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Can I Use Expired Neosporin? Revealing The Scientific Truth

Expired NeosporinToday I want to share something extremely important with you…

To answer all your questions about Expired Neosporin, such as:

Does Neosporin really expire? Is it still safe to use?

Now, of course, you won’t find much help on the label itself.

The manufacturer wants you to just toss it out, buy more and stop asking questions…

But is that in your best interests? Is that the TRUTH?

To get to the bottom of this, we must dig a bit deeper…

TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE…    ↓(click to jump)

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Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a physician.

I’m not providing health advice but rather collecting and sharing other people’s information and my personal (non-professional) opinions on what I’ve decided to do.

You should always consult your doctor or a licensed professional for all your health-related decisions.

neosporin tube

Does Neosporin Have Any Potency After Expiration?

The honest answer to all of these questions is: IT DEPENDS.

It depends because there’s a lot of controversy around these questions, just like there seems to be controversy around all things “expiration” related.

Yet, all is not lost.

Depends on what?

1. How Far Is Neosporin Past Its Date?

Neosporin is a medical consumable.

As with most medical consumables, their healing potency degrades over time.

The older it gets, the less ability it has to perform as intended.

Ok, that makes sense.

So, what is the exact degradation pace of Neosporin?

Unfortunately, that information is not publicly available.

The makers of Neosporin do not share that information.

However, I discovered that all pharmaceutical companies must follow strict labeling guidelines.

These guidelines require the active ingredient in medications to meet a specific potency range.

When the active ingredients fall outside this specific range, the product must be considered “expired.”

This potency range is unique depending on the product’s makeup and active ingredients.

However, the range is typically very high in the pharmaceutical field.

An example of an acceptable active ingredient range in pharmaceuticals is between 95% to 105% potency.

So to follow these strict requirements, the manufacturers of Neosporin must test their products in controlled storage environments.

They record potency test data over a period of time, taking note of when it drops below their required range threshold (i.e., 95%).

Using this collected data, the medical companies use statistics to determine the required expiration date.

A data-supported date that meets the strict industry guidelines.

↓ Can You Take Expired Medication? Expiration Dates, Explained

So the bottom line is:

The closer your Neosporin is to its labeled expiration date, the higher the potency of the active ingredient remains.

Sure, it’s probably slipped below the strict 95% guideline.

But should you toss out Neosporin with an active ingredient potency of 88%?

2. Where And How Has Your Neosporin Been Stored?

Storage practices are always a variable when it comes to expiration dates.

Poor storage practices lead to shorter expiration dates.

Good storage practices lead to longer expiration dates.

The two major conditions that significantly shorten Neosporin’s shelf life are:

  • Stored in direct sunlight
  • Stored in high-temperature environments

So, storing our Neosporin in locations that avoid these conditions will prolong its useful life.

Or as Marvin Lipman (Consumer Reports Chief Medical Consultant) suggests:

“To assure that medicines stay effective after their expiration dates, don’t store them in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Heat and humidity accelerate how fast a drug deteriorates, so store drugs in a cool, dry place and well out of the reach of children.”

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Can You Safely Use Expired Neosporin?

Yes, it can still be useful.

  • But should you apply it after it expires?
  • Are there any associated risks with ignoring the label?
  • Does Neosporin expire and go toxic after a certain amount of time?

Again, information on these questions is sparse, and the little I could find is not from highly trusted sources (e.g., medical journals or medical websites).

But what I could find, most people agree that Neosporin does not become toxic after expiration.

It should also be noted what was NOT found.

If Neosporin did turn toxic after expiration, there would be a lot of information about that on the web (and most likely many court cases).

I found no evidence supporting the idea that Neosporin does not become toxic after it expires.

neosporin expiration date

Should You Use It? Toss It Out? Or Keep It After Its Expiration Date?

What’s your mindset?

Are you a survivalist prepper (like me)?

If times are normal, and you can easily buy a new tube of Neosporin from Walgreens, then you should purchase a new tube.

I won’t argue that it’s worth using the expired stuff if a new tube is available.

However, as a survivalist, I think about worst-case scenarios such as TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

This survivalist mindset changes how I think about expiration dates.

“Expiration Dates” and “Best If Used By Dates” are valid in normal times (where food and medical supplies are in abundance).

But they become nearly meaningless the day our modern medical resources become scarce.

In such a world, many items with value today will become worthless, while many undervalued items today will skyrocket.

↓ 10 Prepper Supplies EVERYONE Is Overlooking

Even if it’s expired, Neosporin will skyrocket in value in an SHTF or TEOTWAWKI world.

Let Me Share With You A Short Hypothetical Story:

Let’s pretend that TSHTF happens and life as we know it is over.

Maybe it’s a highly contagious virus that wipes out 87% of the world’s population.

Perhaps it’s World War III that leaves behind scorched earth.

Maybe it’s a massive EMP attack.

Whatever the cause, medical attention and supplies will be limited.

↓ Home Doctor Book Review – Is It Worth Buying?

You won’t stop at your local drug store to pick up cold medicine, nasal spray, or Neosporin.

Let’s pretend you have a 6-year-old son in this hypothetical story.

Maybe he was walking around your beat-up neighborhood wearing worn-out sneakers and stepping on a large shard of glass.

He’s left with a nasty cut on his heel.

In haste, you clean it with a semi-sanitary source and wrap it with the cleanest bandages.

You then pray it doesn’t become infected.

After a few hours, the cut turns a pinkish-red hue, swells, and looks to be in the early stages of a deadly infection.

Remember, getting access to regular antibiotics in this new world unless you plan ahead.

In this story, you didn’t.

Your son is doomed.

But wait…

Your neighbor (who is a prepared survivalist) happens to have Neosporin.

It’s 3 years past its “expiration date,” but who cares?

This is your son’s life we are talking about.

Your neighbor wants to help, but he also knows that in this world of limited medical supplies, you don’t just give stuff away for free.

Especially something as valuable as infection-fighting Neosporin.

So, he proposes a barter.

He will give you a small amount of Neosporin in exchange for one month’s worth of food and a brick of .22 bullets.

But you didn’t prepare.

You never thought life could ever change so drastically.

You don’t have a brick of 22 shells to trade.

“That’s OK,” he says, “How about instead you trade your firewood?”

That large pile in your backyard.

The pile you bought for your fireplace because your family enjoys fires at Christmas.

It’s about a cord of firewood in total.

Without electricity, you were planning on this firewood to keep your family from freezing on the coldest winter nights.

But what options do you have?

You can forego the trade, and your son will surely die.

Or you can make the trade and improve your son’s odds of surviving.

You realize it’s not a choice at all.

You do the deal.

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What I Do With My Expired Neosporin

If you’re worried about the future of our world (and you should be), maybe you should keep your Neosporin.

The date stamped onto your Neosporin is just when the drug manufacturer can guarantee its maximum safety and potency based on product testing.

However, this leaves many months (possibly years) when the medicine will still be effective.

  • So, Does Neosporin Expire? Yes, eventually.
  • Will I throw mine out? Nope.

I will continue to keep my expired Neosporin well after its expiration date.

  • I keep it stored in a dark, cool location.
  • And I keep it for the “what if” scenarios.

It’s an item that will have a skyrocketing value for bartering and may help protect my family from infections.

This is my personal stance on keeping and using Neosporin even after its expiration date.

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    The post Can I Use Expired Neosporin? Revealing The Scientific Truth appeared first on Skilled Survival.

    Why Has The Vatican Chosen This Precise Moment To Drop Bombshells About UFOs, Aliens And “Apparitions”?

    For centuries, the Vatican has been carefully guarding their most precious secrets.  In recent years, that has been especially true regarding what they know about UFOs, aliens and the mysteries of the universe.  So why have they chosen this exact moment in history to publicly talk about these things?  The press conference at the Vatican on Thursday is the very first time that the Vatican has held a press conference about UFOs, aliens and “apparitions” since 1978.  So this is a really big deal.  It is being reported that the Vatican has decided to issue new guidelines “on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future”…

    The Vatican has announced that it is set to hold a press conference on “supernatural phenomena” tomorrow, and it will touch on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future.

    According to a notice on the Vatican’s website, it will kick of at noon tomorrow, and will feature three prominent Vatican members.

    Being held to “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena,” it will be led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandex, Messenger Armando Matteo and Daniela Del Gaudio.

    If the Vatican feels a need to issue guidelines about how to “deal with potential encounters in the future”, that seems to imply that they believe that there will be “potential encounters in the future”.

    What do they know that they aren’t telling us?

    Probably a lot.

    The last time that the Vatican did something like this was all the way back in February 1978

    The last time the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued norms for evaluating alleged apparitions and reports of supernatural events was in February 1978.

    At the time, the prefect, Cardinal Franjo Seper, said the norms were necessary given how news of alleged apparitions spreads rapidly thanks to the mass media.

    What has changed between then and now?

    One thing that has changed is that the current pope seems to be quite interested in the topic of aliens.

    In comments that he made near the end of 2023, Pope Francis seemed to suggest that aliens could actually be baptized…

    However, Pope Francis did touch on aliens at the end of last year, when he was talking about how early Christians discussed associating with “Jews and Gentiles” – which, for some reason, he compared to aliens.

    He said: “That was unthinkable. If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here…Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them…And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”

    He didn’t answer his own question, but added: “It was never the ministry of the closed door, never,”

    So he plans to have an “open door” for the aliens?

    What would that look like?

    The producer of a new documentary entitled “God Versus Aliens” seems to believe that the Vatican wants to prepare us for the day when humanity finally makes contact with such beings

    The documentary ‘God Versus Aliens’ is to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and reveal the Vatican’s secrets about UFOs.

    The award-winning filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee says that the Vatican publishing new guidance on apparitions means that the full disclosure about the UFO phenomena is getting closer.

    He said: “The Vatican has been studying UFOs for decades and even has its own Cardinal appointed to deal with first contact. From my research I believe that this new guidance on apparitions is proof that they know that UFOs are more than just physical crafts from other worlds and that they have a paranormal side to them.”

    What most people don’t realize is that the Vatican has been on the cutting edge of the search for extraterrestrial life for a long time.

    The Vatican Observatory in Rome is very well funded, and the Vatican also has a “research group” that uses the very high-powered equipment at the University of Arizona in Tucson…

    Many people are surprised to learn that the Vatican even has an observatory. The history of the Vatican Observatory goes back two and a half centuries. During its history, there has been some turmoil and several moves to escape the light and other hindrances that large cities, such as Rome, pose to doing astronomy. Therefore, more than a half-century ago the Vatican Observatory established a research group at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, while the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters remained in Italy.

    Needless to say, the Vatican isn’t going to tell us everything that they know right now.

    But a couple of things have become quite clear.

    Number one, the Vatican believes that extraterrestrial life exists.

    Number two, the Vatican plans to develop a positive relationship with any “aliens” that do make contact with humanity.

    Could all of this be setting us up for a great deception of absolutely epic proportions?

    While he was still alive, author Tom Horn made the following observation

    Why the Vatican has taken this carefully designed and deliberate course over the last few years is the greater mystery, but implies knowledge on their part of facts yet hidden to most of the world that may hold far-reaching and historic implications. It also illustrates how Rome has wittingly or unwittingly set itself up to become the agent of mass end-times deception regarding “salvation from above.” That’s because, historically, there exists a clear pattern wherein man’s psychological need of a savior is displayed during times of distress—a time like today—when people look skyward for divine intervention.

    It is true.

    When things get bad enough, the world is going to be looking for a savior.

    And if a “superior race” appears on the scene that seems to have all the answers, many people out there will fully embrace them.

    For decades, books, movies and television shows have conditioned us to expect that someday we will interact with “aliens” from another planet.  100 years ago, everyone would have dismissed such talk as nonsense, but now we have been well prepared for the great deception that is eventually coming.

    Sadly, the Vatican seems to be quite ready to welcome “aliens” as their new best friends, and that is extremely unfortunate.

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”“7 Year Apocalypse”“Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”“The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

    The post Why Has The Vatican Chosen This Precise Moment To Drop Bombshells About UFOs, Aliens And “Apparitions”? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

    Defiant Netanyahu Insists Israel Will Act Alone If U.S. Doesn’t Provide More Weapons for Rafah Offensive

    This article was originally published by Cassie B. at Natural News. 

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that even if President Biden makes good on his threat to withhold some weapons from the Jewish state, they will press forward with their offensive in Gaza anyway.

    Biden recently took a strong stance against a potential Israeli invasion of the city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are believed to be taking shelter, announcing that the U.S. will not provide Israel with any offensive weapons for such an effort.

    However, Netanyahu said in a statement that they are prepared to take action even without American support, insisting that “if we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we shall be victorious.”

    The country’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, claims that America’s weapons are not needed anyway, saying: “The army has munitions for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah, too — we have what we need.”

    It is believed that around 1.3 million Palestinians are currently seeking refuge in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, which amounts to more than half of the enclave’s population. Gaza is already suffering from a devastating humanitarian crisis, and much of the world is opposed to an invasion there. According to the UN, most Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from hunger, with northern Gaza already in the throes of a full-blown famine. Given that even smaller Israeli operations, such as a tank brigade recently capturing the Gazan side of a border crossing in Rafah, have been enough to seriously compromise humanitarian operations, a full-scale invasion could be the final straw.

    The Biden administration maintains that it will not support a major invasion of Rafah without a credible plan in place to ensure the safety of noncombatants. In an interview with CNN, Biden admitted that some of the American weapons that have been sent to Israel have been used to kill Gazan civilians.

    Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” he said.

    “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” he added.

    However, he said America remains committed to providing Israel with defensive weapons such as the Iron Dome air defense system.

    For its part, Israel continues to insist that going into Rafah is necessary because it is a Hamas stronghold, and they have already started warning some people in the eastern part of the city to “evacuate immediately” ahead of an impending military operation there.

    Biden’s refusal to send weapons a major setback for Israel

    Israeli officials have reportedly expressed “deep frustration” to American officials about the paused shipments. Biden’s refusal to send the weapons is considered a major setback for Israel’s war efforts as the U.S. has been their most powerful and important ally since the war broke out in October. Biden has long been pressuring Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza and improve the flow of humanitarian aid to the enclave.

    So far, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and most of them are women and children. Around four-fifths of Gazans have been forced to flee their homes.

