The Collapse of the Dollar?

 

Steve Kelley cartoon at Townhall

Mac Slavo is not optimistic.  Here’s the opening of his column at DiscernReport:

Know What to Expect:
The Death of the Dollar Is Coming

The death of the dollar is coming and it’s going to hit the American public like a ton of bricks. Once it is no longer the world’s reserve currency, all bets are off concerning the fiat currency, and we should brace ourselves for what comes next.

Obviously, the central banks will need this epic crash to usher in the CBDC (central bank digital currency) which will be a technological slave system of control. But before that, we could see things that could only come out of the movies.

The dollar has not been backed by gold in a long time and its value is eroding. Debt, currency devaluation, massive speculation, massive currency creation, and intentional government incompetence are pretty much guaranteeing a very bad ending. A number of events have happened throughout the years which has jeopardized the Dollar’s standing. The Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) collaboration has gained steam in creating pathways for business and they have begun to totally bypass the U.S. Dollar.

And here’s his advice to everyone:

Here are the things we need to be prepared for according to All News Pipeline, once the ruling class finally puts the final nail in the dollar’s coffin:

1. Bank Runs – people are going to want as much as they can out of their banks even though it’s going to be worthless unless you need some toilet paper. Some will attempt to rush and buy precious metals with their money while they still can.
2. Capital Controls – the masters will ban the slaves from converting their dollars into foreign currencies to try to keep the dollar afloat for a few more days.
3. Inflation – it’ll spiral out of control because the dollar will be worth almost nothing
4. Massive Unemployment – businesses will find it impossible to get parts or supplies from other countries, so there won’t be jobs to do.
5. Empty Grocery Store Shelves – food will be a hot commodity. The shelves will empty as people stock up at the last minute with whatever money they have.
6. Public Riots – all of the above will lead to massive violent public riots. People will be depressed and angry, but most will be still too dumbed down to take it out on the ruling class and bankers who control them like marionette puppets. They will instead, destroy businesses and loot whatever they can.

Make whatever preparations you may need or do an audit of your preps. This is inevitable, even though no one knows the exact day that it’ll happen. . . .

Read the entire column here.  Think this is alarmist and far-fetched?  I would prefer to think that Mr Slavo is wrong.  But what if the price of eggs is just the canary in the coal mine?

# # #

Biden administration causes the problems they claim to be trying to solve

 

The charade continues.  As usual, Sundance at Conservative Treehouse sums it up so even non-financial wonks can follow:

At a certain point in the economics of the great pretending cycle, one must wonder what circles they live in.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced another quarter-point interest rate hike and simultaneously noted the banking crisis will likely lead to tighter credit and borrowing for businesses on Main Street…. thereby further reducing the U.S. economic output.  Yet here we are again, and not a single economic or financial pundit is even talking about the origin of the inflation the Fed action is pretending to address, the spike in energy prices.

At the core of the Biden policy issue that creates inflation, is the energy policy that has driven oil, gas, home heating, electricity and manufacturing/farming costs through the roof.  The blocking of energy resource development/production is the top issue leading to massive increases in consumer prices overall.  The Biden energy policy is entirely ignored by a federal reserve attempting to shrink inflation.

Follow the bouncing ball of consequence.

Biden restricts energy development [Main St Suffers].  Prices skyrocket [Main St Suffers]. The fed raises interest rates in an effort to reduce the economic activity to meet the lowered production of energy resource development [Main St Suffers].  The result of the interest rate hike creates liquidity issues for banks holding treasury securities [Main St Suffers].  The banks then reduce credit lines, reduce lending and tighten borrowing to match their lowered liquidity [Main St Suffers].

The Fed then notes further increases in rates may pause as they await the outcome of restricted banking credit and lending from the rate hikes previously installed.  Nowhere in any of this is anyone talking about the nucleus of the issue – the stupid energy policy.  The great pretending continues in the West, while smiling panda lunches with Vladimir Putin. . . .

Read the rest here.

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Student loan forgiveness: you get to pay more

 

Rick McKee’s cartoon seen on PowerLine’s "Week In Pictures"

The Democrats really do want more of your money.  At American Spectator, David Catron reports on the case before the Supreme Court concerning the cancelation of student debt; he begins:

Last week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court concerning the Biden administration’s student-loan forgiveness plan predictably focused on arcane legal theories such as the “major questions doctrine.” Relatively little time was devoted to the profoundly inequitable structure of the program. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch did note that it would provide benefits to certain favored persons while ignoring the very real costs it would impose on others, but no one mentioned a fact that will gall most taxpayers — it would cancel student loans for college dropouts.

Remarkably, the Biden administration and most Democrats see this as a selling point for the plan. The White House fact sheet puts it as follows: “Nearly one-third of borrowers have debt but no degree, according to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of undergraduates.” The Democrats justify canceling these loans because tuition costs have risen, ignoring evidence that the loans have driven that increase. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claims: “Up to 4 in 10 people with student loan debt weren’t able to graduate, many because of high costs.… Canceling student loan debt would change their lives.”

The problem is that the $400 billion program would also “change the lives” of millions of Americans for the worse. How? It will raise the stealth tax known as inflation. . . .

Read the rest here.

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The Coordinated Attack on Your Money

Michael Wilkerson at The Epoch Times (via The Liberty Daily with no paywall) outlines “The Coordinated Attack on Your Money.”  This one paragraph is scary enough:

Do you think your money is safe in your bank account? Multiple laws allow the government to seize your assets through the process of civil forfeiture even if you haven’t been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime. We saw how this worked in Canada during the truckers’ peaceful protests over vaccine mandates when the government simply issued a decree authorizing it. If your bank fails, new laws created following the global financial crisis of 2008–09 allow the bank to turn your savings and other deposits into securities to shore up the bank’s capital. The Internal Revenue Service can tap funds in your bank account if the agency claims you owe taxes, even if the IRS made an error or you’re in a dispute process. And banks have canceled accounts of individuals and entities who pose “reputational risk” by, for example, supporting conservative candidates, speaking out on election integrity, or challenging the prevailing COVID-19 narrative.

Click here for more.  It gets especially ugly when you see what the feds are trying to do to stop cryptocurrencies – and why.

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EGGS: The New Contraband

Eric Lendrum at American Greatness has the headline:

Smuggling of Eggs Across Border Skyrockets Amid Rising Prices

PowerLine’s “The Week in Pictures” has the meme:

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The Biden Administration’s Wrecking Balls

 

Victor Davis Hanson recently published his essay “If You Really Wanted to Destroy the United States, Then . . .” at American Greatness here.  John Dale Dunn has condensed the essay into a column at American Thinker.  Mr Dunn begins:

Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most deservedly admired conservative writers, authors, and commentators in America.  That's why his recent essay about what it will take to destroy America is worthy of your attention. . . .

Hanson's essay breaks down into ten steps, which he analyzes in some detail.  I've summarized those ten points, although I urge you to read his entire essay.

First, surrender America's energy independence.  In this regard, Hanson touches upon attacking coal and nuclear power, draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, canceling oil and gas leases while blocking pipelines, and focusing excessively and expensively on green energy.

Second, inflate the currency and punish those with fixed income while increasing the welfare state. 

Third, erase America's borders while diluting the number of assimilated and patriotic citizens.

Fourth, destroy the public's faith in elections by changing the rules so as to allow for easy fraud via ballot-harvesting and mail-in voting. 

Read the rest of the ten points here or here.  Here’s the grim conclusion of the essay:

We have done all of the above. It would be hard to imagine any planned agenda to destroy America that would have been as injurious as what we already suffered the last two years. 

When Victor Davis Hanson loses his optimism, you know America is collapsing.  

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Is anti-globalism winning?

 

Here’s part of the update from Brandon Smith atAlt-Market.us:

If the goal of the pandemic fear factory was simply to get the population injected with the mRNA vaccines, here they also failed. With many states in the US 40% unvaxxed (according to official numbers) and many parts of the world with large unvaxxed populations, there is a massive control group for the covid vaccines. If there are going to be constantly developing health problems associated the mRNA vax (like Myocarditis) then the public is going to know what caused them because of this control group. The globalists needed near-100% vaccination and they did not get it. Not even close.

There is no escape for them – They greatly overestimated the public’s apathy when it comes to authoritarianism. The rebellion is too large and they will eventually be held accountable for their trespasses.

. . .

The fear among them is palpable. Anti-globalism is now going mainstream, and as it does people are going to start looking for answers. Why have our economic conditions been so degraded? Why are we facing stagflationary crisis? Why are prices on everything continuing to climb? Why did we almost lose all of our civil liberties in the name of fighting a virus with a tiny 0.23% official median Infection Fatality Rate? Why are pointless carbon controls being instituted in the middle of a supply chain crisis? Why are politicians and banks making everything so much worse?

