An article over at WND caught my attention earlier today. It detailed the massive threat the fertilizer shortage presented and highlighted how the United States is vulnerable just like so many third-world nations today. But at the end was a surprising gem. The Biden-Harris regime is offering grants for domestic companies to ramp up fertilizer production here at home.

While I’m not fan of grants, this may be the one out of a hundred that I can actually support. If we’re able to survive the so-called polycrisis, then I hope the lesson we learn as a nation is that we need to bring as much production of crucial goods and resources home. We cannot move forward in this volatile world with dependency on any other nation. Today, we depend on China for rare earths, pharmaceutical ingredients, and a slew of other important items. Obviously, we rely on Russia for fertilizer. We rely on anyone who’s selling oil for something that we should be producing at home. It’s a joke and we’re quickly becoming the punchline.

There was a time not too long ago when the phrase “American Made” was embraced by both the right and the left. Today, it’s been practically abandoned by both sides of the political aisle, particularly the left, as we seem too accepting of imports. That needs to change. As we suffer through these existential threats, let’s strive to change the status of our nation into a a net-exporter as we once were. I talked about this on today’s premium episode of The JD Rucker Show. If you haven’t already, sign up for Red Voice Media premium to get this and other shows from fabulous hosts, and be sure to use promo code “JDR” at checkout.

Here’s the article by Bob Unruh from WND:

World’s Food Security in Peril as Russia, China Have Stranglehold on Key Item

The world relies for most of the fertilizers used to promote crops on Russia and its ally Belarus, and China.

And that has alarms going off because of the stranglehold that could give those nations over the world’s food.

A report that was posted on the Yahoo site explains, “Just as semiconductors have become a lightning rod for geopolitical friction, so the race for fertilizers has alerted the U.S. and its allies to a strategic dependency for an agricultural input that is a key determinant of food security.”

The report cites a “cargo” that was trapped in Rotterdam that was so precious the U.N. intervened to get it moved to Mozambique. It was tons of fertilizer destined overland for Malawi.

“About 20% of Malawi’s population is projected to face acute food insecurity during the ‘lean season’ through March, making the use of fertilizers to grow crops all the more vital. It’s one of 48 nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America identified by the International Monetary Fund as most at risk from the shock to food and fertilizer costs fanned by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One year on, the upheaval caused to world fertilizer markets is seen by the U.N. as a key risk to food availability in 2023,” the report explained.

The report explained that it is who controls fertilizers that is moved “to the forefront of the political agenda.”

“The role of fertilizer is as important as the role of seed in the country’s food security,” Udai Shanker Awasthi, managing director and chief executive officer of the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative, said in the report.

“If your stomach is full then you can defend your house, you can defend your borders, you can defend your economy.”

The issue for the $250 billion global fertilizer industry was complicated last year because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ports were disrupted, shipping, banking and insurance are more complicated, meaning ordinary deliveries haven’t been reliable.

Andrey Melnichenko, of EuroChem, a billion dollar fertilizer company, blames the sanctions by the European Union, but there also have been those who have been stockpiling the products since prices are spiking.

“The situation is exacerbated by sanctions on potash giant Belarus alongside the decision by China, a major producer of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers, to impose restrictions on exports to protect domestic supply, curbs that analysts don’t see being lifted until the middle of 2023 at the earliest,” the report said.

Experts are estimating a 20% drop in food production because of the fertilizer industry issues.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is delivering $500 million in grants to companies to try to persuade increased production in the United States.

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].

This week, 2,658 of the “world’s decision-makers” will gather in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.  Protected by thousands of police officers and soldiers, the elite of the world will feast and party throughout the week as they shape the global agenda for the coming year.  Needless to say, our input is not desired or welcomed.  In order to get into this conference, you have got to be a part of their club, and in order to be a part of their club you must be a very important person.

It is being reported that the official list of 2,658 attendees this year includes “heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics”…

The world’s decision-makers are gathering in Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum meeting. The annual event of business and government leaders is expecting a solid turnout as it returns to its traditional winter time slot following two years of covid disruptions.

According to the official list, which is accurate as of Jan. 10, 2,658 attendees are registered for the event. Among them are heads of state, business royalty, actual royalty, media honchos, and academics. There are hundreds more participating on the sidelines, whether organizing, catering, or attending corporate events along the promenade that cuts through the center of Davos.

I suppose that someone could try to show up at the conference unannounced, but it is not likely that anyone that is not authorized will get very close.

All of the roads leading to the conference have checkpoints, and apparently fingerprint scanners are being used in some cases to verify identities.

NOW – Police and military have blocked the access roads to Davos, where Klaus Schwab is holding his World Economic Forum summit.

People, vehicles, and fingerprints are now being checked. pic.twitter.com/K5p1r2iMas

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 13, 2023

I can’t recall ever seeing anything quite like this.

