Why Is The Mainstream Media Suddenly Freaking Out About The Horrifying Inflation That Is Ahead Of Us?

Have you noticed that the corporate media has suddenly become obsessed with rising prices over the past week or so?  Day after day, mainstream news outlets are barraging us with stories about inflation, and even CNN is occasionally taking a break from bashing Republicans to cover this.  Earlier today, I was directed to a CNN article entitled “Prices are rising everywhere you look”, and I decided to read it.  Surprisingly, this was one CNN article that would actually pass an impartial fact check.  We really are seeing very painful inflation throughout the entire economy, and this is causing many to recall the days of “stagflation” under Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

But the corporate media doesn’t exactly have a long track record of being straight with us.

So why are they seemingly being honest with us in this case?

Is it that this crisis has now become so obvious that nobody can deny it any longer, or is there another agenda at work?

I wish that I had an answer to that question.  If you go to Google News and type “inflation” into the search bar, you will get page after page after page of recent articles about rising prices.  To me, food inflation is one of the greatest concerns because it hits average American families particularly hard.  And at this point, even the price of apples is rising quite dramatically

Costs for apples are up 10% to 20% depending on the variety, said Mike Ferguson, vice president of produce and floral at Topco Associates LLC, an Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based cooperative of more than 40 food companies including grocer Wegmans Food Markets Inc. Bananas and leafy greens are more expensive too, Topco said, while vegetable oils and oil-heavy products like salad dressing and mayonnaise are also getting pricier in part because of higher ingredient prices.

“Our overall goal is to cover cost increases,” said Jon Moeller, operating chief at Procter & Gamble Co. Procter & Gamble is raising prices on baby products, adult diapers and feminine-care brands.

For a while, some food producers tried to swallow the cost increases that they were experiencing, but that could only go on for so long.

Now many of those cost increases are being passed on to consumers, and the CEO of Kellogg is admitting that he hasn’t seen this sort of inflation “in many, many years”

Kellogg Co., maker of Frosted Flakes, Cheez-Its and Pringles, said Thursday that higher costs for ingredients, labor and shipping are pushing it and other food makers to raise prices. “We haven’t seen this type of inflation in many, many years,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Cahillane said.

But at least food prices are not going up as fast as used vehicle prices have been rising.  The following comes from Wolf Richter

This has been going on for months: Used-vehicle prices spiking from jaw-dropper to jaw-dropper, and just when I thought prices couldn’t possibly spike further, they do.

Prices of used vehicles that were sold at auctions around the US in April spiked by 8.3% from March, by 20% year-to-date, by 54% from April 2020, and by 40% 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.

A 54 percent increase in 12 months?

That is insane.

And the Fed still has the gall to insist that inflation has been “low”.

I have written quite a few articles about how home prices have been soaring into the stratosphere, and now rents are escalating rapidly as well.

In fact, one of the largest landlords in America just raised rents on vacant properties by 11 percent

On Thursday, American Homes 4 Rent, which owns 54,000 houses, increased rents 11% on vacant properties in April, the company reported in a statement

All throughout the economy we see prices going up by double digits.

But Fed officials insist that these price increases are just “transitory” and are not any sort of a permanent problem.

We are also being told that all of the shortages that have emerged in the past couple of months are “temporary” too.  Some of these shortages are starting to become quite painful, and that is particularly true for the global shortage of computer chips that we are currently experiencing…

In the market for a new car, smartphone or washing machine this year? A global shortage of computer chips could mean you have to wait a while — and pay more.

A growing number of manufacturers around the world are having trouble securing supplies of semiconductors, delaying the production and delivery of goods and threatening to push up the prices paid by consumers.

Just think of all the products that you own that contain computer chips.

It isn’t a short list.

As a society, we have become extremely dependent on computer chips, and CNN is admitting that this shortage “is likely to last through 2021”

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

This shortage is having a dramatic impact up and down various supply chains, and that is going to be the case for the foreseeable future.

At the Sogefi manufacturing facility in West Virginia, the computer chip shortage is just one of the shortages that is causing massive headaches right now

Whenever the Sogefi plant here runs out of resin or computer chips or cardboard boxes or wooden pallets or really anything at all, it’s Randy Simpkins’s problem. And whenever one of Sogefi’s customers howls about a late shipment, that’s Simpkins’s problem, too.

