The Economic Collapse

To me, this new era began in 2016.  Donald Trump was a political candidate like no other, and the elite absolutely hated the fact that he did not follow their rules and that they could not control him.

So when he actually won, it truly was a catastrophic event for them.

From that moment forward, most corporate media outlets relentlessly demonized Trump.  Never before in U.S. history had a sitting U.S. president been treated in such a fashion, and we may never see anything like it ever again.

The anti-Trump narratives which were being pumped out by the corporate media were constantly fed to social media influencers on both sides of the political spectrum, and that ultimately created extremely deep political divisions in this country which still exist to this day.

Many on the left are entirely convinced that Trump is the devil, while many on the right believe that he is the greatest American that ever lived.

Of course the truth is that Trump is not actually on the far end of the political spectrum that currently exists in this country.  There is a lot about Trump that liberals should actually like, and there is a lot about Trump that conservatives should actually be criticizing.

But that is not how the debate has been framed.  If you hate Trump you are on the left, and if you love Trump you are on the right, and that is the end of the story.

In 2020, a couple things happened that caused new manufactured waves of outrage.

One was the tragic death of George Floyd.  His death sparked the BLM movement, and our country was whipped up into an emotional frenzy.  Protests, civil unrest and riots erupted all over the nation, and the level of violence that we witnessed shocked the entire planet.

But if you did not support the protesters, you were suddenly a bad person.

Instead, it was the police that were relentlessly demonized by the media, and this greatly upset a lot of us that are very supportive of the police.

Without a doubt, the U.S. has had problems with police brutality.  And without a doubt, there is a lot of racism out there.  I have been boldly speaking out against racism for many years, and I will continue to speak out against it.  I believe that every man, woman and child on the entire planet was created equal, and I believe that every single one of us possesses immense value.

But there were millions upon millions of us that did not agree with the political agenda of the BLM movement, and many of the specific political positions that the organization adopted were deeply alarming.

Does that make us bad just because we don’t agree with their far left agenda?

2020 also brought us the COVID pandemic.

Our societal divisions became deeper than ever before as we endlessly debated about masks, vaccines, mandates and other restrictions.

Manufactured waves of outrage about COVID dominated our national discourse for nearly two full years, but we were finally getting to a point where we were almost ready to put it all behind us.

And then the Ukraine war came along, and now everyone has a reason to be outraged again.

I think that Elon Musk summed things up very well in one of his latest tweets.

pic.twitter.com/CfoJ3qdCRJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2022

You may have noticed that hordes of social media lemmings are plastering their profiles with Ukrainian flags these days.

Next month, they may have to switch back to COVID again.

Then in May, the hot topic may be racial injustice.

Of course every June is reserved for the alphabet people.

Social media has become a very clear reflection of society as a whole, and so much of what goes on in our world today is being driven by social media.

Last week, I was stunned to learn that the Biden administration had actually conducted a briefing on the war in Ukraine for 30 key TikTok influencers…

To get ahead of misinformation and spread its messaging, the Biden administration on Thursday briefed 30 top TikTok stars on key information regarding the war in Ukraine, The Washington Post reports.

The online influencers received updates about the U.S.’ “strategic goals in the region” while National Security Council staffers and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki “answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO, and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.”

Can you imagine the Reagan administration doing such a thing?

Of course not.

But the world has changed.

Today, the elite need the support of influencers on social media, because those social media influencers can whip up tremendous waves of manufactured outrage.

If you asked random U.S. social media users to tell you what caused the war in Ukraine, the vast majority of them could not give you any sort of a coherent answer.

And the vast majority of them would not be able to point out Ukraine on a blank map of the world.

But they do know that Russia is really bad and Ukraine is really good, and that is all that the elite really need for them to know.

For years, I have been encouraging my readers to think for themselves.

Because if you don’t learn to think for yourself, there are others that will be more than happy to do your thinking for you.

That can be a tempting path to follow, but when you let others do your thinking for you it is way too easy for them to manipulate your emotions with the latest wave of manufactured outrage.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” 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 “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post 6 Years Of Being Manipulated By Manufactured Waves Of Outrage With No End In Sight appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Last week, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose 13 percent, and since this time last year it is up 38 percent.

And now that the war in Ukraine is shifting the global energy crisis into overdrive, Americans are going to be feeling the pain of higher energy prices in a whole host of different ways…

Americans are facing sticker shock at gas stations across the country, but surging global energy costs are rippling through the economy in other ways, too: Airlines are scaling back on flights. Truckers are adding fuel surcharges. And lawn care companies and mobile dog groomers are upping their service fees.