    Rampant Poverty And Rampant Homelessness Are Fueling Rampant Theft And Rampant Violence In Major U.S. Cities

    The tremendous chaos that is gripping communities all over this country did not emerge out of a vacuum.  For years, poverty and homelessness have been on the rise.  According to a recent report from Harvard University, the number of homeless Americans has increased by almost 50 percent in less than a decade.  Meanwhile, the ranks of the poor have been growing as the middle class has been eroding.  Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire U.S. population is considered to be either living in poverty or among the “working poor”.  According to Wikipedia, the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population only has 2.6 percent of the wealth.  And that number is from 2021, and so things are almost certainly even worse today.  All of this economic suffering is helping to fuel a deeply alarming explosion of theft and violence in our major cities, and our leaders don’t seem to have any solutions.

    Everyone knows that homelessness is out of control in large coastal cities such as Los Angeles and New York, but we are seeing the same thing happen in the middle of the country too

    Nashville residents say they are increasingly struggling to afford a home as an influx of out-of-state buyers drive real estate prices up, leaving many with no where to go.

    Rates of chronic homelessness in the Tennessee capital have soared 77 percent this year, according to the city’s official stats.

    77 percent in one year.

    Take a moment and let that number sink in.

    Many of these homeless people are actually working, but affording a place to live is out of reach.

    Today, the average one bedroom apartment in Nashville will set you back more than $1,400 a month

    Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Nashville area soared $200 in the past year to $1,442 a month, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

    Young said without more affordable housing, the issue will worsen: ‘I guarantee you it’s going to double from where we are now.’

    And home prices in Nashville have soared to absurd heights

    The median home sale price in Nashville at the end of February was $414,012, compared to $290,983 five years prior.

    Home prices are at the heart of the cost of living crisis that is causing so much pain all over the nation right now.

    As I discussed yesterday, home prices in the U.S. have risen by 47 percent since the start of the decade.

    So this helps to explain why tent cities are popping up from coast to coast.

    In my entire lifetime, I have never seen so many people sleeping in the streets of America.

    Many of them are addicts, and San Francisco has decided to “help” them by giving them free beer and vodka shots

    The City of San Francisco is providing free beer and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics at taxpayer expense under a little-known pilot program.

    The “Managed Alcohol Program” operated by San Francisco’s Department of Public Health serves regimented doses of alcohol to voluntary participants with alcohol addiction in an effort to keep the homeless off the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services. Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics wonder if the government would be better off funding treatment and sobriety programs instead.

    “Established in countries such as Canada and Australia, a managed alcohol program is usually administered by a nurse and trained support staff in a facility such as a homeless shelter or a transitional or permanent home, and is one method to minimize harm for those with alcohol use disorder,” the California Health Care Foundation explains in an 2020 article describing the pilot program.

    Are you kidding me?

    Of course San Francisco has been giving free syringes to drug addicts for a long time too.

    Needless to say, the problems that San Francisco is facing have only gotten worse, and we have seen countless businesses leave the city as a result.

    The latest one to leave downtown San Francisco is American Eagle

    Yet another retailer is leaving Downtown San Francisco amid the city’s spiraling crime and homeless crises – at the especially embattled San Francisco Centre mall.

    American Eagle announced it is closing its doors at the former Westfield San Francisco Centre over the summer, citing more 100 significant security incidents that allegedly occurred between May 2020 and May 2023.

    Drug addicts constantly have to steal stuff in order to fund their addictions.

    Right now, we are in the midst of the worst addiction crisis in the entire history of the United States, and this is one of the primary reasons we are facing the worst retail theft crisis in the entire history of the United States.

    Retail shrinkage has more than doubled during the past five years and is now costing retailers more than 100 billion dollars a year

    If you’ve paid attention to recent retailer earnings reports, you have undoubtedly heard the phrase retail shrink cited as a key factor contributing to margin erosion and poor earnings performance. Shrink is the industry term for inventory loss often attributed to theft and shoplifting, damage or errors. Once simply considered a cost of doing business, retail shrinkage resulted in profit losses exceeding a staggering $100 billion in 2022.

    What’s more problematic, the trend of shrink appears to be far from reversing course, with losses more than doubling over the past five years.

    These are the facts.

    I am sorry if some people out there do not like them.

    In addition to rampant theft, our streets are also filled with rampant violence.

    Earlier today, I was shocked to learn that police officers in the United States were attacked more than 79,000 times last year

    The rate of assaults on American law enforcement reached a 10-year high in 2023, with more than 79,000 officer attacks reported, according to a new FBI report released Tuesday.

    The report analyzes data from state, local, federal and other agencies across the U.S. to determine trends in violence against law enforcement. It shows that the number of officers assaulted and injured by guns is also climbing.

    I would not want to work as a police officer in any of our major cities at this stage.

    It is way too dangerous.

    Sadly, our ongoing national crime wave is being made worse by “organized crime groups” that are coming in from other countries…

    A Michigan sheriff is sounding the alarm on “burglary tourism” – a recent trend where international organized crime groups enter the U.S. to skillfully rob wealthy suburban homes.

    “We believe that there has to be some kind of training camp because they come so well-trained, so equipped, and so knowledgeable about how to move and how to attack a home,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.

    “They do a lot of pre-op surveillance. They determine as best they can when someone won’t be in a home. They go very quickly to the home, they break a window. They go through it, not opening a door or window. They have an electronic jammer.”

    Bouchard says that the gangs that are causing so much chaos in his area of Michigan are mostly coming in from Chile

    Bouchard said the gangs, mostly from Chile, are then able to quickly target home safes and small high-end items.

    “They’re very focused on high-end jewelry, like watches, cash, high-end purses… things that are highly, valuable and disposable. And out they go and they move on. They usually hit a number of homes in our area, and then they move on to another part of the country, and then another crew will come in. And it’s been a cycle.”

    In other parts of the nation, groups from other areas are responsible for enormous spikes in crime.

    The federal government keeps trying to tell us that things aren’t that bad, but a Gallup survey discovered that a whopping 63 percent of all Americans believe that crime is either an “extremely serious” or “very serious” problem in this country…

    Sixty-three percent of Americans describe the crime problem in the U.S. as either extremely or very serious, up from 54% when last measured in 2021 and the highest in Gallup’s trend.

    Our society is literally coming apart at the seams all around us, and this is precisely what I have been warning would happen.

    Decades of very bad decisions have brought us to this point, and our politicians continue to take us in the wrong direction.

    But if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what conditions are like a year or two from now…

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”“7 Year Apocalypse”“Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”“The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

    The post Rampant Poverty And Rampant Homelessness Are Fueling Rampant Theft And Rampant Violence In Major U.S. Cities appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

    Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms

    This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute. 

    “The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen—a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man’s life at will.”—Justice William O. Douglas

    The spirit of the Constitution, drafted by men who chafed against the heavy-handed tyranny of an imperial ruler, would suggest that one’s home is a fortress, safe from almost every kind of intrusion.

    Unfortunately, a collective assault by the government’s cabal of legislators, litigators, judges, and militarized police has all but succeeded in reducing that fortress—and the Fourth Amendment alongside it—to a crumbling pile of rubble.

    We are no longer safe in our homes, not from the menace of a government and its army of Peeping Toms who are waging war on the last stronghold of privacy left to us as a free people.

    The weapons of this particular war on the privacy and sanctity of our homes are being wielded by the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized militarized mercenaries.

    Government agents—with or without a warrant, with or without probable cause that criminal activity is afoot, and with or without the consent of the homeowner—are now justified in mounting virtual home invasions using surveillance technology—with or without the blessing of the courts—to invade one’s home with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, aerial drones, and other monitoring devices.

    Just recently, in fact, the Michigan Supreme Court gave the government the green light to use warrantless aerial drone surveillance to snoop on citizens at home and spy on their private property.

    While the courts have given police significant leeway at times when it comes to physical intrusions into the privacy of one’s home (the toehold entry, the battering ram, the SWAT raid, the knock-and-talk conversation, etc.), the menace of such virtual intrusions on our Fourth Amendment rights has barely begun to be litigated, legislated and debated.

    Consequently, we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed, corralled, and controlled by technologies that answer to government and corporate rulers.

    Indeed, almost anything goes when it comes to all the ways in which the government can now invade your home and lay siege to your property.

    Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on, and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

    A byproduct of this surveillance age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency is listening in and tracking your behavior.

    This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts, and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

    Stingray devices mounted on police cars to warrantlessly track cell phones, Doppler radar devices that can detect human breathing and movement within in a home, license plate readers that can record up to 1800 license plates per minutesidewalk and “public space” cameras coupled with facial recognition and behavior-sensing technology that lay the groundwork for police “pre-crime” programspolice body cameras that turn police officers into roving surveillance cameras, the internet of things: all of these technologies (and more) add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence—especially not when the government can listen in on your phone calls, read your emails, monitor your driving habits, track your movements, scrutinize your purchases and peer through the walls of your home.

    Without our realizing it, the American Police State passed the baton off to a fully-fledged Surveillance State that gives the illusion of freedom while functioning all the while like an electronic prison: controlled, watchful, inflexible, punitive, deadly, and inescapable.

    Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide: this is the mantra of the architects of the Surveillance State and their corporate collaborators.

    Government eyes see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, and what you’re watching on television and reading on the internet.

    Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to amass a profile of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line.

    Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.

    The key word here, however, is control.

    In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.”

    By the end of 2018, “there were an estimated 22 billion Internet of things connected devices in use around the world… Forecasts suggest that by 2030 around 50 billion of these IoT devices will be in use around the world, creating a massive web of interconnected devices spanning everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances.”

    As the technologies powering these devices have become increasingly sophisticated, they have also become increasingly widespread, encompassing everything from toothbrushes and lightbulbs to cars, smart meters, and medical equipment.

    It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second.

    These Internet-connected techno gadgets include smart light bulbs that discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats that regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells that let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.

    Nest, Google’s suite of smart home products, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.

    The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night.

    Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices become government informants, reporting independently on anything you might do that runs afoul of the Nanny State.

    Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.

    It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface. As journalist Susan Fourtane explains:

    Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur. Fifty-nine percent of consumers believe that we will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others… Using the brain as an interface could mean the end of keyboards, mice, game controllers, and ultimately user interfaces for any digital device. The user needs to only think about the commands, and they will just happen. Smartphones could even function without touch screens.

    Once technology is able to access and act on your thoughts, not even your innermost thoughts will be safe from the Thought Police.

    Thus far, the public response to concerns about government surveillance has amounted to a collective shrug. Yet when the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies.

    To our detriment, we are fast approaching a world without the Fourth Amendment, where the lines between private and public property are so blurred that private property is reduced to little more than something the government can use to control, manipulate and harass you to suit its own purposes, and you the homeowner and citizen have been reduced to little more than a tenant or serf in bondage to an inflexible landlord.

    When people talk about privacy, they mistakenly assume it protects only that which is hidden behind a wall or under one’s clothing. The courts have fostered this misunderstanding with their constantly shifting delineation of what constitutes an “expectation of privacy.” And technology has further muddied the waters.

    However, privacy is so much more than what you do or say behind locked doors. It is a way of living one’s life firm in the belief that you are the master of your life and barring any immediate danger to another person (which is far different from the carefully crafted threats to national security the government uses to justify its actions), it’s no one’s business what you read, what you say, where you go, whom you spend your time with, and how you spend your money.

    As Glenn Greenwald notes:

    “The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what [government officials] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals. This dynamic—the hallmark of a healthy and free society—has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That’s the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable.”

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, none of this will change, no matter which party controls Congress or the White House, because, despite all of the work being done to help us buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the right candidate, we’ll still be prisoners of the electronic concentration camp.

    Putin Says Russia Will Attempt To Prevent A Global Conflict

    Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that he will attempt to prevent a global conflict, but at the same time, will not allow threats against the ruling class. Moscow’s strategic forces are always “on alert” against potential threats, the Russian president has said at the Victory Day parade.

    The Victory Day parade was complete with cannon blasts, and the Russian national anthem.

    At the event which was celebrating the 79th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, Putin noted that the Russian military is “always on alert” and ready to defend the country’s sovereignty. “The West would like to forget the lessons of World War II, but we remember that the fate of humanity was decided in grandiose battles near Moscow and Leningrad,” as well as other cities, Putin said.

    The president emphasized that Russia is “experiencing a difficult milestone period” in its history, noting that the fate of the country depends on every Russian. “We celebrate this Victory Day in the conditions of the special military operation – all its participants, those who are on the front lines – they are our heroes. We bow to their perseverance and sacrifice. All of Russia is with you,” Russia’s ruler stated according to a report by RT. 

    “May 9 is always a very emotional, poignant day… Victory Day unites all generations. We are moving forward based on our centuries-old traditions and are confident that together we will ensure a free, safe future for Russia,” Putin added.

    Military parades and other events celebrating Victory Day are taking place in over 300 cities across Russia. For over a decade now, the celebration also included a massive civilian march known as the Immortal Regiment, in which people carry portraits of their relatives who fought the Nazis during the war. This year, the ceremony was canceled due to security concerns.

    Russia Warns The West: “Any Actions With Our Assets Will Receive A Symmetrical Response”

    Pessimism About The U.S. Economy Is Going To Have An Absolutely Massive Impact On The Outcome Of The Election In November

    Americans are extremely pessimistic about the state of the U.S. economy, and that is really bad news for Joe Biden.  Despite the glowing economic numbers that the Biden administration has been relentlessly feeding us, there is an overwhelming consensus among the American people that the economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction.  Prices continue to rise, mass layoffs are happening all over the country, loans are going bad at a staggering rate, homelessness and poverty are spiking, and economic activity is slowing down all around us.  According to a poll about the economy that was recently conducted for Newsweek, the percentage of Americans that believe that the economy is going in the wrong direction is twice as high as the percentage of Americans that believe that the economy is going in the right direction…

    Their widespread pessimism is reflected in the results of a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll conducted on behalf of Newsweek on April 11. According to the survey, some 50 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is heading in the wrong direction, while only 25 percent said it is going in the right direction.

    Americans are also negative about their own financial situation. Some 42 percent of respondents said their financial situation has worsened in the last year. Only 26 percent said it has improved, while 32 percent said it has stayed the same.

    Some 47 percent of Americans said they were now financially worse off than they were three years before, against 26 percent who said they were better off and 27 percent who said they were about the same. Some 45 percent said they were now worse off than before the pandemic, while 28 percent said they were better off and 27 percent were about the same.

    The Biden campaign should be deeply troubled by those numbers.

    When U.S. voters don’t feel good about the economy, they tend to want change in Washington.

    And the main thing that Americans don’t like about the economy right now is the high cost of living

    Forty-one percent of Americans responding to an April Gallup poll said inflation or the high cost of living is their main economic concern. The number has risen for three years running, from 32 percent in 2022 to 35 percent in 2023.