These days, Simpkins has plenty of problems.

Our economy is not functioning very smoothly at all, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

But on Friday we were supposed to get some good economic news.

The U.S. economy was supposed to have added about a million jobs in April, but instead we learned that it only added 266,000

Employers added a disappointing 266,000 jobs in April even as the number of new COVID-19 cases stayed low, more states lifted constraints and vaccinations accelerated.

The gains fell well short of projections in a recovery that’s expected to gather force through the summer, with a million or more jobs added each month.

This is supposed to be “the recovery”, but the unemployment rate actually went up last month.

Ouch.

Let us hope for a better number next month, because there are millions upon millions of Americans that still need to get back to work.

This little “bubble of hope” is about as good as things are going to get for the U.S. economy, and it is just a matter of time before the economy heads into more dark days.

We have literally mortgaged our future to give our economy a temporary short-term boost, and after trillions of dollars in spending the economic numbers are still incredibly anemic.

Yet again, this is another major wake up call, but most people out there seem quite content to continue snoozing.

***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.

America’s Upside Down Economy Just Took Another Bizarre Turn

Is this a good economy or a bad economy?  Well, that all depends on who you are talking to.  For most Americans, economic conditions have been absolutely horrible ever since the COVID pandemic first arrived.  More than 100,000 businesses have permanently shut down, approximately 10 million Americans are in danger of being evicted from their homes, and weekly unemployment claims have been above the old record set in the early 1980s every single week for nearly an entire year.  Meanwhile, the absolutely insane polices that the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington have been pursuing have made the wealthy far wealthier than ever before.  In early 2020, M1 was sitting at about 4 trillion dollars, and now it is up to 18 trillion dollars.  Much of that money has ended up in the pockets of the ultra-wealthy, and now they are spending it is some pretty odd ways.

For example, NFT art is one of the latest crazes.  You can’t hang NFT art on your wall, but that isn’t stopping people from paying ridiculous amounts of money for it.  In fact, things have gotten so crazy that one film director has decided to sell audio clips of himself farting as NFTs…

A Brooklyn-based film director is simultaneously mocking and attempting to profit off the cryptocurrency craze for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.

“If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” Alex Ramírez-Mallis, 36, told The Post of his dank addition to the blockchain-based NFT market.

You would have to be absolutely nuts to purchase such a thing, but apparently someone has already purchased one clip for 85 dollars

Individual fart recordings are also available for 0.05 Ethereum, or about $85 a pop. The gassy group has so far sold one, to an anonymous buyer.

“If the value increases, they could have an extremely valuable fart on their hands,” he said.

Pizza Hut has decided that they want to get in on the NFT craze as well.

In Canada, the company originally listen an NFT of a pizza slice for 18 cents, but it ended up selling for $8,824

Pizza Hut Canada has announced it is releasing “1 Byte Favourites,” aka digital images of pizza, as non-fungible tokens. “Pizza Hut believes no world should exist without pizza, especially their pan pizza. That’s why they wanted to make sure it was enshrined in the digital universe,” they said in a release. Each week the company will release a new image of a pizza slice, each of a different recipe, for purchase on Rarible. The first-ever “slice” was listed for $0.0001 ETH (a cryptocurrency the equivalent of 18 cents), but wound up being sold for $8,824.

This is madness, and it is also a grave insult to all of those that are deeply suffering out there.

Could it be possible that we are rapidly approaching our own “let them eat cake” moment?

As the ultra-wealthy continue to throw their money around in absurd ways, most people are just struggling to get by from month to month.  On Thursday, we learned that another 770,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that 770,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended March 13, higher than the 700,000 forecast by Refinitiv economists.

Weekly jobless claims have remained stubbornly high for months, hovering around four times the typical pre-crisis level, although it’s well below the peak of almost 7 million that was reached when stay-at-home orders were first issued a year ago in March.

After all this time, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits each week is still about four times higher than pre-pandemic levels.

And we just learned that retail sales fell pretty dramatically during the month of February

Americans shopped less in February, leading retail sales to fall 3% on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

It was a much steeper drop than the 0.5% decline economists had predicted, according to Refinitiv.

Bad weather across many states were part of the reason sales declined last month.

When things go badly, they love to blame the weather.

Of course the new stimulus checks that Americans are now receiving should help to boost retail sales temporarily.

But at this point there are no plans to cut checks every month, and any short-term assistance will only briefly alleviate the long-term suffering that so many Americans are enduring.

We are currently in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and a lot more pain is on the horizon.

Even though I write about this stuff on a daily basis, I was surprised to learn that the results of a recent survey show that finances have now become the number one source of stress for the American people…

WalletHub’s new Coronavirus Money Survey also reveals that the nation’s focus is now shifting from the virus to finances. The survey of over 750 Americans in March 2021 finds money is now the biggest stressor around the country.

Three in 10 respondents say money is their greatest concern this year, a 15-percent increase over last year. COVID-19 is still the top stressor for 28 percent of Americans. As coronavirus safety measures fade however, researchers find people are getting back to worrying about how to make ends meet.

If you don’t know how you are going to pay the bills this month, that can be a source of stress that never leaves you day or night.

Those that have gone through this sort of emotional torment know exactly what I am talking about.

So when the ultra-wealthy throw their money away on “farting art” or “Pizza Hut art”, that is like rubbing dirt in the faces of tens of millions of Americans that are desperately trying to figure out some way to survive from month to month.

The ultra-wealthy can continue to flaunt their wealth, but already we are seeing the rise of the “Robinhood mentality” that so many have warned about.

When things get bad enough, the poor will start venturing into rich neighborhoods, and they won’t be there for a social visit.

We still have relative stability for this brief moment, but it won’t last very long at all.

***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.

America’s Slide Into Economic Oblivion Is Already Starting To Accelerate Here In 2021

Isn’t it fun to live in a rotting, decaying society that is coming apart at the seams all around us?  The latest economic numbers are extremely depressing, but now that free speech is being abolished and the elite are consolidating control over every aspect of our society, we are being assured that better days are right around the corner.  We have just got to be willing to accept the “new normal” which includes living in “tiny homes”, snacking on worms, and never expressing any independent thoughts which diverge from official mainstream narratives.  So with that in mind, I will try to share the horrible economic news that we have been getting in the most positive light possible.

This week, we learned that another 965,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week…

The number of people seeking unemployment aid soared last week to 965,000, the most since late August and evidence that the resurgent virus has caused a spike in layoffs.

The latest figures for jobless claims, issued Thursday by the Labor Department, remain at levels never seen until the virus struck. Before the pandemic, weekly applications typically numbered around 225,000. Last spring, after nationwide shutdowns took effect, applications for jobless benefits spiked to nearly 7 million – 10 times the previous record high. After declining over the summer, weekly claims have been stuck above 700,000 since September.

But we are being told that this is only because of the failed policies of the outgoing administration and that things will definitely be much better under the next socialist administration.

2020 was particularly a tough year for low paid workers.  At this point, even officials at the Federal Reserve are admitting that the unemployment rate for low paid workers “is above 20%”

Unemployment for the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. is above 20%, a figure that Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said underscores the importance of policy help for the economy.

The figure indicates how uneven the recovery has seen since efforts to control the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the biggest quarterly GDP drop since the Great Depression.

How can we put a positive spin on this?

Well, at least more of them have had an opportunity to stay home and not catch COVID.

So I guess you could say that this unemployment crisis has actually had a positive impact for public health.

And more Americans are getting the opportunity to “stay home” with each passing day.  Here is just one example

Dropbox is cutting its global workforce by about 11%, the company said in an 8K filing released Wednesday. The company’s stock was down more than 4.5% in late-morning trading.

The move will affect 315 people, who will be notified by the end of the business day.

Of course as fear of COVID continues to rise, American consumers are doing less shopping at Walmart and other corporate behemoths, and U.S. retail sales just fell for a third month in a row.

But that problem will soon be fixed, because more universal basic income checks are on the way.

All of the previous socialist “stimulus packages” weren’t enough, and so Joe Biden has unveiled “a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy”

Friday offered the first chance for traders to act after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled details of a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy. He called for $1,400 cash payments for most Americans, the extension of temporary benefits for laid-off workers and a push to get COVID-19 vaccines to more Americans. It certainly fit with investors’ expectation for a big and bold plan, but markets had already rallied powerfully in anticipation of it.