One trucking company executive that was asked about this said that he has “never seen prices jump this high, this fast”…

“Customers really don’t want to hear it, but fuel prices are going through the roof so we’re having to charge more,” said John Migliorini, vice president of Lakeville Trucking in Rochester, N.Y., where diesel costs have nearly doubled to about $400,000 a month. “What choice do we have? I’ve never seen prices jump this high, this fast.”

And he is exactly correct.

Ever since the full-blown invasion of Ukraine was launched on February 24th, we have seen prices spiral out of control all over the country.

Joe Biden knows that the American people are getting restless, and he is trying to pin the blame for our inflation nightmare on Vladimir Putin.

But Vladimir Putin didn’t borrow and spend trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have over the last two years.

Our leaders in Washington did that.

And Vladimir Putin didn’t create trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars out of thin air and use them to prop up our financial system.

The Federal Reserve did that.

This inflation crisis started long before the war in Ukraine, but without a doubt the war in Ukraine is going to make things even worse.

In fact, the UN is now warning that global food prices could soon jump by as much as 22 percent “above their already elevated levels”…

With dozens of countries around the world relying heavily on both Ukraine and Russia for food supplies, the United Nations warned Friday, the ongoing war is likely to significantly drive up global food prices and worsen malnourishment in the Global South. With both Ukraine and Russia’s ability to produce and export food uncertain, a global supply gap “could push up international food and feed prices by 8% to 22% above their already elevated levels,” said the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has killed more than 560 civilians and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee the country, FAO said up to 30% of Ukrainian wheat fields will not be harvested in the 2022 to 2023 season due to the violence.

For the billions that are already living in poverty all over the planet, that is really, really bad news.

Here in the United States, one Oklahoma farmer told Laura Ingraham of Fox News that we are “going to get hit on every front”…

“We’re going to get hit on every front, on every expense possible,” Oklahoma farmer Ben Neal told Ingraham, “From fertilizers to fuel to labor, insurance – everything in between [including] our packing supplies.”

Neal’s farm operates on a farm-to-market business model, so he has direct fuel costs for transportation. But every farmer essentially faces the same thing – crops need to be transported to processors and final markets and there are increasing fuel costs to power the trucks, trains, barges and ships that make that happen.

In other words, groceries are going to be getting more expensive.

A lot more expensive.

Meanwhile, our economic war with Russia continues to escalate.

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. has hit the Russians with a slew of economic sanctions, and without a doubt those sanctions are really starting to hurt…

European energy is only one part of the sanctions piece. Financially Europe and the US have frozen deposits of euros, dollars and sterling held by Russia’s central bank, cutting Russia off from a large part of its net reserves. In manufactured goods Russia is now isolated from spare parts supplies for Boeing and Airbus aircraft and for almost every private car in Russia. Russia is also cut off from new supplies of servers (cloud computing cannot expand capacity), software and a range of high-end chips which Russia cannot yet manufacture.

Some commercial software (particularly in the oil and gas industry) only operates with regular provision of unlock keys, which will not now arrive. Some millions of Russian employees of Western companies are now functionally unemployed, while all Russians are now cut off from travel to Europe and North America. Imports of western goods of all kinds to Russia are now stalled for lack of sanctioned shipping, while exports of oil and metals are under threat from sanctions on shipowners.

The Russian economy will never be the same after this.

But will ours?

We have already been suffering through a pretty painful chip shortage for the last two years, and now the war in Ukraine threatens to take it to an entirely new level…

The ongoing geopolitical tussle between Russia and Ukraine is likely to have another casualty – the semiconductor chip. Palladium and neon are two resources that are key to the production of semiconductor chips.

Given that Russia supplies over 40 percent of the world’s supply of palladium and Ukraine produces 70 percent of the global supply of neon, we can expect the global chip shortage to worsen should the military conflict persist, Tim Uy, of Moody’s Analytics wrote in a recent report.

It would be difficult to overstate the seriousness of what we are potentially facing.

Almost every industry in America relies on equipment that contains computer chips.

So what will our economy look like if the chip shortage becomes extremely severe?

And this is just one way out of hundreds that our economic war with Russia is going to hurt us.

Most Americans simply do not understand how horrible things will become if this thing stretches on for an extended period of time.

We should be hoping for peace, but instead most prominent voices seem to want to escalate matters with Russia even more.

What we are watching play out right in front of our eyes should sadden us all, because there will be no going back after this.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” 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 “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Catastrophic Inflation: “I’ve Never Seen Prices Jump This High, This Fast” appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Without a doubt, the sanctions that have been imposed on the Russians have done a lot of harm.  The Russian ruble has collapsed, there have been extremely long lines at ATM machines and banks, and economic activity inside the country has been greatly disrupted.

But anyone that thought that we would get out of this unscathed was just being delusional.

In recent days, a whole host of western corporations have announced that they are pulling out of Russia, and the Russians are now saying that they could simply seize all of their assets…

Russia said it could seize the assets of Western companies that have suspended operations in the country.