In addition to hordes of regular police, the Swiss military will be providing “up to 5,000 soldiers” to bolster security…

With one week to go until the who’s who of the most radical globalists descend upon the picturesque ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, up to 5,000 soldiers from the Swiss army will be deployed to offer military support to the civil authorities of the canton of Graubünden, who are responsible for securing the summit’s premises and its participants.

In a statement released Friday, January 6th, the Swiss Defense Department (VBS) said that the Federal Assembly, the country’s parliament, had approved the deployment of the Swiss army contingent to ensure the security of thousands of participants, the Swiss German-language newspaper Blick reports. This year’s deployment is part of a three-year commitment, from 2022 to 2024, by Parliament to support these high profile civic activities.

Somehow, Klaus Schwab and his minions have turned this annual gathering in Davos into a “must attend” event for the global elite.

And if there is anything that the global elite do not like, it is mixing with the general population.

As Paul Joseph Watson has aptly observed, it is a big club and you and I are not part of it.

Leading up to the conference, the WEF issued a “global risks report”, and in that report they actually created a brand new term to describe the extreme chaos that is gripping our world right now…

The collective vocabularies stored in the world’s great dictionaries didn’t appear to hold a single world to sum up all this strife. So here’s a new one: Polycrisis.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 uses the term, to explain how, “present and future risks can also interact with each other to form a ‘polycrisis’ – a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”.

Normally, I disagree with everything that the World Economic Forum does, but I actually kind of like this new term that they have come up with.

We are definitely facing “a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”, and 2023 will almost certainly be another year when we are hit by one crisis after another.

I have often referred to what we are facing as “a perfect storm”, but I think that “polycrisis” is a pretty good descriptor as well.

Unfortunately, virtually every “solution” that will be on the agenda at Davos will be bad for humanity.

The globalists don’t seem to realize that the system that they have worked so hard to carefully construct is rapidly failing, and many in the general population are sick and tired of the self-destructive policies that they have been trying to push on all the rest of us.

Interestingly, as the global elite gather in Davos an extremely rare “green comet” will be making a run toward Earth…

A rare green comet, last seen in Earth’s skies 50,000 years ago, is revisiting our solar system and may become visible to the naked eye within the next few weeks.

The comet – formally identified as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) but commonly called the “green comet” – won’t be as bright as other famous comets such as Halley’s or Hale-Bopp.

“The brightness of comets is notoriously unpredictable, but by (Feb. 1) C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could become only just visible to the eye in dark night skies,” NASA said in its blog.

This comet will be the closest to our planet on February 1st and 2nd, and that will be the best opportunity to potentially see it with the naked eye.

Before I end this article, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of Lisa Marie Presley.

Lisa Marie Presley dead at 54 due to cardiac arrest pic.twitter.com/KHILRupP5z

— Sharaiya Negron (@SharaiyaN) January 13, 2023

It is such a tragedy to lose her at such a young age.

If Elvis was alive today, how do you think he would have responded to the sudden death of his little girl?

2023 is just a little over two weeks old, and already there has been so much sadness.

Unfortunately, I believe that much more sadness is coming, because the “polycrisis” that we are facing will only intensify even more as global events continue to accelerate.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from End of the American Dream.

• Adam Tooze, a financial crisis historian and director of the European Institute at Columbia University, warns the world is facing a “polycrisis” — a perfect storm of multiple global socioeconomic influences
• Polycrisis is not merely the presence of several crises at once. Rather, it refers to a situation where the whole is more dangerous than the sum of the parts, as each individual crisis escalates, compounds and worsens other simultaneous crises
• Tooze predicts several crises may erupt and converge over the next six to 18 months, including a food crisis, pandemic outbreaks, stagflation, a Eurozone sovereign debt crisis and potential nuclear war
• While a majority of economists are optimistic and predict only a mild and temporary recession to hit the United States in 2023, real-time evidence doesn’t look good. Consumer spending, domestic investments, mortgage applications, manufacturing and U.S. railroad cyclical cargo loads are all declining, while inflation and interest rates are rising. Consumer sentiment, an indication of people’s confidence in the economy and their willingness to spend, is also tanking at a record rate
• Two strategies that can strengthen individual and local resilience to the stresses facing us are the creation of local food systems and the strengthening of neighborhood and community connections. Both reduce individuals’ reliance on government handouts, and by extension, they’re less likely to be forced into these new Great Reset slave systems

In a recent Substack article¹ Adam Tooze, a financial crisis historian and director of the European Institute at Columbia University,² reviews and explains what he calls the impending “polycrisis of doom” — a perfect storm of global socioeconomic influences that signal trouble ahead.