Doesn’t that sound great?

And Biden is also calling for “a national minimum wage of $15 an hour”.

Don’t worry, that won’t hurt the restaurant industry at all.

I don’t know why that statement is true, but that is what the “fact checkers” want us to say.

And since Republicans and Democrats both abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility long ago, nobody is really pointing out that we are already 27.6 trillion dollars in debt and that we simply can’t afford any more “stimulus packages”.

In fact, thanks to all of the reckless spending that we have already done, the budget deficit for the month of December 2020 was more than 10 times larger than the budget deficit for the month of December 2019…

The U.S. government posted a December budget deficit of $144 billion – a record for the month – due to far higher outlays with coronavirus relief spending and unemployment benefits, while revenues ticked slightly higher, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

The Treasury said the December deficit compares with a $13 billion deficit in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic started in the United States.

Overall, the U.S. national debt increased by more than 7 trillion dollars under the outgoing administration, and even CNN is admitting that “it will go much higher under Biden”.

But the adherents of Modern Monetary Theory assure us that “deficits don’t matter” and that we can borrow and spend as much money as we want.

Since that is true, why don’t we make the stimulus payments much larger?

If we are liquidating the Republic anyway, why not send a billion dollars to everyone?

Seriously though, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are deeply hurting as the U.S. economy melts down all around us.

I hope that you enjoyed my attempt at injecting some humor into our situation, but what many Americans are facing right now is not humorous at all.

At this point, most Americans are barely scraping by from month to month, and some are literally facing life or death financial decisions

A mother’s tearful confession that she can’t afford her son’s insulin despite working full-time has left commenters deriding the American healthcare system.

Katie Schieffer’s ten-year-old son was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and requires insulin every two hours — but the North Carolina mother was left in tears when she couldn’t afford his $1,000 prescription.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes?

Our entire system is failing, and things are only going to get worse in the months and years ahead.

For decades, America has been running in the wrong direction and our leaders have been making incredibly foolish decisions.

Now there is deep pain everywhere around us, and the level of suffering is only going to increase as the U.S. slides even faster toward economic oblivion.

***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.

Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop…

Do you feel like another major crisis could erupt at any moment?  If so, you are certainly not alone.  Here in 2020, it has just been one thing after another, and we have come to expect the unexpected.  Right now, so many people that I am hearing from are anticipating that more big trouble is just around the corner, but as we wait for “the other shoe to drop”, economic conditions all over the United States continue to rapidly deteriorate.  For example, on Thursday we learned that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits last week was the highest in four months

The US job market continues to suffer, and Thursday brought more bad news. Another 885,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week — an increase from the week prior and higher than the 800,000 claims that economists were expecting.

The latest figures, which are adjusted for seasonal factors and reported by the Labor Department, are particularly grim since last week’s numbers were revised up to 862,000. And even before the revision, that week had been the highest level since mid-September.

This isn’t how the numbers were supposed to be trending.

For four of the past five weeks we have seen the number of new unemployment claims go up, and experts are warning that we should expect things to get even worse as we head into winter

‘US weekly jobless claims continue to head in the wrong direction,” Edward Moya, an analyst at the currency trading firm OANDA, wrote in a research note.

‘The labor market outlook is bleak as the winter wave of the virus is going to lead to more shutdowns.”

Could we soon see more than a million Americans filing new claims for unemployment each week like we did earlier in the pandemic?

To put this in perspective, the previous all-time record prior to 2020 was just 695,000, and that old record was set all the way back in 1982.

We absolutely shattered that record once COVID-19 started spreading widely in the United States, and we have been above that old record every single week throughout this entire pandemic.

Just think about that.

We are seeing numbers that we have never seen before in all of U.S. history every single week, and now they are starting to climb higher once again thanks to the new lockdowns.

In addition, the number of Americans that are collecting unemployment aid from two major federal programs is also on the rise again

The number of jobless people who are collecting aid from one of the two federal extended-benefit programs – the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which offers coverage to gig workers and others who don´t qualify for traditional benefits – surged to 9.2 million from 8.6 million for the week that ended Nov. 28.

But the number of people receiving aid under the second program – the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides 13 weeks of federal benefits to people who have exhausted their state aid – also rose from 4.5 million to 4.8 million.

By now, the “recovery” was supposed to be in full gear, but instead major companies keep laying off more workers at an astounding pace.

For example, on Thursday we learned that Coca-Cola will be eliminating 12 percent of their entire U.S. workforce…

Coca-Cola is planning to cut 2,200 jobs, including 1,200 in the United States, as it faces declining sales during the pandemic.

In the United States, where there were about 10,400 employees at the end of last year, the cuts represent roughly 12% of the workforce. In Atlanta, where the company is headquartered, about 500 jobs are being eliminated, the company said Thursday.

Coca-Cola wouldn’t be doing this if the U.S. economy was about “to turn a corner”.

All of these big corporations that are letting workers go can see what is about to happen, and they are slimming their payrolls in an attempt to make it through the coming storm.

Meanwhile, Congress is getting close to approving yet another “stimulus package”, and the Federal Reserve is promising to do whatever it takes to support the financial markets.

Trillions upon trillions of dollars are being slammed into the system, and as a result M2 is up more than 60 percent so far this year.

In other words, our money supply has been increasing at an almost vertical rate in 2020.

Back in November I included a chart in an article that I wrote which shows exactly what I am talking about.  If you are not one of my regular readers, you can find that article right here.

For many years, many of us have been warning that hyperinflation would arrive someday.

But now we can stop warning, because the process has actually started.

Other industrialized nations have also been flooding their systems with new money, and this is really starting to drive up food prices all over the globe.  The following comes from Zero Hedge

The reason this has suddenly become a hot topic is because while overall inflation remains subdued (we will spare a discussion here of why the CPI is purposefully distorted to stay as low as possible – readers can catch up herehere and here), food inflation has been on a tear in recent months. In fact, it has gotten so high that earlier this week Goldman published a report looking at “The Recent Spike In Food Inflation”, in which it noted that “in recent months, inflation has risen and surprised to the upside across a number of major EM economies (e.g. Turkey, South Africa, India, Brazil andRussia).” According to Goldman, one of the main drivers of these increases has been higher food inflation, which has coincided with a sharp increase in the price of some key agricultural commodities (e.g. grains, oils and soybeans).”

Sadly, this is just the beginning.  Eventually, the food riots which have already started on the other side of the planet will start happening in the western world too.

And as hungry people become increasingly desperate, I believe that eventually companies will start putting armed guards on food trucks.

We aren’t quite there yet, thankfully, but things are really starting to get crazy out there.

A few days ago I went to the supermarket again, and I really tried to economize and get things that were on sale, but I still spent more than 260 dollars on one cart of food.

Just one cart!

As the cost of living continues to soar into the stratosphere, many American families are going to discover that they are no longer able to afford enough food for the week.

And once millions upon millions of Americans get desperately hungry, that is when we will see absolutely insane economic riots in this country.

All of these things are coming, and we definitely will not have to wait very long at all for “the other shoe to drop”.

***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.

Even stricter COVID lockdowns are coming, and they are going to be extremely devastating for the U.S. economy

Are you ready for another nightmare?  Earlier this year, the COVID lockdowns that were instituted all over the nation resulted in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s and forced more than 60 million Americans to file claims for unemployment benefits.  After seeing how well that first round of lockdowns worked, one of the “scientists” that will be telling Joe Biden what to do about this pandemic wants to do it again.  Yes, you read that correctly.  During an interview with Yahoo Finance, Dr. Michael Osterholm said that what we really need to do to get this pandemic under control is to lock the entire country down for four to six weeks

Shutting down businesses and paying people for lost wages for four to six weeks could help keep the coronavirus pandemic in check and get the economy on track until a vaccine is approved and distributed, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to President-elect Joe Biden.

And Osterholm isn’t talking about doing “soft lockdowns” like we saw in many states earlier this year.

In an article that he co-authored in the New York Times, he argued that lockdowns need to be “as comprehensive and strict as possible”

“The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country. For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential,” they wrote in the New York Times. “To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.”

Basically, Osterholm wants Australia-style lockdowns all over the United States for at least a month and probably longer.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

On Election Day, the American people had a choice between a pro-lockdown presidential candidate and an anti-lockdown presidential candidate, and approximately 80 million of us voted for the pro-lockdown guy.

