The upcoming presidential election has prompted a rush for physical gold and silver as many Americans try to secure their finances regardless of the election results. The general sentiment is that if Trump wins, then there will be manufactured turmoil that could challenge infrastructure and damage the various markets.

If Kamala Harris wins, the economy could be on the brink of collapse very quickly.

“Most of our clients do not want a continuation of the Biden-Harris policies,” Rose said. “The current administration has caused instability to the point that even when markets are high there are concerns about whether they’re strong enough to counteract inflation.

“A buck today doesn’t buy what a buck bought yesterday.”

Genesis Gold Group is a faith-driven, unabashedly pro-American precious metals company. They believe in physical precious metals as the most sound way to be proper financial stewards, especially in such turbulent fiscal times. Their “Genesis Gold IRA” is unique in the way it helps Americans put the best mix of metals into their retirement accounts, whether they come through tax-deferred rollovers or transfers.

Getting ahead of the election is a primary focus for the company today. Both gold and silver prices have been projected by many economists to rise regardless of the winner, which is a departure from previous norms.

“In the past, Democrat wins meant higher gold prices and Republican wins meant lower, but things are very different today,” Rose said. “Lest we forget, gold skyrocketed during Trump’s first term and the threat of turmoil being manufactured if he wins again means a second term will likely be even better for precious metals prices.”

If Harris wins, most believe gold and silver will go through the roof.

With central banks across the globe buying up as much gold and silver as they can afford, plus most nations increasing their own gold reserves, it seems like the powers-that-be are prepared for skyrocketing prices as well.

Genesis Gold Group offers a free, definitive gold guide to help Americans concerned about their retirement accounts. Contact them to learn how they can secure your wealth with physical precious metals.

In fact, the latest wholesale inflation figure that was released on Tuesday came in much higher than expected.  Sadly, this is just the beginning and we are in far more trouble than most people realize.

According to an incredibly shocking new study, most Americans do not make enough money to “live comfortably” in the highly inflationary environment that we find ourselves in today…

A recent study has revealed the incomes needed for families to live comfortably across the United States – and the stark contrast in the cost of living between states is startling.

The study revealed that in the most expensive states, families need nearly $300,000 to simply live ‘comfortably.’

The least expensive state requires about half that salary – still over $100,000.

Meanwhile, the average annual salary in the US is $59,428, or $28.34 per hour, as of May 2024.

The study determined that Massachusetts is the most expensive state. It takes a whopping $301,184 a year for a family of four to “live comfortably” there.

The least expensive state is Mississippi. In the Magnolia State, it only takes $177,798 a year for a family of four “to cover their expenses and maintain a satisfactory quality of life”.

This is our country now.

I feel like I have been banging my head into a wall.  For more than a decade I have warned that this would happen, and now it is here.

And even more inflation is on the way…

Americans already contending with persistent and stubbornly high inflation just got more unwelcome news on Tuesday: There are more price hikes likely coming down the pike.

Wholesale inflation picked up in April to its highest rate in a year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Tuesday.

In April, inflation at the wholesale level jumped 0.5 percent in just one month…

Inflation at the wholesale level rose much more than expected in April, the latest sign that price pressures within the economy remain elevated and difficult to tame.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, rose 0.5% in April from the previous month.

If you multiply that figure by 12 months, you get 6 percent.

And of course you need to approximately double any number that the Biden administration gives us in order to come up with a figure that is anywhere close to accurate.

By now, just about everyone realizes that the rate of inflation in this country is massively understated.

For example, Joe Biden insists that the rate of inflation has been “low” for quite some time, but home prices have risen by more than 47 percent since the start of this decade…

Home prices have surged 47.1% since the start of 2020, easily outstripping the gains seen in recent decades.

That’s according to a recent analysis by ResiClub of the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which showed that house prices in the 1990s and 2010s grew a respective 30.1% and 44.7%.

Let’s all be honest with one another.

The truth is that we are in the midst of a raging cost of living crisis that has no end in sight.

And this should not surprise any of us.  Our politicians continue to borrow and spend trillions upon trillions of dollars, and all of this borrowing and spending is extremely inflationary…

An economic specter haunts America. It’s also one that many American politicians – Republican and Democrat – say a great deal about but are reluctant to address.

The name of that shadow is the United States National Debt: what the US Treasury Department defines as “the amount of money the Federal Government has borrowed to cover the outstanding balance of expenses incurred over time.”

If you go to the Treasury’s website, you can see just how big that debt is. In mid-May, it was 34.5 trillion dollars. The pace of the growth in that debt is equally stunning. Approximately 1 trillion dollars is being added to America’s National Debt every 100 days.

Borrowing and spending another trillion dollars every 100 days is a completely and utterly insane thing to do.

We really are in the endgame.

Today, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that interest rates may have to stay high for an extended period of time in order to fight inflation…

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that “it may take longer than expected” for high interest rates to lower inflation and gave no hint that a recently slowing labor market could mean earlier rate cuts.

“We’ll need to be patient and let restrictive policy do its work,” Powell said during a session at a Foreign Bankers Association meeting in Amsterdam. “It may be that (high interest rates) take longer than expected to do its work and bring inflation down.”

So far, higher rates have not solved our cost of living crisis, and that is because our politicians continue to spend money like drunken sailors.

But higher rates are crushing the overall economy.

Yesterday, I wrote about the “restaurant apocalypse” that is starting to sweep across America.

Today, it got even worse.

We just learned that at least 99 Red Lobster locations have been shut down and will be auctioned off…

At least 99 locations of Red Lobster are being auctioned off amid questions about the stalwart seafood chain’s long-term future.

In a post Monday on LinkedIn, Neal Sherman, founder and CEO of TAGeX Brands, a liquidation firm, announced he was leading the closure of more than 50 Red Lobster locations, with the restaurants’ equipment to be auctioned off.

A web page dedicated to the liquidations showed closure locations across the U.S. including in Denver; Indianapolis; Rochester, New York; Sacramento, California; San Antonio; and San Diego.

On Tuesday, Restaurant Business Magazine reported 99 locations were closing.

For the Red Lobster workers that just lost their jobs, the end came very suddenly…

A third Red Lobster employee took the news in stride, posting: ‘red lobster just laid all of us off without notice and closed for good LMAOO.’