Big Picture Crisis Modeling

Using charts and “krisenbilder,” i.e., “crisis pictures,” Tooze illustrates the many interconnected stress patterns at play on the global scene. The first graphic below illustrated the situation as of January 21, 2022.

The second graphic below shows the complexity caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict as of February 24, 2022. As noted by Tooze:³

“What was once a relatively legible map has become a tangled mess … The war has had the impact it has because it has exacerbated existing tensions. Food prices were already rising in 2021 and provoking warnings of a crisis to come.

Energy markets were stressed well before the war broke out. Now both stressors are knotted together with the war. I have highlighted in red what emerge as a series of macroscopic risks, all of which may come to a head in the next 6-18 months.”

Many Crises Are Hitting All at Once

As noted by Tooze, we now face a series of significant challenges, and a) they’re hitting us all at once, and b) several of them reinforce and worsen each other. Also notable is the fact that there’s great uncertainty associated with some of them.

What might be the pandemic potential of new COVID variants? Will the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalate into a nuclear war? There’s really no way to predict with any amount of accuracy how those scenarios will play out. On the other hand, some of these forces offset or ameliorate others but, again, it’s hard to predict the likelihood of them happening.

In the following chart, Tooze summarizes the major crisis points and their likely influence on each other. Note he refers to these interactions as “entirely provisional and highly debatable.”

Indeed, some of his readers point out several additional influences that could be added into the mix, such as the weaponization of the U.S. dollar, the deplatforming of Russia from the SWIFT system, U.S. meddling in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the push to expand NATO, allowing health agencies to dictate economic policy and much more.

Still, Tooze’s analysis — incomplete as it may be — can be useful for those willing to ponder the potential ramifications of global interactions that may be facing us over the next six to 18 months.

Predictions for 2023-2024

As explained by Tooze, “polycrisis” is not merely the presence of several crises at once. Rather, it’s “a situation … where the whole is even more dangerous than the sum of the parts.”⁴

The reason why the whole ends up being more dangerous than any combination of crises put together is the way they escalate, compound and worsen each other in a symbiotic fashion. And, if Tooze is correct, we may find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of this polycrisis sometime in the next six to 18 months, or 2023 going into 2024. Tooze explains:⁵

“What this matrix helps us to do is to distinguish types of risk by the degree and type of their interconnectedness. The risk of nuclear escalation stands out for the fact that it is not significantly affected by any of the other risks.

It will be decided by the logic of the war and decision-making in Moscow and Washington. A food crisis does not make a nuclear escalation any more, or less likely. On the other hand, a nuclear escalation would, to say the least, dramatically escalate several of the other risks.

Continuing inflation will likely function as a driver of several other risks, but those risks in turn (COVID, recession, EZ sov debt crisis) will likely deescalate the risk of inflation.

I would not say that this is a forecast, but it does bias me towards thinking that inflation will be transitory. Most of the big shocks that we may expect, tend to be deflationary in their impact.

Conversely, a recession seems ever more likely in part because the effect of most of the bad shocks we may expect — from COVID, mounting inflation, or a fiscal deadlock in Congress — point in that direction.

The obvious next step is to ask whether the feedback loops in the matrix are positive or negative. So, for instance, a recession makes a Eurozone sovereign debt crisis more likely, which in turns would unleash serious deflationary pressures across Europe.

Conversely, inflation in fact seems self-calming. The effects it produces tend rather the dampen inflation than to feed an acceleration. At least as I have specified the matrix here.

A global hunger crisis seems alarmingly likely in part because all the other major risks will exacerbate that problem. A hunger crisis, however, will largely affect poor and powerless people in low-income countries, so it is unlikely to feedback in exacerbating any of the other major crises.

It is an effect of forces operating elsewhere, rather than itself a driver of escalation. To this extent the matrix becomes a way of charting the power hierarchy of uneven and combined development. Some people receive shocks. Others dish them out.”

Near-Term Outlook for the US Economy

In a July 1, 2022, Substack article,⁶ Tooze takes a deeper dive into the more near-term outlook for the United States specifically. The Federal reserve is now tightening its monetary policy “more steeply than at any time since the early 1980s,” while inflation remains “stubbornly high” at the same time.

The question on everyone’s mind is, are we in a recession, and might it worsen into a depression? Recession is when a country experiences a decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two consecutive quarters, while a depression is characterized by more long-term reductions in economic activity.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. was officially in recession as of February 2020.^7,8 When the economy grew 5.7% in 2021, a rebound was declared,⁹ but then the GDP dropped again, first by an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022, followed by a negative 2.1% in the second quarter,¹⁰ which technically placed the U.S. in recession territory yet again.

