Inflation

Home Prices Just Did Something That They Have Never Done Before

Everyone knew that home prices were going crazy, and now we have some solid numbers that are simply incredible.  Home prices are rising faster than they ever have before, and so if you are shopping for a home in this environment I truly feel sorry for you.  In many parts of the country, average hard working American families have already been completely priced out of the market.  Prior to the pandemic, the largest price bubbles were in major urban areas along both coasts, but now desirable rural and suburban communities all over the nation are red hot.  In some cases, we have seen wild bidding wars that result in buyers paying more than a million dollars over asking price, and this unprecedented frenzy is pushing home prices to dizzying heights.

On Tuesday, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price data for the month of April was released, and it quickly made headlines all across America…

U.S. home prices jumped the most in more than 30 years in April.

Nationally, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index of property values climbed 14.6% from a year earlier, according to a statement Tuesday, the biggest gain in data going back to 1988. That came after 13.2% increase in March, and was the 11th straight month that price gains accelerated.

This particular series of data only goes back to 1988, and in all that time we have never seen a rise of this magnitude.

One expert that is being quoted by CNBC is calling the rise in prices “truly extraordinary”…

“April’s performance was truly extraordinary. The 14.6% gain in the National Composite is literally the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Redfin has also released new numbers, and their numbers show an even faster rate of increase for home prices…

… it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two last month that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale prices to an all time high…

… as a record 58% of all houses sell within two weeks of listing, of which 45% sell for more than their listing price, also a record.

But don’t worry about these numbers.  Officials at the Federal Reserve insist that inflation is “low” and that they have everything under control.

If you can’t afford to buy a home, you can still try to rent a place, but rent prices are also starting to explode in many areas around the country…

Leading the trend is Boise, ID, where rents grew another 6 percent in June and are now up 39 percent since the start of the pandemic. But the fastest single-month rent growth took place in Spokane, WA, where prices shot up 8.1 percent in June and sit 31 percent above pre-pandemic levels. After that, a handful of fast-growing cities have experienced roughly 20 percent price appreciation over the last year and a half. With the exception of Virginia Beach, VA, all of them are located in the Western United States, absorbing the rental demand overflowing from nearby, pricey metros like the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.

Those that are having their rents jacked up will be just fine as long as their paychecks are increasing at the same rate.

Oh, but that isn’t happening for most people, is it?

Vehicle prices are getting crazy too.  According to the Wall Street Journal, some dealers are now selling new vehicles for “thousands of dollars” above the sticker price…

Some buyers say they have encountered dealerships asking for thousands of dollars above MSRP. And analysts and dealers say the practice is becoming more widespread and occurring on a wider range of vehicles, including more mainstream models that typically wouldn’t be targeted for such price increases.

In the old days, the goal was to negotiate a deal that was as far below sticker price as possible.

Unfortunately, these days many customers are willingly making offers that are much higher than the MSRP….

“I was shocked,” said Ken Baird, a 61-year-old Boca Raton, Fla., resident who was recently shopping for a Kia Telluride. The window sticker on the particular model he was looking at read $45,000, and he said he offered to pay $3,000 over that knowing the vehicle was in high demand.

Needless to say, food prices are getting very painful as well.

In fact, an official at one food bank in Chicago says that their food purchasing budget “has doubled” over the past 12 months…

Soaring food prices aren’t just impacting financially strapped families and the working poor. They’re also affecting the mission of US food banks who are spending a lot more on food than ever before.

“We’re already spending a lot more on food than we have in years past,” said Greg Trotter, a spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a large food bank, who spoke with VOA News. “Our food purchasing budget has doubled this year.”

All of this has been caused by the actions of our leaders.  Our politicians in Washington decided to go on the greatest spending binge in history and the Fed decided to pump trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system in order to “save the economy”, and now we have rip-roaring inflation as a result.

In addition to very painful inflation, we are also now dealing with widespread shortages.  For example, as the holiday weekend approaches many locations around the nation are once again running out of gasoline…

Gas stations across the country are running out of gasoline just as 43 million Americans are preparing to hit the road for the July 4th holiday weekend.

Those that do manage to find gas are likely to find some of the highest prices in almost seven years, with gas now averaging $3.10 a gallon across the US – the highest since October 2014.

The corporate media would have us believe that extremely high inflation and widespread shortages are signs that the U.S. economy is “booming”.

But to me, it sounds way too much like a rerun of the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

Sadly, this is just the start of the pain.  The politicians in Washington continue to spend money like drunken sailors, and the Federal Reserve continues to pump more fresh cash into the financial system each week.

So the short-term outlook is quite bleak, and the long-term outlook is even worse.

***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.

They Are Gaslighting Us! Nightmarish Inflation Is Already Here But The Fed Is Denying That It Even Exists

They would like us to believe that what we can see happening right in front of our eyes is not actually real.  Over the past year, our politicians in Washington have gone on the largest spending binge in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and the Federal Reserve has created the most enormous financial bubble of all time by pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial markets.  Of course this was going to cause very painful inflation, and prices are rising very aggressively all around us.  But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other leaders in Washington are trying to convince us that even though they added all of this money to the system it has hardly affected the overall rate of inflation at all.  They are “gaslighting” us, and it is absolutely infuriating.

If you are not familiar with the term “gaslighting”, the following is how Wikipedia defines it…

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement.

This is precisely what they are trying to do to all of us.  Everyone can see that nightmarish inflation is already here, but they are trying to manipulate us into thinking that it is not.

Just look at home prices.  Everyone needs a place to live, and existing home prices have risen 23.6 percent over the past year…

The median existing-home price rose 23.6% in May from a year earlier to $350,300, a record high, NAR said. The annual price appreciation was the strongest in data going back to 1999. Median sales prices have climbed sharply since rising above $300,000 for the first time last July.

At this point, homes are absolutely flying off the market.  In fact, the average time that a home stays on the market has hit a record low…

Homes are selling quickly. The typical home that sold in May spent 17 days on the market, matching the record low reached in April, NAR said.

Buyers with limited cash for down payments are struggling the most to compete. Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a NAR survey.

But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists that everything is just fine and that the Fed is perfectly capable of keeping inflation around 2 percent…

“When Congress spends trillions of dollars and the Fed prints money, something’s got to give,” Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.) said. He asked Mr. Powell whether the price increases seen in recent months are “the start of something that could be as bad as the ‘70s,” when inflation reached double digits.

Mr. Powell said such a scenario is “very, very unlikely,” in part because the central bank “is strongly prepared to use its tools to keep us around 2% inflation.”

What an insane thing to say.

How can you claim that you are going to “keep us around 2% inflation” when inflation is already out of control?

As John Williams of shadowstats.com has documented, if honest numbers were being used the official rate of inflation would already be well into double digits.

Of course for certain categories we are now seeing triple digit inflation.  For instance, at one point in May the price of lumber was four times higher than it was at the same time last year…

The price of lumber, which shot up to $1,600 per thousand board feet in May from $400 early last year, is making renovations more expensive – especially projects that involve kitchens cabinets, hardwood floors and additions that require framing.

But Powell just told Congress that he is not troubled by any of this…

“If you look behind the headline and look at the categories where these prices are really going up, you’ll see that it tends to be areas that are directly affected by the reopening,” Mr. Powell said in a hearing before a House subcommittee. “That’s something that we’ll go through over a period. It will then be over. And it should not leave much of a mark on the ongoing inflation process.”

These days, Powell is definitely starting to sound a lot like Frank Drebin.

We are supposed to believe that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, but meanwhile the wholesale price of chicken wings has more than tripled…

“The [wholesale] price of wings a year ago was as low as 98 cents,” per pound, Charlie Morrison, Chairman and CEO of Wingstop Restaurants Inc., told CNN Business. “Today, it’s at $3.22. So it’s a meaningful difference.”

Our leaders insist that this is perfectly normal.

Nothing to see here.

Please move along.

To me, one of the craziest examples of inflation in our economy is what is happening to used car prices.

At this point, some used vehicles are now selling for more than they sold for when they were brand new…

When it was new, the window sticker price on a typical 2019 Toyota Tacoma SR double cab pickup was just under $29,000. Two years later, dealers are paying almost $1,000 more than that to buy the same vehicle, even though it’s used. Then they’re selling it to consumers for more than $33,000.

Welcome to the wacky world of U.S. car and truck sales, where the pandemic and a global shortage of computer chips have pushed prices to record levels.

I was absolutely floored when I first read that.

We have never seen anything happen like this before in all of U.S. history.

But Fed officials are going to continue to tell you that everything is just fine in the months ahead even as economic conditions continue to go haywire all around us.

I warned that extremely painful inflation was coming in my last book, and I will be warning about it again in the new book that I will soon be releasing.

Our leaders consciously made the decision to flood the system with new money in a desperate attempt “to save the economy”, and they should just be honest with us about the consequences of that decision.

But instead, they are just going to keep trying to spin the truth for as long as they can.

Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking, and time is not on their side.

***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.

We Should Be Shocked By What Inflation Is Doing To Home Prices, Because We Have Never Seen This Before

If you are shopping for a home right now, I really do feel sorry for you.  Home prices in many areas of the country have officially crossed the line into “absurd” territory, and they just keep going higher.  Thanks to wild spending by the federal government and the economic malpractice that has been happening at the Federal Reserve, we now have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services.  Inflation is showing up in every sector of our economy, but it is not showing up equally in all sectors.  One area where inflation threatens to spiral completely out of control is in home prices.  Right now we are seeing the wildest bidding wars in U.S. history, and in many, many cases buyers end up paying way over listing price.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  When a fairly ordinary three bedroom home in Berkeley, California was recently listed for more than a million dollars, the real estate agent that listed the property was absolutely stunned by what happened next…

A three bedroom, mid-century home on a cul-de-sac in Berkeley, California, with an expansive view of the San Francisco Bay was nearly a one-of-a-kind property, said Jill Carrigan, an agent with The Grubb Company who listed it this spring.

