A Joe Biden coughing fit has caused a firestorm of speculation to erupt on social media.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can watch Joe Biden repeatedly cough and clear his throat during his most recent press conference right here.  It is being reported that Biden either coughed or cleared his throat 17 times during his 14 minute speech, and his voice was very hoarse the entire time.  As you will see below, Biden is admitting that he has “a cold”, and perhaps that is all that it is.  But there is a long tradition in Washington of politicians from both parties covering up major health problems, and many are wondering whether Biden is covering up something now.  So could it be possible that Joe Biden is seriously ill?  We may not get an immediate answer to that question, but without a doubt many of his supporters have become extremely alarmed.

For example, one Twitter user that watched the press conference said that Biden is “scaring us” by coughing so much, and another openly wondered whether Biden is in “need of a COVID test”…

Social media users took to Twitter to voice their worry and crack jokes with one user saying ‘Drink some water, Joe. You’re scaring us.’

One Twitter user asked ‘Does Biden need a COVID test?’ and another chimed in ‘Someone get Biden some Robitussin stat!!!’

And even a Biden apologist like NPR’s Scott Detrow has been forced to admit that this is “the most sustained coughing” that he has ever heard from Biden…

“To the main theme of the Twitterverse right now: Biden regularly clears his throat and coughs in speeches – especially at the beginning of remarks,” wrote NPR political correspondent Scott Detrow. “That’s the most sustained coughing I’ve heard though.”

There is no way that Biden could possibly claim to be at full health, and at this point he is telling the public that he has “a bit of a cold”…

“Thank you, I have a little bit of a cold, I’m sorry, but look, you know, you did it, you did it, not a joke,” Biden said during the live stream. “This campaign for president was more like the first time I ran as a 29-year-old for the Senate. I believed that ordinary folks and extraordinary folks would get together and make this work. You didn’t let us down. You didn’t let the country down. I really mean it, think about it.”

Of course in this environment if anyone starts repeatedly coughing those around them immediately begin wondering if that individual has COVID-19.

So has Joe Biden been tested within the past 24 hours?

I have not been able to find any news source that says that he has been.

Hopefully he will get tested very soon, because the American people deserve to know the truth.

And at 78 years of age, Biden is definitely in a very high risk group.  Due to their advanced ages, I was deeply concerned about how President Trump and Joe Biden would hold up physically during this election season.  Running for president takes a huge toll physically, mentally, emotionally and physically, and that makes candidates especially vulnerable to various diseases.

As speculation about Biden’s health heats up, a “new variant” of COVID-19 has been identified on the other side of the Atlantic…

A “new variant” of the COVID-19 virus has been identified in the United Kingdom and linked to a faster spread of the disease, Britain’s health secretary has said. The World Health Organization has been notified.

Matt Hancock announced that London and a number of other areas in the south of England will be placed under new harsher restrictions following “very sharp rises” in COVID cases.

So far, we are being told that approximately 1,000 people have tested positive for this new variant of the virus.

The big question that people are asking about this new strain is whether or not the recently developed vaccines will work against it.

As I have discussed previously, mutations can cause major problems for vaccine developers.  For example, every 12 months scientists try to come up with a flu vaccine that they think will work against the strain or strains of the flu that they believe will be dominant that particular year.  Sometimes the match is pretty good, and sometimes the match is not good at all.  And when the match is not good, getting a flu vaccine is pretty much useless.

So could a similar thing happen with COVID-19?  If a new mutation becomes dominant and the newly developed vaccines will not work against it, we could be back to square one very rapidly.

Of course there are millions upon millions of people that do not intend to take any COVID vaccine under any circumstances.  Safety concerns keep being raised, and this week we learned that the FDA “recommends monitoring people” who get a vaccine to see if they develop Bell’s palsy…

U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff recommends monitoring people who get Pfizer or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine shots for possible cases of Bell’s palsy, saying it’s not necessarily a side effect but worth watching out for after a handful of trial participants got the condition, which causes half of your face to droop.

