Get Ready For The Most Painful Inflation Since The Jimmy Carter Years Of The 1970s

If you are too young to have been alive during the 1970s, you might want to read up on that decade, because current economic conditions are starting to become eerily similar to what we experienced back then.  In the 1970s, an energy crisis caused tremendously long lines at gas stations all over the country.  In 2021, we don’t have a shortage of gasoline, but shortages of other key products are starting to cause very serious problems.  In fact, as you will see below, even the Biden administration is publicly admitting that there will be “supply chain disruptions” in the months ahead.  The 1970s also featured extremely painful inflation, and I certainly don’t need to tell you that prices have been rising very aggressively lately.  In fact, Bloomberg is using the term “skyrocketing” to describe the “upward trajectory” of commodity prices…

The prices of raw materials used to make almost everything are skyrocketing, and the upward trajectory looks set to continue as the world economy roars back to life.

From steel and copper to corn and lumber, commodities started 2021 with a bang, surging to levels not seen for years. The rally threatens to raise the cost of goods from the lunchtime sandwich to gleaming skyscrapers. It’s also lit the fuse on the massive reflation trade that’s gripped markets this year and pushed up inflation expectations. With the U.S. economy pumped up on fiscal stimulus, and Europe’s economy starting to reopen as its vaccination rollout gets into gear, there’s little reason to expect a change in direction.

Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has pumped more money into the financial system than ever before, and the U.S. government has been on a wild spending spree that makes Zimbabwe look fiscally conservative.

It was inevitable that this was going to cause rampant inflation, but the numbers that we are starting to see are so crazy they are difficult to believe.  A couple weeks ago, Charlie Bilello posted a summary of how commodity prices have changed over the past year…

Lumber: +265%
WTI Crude: +210%
Gasoline: +182%
Brent Crude +163%
Heating Oil: +107%
Corn: +84%
Copper: +83%
Soybeans: +72%
Silver: +65%
Sugar: +59%
Cotton: +54%
Platinum: +52%
Natural Gas: +43%
Palladium: +32%
Wheat: +19%
Coffee: +13%

At this point, nobody can deny what is happening, and even the Biden administration is admitting that there will be “supply chain disruptions” and “transitory increases in prices”…

Council of Economic Advisers chair Cecilia Rouse said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that they expect to see some “transitory inflation” as America is coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anchor Chris Wallace said, “Can you guarantee with all this spending that we are not going to have a new round of overheating the economy and serious inflation?

Rouse said, “These are very serious concerns, and we know that coming out of an extremely deep recession that there are going to be bumps along the way. We expect that there is going to be supply chain disruptions. That will cause some transitory increases in prices.”

Biden administration officials would like for us to believe that this inflationary period will just be “temporary”, but exactly how do they plan to achieve that?

Do they have a plan to somehow pull trillions of dollars out of the system?

No, they are planning to borrow and spend trillions more.

In the 1970s, double-digit inflation made headlines for years on end.  Many people believe that we are well on the way to a return to such levels, but according to John Williams of shadowstats.com, we are already there.  In fact, if inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, we would already be in double-digit territory.

And for certain items, we are already seeing inflation that is off the charts.

For example, the price of corn is up more than 30 percent so far in 2021…

From tortillas to cornbread, some of your favorite corn-based dishes may go up in price late this summer.

Corn has been leading the rally among grain commodities, rising more than 30% in 2021, according to MarketWatch.

Corn is used in hundreds of different products at the grocery store, and so this is going to dramatically affect the food budgets of millions upon millions of American families.

Meanwhile, we continue to see more shortages start to emerge.  Last week, the mainstream media was freaking out over our new nationwide chicken shortage

A chicken shortage is taking place across the country, much of it fueled by the chicken sandwich craze at fast food chains such as KFC and Bojangles, which are having a hard time keeping up with soaring demand. Experts say February’s massive winter storm in Texas also contributed to gaps in the supply chain.

That shortage is supposed to be “temporary”, but analysts are warning that the current computer chip shortage could last until 2022.

But despite all of the problems that I just detailed, Americans are increasingly optimistic about the future.

In fact, one recent poll found that a whopping 64 percent of all Americans “are optimistic about the direction of the country”

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) are optimistic about the direction of the country in the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

And Americans are also extremely optimistic about the stock market.  If you can believe it, Americans now have more of their assets invested in the stock market than ever before

Individual investors are holding more stocks than ever before as major indexes climb to fresh highs. They are also upping the ante by borrowing to magnify their bets or increasingly buying on small dips in the market.

Stockholdings among U.S. households increased to 41% of their total financial assets in April, the highest level on record. That is according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Federal Reserve data going back to 1952 that includes 401(k) retirement accounts.

