while it lasts, because it is just a matter of time before the bubble bursts, and then the pain will begin.

***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.

Dogecoin Is The Perfect Currency For The United States Of America In 2021

If you wanted to design a perfect currency for the farce that our financial system has become, you couldn’t do better than Dogecoin.  It was created as a joke, it has no real value, but investors are feverishly gobbling it up as if it was the greatest investment that any of us have ever seen.  A lot of people talk about the “Bitcoin bubble”, but Bitcoin is only up about 600 percent over the last 12 months.  Dogecoin is up about 18,000 percent over the past year even though there is no restriction on how many Dogecoins can eventually be created.  There is absolutely no reason why any rational investor should be putting a single red cent into Dogecoin, and yet it just keeps going up.  In fact, at one point this week Dogecoin had a total market value “of almost $42 billion”…

Initially started as a joke in 2013, dogecoin is now the sixth-largest digital coin with a total market value of almost $42 billion, according to CoinGecko. It takes its name and branding from the “Doge” meme, which depicts a Shiba Inu dog alongside nonsensical phrases in multicolored text.

It is hard for me to believe that “investors” are being so incredibly stupid.

Dogecoin was just supposed to be a meme, but thanks to relentless promotion by the “Dogefather”, one “investor” has seen the value of his Dogecoin holdings rise to 11 billion dollars…

THE world’s first dogecoin billionaire watched their stock soar to $11 BILLION as the “joke” cryptocurrency boomed after Elon Musk dubbed himself the “Dogefather”.

Its value rocketed after the Tesla tycoon spoke out ahead of a much-hyped appearance on SNL suggesting he might talk about it on the hit show watched by millions.

This explosion in interest in Dogecoin is obviously going to spur Dogecoin miners to work harder than ever before.

And unlike Bitcoin, Dogecoin miners can keep creating more tokens forever and ever…

Originally, Dogecoin had a hard limit of 100 billion tokens, similar to Bitcoin’s cap of 21 million tokens. However, the developers changed their plans in 2014, eliminating the supply constraints. In other words, as long as miners continue to build the blockchain, more Dogecoin will continue to wink into existence.

In fact, each time a block is verified, the miner receives a fixed reward of 10,000 Dogecoin tokens. Unless the code is rewritten, this will go on forever.

That’s a critical flaw.

“A critical flaw”?

That is quite an understatement.

But of course what is happening to Dogecoin is the same thing that is happening to our financial system as a whole.  Our leaders in Washington have been creating, borrowing and spending money at an absolutely insane pace, and the numbers that we are now witnessing would have been unimaginable at one time…

On the fiscal side, Congress has allocated some $5.3 trillion toward enhanced unemployment compensation along with a variety of other spending programs that helped push the federal budget deficit to $1.7 trillion in the first half of fiscal 2021 and has sent the national debt soaring to $28.1 trillion. Congress also is considering a $1.8 trillion infrastructure plan from the White House.

The Fed also has come through, cutting its benchmark short-term borrowing rate to near zero and buying nearly $4 trillion worth of bonds, pushing its balance sheet to just shy of $8 trillion.

Almost everyone is cheering the fact that the Fed balance sheet is ballooning dramatically.

And almost everyone is cheering all of the “free money” that the federal government is handing out.

But the truth is that we are going down the same road that so many other troubled nations have gone down throughout history, and there is no way that this story is going to end well.

As I have been detailing in recent articles, we are already starting to see very painful inflation, and major corporations are now warning that even more inflation is on the way…

Toilet paper, baby care products, soft drinks and many other everyday products are about to get more expensive.

Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Coca-Cola have all warned that they’ll raise prices on many of their products as raw material costs rise. Plastic, paper, sugar, grain and other commodities are all getting more expensive as demand outpaces supply. Companies are also paying more for shipping as fuel costs rise and ports experience longer delays because of congestion.

Yes, you may cheer when you get a check for a few thousand dollars in the mail from the government, but that is just a temporary sugar high.

Unfortunately, the dramatic increase in the cost of living that we are starting to experience will be permanent.

Of course it isn’t just the U.S. government that is engaging in this sort of behavior.  Governments all over the globe have been flooding their financial systems with money, and this is setting the stage for much higher food prices and “periods of social unrest”…

Today, DB’s Jim Reid picked that chart as his “Chart of the day”, repeating what readers already know, namely that Bloomberg’s agriculture spot index has risen by c.76% year-on-year, noting that “that’s the biggest annual rise in nearly a decade, and there are only a couple of other comparable episodes since the index begins back in 1991.”

Like us, Reid then patiently tries to explain to all the idiots – like those employed in the Marriner Eccles building – that the importance of this record surge “extends far beyond your weekly shop, as there’s an extensive literature connecting higher food prices to periods of social unrest.”

Needless to say, the scenario that we are seeing play out right in front of our eyes is perfectly in line with warnings that I issued in my most recent book.

At this point, the powers that be have shown no indications that they plan to reverse course, and so that means that we will be steamrolling into a future of much higher prices, growing global hunger and widespread civil unrest.

That is what is real.