The public outcry for a reckoning is growing and it’s the heads of globalists that will end up on the chopping block. All roads to destruction lead back to them and the policies they have forced upon the populace.

Of course, when criminals feel like they are being cornered they will sometimes set fires and take hostages in a last ditch effort to stay alive and slip through the net. I believe we are closing in on that stage of this terrible drama. It’s important to accept the conditions of the battlefield as they are and not underestimate the enemy. The truth is, globalists have extensive means at their disposal to wreak havoc and they have already set some of these disasters in motion.

. . .

the evidence shows that the globalists WANT a crash and are engineering conditions of instability. They set up the dominoes in advance and now they have decided to knock them down. I think this is a fail-safe; a panic trigger in the event that they did not get the control they wanted from the COVID pandemic.

They will blame Russia, they will blame China, they will blame conservatives, they will blame anything and anyone besides themselves in an attempt to divert public attention away from the international banking actions that created the crash conditions in the first place. We can’t let them. Whatever happens next, it is vital that people remember who really did this to us and who needs to be punished.  . . .

Read the whole thing here.  And I sure hope Mr Smith has got it right.

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Planet Earth: Down the Drain?

 

Ed Brodow isn’t too optimistic, either; his title is “Running the World into the Ground”.  Here are the first few paragraphs at American Thinker:

The actions of the people who are in charge of governments are supposed to benefit the countries they serve -- in theory, at least. In practice, the opposite is true. In the West, our leaders are destroying everything they can get their hands on.

This is certainly an apt description of the Biden/Harris administration. They inherited a healthy country from President Trump. The economy was taking off, inflation was practically nonexistent, the U.S. was energy independent for the first time in decades, and the border was closed. So what did Biden do? He immediately set out to reverse everything Trump achieved.

Who can claim to be better off under Biden? The economy has tanked, inflation is at a 40-year high, people can’t afford to heat their homes or fill up their cars with gas, crime statistics are off the charts, and confidence in America is at an all-time low. Biden’s open-border policy, which is opposed by a majority of American citizens, is leading to social unrest and economic chaos. A country without a functioning border is not a country, yet that is where Biden has taken us.

America is marching toward totalitarianism as Biden empowers the DoJ and FBI to go after his political opponents, i.e., at least half of the population. His worst offense, however, is following the climate dictates of the World Economic Forum. Biden is torpedoing the robust U.S. economy in service of a totally false assumption -- that human beings are able to change the planet’s climate. He is raising taxes so that billions of your dollars can be wasted on ridiculous anti-fossil fuel projects.

Biden has declared war on the energy industry in the name of global warming. He wants us to believe that oil, gas, and coal are killing the planet. What is the result of his climate policy so far? “Harvesting of fuel was cut back drastically,” explained Bill O’Reilly, “and that caused the price of oil worldwide to rise, and that caused the price of gas at the pump to rise, and that lit inflation, as all other goods went up in price as well because they are trucked in to the stores and businesses. That is all on President Biden.”

First, human beings are incapable of controlling the climate, which operates in cycles and always has since the planet was created. Second, our economy is dependent on fossil fuels, and -- contrary to the lies fed by the administration -- fossil fuel alternatives do not exist, and will not exist in the foreseeable future. . . .

Read the rest here.  Mr Brodow ends on the hopeful note that the next two elections in the U.S. will reflect the wishes of the voters.  Fingers crossed.

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Update: controlled demolition

 

 At America First Report, Mike Adams is not optimistic:

Worsening inflation (stemming from endless fiat currency money printing) is causing food, energy and housing to become unaffordable for millions of Americans, putting them on a trajectory of homelessness and destitution.

Right now, homeless encampments are expanding in cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Oakland. The situation is bound to get far worse as inflation accelerates and people find themselves jobless due to plummeting economic activity while manufacturers downsize operations.

All across America right now, people are moving out of (unaffordable) apartments and rental homes, and moving into RVs or campers. Many of these people have jobs yet still can’t afford to save enough money for a down payment on a home. As economic conditions deteriorate, many of these people will move from RVs to cars or trucks… and then eventually to tents on the street. There, they are largely forgotten by the very same bureaucrats who promised them jobs and government assistance. Those are also the same bureaucrats who created the very problems that cause homelessness in the first place, such as worsening inflation by handing out stimulus money… or forcing small businesses to shut down over “covid” claims.