The employee added in replied that Red Lobster didn’t tell managers until 8am yesterday.

Of course it isn’t just restaurant chains that are closing locations.

In fact, even Walmart is closing stores and auctioning off inventory…

After announcing that it would be shutting its doors for good, one Ohio Walmart auctioned off its remaining inventory, including flat-screen televisions, laptops and furniture, for a bargain.

The Walmart at 3579 S. High St. in Columbus opted not to renew its lease in a once-bustling strip plaza. Representatives announced the closure in February, claiming the store had failed to ‘meet financial expectations’.

Last week, the store offloaded its merchandise through a liquidation auction. Bidding closed the morning of May 10, with some items like laptops going for under $20.

If interest rates stay high, we are going to see a lot more of this sort of thing.

But the Federal Reserve is very hesitant to cut rates at this point because of the cost of living crisis.

Officials at the Fed really are caught in a “deer in the headlights” moment right now.

But no matter which way they ultimately choose to go, in the short-term more “stagflation” is ahead.

And in the long-term, the exceedingly foolish policies that our leaders have been pursuing are going to result in a systemic collapse of absolutely epic proportions.

Sound off about this article on the Economic Collapse Substack.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Median incomes have only risen by 23% over the same period, leaving many people unable to enter the housing market. In 2020, a household earning $59,000 per year could afford a typical home priced at $240,815. At that time, this income level was below the US median income of $66,000, meaning more than half of American households had sufficient funds to buy a home without overextending their budgets.

Today, those shopping for a home need to earn $106,000 annually to afford a median-priced home at $342,941. This is $47,000 more than they needed to earn in 2020 to afford a home and well above the current average income of $81,000.

A recent Zillow analysis has shown how difficult it has become to break into homeownership as the cost of purchasing a home has outpaced income growth, pushing hopeful buyers out of the market. In fact, only a handful of major metropolitan areas were found to be affordable at the median income. Zillow defines affordability as spending no more than 30% of your income after offering a 10% down payment.

Monthly mortgage payments have nearly doubled over the past four years, with today’s typical buyer facing a monthly payment that is 96% higher compared to 2020 levels. This equates to an average payment of $2,200 per month with a 10% down payment.

The main factors behind this increase are the significant rise in home values and mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have gone up from around 3.5% in early 2020 to between 6.5% and 7% so far this year. Limited housing supply has also contributed to the issue.

In 2023, buyers needed an income of $97,000 to afford a typical home, up from $86,000 in 2022. This was $22,000 above last year’s median household income of $75,000.

“The income needed to comfortably afford a typical home is now six figures,” said Orphe Divounguy, chief economist at Zillow. “It’s a big increase that’s due to a combination of higher prices, mortgage rates, and limited supply.”

Neither mortgage rates nor home prices are expected to ease anytime soon, with economists from Fannie Mae predicting rates to drop to 6% by the end of the year and Zillow forecasting home prices to increase by 0.9% over 2024 to an average of $349,611.

Younger buyers are also facing challenges, as the pressure of affordability has delayed their entry into homeownership. It now takes 8.5 years for a household making the median income to save enough for a 10% down payment, a year longer than it would have in 2020. The average age of first-time homebuyers has also risen from 31 to 36 in the past five years.

To overcome these hurdles, buyers are turning to strategies such as “house hacking” and seeking financial assistance from friends and family. In 2023, 21% of those who purchased reported getting financial help from friends or family, according to Zillow.

In conclusion, the affordability of homes has significantly decreased in recent years, with the income required to purchase a home outpacing wage growth. This has resulted in many prospective buyers being priced out of the market and forced to employ creative strategies to afford a home.

Article generated from corporate media reports.

Following slow loan growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, community banks increasingly parked their assets in Treasury bonds, mortgage-backed securities and municipal bonds, which then lost value due to higher interest rates, leaving those banks with billions in unrealized losses, according to the WSJ. Interest rates rose due to the Federal Reserve hiking the federal funds rate to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest level in 22 years, in an effort to tame inflation that peaked under Biden at 9.1% in June 2022.

In the third quarter, more than 300 banks had 50% of their assets in securities, and 100 of those had more than 75%, according to the WSJ. In contrast, only 19% of all assets invested by American banks were held in securities in the middle of the year, indicating that the top banks that hold the majority of assets have less in securities.

Depositors have become increasingly cautious about where they place their money following a string of regional bank failures earlier this year, starting with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), resulting in federal regulators seizing the bank’s assets. As a consequence, depositors have increasingly brought their money to bigger banks that they see as a safer bet, believing they are presumably immune from the same kind of bank runs that SVB and others saw.

Banks' unrealized losses grew in the third quarter, per Axios: pic.twitter.com/9H6owxoQrx

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) December 27, 2023

The dwindling depositors and the effect of unrealized losses have led to net income at community banks falling 20% in the third quarter, according to the WSJ. Community banks are often the key lenders in local economies, and without them, a crucial line of credit would disappear.

The Federal Reserve released their expectations for the new year at the most recent Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting, showing that the median consensus was a lowering of the Fed funds rate to 4.6% by the end of 2024. While that would still leave the rate relatively high, it could provide relief for some of the unrealized security losses that are weighing down many banks.

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Adding to the recent confusion of why the markets are moving up is whether liquidity is, or is not being added to the financial system. It appears bank lending is contracting but other things are happening behind the scenes in swap rates and yield curves. While some of us point to the Fed saying it is tightening and reducing its balance sheet some economists point to a back channel inflow of liquidity juicing the system.

A case can be made that recent market action remains more about liquidity than interest rates. A lack of liquidity can be poisonous. When you need money, whether the amount is small or large, not being able to get it can lead to a life-changing or grave outcome.  Interestingly, as noted above, the liquidity issue remains unresolved. Central banks are well aware that contagion from one area can spill over into other sectors of the economy and markets. This is why China continues to inject liquidity into its market. How much of that money is getting out of China is an issue.

So, here we sit, new market highs at a time when many economy watchers are voicing concerns the economy is rapidly slowing and the Fed is already behind the curve in dropping rates. The counterargument being floated is that all is well and we are in the midst of a soft landing or no landing. The latter is the optimistic view that we have entered a Goldilocks moment and the markets are set to go ever higher.