What isn’t real are all of the absolutely ridiculous bubbles that we are witnessing in the financial markets.

Dogecoin may be the most absurd of them all, but every single one of them will end up bursting by the time it is all said and done.

***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.

If You Read Between The Lines, Global Economic Leaders Are Telling Us Exactly What Is Coming

Sometimes, a strongly-worded denial is the most damning evidence of all that something is seriously wrong.  And when things start to really get crazy, “the spin” is often the exact opposite of the truth.  In recent days we have seen a lot of troubling headlines and a lot of chaos in the global financial marketplace, but authorities continue to assure us that everything is going to be just fine.  Of course we witnessed precisely the same thing just prior to the great financial crisis of 2008.  Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke insisted that a recession was not coming, and we proceeded to plunge into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Is our society experiencing a similar state of denial about what is ahead of us here in 2018?

Let me give you a few examples of some recent things that global economic leaders have said, and what they really meant…

–Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk: “We are definitely not going bankrupt.”

Translation: “We are definitely going bankrupt.”

Tesla is a company that is supposedly worth 51 billion dollars, but the reality is that they are going to zero.  They have been bleeding massive amounts of cash for years, and now a day of reckoning has finally arrived.  A severe liquidity crunch has forced the company to delay payments or to ask for enormous discounts from suppliers, and many of those suppliers are now concerned that Tesla is on the verge of collapse…

Specifically, a recent survey sent privately by a well-regarded automotive supplier association to top executives, and seen by the WS , found that 18 of 22 respondents believe that Tesla is now a financial risk to their companies.

Meanwhile, confirming last month’s report that Tesla is increasingly relying on net working capital, and specifically accounts payable to window dress its liquidity, several suppliers said Tesla has tried to stretch out payments or asked for significant cash back. And in some cases, public records show, small suppliers over the past several months have claimed they failed to get paid for services supplied to Tesla.

–Shark Tank billionaire Mark Cuban: “I’ve got a whole lot of cash on the sidelines.”

Translation: “I believe that the stock market is about to crash.”

Mark Cuban is not stupid.  Like Warren Buffett, he is sitting on giant piles of cash as he waits for stock valuations to return to their long-term averages.  And when “something happens”, Cuban insists that he is “ready, willing and able” to make some bold moves…

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban told CNBC on Monday that he’s holding much more cash than he normally does because he’s concerned about the stock market and U.S debt levels.

“I’m down to maybe four dividend-owning stocks, two shorts, and Amazon and Netflix. I’ve got a whole lot of cash on the sidelines,” Cuban said on “Fast Money Halftime Report.” “[I’m] ready, willing and able if something happens” to invest.

–Deutsche Bank: We need our employees to “take every opportunity to restrict non-essential travel” in order to cut costs.

Translation: We are on the verge of collapse, and we have got to save every single penny that we can right now.

If you follow my work on a regular basis, you already know that I have been extremely hard on Deutsche Bank.  The biggest bank in Europe is teetering on the brink, and this latest move is more evidence that their days are numbered…

Forget the days of traveling first class to meet clients: Deutsche Bank, which following major management upheaval in the past year, is telling its employees to take the bus whenever possible.

In the latest indignity to befall the bank’s employees, in a memo sent by Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke, the biggest European bank – if certainly not by market cap – urged employees to “take every opportunity to restrict non-essential travel” until the end of the year adding that “with your help, we will meet our cost-reduction targets.”

–Italian Cabinet Undersecretary Giancarlo Giorgetti: “I hope that the quantitative easing program will go forward.”

Translation: If the ECB does not buy our bonds, the Italian financial system is toast.

Italy will almost certainly be the fulcrum of the next European financial crisis, and the truth is that the EU will not have enough money to bail Italy out once it collapses.

So the Italians desperately need the ECB to continue buying their bonds, and the new Italian government seems to understand this very well…

Italian Cabinet Undersecretary Giancarlo Giorgetti said he hopes the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing program will be extended to help protect the country from financial speculators.

Italy also needs to be credible to help shield itself, Giorgetti said in an interview with newspaper Il Messaggero. After the Genoa bridge disaster, the country may boost its extra spending request to the European Union, he said.

Signs of trouble continue to erupt in the United States as well.  The trade war is taking a huge toll on businesses of all sizes, and sometimes it is rural America that is being hurt the most.

For instance, the looming closure of the Element Electronics factory in Winnsboro, South Carolina would be absolutely crippling for that community…

TVs at the plant are made out of components that are imported from China, and the tariffs make assembling the TVs here a losing proposition, the company has said. The company is fighting for a waiver but is bracing for shutdown.

Winnsboro is the seat of Fairfield County, where a third of the population lives in poverty. Unemployment among its nearly 23,000 residents is second highest in the state, and, despite periodic rebounds, the population has fallen steadily over the past century.

“This is going to be a ghost town,” Winnsboro resident Herbert Workman said.

In this day and age, we are trained to be optimistic, and that can be a good thing.

But there comes a point when blind optimism causes us to lose touch with reality, and many believe that we have already crossed that threshold.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.