If you are not familiar with Bell’s palsy, the following is a definition that comes from the Mayo Clinic…

Bell’s palsy, also known as acute peripheral facial palsy of unknown cause, can occur at any age. The exact cause is unknown. It’s believed to be the result of swelling and inflammation of the nerve that controls the muscles on one side of your face. Or it might be a reaction that occurs after a viral infection.

For most people, Bell’s palsy is temporary. Symptoms usually start to improve within a few weeks, with complete recovery in about six months. A small number of people continue to have some Bell’s palsy symptoms for life. Rarely, Bell’s palsy can recur.

Sadly, this is just one of the many “side effects” that we know about so far.

I believe that we have entered an era when multiple pandemics will be raging all over the globe, and so we should expect endless debates about vaccines, masks and lockdowns for the foreseeable future.

For decades, Americans could go about their daily lives without ever having to think about what viruses might be floating around out there, but now everything has changed.

The global elite would like to use the COVID-19 pandemic to “reset” the world in their own image, and we must not allow them to do that.

No matter how bad things get, we must stand up for our basic constitutional rights, because once they are gone it will be exceedingly difficult to ever get them back.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The post Is Joe Biden seriously ill? first appeared on End Of The American Dream.

12/15/20 – FREYR BUNDLE ON SALE for a limited time! Looking for a new tactical duty light? One of SHTF…

This article %Olight Freyr is the Perfect Tactical Duty Light% appeared first on %SHTF Blog – Modern Survival%.

We have our smartphones, GPS, maps, and compasses. But what would we do without these? Do you know how to…

This article %5 Ways Preppers Can Use the Sky for Navigation% appeared first on %SHTF Blog – Modern Survival%.

It is often said that a house divided will surely fall, and the same thing can now be said for the United States as a whole.  If there is anything that this election has made clear, it is the fact that there is little hope of healing the very deep divisions that exist in our country.  Most of those on the political left absolutely hate those on the political right, and most of those on the political right absolutely hate those on the political left.  But it isn’t as if the two opposing sides are even united.  The radical left is absolutely disgusted with “moderate Democrats” such as Joe Biden and is very much looking forward to the day when their “progressive revolution” finally triumphs in America.  Meanwhile, the right is hopelessly divided into countless political, religious and economic factions, and there is endless conflict between “conservatives” that are pro-Trump and those that are anti-Trump.  Over the past 30 years, not much has actually gotten done in D.C., but what little has been accomplished has almost always involved more spending, more debt and more socialism.

One of the reasons why the United States became such a great nation is because originally we were united by a core set of values and principles.  In the beginning, everything was about faith, family and freedom.  Our notions of right and wrong were defined by the Christian faith, the family was the most important institution in our society, and early Americans were desperate for freedom after experiencing deep oppression over in Europe.

But now we have completely abandoned all of that.  The Christian faith has been relentlessly pushed to the fringes of public life, the traditional family unit is mocked while rampant sexual immorality is celebrated all over America, and with each passing day our freedoms are being eroded even more.

At this point, our Constitution has essentially been relegated to being “just a piece of paper” that sits in the National Archives.  It has been trampled on over and over again in recent years, and the courts do not seem to care.

In fact, much of the time it is the courts that are doing the trampling.

We have now gotten to a point where our nation is almost ungovernable.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House, millions upon millions of Americans did not consider him to be a legitimate president.  Then when Donald Trump won the election in 2016, even more Americans did not recognize the legitimacy of his presidency.  Of course that trend is only going to intensify now that Biden is being installed as president.  According to one brand new survey, a whopping 82 percent of all Trump supporters do not believe that Biden is the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election”…

A strong majority of Donald Trump supporters reject the legitimacy of Joe Biden as President-elect, with many citing election irregularities and the most pervasive censorship campaign in American history in support of Biden on the part of Big Tech companies.

A poll released Sunday by CBS News reveals that 82% of self-identifying Trump supporters do not recognize Biden as the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election.”