Those taking the stand a quick reversal of Fed policy and looking at rapidly falling rates may be failing to consider trees don’t grow to the sky. It could be argued a major pullback is necessary to avoid a much more severe problem or bigger disaster in the future. Inflation is a key component in assessing where things go from here.  Again, I point to The Hard Asset Inflation / Paper Asset Deflation Theory

Much of the current market danger stems from the fact the fluid financial and economic situation is highly leveraged. If something breaks, the amount of money needed to backstop and halt a collapse of the system will be far larger than anything we have seen in the past. Remember a massive drop in asset prices and the value of bonds directly impacts pension funds and many other aspects of our financial structure.

A great deal of what we call growth has been, or is now financially engineered by companies buying back their own shares and other companies rather than growing organically. This risk is constantly being downplayed as more and more of the concentration of wealth pushes takes place, into just a few companies. A case and point often raised is the huge market capitalization of what is known as the “magnificent seven.”

As usual or maybe even more than usual, we should continue to factor in the idea things could be shaken by another pandemic, massive war including the use of nuclear weapons. The whole idea that stocks climb a wall of worry and fall like a stone underlines the fact that markets are non-linear and do not move in a straight line. People tend to slip into a generally optimistic feeling of complacency and discount this reality.

Lower inflation figures strongly into the euphoria we see in the market. Much of this has been driven by lower gasoline prices which are likely to prove temporary and the idea the costs of “shelter” or keeping a roof over your head will soon decline. These notions brush aside several important facts such as the rising cost of labor and other factors feeding into housing. These include insurance, soaring maintenance costs, and rising taxes. All of these are expected to move higher in the future.

A bond fella recently recently made the case that yields would drop as inflation falls. Several pundits have speculated the Fed must “know something, or be spooked” to have changed course. Pulling on this thread could lead us back to the notion China’s economy is in free-fall and it is the main reason rates will be falling everywhere. This has resulted in the notion we will see super strong demand for bonds during a recession even if the supply is huge.

Still, buying long-term bonds to hold is far different than buying them to hold. Long term we have to look at the future of fiat money and inflation from currency debasement. I’m not convinced it is wise for investors to lock themselves into any fiat currency long-term as things could change rapidly.

Consider the possibility that the Fed is yielding to pressure rather than making a policy change based on choice. By prematurely declaring inflation as no longer an issue it takes pressure off government bonds and banks. When we look back at how this plays out it is likely the importance of liquidity and the money supply will prove far more important than minor changes in interest rates.

In a recent video delving into inflation in commodities, Daniel Lacalle claimed there are only three ways to halt inflation and inflation is fueled by monetary conditions. Lacalle says the only way to stop inflation is raise interest rates, reduce the amount of money in the system, or to create an aggregate demand reduction of credit.

The public sector, or to qualify, governments are busy thwarting all these factors. As long as governments and central banks continue to overspend and print money the inflation beast will remain a ferocious creature.

The so-called ‘American Dream’ is the benchmark that many people hope to achieve in their lifetime – getting married, buying a home and a car and raising children.

But new analysis has found that achieving these milestones now costs a staggering $3,455,305 – much more than most Americans will make in their lifetime.

One of the biggest amounts is for paying off a mortgage on a property. The average homebuyer will fork out $796,998, according to Investopedia – assuming a 10 percent down payment and a 30-year fixed loan at 7.2 percent interest.

Are you going to make 3.4 million dollars during your working years?

If not, “the American Dream” is not for you. Sorry.

Today, it is only those that are at the very top of the economic food chain that are thriving.

Once upon a time, America had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now the top 1 percent controls more wealth than the entire middle class…

Thirty years ago, America’s celebrated middle class commanded twice as much wealth as the upper 1%.

Over the years, the rich have grown steadily richer. The top 1% caught and passed the middle class in collective wealth in late 2020, Fed data show.

The top 1% of American earners now control more wealth than the nation’s entire middle class.

This is what happens when power and wealth are highly centralized.

The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is now bigger than ever.

So good luck trying to live a middle class lifestyle in this environment.

Do you want to buy a couch?  Well, the exact same couch that would have cost you $799 in 2019 will now cost you $1,599…

An interior designer has revealed an IKEA couch that used to cost $799 in 2019 is now double the price four years later.

Jilian Dee, a small business owner based in Los Angeles, went viral on TikTok after stitching @loljustmark’s video about the Swedish furniture giant’s ‘crazy’ prices.

Mark, a construction and home décor expert, pointed out that IKEA’s Finnala sofa and chaise now costs a whopping $1,599, saying he wouldn’t pay more than $700 for it.

And don’t even get me started on the price of food.

Beef is already considered to be a “luxury meat”, and it is going to be even more expensive in 2024 because the USDA is projecting that beef production will be way down…

The USDA projects beef production to be down by 180 million pounds over a six-month period by the end of 2023, while the Insider noted that the average size of herds is at 61-year record lows as farmers struggle to feed their animals.

“A lot of our neighbors are selling … The cattle values in general are worth more than they’ve ever been worth before. And quite frankly they’re worth more than what we’re having to pay for hay,” Kent told the FT.

And we are being warned that supplies of many other products in our grocery stores will be getting tighter as well…

As we prepare to step into 2024, it’s important to know what changes are to come over the next year—including the changes that might come to the selection of items at grocery stores.

In 2023, we faced scarcity of several products, from toilet paper to sriracha. Now, there are a few other items that may be become harder to find over the next 12 months.

Factors like environmental challenges, labor shortages, and more could pose a risk to the availability, quality, and affordability of certain spices, dairy products, eggs, seafood, grains, fresh produce, and meat and poultry.

Of course there are some things that you won’t be able to get at all.

Members of Congress have been told that drug shortages in the U.S. recently reached a record high, and this is a problem that is not going away any time soon…

Drug shortages in the U.S. have hit a record high and lawmakers warn they could mean life or death for millions of patients. A House committee is investigating what Congress can do to the supply chain to make sure doctors don’t have to keep rationing essential drugs like cancer treatments.

Health experts agree the shortages of hundreds of generic drugs need urgent attention.

But they’re still trying to build consensus on a remedy.

If you go to the official FDA drug shortage list, you will see that there are 143 entries right now.