“It ticked all the boxes for a lot of people,” she said. “I’ve never had a property with 29 offers and buyers were upping their offers without us even countering. The Bay Area is always competitive, but this was something I’d never seen before.”

This wasn’t a property that was particularly special.  You can see a photo of it right here.  In my opinion, there is no way in the world that such a house should ever sell for a million dollars.

Of course it didn’t sell for a million dollars.

When the dust finally settled, it sold for 2.3 million dollars…

Listed at $1.15 million, the home sold in two weeks for $2.3 million in cash, double the asking price.

You might think that such extreme bidding wars are rare, but they aren’t.

In fact, CNN is reporting that 940 U.S. homes sold for more than half a million dollars above listing price in March, and 310 U.S. homes sold for more than a million dollars above listing price in that month alone.

That is just one month!

Now that our leaders have turned the U.S. dollar into “wheelbarrow money”, this is the sort of thing that is going to happen.

In this sort of an environment, a “fixer upper” in Colorado Springs that was completely trashed by a former tenant can sell for $590,000…

A ‘formerly majestic’ Colorado Springs home left in ruin and covered in graffiti by an angry former tenant has gone on the market for $590,000.

Listed as an ‘investor special’ on Zillow, the 3,598 square-foot home is advertised as a fixer upper after it was destroyed by the prior tenant who covered the walls with spray-painted messages including ‘evict me b***h’ and left a pile of rotten meet in a freezer.

As long as this frenzy continues, I am going to recommend that young couples look to rent instead of buy, but rents are going up rapidly too.  This week we learned that rental prices just increased at the fastest pace in 15 years during the month of April…

Single-family rents were up 5.3% year over year in April, rising from a 2.4% increase in April 2020, according to CoreLogic. That is the largest gain in nearly 15 years.

Rents for single-family detached homes (not townhomes), were up an even stronger 7.9% compared with a year ago, as millennials in particular seek more outdoor space. Nearly half of millennials surveyed by Corelogic, and 64% of baby boomers, said they, “strongly prefer” to live in a single, stand-alone home.

Yes, the U.S. has wrestled with inflation at various times in the past, but what we are witnessing here in 2021 is completely insane.

Just look at what is happening in the restaurant industry.  In upstate New York, the cost of chicken wings has gone up 99 percent and the cost of fryer oil has gone up more than 120 percent so far in 2021.

How are you supposed to run a profitable restaurant with prices spiking like that?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our leaders have pumped trillions and trillions of fresh dollars into the system, and all of that money is creating a tremendous amount of inflationary pressure.  At this point, things have already gotten so crazy that pieces of “artwork” that Hunter Biden has created are selling for up to $500,000…

President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has taken a turn into artistry and the first paintings he’s selling are going for as high as $500,000.

The first son’s first foray into the art world has seen his pieces picked up by art dealer Georges Berges, who has priced the younger Biden’s artwork between $75,000 and $500,000 depending on the size and scope of the collage artwork.

Now that Hunter Biden is trying to go clean and sober, I suppose that he has to try to make a living somehow.

But are there people that will actually be willing to pay half a million dollars for a piece of his “art”?

I find that hard to believe, but of course I find a lot of things hard to believe these days.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve finally took a few very small steps in the direction of acknowledging the crisis that we are facing…

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee unanimously left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after saying in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.” The raised expectations come amid the biggest rise in consumer prices in about 13 years.

Of course those moves by the Fed won’t actually do anything to get the “inflation monster” that they have created under control.

As long as our politicians in Washington continue their wildest spending binge ever, and as long as the Fed continues to pump more money into the financial system, the “inflation monster” will continue to grow.

So if you are looking to buy a home, there might not be any relief for the foreseeable future.

We are going down the same road that the Weimar Republic once did, but our leaders keep insisting that somehow we will get a much different result.

***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.

Inflation Is Starting To Get Really Crazy – And It Is Worse Than You Think

Inflation is making headlines all over the country, but the mainstream media is not being honest about the true severity of the crisis.  We are being told that the official rate of inflation is still in single digits, but what we aren’t being told is that the way inflation is calculated has changed dramatically over the years.  In fact, according to Forbes “the government has changed the way it calculates inflation more than 20 times” over the past 30 years.  The rate of inflation directly affects so many other things in our system, and the government would like to keep that number as low as possible.  So they tinkered and tinkered with the formula until they got it just where they wanted it.

But even with the highly modified formula that they are now using, the rate of inflation still rose at the fastest pace in almost 13 years last month…

The consumer price index, which represents a basket including food, energy, groceries, housing costs and sales across a spectrum of goods, rose 5% from a year earlier. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a gain of 4.7%.

The reading represented the biggest CPI gain since the 5.3% increase in August 2008, just before the financial crisis sent the U.S. spiraling into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

We all remember what happened in the months following August 2008.

Hopefully we will not have a repeat of that.

Of course the truth is that consumer prices are not just rising at a 5 percent rate in the United States right now.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1990, it would be above 8 percent right now.

And if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would currently be sitting at about 13 percent.

But 5 percent inflation sure sounds a whole lot better than 13 percent, doesn’t it?

One thing that I am keeping a very close eye on is food inflation.  Earlier today, I came across a story from one CBS affiliate in which they used the term “sticker shock” to describe what consumers are now experiencing at the grocery store…

You may have noticed a significant jump in prices at the grocery store.

More and more grocery shoppers are experiencing sticker shock every day. The price of food — especially meat, fruit and vegetables — is going up.

If prices were increasing at just a 5 percent annual rate, that wouldn’t be a big deal.

Sadly, the reality is much worse than that, and that is especially true for meat prices.  According to one deli owner, the true rate of inflation for meat prices is “probably closer” to 20 or 30 percent…

Jeff Cohen, a deli owner and meat wholesaler, said those factors are making the price of meat out of control.

“They said on national news it’s 10 percent. But that’s not true. it’s probably closer 20, 30 percent,” Cohen said.

We will continue to get a lot of happy talk from the Biden administration and from the Federal Reserve, but this is becoming a real national crisis.

When CBS News interviewed one shopper in Maryland, she said that she is now spending about twice as much on groceries as she did before…

Abby Walter said she started noticing her grocery bill creeping up earlier this year. Prior to January, the Maryland resident had typically spent about $75 a week on groceries. Now her bill is averaging about $150 or even more.

I still remember when I could get an entire shopping cart of food for just 25 dollars.

Now if I can get an entire cart of food for less than 200 dollars, I consider that to be a monumental achievement.

I try really hard to take advantage of sales and make every dollar stretch as far as I can.  But these days some of the sale prices are higher than the old regular prices.

As global commodity prices have exploded higher in recent months, companies have been forced to pass those increases along to consumers, but they are attempting to use language that will not cause widespread alarm…

If you ask Pampers maker Procter & Gamble Co., it’s not raising prices, it’s “taking pricing.” Rival Unilever, known for Dove soap and Axe body spray, says it’s been “very active with pricing.” The prize for creativity — so far at least — has been home-improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos., whose finance chief told investors Wednesday that it was “elevating our pricing ecosystem.”

What in the world is a “pricing ecosystem”?

I would love to have a representative from Lowe’s define that for me.

Executives from General Mills are also using language that borders on the absurd…

Then there’s cereal maker General Mills Inc., whose jargon includes arcane phrases like “strategic revenue management” and “holistic margin management,” which is not language you’d ever find on the back of a box of Lucky Charms. The company uses those terms so often, in fact, that its CEO now just refers to them by the acronyms SRM and HMM.

Why can’t they just say that they are “raising prices”?

These days, I cringe whenever I go down the cereal aisle.  It is hard for me to believe that cereal prices are so high now, but I know that they will eventually get a whole lot higher.

We have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and instead of taking emergency measures to get inflation under control our leaders seem intent on making things even worse.

The Biden administration wanted to spend 2 trillion dollars on infrastructure, but a group of U.S. Senators is currently working on a “compromise deal” that would only provide 1.2 trillion dollars in new infrastructure spending.

This is on top of the trillions upon trillions of dollars that we have already borrowed and spent during this crisis.

We can’t do this anymore.

It is complete and utter insanity.

But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to care.  They are going to continue to borrow and spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, and the Federal Reserve is going to continue to shovel enormous gobs of cash into the financial system.

So more inflation is on the way, and the standard of living for most Americans is going to continue to go down.

***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.

5 Signs That America’s Raging Inflation Crisis Is Accelerating

The pace at which conditions are changing is catching a lot of people off guard.  Here in the United States, we have been in a low inflation environment for most of the past four decades, and so many Americans don’t even have a frame of reference for what a highly inflationary environment looks like.  But now we are facing an inflation crisis that is unlike anything that we have seen since the Jimmy Carter era in the 1970s.  In response to the COVID pandemic, governments around the world have been borrowing and spending colossal mountains of money, and global central banks have been absolutely flooding their respective financial systems with new cash.  These measures were taken to stimulate the worldwide economy, but in the process a horrific inflation monster has been created, and it will not be tamed easily.  In fact, national governments and global central banks continue to do the very same things that created the horrific inflation monster in the first place.

Moving forward, things look very bleak.  The following are 5 signs that America’s raging inflation crisis is accelerating…

#1 Inflation tends to hit those at the bottom of the economic food chain the hardest, but at this point even most millionaires say that they are “concerned about inflation”…

This is a major worry for most wealthy investors, according to CNBC’s latest millionaire survey. As many as 65% of millionaires are concerned about inflation caused by recent government spending, according to the report. Of those, 34% said they were very concerned.

The survey, conducted online in April and May by Spectrum Group on CNBC’s behalf, had 750 respondents with investable assets of $1 million or more.