Of course if the election results were reversed and Donald Trump was given another four years, a similar percentage of Democrats would almost certainly not be willing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

No matter who is in the White House from now on, tens of millions of Americans are not going to accept that individual as being legitimate.

And thanks to the events of the past several weeks, the election fraud that has been going on for decades in this country has now been exposed for everyone to see.  From this point forward, a very high percentage of Americans will not have any faith that our elections are fair.

If people don’t believe in the system, it is just a matter of time before it completely fails.

John Adams once made the following statement…

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Today, the American people are neither moral nor religious.  Instead, we have evolved into an “idiocracy” that is dominated by power-hungry control freaks.

If you go back and read the extremely eloquent things that our founders had to say in their time, you will quickly realize that the way that we speak and write today is completely different.  If they could have traveled to our time and interacted with us, we would have seemed like cavemen to them.  Most of us can barely hold conversations with others, and when we do it is mostly just a bunch of unintelligible gibberish.

But even though we have been dramatically “dumbed down” over the decades, if we could at least try to get along with one another we could still have a functional society.

Sadly, I have never seen more hatred in our country than I am seeing now, and it just keeps on growing.

You would think that Democrats would have an interest in at least trying to pull the country together, but instead they just keep rubbing their “victory” in the faces of their enemies.  For example, just consider something that Debra Messing just said…

The “Will & Grace” star — one of Hollywood’s most vocal Trump critics — expressed a desire for the president to “live a long life in prison” in a tweet to her more than 677,000 followers last week.

She called Trump “a weak, scared, stupid, inept, negligent, vindictive, narcissistic, criminal” before writing she hoped he became “the most popular boyfriend to the all inmates.”

Can you feel the love in those words?

Yes, let the healing begin.

More blood was spilled on the streets of D.C. over the weekend, and the left and the right will continue to go after one another in the weeks and months ahead.  We have now entered a period of semi-permanent civil unrest in this country, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

If we would return to the values and principles that our nation was founded upon, our future could be very different.

But that is not what the American people seem to want.

So we will continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and there is no future for our nation if we stay on the road that we are currently on.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The post A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall first appeared on The Economic Collapse.

We have never seen anything like Texas v. Pennsylvania in the history of the Supreme Court.  A very large group of red states has lined up behind Texas, and a very large group of blue states is backing the other side.  I cannot recall another Supreme Court case in which so many states have sought to be involved on some level, and so to me it would be unthinkable for the Supreme Court to try to slap this suit away as if it was insignificant.  The U.S. Constitution gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over controversies between states, and so if the Supreme Court is not willing to properly deal with the grievances that the red states have there is no other place for them to go.

I believe that the Supreme Court is going to handle this case with the seriousness that it deserves, and that means that we are about to witness an absolutely epic legal battle between red states and blue states.

In an article that I published yesterday, I explained that the Court had required the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia to file their responses by Thursday at 3 PM, and that is precisely what happened.

But a whole bunch of other parties decided to get involved in this case as well.  The following are all of the updates that were posted on the Supreme Court website on Thursday alone…

Motion of State of Ohio for leave to file amicus brief not accepted for filing. (December 10, 2020) (corrected motion electronically filed)

Response to motion for leave to file bill of complaint and motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order or stay from defendant Wisconsin filed.

Opposition to Texas’s motion for leave to file bill of complaint and its motion for preliminary relief from defendant Georgia filed.

Opposition to motions for leave to file bill of complaint and for injunctive relief from defendant Michigan filed.

Opposition to motion for leave to file bill of complaint and motion for preliminary injunction, temporary restraining order, or stay from defendant Pennsylvania filed.

Motion for leave to file amicus brief from the District of Columbia on behalf of 22 States and Territories filed.

Motion to Intervene and Proposed Bill of Complaint in Intervention of State of Missouri submitted.

Motion of State of Ohio for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Motion for Leave to File Brief as Amicus Curiae and Brief for Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. as Amicus Curiae in Support of Plaintiff/Defendants of Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly submitted.