So it looks like that is precisely what we are going to get.

During the campaign, Joe Biden pledged to “follow the science”, and Osterholm is going to be one of the “scientists” that will be on his COVID-19 advisory board

Osterholm was appointed to Biden’s 12-member Covid “advisory board” on Monday. The panel of advisors is co-chaired by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith of Yale University. Other task force members include Dr. Atul Gawande, a professor of surgery and health policy at Harvard, and Dr. Rick Bright, the vaccine expert and whistleblower who resigned his post with the Trump administration last month.

The good news is that these psychos will not be running things until early January at the earliest.

The bad news is that governors around the country are already instituting a new round of lockdowns.  For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced new restrictions for New York on Wednesday

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced new lockdown and social distancing restrictions for New York on Wednesday as coronavirus numbers in the state continue to trend upward.

Under the new statewide restrictions, all bars and restaurants with state liquor licenses as well as gyms must close at 10p.m., starting on Friday. Cuomo called such locations “main spreaders” of the coronavirus. Indoor gatherings at private residences across the state must also be capped at ten people.

And Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is saying that his state may soon impose new restrictions on “bars, restaurants and fitness centers”

As coronavirus cases continue to skyrocket in Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine threatened to order bars, restaurants and fitness centers closed in one week if newly confirmed cases continue to increase.

Of course this is just the beginning.

If the number of daily cases continues to soar, we could start seeing draconian lockdowns all over America even before we get to Inauguration Day.

In other words, get ready to spend a lot of time at home this holiday season, because you might not have any other choice.

To me, it is unthinkable that anyone would even want to consider locking down the country again.  The first wave of lockdowns absolutely crippled our economy and caused a record-setting tsunami of job losses that we still have not recovered from.  In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com says that if honest numbers were being used the current rate of unemployment in the United States would be 26.3 percent.

Apparently that is not enough.

So what are we going to shoot for this time?

30 percent?

40 percent?

And what happens if we lock down the entire country for six weeks and then another massive wave of the pandemic comes along just six months later?

Are we going to keep locking down the U.S. over and over again?

At this moment, our economy is on exceedingly shaky ground and more layoffs are being announced on a daily basis.

For instance, Exxon has announced that they will be laying off 14,000 workers and Disney has announced that they will be laying off “thousands” more workers in addition to the huge wave of layoffs that they announced earlier this year.

Overall, more than 60 million Americans have already been forced to file for unemployment during this pandemic, and every single one of those individuals has a story to tell.

One of those displaced workers is a woman named Michelle Kulaski, and prior to the pandemic she was already living paycheck to paycheck.  Now that she has lost her job, she finds herself on the verge of having to “live in her car with her two cats”

Desperate for cash, Kulaski sold much of her furniture, including the bed her children sleep in when they visit and her grandparents’ desk. In all, she made around $300.

Still, Kulaski has fallen behind on her $755 rent and her landlord has moved to evict her.

If she has to leave her apartment, she said she’d probably live in her car with her two cats.

Now sickos like Osterholm want to destroy even more lives, and if Joe Biden ends up in the White House they will almost certainly get their way.

We are already in the midst of a horrifying economic depression, and a new wave of lockdowns would make things far worse.

These are such troubled times, and many believe that the difficulties that we have experienced in 2020 are just a warm up act for what is coming in 2021.

***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 Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

If You Feel Like Something Really, Really Bad Is About To Happen, You Are Definitely Not Alone

If this is “the recovery”, what are things going to look like once economic conditions start to deteriorate again?  As you will see below, more than half of all households in some of our largest cities “are facing serious financial problems”, and Americans continue to file for unemployment benefits at a rate that the United States had never seen before prior to 2020.  When 695,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits during a single week in 1982, it established a record which stood for nearly 38 years.  But now we have been way above that old record for 25 weeks in a row.  On Thursday, we learned that another 884,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

Weekly jobless claims were worse than expected last week amid a plodding climb for the U.S. labor market from the damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Labor Department on Thursday reported 884,000 first-time filings for unemployment insurance, compared with 850,000 expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The total was unchanged from the previous week.