And some of the drugs that are in short supply are used millions of times each year…

Critical shortages in the US include albuterol, an asthma and allergy medication used to prevent and treat breathing difficulty; amoxicillin, a crucial antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, including pneumonia, which is seeing rising cases in the US; epinephrine — or adrenaline — a drug used to treat life-threatening conditions like severe allergic reaction.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 54 million prescriptions written for amoxicillin in 2019. In 2020, nearly 62 million albuterol prescriptions were handed out.

I am not going to sugarcoat this for you.

This is a crisis.

In some cases, the lives of American kids are being put in danger because they can’t get the drugs that they desperately need…

One teenage lymphoma patient from Indiana was forced to take a type of chemotherapy that had previously led to a life-threatening allergic reaction, because the medication he had tolerated was out of stock.

Another Florida-based mother of a nine-year-old girl with aggressive Leukemia was told to expect a 15-month wait for a $10 drug that would save the young girl’s life.

So why is this happening?

Well, there are many factors that are contributing to this nightmare, but one of the biggest is the fact that we have become so dependent on China and India…

Another factor driving the problem is the US’ reliance on key materials from China and India to make 95 percent of medicines used in emergency care.

We should have never allowed this to happen.

But we did. And now we will pay a very great price.

If you think that shortages are bad now, just wait until China invades Taiwan. Things will get really crazy at that point.

So I would very much encourage you to prepare in advance for the chaotic times that are rapidly approaching, but unfortunately most Americans still believe that everything will work out just fine somehow.

Sound off about this article and video on our Economic Collapse Substack.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

That breaks down to about $3,400 a month, and that is before taxes.  Needless to say, you cannot live a middle class lifestyle in America today on just $3,400 a month before taxes.  So in most households more than one person must work, and in many cases more than one person is working multiple jobs.

During our current inflation crisis, the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and this is squeezing American families like never before.

Right now, the national median price of renting a home is $1,978 a month, and so after paying rent on a home the average worker wouldn’t have much left over for anything else.

Meanwhile, actually owning a home is the most unaffordable that it has been since 1984…

Buying and paying for a house costs Americans more now than at any point in almost four decades. Thanks to strong demand and a limited supply of new homes – even as mortgage rates have more than doubled in the past year – it now takes nearly 41% of the median household’s monthly income to afford the payments on a median-priced home, according to research from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). The last time housing payments cost that much was in 1984.

Of course it isn’t just the cost of housing that has gone crazy.

Just about everything has soared in price over the past few years, and those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest…

But when compared with January 2021, shortly before the inflation crisis began, prices remain up a stunning 17.62%.

Inflation has created severe financial pressures for most U.S. households, which are forced to pay more for everyday necessities like food and rent. The burden is disproportionately borne by low-income Americans, whose already-stretched paychecks are heavily impacted by price fluctuations.

If things are hard for you and your family right now, please understand that you are not alone. Most of the country is in the exact same boat.

In a desperate attempt to maintain their middle class lifestyles, millions upon millions of Americans have been taking on debt like never before, and as a result we are now facing an unprecedented consumer debt bubble…

Inflation has also impacted spending on major purchases. Balances on non-housing loans have more than doubled since 2003, totaling roughly $4.8 trillion, according to data from the New York Federal Reserve. More than $500 billion of that debt accumulated just in the past two years – a bigger jump than any other two-year period since 2003, the earliest year available.

Some of that debt comes from skyrocketing car prices, but credit card balances are growing the fastest of all – roughly 34% from the fall of 2021.

Unfortunately, the consumer debt party is coming to an end because financial institutions are starting to become significantly tighter with their money.

A credit crunch has begun, and it is only going to intensify in the months ahead.

Of course that is more bad news for our rapidly shrinking middle class.

More formerly middle class Americans are falling into poverty with each passing day, and this is causing an alarming surge in demand at food banks from coast to coast…

As families across the nation prepare for the holiday season, some food banks across the United States dedicated to fighting hunger say they are experiencing an increase in demand following the end of pandemic-era SNAP benefits, an increase in inflation, and other regional factors.

Caroline De La Fuente helps care for her 16 grandchildren while their parents work to make ends meet and is one of the thousands of people who, according to data, depend on food banks. She told ABC News that without the San Antonio Food Bank, her family and others in the community wouldn’t eat.

“A lot of people would go hungry,” she said. “Kids would go hungry at night. People would not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving.”

The number of homeless Americans is spiking as well.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal has reported that homelessness in the United States has been increasing at the fastest pace ever recorded in 2023….

The U.S. has seen a record increase in homeless people this year as the Covid-19 pandemic fades, according to a Wall Street Journal review of data from around the country.

Yes, this is really happening.

The middle class really is coming apart at the seams right in front of our eyes.

And this is one of the reasons why so many people have such short fuses these days.

Even the smallest things can turn some people into raving lunatics at this point.  For example, one woman actually drove her SUV into a Popeyes restaurant because an order of biscuits was missing…

A woman drove her SUV into a Georgia Popeyes building after the manager said she became angry over a missing order of biscuits Saturday, according to an incident report filed by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.

The manager said that prior to the crash, restaurant staff gave 50-year-old Belinda Miller biscuits to rectify the error, but she was still not happy and “…would drive her vehicle into the building.”

According to the incident report, a witness who allegedly waited in line with Miller told them to hurry and get their order “because she was coming back.”

Miller did return, according to the incident report, and allegedly drove her SUV into the chicken restaurant, narrowly missing an 18-year-old employee.

I wish that I could say that this was an isolated incident, but it isn’t.

There are so many crazy people running around out there, and you never know who will be the next one to totally lose it.

If things are this bad now, what is going to happen once the economy totally falls apart and our society descends into complete and utter chaos?

Economic conditions have deteriorated substantially in 2023, and I am entirely convinced that 2024 will be even worse…

Sound off about this article on Economic Collapse Substack.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

In a commentary at the Daily Signal, he wrote that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, at $46.90 in 2020, now is $61.17, “an increase of more than 30.4%.

“This price increase puts an astonishing burden on American households. However, that is only one of many price jumps during the Bidenomics era. Across all categories of food at home, prices are up more than 20% from when President Joe Biden took office, while energy prices are up well over 35%,” he explained.