Dozens of American, European and Japanese companies from almost every sector of the economy have abandoned joint ventures, factories, stores and offices in the last two weeks in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuring sanctions.

Over the past few decades, western corporations have built up an enormous presence in Russia, and now much of that could be taken away without any compensation at all.

Ouch.

The balance sheets of some companies are about to get “adjusted” in a major way.

Do you think that their shareholders will feel good about achieving a “moral victory” even though it means losing so much shareholder value?

Many major financial institutions in the western world are about to get hammered as well.

According to CNN, very little of the $121,000,000,000 that Russian entities owe to western banks is likely to ever be repaid now that war has started…

International banks are owed more than $121 billion by Russian entities, according to the Bank for International Settlements, which suspended Russia’s membership on Thursday. European banks have over $84 billion total claims, with France, Italy and Austria the most exposed, and US banks owed $14.7 billion.

Goldman Sachs (GS) earlier disclosed that it had credit exposure to Russia of $650 million in December 2021.

U.S. banks only stand to lose 14.7 billion dollars, and that will definitely hurt.

But the amount of exposure that European banks have could potentially be absolutely devastating.

The Russians are also hitting back by restricting exports.  On Thursday, the Russian government released a list of over 200 different items which will not be allowed to be exported…

“The list includes technical, telecommunication and medical equipment, vehicles, agricultural machinery, electrical equipment – more than 200 items in total, including railway cars and locomotives, containers, turbines, metal and stone processing machines, monitors, projectors, consoles and panels,” the Kremlin statement says. “This measure is necessary to ensure stability in the Russian market.”

A lot of the items on that list don’t really matter, but the fact that Russia has now decided to suspend fertilizer exports is a really, really big deal…

On Thursday, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said Russia decided to suspend fertilizer exports. This comes when global food prices are at record highs, and European fertilizer makers are struggling to produce nutrients ahead of the spring growing season, increasing global food inflation risks.

President Vladimir Putin said the fertilizer export ban was a move to ensure stable domestic food prices. This is another sign of growing protectionism worldwide as countries grapple with soaring food prices. Putin said fertilizer markets are deteriorating, making food a lot more expensive.

In previous articles, I have explained that even before the war started some types of fertilizer had doubled in price, some had tripled in price and some had actually quadrupled in price.

Now fertilizer prices are likely to soar even higher, because the Russians are a major player in the fertilizer industry…

.. on the eve of the sowing season, European (& American) farmers are left w/t Russian fertilizers. RUS share in the world market is a little less than a 1/3 of the world production of potash fertilizers, about 10% of nitrogen fertilizers & about 20% of complex fertilizers.

This move is especially going to be painful for farmers in Europe.

Without fertilizer from Ukraine or Russia, they are going to be facing a “supply shock” of epic proportions.

We will also want to watch how Russian export restrictions affect the tech industry…

Today, #Russia accounts for 80 % of the market for sapphire substrates – thin plates made of artificial stone, which are used in opto- & microelectronics to build up layers of various materials, such as silicon.

They are used in every processor in the world – AMD & Intel are no exception. #Russia’s position is even stronger in special chip etching chemistry using ultra-clean components. RUS accounts for almost 100% of the world’s supply of some rare earth elements used for these purposes

When I ran for Congress, developing U.S. sources of rare earth elements was a hot button issue for me.

Sadly, not much progress has been made since that time.  Today, the U.S. remains exceedingly dependent on foreign sources.  China actually dominates the global market far more than anyone else does, and so if we ever go to war with China we are going to be really, really hurting in this area.

Before I end this article, I want to give an update on the price of gasoline.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has now shot up to $4.31, and in Los Angeles some consumers are now paying nearly 8 dollars a gallon…

Gas prices are now nudging $8-a-gallon in Los Angeles, with drivers forming lines at Costco pumps across the US to fill up ahead of potential further increases.

Snaps taken at a Mobil gas station beside on the border of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood on Wednesday afternoon displayed eye-watering prices of $7.95 for premium gas.

In this case, this is something that we have largely done to ourselves.

Ever since he entered the White House, Joe Biden has pursued policies that have driven up the price of gasoline, and now the war has caused worldwide panic.

Biden is trying to beg the Saudis to pump more oil, and he may be successful.  But as I have repeatedly warned, the long-term outlook is exceedingly bleak.

Gasoline prices will eventually go much higher than they are now.

Food prices will eventually go much higher than they are now.

And the shaking of our financial system has only just begun.

The Biden administration wanted a showdown with the Russians, and now they have it.

Unfortunately, their foolishness is going to cost all of us dearly.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” 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 “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post The West Declared Economic War On Russia, And Now Russia Is Striking Back In A Major Way appeared first on The Economic Collapse.