Most Americans seem to believe that happy days are here again, and the stage is set for an immense nationwide emotional meltdown once this “bubble of hope” inevitably bursts.

Anyone that believes that things are going to get better has a fundamental misunderstanding of the times in which we live.

We have just been through the most painful year for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and I know that most people would like to see things turn around, but that simply is not going to happen.

Very dark days are ahead, and those that are trusting Joe Biden to save America are going to be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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 Mass Exodus From The West Coast Is Driving Home Prices In Idaho To Insane Levels

Lots of people have been moving away from the west coast over the last decade, but we have never seen the sort of mass exodus that we have seen over the last year.  This mass exodus has created some extremely hot real estate markets in desirable areas located away from the coast, and according to the Wall Street Journal the hottest real estate market in the entire country right now is Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  Any house in the area that gets placed on the market is likely to spark a bidding war, and according to the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors the median price of a home in the region has risen by a whopping 47 percent in the last 12 months…

The median sales price in the Coeur d’Alene region rose in March to $476,900, up 47% from a year earlier, according to the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors. Finding a home to buy in the metro area of about 166,000 is getting tougher: Inventory of homes for sale shrank by 71% to just 337 homes. That amounts to less than a month’s supply.

“That’s not enough to go around—therefore, every listing gets 30 offers,” Ms. Johnson said. “Since the pandemic, our market has been crazy.”

In particular, the demand for high end homes is off the charts.

During the first two months of this year the number of million dollar homes sold in the Coeur d’Alene area was more than five times higher than the number sold during the first two months of 2020…

That has helped boost the number of high-end sales. In the first two months of the year, 67 homes in the area sold for $1 million and above, up from 12 sales in that price range in the first two months of 2020, Ms. Williams said.

Of course the Coeur d’Alene region is not the only extremely hot real estate market that has been fueled by this mass exodus.

According to the Wall Street Journal, these cities round out the top 5…

Austin, Texas

Springfield, Ohio

Billings, Montana

Spokane, Washington

It is interesting to note that three of the top five hottest markets are in the Northwest.  For a variety of reasons, large numbers of people are being drawn to the region, and this has both positives and negatives.

If people want to make positive contributions to their new communities, that can be a good thing, but in too many cases new arrivals want to make their new communities just like the hellholes that they are escaping from.

According to Realtor.com, a large percentage of the people viewing Coeur d’Alene property listings are located in major cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle

About 70% of page views on Coeur d’Alene property listings came from outside the state in the first quarter, up from about 66% a year earlier, according to Realtor.com. The top metro areas for interest in Coeur d’Alene listings were Seattle, Spokane and Los Angeles.

Vast numbers of “west coast refugees” are fleeing to Texas as well.  In fact, one real estate executive based in Dallas says that “70% of the people moving in are from California”

“It’s like waiting for people to get an iPhone when it comes out,” he added. “We have lines out the door for people seeing houses all across all sorts of price points.”

Healy, who is based in Dallas, said hundreds of people per day are moving to his city. He pointed out that 70% of the people moving in are from California and increasing “luxury price points.”

Overall, home prices are much higher in the U.S. today than they were last year.

In fact, we just learned that the Case-Shiller Home Price Index has risen 12 percent over the last 12 months…

House prices soared by 12.0% from a year ago, the biggest increase since February 2006, near the peak of Housing Bubble 1, according to today’s National Case-Shiller Home Price Index for “February,” which reflects the three-month average of sales recorded in public records in December, January, and February.

But the Federal Reserve says that inflation is very low and that there is nothing to be concerned about.

Used car prices are escalating rapidly as well.  In fact, the Manheim U.S. Used Vehicle Value Index is up 52 percent over the last year…

Used car prices in the U.S. continue to skyrocket as a result of both the country’s economic recovery and an ongoing supply crunch.

The Manheim U.S. Used Vehicle Value Index has continued to soar through the month of April, to a new record, as a result of the worsening of a semiconductor shortage, low lot inventories, and a continuing post-Covid “boom”.

The index was up 6.8% in the first 15 days of April, Bloomberg noted. The index is up an astounding 52% from the same time last year to 191.4.

But the Federal Reserve says that inflation is very low and that there is nothing to be concerned about.

The price of gasoline just keeps rising as well.  It has jumped 9 percent since last month and it is up more than 22 percent overall since this time last year…

Gas prices jumped over 9% in the past month and they’re not expected to slow down anytime soon.

Gas prices are up 22.5% from the previous year and were the biggest contributor to an overall increase in goods and services in the nation, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index. Fuel prices pushed a 1-month increase in the overall price of goods for March that was the highest in nearly 9 years.

But the Federal Reserve says that inflation is very low and that there is nothing to be concerned about.

Do you believe the Fed?