#2 The biggest banks in the world are now sounding the alarm about the inflation crisis.  This week, a team of analysts from Deutsche Bank warned that “neglecting inflation leaves global economies sitting on a time bomb”…

We worry that inflation will make a comeback. Few still remember how our societies and economies were threatened by high inflation 50 years ago. The most basic laws of economics, the ones that have stood the test of time over a millennium, have not been suspended. An explosive growth in debt financed largely by central banks is likely to lead to higher inflation. We worry that the painful lessons of an inflationary past are being ignored by central bankers, either because they really believe that this time is different, or they have bought into a new paradigm that low interest rates are here to stay, or they are protecting their institutions by not trying to hold back a political steam roller. Whatever the reason, we expect inflationary pressures to re-emerge as the Fed continues with its policy of patience and its stated belief that current pressures are largely transitory. It may take a year longer until 2023 but inflation will re-emerge. And while it is admirable that this patience is due to the fact that the Fed’s priorities are shifting towards social goals, neglecting inflation leaves global economies sitting on a time bomb.

#3 Housing prices continue to soar into the stratosphere in the United States.  These days, investment funds, wealthy individuals and foreigners are all gobbling up homes in anticipation of making huge profits, and this is making things extremely difficult for ordinary home buyers.  Earlier, I found the following message from one exasperated home shopper on a popular discussion forum…

It’s crazy. Soon as it hits the market tons of offers.

Mostly Investors and flippers.

Real estate Agent’s telling me things like.

“We’ve got Rich guys as far out as Hawaii buying houses sight unseen. They’ll even buy them in bulk. Anything from dumps to mansions.’

We’ve got Chinese snatching up properties, Bill Gates, Businesses, and like I said flippers. It’s Impossible!

Auction sites along with gov seized properties are flooded with the same types.

Can not compete you’ll be outbid by thousands upon thousand of dollars way above market value.

Any tricks or strategies to buy a house? Anything that may not have all the greedy bastards swarming over them?

A family seriously needing to actually live in a place seems completely s.o.l

It’s not just my area that’s hot right now its everywhere.

Please if anyone has good advice would be appreciated. Thanks

#4 Used car prices have now officially entered “absurd” territory.  This week, we learned that the Used Vehicle Value Index has shot up by 26 percent so far in 2021…

Prices of used vehicles sold at auctions around the US in May spiked by 4.6% from April, by 26% year-to-date, and by 45% from April 2019, according to the Used Vehicle Value Index released today by Manheim, the largest auto auction operator in the US and a unit of Cox Automotive.

I used to recommend buying used vehicles to people because I thought that most of the time you could get a better value, but at this point I am reversing my recommendation.

In this environment, I would strongly encourage everyone to consider buying new vehicles because used vehicles have become so ridiculously expensive.

#5 Food prices continue to surge higher, and I continue to see reports of intermittent shortages around the nation.

Down in Florida, Papa Bee’s Owner Lorie Hamm says that only a limited number of cases of chicken wings are being made available to restaurants in her area, and she also says that the price for such cases has nearly doubled since the start of 2021…

“There’s 300 cases that are allocated for two counties I believe, they were gone in two minutes,” Hamm said.

At the beginning of the year, a case of wings sold for $70-90 a case. Now they are about $150 a case.

When you begin to wildly create new money, this is what happens.  Prices go haywire and shortages tend to occur.

Unfortunately, our leaders don’t seem to have even a basic understanding of the laws of economics, and the pain that we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

If they were smart, global authorities would be taking emergency measures to get inflation under control before it is too late.

Of course that is not happening.  Instead, they just continue to feed the monster.

This crisis is going to go from bad to worse, and you should prepare 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.

Outsourcing The Production Of Virtually Everything Has Brought Us To The Brink Of A Nightmare Scenario For The U.S. Economy

Many of the imbalances that are contributing to the nightmarish shortages that we are currently witnessing are not going to be solved any time soon.  Ever since I started The Economic Collapse Blog, I have been warning that outsourcing the production of just about everything and running massive trade deficits year after year would eventually have very serious consequences down the road.  Well, now we are officially “down the road”, and our incredibly foolish trade policies have put us in a very precarious position.  During the “good times”, being extremely dependent on the rest of the world to make stuff for us wasn’t a problem, but now it is rapidly becoming a national security issue.

For example, without a steady flow of computer chips, our society as it is formulated today simply could not function.  We need computer chips for our vehicles, for the trucks that transport all of our goods, for the farm equipment that produces our food, for the extremely sophisticated equipment in our hospitals and for the millions upon millions of electronic devices that connect to the Internet.

The global chip shortage has been a very painful reminder of how exceedingly dependent we have become on technology, and it has also shown us how unwise it was to outsource production of most of our chips to Asia.

Back in 1990, the United States produced 37 percent of all computer chips in the world.

Today, that number has fallen to just 12 percent.

