In the aftermath of the most dramatic attack on Saudi oil facilities that we have ever seen, the price of oil has exploded higher.  The Wall Street Journal is calling this attack “the Big One”, and President Trump appears to be indicating that some sort of military retaliation is coming.  Needless to say, a direct military strike on Iran could spark a major war in the Middle East, and that would be absolutely devastating for the entire global economy.  Just about everything that we buy has to be moved, and moving stuff takes energy.  When the price of oil gets really high, that tends to create inflation because the price of oil is a factor in virtually everything that we buy.  In addition, a really high price for oil also tends to slow down economic activity, and this is something that we witnessed just prior to the financial crisis of 2008.  And if this crisis in the Middle East stretches over an extended period of time, it could ultimately result in a phenomenon known as “stagflation” where we have rapidly rising prices and weaker economic activity simultaneously.  The last time we experienced such a thing was in the 1970s, and nobody really remembers the U.S. economy of the 1970s favorably.

The damage caused by the “drone attacks” in Saudi Arabia was immense.  According to the Daily Mail, “huge plumes of black smoke” could be seen pouring out of a key Saudi oil facility…

Infernos raged at the plant in Abqaiq, Bugayg, and the country’s second largest oilfield in Khurais yesterday morning after Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a flurry of rockets.

Huge plumes of black smoke could be seen coming from the oil facility.

Houthi rebels in Yemen have publicly taken responsibility for the attacks, but they may or may not be telling the truth.

At this point, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is completely rejecting that explanation, and he is claiming that there is “no evidence the strikes had come from Yemen”…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for coordinated strikes on the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, saying they marked an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.

The strikes shut down half of the kingdom’s crude production on Saturday, potentially roiling petroleum prices and demonstrating the power of Iran’s proxies.

Iran-allied Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen claimed credit for the attack, saying they sent 10 drones to strike at important facilities in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. But Mr. Pompeo said there was no evidence the strikes had come from Yemen.

And according to Reuters, another unnamed “U.S. official” told them that the attacks came from “west-northwest of the targets”…

The U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said there were 19 points of impact in the attack on Saudi facilities and that evidence showed the launch area was west-northwest of the targets – the direction of Iran – not south from Yemen.

The official added that Saudi officials had indicated they had seen signs that cruise missiles were used in the attack, which is inconsistent with the Iran-aligned Houthi group’s claim that it conducted the attack with 10 drones.

Of course drones don’t have to travel in a straight line, and cruise missiles don’t either, and so we may never know for sure where the attacks originated.

But we do know that the Houthi rebels in Yemen are being backed by Iran, and we also know that the Shia militias in Iraq are also being backed by Iran.

So whether the attacks originated in Yemen, southern Iraq or Iran itself, it is not going to be too difficult for U.S. officials to place the blame on the Iranians, and we should expect some sort of military response.

In fact, President Trump posted the following message to Twitter just a little while ago…

Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!

Of course U.S. airstrikes against Iran itself could ultimately spark World War 3, and most Americans are completely clueless that we could literally be on the precipice of a major war.

According to the Saudis, the equivalent of 5.7 million barrels a day of oil production were affected by the attacks.  Saudi Arabia typically produces about 9.8 million barrels a day, and so that is a really big deal.

When the markets reopened on Sunday night, oil futures exploded higher.  In fact, according to Zero Hedge this was the biggest jump ever…

With traders in a state of near-frenzy, with a subset of fintwit scrambling (and failing) to calculate what the limit move in oil would be (hint: there is none for Brent), moments ago brent reopened for trading in the aftermath of Saturday’s attack on the “world’s most important oil processing plant“, and exploded some 20% higher, to a high of $71.95 from the Friday $60.22 close, its biggest jump since futures started trading in 1988.

As I write this article, the price of Brent crude is currently sitting at $66.89, although at least one analyst is warning that the price of oil could soon shoot up to “as high as $100 per barrel” if the Saudis are not able to quickly resume their previous level of production…

The oil market will rally by $5-10 per barrel when it opens on Monday and may spike to as high as $100 per barrel if Saudi Arabia fails to quickly resume oil supply lost after attacks over the weekend, traders and analysts said.

Saudi officials have already told us that they anticipate that a third of the lost oil output will be restored on Monday.

But because of the extensive damage that has been done, restoring the remainder of the lost output could take “weeks” or even “months”.

In the short-term, President Trump has “authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve“, and that should help stabilize prices somewhat.