I think that Fed officials should be forced to shop for lumber if they want to try to keep convincing us that inflation is very low.

According to Fortune, the price of lumber has shot up 232 percent since the start of the pandemic.

232 percent!

That is just nuts.

By the way, the book that I published last year warned way in advance that inflation would get way out of control.

Events are playing out just as we anticipated, and a lot more inflation is on the way.

Whenever a crisis arises, our leaders always flood the system with more money, and they are pushing us dangerously close to the point of no return.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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.

10 Signs That “Things Are Getting Better In America”

Everything is great, and America is about to enter a golden new era that will be overflowing with peace, prosperity and happiness.  If you believe that, there is a very large bridge that I would like to sell to you.  There is certainly nothing wrong with being optimistic about the future, and personally I am very excited about the next chapters in my life.  But if you think that the United States is heading in the right direction you are not thinking straight.  Evidence of our advanced state of decline is all around us, and yet we continue to embrace our self-destructive ways.

Over the years, I have literally shared thousands of examples that show that our society is coming apart at the seams, and today I would like to share 10 more…

#1 New York City was once one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world, but now giant mountains of trash are piled up everywhere and approximately 2 million rats are rampaging all over the place.  In an attempt to turn the tide, city officials plan to create a “City Cleanup Corps”

New York City is being forced to deploy an army of 10,000 cleanup workers in response to worsening problems with trash and rats.

A newly created ‘City Cleanup Corps’ will be tasked with fighting the piles of garbage on the streets of the Big Apple, with complaints surging by 150% between March and August last year.

After a $100 million cut to the city’s sanitation budget, filth and rodent infestations have become a common sight, with data revealing that waste tonnage rose 15% by the end of March compared to the early months of the pandemic.

#2 In 2020, homicide rates increased by an average of more than 30 percent in major U.S. cities, and now homicide rates in many of those cities are even higher in 2021…

A Baltimore sanitation worker was fatally shot yesterday evening on his trash truck. The city has 94 homicides in less than four months.

To the south, DC had two more homicides yesterday, bringing its tally to 62, up 41 pct over 2020.

To the north, Philly has 156, up 31 pct.

#3 In cities all over the United States, police officers are leaving the force in record numbers.  For example, just consider what is happening in New York City

More than 5,300 officers — or roughly 15% of the force — at the New York Police Department either retired or put in their papers to leave in 2020, the New York Post reported after reviewing department data.

In all, 2,600 officers simply left the job, while another 2,746 filed for retirement, bringing the total to a whopping 5,346. That figure marked a 75% increase over the number of officers who left the force during the previous year.

#4 Meanwhile, police departments across the nation are having an exceedingly difficult time recruiting new officers.  In New Jersey, the number of qualified applicants is only a small fraction of what it was a few years ago…

In some years the State Police would field between 15,000 and 20,000 applicants, according to Col. Patrick Callahan, the department’s acting superintendent. But they only had a “historically low” 2,023 qualified applicants as of Thursday, about a week before deadline, Callahan said.

#5 Less police officers will be needed if cities decide to simply stop enforcing the law.  In Manhattan, a decision has been made to no longer prosecute prostitution at all

Manhattan’s DA has announced he will no longer prosecute prostitutes, and asked a court to dismiss nearly 6,000 related cases as part of a city-wide change in policy.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said prosecuting these types of crimes does not make the city safer, ‘and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers.’

#6 Earlier this month, Charlie Biello shared some data regarding the explosion in commodity prices that we have seen over the last year…

Lumber: +265%
WTI Crude: +210%
Gasoline: +182%
Brent Crude +163%
Heating Oil: +107%
Corn: +84%
Copper: +83%
Soybeans: +72%
Silver: +65%
Sugar: +59%
Cotton: +54%
Platinum: +52%
Natural Gas: +43%
Palladium: +32%
Wheat: +19%
Coffee: +13%
Gold: +3%

But the Federal Reserve insists that inflation is “low” and that we don’t have anything to be concerned about.

#7 The “most Googled sex question in 2020” certainly says a whole lot about where we are as a society today…

Data from the online health clinic From Mars released this week indicates the most Googled sex question in 2020, with more than 2 million searches, was: “What are the symptoms of chlamydia?”

#8 As I detailed earlier this month, cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have all soared to all-time record highs in the United States.  We want America to be great at a lot of things, but not at spreading sexually-transmitted diseases.

#9 The western half of the country is in the midst of a multi-year “megadrought”, and 2021 is the worst year of that megadrought so far by a very wide margin.

In fact, water levels are dropping so fast in Lake Powell and Lake Mead that authorities are on the verge of declaring “an official shortage” for the first time ever…

The US Bureau of Reclamation released 24-month projections last week forecasting that less Colorado River water will cascade down from the Rocky Mountains through Lake Powell and Lake Mead and into the arid deserts of the Southwest and the Gulf of California.