Business leaders are now pledging to start ramping up production here in the U.S., but that will take an extended period of time, and Intel’s CEO is openly admitting that the current shortage of chips could take “several years” to be resolved…

Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) CEO said on Monday it could take several years for a global shortage of semiconductors to be resolved, a problem that has shuttered some auto production lines and is also being felt in other areas, including consumer electronics.

Sadly, there are many other industries where our outsourcing makes us extremely vulnerable.

Did you know that 60 percent of all apple juice that is sold in this country now comes from China?…

Taken together, these laws explain why the apple orchards near my hometown disappeared. Nearly 60 percent of the apple juice sold in the United States comes from China, even though most of America has a climate conducive to apple production. The problem is so bad that salmon caught in the United States is shipped to China for processing and then shipped back to the United States for consumption.

There is no reason why we can’t make our own apples.  In fact, weather conditions are ideal for apple growing in much of the nation.

And how hard can it be to gather apples and squeeze the juice out of them?  We should be able to do that here.

But during the “good times”, big corporations discovered that they could make a little bit more profit by outsourcing to China, and so that is what they did.

Over the decades, big corporations have come to dominate food production in America, and this has pushed small family farmers to the brink of extinction…

The design of this framework benefits only the largest farmers who have the resources to produce these commodities at scale. For family farmers, the impact has been devastating. The share of each dollar spent on food that winds up in the hands of farmers has fallen from 53 cents in 1946 to 14 cents today, the lowest level ever recorded. Diversified family farms raising a variety of crops and livestock have been replaced by large industrial operations exclusively growing commodities like corn and soy at scale.

This grimness has caused countless family farms to throw in the towel. Since 1980, America has lost 50 percent of its cattle farms, 80 percent of its dairies, and 90 percent of its hog farms. As Benson and Butz threatened, farmers were forced to choose between getting big or getting out. The average size of a farm nearly doubled from 650 acres in 1987 to 1,201 acres in 2012.

As long as relations with China are good, we will be able to get the apple juice, salmon and other food products that we need from them.

However, if relations with China get really sour, all of a sudden there will be a whole bunch of basic things that will be in short supply and that we won’t be able to make for ourselves.

Speaking of China, there is a very serious shortage of shipping containers right now.  And one factor that is making it worse is that we buy far more from China than they buy from us.  So empty shipping containers are stacking up on our side of the Pacific Ocean because there is not enough commercial traffic going back the other way.

Sometimes empty shipping containers are shipped back to foreign ports without anything in them, but this is exceedingly wasteful…

Using export data from U.S. Customs and Border Protections compiled by trader intelligence data firm Import Genius, Earther analyzed thousands of U.S. export records marked “empty container” shipped by Thor Joergensen A/S, a supplier based in Denmark whose largest customer is Maersk Logistics.

We found that in 2020, 668,086 empty containers were shipped to foreign ports around the world, 12 times more than in 2019. At the height of this empty container frenzy, in November 2020, 87,000 ghost containers were exported, 87 times more than at same time in 2019.

Another shortage that is weighing heavily on the U.S. economy is the worker shortage.  Even though employment is still way, way below pre-pandemic levels, millions of Americans have decided that they simply do not want to go back to work because of the generous government benefits that they are now bringing in.

As a result, we are now facing a serious worker shortage, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that it is “getting worse by the day”…

“The worker shortage is real — and it’s getting worse by the day,” US Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark said.

Most big corporations can easily pay more to bring in new workers, but many small businesses that are barely scraping by cannot afford to shell out higher wages.  Along with other factors such as widespread shortages and higher commodity prices, this is creating a “perfect storm” that threatens to force many more small businesses to shut their doors.  In fact, one recent survey found that 35 percent of all small businesses in America are “at risk of closing permanently by the end of the summer”…

As small businesses complain that it has never been harder for them to hire workers according to a recent NFIB survey, many are facing growing pressure to survive. As the American economy continues to reopen, some fear it might not happen soon enough to save thousands of small businesses. Data from Alignable’s June Revenue Poll shows that 35% of all small business owners are still at risk of closing permanently by the end of the summer.

Among the 3,772 small business owners in the 10 days ended June 1, Alignable’s June Revenue Poll showed a myriad of factors – including the remaining closures and restrictions, growing inflationary pressures on prices, rising gas and transportation prices and labor shortages – are creating problems that affect small businesses more intensely than their corporate partners.

The U.S. economy has proven to be quite resilient, but the extreme imbalances that we are witnessing now threaten to cause immense damage in the months ahead, and they won’t be solved any time soon.  In fact, I believe that our economic challenges will soon escalate dramatically.

Before I end this article, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Robert Wenzel.  He was an important voice for liberty, and I always enjoyed his commentary on The Economic Policy Journal.

So many people have been dying lately.  Robert was only 63, and he will be missed.

It has been said that life is like a coin.  You can spend it any way that you want, but you can only spend it once.

Be sure to spend your life on something that really matters.