However, if a full-blown war with Iran erupts, nothing is going to be able to calm the markets.  In such a scenario, the price of oil could easily explode to a level that is four or five times higher than it is today, and that would essentially be the equivalent of slamming a baseball bat into the knees of the global economy.

The times that we are living in are about to become a whole lot more serious, but most Americans are not even paying attention to these absolutely critical global events.

In fact, even the mainstream media seems to believe that the new allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh are more important.

That is because they don’t understand what is really happening.

Trust me, keep a close eye on the Middle East, because things are about to start breaking loose there in a major way.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The post If You Think The Price Of Oil Is Skyrocketing Now, Just Wait Until The War Starts… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

What you are about to read in this article is likely to make you very angry.  Once upon a time, the primary mission of our hospitals was to help people, but today they have become vicious financial predators.  Many Americans try very hard to avoid visiting the hospital because of what it might cost, but if an emergency happens there is no choice.  They often get us when we are at our most vulnerable, and they never explain to us in advance how much their services will actually cost.  And then eventually when the bills start arriving we discover that they have charged us 30 dollars for a single aspirin or “$2,000 for a $20 feeding tube”.  It is a giant scam, but they have been getting away with it for decades, and so they just keep on doing it.  And many hospitals go after those that are not able to pay their ridiculous bills extremely aggressively.  Just consider the following example which comes to us from USA Today…

Heather Waldron and John Hawley are losing their four-bedroom house in the hills above Blacksburg, Virginia. A teenage daughter, one of their five children, sold her clothes for spending money. They worried about paying the electric bill. Financial disaster, they said, contributed to their divorce, finalized in April.

Their money problems began when the University of Virginia Health System pursued the couple with a lawsuit and a lien on their home to recoup $164,000 in charges for Waldron’s emergency surgery in 2017.

I can’t imagine any surgery that should ever cost $164,000.  You can buy an entire house for that amount of money.  It is highway robbery, and those that are engaged in this sort of predatory pricing are literally crooks.

Sadly, Heather Waldron and John Hawley have a lot of company.  Over the past six years, the University of Virginia Health System has sued 36,000 patients…

The family has lots of company: Over six years ending in June 2018, the health system and its doctors filed 36,000 lawsuits against patients, seeking a total of more than $106 million, seizing wages and bank accounts, putting liens on property and homes and forcing families into bankruptcy, a Kaiser Health News analysis found.

Yes, the University of Virginia Health System saves lives every single day, but the way that they are running their operation is bringing great shame to the entire state of Virginia.

Of course there are many other hospitals all across the country that are behaving in a similar manner.  This next example comes from CNN…

When Donna Hernandez had the flu last year, she went to her local emergency room in New Mexico, where she received two IV bags of saline, a dose of antiviral medication and a drug to help with her nausea.

She says after about two and a half hours, she was on her way.

Hernandez recovered from the flu, but still hasn’t recovered from the shock of the bill she received afterward. It was for more than $6,000.

Are you kidding me?

Hernandez didn’t stay overnight and she didn’t have any surgery.

How in the world can that hospital possibly justify a bill for more than $6,000?

Like I said, they are a bunch of crooks.

But their racket is completely legal, and those participating are becoming exceedingly wealthy at our expense.  If you can believe it, the University of Virginia Health System has made a profit of $554 million over the past six years, and the CEO brings in an exceedingly bloated salary…

UVA Medical Center, the flagship of UVA Health System, earned $554 million in profit over the six years ending in June 2018 and holds stocks, bonds and other investments worth $1 billion, according to financial statements. CEO Sutton-Wallace earns a salary of $750,000, with bonus incentives that could push her annual pay close to $1 million, according to a copy of her employment contract, obtained under public information law.

Our “healthcare system” is deeply, deeply broken, and it is destroying lives all across America.

A single trip to the hospital can ruin you financially for the rest of your life, and one recent survey found that health costs are “the main financial worry” for Americans aged 25 to 45…

According to a survey of 1,000 Americans aged 25-45, financial stress and worries are quite literally making people sick. Respondents listed health care as the main financial worry of their lives, and three in four admitted to having a “negative experience” due to financial stress. Ironically, 39% said that financial stress has had a negative impact on their health; indicating a troubling cycle of financial stress brought on by health care costs, which in turn leads to more health problems.