    Prior to 2022, the highest rating inflation received in the survey was 18 percent in 2008 during the Great Recession. Otherwise, the figure has been below 10 percent since Gallup began asking the question in 2005.

    Joe Biden and his minions keep telling us that inflation is “low”.

    But hardly anyone believes them, because that is obviously not true.

    Anyone that goes shopping for groceries on a regular basis understands what has been happening to food prices, and another recent survey discovered that young adults are really feeling the pain…

    Younger Americans are feeling the pinch from inflation, with 54% saying that rising food costs have hit them the hardest.

    The findings are part of a recent CNBC/Generation Lab survey that polled 1,033 people between the ages of 18 and 34.

    When I was a young adult, I could get everything that I needed for one week, including an entire cake, for just 25 dollars.

    But today a full cart of food will cost you hundreds of dollars.

    At this point, beef is actually considered to be a “luxury meat”, and Americans have cut back as prices have soared.

    In fact, Tyson is going to lose a ton of money this year because people are buying a lot less beef now…

    “Tyson Shares Fall as Beef Business Struggles” is a headline story in today’s Wall Street Journal. They go on to note that Tyson, America’s largest U.S. meat supplier, said its beef business was softening and that “The company, a bellwether for the U.S. meat industry, forecast a bigger operating loss for its beef business this fiscal year—between $100 million and $400 million.”

    Why? Mostly because people can’t afford beef and are eating chicken. And droughts and shrinking herds have made the situation worse.

    At one time, you could economize by eating some of your meals at fast food chains, but those days are long gone

    Prices at America’s biggest fast-food chains have soared above the rate of inflation in the last five years as firms come under fire for ‘greedflation.’

    Customers are now voting with their wallets causing traffic to chains to drop 3.5 percent in the first three months of the year compared to 2023, according to data from Revenue Management Solutions.

    It means big chains like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Popeyes, Pizza Hut and Chipotle have likely sold millions fewer burgers, pizzas and burritos.

    Only the wealthy can afford to regularly eat at fast food chains at this stage.

    I never imagined that I would write such a thing, but this is how bad things are in 2024.

    Of course housing has gotten a lot more expensive as well.

    As David Stockman has aptly point out, during the Biden administration home prices have become more unaffordable than ever before…

    The data leaves no room for doubt. Home prices today stand at 18.2X their Q1 1970 value while average hourly wages are at only 8.7X their value of 54 years ago.

    Expressed in more practical terms, the median home sales price of $23,900 in Q1 1970 represented 7,113 hours of work at the average hourly wage. Assuming a standard 2,000-hour work year, wage workers had to toil for 3.6 years to pay for a median-priced home.

    With the passage of time, of course, the Fed’s pro-inflation policies have done far more to goose asset prices than wages. Thus, at the time of Greenspan’s arrival at the Fed after Q2 1987, it required 11,350 hours to purchase a median home, which had risen to 12,138 hours by Q1 2012 when the Fed made its 2.00% inflation target official. And after still another decade of inflationary monetary policy, it now stands at just under 15,000 hours.

    Meanwhile, the overall economy continues to slow down.

    I shared a very shocking statistic with my readers the other day, and I am going to share it again because it demonstrates just how dire conditions have become.

    During the month of April, 43 percent of all small business renters in the United States were not able to pay their rent in full…

    A significant number of small businesses across the nation are struggling to pay rent due to skyrocketing costs, a recent study by business networking platform Alignable found.

    The company’s latest Small Business Rent report, published on Friday, found that 43 percent of small business renters in the U.S. were unable to pay their rent in full and on time in the month of April. Such a high delinquency rate hasn’t been reported in the U.S. since March 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it reached 49 percent.

    If you can’t even pay your rent, your business is literally on the brink of failing.

    I believe that vast numbers of small businesses will fail in the months ahead as the historic economic meltdown that I have been relentlessly warning about continues to pick up speed.

    Needless to say, a deteriorating economy is not going to help Joe Biden one bit.

    According to an average of recent national polls, in a two way race Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by 1.2 points.

    In a five way race, Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by 2.7 points.

    As economic conditions become harsher during the second half of this year, I would expect Trump’s numbers to improve and Biden’s numbers to get worse.

    Economics and politics always have a tremendous amount of influence over one another, and that will particularly be true here in 2024.

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”“7 Year Apocalypse”“Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”“The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTubeFacebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

    The post Pessimism About The U.S. Economy Is Going To Have An Absolutely Massive Impact On The Outcome Of The Election In November appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

    Threat Of Nuclear: Horrific Facts EVERYONE Should Know

    Nuclear AttackToday I’ve got something incredibly important to share…

    A Complete Analysis Of Our Current State Of Nuclear Threats

    Welcome to our modern nuclear age…

    • Where nuclear tensions are on the rise!
    • While the FEAR of nuclear is fading…

    Two Words:

    Complacency kills…

    TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE…    ↓(click to jump)

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    Our Cold War Past With Russia

    The Cold War started heating up (pun intended) back in the late 1940s when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb.

    A few years later, they detonated their first thermonuclear bomb.

    Thus began the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

    At one point, both sides had in the neighborhood of 20,000 thermonuclear warheads pointed at each other.

    This ridiculously high number of warheads ensured no significant attack by one side would leave the other side unable to prosecute Armageddon-level destruction the other.

    The one thing that brought stability to the world was that both sides operated in their respective nation’s best interests.

    We could count on the Soviets only doing what was in their best national interest.

    By definition, incurring the wrath of 20,000 thermonuclear warheads was not in their “best” interest.

    So, although there were many nuclear weapons pointed at each other over a long duration of time—the more weapons, the more unlikely either side would use them…

    So there was peace.

    ↓ Nuclear Crisis: The Escalation Of The Cold War

    Today, we have a very different strategic nuclear warfare structure.

    Thanks to the fall of the Soviet Union and the various nuclear disarmament treaties that followed today, our deterrent force is a small fraction of what existed in 1985.

    US And USSR Number Of Nukes Over TimeTo the laymen and naïve politicians who believe the US is the greatest threat to world peace, our reduction in nuclear forces is hailed as a grand achievement toward sustainable peace.

    In reality, the fewer nuclear weapons in the world, the less unthinkable their employment becomes.

    If a full nuclear exchange scenario destroys all life as we know it – most rational nations won’t prosecute such an attack.

    However, if that exchange is viewed as somehow manageable and losses seem acceptable, the unthinkable becomes a tactic to be employed.

    During the Cold War, our enemy was a communist, authoritarian, atheistic society.

    The Soviet Union always put the State before the individual, family, and God.

    In fact, communist nations removed all references to God from the public consciousness.

    An authoritarian government needs to deny the existence of God and forbid the worship of any deity.

    All trust must be in Government, and no deity can muddle with the people’s priorities.

    The State must come first.

    Or, as Vladimir Lenin once said:

    While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.

    Since the Soviets denied the existence of God, their nuclear doctrine was not based on religious beliefs – not at all.

    The United States, although a nation with freedom of religion, did not inject God into its defensive nuclear doctrine.

    The New Nuclear Attack Scenario

    Today, our newest, most formidable enemy – radical Islam – DOES interject religious doctrine into their war-fighting strategy.

    Today, if a radical Islamic state, such as Iran, is allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

    They have publicly indicated they would use it against their enemies, namely Israel and the United States.

    They are not afraid of retaliation or of taking losses in their nuclear struggle.

