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What Will You Do When Inflation Forces U.S. Households To Spend 40 Percent Of Their Incomes On Food?

May 10, 2021

What Will You Do When Inflation Forces U.S. Households To Spend 40 Percent Of Their Incomes On Food?

Did you know that the price of corn has risen 142 percent in the last 12 months? Of course corn is used in hundreds of different products we buy at the grocery store, and so everyone is going to feel the pain of this price increase. But it isn’t just the price of corn that is going crazy. We are seeing food prices shoot up dramatically all across the industry, and experts are warning that this is just the very beginning. So if you think that food prices are bad now, just wait, because they are going to get a whole lot worse.

Typically, Americans spend approximately 10 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food. The following comes directly from the USDA website…

In 2019, Americans spent an average of 9.5 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food—divided between food at home (4.9 percent) and food away from home (4.6 percent). Between 1960 and 1998, the average share of disposable personal income spent on total food by Americans, on average, fell from 17.0 to 10.1 percent, driven by a declining share of income spent on food at home.

Needless to say, the poorest Americans spend more of their incomes on food than the richest Americans.

According to the USDA, the poorest households spent an average of 36 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food in 2019…

As their incomes rise, households spend more money on food, but it represents a smaller overall budget share. In 2019, households in the lowest income quintile spent an average of $4,400 on food (representing 36.0 percent of income), while households in the highest income quintile spent an average of $13,987 on food (representing 8.0 percent of income).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Americans Have Already Skipped Payments On More Than 100 Million Loans, And Job Losses Continue To Escalate

June 19, 2020

Americans Have Already Skipped Payments On More Than 100 Million Loans, And Job Losses Continue To Escalate

Those that have been hoping for some sort of a “V-shaped recovery” have had their hopes completely dashed. U.S. workers continue to lose jobs at a staggering rate, and economic activity continues to remain at deeply suppressed levels all over the nation. Of course this wasn’t supposed to happen now that states have been “reopening” their economies. We were told that things would soon be getting back to normal and that the economic numbers would rebound dramatically. But that is not happening. In fact, the number of Americans that filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week was much higher than expected…

Weekly jobless claims stayed above 1 million for the 13th consecutive week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to hammer the U.S. economy.
First-time claims totaled 1.5 million last week, higher than the 1.3 million that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting. The government report’s total was 58,000 lower than the previous week’s 1.566 million, which was revised up by 24,000.

To put this in perspective, let me once again remind my readers that prior to this year the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000. So even though more than 44 million Americans had already filed initial claims for unemployment benefits before this latest report, there were still enough new people losing jobs to more than double that old record from 1982.

That is just astounding. We were told that the economy would be regaining huge amounts of jobs by now, but instead job losses remain at a catastrophic level that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No, The U.S. Economy Will Definitely Not Be Returning To “Normal”. In Fact, Things Will Soon Get Even Worse.

June 11, 2020

No, The U.S. Economy Will Definitely Not Be Returning To “Normal”. In Fact, Things Will Soon Get Even Worse.

2020 has been quite a year so far. It has been one nightmare after another, and yet the economic optimists continue to insist that economic activity will soon snap back to normal levels somehow. So the economic optimists aren’t really alarmed by the fact that the core areas of our major cities have been torched, gutted and looted by rioters, because they assume that all of this violence is just a temporary phenomenon and that any damage that has been done can be repaired. And they aren’t really alarmed by the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to escalate again. In fact, over the last seven days we have seen the number of newly confirmed cases around the globe hit levels that we have never seen before. They just assume that “the worst is behind us” and that the vast majority of the businesses and jobs that have been lost during this pandemic will be quickly recovered.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were actually correct?

Sadly, the truth is that economic conditions will not be returning to normal. Yes, some of the jobs that were lost will be recovered as states start to “reopen” their economies. But more than 100,000 businesses have already permanently closed during this new economic downturn, and all of those jobs are lost forever.

And yes, the level of economic activity will rise as states end their lockdowns, but it will still be much lower than it was before COVID-19 started spreading like wildfire in the United States.

At this point, even the perpetually optimistic OECD is admitting that global economic activity as a whole will be way down in 2020…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Most U.S. States Have ‘Reopened’ Their Economies, So Why Does Unemployment Continue To Spiral Out Of Control?

June 7, 2020

Most U.S. States Have ‘Reopened’ Their Economies, So Why Does Unemployment Continue To Spiral Out Of Control?