Water levels in the two lakes are expected to plummet low enough for the agency to declare an official shortage for the first time, threatening the supply of Colorado River water that growing cities and farms rely on.

#10 We have known for a very long time that government agencies endlessly spy on us, but now even the Postal Service is tracking and collecting our social media posts

The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.

The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.

When I visit my local Post Office I will never be able to look at the employees the same way again.

What in the world is happening to us?

Do we really need postal workers monitoring our Facebook accounts?

If they are supposed to be stopping “extremism”, it doesn’t appear to be working because we continue to see regular riots in Portland, Seattle and other major cities across the country.

Sadly, the truth is that our society is coming apart at the seams all around us, and it is only going to get worse in the years ahead.

America has been on the wrong path for decades, and all of the foolish decisions that we have made during those years are catching up with us in a major way.

Of course we could always choose to reverse course and start heading back in the right direction, but we all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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.

Tens Of Millions Of “Working Poor” Americans Are Suffering Very Deeply Due To Biden’s Economic Policies

The Biden administration and the corporate media insist that we are witnessing an “economic recovery”, but it sure doesn’t feel like any sort of a “recovery” for America’s working poor.  Tens of millions of working Americans are trying to survive from month to month on stagnant or declining wages at a time when Biden’s economic policies have caused the cost of living to soar.  Our leaders in Washington always seem to think that spending more money is the solution to almost every crisis, and in recent months we have seen the money supply grow at an unprecedented rate.  Those that have been showered with government money are grateful, but all of this new money is also going to make life much tougher for those on the very bottom of the economic food chain.

Just because someone “has a job” does not mean that individual is doing okay in this economy. Greyhound bus driver Marvia Robinson has never had to file for unemployment benefits during the COVID pandemic, but her wages declined substantially, and she got way behind on her rent

Last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the nation’s travel economy to a standstill, Robinson’s hours were. cut, her pay dwindled – to as little as $65 for one two-week period – and she fell behind on her rent. By January, she owed $4,920.38. So she emailed Invitation Homes to ask if it would accept funds from a county program that gives landlords $4,000 in back rent.

In an email response reviewed by Reuters, Invitation Homes told Robinson the company was not participating in the program “due to the landlord restrictions,” without explaining what that meant. The company then sent Robinson an email with links to information about other government and nonprofit relief programs, as well as payday lenders, food banks, the Coalition for the Homeless and ways to make money by selling hair, plasma and donor eggs.

Various eviction moratoriums are protecting multitudes of people that are way behind on their rent, but they didn’t help in Marvia’s case, and she was tossed out on the street on March 9th

In February, an Orange County judge approved Robinson’s eviction. On March 9, two sheriff’s deputies showed up at Robinson’s taupe two-story rental south of the city, bolted the doors and changed the locks.

So what is Marvia supposed to do now?

She works extremely hard, but it still wasn’t enough to keep her from being tossed out into the cold.

Overall, Moody’s Analytics is projecting that 7 million Americans will owe a total of $40 billion in back rent by the end of May.

Like Marvia, many of those people actually have jobs.

When I asked Google how many Americans are classified as “working poor”, it gave me a number from 2018…

About 38.1 million people, or 11.8 percent of the nation’s population, lived below the official poverty level in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Needless to say, that number is almost certainly far higher by now thanks to the economic depression that we have experienced over the past year.

And guess which state now has the highest level of “functional poverty”?…

As the California Legislature churned toward adjournment last week, its members received another reminder that the state’s most vexing — and shameful — socioeconomic malady persists.

The Census Bureau reported that California still has the highest level of functional poverty of any state, averaging 18.2% of its 40 million residents impoverished during the three preceding years.

The state that has the most tech billionaires also has the most people living in poverty right now.

Isn’t that ironic?

In their desperation to jumpstart the economy, our leaders in Washington have been creating, borrow and spending money like this is no tomorrow.

Just look at what this has done to our money supply.  The following chart which comes directly from the Federal Reserve shows the stunning growth of M2 since the beginning of the pandemic…

Of course this was going to drive the cost of living higher, and food prices are one thing that I am watching very, very carefully.

Just a few days ago, Bloomberg published an article entitled “The Grocery Price Shock Is Coming to a Store Near You”

Corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetable oils: A small handful of commodities form the backbone of much of the world’s diet and they’re dramatically more expensive, flashing alarm signals for global shopping budgets.

This week, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index — which tracks key farm products — surged the most in almost nine years, driven by a rally in crop futures. With global food prices already at the highest since mid-2014, this latest jump is being closely watched because staple crops are a ubiquitous influence on grocery shelves — from bread and pizza dough to meat and even soda.

Food prices have been aggressively rising for 10 months in a row, and there are several factors that are leading analysts to project that they will continue to rise in the months ahead…

The most recent crop spikes follow months of price gains fueled by booming import demand from China. Corn prices have doubled in the past year, while soybeans are up about 80% and wheat 30%. With China’s purchases continuing and a spate of adverse weather conditions threatening crops in Brazil and the U.S., there are few signs of respite.

As food prices move higher and higher, this will put additional stress on tens of millions of “working poor” Americans that are barely scraping by from month to month.

The good news is that nobody in the U.S. is starving at this point, but the same can’t be said about the rest of the world.

Global hunger is on the rise, and one expert is warning that things are starting to get really bad out there

“The relentless rise in prices acts as a misery multiplier, driving millions deeper into hunger and desperation,” Chris Nikoi, the World Food Programme’s regional director for West Africa, said earlier this month. It’s “pushing a basic meal beyond the reach of millions of poor families who were already struggling to get by.”

As I detail in my most recent book, we are moving into a time when there will be horrific global famines.

We all know this is coming, and so we should be getting prepared ahead of time.

Of course there are tens of millions of Americans that can’t afford to get prepared because they don’t have any extra money at all each month.

With each passing day, more Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty, and everything that our leaders in Washington do seems to make things 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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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.

Food Prices Are Rising Aggressively, And Even The Corporate Media Is Admitting That It Is Only Going To Get Worse

Food prices are outrageous now, but they are only going to go higher.  Earlier today, I came across an NBC News article entitled “Get ready for higher grocery bills for the rest of the year”. I thought that it was strange that a piece put out by the corporate media sounded like it could have come straight from my website, because I have been sounding the alarm about higher food prices for quite some time.  Surprisingly, the NBC News article was generally right on point.  Thanks to a variety of factors, food prices have been rising aggressively, and that is going to continue for the foreseeable future.

According to the Labor Department, consumer prices overall were up 0.6 percent from February to March…

Consumer prices shot higher in March, given a boost by a strong economic recovery and year-over-year comparisons to a time when the Covid-19 pandemic was about to throttle the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

The consumer price index rose 0.6% from the previous month but 2.6% from the same period a year ago. The year-over-year gain is the highest since August 2018 and was well above the 1.7% recorded in February.

0.6 percent may not sound like that much, but if you multiply that figure by 12 months you get an annualized rate of  7.2 percent.

Of course the government has changed the way the inflation rate is calculated dozens of times over the years, and at this point everyone knows that the official number greatly understates what is really happening in the economy.

In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com says that if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would be over 10 percent right now.

In other words, we have now reached Jimmy Carter levels of inflation.

One of the places where we are really starting to see inflation show up is in food prices.  Here are just a few examples

Before the pandemic began, the national average for a pound of bacon in January 2020 was $4.72. By last month, that price had soared to $5.11, according to exclusive supermarket point of sale data from NielsenIQ. Ground beef is up $5.26 a pound from $5.02. Bread is up $2.66 a loaf from $2.44.

So why are food prices increasing like this?

Yahoo News recently posted an article that listed four explanations

1. Plummeting food production
2. Transportation tumult
3. More eating at home
4. Wild weather

Moving forward, the pandemic will continue to suppress global food production, commodity prices will likely keep climbing, and increasingly wild weather patterns will certainly cause even more damage to crops.

All of these factors are making it more expensive for food companies to operate, and as NBC News has noted, food companies are starting to pass along those costs to consumers…

Issues like higher gas prices, increasing transport costs that get passed on to consumers, especially for items like bread, are only going up as driving increases faster than oil production. So grocery prices are likely to remain on the higher end of estimates for at least the rest of the year, Olvera said. Producers may eventually increase their output in order to capture the heightened demand, but that won’t happen until toward the end of this year, Olvera said.

Of course it isn’t just the United States that is wrestling with these problems.

Food prices are actually rising far more rapidly in much of the rest of the world, and we recently learned that global food prices spiked for a tenth month in a row during March…

Global food commodity prices rose in March, marking their tenth consecutive monthly increase, with quotations for vegetable oils and dairy products leading the rise, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 118.5 points in March, 2.1 percent higher than in February and reaching its highest level since June 2014.

Those at the very bottom of the economic food chain are being hurt the most by rising food prices.

We have already started to see food riots in some areas, and one relief organization is warning that millions of people in East Africa are now on the verge of starvation

Over 7 million people across six East African countries are at the cusp of starvation as communities have faced existential threats from violence, flooding, the pandemic and locust infestation, the evangelical humanitarian organization World Vision has warned.

Needless to say, all of these developments are perfectly consistent with the warnings that I issued in Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America.

Even during the best of years, we really struggle to feed the entire planet, and 2021 is definitely not going to be a great year for global food production.