    Their citizens are taught every person who dies in defense of Allah will be rewarded in the afterlife.

    They do not fear death…for them, it is a doorway to a greater existence.

    This concept effectively stands the traditional nuclear warfare doctrine on its ear.

    Suddenly, nuclear retaliation is no longer feared.

    It may even be desired as a means of martyrdom.

    The deterrent effect that worked so well with the Soviets (and to a lesser extent with the Chinese) is reduced to insignificance.

    For those who believe thermonuclear weapons are too advanced for a Third World nation to develop, I would say this:

    Nuclear weapons were invented before color TV, before the garage door opener, before the microwave oven, before micro-electronics – even before the transistor.

    They were invented a full decade before we even put a satellite in orbit. We’re talking 1940’s technology.

    So, let’s examine the three main nuclear weapons we could face.

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    3 Nuclear Bombs & Effects

    1. The Dirty Bomb

    It’s not expensive or technologically daunting.

    Damn, nearly anyone could build one of these – if you can access the radioactive waste.

    In this device, a conventional explosive bomb is wrapped in layers of radioactive waste.

    We’re not talking plutonium here.

    We’re talking about the radioactive waste that comes from medical and industrial waste streams.

    These substances are radioactive.

    They are dangerous.

    They can make one very ill and even kill with prolonged exposure.

    They can cause cancers, leukemia, and all sorts of nasty maladies if exposed to them.

    The explosives detonate and essentially blow the radioactive waste into billions of tiny fragments, which can be carried by the wind and cover an area as large as several city blocks.

    This area will be hot – otherwise known as contaminated.

    Anyone passing through this zone could have long-term health implications.

    If the radioactive material used is highly radioactive, say waste fuel elements from a commercial or research nuclear reactor, then we’re talking about serious and immediate radiation poisoning for all those in the immediate area.

    Death in hours or days due to massive cellular damage versus years with cancers.

    The good news about the Dirty Bomb is it has a very limited range.

    It can only cover a few city blocks; after extensive decontamination, the area can be safe again relatively quickly.

    Also, since it has very localized effects, the best thing to do in the event of a Dirty Bomb detonation somewhere in your city is to hunker down, stay indoors, not travel, and not go outside.

    Go into your basement and listen to the radio and TV for reports of where the contamination is located.

    Don’t try to flee the city without any information.

    Murphy’s Law states that you will leave the safety of your home and walk right into the “Hot Zone” trying to save yourself.

    So Stay Put.

    ↓ What is a dirty bomb?

    2. The Fission Bomb

    The Fission (or Atomic) Bomb is the type that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

    Fission bombs are generally not large nuclear weapons.

    Although a couple of hundred thousand people died in Japan at the hands of fission bombs.

    But they were firecrackers by thermonuclear standards (We’re talking thousands of tons of TNT versus millions of tons of TNT).

    The Fission bomb derives its name from the process of nuclear fission or the splitting of atoms.

    Nuclear fission occurs when a sufficiently large mass of enriched and highly radioactive isotopes, such as Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239, reaches what is known as critical mass.

    At critical mass, the radioactive decay taking place within the atoms of the fissile material causes what is known as a chain reaction.

    Radioactive particles from the decay of one atom slice through several other atoms, splitting them and releasing a cascade of more particles, which split even more atoms.

    The chain reaction grows, resulting in heat, light, and nuclear radiation in the form of beta, alpha, and gamma rays.

    So How Does The Bomb Reach Critical Mass?

    The Hiroshima bomb, called Little Boy, used two separate masses of U-235, one to act as a projectile, the other the target.

    This is called the Gun-tube configuration.

    An explosive charge detonates and drives the projectile mass of uranium down the tube at a high velocity.

    Where it strikes the target mass with so much kinetic energy that they essentially “melt” together due to the heat produced in the collision.

    This combined mass is above the critical mass, and a chain reaction begins.

    The Nagasaki Bomb, called Fat Man, was of the implosion configuration.

    Explosive “lenses surround two hollow half-spheres of Plutonium-239.”

    A small mass called the initiator, made of polonium and beryllium, is in the middle of the sphere.

    The initiator assists in starting the chain reaction.

    There is also a layer of uranium-238 between the plutonium and the initiator, which acts as a radioactive insulator and neutron reflector.

    The mass of plutonium, with the initiator inside, is enough for critical mass.

    But not in the hollow spherical configuration.

    The density of the plutonium is too low, and the uranium shielding prevents the passage of neutrons.

    During detonation, the shaped charges force the explosive force into the “core,” squeezing and compressing it equally on all sides to drive the sphere into itself, increasing the density, so the resultant mass becomes critical – thus, the chain reaction begins.

    It is more complex than the gun tube but more efficient, generating a larger explosive force.

    This overall design is also critical for the next type of weapon.

    ↓ This Is How A Nuclear Bomb Works

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    3. The Thermonuclear Bomb (a.k.a. Hydrogen Bomb or Fusion Bomb)

    This weapon uses the energy released during nuclear fusion.

    Nuclear fusion occurs when atoms of a substance are fused together to form more complex atoms – such as hydrogen, into helium.

    The fusion process requires heating these elements to millions of degrees to start the fusion reaction.

    When nuclear fusion begins, the energy released is often larger than the energy required to initially raise the elements to the initiation temperature.

    Since there are very few ways to heat a substance to ten million degrees, at the heart of a thermonuclear bomb is a small fission bomb.

    The fission bomb detonates, releasing heat, radiation, and neutrons.

    These bombard a special container of deuterium/tritium – heavy isotopes of hydrogen.

    The deuterium/tritium is heated and bombarded with neutrons.

    At the right temperature and neutron flux, the fusion reaction begins, and a lot of energy is released.

    The interesting thing about both the fission bomb and the fusion bomb is that they are simply heaters.

    When they detonate, they generate millions of degrees of heat.

    This is unlike regular explosives, where the explosive power is generated by the production and expansion of high-pressure gas.

    Nukes don’t produce gas in any significant quantity, but they produce heat, light, and radiation.

    If you look at the detonation, the light will instantly blind you—you can’t blink fast enough to shut it out.

    In fact, the heat is so intense and sudden that it raises the air temperature around the bomb from 70 degrees F to 10,000,000 degrees F in milliseconds.

    The air, like any gas, expands due to the high temperatures.

    It also ionizes, turning into energized plasma.

    This superheated gas expands rapidly outward, creating a shockwave moving at nearly the speed of sound – a shockwave still several tens of thousands of degrees F.

    This shockwave and the heat it carries is what levels cities and digs craters into the ground.

    Mushroom Cloud

    In fact, once the shockwave has used up most of its energy, a vacuum is left at the center of the explosion.

    And now the air races back at near-supersonic speeds from all directions to fill that vacuum.

    This stirs up debris and soil as it moves, and when it reaches the dead center of the explosion, the whole mass rises upward to form the mushroom cloud.

    Now, here’s what’s interesting – if the bomb were to detonate in the vacuum of space, there would be nearly no shockwave or mushroom cloud.

    Here’s a video that shows The Evolution of the Nuclear Bomb:

    ↓ Animation shows the deadly evolution of nuclear weapons

    For even more information on Nuclear Physics and Atomic Theory, read this.

    ↓ Nuclear Bomb: How it Works in Detail. Atomic vs Hydrogen bomb

    Electromagnetic Pulse & The Side Effects

    Another interesting phenomenon of nuclear detonation – fission or fusion – is electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

    EMP is a pulse of electromagnetic energy that is generated at the time of detonation.