Bidenomics also has “dramatically pushed up the first year’s interest cost on a typical mortgage from around $8,500 when President Donald Trump left office to well over $24,000 now,” he said.

From Reagan through Trump, annual interest payments on a new mortgage, with 20% down on a median house, were stable.

Under Biden? Up from $8,500 to almost $24,300…over 285% of the level under Trump! Thanks Bidenomics… pic.twitter.com/CegrUuLOW6

— Richard A. Stern (@RichAStern) October 28, 2023

Stern warned, “Thanksgiving is meant to be devoted to thankfulness for family and the many other blessings in each of our lives. But, as most American families sit down to a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, they will also be met with a specter looming over their financial life—namely, Bidenomics.

“This rampant level of inflation hasn’t, however, been a random or unforeseeable occurrence. It’s the direct and predictable result of massive upticks in federal spending. Whenever the government spends, it does so by forcefully taking funding out of the hands of hardworking Americans,” he explained. “When a business or household borrows, it does so because the lender has faith that the borrower will be able to earn enough money to pay back the loan in the future. When a government borrows, however, that isn’t the case.

“Governments are not capable of earning money through merit alone. Nationalizing industries or raising taxes are clearly coercive. Printing more money is another form of theft, forcefully pouring water into the wine of every American’s life savings.

“Since these methods are coercive, government borrowing is as well. When a government borrows money, it agrees to use its unique power to pay back the loan with someone else’s money,” he noted.

It’s the Left, he charged, that has “propagated the lie that government deficit spending was a magical free lunch because the government didn’t hike taxes to pay for massive spending increases. As inflation has shown, in the end, there is no free lunch, just the government eating your lunch at the money market buffet table.”

The result is inevitable, he said. “With Biden and so many other politicians committed to deficits at such an absurd level, there is only one further policy outcome: hyperinflation or sky-high interest rates that crowd out economic growth.”

Under Biden, “prices are now up more than 20% since the pandemic started and mortgage rates have spiked from around 3% to 7.5%, pushing that pillar of the American dream, homeownership, even further out of reach for tens of millions of Americans,” he said.

His advice: “As the nation comes together this Thanksgiving to be with loved ones and count their blessings, let us recommit to the principles that led us to such prosperity. May lawmakers reduce the crushing size and scope of the government to allow Americans to keep the fruits of their labors and get back to building a brighter future for generations to come.”

Biden, meanwhile, is spending his Thanksgiving at the $34 million Nantucket island home of a friend, billionaire businessman David Rubenstein.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

(Mercola)—In the video above, finance expert Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and president of the Solari Report, discusses coming changes to the banking system, how they threaten our freedom, and what we can do to prevent them.

Fitts was the assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during the Reagan administration. She understands the financial system inside and out, having spent decades exposing corruption and fraud, both within the banking industry and government.

Do You Know Your Banker?

This past summer — after Chase bank debanked my business along with two of my top executives and their families — she put out a four-part video series on banking on CHD.TV, where she has a weekly show called Financial Rebellion, cohosted with the Solari Report’s general counsel, Carolyn Betts.

The episode was titled “How to Develop a Successful Relationship with a Great Bank” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) because, as she says, this “makes an enormous amount of difference to your life.”

“Once upon a time, people thought they could just go online or walk into a bank, get any old account, and it would be professional and functional. It’s not that,” she says.

“We’re talking about a significant relationship. It’s very important that your banker knows you and you know your banker. You [need] a relationship where you can pick up a phone and call if there’s a problem and get things handled …

We just took all the questions we’ve gotten since the very beginning and rolled them up into a detailed four-part series that goes through every possible aspect of how you might relate to your bank, how to find a good bank, and how to build a relationship with the bank.

I have a great relationship at a great bank, and it is one of the great joys of my life. Wherever I am, because I travel all over the world, whenever I have a problem, I just pick up the phone and call them. And it’s wonderful. They’re watching my back, and it makes an enormous difference …

It’s the financial equivalent of a marriage. And it’s so important that your basic transactions run on a platform that you can trust. One of my favorite quotes is from a Swiss doctor, who said ‘The currency of the future will be relationships of trust.’

So, when we think about our financial life, we have to think about, ‘What are the personal and professional and institutional relationships that I have? And how can I make sure that they’re trustworthy?’

So, we go through it in detail, and I encourage anybody who’s not satisfied or happy with their bank, or nervous about their bank, to go listen to the whole thing. We have the questions for each part listed so you can skip around if a part … is not relevant to you.”

The Growing Role of Artificial Intelligence

It’s been just about 11 months since the large language model ChatGPT was released to the public. While not at the level of being an artificial general intelligence (AGI), it’s an extremely powerful artificial intelligence (AI).

The global cabal behind The Great Reset — which Fitts refers to as “Mr. Global,” as a metaphor for the families that control most of the world’s wealth — has been enormously successful in brainwashing and propagandizing the public with the existing strategies at its disposal. With AI, their ability to influence people will improve and expand even further, and this is something we need to be cognizant of. As Fitts notes:

“AI is a component piece of a system that’s been very successful at brainwashing, propaganda and mind control … and when you combine it with entrainment, subliminal programming, and software that creates addictions, you create this phenomenal infrastructure of things that really suck people in.

Part of [AI’s] power is … access to tremendous [amounts of] data about what we’re thinking, what we’re doing, what we want. So it’s the surveillance component in combination with the rest of those. And of course, AI just makes it turbocharged.

The movie about East Germany’s surveillance called ‘The Lives of Others’¹ … is a really powerful movie that describes what it’s like to be under 24/7 surveillance, which I experienced when I was in Washington litigating with the federal government.”

There’s a War for Your Mind

The problem is you’re not being surveilled and influenced by a single institution. Hundreds of entities, governments, companies and organizations are collecting and using your data to influence you for their own purposes. The challenge, then, is how to organize and manage your life in a way that optimizes and protects your own interests.

“The system we’re facing, which is very much driven by Big Tech, is trying to harvest or steal our wealth, and we’re trying to build wealth,” Fitts says. “Right now, for example, I think the No. 1 thing stopping anybody from building wealth is what I call the Great Poisoning.

So, instead of me just going in and doing whatever the software bots encourage me to do vis-a-vis food or nutrition or my health, it’s essential that I say, ‘Wait a minute. What are my personal goals, and how do I optimize them?’