The controlled demolition of America is well under way. . . .

Full article is here. Not pretty.  

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A F Branco: Root Causes

 Another A F Branco cartoon that hits the mark:

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Bidenomics at-a-glance

 

Sundance posted this handy graphic at Conservative Treehouse (“Bidenomics, August 2022 Inflation Data Infographic").  Notice the one-year comparisons for inflation esp. in fuel oil, airfares, and food categories.  It’s going to get worse, so prepare.

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Supply Chain problems will persist

 

Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.us warns us that "Supply Chain problems will persist because the system is being sabotaged.  

. . . New York Times contributor Paul Krugman claimed that “no one saw this coming” when he was recently forced to admit that he was wrong on inflation. This is the same thing MSM economists said after the credit crash of 2008. It was a lie back then and it’s a lie now. Plenty of people saw it coming; we’ve been repeating our warnings for years, but they didn’t want to listen or they did not want us to be heard.

Krugman is perhaps the worst and most arrogant economist/propagandist in the US, and though he belatedly acknowledged the inflation and supply chain threat after arguing for the past two years that it was “transitory,” he now claims that the traditionally accepted indicators of recession “don’t matter” anymore and that there is no downturn. How many times can this guy be proven ignorant and still keep his job?

It’s this kind of disinformation that keeps the public in the dark on what is about to happen. Maybe it’s because of stupidity and ego, or maybe it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the population docile (I say it is deliberate), but in either case the American people are being put in great danger when it comes to the false narrative on inflation and the supply chain. The longer they are led to believe the disaster will simply go away on its own, the less time they have to prepare.

The bottom line is this: Things are only going to get worse from here on. Maybe slowly, or maybe quickly depending on a handful of factors.

Mr Smith concludes:

Stagflation and supply chain shortages are going to become the all encompassing issues of our era. They will be terms that are spoken about daily at every dinner table in America and probably through most of the world. These are dangers that were predicted extensively by the liberty media well ahead of time. They are NOT a surprise. And, there are plenty of institutions, corporate and government, that could have done something about them, but they chose not to. It’s important for people to accept the fact that this crisis is not a product of stupidity; it is a product of malicious motives and intent.

This is the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, Build Back Better, the New World Order.  All the same thing.  All deliberate destruction.  Better to be forewarned.  Read the full column here. 

# # #

Liberal a/k/a New World Order

 

 

Too bad for you, Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Citizen.  According to our betters, your pain at the pump is no big deal.  It's just the price you must pay for The New World Order. Jesse Martin at 100percentfedup is one of many bloggers reporting:

On Friday, Biden’s advisor and director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, took things a step further in a slap to the face of working America.

When asked what he would say to families struggling to pay $4.85 or more at the pump for months or even years, this was his response:

“This is about the future of the Liberal World Order, and we have to stand firm.” Whatever the “Liberal World Order” is, Deese clarifies that it is not about helping the working class. It is not about helping Americans. And it is not about affordability for either group.

This comes after Biden stated that US drivers will pay a premium at the pump for “As long as it takes.” As long as what takes, precisely? Killing fossil fuels to implement a green agenda, most likely. . . .

Yes, well, that’s the plan.  And the progressive left is talking about it out loud. 

“Whatever the ‘Liberal World Order’ is"?  The “Liberal World Order” is the same as the New World Order, a/k/a Great Reset, a/k/a Agenda 2030 (see the America First Report here re: the interchangeable terminology.)  

# # #

No energy for US

 

The current G7 leaders (of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) are divided over energy policy, with FJB (i.e., the present occupant in the White House) and Justin Trudeau committing America and Canada to more supply chain crises and food shortages.  Sundance at Conservative Treehouse reports:

The larger issue comes down to a catastrophic energy agenda by Joe Biden made worse by U.S. foreign policy.  Biden has killed the U.S. oil and gas industry driving up the price of energy which is having horrific consequences as consumer prices skyrocket.  Simultaneous to this bad domestic energy policy, Biden has placed sanctions against Russian oil and gas with the backdrop of preexisting sanctions against Iran and Venezuela.

No oil/gas from Russia, no oil/gas from Iran, no oil/gas from Venezuela and now less oil/gas from the United States.  The western alliance is trying to push the climate change agenda while cutting off their own access to cheap energy supplies.   THIS is the primary source of what has been called “global inflation,” it is a self-inflicted wound against the citizens in the western nations.