Of course it is always important to look at the non-adjusted numbers, and according to those numbers we actually saw an increase over the previous week

The Labor Department changed its methodology in how it seasonally adjusts the numbers, so the past two weeks’ totals are not directly comparable to the reports from earlier in the pandemic. Claims not adjusted for seasonal factors totaled 857,148, an increase of 20,140 from the previous week.

This is the second week in a row that the non-seasonally adjusted initial claims have risen.

That definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.

We are supposedly in a “recovery” right now, and things are supposed to be getting better.

But instead they appear to be getting worse.  According to Wolf Richter, continuing claims under all state and federal programs were way up last week…

Total continued claims for unemployment insurance (UI) under all state and federal programs rose by 380,000, to 29.6 million people (not seasonally adjusted), the highest since August 1, according to the Department of Labor this morning. This was the second weekly increase in a row, after the 2.2-million jump last week.

At any other time in American history, the numbers that were just reported would be considered “catastrophic”, but we have been getting these sorts of catastrophic numbers for so long that we have become desensitized to them.

But at least the unemployment numbers are not as bad as they were earlier this year, and other economic figures seem to have hit a bit of a plateau as well.

So for the moment there is relative calm, but it won’t last for very long.

If you feel like something really, really bad is about to happen, you are definitely not alone.  There are countless others that are also waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, and I believe that it could literally happen at any time.

But for now we wait.

I would encourage you to enjoy these remaining days of summer while you still can.  This weekend, put some burgers on the grill and enjoy some time with your family.  Unfortunately, there are many Americans that are under such financial stress that it is hard to enjoy much of anything right now.  In fact, one recent survey found that 50 percent or more of the households in some of our largest cities are currently facing “serious financial problems”

There’s no question the coronavirus pandemic has forced many Americans into financial hardship, but a new NPR/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey provided a clearer picture of the extent of the struggles in the United States’ four largest cities.

At least half of all households in those cities — 53 percent in New York City, 56 percent in Los Angeles, 50 percent in Chicago, and 63 percent in Houston — reported facing serious financial problems, including depleted savings, problems paying credit card bills, and affording medical bills.

How can that be possible if we are in the midst of a tremendous “recovery”?

Of course the truth is that we aren’t in any sort of a recovery, but at least things are a whole lot better than they will be after the upcoming election.

I had such an ominous feeling coming into 2020, and I shared this repeatedly with my readers, and now I have such an ominous feeling about the rest of 2020 and beyond.

In particular, I am extremely concerned about what will happen in November.  No matter who is ultimately declared the winner, the other side is going to be convinced that the election was stolen from them and that is likely to throw our nation into a state of chaos.

And we are already being told that we probably will not know the winner until long after election day.  That period of uncertainty is almost certainly going to spark more civil unrest, and I believe that faith in the integrity of our elections will be greatly shaken.

Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention that I found to be extremely interesting.  This year the Federal Reserve has been buying up mortgage bonds worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and according to Mish Shedlock the Fed now owns nearly a third of that entire market…

  • The Fed has snapped up $1 trillion of mortgage bonds since March. It bought around $300 billion of the bonds in each of March and April, and since then has been buying about $100 billion a month.
  • The Fed now owns almost a third of bonds backed by home loans in the U.S.
  • Buying the securities has pushed mortgage rates lower, with the average 30-year rate falling to 2.91% as of last week from 3.3% in early February.
  • Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out in late March that the buying was running at eight times the pace seen in prior episodes of Fed purchasing under programs known as quantitative easing.

No matter who wins the election, the direction of the Fed is not going to change.  They are going to continue to engage in exceedingly reckless manipulation of the markets, and that is going to have very serious long-term implications.

All around us, we can see our society being thrown into convulsions as all of our systems begin to fail.

I know that so many of you out there are feeling the exact same way that I am.

A sense of anticipation hangs in the air, and millions of people are waiting for the next big crisis to erupt.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Things Have Gotten So Bad That A Million New Claims For Unemployment Benefits In One Week Is Considered “Good News”

The Labor Department announced on Thursday that another 1.006 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000, and so the number of Americans that are losing their jobs each week continues to remain at a catastrophic level.  But this latest figure is actually being spun as “good news” because at least it was lower than the week before.  And I am willing to concede that point, because we should definitely welcome any sign that the numbers are starting to move in the right direction.  However, there is no doubt that what we have experienced up to this point in 2020 is nothing short of an economic cataclysm.  Over the last 23 weeks, more than 58 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits.  Even if zero workers filed for unemployment for the rest of 2020, this would still be the worst year for unemployment claims in all of U.S. history by a gigantic margin.  Vast hordes of workers have been losing their jobs week after week as the U.S. economy melts down right in front of our eyes.  This has truly been an economic horror show, and the most nightmarish chapters are still ahead of us.