And then work your way through this blizzard of online or electronic tools that are trying to talk you into whatever’s good for that institution or organization. It’s a war. It’s the only way I can describe it. It’s a war.”

Control to What End?

As noted by Fitts, one of the globalists’ goals is to capture your wealth and prevent you from building it. The question is why? They own most of the assets in the world already. There must be another motivation behind this wealth seizure, but what is it? Fitts explains:

“Money is simply a management system. Money is a control system. They’re not so much interested in money as [they are] in managing the crowd. And historically, one of the most profitable businesses, and the business that makes it easy to manage the crowd, is slavery.

Unfortunately, my personal experience with the folks within the Mr. Global basket, they believe in and practice slavery. And if you go back and look at why we canceled slavery the last time around, digital technology can solve those problems …

They truly believe they cannot trust the general population in a period of faster learning speeds and change to keep up and make intelligent decisions about the risk management issues they face … What are the risk issues that keep Mr. Global up at night? What are they worried about?

I believe one of the reasons they globalized was because they wanted to create the engineering and other capacity needed to go into space, because you don’t want to bet the ranch on one planet.

So, I think there’s a real push in space for a variety of reasons, but one of them is simply diversification. They are worried about one or more geophysical risks, is my guess.”

Projections for Crypto

In a previous interview, Fitts surprised me with her view on cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s creation and development are often attributed to the collective efforts of a group or individual using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, but the true identity (or identities) behind this pseudonym remains one of the most significant mysteries in the cryptocurrency world.

The common understanding is that Nakamoto is the ultimate altruist and abandoned his 1 million Bitcoin for the benefit of humanity. Nic Carter is a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency community, and he doesn’t buy that story and is convinced that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for creating Bitcoin. He believes Bitcoin was written by NSA cryptographers as a monetary bioweapon.²

Interestingly, after hundreds of hours of studying custodian issues, Fitts agrees with him. The question, then, is what will happen to Bitcoin and other crypto? Fitts weighs in:

“It depends on how their rollout of complete control works … As long as they have the ability to assert complete control and shut [crypto] down or marginalize it, it’s easy for [Mr. Global] to assert control. Until then, they can continue to pull money out of precious metals and real and hard assets by encouraging retail to go into crypto.

But they can also prototype lots of different technologies and methods with crypto. The brilliance of what they did with crypto is they got freedom fighters and hackers in the software world to figure everything out for them, and do it for free, as long as they just poured some money into pump and dump the thing.

So, it was a very, very clever strategy. The important thing to understand, if we had a free world and a world dedicated to freedom, we would absolutely use Bitcoin and cryptos. We would want an analog and a digital system, and we would want private currencies and community currencies both.

If you’re looking at this and thinking about an ideal financial system, your immediate reaction is, ‘Bitcoin’s great. What’s not to love about Bitcoin?’ So my objection is not to Bitcoin. My objection is to an all-digital system because that is what affords control. And I’m constantly seeing Bitcoin potentially used to help advantage the bad guys.

You see a lot of great, wonderful people being harmed with the pump-and-dumps. Every time they pump Bitcoin, I’m saying, please, please, please, if you swap into the pump, you’re creating taxable liabilities.

If you’re a U.S. citizen, please sell some and escrow your tax money because on the dump, you’re going to discover that your tax liability is greater than your entire position is valued. So please escrow taxes on the way up because otherwise, you’re going to be toast. And sure enough, every time we get a dump, I hear the pain of people who didn’t do that.”

Another recommendation by crypto experts is that if you’re going to enter crypto, you’ll want to do something called dollar cost averaging, or DCA, as you’re buying into it, so that you get the best price overall. You also want to do this coming out. So as Bitcoin goes up, you want to be selling. You have to take the profit.

“I have a couple of subscribers who are very knowledgeable financial people, and at the beginning of 2017, they said, ‘This is a scam. I’m going to play it like a speculative scam, and I’m going to make a lot of money.’ And they did,” Fitts says.

So, in summary, the existing crypto market is a prototype controlled by Mr. Global. It’s not what it appears to be. Unfortunately, probably less than 1% of the population understands this, and instead ends up on the losing end.

The Race Is on to Gobble Up Hard Assets

Fitts continues:

“One of the things that was very clear once the financial crisis hit was that the debt growth model was coming to an end and the race was on to get the hard assets.

In other words, you want the land. You want the precious metals. You want the water. You want the minerals … The war is now on for the real assets … So, you have the central bankers around the world buying gold, particularly in the BRIC nations. In 2005, Russia went on a program to completely move their reserves out of dollars and into gold.

In 2008, if you looked at the list of the 100 top landowners in the United States, by 2012 their landholdings had doubled. And so there was a real push by the central banks and the big money to move steadily into real estate and precious metals. Buffet is buying railroad companies; Buffet is buying the big gas producers or energy distribution companies.

And so you see this shift into hard assets. So, it’s a no-brainer that you would want to interest retail in digital assets to keep them out of the market. In other words, you want them to walk away from gold and buy Bitcoin, because the last thing you want is the competition to buy up all that stuff.”

As noted by Fitts, digital technology could be wonderful in helping us decentralize and build new wealth, but it’s not being used that way. Instead, it’s being used to centralize control, which siphons wealth out.

The Engineered Consolidation of Banks

Yesterday I posted an interview with investigative journalist Whitney Webb, in which she discussed the likelihood of a massive cyberattack on the banking system taking place sometime in 2024, which will then be used to usher in a Cyber Patriot Act.

So, for a period of time, the internet may be shut down, and when it’s brought back up, you won’t be able to access anything online unless you obtain authorization for your ISP through your digital identity, which will be tied to a central bank digital currency and social credit score. In short, to have any online access at all, you’ll then have to accept and enter into their digital control system.

“[A cyberattack on the banks] is one of the scenarios they’ve been working on,” Fitts says. “And there is no doubt right now there is an effort to control and engineer consolidation in the banking system. The question in my mind, which I don’t know the answer to is, will they be ready by 2024?

If you look at the Fed bringing up the FedNow system, it’s still voluntary to join it. And I just don’t know if, operationally, they can make this work in 2024. Now, if you look at what’s happening globally, they may be forced to just do it and have it be very organic and messy. But is this a plausible scenario? Yes, it’s a plausible scenario.”