Full report is here.  And in a subsequent blogpost, Sundance continues:

. . . With a pending global food shortage only looking worse by the day British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has proposed to use biofuel farmland to grow food that can be consumed by people.

German Chancellor Olaf Schulz is also supporting the plan. However, Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau have denounced the effort to expand food production in the U.S. and Canada and blocked the framework from G7 policy.

. . .

However, the U.S. (Biden) and Canada (Trudeau) will not generate more food for people because that would undercut the effort for climate change.

Maintaining the climate change agenda is more important than feeding people, according to Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden.

Full report is here. 

# # #

Diesel fuel prices, food shortages, and inflation

 

If you think food shortages won’t impact your household, here’s the opening of Ford Turner’s report at mcall (Morning Call Capitol) – about fuel shortages . . . in Pennsylvania:

A Lehigh County farmer recently called Kyle Kotzmoyer and said something like “I’ve got a tractor hooked up to my corn planter out here, no diesel fuel, and I can’t afford to get any.”

Kotzmoyer, who recalled the conversation Tuesday, said he responded to the request for advice with a joke.

That’s about all he could do, he said, because the crushing reality of record diesel fuel prices is pushing farmers to the brink and may affect food availability.

“We have reached that point to where it is very close to being a sinking ship,” Kotzmoyer, a legislative affairs specialist for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, testified to state lawmakers Tuesday. “We are teetering on the edge right now.”

His appearance came in the third hearing on soaring inflation held by the House Republican Policy Committee.

The overall testimony suggested the dire farm situation will exacerbate the rate of already steep food price increases. The federal government reported last week that food prices in May were 10.1% higher than a year earlier, with the rate of increase gaining speed. . . .

Full report is here.

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Did you watch Episode #1 of the “The Made-for-TV J6 Show Trial”?

 

A.F. Branco cartoon via TownHall

No, I did not watch the prime time telecast of the first January 6 Insurrection “hearing.”  Neither did Legal Insurrection’s William A. Jacobson.  Here’s part of his rationale:

Inflation Soars to 41-Year High, While Democrats and Mainstream Media Focus On J6 Primetime Show Trial

I stayed true to my promise, "I’m Not Watching The Made-for-TV J6 Show Trial Narrated By Hoaxers, Liars, and Leakers," which as I wrote is just a political distraction from the intentional gutting of the country:

The southern border is effectively open, we have lost our sovereignty as a nation. Food prices and gas and other measures of inflation are out of control.

Sure enough, this morning brought an inflation report that shows the damage from Bidenomics. CNBC reports: 

• The consumer price index rose 8.6% in May from a year ago, the highest increase since December 1981. Core inflation excluding food and energy rose 6%. Both were higher than expected.
• Surging food, gas and energy prices all contributed to the gain, with fuel oil up 106.7% over the past year.
• Shelter costs, which comprise about one-third of the CPI, rose at the fastest 12-month pace in 31 years.
• The rise in inflation meant workers lost more ground in May, with real wages declining 0.6% from April and 3% on a 12-month basis.

. . .

There is no silver lining . . .

Ugh.  Professor Jacobson’s column is here.  On the brighter side, the ratings weren't all that great.  The Washington Free Beacon reports here; see also here.

# # #

Daniel Greenfield on Deliberate Destruction

 

Daniel Greenfield explains in detail why our downward spiral is the result of deliberate destruction:

Our Economic Misery Isn’t An Accident, It’s The Plan

Americans can’t afford to buy a used car or even gas because the Left doesn’t want them to drive. They can’t buy homes because the Left wants to destroy the suburbs and force everyone to live in megacities. They have trouble buying meat because the Left wants them to eat soy.

The same is true for the whole exercise in planned economic misery that we’re experiencing.

. . .

There are predictions that gas will hit $6 a gallon nationwide by the summer because the Biden administration has worked hard to raise energy prices and create artificial shortages. Biden’s people just got through once again sabotaging oil and gas leases because they want higher energy prices. $6 a gallon is not the result of political inattentiveness, that is the plan.

Inflation isn’t an unintentional accident either. . . .[I]nflation is doing what it’s meant to do, wiping out savings, and triggering retaliatory interest rate hikes to “cool down” the economy. The middle class ends up poorer and more vulnerable, government dependency rises and social mobility falls. Socialism starts looking better every day. That’s how it worked in the twentieth century and still works today.