And that same survey discovered that a substantial percentage of respondents have actually been avoiding the “healthcare system” because of what it might cost…

In fact, three in four surveyed young adults reported taking “risky” actions to save money on medical expenses. More specifically, 33% delayed seeking medical help in the hope that their condition would just go away, 27% considered avoiding medical attention due to high deductibles, and 22% scheduled a medical appointment but never showed after considering the bill.

In America today, 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies are related to medical bills, and most of those that go bankrupt actually have health insurance.

Those that follow my work regularly know that I have been writing about these things for a long time, and I am deeply frustrated that things just seem to get worse with each passing year.

At one time, the medical profession was a noble path, and those that sacrificed so much to help others were greatly admired.

But now the “healthcare system” in America has become a cesspool of greed, and for many of those that are attracted to it the main goal is to make as much money as possible.

Just because it is currently legal, that does not mean that the predatory behavior of the industry is moral.

The U.S. “healthcare system” accounts for nearly a fifth of our entire economy, and if it was a country it would have the fifth largest GDP on the entire planet.

But at this point it has become a great shame to the entire nation, and it needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

With elections looming on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that Israel has “no other choice” other than to invade Gaza in order to overthrow the Hamas regime in power there.  In fact, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that on Friday Netanyahu said that war “could happen at any moment”.  The Prime Minister and other Israeli officials are sick and tired of rockets being constantly fired into Israel, and they have come to the conclusion that a peaceful resolution with Hamas is simply not possible.  Here in the United States many on the left will criticize Israel for taking military action, but how long would any U.S. president wait before taking military action against a terror group that was firing missiles at us?  The truth is that Israel has been exceedingly patient with the situation in Gaza, but now the time for patience has run out.

In recent days, Netanyahu has made it exceedingly clear what is about to happen.  Here is one example from the Jerusalem Post…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Thursday that Israel may have no choice but to embark on a military operation in Gaza to overthrow Hamas.

“It looks like there will be no other choice but to embark on a wide scale campaign in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet Radio shortly before he boarded a flight to Moscow where he is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And here is another quote where he essentially says the exact same thing…

“There probably won’t be a choice but to topple the Hamas regime. Hamas doesn’t exert its sovereignty in the Strip and doesn’t prevent attacks,” he said. “We have a situation in which a terror group that launches rockets has taken over, and doesn’t rein in rogue factions even when it wants to.”

Netanyahu’s comments also came two days after a campaign rally in the southern city of Ashdod was interrupted by incoming rocket sirens after rockets were fired from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

I am not sure how Netanyahu could be any clearer.  Here is a third example…

“I do not wage war unless it is a last resort and I don’t risk the lives of our soldiers and citizens just to get applause,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet Radio. “We will probably have no choice but to set out on a big campaign, a war against the terror forces in Gaza.”

“I won’t start it one minute before we are ready, and we are preparing for a `different war’,” he added, shortly before flying to Russia for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always chooses his words very carefully.  He is a gifted communicator, and we have never seen him talk quite like this before.

In the past, Israel has responded to rocket attacks from Gaza by conducting targeted airstrikes, and this is something that we witnessed yet again on Wednesday…

Early Wednesday, Israeli jets launched air strikes on 15 targets belonging to the Hamas terror group, which rules the Gaza Strip, in response to the rockets fired at Ashdod and Ashkelon, which were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, according to the IDF.

But it has become clear that airstrikes will never be enough to permanently stop the rocket attacks, and so the Israeli government is preparing to initiate a major ground operation inside Gaza.

Of course this could potentially spark a much wider regional war.  Israel and Hezbollah have literally been on the brink of war for months, and so if a major conflict erupts it is easy to envision Hezbollah jumping in to aid their allies in the south.

Right now, Hezbollah has approximately 150,000 missiles pointed at Israel, and their troops are battle-hardened after fighting for many years in Syria.

And if Israel and Hezbollah go to war, there is a very strong possibility that Iran could get involved as well.

Basically we are just a hop, skip and jump away from a cataclysmic war in the Middle East, and this is one of the reasons why Israel has shown so much restraint.

But at some point action must be taken.  No nation is going to allow terrorist organizations to keep firing rockets at their citizens indefinitely, and the Israeli government has had enough.

As IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi recently stated, there is “a moral obligation to defend the nation’s citizens against the armies of terrorism that surround them”…

“The changes in the enemy demand that the IDF make changes and adjust its forces and methods of warfare, so urban areas cannot shield the enemy. The firepower the enemy will encounter in the next war will be unprecedented, and a country that allows terrorism to entrench itself in its territory will be seen as responsible for it, and suffer the consequences,” Kochavi warned.