You Need to Connect With Us on Mobile in Case Internet Is Gone

We have no idea how long the internet will be down, but it could be weeks or longer. We will be unable to provide you with important updates if this happens and we only have your email. That is why I am urging you to please sign up in the form below so we can connect with you by messaging your phone. (U.S. phone numbers only,)

Safeguard Important Information

I believe we have a very limited time with the internet as we currently know it. Already, it’s exponentially inferior to what we had previously, before all the censorship was rolled out. It’s getting more and more difficult to access truth, especially pertaining to health.

The resources you’re going need to survive and thrive in the coming times are already being culled out of reach. What this means is that you need to safeguard that information now. Today. Make sure you have hard copies of important health information. Buy books. Save important information on a hard drive that isn’t connected to the internet. Fitts agrees, noting:

“For 15 years, I’ve been making sure I buy everything I need in hard copy on the assumption that everything digital would be censored — that we would need a library of gardening and all sorts of technologies and skills. One of the things I would say to our listeners is, if you don’t have it in hard copy, for heaven’s sakes, print it out or buy it now because you want to have a complete archive of everything you need in analog form.

If you read the stories of who did well in the Depression, what you hear are stories of people in communities that had among each other all the skills they needed for survival. I often talk with people about how to start community currencies or network currencies, and what I say to them is, ‘Look, if you haven’t worked out the health and food, whatever you do in the currency area won’t work.’

‘Pharma Food’ … our latest wrap-up, is on synthetic food and lab-grown meat. It’s the most terrifying thing. Elze van Hamelen did ‘Pharma Food’ and then we had her do ‘Dutch Farmers and Fishermen.’ Both of them show how the Dutch farmer and fishermen are connected to the whole global agenda, One Health, the WHO, everything … So these two pieces really sort of out what they’re doing in the food area.

One of the reasons they’re trying to get complete central control of food is you can’t get central control of the financial system and currency unless you have control of food. They’re two sides of the same coin. So you absolutely want to make sure, in the health and food area, that you are ready to be as resilient as you possibly can be.”

With such an uncertain future ahead of us, I’m putting together a comprehensive 10-module video course that will be available to Substack subscribers. It’s a compilation of the most important information I’ve learned in the last 50 years about health and resilience. Subscribers will then be able to download these videos and the transcripts, so they have access to the information even if they don’t have internet access.

An Alternate Reset Is Possible

Fitts continues:

“In 1991, I came out of the Bush administration, and I said, ‘They’re going to take digital technology and kill us all. We need another plan.’ So basically, I spent the ’90s prototyping how we could do a positive reset … a wealth-building reset that would protect and preserve the middle class, which is very possible even at this late stage.

I was absolutely convinced that part of getting that kind of reset going was a critical mass of people who understood that this push to centralized control was going to go to a place we couldn’t afford to go. I mean, first of all, it’s going to destroy us. They’re trying to steal our stuff and kill us.

I wrote an online book called ‘Dillon Read and the Aristocracy,’ about how they were targeting poor neighborhoods with the predatory lending and the pill mills and the private prison sweeps, et cetera. But I think a lot of people thought, ‘Oh, that’s just poor people. I’m safe.’

What I’m now seeing that I have not seen until now, is a critical mass of people saying, ‘You know something? My doctors are lying to me. I cannot trust them. My government is lying to me. I cannot trust them. And in fact, there is a plan to kill me.’ And it relates to the food, it relates to the spray, it relates to the pesticides, it relates to the injections, it relates to the pharmaceuticals — [nothing] is trustworthy.

This is the first time since 1991 that I’ve seen a critical mass of very capable, well-educated professional people with real skills … coming together and saying, ‘This was a mass atrocity. They’re trying to kill us.’ And that’s a breakthrough because once you have a clear picture of the problem, then you start to use your time effectively.”

Helpful Resources

The Solari Report has a collection of reports and videos that explain the dangers of our current path and how to get out of it. Here’s a quick list:

• Financial Transaction Freedom — This memorandum was prepared at the request of government officials who are trying to understand what they can do to protect financial transaction freedom. It also includes lists of what you can do as an individual, a family, a business or an investor. It lays out the whole agenda. I encourage you to send this document to your state legislators and share it with your social networks.
• CBDC videos, explaining what CBDCs are and how they will control you.
• How to Develop a Successful Relationship with a Great Bank Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

• Reversing the Financial Coup d’Etat, a briefing memo for U.S. federal and state candidates and legislators. You can also find it here.
• I want to stop CBDCs. What can I do?

Fitts comments:

“We’re constantly putting out lists of what people can do, and saying, ‘This is a buffet. Don’t do everything on this list. Do the ones you can do and are energizing and feasible for you to do.’ If everybody does that, it’s a revolution.”

How State Legislators Can Protect Their Residents

The powers not delegated to the federal government by the states are reserved to the states, and as explained by Fitts, state legislators have the power to create independent payment and custodian systems that can protect citizens and stop the Federal Reserve and the treasury from imposing their new slave system.

“If Whitney’s scenario comes through, the next thing that happens is whether it’s the real estate, or the precious metals, or the securities, the bank deposits, they’re looking basically to siphon off and control or steal every asset …

Given that there’s $21 trillion missing from the U.S. government treasury, there is legal basis to create common law right of offsets that give the state legislators the power to offset, as long as they have the financial train tracks set up within the state, even if we have to do it by pony express and bicycle.

So, if the treasury and Fed try to steal our pension fund securities, or steal citizen securities, or play games with custodians or the banks, the states have that legal power, so come the time when they cut off your bank account … there is a place to go.

You don’t necessarily have to have a state bank, but it’s very helpful to have a state bank. You would be amazed at the speed at which a state legislator can bring up either a state bank or independent state payment mechanisms, and they would be well-served to do that, because unless they do it they cannot create the conditions of sovereignty for their citizens.

They have the power to create those conditions of sovereignty. My advice would be to do a sovereign state bank if you can constitutionally. If not, put together independent payment systems that connect the state with the state banks and the citizens, and do a bullion depository. You’re going to need a bullion depository, as Texas has done.