Motion of Certain Select Pennsylvania State Senators for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Motion of Christian Family Coalition for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Amicus brief of Bryan Cutler Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Kerry Benninghoff Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives submitted.

For Leave to File Complaint-in-Intervention of Ron Heuer, et al. submitted.

Motion of U.S. Representative Mike Johnson and 105 Other Members for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Motion of Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, Senator Lora Reinbold, Representative David Eastment, et al. (Elected State Officials) for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Amicus brief of City of Detroit submitted.

Motion for Leave to File and Amicus Curiae Brief of Justice and Freedom Fund in Support of Plaintiff of Justice and Freedom Fund in Support of Plaintiff submitted.

Complaint in Intervention of Ron Heuer, et al. submitted.

Amicus brief of Ga. state Sen. William Ligon et al. submitted.

Motion of L. Lin Wood for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

Motion of Steve Bullock, in his official capacity as Governor of Montana for leave to file amicus brief submitted.

I have never seen a flurry of activity like this for any other Supreme Court case.

As you look over that list, you will see that there are all sorts of big names on there and nearly all states are represented in at least some capacity.

But there is one huge name that is completely missing.

For some reason, Joe Biden has decided not to be involved in this case at all.

I think that Joe Biden’s lawyers are telling him that it would give the case credibility if they got involved and they don’t want to do that.

But to me, this is a major tactical mistake on their part.  If Texas wins this case, Joe Biden will probably not be the one sitting in the Oval Office for the next four years.  With so much on the line, if I was a presidential candidate I would want to make sure that my interests were being represented properly in this case.

In any event, this case is moving forward, and the outcome will make history no matter which way it goes.

Needless to say, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia are very upset about the suit that Texas has filed.  In fact, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro went so far as to call the suit a “seditious abuse of the judicial process”…

The Pennsylvania AG’s office described the Texas suit as a crass political maneuver to extend Trump’s term.

‘Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,’ they urged.

Of course that is a bunch of nonsense.

As I detailed yesterday, Texas is alleging very serious violations of the Electors Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in all four states, and the evidence clearly shows that those constitutional violations did indeed take place.

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia would have us believe that Texas and other red states were not harmed by these constitutional violations, and they would have us believe that the Supreme Court could not possibly take any action even if there were constitutional violations because that would “disenfranchise” millions of voters.

But it wouldn’t disenfranchise those voters if the Court ordered new elections in those four states, and that is what I believe is the appropriate remedy in this case.

I know that is a minority viewpoint, but I am sticking with it.

On Thursday, the District of Columbia, 20 blue states, the Virgin Islands and Guam filed an amicus brief in support of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.

An amicus brief had already been filed by a coalition of red states on Wednesday, and on Thursday six of them actually asked the court to allow them to become co-plaintiffs…

Missouri on Wednesday led a group of 17 states in filing a brief that supported the Texas lawsuit, which alleges that the four key swing states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden violated the Constitution by having their judicial and executive branches make changes to their presidential elections rather than their legislatures.

But the Thursday filing led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, which also includes Arkansas, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, would make those states parties before the court in the case rather than just outside voices weighing in. President Trump’s campaign did the same on Wednesday.

Subsequently, 106 Republican members of the House of Representatives filed an amicus brief in support of Texas.

That has got to carry a lot of weight with the Court.

At this point, the Court is essentially boxed into a corner.  If they throw this case aside very quickly, that will cause a massive uproar on the right.

But if they actually allow oral arguments and give this case the attention that it deserves, that will cause a massive uproar on the left.

Whatever they do, about half the country is going to be exceedingly angry.

And if Texas v. Pennsylvania ultimately results in Trump winning the election, we will witness a national temper tantrum that will shake our nation to the core.

We have reached one of the most critical moments in American history, and the future of our Republic hangs in the balance.

Historically, the Supreme Court likes to try to find an easy way out, and they may be very tempted to try to dispose of this case very quickly.