“The IDF has a moral obligation to defend the nation’s citizens against the armies of terrorism that surround them. When the Israeli homefront is under threat by thousands of missiles and rockets, we won’t hesitate to strike a massive blow to eradicate those threats. We will attack and preserve our values, but a main tenet of those values is the need to protect our citizens,” he said.

Personally, I doubt that the Israeli military operation will happen before the election on Tuesday, but I could be wrong.

And let us also hope that it can be postponed until after the upcoming Jewish holidays.

But it is coming, and once Israeli tanks roll into Gaza everything will change.  Global events are about to accelerate significantly, and so many of the things that we have been watching for are about to happen.

Both sides have been preparing for this war for a very long time, and the death and destruction will be immense.

Things are eerily quiet for the moment, but the fighting will soon commence, and when it does this will become the biggest news story on the entire planet.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The post The Middle East War Begins: Netanyahu Warns There Is “No Other Choice But To Embark On A Wide Scale Campaign In Gaza” appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

How will history remember us?  As Americans, we like to think that we are a light to the world and that other countries should be using us as a model for how to properly do things.  But the truth is that we have become unspeakably evil, and after reading this entire article I doubt that there will be anyone that will disagree with me.  And while it is certainly true that there are quite a few other nations that are also tremendously evil, none have fallen harder or faster then we have.  At one time America truly was “the hope of the world”, but now just about every form of wickedness that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, and very few of our national leaders seem to care.

The first example that I would like to discuss is something that came out in court on Thursday…

The CEO of StemExpress essentially admitted in court Thursday that her biotech company supplies beating fetal hearts and intact fetal heads to medical researchers.

She also admitted at the preliminary hearing of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress that the baby’s head could be procured attached to the baby’s body or “could be torn away.”

This is Nazi-level evil, and it is happening all across the United States every single day.

Of course the mainstream media is completely avoiding this story, because they fully approve of what is happening and they don’t want to cause any sort of an uproar.  And most “conservative” media outlets are avoiding this story as well, because the truth is that they aren’t actually very “conservative” at all.

Companies such as StemExpress are making a tremendous amount of money selling baby body parts to medical researchers, and the “research” that is being conducted is incredibly sick and disgusting.

So where does StemExpress get their specimens?

Needless to say, they get them from abortion clinics, and the “procedures” that must be done in order to extract such specimens are acts of unspeakable brutality…

“That is an especially gruesome admission, but it begs the question: how did they get these fully intact human children?” says Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, which is representing Daleiden at the hearing.

“If you have a fetus with an intact head and an intact body, and intact extremities, that is something that would indicate that child was born alive, and then had their organs cut out of them, or that that child was the victim of an illegal partial-birth abortion,” he told LifeSiteNews.

I am not going to go on and on about the horrific details, and so if you want to learn more I would encourage you to read the LifeSite article about this case.

But I do want to make a point that nobody else is really making.

Today, every single one of our political leaders in Washington knows that baby parts are being harvested, sold to the highest bidder, and used in some of the sickest scientific experiments imaginable.

So who is trying to stop it?

Even after the changes that have recently happened, Planned Parenthood will still receive more than 500 million dollars from the federal government this year, and those conducting this sort of “scientific research” will receive more than 100 million dollars from the federal government this year.

We all know that the Democrats are totally on board with what is happening, and so none of them are going to do anything about this.

But the Republicans control the U.S. Senate and the White House.  Every single year, the U.S. Senate has been passing bills that contain this funding, and every single year those bills have been signed by President Trump.

That makes them personally responsible for what is happening.

That is why it is so dangerous to run for public office.  Because if you know of the evil that is happening and you don’t do anything to stop it, then you become responsible for it.

No, there aren’t any excuses.  They have willingly chosen to fund these activities year after year, and yet they seem to think that they won’t be held accountable.

But let me ask you a question.

If the government of a nation endorses and funds the exceedingly sick and evil things that I have discussed in this article, what does such a nation deserve?

It may not happen this week or this month, but in the end America will reap exactly what it has sown.

Of course it just isn’t our government that is engaged in acts of great evil.  In an article that he recently published, Paul Joseph Watson discussed the fact that some people out there are actually purposely getting pregnant just so they can have abortions…

In a Reddit post entitled ‘Question regarding abortion and breeding fetish’, one user reveals how she has “a female friend who has a really powerful fetish for breeding” and never used birth control.