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Once states started to “reopen” their economies, the tsunami of unemployment was supposed to end. But instead, we continue to see Americans lose jobs at a pace that is far beyond anything we have ever seen before in all of U.S. history. All the way back in 1982, there was a week when 695,000 Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits, and that all-time record was never broken until this year. Of course we have seen monster number after monster number here in 2020, and we just learned that last week another 1.877 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits…

Filings for unemployment insurance claims totaled 1.877 million last week in a sign that the worst is over for the coronavirus-related jobs crisis but that the level of unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 1.775 million new claims. The Labor Department’s total nevertheless represented a decline from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 2.126 million.

So even though more than 40 million Americans had already lost their jobs in 2020, there were still enough people losing their jobs last week to surpass the old record from 1982 by more than a million.

Just think about that.

Overall, a grand total of 42.6 million Americans have now lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and that makes this the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history by a very wide margin.

And when the monthly employment report comes out on Friday, the official U.S. unemployment rate is expected to surpass 20 percent…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Top U.S. Officials Gather To Discuss “Military Options” In Venezuela As Russia Warns Of “Grave Consequences” If America Invades

May 3, 2019

Top U.S. Officials Gather To Discuss “Military Options” In Venezuela As Russia Warns Of “Grave Consequences” If America Invades

On Wednesday afternoon, senior U.S. officials gathered at the White House to discuss possible military options for Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Russians are warning of grave consequences if the U.S. invades, and so the stage is being set for a potential showdown between the world’s two foremost military powers. Previously, administration officials had hoped that the Venezuelan people would rally around Juan Guaido to such a degree that it would not require military intervention to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but that hasn’t happened. In fact, Guaido’s big push to start a revolution in the streets over the past few days has ended up being a total flop. The following comes from Yahoo News…

Guaido had called for the “largest march” in Venezuela’s history and said on Twitter that “millions of Venezuelans” were in the streets in “this final phase” of his move to oust Maduro.
But by late afternoon, many of the protesters in the capital Caracas were drifting home.
Despite Guaido’s calls for the military to support him, the armed forces leadership has so far remained loyal to Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.

In the long-term, the situation in Venezuela isn’t going to change much if the U.S. is able to replace one socialist president (Maduro) with another socialist president (Guaido). Socialism always ends badly, and the people of Venezuela are going to have to decide for themselves that they don’t want socialism any longer.

But that isn’t what this is about. U.S. officials have decided that it is time to impose their will on the people of Venezuela, and they have determined that Maduro must go. If Guaido cannot create a successful internal revolution, then other options will be explored.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2 Aircraft Carriers Have Left Port – Are The USS Eisenhower And The USS Roosevelt Headed South Toward Venezuela?

May 1, 2019

2 Aircraft Carriers Have Left Port – Are The USS Eisenhower And The USS Roosevelt Headed South Toward Venezuela?

Juan Guaido has initiated a violent uprising in an attempt to overthrow Nicolas Maduro, and it appears that the U.S. may be preparing to intervene in the conflict militarily. The USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker accurately tracks the current positions of U.S. naval assets, and according to them the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has left port on the east coast and the USS Theodore Roosevelt has left port on the west coast. In both cases, each aircraft carrier was originally slated for “training” exercises, but now there is lots of speculation that they are both steaming south toward Venezuela. Since there has been no official confirmation from Washington, let me stress that once again that any talk about the potential destination of these carriers is just speculation. But considering what is taking place in Venezuela at this moment, it certainly would not surprise anyone if the waters off Venezuela is precisely where they are heading.

Earlier today, the Intel_Radar Twitter account created quite a stir with a series of seven tweets…

BREAKING: US Navy deploys two aircraft carriers, both southbound, one from each coast, amid Venezuela crisis. #Venezuela #Maduro #Guaido
Update 1 : Eisenhower left Virginia headed South, on the same day Roosevelt deployed out of San Diego headed for the Panama Canal. #Venezuela #Freedom #Guaido #Maduro #Cuba#USNavy
Update 2 : US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (MMSI:368962000|CS:NIKE) departed Norfolk ~2019-04-26, was off AIS for 4 days, and seems to be headed South, off the US East Coast. #Venezuela #Maduro #Guaido#Freedom #US_Navy
Update 3 : American Roll-on Roll-off Carrier (ARC) RoRo Integrity (IMO:8919934|MMSI:367063310) departed Mexico with a fake destination, “hiding their destination”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ANOTHER “Bomb Cyclone” Will Bring More Flooding To Parts Of The Midwest That Were Hit By A “1,000 Year Flood” Last Month