***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.

Go To The Stores And Stock Up Now Because Things Are About To Get Really Crazy

If there are things that you need to stock up on, you should do it right away.  For weeks, I have been writing articles about the rampant inflation that we are witnessing right now.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, and many are warning that it is going to get even worse in the months ahead.  So that means that prices are never going to be lower than they are at this moment.  Even more importantly, we are also being warned that the widespread shortages in our economy are about to get even worse.  In fact, the largest meatpacker in the entire world was just hit by a cyberattack, and this has forced it to stop activity “at its plants in several U.S. states”…

The White House said on Tuesday that Brazil’s JBS SA has informed the U.S. government that a ransomware attack against the company that has disrupted meat production in North America and Australia originated from a criminal organization likely based in Russia.

JBS is the world’s largest meatpacker and the incident caused its Australian operations to shut down on Monday and has stopped livestock slaughter at its plants in several U.S. states.

Many of you may not be familiar with JBS, but this is a very big deal.

According to Bloomberg, “a fifth of America’s production” will be wiped out while these plants are down…

JBS’s five biggest beef plants in the U.S. — which altogether handle 22,500 cattle a day — have halted processing following a weekend attack on the company’s computer networks, according to JBS posts on Facebook, labor unions and employees. Those outages alone have wiped out nearly a fifth of America’s production. Slaughter operations across Australia were also down, according to a trade group. One of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled for a second day.

Until this crisis passes, and hopefully that will be as soon as possible, meat will be harder to get and prices will be higher.

The Biden administration is once again blaming Russia for this latest cyberattack.  Whether that is true or not, relations between the U.S. and Russia will continue to rapidly deteriorate, and many are deeply concerned about where all of this hostility will eventually take us.

Sadly, this new meat shortage is just the tip of the iceberg.  Earlier today, the Drudge Report linked to an article with this stunning headline: “How the World Ran Out of Everything”.  The following is a short excerpt from that article…

In Conshohocken, Pa., Mr. Romano is literally waiting for his ship to come in.

He is vice president of sales at Van Horn, Metz & Company, which buys chemicals from suppliers around the world and sells them to factories that make paint, ink and other industrial products.

In normal times, the company is behind in filling perhaps 1 percent of its customers’ orders. On a recent morning, it could not complete a tenth of its orders because it was waiting for supplies to arrive.

You may have noticed that products are increasingly going “out of stock”, and this trend isn’t going away for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, inflation threatens to spiral wildly out of control.  At this point, even Costco executives are publicly warning that inflation has become a major problem…

Don’t tell Costco executives that inflation is low.

The big-box club chain said it’s been seeing accelerating prices across a range of products, including shipping containers, aluminum foil and a 20% spike in meat prices over the past month.

“Inflationary factors abound,” CFO Richard Galanti said on the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings call Thursday.

If you know that you are going to need something in the months ahead, buy it now, because with the way things are going there is a very good chance that you will be paying much more if you wait.

Have you noticed that some companies are trying to hide inflation by shrinking package sizes?  This is a phenomenon that is known as “shrinkflation”…

Consumers are paying more for a growing range of household staples in ways that don’t show up on receipts – thinner rolls, lighter bags, smaller cans – as companies look to offset rising labor and materials costs without scaring off customers.

It’s a form of retail camouflage known as “shrinkflation,” and economists and consumer advocates who track packaging expect it to become more pronounced as inflation ratchets up, taking hold of such everyday items such as paper towels, potato chips and diapers.

For example, I absolutely love Tillamook ice cream.  It is the best ice cream that I have ever had in my entire life, and if you have tasted it then you know what I am talking about.

Unfortunately, they recently felt forced to shrink the size of their packaging from 56 ounces to 48 ounces, but they kept the price the same.

Lots of companies are now doing this, because the cost of raw materials is going through the roof.  Even Elon Musk is complaining about rising prices for raw materials…

Perhaps finally realizing it can’t turn a profit selling vehicles or perhaps truly between a rock and a semiconductor hard place, Tesla is raising prices (and ditching features) from its vehicles.

CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter late on Memorial Day to explain the hikes, blaming them on the convenient scapegoat of supply chain issues.

“Prices increasing due to major supply chain price pressure industry-wide. Raw materials especially,” Musk wrote in a Tweet late on Memorial Day.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Governments around the world continue to borrow and spend money as if tomorrow will never come, and global central banks continue to pump gigantic mountains of new money into their respective financial systems.

In this sort of environment, an “invisible sculpture” that is nothing but air can literally be sold for $18,000…

An Italian artist was able to sell his invisible “immaterial” sculpture – which technically does not exist (in this plane at least) – for thousands of euros.

Salvatore Garau, 67, challenged the boundaries of contemporary art even further after cashing in ¢15,000 (around $18,000 or P875,000) for his work titled “Io sono” (I am) at a recent auction, as per Il Giorno on May 21.

The inflationary nightmare that so many of us have been relentlessly warning about is here, and it is going to continue to get worse.

In addition, I have a feeling that quite a few major “surprises” are coming our way during the second half of this year.

So go to the stores and stock up now, because things will soon get really crazy.