“She is with a male partner currently who is just like her, into breeding and they have been practising their fetish for quite a few abortions,” the post reads.

In response to that post, another Reddit user chimed in and excitedly admitted that he and his girlfriend “have the same fetish”.  In fact, he actually admitted that his girlfriend prefers to wait until “between 20 and 24 weeks of gestation” to abort the child…

“I know this fetish. My girlfriend and me have the same fetish. My girlfriend enjoys her pregnancies and she enjoys the abortion. Her preferred date to abort is between 20 and 24 weeks of gestation. I enjoy making her pregnant. And I enjoy the time of her pregnancy. She has no menstrual period and she is sexually very active,” he writes.

“In the last ten years in our relationship we have done seven abortions and my girlfriend is pregnant again with a little girl,” he adds.

And all of this is perfectly legal in the United States, because that is the sort of society that we live in.

Paul Joseph Watson summed things up very well when he made the following statement on Twitter about this story: “We live in hell.”

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, there isn’t going to be a future for America, and at this point it doesn’t appear likely that our nation will reverse course any time soon.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Despite the fact that more money is being spent on suicide prevention efforts than ever before in our history, the suicide rate in the United States continues to rise dramatically.  As you will see below, one new study has discovered that our suicide rate actually increased by 41 percent between 1999 and 2016.  Even though we have the highest standard of living that any generation of Americans has ever enjoyed, we are an exceedingly unhappy nation and we are killing ourselves in unprecedented numbers.  This shouldn’t be happening, but unfortunately the forces that have taken over our culture have convinced multitudes of Americans that their lives are not worth living any longer.  In a culture where truth has been abandoned, it is easy for lies to run rampant, and it takes a great deal of deception to get someone to willingly choose to embrace suicide.  No matter what you are going through right now, there is always a way to turn things around, and we all have been given lives worth living.

Sadly, the suicide rate in this country has continued to escalate year after year.  According to the Los Angeles Times, 2017 is “the latest year for which reliable statistics are available”, and in that year the U.S. suicide rate hit a 50 year high…

Whether they are densely populated or deeply rural, few communities in the United States have escaped a shocking increase in suicides over the last two decades. From 1999 to 2016, suicide claimed the lives of 453,577 adults between the ages of 25 and 64 — enough to fill more than 1,000 jumbo jets.

Suicides reached a 50-year peak in 2017, the latest year for which reliable statistics are available.

These numbers come from a new study that was just released, and it claims that our suicide rate actually increased by 41 percent between 1999 and 2016…

The researchers evaluated national suicide data collected between 1999 and 2016, then created a county-by-county estimation of suicide rates among all adults between the ages of 25-64. In that time period, suicide rates rose an astonishing 41%; from a median of 15 suicides per 100,000 county residents in 1999 to 21.2 in the last three years of analysis.

And suicide is also a rapidly growing problem among our teens and young adults as well.

In fact, suicide is now the second leading cause of death for Americans from age 10 to age 24.

Everyone goes through very low times, and for many people it can seem like those low times will never end.  But when I was at my lowest points many years ago, I always had faith that better days were coming, even though at the time I couldn’t even imagine the absolutely amazing things that were ahead for me.  The point that I am trying to make is that we simply do not know what the future will hold.  No matter how dark things may seem to you right now, a miracle could literally be right around the corner.

This new study that just came out also discovered that suicide rates are significantly higher in rural parts of the country…

It was noted that suicide rates were at their highest in less-populous counties and in areas where people have lower incomes and diminished access to resources. For example, between 2014 and 2016, there were 17.6 suicides per 100,000 people in large metropolitan counties, noticeably lower than the 22 suicides per 100,000 people recorded in rural counties.

The quality of life in rural areas is so much nicer in so many ways, but there is also a lot of isolation and poverty as well.  Humans are meant to be social creatures, and when there aren’t a lot of people around that can feed feelings of depression.  And if someone is deeply struggling with poverty, it can be difficult to see a way out in an area with few economic opportunities.  According to Brookings Institution research analyst Carol Graham, many Americans living in such areas “see no optimism for the future”…

“These are the places that used to be thriving rural places, near enough to cities and manufacturing hubs,” she said. “They’re places that accord with a stereotypical picture of stable blue-collar existence — and a quite nice existence — for whites in the heartland.”