    It races outward at near the speed of light in a line-of-sight fashion – so if it occurs high in the atmosphere, it can cover a very wide area.

    This blast of electromagnetic energy will induce voltages in an electric or electronic circuit that is not shielded.

    It is just like the voltage induced in the windings of a generator – but many, many orders of magnitude more powerful.

    These voltages and the induced amperages will burn out any electronic components in the line of sight that are not shielded by EMP protection.

    ↓ Nuclear Explosion in the Sky | National Geographic

    What Would A U.S. Nuclear Attack Scenario Look Like?

    Well, it would not look like an attack the Soviets might have mounted.

    The Soviet attack would have been a coordinated affair, using submarine-based SLBMs to quickly take out our missile fields, command control assets, ICBMs to take our localized defenses and military bases, and then bomber sorties to pound our remaining forces and major cities into rubble.

    Thousands of warheads would have rained down on us in a matter of thirty to forty minutes, with bombers mopping up the remnants over the next 24 hours.

    Of course, we would have been doing the same to them – which is why it never happened.

    No. Today’s nuclear attack scenario will likely come from nowhere – out of the blue, with no warning.

    Most likely, the delivery vehicle will not be an airplane or missile.

    If I were guessing how a terrorist nation would launch a nuclear attack on US soil, I’d bet on either a Ford F-150 with a camper shell over the bed (or Chevy Silverado – for those Bowtie fans) or a cargo container ship.

    Nuclear Attack San FransiscoIf the target is a large port city, such as New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Houston, Miami, San Francisco, or New Orleans, delivery of a nuke would be easy.

    Just plant the device in the cargo of a large ocean-going container ship and wait for it to dock.

    The terrorists could detonate the bomb before anything is even unloaded and well before customs inspect the hundreds of containers on the ship.

    The same goes for Great Lakes ports as well, such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo, etc.

    Dallas Nuclear Attack MapIf the target is in-country, such as Atlanta, St Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, Denver, Dallas, and Sacramento, then the pick-up truck option is the most likely – driven to and parked at the center of its target – and remotely detonated from a distance or by a timer.

    I truly believe if a terrorist organization ever prosecutes a nuclear attack scenario, the first indication something is wrong is when the ambient temperature hits 10 million degrees.

    Nuclear explosion maps can better understand how a nuclear detonation in your nearest city could affect you.

    And read this article to learn how to survive a nuclear attack.

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    The post Threat Of Nuclear: Horrific Facts EVERYONE Should Know appeared first on Skilled Survival.

    Our Deer In The Headlights Moment: The “Worst Market Crash Since 1929” Is Rapidly Approaching And The Fed Doesn’t Know Which Way To Go

    The Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  If the Fed pushes rates higher, interest payments on our 34 trillion dollar national debt could spin wildly out of control and bank balance sheets will be in even worse condition than they are now.  First Republic just bit the dust, and literally thousands of other small and mid-size banks and in serious jeopardy.  So it would be suicidal to hike rates at this point.  But if the Fed were to reduce rates, that would be like injecting jet fuel into a raging fire.  Our ongoing inflation crisis is absolutely crushing working families, and the rising cost of living has risen to the top of the list of things that U.S. voters are concerned about.  The Fed seems very hesitant to cut rates, because that would make inflation even worse.  So at this point the Fed is essentially caught in a “deer in the headlights” moment because it doesn’t know which way to go.

    But staying on the path that we are currently on is only going to end in disaster.

    Mark Spitznagel, the chief investment officer of Universa Investments, recently warned that he believes that the “worst market crash since 1929” is ahead of us…

    One of Wall Street’s most bearish skeptics told Business Insider last month that he thinks the “worst market crash since 1929” is coming.

    For years, our leaders have been “kicking the can down the road”, but according to Spitznagel all of that intervention has set the stage for an absolutely epic collapse

    In an interview with New York Magazine’s Intelligencer last year, Spitznagel likened the Fed’s “constant monetary intervention” to forest fire suppression.

    He went on to say “when you suppress it enough, it gets to a point where you can no longer afford to have any fires burn because they would be too big and too intense.”

    That’s where the U.S. economy is at, according to the hedge fund manager.

    If Spitznagel’s dire market predictions come true, you really don’t want to have all of your eggs in one basket — because that basket could easily go up in flames.

    In the months ahead, we will want to keep a very close eye on our banks.

    Our banks are the beating heart of our economic system, because without the banks we would not have a functioning economy.

    The banks are where we get mortgages to buy homes, auto loans to buy vehicles, and credit cards to go on shopping sprees.

    Without the credit they provide, we would be in a world of hurt.

    Unfortunately, our banks are in very serious trouble right now.

    Higher interest rates have blown a hole that is hundreds of billions of dollars wide in their balance sheets.

    And they are sitting on mountains of commercial real estate loans that are going bad because the value of commercial real estate has collapsed all over the nation.

    One consulting firm that examined data from approximately 4,000 U.S. banks is warning that hundreds more banks could potentially fail during this crisis

    According to recent reports, hundreds of banks face the potential of failing just like Republic First Bancorp.

    Consulting firm Klaros Group analyzed roughly 4,000 U.S. banks and found that the banks face a threat of losses due to “secular changes in social patterns accelerated by the COVID pandemic (such as work-from-home, which has materially impacted demand for office space) and to the impacts of higher interest rates and related inflation.”

    “You could see some banks either fail or at least, you know, dip below their minimum capital requirements,” Christopher Wolfe, managing director and head of North American banks at Fitch Ratings told CNBC in an interview.

    Meanwhile, we continue to get even more signs that the overall economy is really slowing down.

    For example, we just learned that Rue21 is going to be shutting down all 543 of their stores

    Rue21 – the teen fashion chain that is a fixture in malls across America – is to shut all 543 US stores.

    Customers will be able to pick up deals while the company clears its stock over the next four to six weeks – but then the 40-year-old chain will be gone forever. At its peak, it had 1,200 shops.

    It is expected clearance items will start at 20 to 50 percent off then rise up to as much as 90 percent to clear stock that doesn’t initially sell.

    All over America, stores are closing, businesses are fleeing our core urban areas, and once bustling office buildings are standing empty.

    At this stage, everyone should be able to see where all of this is heading.

    The Chinese certainly understand the direction that things are moving.  The following comes from an article entitled “China Is Buying Gold Like There’s No Tomorrow”

    “China is unquestionably driving the price of gold,” said Ross Norman, chief executive of MetalsDaily.com, a precious-metals information platform based in London. “The flow of gold to China has gone from solid to an absolute torrent.”

    Gold consumption in the country rose 6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the China Gold Association. It came on the heels of a 9 percent increase last year.

    Chinese consumers are voraciously buying gold because their own economy is crumbling and they can see what is happening to the global economy as a whole.

    At the same time, China’s central bank is gobbling up gold at an unprecedented rate

    Another major buyer of gold in China is the country’s central bank. In March, the People’s Bank of China added to its gold reserves for a 17th straight month. Last year, the bank bought more gold than any other central bank in the world, adding more to its reserves than it had in nearly 50 years.

    Beijing is buying up gold to diversify its reserve funds and reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar, long considered the most important currency to hold in reserve. China has been reducing its U.S. Treasury holdings for more than a decade.