April 10, 2019

ANOTHER “Bomb Cyclone” Will Bring More Flooding To Parts Of The Midwest That Were Hit By A “1,000 Year Flood” Last Month

Less than a month after a “bomb cyclone” caused a “1,000 year flood” in the middle portion of the country, another “bomb cyclone” of similar strength is going to bring even more flooding to the High Plains and Upper Midwest. According to meteorologists, it is being projected that this new “bomb cyclone” will be “similar in intensity and in snowfall” to the last one, and the latest forecast is calling for “more than 30 inches in some areas”. The floods that we witnessed last month absolutely devastated communities throughout the region, and now it is going to happen again. The middle part of our nation has literally never seen anything like this happen ever before, and this is easily the worst natural disaster to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina.

Before I get into the details of the latest weather forecast, let’s review what we have witnessed so far. “At least 1 million acres of U.S. farmland” were under water for at least 7 days last month, according to Agriculture Secretary Sunny Purdue “as many as a million calves” were lost in the flooding in the state of Nebraska alone, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops were destroyed. Thousands upon thousands of farmers were financially ruined, and thousands of farmers will not be able to plant any crops at all this year.

If you can point out a worse agricultural disaster in the last 50 years in the United States, please feel free to do so. To my knowledge, there isn’t one.

And now a second “bomb cyclone” is on the way this week. According to CBS News, it looks like this “bomb cyclone” will produce “a blizzard of epic proportions”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

100s Of Millions Of Dollars In Crops Destroyed By Flooding, And Farmers Are Being Told “There’s Nothing The U.S. Government Can Do To Help”

April 9, 2019

100s Of Millions Of Dollars In Crops Destroyed By Flooding, And Farmers Are Being Told “There’s Nothing The U.S. Government Can Do To Help”

This is the worst economic disaster for U.S. farmers in modern American history. Our ongoing trade war with China had greatly depressed prices for wheat, corn and soybeans, and so farmers were storing more crops on their farms than ever before in early 2019. And then the floods came. The water moved so fast that the vast majority of the farmers in the affected areas could not have moved what they had stored even if they wanted to, and the scale of the losses that these farmers have suffered is starting to become clearer. According to UPI, “hundreds of millions of dollars in crops” that were destroyed by the flooding were not covered by insurance…

Hundreds of millions of dollars in crops destroyed in Midwestern floods this month were not insured, farmers say. And the losses could leave many without sufficient income to continue farming.
“This uninsured grain issue is really starting to affect people,” said Jeff Jorgenson, a western Iowa corn and soy grower whose farm flooded when the Missouri River spilled over its banks March 12.

Without an extraordinary amount of assistance, there are thousands of farmers that will never be able to come back from this.

One fifth-generation farmer that was interviewed by Fox News said that about 7 million dollars worth of grain was destroyed in his county alone…

Dustin Sheldon, a fifth-generation grain and soybean farmer, watched in horror as the floods that devastated the Midwest began to recede and he could assess the damage to his crops.

He said the record-breaking floods caused about $1 million in losses for his family farm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Planetary Collapse Threatens Our Survival: A New Study Says That More Than 1,200 Species “Will Almost Certainly Face Extinction”

March 14, 2019

Planetary Collapse Threatens Our Survival: A New Study Says That More Than 1,200 Species “Will Almost Certainly Face Extinction”

We are witnessing a worldwide environmental collapse, and nobody seems to know how to stop it. As you will see below, a study that was just released that looked at more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals and amphibians discovered that nearly a quarter of them “will almost certainly face extinction”. Never before has our society faced such a massive collapse of life on a planetary scale, and yet the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem concerned about what is happening. Species after species is being permanently wiped out, and most of us couldn’t care less.

The time for action is now. According to this new study, over 1,200 species will soon be extinct unless dramatic action is taken. The following comes from the Guardian…

More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.
Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.

Once these species are gone, they will be gone forever.