With the collapse of extractive industries such as coal mining, the departure of manufacturing jobs, and a strapped agricultural economy, “these communities just got flipped on their head,” Graham observed. “And the people in those places became unhinged. You’d have a sense of places where everything has left. And among those who stay, you see no optimism for the future.”

If this is happening now, while economic conditions are still relatively stable, what is going to happen to the suicide rate during the next major U.S. economic downturn?

There is never, ever, ever a good reason for someone to commit suicide, but unfortunately during the next recession we are likely to see the suicide rate rise substantially higher.

Another factor that is resulting in a higher rate of suicide in rural areas is a lack of health insurance…

Last but certainly not least, a lack of health insurance coverage is significantly associated with rising suicide rates in rural US counties.

Specifically, the researchers observed that the more people in a county who didn’t have health insurance coverage, the higher that county’s suicide rate was.

When you are buried in medical bills that you know that you will never be able to pay, it can be exceedingly difficult to envision brighter days ahead.  Our healthcare system is deeply, deeply broken, and this is something that I wrote about on Tuesday.

It is such a tragedy when people choose to end their lives because of financial circumstances, because financial circumstances are always temporary.

No matter how bad things are in your life right now, there is always a way to turn them around.  The best days of your life could still be ahead for you, but you have got to be willing to believe that this is true.

Life is an absolutely incredible gift, and don’t let anyone ever convince you that you should end it.

It has been said that life is like a coin.  You can spend it any way that you want, but you can only spend it once.  I would encourage you to spend it loving others greatly, enjoying each day to the fullest, and doing something that truly matters.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The post The Suicide Rate In The U.S. Has Hit The Highest Level In 50 Years, And There Is Concern That It Will Go Much Higher appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

There are countless stories of folks getting stranded in the wilderness unarmed and with few supplies. And in many cases, their lack of preparation cost them their lives. There also are many stories of people who get lost and end up surviving. What’s the difference between those who survive and those who don’t? The vast majority of people who survived were sportsmen who came prepared with knowledge and supplies.

One tool for survival which can make the difference between life and death is the firearm. Food, defense and signaling are all possible with good survival guns.

Here are my top picks for survival guns.

 

 

Pistols

 

1. Glock 17/19

The Glock has arguably the finest reputation in the handgun world for reliability. I have carried a Glock 19 daily for a long time. It has never once failed me — not once. The 9mm is not a choice chambering for bear defense, but for hunting and defense against smaller critters it is plenty adequate. Magazine capacity is excellent with 15-round magazines standard for the Glock 19, and 17-round magazines for the Glock 17. Therefore, if you carry a couple extra magazines you should have plenty of ammunition to get you through. The Glock safe-action trigger may unnerve newer shooters, but it is completely safe if you practice gun safety.

 

2. Springfield XD Service model or XDM

Springfield has built an excellent polymer framed handgun in the XD model. The XD, like a Glock, has an excellent reputation for reliability. The XD features a grip safety similar to those found on 1911 model handguns and it has a Glock style trigger.

XDs are available in many different chamberings, including the big three for auto pistols: 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP.  Magazine capacity differs slightly between the service model and the XDM, but is comparable to a Glock.

 

3. Smith and Wesson Model 29

Go ahead and make your day. If you are in bear country and in need of a handgun that will give you a fighting chance against a brown or grizzly bear, my go-to handgun is a Smith & Wesson 29 chambered in .44 Magnum. Recoil is stout and most new shooters will shy away from such firepower.

 

4. Taurus Judge

The huge advantage of the Taurus Judge is the ability to shoot both .45 Long colt and .410 shot shells, including slugs, 00 Buck and bird shot. This gives you a wide variety of munitions and you will only be limited by what you pack with you.

 

5. .22 Pistol

I also want to say that having a .22 pistol in your pack is a great tool for harvesting small game for sustenance. Semi-auto or revolver — anything that is accurate to 20 yards and allows you to hit baseball-sized targets with regular consistency is a good pick.

 

 

Shotguns

 

6. Remington 870 or Mossberg 500

This is kind of a no-brainer, and survival shotguns have been argued to death in article after article. Either one of these shotguns will do the trick. Both are reliable and I wouldn’t hesitate to use either. In bear country, slugs and 00 Buck is the ticket, and you can keep shot shells in your pocket for small game. A slug from a .12 gauge will handle any big game in the world under 75 yards. It has put down elephants, hippos, water buffalo, polar bear and Kodiak bear. You will be limited to range, but not on firepower.