The good news is that there is still plenty of food in our supermarkets right now, and that means that we have a window of opportunity.

I know that food prices may seem ridiculous, but they aren’t ever going to be any lower than they are right now.

I would encourage you to use this window of opportunity to stock up at these relatively low prices, because the price increases are only going to become even more painful as our leaders continue to flood the system with more cash.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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 Number Of Billionaires In America Has Absolutely Exploded During The Pandemic

For the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy, happy days are here again.  Even though we have just been through one of the most difficult 12 months in our history, the number of billionaires has increased dramatically during this pandemic.  That seems rather odd, but there is no denying that the rich have gotten even richer during this crisis.  In fact, Forbes revealed this week that the number of billionaires has risen by about 30 percent over the past year…

The number of newly minted and reissued billionaires soared last year, Forbes reported Tuesday in its annual ranking, a staggering accumulation of personal wealth that stands in sharp contrast with the widespread economic struggles unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of billionaires on Forbes’ 35th annual ranking swelled by 660 to 2,755 — a roughly 30 percent jump from a year ago — and 493 of them are first-timers. Seven of eight are richer than they were before the pandemic. Forbes calculates net worth by using stock prices and exchange rates from March 5.

Of course thanks to the reckless policies of our leaders, a billion dollars does not go nearly as far as it once did.

But still, a billion dollars is a whole lot of money.

Needless to say, the biggest reason why the number of billionaires has exploded is because we have been witnessing one of the greatest stock market rallies in history.

A year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was sitting at about 23,000.

Today, it is above 33,000, and some analysts expect it to shoot quite a bit higher throughout the rest of 2021.

Stock prices have never been more detached from economic reality as they have been over the past 12 months, and they have only risen so high because of unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve and because of extremely wild spending by the federal government.

Many have warned that the party will inevitably come to a crashing end at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet.

So for now, the market optimists look like champions.

And now that Joe Biden is in the White House, the corporate media is telling us that we are on the verge of a grand new era of American prosperity.  The corporate media insists that the pandemic will soon be behind us thanks to the vaccines, and the talking heads on television envision a return to the good old days very quickly.

In fact, Barron’s is already declaring that the “U.S. economy might be stronger than it’s ever been”.

And CNN is trying to convince us that “America’s economy could be heading for a golden era of growth”.

Really?

If the U.S. economy is actually improving, then why are new claims for unemployment benefits going up?

The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, according to the Labor Department.

Data released Thursday showed 744,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended April 3. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting 680,000 filings. The previous week’s total was revised higher by 9,000 to 728,000.

If economic conditions were getting better, that number should be going the other way.

Even I didn’t expect a number this bad.

Prior to 2020, the all-time record high for new unemployment claims in a single week was 695,000.  That record was established in October 1982, and it stood all the way until the COVID pandemic hit the U.S. early last year.

Sadly, we have been above 695,000 almost every single week since then.

The numbers compiled by the states tell us that nearly three-quarters of a million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  That is an absolutely catastrophic number.  Nobody should be talking about a “golden era of growth” or claiming that the “economy might be stronger than it’s ever been” until we get that number back down to pre-pandemic levels.

And right now, we are at a level that is about three times as high as pre-pandemic levels.

Look, the truth is that anyone that tells you that unemployment is low in the United States is lying to you.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the unemployment rate in the United States would be 25.7 percent right now.

That is the sort of number that we would expect to see during an economic depression, and the truth is that we are in an economic depression.

Over the past year, more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed, and approximately 4 million U.S. businesses have gone out of existence permanently.

But don’t worry, the stock market is hovering near all-time record highs and the corporate media is telling you that everything is going to be wonderful now that Joe Biden is in control.

Come on man!

You can’t really believe that stuff that they are shoveling.

With each passing day, more Americans are losing their jobs, more Americans are falling out of the middle class, and the cost of living just keeps going up even higher.

In fact, we just learned that global food prices have now gone up for 10 months in a row

The global food-price rally that’s stoking inflation worries and hitting consumers around the world shows little sign of slowing.

Even with grain prices taking a breather on good crop prospects, a United Nations gauge of global food costs rose for a 10th month in March to the highest since 2014. Last month’s advance was driven by a surge in vegetable oils amid stronger demand and tight inventories, according to Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

I am going to continue to watch global food prices very carefully, because I believe that it will be a very important trend in the months and years ahead.

But for now, the good news is that at least economic conditions are relatively stable.

Yes, things are not nearly as good as they were before the pandemic, but at least they are not getting a whole lot worse.