But that wouldn’t solve anything.  I think that it is a very ominous sign that there is so much open animosity between red states and blue states now.  Just like we witnessed prior to the Civil War, states are picking one side or the other, and talk of secession is starting to pick up steam.  In fact, it was the top headline on the Drudge Report on Thursday morning.

And if the Supreme Court ignores the clear constitutional violations that occurred during this election, that will only make things a lot worse.

As Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stated in his complaint, either we have a Constitution or we don’t.

That is what Texas v. Pennsylvania is really all about, and in a few days we will have a clear answer to that question.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

What would the United States look like if we lost half of our small businesses?  The reason I ask that question is because approximately half of all small business owners in the entire country believe that they may soon be forced to close down for good.  Not even during the Great Depression of the 1930s did we see anything like this.  The big corporate giants with extremely deep pockets will be able to easily weather another round of lockdowns, but for countless small businesses this is literally a matter of life and death.  Every day we are seeing new restrictions being implemented somewhere in the nation, and the politicians that are doing this are killing the hopes and dreams of countless small business owners.  According to a recent Alignable survey, 48 percent of U.S. small business owners fear that they could be forced to “shut down permanently” in the very near future…

Based on this week’s Alignable Q4 Revenue Poll of 9,201 small business owners, 48% could shut down permanently before year’s end.

In fact, this number jumped from 42% just two months ago, demonstrating how several factors have converged to devastate small businesses: COVID resurgences, forced government reclosures, elevated customer fears, and a surge in online shopping at Amazon and other national ecommerce giants.

When a small business with only a few employees closes down forever, it never makes any national headlines.

But the truth is that small businesses are the heart and soul of our economy, and we are losing more of them with each passing day.

Here are some quotes from actual small business owners that took part in the Alignable survey…

• “COVID has raised its ugly head again. I’m a caterer and I’ve had no work in November and my clients are cancelling for Dec. This is so sad. I have worked so hard to build my business the last 14 years. My business has gone from half a million to not even 200,000. This is devastating for any business.”
• “COVID closings are killing this country! My business is on hold — no art walks or gallery openings, and I can’t even open my studio. Everything’s online.”
• “Because therapeutic massage is so ‘up close and personal,’ I have only come back to about 40% of my previous clientele. I am afraid that the governor will shut us down again, which will be the end of my business. I also believe the ‘ruling elite’ does not care about small businesses.”

How would you feel if you spent years putting everything you had into a small business in order to make it successful, only to have the politicians come along and completely destroy it?

And every time a small business has to let workers go, it just makes the unemployment crisis in this country even worse.

On Thursday, we learned that another 853,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

First-time claims for unemployment insurance totaled 853,000, an increase from the upwardly revised 716,000 total a week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting 730,000.

I have been warning that the new lockdowns would make the numbers worse, and that is precisely what is happening.

And one expert that was interviewed by CNBC says that this is just the beginning…

“It looks like the unemployment losses are starting to stack up for the economy. It’s not going to be a good month,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank. “You’re starting the first week of the month on a bad note, and it’s probably going to be all downhill from here. It feels like the lockdowns are intensifying. It’s closer to reality for those forecasts that look for the economy to go negative in the first quarter.”

It is also important to remember that there are many Americans that have been unemployed for so long that they are no longer eligible to receive benefits.

One of those long-term unemployed workers is 35-year-old Sarah Groome…

For six months, she received unemployment benefits from the government – but those payments shrank as the programmes wound down this summer. Since October, she’s received nothing.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do financially,” she says. “I’m applying to jobs and I’ve probably applied to over 100 at this point and I’ve had one interview.”

“It’s scary,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

What do you say to someone in her position?

It’s heartbreaking to hear stories like that, and more people are being laid off with each passing day.

And as our new economic depression gets progressively deeper, an increasing number of Americans are becoming very desperate.

In fact, many have already become so desperate that they are turning to shoplifting…

Shoplifting is up markedly since the pandemic began in the spring and at higher levels than in past economic downturns, according to interviews with more than a dozen retailers, security experts and police departments across the country. But what’s distinctive about this trend, experts say, is what’s being taken – more staples like bread, pasta and baby formula.

“We’re seeing an increase in low-impact crimes,” said Jeff Zisner, chief executive of workplace security firm Aegis. “It’s not a whole lot of people going in, grabbing TVs and running out the front door. It’s a very different kind of crime – it’s people stealing consumables and items associated with children and babies.”

Everywhere we look, our society is starting to break down all around us.  Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits more than 70 million times this year, the number of homeless in New York City has reached an all-time record high, and civil unrest continues to erupt all over America.

No matter what happens politically, conditions are going to continue to deteriorate as we head into 2021.

Of course the mainstream media is boldly proclaiming that the new vaccines will pull us out of this tailspin and that life in America will soon return to normal.

You can believe the mainstream media if you want, but in the end the “hope” that they are promising will turn out to be a complete mirage.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The post 48% Of U.S. Small Businesses Fear That They May Be Forced To “Shut Down Permanently” Soon appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Last Updated on December 7, 2020 COVID-19 isolated yet freed us at the same time. Before COVID, most…

I’m not a single mom, however, it’s possible that if there was a need…

This article %6 Tips for Bugging Out as a Single Mom% appeared first on %SHTF Blog – Modern Survival%.

Mosses are one of those plants that can be found in many places throughout the world and can grow in great abundance.  When hunger pains …

Read moreIs Moss Edible? 5 Types That You Can Eat! Survival 101

The post Is Moss Edible? 5 Types That You Can Eat! Survival 101 appeared first on Survival Cache.

This article was originally published by Tomas Forgac at the Mises Institute. 

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are being sold with the narrative of protecting consumers who are increasingly moving to cashless payments. Some say that these cashless payments will rob us of the privacy advantages of cash while exposing us to bank runs, payment network blackouts, and foreign financial adversaries.

Yet while these risks are real, they would be negligible had it not been for the central banking and financial regulators’ interventions into the market. CBDCs make these interventions worse and introduce some new, much bigger ones.

Design Implications

While the stated intention behind CBDCs is to keep the commercial banks in the picture, these digital currencies will bring their end-users closer to the central banks. This is because blockchains and blockchain-inspired distributed ledger technologies are built on a single common ledger, which is distributed either in a permissionless or permissioned manner. The permissionless distribution exposes a lot of information about the network participants but in combination with proof-of-work verification makes it very difficult for an adversary to attack and overtake the network and, e.g., change the inflation rate.

A permissioned network with no proof-of-work or similar consensus algorithm not only doesn’t provide the immutability feature but by having a single permissioned ledger gives potential control to those who grant the network privileges. As a result, the central bank as the ultimate permission issuer would have much stronger control over the monetary system and payment network than it has right now. This gives the central banks three very dangerous capabilities.

Helicopter Money

The reason why we’ve seen such an elevated business cycle over the past century is the central banking fiat money system. Unnatural expansion of the money supply causes booms, which are unsustainable, and markets try to clear them when they are exposed as such.

Economists of the Austrian school understand that the boom is the real problem and the economic crisis is the necessary and positive cleansing mechanism. Unfortunately, the (neo-)Keynesian response to such an event is to prop the markets up by further monetary interventions.

The problem is that the current design of the banking system requires the intermediary role of commercial banks in issuing credit to businesses. Central banks get frustrated when the commercial banks exercise caution in an economy that hasn’t fully cleared the previous misallocations and hasn’t brought prices of capital goods to more sustainable levels. Needless to say, commercial banks’ cautious approach to consumer credit in a period of growing unemployment doesn’t align well with the central bank’s goals either. During the covid crisis, the governments managed to an extent to get around these hurdles by issuing benefits en masse, but those are complicated by logistics, bureaucracy, or legislation. Since the predominant Keynesian narrative is that spending drives the economy (hint: it doesn’t—capital investments do), the central banks would like to spur more consumer spending by issuing money supply directly to consumers.