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Rifles

If you are out elk hunting and you get lost, you’ll be stuck with your elk rifle. A .30-06, .270 or just about any big game rifle makes a fine survival firearm as long as it is reliable, accurate and has some extra ammunition. I’m not going to list hunting rifles here, as the list would be longer than my arm. But my top picks for hunting rifles are both the Remington 700 and the Savage 11. Both are outstanding rifles. They would do well in a survival situation and are very simple in their operation and upkeep.

 

7. Marlin 1895G

The 1895 guide gun fires a .45-70 projectile. The .45-70 is a very old and very large hunk of lead that has been in use since the 1870s. With the right loads, it will put a grizzly in its place, put down a bison and bring home the bacon with any large game in North America. You’ll be limited to about 150 yards at most.

 

8. Ruger 10-22

The perfect lightweight carbine for small game is a great choice if you are not in grizzly country.  The rifle is chambered in .22 long rifle or .22 WMR. This small game rifle is utterly reliable. It uses a 10 shot magazine. And you can get it for about $230.

 

9. AK-47

The US semi-auto AK variants on the market are fine choices for survival. I would rather have an AK than an AR in a survival situation, as there are fewer moving parts. The 7.62x39mm round is capable of taking up to deer-sized game. It is perfect for a truck gun or in a disaster scenario. The rifle feeds from a 30-round, detachable magazine and has plenty of firepower.

What survival guns would you add to this list? Share your tips in the section below:

The post 9 ‘Survival Guns’ That Will Keep You Alive In Any Situation appeared first on Off The Grid News.

Let’s talk about these so-called self defense rifles. When I say self defense rifle, I am not talking about your main battle rifle. Your AR-15 is a good all-around rifle, but it’s best if you use it for self-defense. A self defense rifle in this sense is one that you can easily carry in your bug out bag and use for general survival measures with limited defensive capabilities.

These rifles are almost exclusively.22 long rifles, and while this limits defensive capability, it does still have considerable capability. The .22 long rifle is an excellent survival caliber for a lot of reasons. First off, there’s the sheer amount of ammunition you can carry. You can throw a 500-round brick in your backpack without a huge difference in weight, and it hardly takes up any room. The .22  rifle is often very cheap and common, except for the occasional ammo scare that dries up the supply. Because the rounds are cheap and easy to find, a person can get a lot of practice with their .22 rifle. These rifles are not only handy in a SHTF situation, but in any outdoor hunting and hiking situation.

These rifles will not replace your main battle rifle, but they will serve to complement your primary weapon. These weapons are designed to become very compact and disappear into a pack, making them very handy and very convenient to carry.

So, we will define these self defense rifles for the sake of this article as small, concealable, shoulder-fired, small caliber rifles. These rifles will be general-purpose rifles or even more like “jack of all trades” rifles.

Henry AR-7

We will start with an original rifle—a very unique, very odd looking little rifle. The Henry AR-7 was designed for Air Force pilots all the way back in 1959. Since then, developers have slightly upgraded the weapon throughout the years and it has become a camper’s best friend.

The AR-7 is a semi-automatic rifle that fires from an eight-round box magazine and comes with two magazines. The rifle is a takedown rifle and conveniently breaks down into three components. The rifle breaks down into the barrel, receiver, and buttstock. In addition, the barrel and receiver both fit inside the hollow buttstock. The buttstock is water resistant and has the ability to float (should it find its way into water), and if it takes a fall, it is impact resistant. The rifle only weighs three and a half pounds and is less than seventeen inches long when packed into the buttstock.

Putting the weapon together is incredibly easy and quick. The receiver attaches to the stock and the barrel screws into the receiver. Construction and take down is completely toolless. Both the barrel and receiver are coated with ABS plastic and Teflon to completely and absolutely resist corrosion.  Handling the weapon is odd at first, as you lack a forward grip and are forced to either grip the thin barrel or the front of the receiver. However, the light recoiling round makes it easy to control and shoot accurately. One of the key advantages I see for this self defense rifle is the price. In fact, for less than $300, this weapon can be yours.

M6 Scout

Now, this is another odd rifle that has been around for a few decades, but unlike the AR-7, the M6 Scout never made a huge splash in the firearms industry. This is probably due to the weapon’s odd appearance and limited capabilities. The M6 Scout is made by Springfield and has been around since the 1970s. Recently, the rifle has had a bit of a resurgence with the increase in people becoming more prepared for less-than-optimistic situations.

