I’m right, I’m a hero—if wrong, a bastard for life….

Please recall that I have posted recently the I thought gold was a dead asset class–I am really washed out on it–just from a money management angle–I would try to sell the options and at least try to break even today and not let a gain turn into a loss–u can always repurchase

with a little bit of short covering

is London providing cover for the banksters here in the U.S.

edit – I guess that’s the end of the short covering, back in da crappa

Yep. Looks like the scum is back on the case this am.

I thought maybe we’d get a couple more days of rally but NOOO…

Silver is way out of whack.

We really are reaching a major crisis point. Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen. In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere. A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now, but just wait. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.

Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe.

According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe…

In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.
How are those farmers going to survive?

Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get…

In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.

That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added.
Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal, because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…

France is the fourth-largest exporter of wheat and among the top five exporters of maize globally. Poor harvests due to drought may heap further pressure on grain supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global shockwaves.
The situation in Germany is also extremely dire.

It is being reported that things are already so bad that some sections of the Rhine River have dropped to dangerously low levels…

Germany’s most-important river is running dry as Europe suffers through a drought that is on course to become its worst in 500 years, with terrifying wildfires burning once again in France.

Water levels in the Rhine – which carries 80 per cent of all goods transported by water in Germany, from its industrial heartlands to Dutch ports – are now so low that it could become impassable to barges later this week, threatening vital supplies of oil and coal that the country is relying upon as Russia turns off the gas tap.
Of course the U.S. is dealing with severe drought too.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, about half of the nation is experiencing some level of drought at this moment, and we are being told that the ongoing megadrought in the Southwest is the worst in 1,200 years.

Things are particularly bad in Texas. If you can believe it, Dallas just had a stretch in which they had no measurable rain at all for two straight months…

The daily highs in Dallas have been 95 degrees or higher for three straight weeks, much hotter than normal for this time of year. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has even more problems amid an extreme drought going as far back as May 17. One hundred percent of Dallas County is in an extreme drought, while 21 percent of the whole state is experiencing exceptional drought — the most intense category of drought — according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

A 67-day stretch with no measurable rain came to an end in Dallas on Wednesday when 0.41 of an inch of rain fell. That was the second-longest dry streak at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The standing record was 85 consecutive days that spanned much of the summer of 2000.
The lack of moisture has been crippling for the state’s absolutely massive agriculture industry. There are 247,000 farms and ranches in Texas, and nearly all of them are deeply suffering right now…

The drought pressing Texas’ agriculture industry — which is responsible for 10 percent of the state’s gross domestic product — is pushing farmers and ranchers to the brink. The state’s 247,000 farms and ranches covering 127 million acres haven’t had a whole year of rain since 2017. Almost 24 million of Texas’ population lives in drought-facing areas.

As of the first of August, less than 1 percent of the state was not facing some level of drought or abnormal dryness.
At this point, conditions are so dry in Texas that many ranchers have been forced to “panic sell” their herds. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Ranchers Are Selling Off Their Cattle In Unprecedented Numbers Due To The Drought, And That Has Enormous Implications For 2023”.

Other states in the Southwest are also being hit extremely hard by this drought.

Over in Utah, the size of the Great Salt Lake just continues to get smaller and smaller due to the relentlessly dry conditions…

The warm arid desert in the West certainly had its fair share of the summer heat. Salt Lake City International Airport recorded a high of 100 degrees on July 28, marking the 16th day that month of triple-digit temperatures and breaking the previous record of 15 in July 1960. Last month, the city tied its record for the hottest recorded temperature of 107 degrees for the fourth time, according to NOAA weather data. The other occasions on which the mercury rose to 107 in Salt Lake City were in June 2021, July 2002 and July 1960. Record-keeping began there in 1874.

That intense heat hasn’t just made the residents of Utah sweat though — it has also magnified the ongoing megadrought, which has contributed to the dire state of the Great Salt Lake. Between July 2021 and 2022, the average daily water level of the lake dropped by about one foot, a historic low, and is expected to fall even farther.
There have always been times of drought all throughout history, but in modern times we have never seen the United States and Europe simultaneously experience such a severe drought for such an extended period.

For years I have been warning that we are moving toward a time when global famines will become quite common, and widespread crop failures throughout the western world this year would greatly accelerate that process.

We are being told that a child dies every 11 seconds from malnutrition.

But as food supplies get tighter and tighter, global hunger is going to get far, far worse than it is now.

In 2023, there simply is not going to be enough food for everyone.

I hope that you are getting prepared for that, because next year is just around the corner.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.

If you think that people are getting pretty crazy now, just wait until the cost of food skyrockets to levels that hardly anyone ever anticipated. Most people don’t realize this, but to a very large degree we are still eating the food that was grown in 2021. Unfortunately for all of us, far less food is being grown in 2022 than originally projected, and that is going to cause immense global stress in 2023. Nightmarish droughts are absolutely devastating crops in the United States and Europe, the major war that is happening on the other side of the globe is greatly restricting the flow of agricultural goods from Ukraine, and the fact that some fertilizers have now more than quadrupled in price is deeply affecting farmers all over the planet. In 2023, there is going to be a lot less food to go around, and we are all going to pay a lot more for it. Needless to say, this is not good news.