And remember, this study from Australia only included larger creatures such as birds, mammals and amphibians. The situation is far more dire when we look at what is happening to the insect world. The following is an excerpt from my previous article entitled “Insect Apocalypse: The Global Food Chain Is Experiencing A Major Extinction Event And Scientists Don’t Know Why”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Insect Apocalypse: The Global Food Chain Is Experiencing A Major Extinction Event And Scientists Don’t Know Why

February 13, 2019

Insect Apocalypse: The Global Food Chain Is Experiencing A Major Extinction Event And Scientists Don’t Know Why

Scientists are telling us that we have entered “the sixth major extinction” in the history of our planet. A brand new survey of 73 scientific reports that was just released has come to the conclusion that the total number of insects on the globe is falling by 2.5 percent per year. If we stay on this current pace, the survey warns that there might not be “any insects at all” by the year 2119. And since insects are absolutely critical to the worldwide food chain, that has extremely ominous implications for all of us.

I write a lot about the inevitable collapse of our economic systems, but it could definitely be argued that our environment is already in a very advanced stage of “collapse”. According to this new research, insects are going extinct at a rate that is “eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles”…

The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.
More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

Perhaps the entire world will come together and will stop destroying the planet and we can reverse this trend before it is too late.

Unfortunately, you and I both know that this is extremely unlikely to happen.

And if it doesn’t happen, the researchers that conducted this scientific review insist that the consequences will be “catastrophic to say the least”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Collapse: Wind Chill Temperatures Will Hit -60 In The Midwest This Week As Global Weather Patterns Shift

January 31, 2019

Climate Collapse: Wind Chill Temperatures Will Hit -60 In The Midwest This Week As Global Weather Patterns Shift

The experts are telling us that the Midwest could experience the coldest weather that it has ever seen this week. Wind chill temperatures of -40 and -50 degrees will be common throughout the region, and it is being projected that some spots will actually get hit by wind chill temperatures of up to -60 degrees. A shift in the polar vortex is being blamed for this life-threatening weather, and we are being told to expect the coldest temperatures to arrive on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But all-time records are already being set. For example, according to Accuweather the temperature in the city of International Falls, Minnesota hit 45 below zero on Monday morning…

The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for hypothermia and frostbite to occur in minutes during the final days of January.
The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day’s record of 36 below zero F from 1966.

Please keep in mind that was not a wind chill temperature.

That was the actual temperature outside.

As the week progresses, bitterly cold temperatures will be accompanied by heavy snow and strong winds across the Midwest. The polar jet stream has weakened, and as a result the polar vortex will “dip into parts of North America”…

The wintry onslaught will be driven by the Northern Hemisphere’s polar vortex, the pocket of cold air sitting atop the North Pole. When temperatures rise in the Arctic, the polar jet stream — the torrent of westerly winds that hold the polar vortex in place — can weaken and dip into parts of North America.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Mainstream Media Warns America Will Be Facing An “Economic Hellscape” If The Government Shutdown Continues

January 11, 2019

The Mainstream Media Warns America Will Be Facing An “Economic Hellscape” If The Government Shutdown Continues

Is the mainstream media overhyping the economic impact of the government shutdown for political purposes? Of course they are. Once upon a time the mainstream media in the United States at least attempted to maintain a facade of objectivity, but those days are long gone. In this case, they want to stir up as much public resentment against President Trump as possible in order to try to force him to end the government shutdown. And when NBC News breathlessly declared that the U.S. “would face an economic hellscape” if this shutdown stretches on for an extended period of time, their article quickly went viral all over the Internet.

But will it really be “an economic hellscape”?

Here are some of the things that they say we will be facing in their “doomsday scenario”…

38 million low-income Americans lose food stamps
6 million face an uncertain timetable for collecting tax refunds
2 million without rental assistance and facing possible eviction
800,000 paycheck-less federal employees plunged into dire financial straits
Shuttered parks and museums while overstressed airports cause tourism to tank
Federal court system slows to a crawl
Disaster relief money doesn’t get to storm-ravaged areas

Yes, things would certainly be unpleasant for a lot of people, and there would be a whole lot of anger around the country.

But such a scenario does not qualify as “an economic hellscape”. I would encourage the folks over at NBC News to pick up a copy of The Beginning Of The End if they really want to know what the initial phases of a major economic crisis scenario could look like in this nation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Psychological Bubble That Has Been Propping Up The U.S. Economy Is Starting To Implode

December 4, 2018

The Psychological Bubble That Has Been Propping Up The U.S. Economy Is Starting To Implode

Optimism can be a very powerful thing. For a long time Americans believed that things would get better, and that caused them to take action to make things better, and that actually resulted in things moving in a positive direction. But now things have abruptly shifted. In late 2018, an increasing number of Americans believe that an economic downturn is coming, and they are taking actions consistent with that belief. As a result, they are actually helping to produce the result that they fear. And without a doubt, any rational person should be able to see that signs that the U.S. economy is slowing down are all around us. So it isn’t as if those that are preparing for the worst are being irrational. It is just that when large numbers of people all start to move in the same direction, it has a very powerful effect. We witnessed this in the stock market in recent years when people just kept buying stocks even though they were massively overvalued. The collective belief that there was money to be made in the stock market became a self-fulfilling prophecy which pushed stock prices up to absurd heights. But now that process is beginning to reverse as well, and ultimately the unwinding of that bubble will be quite painful.