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The M6 Scout has the distinct advantage of being chambered in both .22 long rifle and .410 shotgun rounds. We’ve gone over the .22 long rifle, but the .410 is its own handy cartridge. Like any shotgun shell, there is a variety of different loads that the .410 can hold. The main three are birdshot, buckshot, and slugs. The .410 is capable of taking medium and small game at close range.

The .410 birdshot round is a proven snake destroyer, and the slugs have their place in self-defense and hunting. The M6 has one less than desirable feature: it’s an over-under double-barrel weapon. The top barrel is .22 and the bottom barrel is .410. The advantage of a .410 barrel is that gauge adapters will allow you to fire rounds like 9mm and 38/357 out of your shotgun barrel.

For compactness, the rifle breaks in half at the breech. Consequently, you can store the firearm in a very short package. The rifle is very lightweight and very Spartan. There is almost no furniture on the rifle, and this keeps the weapon lightweight and compact. The stock does open and it allows you to store ammo inside.

This is a very unique firearm that’s quite an interesting weapon to shoot. The ability to fire precision rifle shots or a wide variety of shot is something any backpacker or prepper can appreciate. This weapon may not match the firepower of the AR-7, but it does beat it in versatility.

Ruger 10/22 Takedown

The Ruger 10/22 needs no introduction. This self defense rifle has been the poster gun for all .22 rifles for the last 50 years. The Ruger 10/22 is an incredibly versatile rifle with more accessories than any rifle I’ve ever seen. This is America’s .22 rifle. The newest model combines the well-known Ruger platform with the ability for you to break it down into two pieces.

This rifle is probably the least compact of the three, but it offers the most comfort and reliability. The Ruger is an incredibly reliable weapon, and the amount of accessories available is staggering. The list includes high-capacity magazines, scope mounts, sights, and the ability to switch out the integral parts with easy-to-find match-grade pieces. Take this little .22 and load it with a BX 25 magazine and a red dot sight, and you’re ready to rock and roll all day long.

The weapon is probably easier to strap down than it is to pack. Even so, it’s still plenty easy to transport. Ruger even offers a backpack with Molle straps and a very prominent Ruger logo (not very discreet) that they’ve designed perfectly for carrying the weapon. You can never go wrong with a Ruger 10/22.

Bigger Bore Options

If you are interested in a larger caliber takedown rifle, I have recently come across two that are very interesting. The first is an AR-style carbine chambered in a variety or in pistol rounds. The next rifle is a full-sized Browning hunting rifle. These weapons are larger and heavier but considerably better for defense and hunting.

The Aero Self  Defense Rifle

The Aero survival rifle is designed to resemble the look and feel of an AR, but it is chambered in a pistol caliber. The little carbine accepts Glock magazines, so you know that plenty of high-capacity options will be available. The weapon is chambered in 9mm, .40 caliber, and .45 ACP. Moreover, the ammo can be interchangeable with your sidearm.

The rifle comes apart without tools, and it breaks into less than half its normal length. It drops easily into a backpack, giving you a close-to-medium-range hunting and self-defense weapon. This self defense rifle features some rail space for optics or folding iron sights as well as a flashlight or foregrip. The stock is an M4-style six-position adjustable.

Browning Lever-Action Takedown Rifle

Browning is a very well-known firearms maker of high-quality rifles, handguns, shotguns, safes, and just about everything else in the firearms world. Their lever-action takedown rifle is no different. This rifle is an excellent choice as a hunting rifle, and it even has some excellent defensive capabilities. For those poor folks who live in a less-than-free state like California or New York, this rifle is completely legal in either—for the time being anyway.

The weapon feeds from a detachable box magazine and can chamber full-powered rifle rounds. The weapon can be chambered in fourteen different calibers from 22-250 to .375. These options give you long-range and hard-hitting bullets. The lever action guarantees reliable and quick feeding.

The weapon weighs around seven pounds and is bulky compared to any other survival rifle that we’ve mentioned. Once the Browning is broken down, it still fits in a hiking pack though, and it is relatively easy to strap to the side or top. This rifle is an awesome choice when you need a full-sized and full-powered rifle to take game, especially at longer ranges. Browning has a winner with this rifle. I only wish it was easier to find.

You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: 10 Practice Drills Guaranteed To Make You A Highly Skilled Concealed Carrier

Do you have any other suggestions for survival rifles suitable for self-defense? Let us know in the comments below.

 

The post What Is The Best Self Defense Rifle? appeared first on Off The Grid News.