With closer integration of the monetary spigot and the end consumers and businesses, the central bank can much more easily issue credit or just outright cash-outs to the private individuals and commercial entities by simply “airdropping” new tokens to the existing users. They would not even compromise their stated intention of keeping the commercial banks in the picture—they would still serve as custodians of the token keys and even have the ability to issue credit along the traditional lines.

This would lead to disastrous consequences. Economies get easily addicted to central banks’ dope. With every new crisis, the chief monetarists have had to increase intervention doses the same way as junkies have to do with their drug of choice. As with every addiction, the longer it lasts and the stronger it grows, the more difficult it is to cure. And while monetary overdoses such as we’ve seen in Zimbabwe or Venezuela might not come for a long time, if ever, junkies don’t perform well, as Japan’s three lost decades of Bank of Japan (BOJ) interventions have demonstrated.

Negative Interest Rates

Hoarding is evil—or so the modern monetarists’ narrative goes. In the Keynesian framework, there is no space for the function of cash as a hedge in times of uncertainty. Savings are just money that doesn’t work in spurring the miracles of spending- and money supply–driven economic growth. Negative interest rates, then, are potentially the most effective method of preventing hoarding—by incentivizing savings account holders to spend their depreciating balances. Currently, the central banks have to rely on commercial banks to pass the negative interest rates on to their customers, but commercial banks instead are trying to convince the account holders to move their deposits from negative-yielding accounts to interest-yielding products and are consuming the negative rates on most of the outstanding cash balances.

With the central bank tokens being tied more tightly to their issuance authority, it would be much easier for the monetary interventionists to impose negative interest rates on all tokens in circulation. This would certainly increase the consumers’ and businesses’ propensity to spend and would also drive asset prices up as people tried to offload their cash savings. But to think of this as something beneficial is foolish. It was massive spending, record-low savings, and unsustainable asset valuations that led to the credit bubbles and crises of the past decades. To think that more of the same recipe will lead to a different, let alone better, outcome is ludicrous.

Financial Surveillance

The final major implication of cash tokenization is the potential it creates for financial surveillance. The central banks are ostensibly introducing digital tokens to protect people’s privacy in the face of those reducing their anonymous cash usage. But the idea that a branch of government that imposes KYC/AML rules on existing crypto token platforms, limits physical cash use to prevent tax avoidance, and uses financial surveillance to catch nonviolent “criminals” cares about our privacy is laughable.

They’re not even hiding the fact that tokenization of money would allow them to run what they call “data analytics.” To think that they would not make the leap from aggregate analytics to individual data processing would be naïve.

It’s not a coincidence that China is the global leader in CBDCs. The surveillance potential of centralized tokenization is extremely attractive to a government that tries to keep tabs on every aspect of the lives of their underlings.

Pro-CBDC Arguments Are Misleading

The proponents of the central banking tokens argue that consumers need to be protected against targeted attacks on a country’s payment network. While such a risk exists—for example, if a country like Switzerland tried to provide anonymity for foreign depositors (as it used to) and as a result Visa and Mastercard were pressured to shut down their payment networks for the country—if it materializes, the economy can always temporarily revert to cash, supported by a vast network of local ATMs and bank branches.

If anything, the biggest attacks on monetary exchange in the Western world have come from the governments themselves suspending or limiting cash withdrawals in times of liquidity crises, as was the case in Cyprus or Greece (not to mention that central banks themselves caused those crises with their credit bubbles of the preceding periods).

The argument about the protection of consumer privacy doesn’t pass the laugh test considering the history of continuous erosion of financial privacy by central banks and financial regulators.

CBDCs Will Come and Will Make Things Worse

In conclusion, the reasons why central banks champion CBDCs are the strongest reasons for which people should oppose the transition toward them. But while the pretense of an investigation into fiat money tokenization gives the impression of there being a debate on the topic, the reality is that there is no debate: the digital currencies will go through and give central banks more control than they had before with all the disastrous consequences such control brings.

The post Why Central Bank Digital Currencies Are a Bad Idea first appeared on SHTF Plan – When It Hits The Fan, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You.