Of course the cost of living has already gotten completely out of control. According to Zero Hedge, the median rent in the United States has now surpassed $2,000 a month for the very first time…

The cost of rent in the U.S. is moving higher at the highest pace in three decades, the report notes, blowing past a median of $2,000 per month for the first time ever. Rents are now above where they were prior to the pandemic in most major cities.

Areas just outside cities, which saw a large influx of new renters during the pandemic, have seen their rents rise disproportionately higher. People returning to large cities, post-pandemic, have also not helped prices cool off.
Who can afford to pay $2,000 a month for rent?

According to the Social Security Administration, the median yearly income for U.S. workers in 2020 was just $34,612.04.

No wonder most families need to have more than one income just to survive these days.

This is what I mean when I say that our standard of living is being systematically destroyed.

Many people have to work as hard as they possibly can just to pay the bills each month.

Yes, the top 10 percent are still doing well, but the vast majority of the country is really struggling.

And that is why the soaring price of food is such a big deal right now. The latest numbers that we just got from the government tell us that the cost of “food at home” has been rising at the fastest rate since 1979…

The food-at-home index, which represents food purchased in places like grocery stores for consumption at home, jumped by an annual 13.1 percent, which is the fastest pace since March 1979.

“Consumers are getting a break at the gas pump, but not at the grocery store,” Bankrate Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “Food prices, and especially costs for food at home, continue to soar, rising at the fastest pace in more than 43 years.”
But the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet.

What we see at the grocery store right now is largely a reflection of what happened last year.

Let me give you an example that illustrates what I am talking about.

In the last few days, the mainstream media has been buzzing about the fact that there is now a potato shortage in Idaho. But what most people don’t realize is that this shortage was caused by a tremendous heat wave that happened last summer…

Idaho has a potato shortage. If you haven’t heard about it already or noticed fewer and fewer potatoes in your grocery store’s produce section, you will soon.

So, what’s the problem? The weather. Not this year’s weather, mind you. It’s the weather from over a year ago that’s to blame.

“I’m not sure if you remember last June, but we had some just unbelievably hot temperatures here in Idaho. It did a number on our potato crop,” said Jamey Higham, president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission. “And so, our yields were significantly down last year.”
So did you catch that?

A bad harvest in 2021 is now being felt in the latter stages of 2022.

Looking ahead, what our farmers are experiencing right now will be felt very keenly in 2023.

For example, it is being reported that the price of some fertilizers has now more than quadrupled…

“Last year [fertilizer] was around $270 per ton and now it’s over $1,400 per ton,” Meagan Kaiser, of Kaiser Family Farms and farmer-director of the United Soybean Board, told NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt.”

“It’s scary. It turns my stomach a little bit to think about the amount of risk that our family farm is taking right now.”

Farmers are finding themselves forced to pass some of those costs along to customers, resulting in higher grocery prices.
When those cost increases get passed along to us in 2023, a lot of people are going to be screaming bloody murder.

But at least we will have food to eat. On the other side of the globe, there simply will not be enough food for everyone.

For years, I have been trying to explain that global famines would inevitably be coming, but I still don’t think that it is sinking in for many people out there.

And of course famine is just one of the elements of “the perfect storm” that we are now facing. Recently, Egon von Greyerz listed some of the other major elements…

Debts at levels that can never be repaid – sovereign, corporate & private
Epic global bubbles in stocks, bonds & property – all about to collapse
Major geopolitical conflicts with no desire for peace – major wars likely
Energy imbalances and shortages, most self inflicted
Food shortages leading to major famine and civil unrest
Inflation, leading to hyperinflation & global poverty
We have got a giant mess on our hands.

And conditions are going to get worse and worse and worse in the months ahead.

As things deteriorate, a lot of people out there are going to go completely nuts.

In fact, a lot of people are already going completely nuts. Let me give you an example that just happened…

An unidentified man reportedly set his car on fire by driving into a U.S. Capitol barricade early Sunday morning. He then got out of his car and began firing a weapon indiscriminately before shooting himself, police say.

U.S. Capitol police say officers immediately responded when they heard the sound of gunfire at roughly 4 a.m. There were no reported injuries aside from the driver.
The only reason you would do something like that is if you have lost all hope.

And in the months and years ahead, much of the general population will lose all hope.

Let us endeavor to be beacons of hope, because hope will be greatly needed during the times that are in front of us.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.

Re JPM Trial

I cannot fathom why those traders accepted that trial, without shouting from the rooftops….what about the Fed/scum…..the only reason they did not, is of course that they were told not to or etc.

the trial is also an absolute insult to the PM mkt…..and it will not stop until the two tier system is torn apart.

I see overnight a classic scum move has once again taken place, the dollar is steady, while PM’s have given back all Fridays gains…the shares lousy performance, told all their mates stay short, we will get it back down….