. . .

If Americans don’t understand that our misery isn’t an accident or incompetence, but part of a plan then the downward cycle will continue to play out with increasingly worse outcomes.

Until the Left finally gets what it wants. And then the rest of us won’t have anything left.

Much more at the link here.

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Build Back Better: another misnomer

In an article at American Thinker titled “The Sinister Roots of Build Back Better,” E. Jeffrey Ludwig offers insights and contexts on Biden's campaign slogan.  Mr. Ludwig begins:

President Joe Biden and the puppeteers who control his teleprompter are weakening the country in order to gain more power and restructure the country based on classical Marxism (government ownership of the means of production) as well as woke cultural Marxist lines – destruction of the family, depreciation of male vigor and determination, and demonic sexual perversion throughout all classes and segments of society.

The motto of the interloper now serving in the White House is “Build Back Better” – and the trillions to “build back” is an updated version of the New Deal on steroids.  . . .

And Mr. Ludwig concludes:

The Build Back Better plan superficially appears to be an updated and extravagant Keynesian or New Deal-style spending program, but the endgame is not economic recovery that forever establishes federal government dominance over the states in the socio-political realm. Rather, this BBB is the connection of an enlarged federal government and authority with a depreciation or elimination of U.S. sovereignty in favor of global, communist-style governance. But as if the endgame were not sinister enough, we see this updated Keynesian expansion of expenditures is not a result of economic collapse due to a devastating Depression, as was the justification in the 1930s.

Rather, simultaneously with expanded spending, the goal of the BBB plotters is to weaken the economy and usher in economic and socio-political chaos and mayhem. The southern border hands-off policy is literally facilitating the entrance of millions of unvetted persons. By limiting or eliminating natural gas and oil production in the territorial U.S. under the guise of protecting the environment, the feds incentivize other countries to expand their production of these energy sources. That production, which still means higher energy prices here in the U.S., has an equally negative effect on the world climate as fuel production in our country. But the brooding minds behind BBB want to see inflated prices. They want to see shortages. They want to see racial unrest. They want to see upsurges in crime as new theories of law inform the release of repeat offenders and shorter sentences to destabilize society. The BBB autocrats want to see a society that increasingly identifies as LGBTQ because this radical individualism weakens the social fabric. They want to see Chinese fentanyl imported to kill our citizens who are weak-minded and susceptible to drug use. 

Thus, despite its resemblance to the New Deal, the BBB's so-called governance (properly called betrayal) is at the front end linked to global health, green initiatives, and “interdependence” as an excuse for diminishing U.S. sovereignty. Initiation of these policies was not to combat financially depressive conditions but rather designed to undermine the freedoms and economic viability of the U.S. This might be likened to prescribing chemo to a patient who did not have cancer, and then, in order to justify the perverse treatment plan, injecting the patient with cancer cells in order to justify that plan. The goal of the sinister and aberrated “plan” would not be the recovery of the patient and return to normal living, but to place the “cured” individual into custodial care rather than independent living. That is the equivalent of a United States with diminished sovereignty in a world governance system.

Full column is here.  Ugly.

# # #

Dr Mercola on food and fertilizer

 

Dr Joseph Mercola frequently contributes to the debates over COVID mandates and “vaccine” risks.  Today at NOQ, he sounds the warning on food shortages.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months
• Inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID responses have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day
• Ukraine has ceased exports of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, and Russia has banned exports of fertilizer
• Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers. Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports
• The long-term answer lies in regenerative biodynamic farming, which does not use any chemical inputs

The full report is here. For what it may be worth, our experiences at various restaurants over the past couple of months include reduced portions and downgraded cuts of meat.  Beef prices have gone up at the grocery store as well. So far, the shelves are still full. 

# # #

 

Inflation and shipping

Our household orders wine online, often from a California-based company.  The other day, the company e-mailed all their customers to give a heads-up on price increases.  Below are the costs associated with the price hikes experienced since 2020, and thus far, it's not showing increases to the costs of growing or processing the actual grapes.  

Warehousing       á 18% 

Staffing                á 15%

Shipping and Materials     á 20%

Trucking                á 25%

Delivery Carriers    á 20%

If vineyards are further impacted by increases in, say, fertilizer or irrigation, the prices will go up some more.   

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