So even though things are not great, we should enjoy this period of relative stability while we still can, because it definitely will not last.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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 Global Inflation Nightmare That You Have Been Warned About Is Here

If you thought that authorities all over the planet could print, borrow and spend money like there was no tomorrow without any consequences, you were being delusional.  Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we have witnessed the greatest monetary binge in world history.  Of course that was going to cause enormous problems.  Of course that was going to cause nightmarish inflation.  Anyone with an ounce of common sense should have been able to see that.  When the value of money is tied to nothing, “more money” is always such a tempting solution for those in power.  But as history has demonstrated over and over again, going down that path almost always leads to tragedy.

In our case, it will be the poorest people on the planet that suffer the most.  According to Bloomberg, basic food staples are dramatically spiking in price all over the globe…

Global food prices are going up, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

In Indonesia, tofu is 30% more expensive than it was in December. In Brazil, the price of local mainstay turtle beans is up 54% compared to last January. In Russia, consumers are paying 61% more for sugar than a year ago.

And as Albert Edwards has pointed out, annual inflation in cereals has hit 20 percent, which represents “the highest annual rise since mid-2011 when the Arab Spring was in full flow!”

If prices continue to rise like this, it is just a matter of time before we see widespread food riots all over the globe.

In explaining why this is happening, Bloomberg got half the answer correct

Emerging markets are feeling the pain of a blistering surge in raw material costs, as commodities from oil to copper and grains are driven higher by expectations for a “roaring 20s” post-pandemic economic recovery as well as ultra-loose monetary policies.

No, there is definitely not going to be a “roaring 20s” post-pandemic recovery.

That is a complete and utter fantasy.

But it is quite true that we have seen “ultra-loose monetary policies” all over the globe.  Not since the days of the Weimar Republic have we seen anything like this in the industrialized world.

As the global money supply continues to expand at a frightening pace, other factors will weigh very heavily on global food production.

For example, the other day I wrote about the giant hordes of locusts that are currently ravaging East Africa, and now Saudi Arabia is being hit hard as well

Horrifying footage shows a swarm of locusts filling the sky in the town of Mahayil in the Asir region of Saudi Arabia.

In a nightmarish clip, filmed by someone standing in the street on February 23, the locusts hang overhead like a swirling black cloud as they fly around outside people’s homes.

As the camera is turned around 360 degrees, it becomes clear nearby buildings are all completely surrounded by the ravenous insects as far as the eye can see.

The head of the UN World Food Program has publicly stated that there will be “famines of biblical proportions in 2021”, but here in the United States many people don’t take warnings like that seriously because we still have plenty of food in the stores.

And so far, food inflation in this country has not been overly dramatic.

But we are seeing crazy inflation show up in other ways.  If you can believe it, a Luka Doncic rookie card just sold for 4.6 million dollars

At $4.6 million, the most expensive basketball card ever sold is a signed Luka Doncic rookie card featuring the NBA Logoman patch from a game-worn Dallas Mavericks jersey.

Collector Nick Fiorello bought the 1-of-1 card on Feb.28, which is second in all time in sports cards to a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card that sold for $5.2 million. It was first sold for $2.8 million in April of 2018. It then became the largest known sale of all time in January of 2021 when Rob Gough purchased it for $5.2 million, according to actionnetwork.com.

When I was a kid, I loved to collect sports cards.

It looks like I should have stayed with that hobby.

Even more bizarre, a 10 second video clip just sold for a whopping 6.6 million dollars

In October 2020, Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 on a 10-second video artwork that he could have watched for free online. Last week, he sold it for $6.6 million.

The video by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was authenticated by blockchain, which serves as a digital signature to certify who owns it and that it is the original work.

Why in the world would anyone spend more than 6 million dollars for a video clip that can be watched online for free?

It doesn’t make any rational sense at all, but this is what can happen in a highly inflationary environment.

All of the money that our authorities have been creating has to go somewhere, and one of the places where it has been going is in to cryptocurrencies.

Coming into this year, the price of Bitcoin was just under $30,000, and now as I write this article it is sitting at $49,160.

If you have done well investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, I would take advantage of these extremely high prices while you still can.

At any time, governments around the world can decide to crack down on them, and New York Attorney General Letitia James gave us another reminder of that fact on Monday

New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a blistering warning to investors and industry members about the dangers of cryptocurrencies on Monday.

“We’re sending a clear message to the entire industry that you either play by the rules or we will shut you down,” she said in a press release.

As conditions in this country continue to deteriorate, eventually there will be a huge shift in demand.

When things get really bad, people are not going to be so interested in collectibles and speculative investments.  Instead, there will be tremendous demand for food, commodities, farmland and other essential assets.

I really wish that our authorities weren’t destroying the value of the U.S. dollar, but this is the path that they have chosen.

So now we all get to suffer the consequences, and they won’t be fun.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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.

Has The Great Shaking Of The Financial Markets Finally Begun?

