I came very close to passing on today’s video/article because it delves into fearmongering. While there are clearly reasons for being concerned about the direction of our nation, the failing economy, geopolitical threats, and our own anti-American leaders driving the country into the ground, it’s difficult to imagine people needing to hunt rabbits like Elmer Fudd (though hopefully with more success) because otherwise their families will starve to death.

Then, I remembered something that I often tell others. “Just because something would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago doesn’t mean it’s not a certainty to happen today.”

No, I do not think it’s a certainty that we will be driven into something as bad if not worse than the Great Depression in which the masses are fighting over ketchup packets to survive, but it would be imprudent to think that’s impossible. That’s why I decided to publish today’s AI-voice-driven Epic Economist fearmonger piece. We can hope they’re wrong. We can do what we can to prepare. But at the end of the day we might find ourselves eating squirrel or nothing at all so it’s better to err on the side of caution. Here’s Epic Economist…

On October 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market faced a devastating crash that resulted in the crisis that we know today as the Great Depression. During that period, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their incomes, and their homes, and countless families faced homelessness and hunger.

Some people survived because they started to plant their fruits and vegetables and raise animals to make their meals. But for many others, that wasn’t an option so they had to improvise with the ingredients they had available. Back then, the vast majority of Americans had to stretch every dollar and pinch every penny to get the most food for their buck.

Conditions were so extreme that desperate people started to do things that would be unthinkable during normal times just to have something on their plate. For instance, while some people only did this when it was roadkill, others actually hunted squirrels to eat.

Those were times when panic and desperation were rapidly spreading through our society, and some Americans had to fight to survive. Eating squirrels was not uncommon in the 30s. Beef was out of the reach of many struggling households, and chickens were kept alive so they could provide eggs, so options were limited.

People hunted, foraged, and learned to make the best of what they had on hand. Canned goods, flour, eggs, and milk sometimes were all families had, and still, they created many different recipes with humble food staples. Those who could eat twice a day were the lucky ones. Poor families only had one meal per day, and parents went hungry at nighttime so they could feed their children.

Even though this happened almost one century ago, the struggles of that time are still in the nation’s memory, especially because current economic conditions are becoming eerily similar to what happened in the late 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s. Today, we have the most overvalued stock market in history.

The housing market is falling apart, with commercial properties setting off the downfall, the economy is slumping while consumer prices are still soaring, and thousands of companies have already announced mass layoffs this year.

To say that life has changed dramatically in the past few years is an understatement. For those who are fortunate enough to still have jobs, making ends meet is no more an issue than normal. But for those who have lost their income entirely, from now on, money will be a bigger problem than ever before. This, however, is not the only burden Americans are facing right now. Grocery stores and big-box retailers are reporting empty shelves for several staples once again, and every time we go shopping, prices are up again.

Although we genuinely hope that our population doesn’t reach the same levels of despair and financial ruin that American families faced during the Great Depression, there plenty of statistics indicating that we are headed to a historic downturn. That’s why we must learn from history, and get ready for the hardships before they reach us.

Even the UN is warning that a Depression-era famine will happen again, so preparing for the next economic and financial disaster is definitely a matter of survival. For that reason, we compiled some recipes that our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents made back then out of nearly nothing.

The List

1. Squirrel
2. Desperation Pie
3. Chicken Feet in Broth
4. Meatless Meatloaf
5. Garbage Mashup
6. Ketchup, Mayonnaise, Onion, or Pickle Sandwich
7. Mlikorno
8. Egg Drop Soup (1930s version)
9. Cooked Break
10. Shoo-Fly Pie
11. Navy Bean and Ham Soup
12. Frozen Fruit Salad
13. Spaghetti With Boiled Carrots and White Sauce
14. Buttermilk Soup
15. Johnny  Cakes
16. Potato Candy
17. Stuffed Artichokes
18. No-Toppings Pizza
19. Poorman’s Pudding
20. Rabbit Stew and Dumplings

According to the World Bank, global growth in 2023 will slow to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis. In other words, the World Bank is predicting the beginning of Great Recession 2.0.

You might recall that the Great Recession was neither short nor shallow. In fact, World Bank Group chief economist and senior vice president Indermit Gill said, “The world economy is in a precarious position.”

According to the World Bank’s new Global Economic Prospects report, global growth is projected to decelerate to 2.1% this year, falling from 3.1% in 2022. The bank forecasts a significant slowdown during the last half of this year.

That would match the global growth rate during the 2008 financial crisis. According to the World Bank, higher interest rates, inflation, and more restrictive credit conditions will drive the economic downturn.

The report forecasts that growth in advanced economies will slow from 2.6% in 2022 to 0.7% this year and remain weak in 2024.

Emerging market economies will feel significant pain from the economic slowdown. Yahoo Finance reported, “Higher interest rates are a problem for emerging markets, which already were reeling from the overlapping shocks of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They make it harder for those economies to service debt loans denominated in US dollars.”

The World Bank report paints a bleak picture.

The world economy remains hobbled. Besieged by high inflation, tight global financial markets, and record debt levels, many countries are simply growing poorer.”

Absent from the World Bank analysis is any mention of how more than a decade of artificially low interest rates and trillions of dollars in quantitative easing by central banks created the wave of inflation that continues to sweep the globe, along with massive levels of debt and all kinds of economic bubbles.

If you listen to the mainstream narrative, you would think inflation just came out of nowhere, and central banks are innocent victims nobly struggling to save the day by raising interest rates. Pundits fret about rising rates but never mention that rates were only so low for so long because of the actions of central banks. And they seem oblivious to the consequences of those policies.

But being oblivious doesn’t shield you from the impact of those consequences.

In reality, central banks and governments implemented policies intended to incentivize the accumulation of debt. They created trillions of dollars out of thin air and showered the world with stimulus, unleashing the inflation monster. And now they’re trying to battle the dragon they set loose by raising interest rates. This will inevitably pop the bubble they intentionally blew up. That’s why the World Bank is forecasting Great Recession-era growth. All of this was entirely predictable.

After all, artificially low interest rates are the mother’s milk of a global economy built on easy money and debt. When you take away the milk, the baby gets hungry. That’s what’s happening today. With interest rates rising, the bubbles are starting to pop.

And it’s probably going to be much worse than most people realize. There are more malinvestments, more debt, and more bubbles in the global economy today than there were in 2008. There is every reason to believe the bust will be much worse today than it was then.

In other words, you can strike “short” and “shallow” from your recession vocabulary. Even the World Bank is hinting at this.

Article cross-posted from Schiff Gold.