Over the past couple of years the dominant economic narrative that the mainstream media was pushing was that the U.S. economy was “booming”, and this encouraged businesses to expand and consumers to go out and spend money.

But now the dominant economic narrative has changed, and businesses are starting to take actions that are consistent with the new narrative.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Trade War Is Already Having A Huge Impact On The U.S. Economy

July 21, 2018

The Trade War Is Already Having A Huge Impact On The U.S. Economy

The trade war has barely just begun, and yet significant ripple effects are already being felt all across the U.S. economy. Once thriving businesses are on the verge of failure, workers are being laid off, and some sectors of the economy are witnessing enormous price hikes. Right now the mainstream media is absolutely fixated on the drama surrounding the recently concluded Trump-Putin summit meeting, but the consequences of this trade war will ultimately be far more important for the lives of most ordinary Americans. As more tariffs continue to be implemented, this will perhaps be the biggest disruption to the global economic system that we have seen in decades. Perhaps you have not been affected personally yet, but for many Americans this trade war has changed everything. For example, just consider the plight of soybean farmer Tim Bardole…

The U.S. is China’s second-biggest source of soybeans at 34% of the imports, after Brazil, which ships 53%. The staple is used to make cooking oil and seasoning, and soybean meal is found in pig feed.

Now the tariffs have taken the bottom out of U.S. soybean prices, delivering a gut punch to farmers like Tim Bardole. He was already $100,000 in the red last year due to a yearslong slump in cereal prices, and the current predicament has driven him into a corner.

“I’m not sure if I can get a loan from the bank to finance our next year’s crop,” said Bardole.

If this trade war had not happened, perhaps Bardole would have been able to eventually get out of debt. But now he is facing financial ruin and the potential loss of his entire farm.

Switching gears, U.S. consumers will soon discover that common electronics such as phones and computers cost a lot more. The following comes from CBS News…

Buyers in the U.S. will soon see price hikes on computers, phones, thermostats and “everyday items,” according to the Information Technology Industry Council, a group that represents tech companies.

Hundreds of Chinese components that the Trump administration penalized are used to make everything from LEDs to sensors to printer and scanner components. When manufacturers pay more for their parts, the costs are typically passed on to consumers, the ITI said.

Are you ready to pay 50 dollars for your next phone to support this trade war?

Maybe.

50 dollars is ultimately not that big of a deal.

But what about paying $9,000 more for your next house?…

Experts Warn Of Chaos For The U.S. Economy As China Declares That “The Biggest Trade War In Economic History” Has Begun

July 8, 2018

Experts Warn Of Chaos For The U.S. Economy As China Declares That “The Biggest Trade War In Economic History” Has Begun

Nothing is going to be the same after this. On Friday, the United States hit China with 34 billion dollars in tariffs, and China immediately responded with similar tariffs. If it stopped there, this trade war between the United States and China would not be catastrophic for the global economy. But it isn’t going to stop there. Donald Trump is already talking about hitting China with an additional 500 billion dollars in tariffs, which would essentially cover pretty much everything that China exports to the U.S. in a typical year. The Chinese have accused Trump of starting “the biggest trade war in economic history”, and they are pledging to fight for as long as it takes. As I discussed yesterday, the only way that one side is going to “win” this trade war is if the other side completely backs down, and that simply is not going to happen. So there is going to be economic pain, and that pain is likely to intensify for as long as this trade war persists. U.S. businesses that will be affected by foreign tariffs are already cutting back production and laying off workers, and CNN is reporting that 1,300 products have suddenly become more expensive for U.S. consumers. There will be nowhere that anyone can hide from this trade war, and it will ultimately affect every single man, woman and child in the entire country.

Most Americans are not paying any attention to these ongoing developments, but the Chinese sure are.

Earlier today, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called the U.S. tariffs “typical trade bullying”, and it warned that this trade war could trigger “global market turmoil”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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