If you can get 25% to 30% supporting their state legislators to do that, we have a way to jump the curb and say, ‘No, we’re not going into that system. We have an alternative’ …

If you look at how they control the money at the federal government, it’s controlled one county at a time. If you look at what a wealth building reset would look like, it would be a tremendous decentralization and re-engineering of the money.

Right now, 50% or more of the income in any county in America, the 3,100 counties, goes through the federal government. It has a negative return on investment. It’s being spent invested to get control instead of to encourage productivity.

That could change overnight. If we broke free at the state level, and were free to re-engineer the cash flows, the speed at which we could go from negative return to positive return is astonishing … Tyranny is far more expensive than anybody realizes …

When I was assistant secretary of housing and then when I started my investment bank to help re-engineer communities, we simulated how to re-engineer the money by place, bottom up. Of course, it’s very unique to your place, your skills, your ability and what your geographic and people resources are, so it’s going to be very diverse, but you want enormous global and domestic communication between networks.

You want local optimization … and you want communication going back and forth between communities all across the country and the world. Think of this as every country and every county is full of wonderful people who’ve been going along with a criminal syndicate and it’s like a tapeworm. We need to detox the criminal syndicate and go back to productive living. That’s going to be part local, and it’s going to be part national or global. It’s both.”

Additional Suggestions

In the interview, we also discuss other ways in which you can build your resilience. Here’s a summary breakdown of Fitts’ key suggestions:

• You will want to take my Ultimate Natural Health Master Class when it comes out later this year, as it will be 10 to 15 hours of the most important information I have learned in the last 50 years to restore your health and provide you with health resiliency.
• Watch “How to Develop a Successful Relationship with a Great Bank” and start building a relationship with your chosen banker.
• Start building networks of trust with like-minded people.
• Connect with your state legislators, share the reports listed above, and urge them to implement a state bank or other independent state payment mechanisms to protect the financial sovereignty of your state.
• If possible, get out of the inner cities and large urban areas where survival during an extended crisis will be slim. Relocate to an area where there’s off-grid access to food and water, and where people are savvy about physical security and protecting each other against crime.
• If you’re a Solari Report subscriber, you can join Solari Connect to find like-minded individuals in your local area. Other ways to find your tribe could be to join other freedom-oriented organizations such as the CHD and Weston A. Price.
• Build household resiliency by growing a portion of your own food and/or investing in things that will permanently lower your expenses and protect you against inflation.
• Build new practical skillsets.

Sources and Resources:

• ¹ IMBD.com The Lives of Others 2006
• ² Nic Carter doubles down on theory Bitcoin was invented by NSA Coin Telegraph Sept 22, 2023

(Daily Caller)—The conflict between Israel and Hamas could spell economic disaster for the global economy and for Americans if it further destabilizes the Middle East, according to experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Middle East is embroiled in tension after Hamas launched a series of surprise terror attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, resulting in Israel declaring war and preparing for a possible ground invasion into Gaza. An escalation to include neighboring states like Iran could lead to huge oil price spikes, higher inflation and a possible U.S. and world recession, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

“The way that the Israel-Hamas crisis affects U.S. households depends very much on how the conflict evolves,” Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “If it is confined to Israel and Hamas, the impact on the U.S. household would be negligible. This appears to be the market’s expectation, as indicated by the fact that oil prices have not increased very much. On the other hand, if the conflict were to become region-wide and especially if it were to include Iran, the U.S. household would be adversely affected in a meaningful way.”

Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria have launched a number of mostly unsuccessful drone and rocket attacks on bases hosting U.S. troops since Oct. 17. Military and defense leaders believe that Iran is undertaking these attacks to provoke the U.S. into outright war in order to cascade the current Israel-Hamas conflict across the Middle East.

“Limited to Israel and Palestine, the economic implications of the conflict would likely be minimal,” Peter Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. “But because numerous nations are aligning behind the combatants amid a broader division, there are numerous economic implications. The recent coalescence of BRICS-11, where Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa were joined by Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia is explicitly a rampart against Western influence.”

“Most, if not all, of the BRICS-11 are on the other side of the table (or barbed wire) from the US and much of Europe in this conflict,” Earle continued. “So for U.S. consumers, some near-term economic consequences may involve oil (and thus gasoline) prices, the prices and availability of goods imported from China and Brazil (among others), and financial market volatility on 401Ks.”

The coalition added six new countries at the most recent BRICS summit in August, including Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the group as the “new world order,” with the summit also featuring calls to abandon the dollar as the world reserve currency.

“International oil prices would spike to over $100 a barrel on supply disruption concerns and financial markets would be rattled by heightened geopolitical uncertainty,” Lachman told the DCNF. “Higher oil prices would lead to higher gasoline prices which in turn would be reflected in headline inflation. That would make the Fed’s job all the more difficult in that it would prevent the Fed from reducing interest rates anytime soon.”

Watch Americans reaction to being asked to fight alongside Hamashttps://t.co/N5U5vWtWnI

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 27, 2023

The price of oil currently stands at around $85 a barrel, peaking earlier in October at $89.37 per barrel, which was up from a low this year of $66.74 in March, according to Market Insider. The Biden administration recently sought to refill the strategic petroleum reserve at the high price of $79 a barrel after it was depleted of much of its supply to address high gasoline prices.

Inflation has remained persistently high after peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 and then decelerating down to 3.7% for both September and August, despite the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target. The price of fuel oil has contributed significantly to the inflation seen in recent months, increasing 8.5% month-over-month in September and 9.1% for the month in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“If two or more major oil-producing nations got into a shooting war, and if they began targeting one another’s oil production facilities, it would send global energy prices skyrocketing,” Earle told the DCNF. “That, plus the numerous consequential impacts, would likely tip an already vulnerable US economy into a recession. It’s quite possible it would also undo a substantial amount of the disinflation which the Fed’s rate hikes have caused. Not only would rising oil prices result in rising prices for a broadening number of goods and services, including transportation, but the Fed would likely lower interest rates, once again expanding the money supply.”

The Fed, in an attempt to bring down inflation, has raised rates to a 22-year high following 11 hikes since March 2022, bringing the federal funds rate to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%. The Fed will have a chance to change its rate at the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee, which will take place over Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

“The bottom line is that if the conflict were to spread we would very likely get both higher U.S. inflation and a U.S. and world economic recession,” Lachman told the DCNF.

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