Tooze notes that a majority of economists are optimistic and predict only a mild and temporary recession to hit in 2023, but real-time evidence doesn’t look good. As of early July 2022, consumer spending, domestic investments, mortgage applications, manufacturing and U.S. railroad cyclical cargo loads are all declining, while inflation and interest rates are rising.^11,12

Consumer sentiment, an indication of people’s confidence in the economy and their willingness to spend, is also tanking at a record rate.¹³ Tooze ends his review stating:

“All told, you might say that this is a gloomy outlook. And there are those who are increasingly skeptical of the possibility of a soft landing. But, it is surely far too early to tell.

If the aim of the game is to control inflation by bringing about a slowdown, then the evidence we are seeing, so far, is precisely what you would look for. What remains to be seen is how the different recessionary forces interact, and whether they brew up into really heavy weather.”

Two Strategies to Strengthen Your Resilience

While we may not be able to accurately predict just how bad the situation will get, it seems prudent to say that we’re all facing some hard times. One factor that Tooze does not include in any of his analyses is the now-apparent fact that some of these crises are intentionally manufactured, with the goal of breaking apart and dismantling current systems in order to justify the introduction of entirely new systems.

The financial system and the food system are two key examples where intentional deconstruction appears to be taking place. Basically, what the technocratic elitists who fancy themselves rulers of the world intend to argue is that because the systems are no longer working, they must be “built back better.”

However, the new systems will in no way, shape or form benefit the population at large. This is true globally, not just in the United States. These new systems, delineated under the flag of The Great Reset, are slave systems which, when networked together, will form a virtual digital prison.

Every person on the planet will be under their collective thumb, as the technocrats will own everything while the rest of humanity will be allocated resources such as food and energy based on obedience criteria.

The good news is that more and more people are waking up to what this “deep state” cabal is up to, and that’s another wild card that can upend things and, hopefully, lessen the impacts of some of these crises. Two strategies that can strengthen individual and local resilience to the stresses facing us are the creation of local food systems¹⁴ and the strengthening of neighborhood and community connections.

By building a strong local food system, you reduce food insecurity, and by building a community network of specialists, you reduce the effects of a crumbling financial system as you can simply barter goods and services.

Social cohesion also offers many psychological benefits.¹⁵ Local food systems and community networks both also reduce individuals’ reliance on government handouts, and by extension, they’re less likely to be forced into these new Great Reset slave systems.

How to Build a Local Food System

As explained by Brian Williams, a former local food planner in Columbus, Ohio, in a 2017 StrongTown article,¹⁶ building a strong local food system goes beyond community gardens, farmer’s markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares.

While these are valuable gateways, they don’t go far enough. He provides several excellent suggestions for those willing to spearhead a local food movement in their own hometown, including the following. Williams includes several other suggestions, which you can read through in his article, but these are some of the central ones:¹⁷

• Secure local-purchasing commitments from schools, hospitals, colleges, restaurants, local grocers and other institutions — Such commitments are crucial for developing the necessary infrastructure for a strong local food market.

When you have demand from large institutions, you can then bring farmers, food processors and distributors into a complete supply chain network, as the contracts will be large enough to support everyone and make the endeavor financially viable.

• Enlist support from existing food processors and distributors — Many small-scale, family-run businesses struggle to make ends meet, and may be more than willing to become part of your local network. Two key components are slaughterhouses and trucking companies to distribute the food from one place to another. But you also need food processors that can wash, pack and dice or cut the food.

• Build a network of local farmers willing to collaborate — Individual farmers may not be able to meet the demands of large contracts, but pooling the output from several farms might.

• Build the economic infrastructure — If certain services are not available, determine what’s needed and put out a call out to the community. You never know who might be willing to start a company to fill a local need.

Keep in mind that financial productivity is key for making a local food system work. Everyone involved must benefit financially, or the system won’t be sustainable. The good news is that a local network keeps the money inside the community, and it’s easier to stay financially viable when nothing is being siphoned off to out-of-state players that don’t spend their earnings within your community.

• Build relationships with local public health officials, economic development officials, legislative representatives and bankers — As noted by Williams, “Public health officials … regulate local food-related businesses. If their regulation seems too rigid or unrealistic, economic development experts can help iron out the details and look for other opportunities.

Food banks already have trucks and are possible partners in distribution challenges. Bankers have money to lend to farmers who want to expand, distributors who need another truck, and processors that are growing to meet demand.”

• ^{1, 3, 4, 5} Adam Tooze Substack June 24, 2022
• ² Institute for Economic Thinking, Adam Tooze Bio
• ^6, 12, 13 Adam Tooze Substack July 1, 2022
• ⁷ HKS.Harvard.edu June 16, 2020
• ⁸ NPR June 8, 2020
• ⁹ MSN January 27, 2022
• ^10, 11 CNBC July 1, 2022
• ¹⁴ Treehugger October 11, 2018
• ¹⁵ NPR January 3, 2013
• ^16, 17 StrongTown August 7, 2017