    Traditionally, buying gold and other precious metals has been a way to preserve your assets if you think that a major crisis is coming.

    And the truth is that a major crisis has already begun.

    I have been warning my readers that 2024 would be a very important year, and that has definitely turned out to be the case.

    Of course all of this is very bad news for Joe Biden.

    He had been hoping that an improving economy would help his chances in November, but instead there has been a dramatic shift in the wrong direction just as we enter the most critical months of campaign season.

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”“7 Year Apocalypse”“Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”“The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTubeFacebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

    The post Our Deer In The Headlights Moment: The “Worst Market Crash Since 1929” Is Rapidly Approaching And The Fed Doesn’t Know Which Way To Go appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

    Signs Of The Times: War, Famine, Pestilences And Natural Disasters

    People keep acting as if we are living in “normal” times, but the truth is that these are not “normal” times at all.  We are in the midst of a “perfect storm”, but most people in the general population don’t seem to realize this.  While the mainstream media is endlessly focused on political drama, our world is being deeply troubled by war, economic problems, food shortages, nightmarish pestilences and terrifying natural disasters.  But as bad as things are at this moment, I am entirely convinced that they are about to get a whole lot worse.

    I would like to start by talking about war.  The IDF is preparing to conduct an operation in Rafah, and that could cause the entire Middle East to erupt in flames.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pledging that his forces will eventually move in no matter how negotiations for a temporary ceasefire with Hamas go.  Meanwhile, we just learned that Israel has just conducted airstrikes on the outskirts of Damascus

    Israeli aircraft have reportedly attacked a location on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus late Thursday (local), a security source told Reuters.

    While there has been no immediate confirmation via Syrian state media, widely circulating images have emerged on social media showing plumes of smoke rising high over buildings which were struck.

    It is just a matter of time before all-out war erupts in the region.

    Speaking of all-out war, French President Emmanuel Macron is warning that French troops could be sent to Ukraine if Russian forces break through the Ukrainian front lines

    Emmanuel Macron has said he would be prepared to send troops to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin’s forces break through the front lines – further raising the risk of NATO forces clashing with Russia’s armies.

    In an interview published today, the French president said the issue of sending troops would ‘legitimately’ arise if Kyiv and president Volodymyr Zelensky made such a request.

    The Economist said Macron gave the interview after delivering a keynote speech last week where he declared that Europe is ‘mortal’ and could ‘die’ partly due to the threat posed by Russian aggression after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    Those that have been following the war closely know that the Russians are already breaking through the front lines in several areas along the eastern front.

    So will Macron make good on his threat?

    If so, that will put us literally one step away from nuclear conflict.

    All throughout history, large scale wars have been accompanied by famine.

    For now, we still have plenty of food to eat in the western world, but it is a far different story in the poorest areas of the planet.

    For example, the famine in Sudan has become so severe that some people are literally eating dirt

    There is so little food in some areas of Sudan that people are taking extreme measures to survive.

    In the Al Lait refugee camp, they are eating dirt.

    I was stunned when I read that.

    If you were hungry enough, would you fill your stomach with dirt?

    Apparently, some desperately hungry people are rolling dirt into a ball and swallowing it with water

    Akok, 41, reached Al Lait in December, but has no work and can’t feed the family. At times, they go two or three days without eating. When that happens, Akok said, he watches helplessly as his wife and children dig holes in the ground with a stick, slide their hands in and grab some soil. Then they roll the soil into a ball, put it in their mouths and swallow it with water.

    “I keep telling them not to do it, but it’s hunger,” he said. “There is nothing I can do.”

    In my latest book I have an entire chapter about the emerging global famine.  What we are witnessing now is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is eventually coming.

    I have also been warning that frightening pestilences will break out all over the globe, and right now we are witnessing an unprecedented outbreak of dengue fever in South America.

    At this point, more than four million cases of dengue fever have been registered in Brazil alone so far this year

    Brazil surpassed 4 million cases of dengue fever registered this year, according to an update from the Ministry of Health’s Arbovirus Monitoring Panel this Monday. In total, 4,127,571 probable cases of the disease were reported across the country in the first four months of 2024.

    As for dengue deaths, 1,937 have been confirmed and 2,345 are under investigation. The incidence rate of the disease in the country is 2,032.7 cases for each group of 100,000 population.

    And Peru has just declared a nationwide health emergency because cases of dengue fever are rising so rapidly in that nation…

    The Peruvian government’s cabinet approved the motion to declare a health emergency on Monday, Vasquez told journalists, hours after he said a dengue outbreak was “imminent.”

    “There are 20 regions (out of 25) that will be declared in a health emergency due to dengue,” Vasquez said in an earlier interview on local radio station RPP.

    Here in North America, H5N1 has been killing cows, cats, chickens and turkeys.

    Now authorities are desperately hoping that it does not make the jump to humans.  For much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “The Strain Of The Bird Flu That Is Killing Cats In Texas Is Causing ‘Brain Hemorrhaging’ And ‘Blindness’”.

    Lastly, I would like to talk about the unusual natural disasters that we have been experiencing lately.

    In 2024, southern California has been getting shaken on a regular basis.  Yesterday, it was hit by a magnitude 4.1 earthquake

    An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.1 has struck near Corona in Riverside County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

    The USGS says the quake struck at 1:49 p.m. just 5.3 miles from Corona. It was originally reported as a 4.5 magnitude but was ultimately reduced to a 4.1.

    Overall, there have been 748 earthquakes in California and Nevada within the past seven days.

    It is just a matter of time before “the Big One” strikes, but at this stage most of those living in the region have stopped listening to such warnings.

    The east coast has also been experiencing unusual seismic activity.

    On the first day of this month, New Jersey was shaken by a magnitude 2.6 earthquake

    A magnitude 2.6 aftershock has rattled New Jersey on the first day of May after a dramatic earthquake shook parts of the east coast in early April.

    The Garden State has been rocked by more than 150 aftershocks since the initial 4.8 magnitude earthquake which centered near Lebanon on the morning of April 5.

    More than 42 million people from New York to Connecticut and Philadelphia felt the first quake, and New Jersey residents have been plagued by tremors ever since.

    Normally, the east coast if very, very quiet.

    So what we are seeing right now is definitely quite unusual.

    The middle of the nation has not been left out either.

    In recent days we have seen tornado after tornado rock the center of the country.

    For example, one area of Nebraska was just hit by a tornado that had wind speeds of up to 165 miles per hour

    Nebraska brothers tell a terrifying tale of feeling a tornado pull their home apart, sucking them out and tossing them with debris.

    “Ok, I’m cool to leave for work,” Roger Slatten thought to himself Saturday afternoon after Elkhorn, Nebraska’s tornado sirens went silent. But they sounded again. A strong EF-3 tornado was bearing down on the Omaha suburb with 165 mph winds.

    His friend called him in the car and said, “Get back home, It’s going crazy.” Roger called his brother Royce and told him to rush home. They planned to get the two dogs and all shelter in the basement.

    When will people finally start waking up?

    What we are experiencing is not even close to normal.

    It seems like almost every new day brings us yet another new crisis or disaster to deal with, and I have a feeling that the pace of events is only going to escalate as this year continues to roll along.

    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

    About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”“7 Year Apocalypse”“Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”“The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTubeFacebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

    The post Signs Of The Times: War, Famine, Pestilences And Natural Disasters appeared first on The Economic Collapse.