A whole host of prominent voices have been warning that volatility and chaos would be returning to Wall Street, and that is precisely what has happened.  But is this just a temporary blip, or has the great shaking of the financial markets finally begun?  Many stock market investors are very much hoping for the former, because the pain is already becoming quite severe.  The Nasdaq has fallen more than 5 percent this week, and it is headed for its second consecutive weekly loss.  But the bond market has actually been making even bigger news.  On Thursday, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries actually exceeded 1.6% at one point, and that was the highest level that we have seen in quite a long time.  Some pundits are calling what just took place a “flash crash”, but it certainly appears that yields could move even higher in the days ahead.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, stock prices have just gone higher and higher, but everyone knew that the party would end eventually.

Have we now reached that point?  The numbers tell us that Thursday was the single worst day for stocks so far in 2021

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 559.85 points, or 1.8%, to 31,402.01, slipping from a record high. The S&P 500 lost 2.5% to 3,829.34 in its worst day since Jan. 27. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 3.5% to 13,119.43, posting its biggest sell-off since Oct. 28. Alphabet, Facebook, and Apple all fell more than 3%, while Tesla dropped 8.1%. Microsoft shed 2%.

We are being told that the biggest reason why stocks were falling so much was because of “a full on rout in the bond market”

It’s “just a full on rout in the bond market. So that filters into everything else,” said Evercore ISI strategist Dennis DeBusschere. “It looks like we just had a flash move in bonds. With a puke move that drove [10-year] yields to 1.6%… We just have to wait for some form of equilibrium in bonds.”

Considering how much our money supply has been rising, there was simply no way that bond yields could stay where they were.  It was just a matter of time before inflation fears scared investors, and finally on Thursday the rush for the exits became a stampede

“It is all about bond yields today,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. “There was a flash spike in the 10-year yield and that upset the apple cart, as higher yields are spooking the stock market. Could there be more inflation coming than what most think?”

I can answer Detrick’s question in one word.

Yes.

Eventually, we are going to see inflation rise to levels that most people never dreamed would be possible in the United States.

Meanwhile, the real economy continues to rapidly deteriorate all around us.

One day after Fry’s Electronics announced that it would be going out of business, Best Buy revealed that it will be letting 5,000 workers go

Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 workers this month and is planning to close more stores this year as more consumers buy electronics online.

The news comes at a time when big chains face growing competition from Amazon and other sites that sell items like TVs and laptops. Fry’s Electronics said Wednesday that it would abruptly close all of its stores overnight, ending nearly four-decades in business.

I have always had a soft spot for Best Buy, and so this made me quite sad.

So many iconic businesses are crumbling, and America will never be the same.

Of course one of the primary reasons why so many traditional retailers are failing is because online shopping has surged during this pandemic.  But as online shopping becomes increasingly dominant, it has created an epidemic of package thefts

Forty-three percent of Americans shopping online experienced package theft last year, up from 36 percent in 2019, according to a recent market research study. Of that 43 percent, almost two-thirds reported packages having been stolen more than once. The New York Police Department does not keep data to that level of specificity, I was told, and the most recent figures available for the city estimated that 90,000 packages had disappeared every day in 2019.

90,000 packages a day?

The number really shocked me.

That means that on average at least 90,000 crimes are committed in just one of our major cities every single day.

If things are that bad in New York, what would the number for the entire nation be?

Everywhere you look, the social decay that is eating away at our society like cancer is getting worse and worse.  At one time you could trust that most Americans were law abiding citizens that would consistently try to do the right thing, but those days are long gone.

And as economic conditions get even bleaker, that is just going to feed even more crime, civil unrest and social decay.

In the short-term, a very large proportion of the U.S. population is counting on the federal government to bail them out…

Almost one-third, or 29%, of U.S. adults are counting on another round of government relief to get by, and another 24% say they need it but doubt it will happen, a new CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey conducted by SurveyMonkey found.

People of color are more likely to be relying on the relief, especially Black women. Half of Black Americans and 40% of Hispanics said they were counting on it, while 57% of Black women said the same. Additionally, 24% of Blacks and Hispanics need it but don’t think it will come to fruition.

All the way back when the first round of “stimulus payments” was being proposed, I warned that we were opening up Pandora’s Box.

I warned that the American people would be demanding more payments in the future, and they will reward politicians that are able to deliver those payments at the ballot box.

Of course by borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, we are destroying the reserve currency of the world and we are setting the stage for horrific inflation in the future.

In fact, the inflation that is already here is now causing a tremendous amount of instability in the financial markets.

But the “great shaking” is not here quite yet.  What we are experiencing now are early warning signs, and hopefully people are paying attention.

***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 EndGet 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 BlogEnd 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 FacebookTwitter 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.