When economic numbers start getting really bad, the government often decides to “modify” how they are calculated, and on Thursday the Labor Department announced that it will be “changing how it adjusts weekly jobless-claims figures for seasonal swings”.

Presumably, that should help the numbers look a bit better starting next week.

But no matter how much they massage the numbers, they can’t erase the fact that tens of millions of people are deeply hurting right now.  According to one new survey, 61 percent of Americans need “another relief bill”, and about two-thirds of Americans from the age of 24 to the age of 54 say that they are currently in financial distress

The latest survey by MagnifyMoney reveals 61 percent of the country needs another relief bill to pay for expenses. Over 80 percent of workers who have been laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19 are counting on more assistance. The poll of 1,010 Americans adds 71 percent of Generation X (ages 40 to 54) and 65 percent of millennials (ages 24 to 39) say they are currently in financial distress.

If you are not in financial distress at this moment, you should be very thankful for your blessings, because you are definitely in the minority.

And more layoff announcements just keep on coming with each passing day.  On Thursday, we learned that Lord & Taylor will be laying off all their workers and closing every single store

Lord & Taylor, the first department store established in the United States, is officially going out of business, ending a nearly 200-year run.

The bankrupt company announced Thursday that all of its 38 remaining stores and website have begun liquidation sales — a reversal from last week’s decision to keep 14 locations open.

When I was a kid, I was always so intimidated by Lord & Taylor when my mother would take me to the mall.

I always thought that was where the rich people shopped.

I never imagined that someday I would see it go out of business forever.

Of course countless other retailers are going belly up as the worst “retail apocalypse” in U.S. history rolls on.  According to Coresight Research, approximately 25 percent of all malls in the United States “will close over the next three to five years”

Another new report out this week from Coresight Research estimates 25% of America’s roughly 1,000 malls will close over the next three to five years, with the pandemic accelerating a demise that was already underway before the new virus emerged.

Can you imagine what our country is going to look like if that actually happens?

Already, communities all over America are being blighted by one boarded up property after another, and this is especially true in many impoverished areas.

Of course our economic problems have been accelerated by a series of very unusual events that have been beyond our control.  It has been one thing after another here in 2020, and the latest major disaster to hit us was Hurricane Laura.  We were extremely fortunate that neither New Orleans or Houston took a direct hit from this storm, because it was enormously destructive.  Just consider what one survivor told the press about the devastation in his community…

“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles, Louisiana. He described Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2 a.m.

Let us hope that we will have at least a little bit of time before the next major crisis comes along.  Many had been hoping that August would be a quiet month, but that didn’t turn out to be the case, and now September is just a few days away.

And as we approach the fall season, it is being reported that wealthy investors have been “hoarding cash”

A group of multimillionaire investors in the U.S. are hoarding cash at unprecedented levels.

Tiger 21, a club of more than 800 investors, reported Thursday that its members have raised their cash holdings to 19% of their total assets on concerns over the economic consequences of the covid pandemic in the U.S. That’s up from about 12% since the start of the outbreak. About a quarter now expect the crisis to continue until the end of next June, the group said.

Is this a sign that many of them believe that trouble is ahead for the financial markets?

Of course it isn’t just the wealthy that are deeply concerned about the months ahead.  Our nation has been gripped by endless turmoil for most of this year, and now a very hotly contested presidential election is just over two months away.  Meanwhile, economic conditions will continue to deteriorate, and that means that tens of millions of Americans will become even more angry and even more frustrated.  If you believe that the U.S. is just going to snap out of all of this somehow and everything will turn out just fine in the end, then you simply do not understand the times in which we are living.

For so long we were warned that a “perfect storm” was coming, and now it is here.

And if you think that 2020 has been bad, just wait until you see what else is ahead.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.