***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.

Biden’s $6 Trillion Socialist Budget Will Cause Even More Inflation And Even More Shortages

If you are enjoying the ride on the highway to hyperinflation, then you are going to absolutely love Joe Biden’s new budget.  Instead of realizing the mistakes that he has made and reversing course, Biden has decided that now is the time to push the accelerator to the floor.  That means that a lot more inflation is on the way, and I am encouraging all of my readers to do what they can to get prepared for that.  In my latest book, I sound the alarm about what hyperinflation will eventually do to our economy.  We are literally in the process of becoming Venezuela, and most Americans have absolutely no idea how horrific that will be.  In Venezuela today, almost everyone is a millionaire, but just about everyone is also living in poverty because the money is absolutely worthless.  We don’t want to end up like that, but that is the road that we are on.

While he was still in the White House, President Trump’s proposed budget for 2021 was $4.8 trillion.  That is an extremely high number, but Joe Biden’s new budget for 2021 is actually 25 percent larger…

The proposal represents a 25 percent increase over what former President Donald Trump proposed in his final budget – in a year that would be upended by the coronavirus.

The spending levels would continue on an upward trajectory, hitting $8.2 trillion at the end of a decade, according to detailed top-line numbers leaked to the New York Times.

I could sit here all day and still probably not be able to come up with sufficient words to describe how insane it would be for the U.S. government to spend 6 trillion dollars in a single year.

According to Biden, his new tax increases will offset part of the new spending, but even his own projections show us running trillion dollar deficits long into the future…

The budget would have the nation continue running deficits of more than $1 trillion, a level it already topped with the onset of the pandemic – with estimated annual deficits of $1.3 trillion amid enacted and proposed federal programs.

Of course these sorts of projections are usually way too optimistic.

In my estimation, Biden’s plan would have us facing deficits of at least two trillion dollars per year throughout his presidency and beyond.

We can’t keep doing this to our children and our grandchildren.  Already, borrowing and spending giant mountains of money that we do not have has resulted in the worst stretch of inflation since the Jimmy Carter years of the 1970s.

Larry Summers was the former director of the National Economic Council under Barack Obama, and even he is warning that big time inflation is coming…

He told a CoinDesk conference: ‘We’re taking very substantial risks on the inflation side.

‘I think policy is rather overdoing it. The sense of serenity and complacency being projected by the economic policymakers, that this is all something that can easily be managed, is misplaced,’ he added.

When even Larry Summers is sounding the alarm, you know that it must be really late in the game.

As I have detailed in numerous recent articles, prices are absolutely exploding all over the nation right now.  And today we learned that one prominent analyst is claiming that “US inflation data surprises are at their highest in the 20-year history of the series”…

As we noted over the weekend, positive US data surprises seem to be normalizing (i.e. the Citi US econ surprise index has flatlined) due to a combination of analysts catching up with the prior stronger pace of growth, and also due to some evidence that the rate of change of US growth is peaking out (JPMorgan disagrees).

However as DB’s equity strategist Parag Thatte points out in his latest positioning piece, “US inflation data surprises are at their highest in the 20-year history of the series with the last 10 data points almost ‘off the chart’.“

We should be taking emergency measures to get inflation under control, but instead Joe Biden has decided that this is the perfect time for a spending spree.

Inflation is one of the hallmarks of a socialist economy, and another thing that we commonly see in socialist systems are shortages.

At this moment, we are witnessing the most severe shortages that the U.S. has experienced in my entire lifetime.  As I discussed the other day, Bloomberg is reporting that “the world economy is suddenly running low on everything”.

When there are way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, it is inevitable that shortages will happen.  And we are being told to expect that some of the shortages will get even worse in the months ahead.  In fact, CNN is telling us to expect very serious gasoline shortages this summer…

And that could be the least of the problems for the those taking to the highways for summer vacations. The gas shortages experienced earlier this month when a key pipeline shut down could once again be on the horizon, according to experts.

This time, the squeeze could be triggered by the lack of tank truck drivers to deliver the fuel, and a repeat of panic buying by travelers topping off their tanks.

Meanwhile, economic conditions continue to deteriorate for those at the bottom of the food chain.

Earlier today, an article about current economic conditions in New York City really struck an emotional chord with me…

In Times Square, the most densely tourist-populated place in the United States, a mentally disturbed man known as Mr. Kim begs cops to kill him. ‘I want to die. You have a gun? Shoot,’ he pleads. After the officers demur, he picks up a plank of wood and starts smashing it against the Pele soccer shop.

On Sutton Place, one of the most affluent residential areas in the city, a lone man squats on the sidewalk, intently reading a paperback novel next to a shopping cart that contains his worldly goods. He begs for cash with a sign saying he has lost everything. ‘Trying to survive,’ it adds.

Joe Biden may think that he is going to bring the U.S. economy back to life with all of the borrowing and spending that he is doing, but the truth is that it is just going to make our long-term problems even worse.

Unfortunately, a lot of our long-term problems are rapidly becoming short-term problems, and that is not good news for any of us.

***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.

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