Inflation Dragon Is Back

Inflation Dragon Is Back – Todd Strandberg - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/ Few people remember the inflation that occurred in the 1970s. From 1970 to 1980, the price of everything doubled. Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker finally slew the inflationdragon by raising interest rates to 21%. It appears very likely that the 2020s is going to be a repeat of the 70s. The Fed has printed so much money in the past few years that prices are guaranteed to rise. Injust the past seven months, 40% of all the money in existence has been freshly created. The government is trying to maintain the illusion of normal inflation by suppressing the prices of gold and silver. It slowly loses the battle as the price of other preciousmetals needed in industry that it can’t control has exploded. Palladium was once at $400 per ounce. It now trades at $2,840. Iridium was at $500 per ounce five years ago. It now trades at $6,300 per ounce. Rhodium was $600 per ounce five years ago. It nowtrades at $29,000 per ounce. The main way the government manages inflation is by keeping interest rates at very low levels. Each month the fed goes into the market and purchases $120 billion of bonds.The 10-year bonds are at 1%, and the 30-year bond is at 2%. Once inflation gets above 5%, no amount of smoke and mirrors will be able to hide the fact that the value of the money is rapidly being destroyed. I frequently check on the price of basic commodities. In the past year, the vast majority of them have soared in price. Soybean went from $8.40 a bushel to nearly $16 perbushel. Corn went from $3.50 to $6.50 per bushel. Lumber went from $400 to $1400 per thousand board feet. Copper went from $2 to a near-record high of $4.50 per pound. I also keep a close watch on the value of the dollar against other currencies. I don’t think the dollar will decline against the Japanese yen and Euro based on debt. BecauseJapan and Europe have deficits just as large as the U.S., it’s unlikely the dollar will decline because of federal debt. What would probably cause the dollar to go down is the massive trade imbalance we have with the rest of the world. They send us goods, and we ship them dollars. We now dependso much on imports, there is a massive backlog of container ships at our nation’s ports. If the world suddenly realized the foolish nature of this trade relationship, America could find itself unable to get the most basic products. I was shocked to learn thatwe import material required to produce even the most common drugs. The Ford Motor Company has just had to slash its earning projections because it can’t get microchips for its vehicles. When we reach a point where we depend on third-world nations to make simpleproducts, I think we’ve become a fourth-world nation. The job market is another key source of inflation. As workers demand more money for their labor, prices are forced higher. There is such a shortage of labor, people arebeing paid to do job interviews. One Florida McDonald’s started offering a $50 incentive to anyone who went in for an interview to help hire more workers, according to Tampa Bay’s CBS affiliate WTSP. “At this point, if we can’t keep our drive-thrus moving, then I’ll pay $50 for an interview,” said Blake Casper, a McDonald’s franchise owner in Tampa. A tweet shared on social media on April 15 shows the sign offering $50 at a location off North Dale Mabry Highway and West Chestnut Street in Tampa. WTSP reported, citingBusiness Insider, the restaurant did not have many applicants despite the incentive. Some business owners who spoke with the Associated Press said some “would-be workers” are worried about getting COVID-19 at work and prefer to live off unemployment benefits,which are higher during the pandemic. I recently recorded a 5-minute audio promotion for my chapter in Terry’s book Lawless. I still find it amazing that my chapter is still valid. When I was writing it in Marchof last year, it looked like the second Great Depression was about to unfold. I labored on because I knew God was going to continue to hold the world together. Inflation will add to the pressure on the economy, but the trigger point is going to bethe rapture. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then wewhich are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thes. 4:16-18). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If We Are Experiencing Severe Shortages Now, How Bad Will ThingsGet When The Economy Starts Tanking Again? - by Michael Snyder - http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/if-we-are-experiencing-severe-shortages-now-how-bad-will-things-get-when-the-economy-starts-tanking-again/ Inflation and shortages are the two big stories for the U.S. economy this week. In recent days I have done multiple articles about inflation, and so today I want to focuson the widespread shortages that we are currently witnessing. At this moment, the U.S. economy is experiencing more shortages than it did at any point during 2020. I know that statement sounds quite outlandish, but it is true. During the early stages of thepandemic, there were temporary shortages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and other items, but now there are severe shortages throughout many sectors of the economy, and quite a few of those shortages will not be so temporary. On Thursday, Business Insider published a list of some of the most serious shortages that we are going through at the moment� -Computer chips -Used cars and rental cars -Gas -Plastics and palm oil -Truckers and rideshare drivers -Homes and vacation houses -Lumber -Household products like toilet paper and tampons -Furniture -Chicken -Bacon and hot dogs -Imported foods like cheese, coffee, and olive oil -Chlorine -Corn That is quite a list! The COVID pandemic suppressed output for many industries for an extended period of time, and meanwhile our �leaders� have been pumping trillions and trillions of fresh dollarsinto the system. So now we have way too many dollars chasing way too few goods and services, and this is causing tremendous inflation and very painful shortages. Just look at what is happening to the steel industry. Changes in supply and demand have pushed up the price of steel to �nearly triple the 20-year average�� After bottoming out around $460 last year, US benchmark hot-rolled coil steel prices are now sitting at around $1,500 a ton, a record high that is nearly triple the 20-yearaverage. Steel stocks are on fire. US Steel (X), which crashed to a record low last March amid bankruptcy fears, has skyrocketed 200% in just 12 months. Nucor (NUE) has spiked 76%this year alone. Much more importantly for the average American, there are now chicken shortages all over the country, and prices have soared into the stratosphere� After a year promoting takeout wings and crispy chicken sandwiches, restaurants including KFC, Wingstop Inc. and Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. say they are paying steep pricesfor scarce poultry. Some are running out of or limiting sales of tenders, filets and wings, cutting into some of their most reliable sales. Independent eateries and bars have gone weeks without wings, owners say. Chicken breast prices have more than doubled since the beginning of the year, and wing prices havehit records, according to market-research firm Urner Barry. �Weeks without wings?� Oh the humanity! If we don�t get this crisis under control soon, the U.S. may not be able to set yet another all-time record for obesity in 2021. Propane tanks and chlorine tablets are also in short supply. As a result, many Americans may not be able to enjoy their grills and their pools as they normally do this summer� A nationwide shortage of pool products is making chlorine tablets and propane tanks hard to come by and increasing prices right as the summer months approach. �In this heat, if you don�t take care of your pool properly algae will start growing,� said David Sarafyan, a pool supply store employee. �Your pool will pretty much becomea swamp.� Hopefully at least some of these shortages will start to disappear in the weeks ahead. But if we are seeing this many shortages during a �recovery�, what in the world is our economy going to look like when things start getting really bad again? This should be a wake up call for all of us, because things are going to start getting really bad again a lot sooner than many people think. But for now, Americans are swimming in cash thanks to the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been showered on them. All of that money has to go somewhere, and unfortunately it is going into some of the most ridiculous things imaginable. My regular readers already know how I feel about Dogecoin. It is not a �currency� by any stretch of the imagination. I have been tempted to call it a �collectible�, butnormally a �collectible� is something that you can hold in your hands. At least speculators were chasing something real during �Tulip mania� in 1636 and 1637. Dogecoin is just a bunch of digital ones and zeros. Dogecoin does not have any innate value whatsoever, but thanks to Elon Musk and a bunch of Reddit fanboys, the price of Dogecoin is up more than 100 percent this week alone. For the year, it is up more than 14,000 percent� That means an investor who paid in $1,000 on January 1 would now have around $120,000. This year alone it has soared over 14,000%, from $0.00468 on December 31, taking it past more widely used cryptocurrencies such as the Tether stablecoin and XRP to becomethe fourth-largest by market capitalization. Yesterday I wrote about something that makes me want to vomit, but now I think that I have found something that may make me want to vomit even more. If you can believe it, Dogecoin now has a market capitalization that is greater than Moderna, Ford Motor Company or Twitter� A market capitalization of $78 billion puts Dogecoin, founded in 2013, ahead of other more well established brands and companies including Sherwin-Williams which is valuedat $75.8 billion; Dell Technologies, value $75 billion; Moderna, value $63.1 billion; Ford Motor Company, valued $45.2 billion; and Twitter, value $42.1 billion. The mascot from Pets.com eventually came to symbolize the collapse of the dotcom bubble, and I think that the stupid dog on the Dogecoin logo should symbolize this currentfinancial bubble when it finally implodes. Tomorrow, more keyboard commandos will pour their stimulus checks into Dogecoin hoping to get rich quick. Those that invested early and get out in time will make a killing. But anyone that does not get out in time is going to take a major bath. Of course the exact same thing could be said for our financial markets as a whole. Everyone knows that a crash is inevitable, and when it happens it will be the greatestloss of paper wealth in all of U.S. history. But for now, speculators look like geniuses, and happy days are here again on Wall Street. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it is just a matter of time before the bubble bursts, and then the pain will begin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VISIT: PROPHECY WATCHER WEEKLY NEWS: HTTP://PROPHECY-WATCHER-WEEKLY-NEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM