Dear Friends and Patriots,

I’ve stated before, I’m no seer and no prophet, but I still see what I see. Today, I see a huge tragedy looming. Actions by governments in many countries appear to be aimed at destroying the livelihoods, if not the lives, of millions around the globe.

My life’s operating philosophy as an admitted cynic and skeptic is to always try to conjure up the worst scenarios that could occur and expect to still fall short in my expectations. Today, I find those worst scenarios unsettlingly easy to visualize. I summarized the whole to a friend yesterday as, “They’re trying to kill us.”

There are current actions by leaders that have the ultimate effect of draining wealth from everyone. Those actions include tax increases, regulatory changes that have the effect of tax increases, the pursuit of wars, and implementing nonsensical health policies. Every single act of government today seems somehow sinister, as if it’s all just provocations—“in your face” kind of things.

Tax increases alone are great tools to drain wealth. It seems every time politicians meet they create something that has the result, if not the intent, of costing us more of our hard-earned money. Even monetary policy itself is now designed to tax us. Modern Monetary Theory is little but a sick joke, yet it’s in vogue in our Congress. We see tariffs imposed on foreign goods. Those tariffs result in higher prices. We see new taxes and fees on all kinds of energy. We see increases in regulations and commensurate regulatory fees. Understand that all compliance costs are hidden taxes imposed by regulatory agencies. The general rule seems to be: anytime a governmental body meets, it looks for ways to spend. The uncontrolled spending drives the need for ever-increasing taxes. Ever-increasing taxes, even in the best of economic times, means the average citizen sees a constant drain on his buying power.

Today, we’re in an economic recession and may be headed toward an actual depression. Everything about our economy today is weirdly reminiscent of the days of Jimmy “Who?” Carter. Carter’s problem was gross ineptitude. He was just a box of rocks when it came to governance. He was aided and abetted by a Congress that was similarly handicapped. Today, we’re led by an incompetent, senile nincompoop, but he’s not the real problem. The real problem is he’s surrounded by socialists, communists, and progressive ideologues who are running things based on their personal ideology. Our government’s actions today are not rationally need-based. They’re intended to further a radical agenda instead of doing the work and exercising the will of the people. I’ve written dozens of times about that agenda, so I’ll spare you. Today, the thought focus is on the people, not the agenda. I’ll highlight a few of the more recent moves.

To sustain ourselves, we all need energy to fuel our cars and to heat and cool our homes. We need electricity. We need gasoline. Trucks need diesel fuel. We all have to eat. We all need shelter. All of those individual needs are becoming more and more problematic. Unless you’re pretty “comfortable” as the cost of everything goes up, something’s going to have to give.

ENERGY – you all know this administration is waging a war against domestic energy – all except solar and wind energy, which has the theoretical potential to supply up to 15% of our nation’s total energy needs. Think about the Biden-announced approval of the sale of E-15 gasoline all year long. If you think of that as a positive move on the energy front, you’d be dead wrong. E-15 can’t be used in most cars on the road. It’s corrosive, and unless a car is built to burn it, the fuel system will rapidly degrade and fail. Because of the 50% higher alcohol content, the gasoline strips oil from the cylinder walls as a car engine runs – effectively causing the engine to wear out twice as fast as with E-10 fuel.

Now, think about President Biden’s announcement regarding invoking the Defense Production Act to force manufacturers to make solar panels. If we want energy, we have gobs of it, right under our feet. Yet, the administration wants to shift industrial production from making things that people are already buying to making solar panels, which they largely aren’t. Consider this, too. Solar panels can’t work without rare earth metals incorporated into their control systems. Who controls our nation’s supply of those metals? China. Who is the largest manufacture of solar panels on the planet – by far? Yes, China. Who among you believes China is going to sell rare earth metals to us so we can compete with them in making solar panels? Who is kidding whom?

Did you hear about DEF? That’s Diesel Exhaust Fluid, which is a solution that’s sprayed into the exhaust stream of a running diesel engine to catalyze the nitrous oxides into nitrogen and steam. DEF’s principal ingredient is urea. Where does most of the urea come from? Russia. Who’s got sanctions against Russia? We do. Who’s fighting back by limiting the supply of urea? Yeah, you know. It’s almost as if all this is pre-planned, isn’t it? In case you wonder, almost all diesel engines sold in the U.S. since 2010 were fitted with DEF spray rigs. This problem can get truly scary. You already know the Biden Administration’s response to environmental issues. If 75% of the trucks in our country have to shut down because of a DEF shortage, that’s just going to be too bad. It’ll be yet another price we’ll all pay to ensure the planet’s survival. A lot of us may not survive a DEF shortage if the rules aren’t modified.

The administration is schizophrenic on its electric power policy. Today, they’re warning us of impending rolling “brownouts,” as the summer heat increases. At the same time they’re talking about installing 500,000 electric charging stations across the country to make electric cars seem more feasible. If that sounds contradictory, that’s because it is. Industry experts already told us the power grids are operating at capacity most of the year. Adding the burden of even 10% more electric vehicles, may overtax them. If half the people in the country owned an electric car, almost every neighborhood in the nation would need to be re-wired, assuming there was sufficient electricity to push through them – which there isn’t. So … what’s going on? It’s simple. The ultimate “green” scenario isn’t electric cars – it’s NO cars. That’s the actual objective. The future we’re heading for with the new policies is straight toward NO personal vehicle ownership. You’ll kiss your beloved car goodbye. Anyone have a good bicycle for sale?

The worst effects will be felt this coming winter, when high fuel costs translate to a doubling of everyone’s home heating bills. How many people do you think can tolerate such an increase? I’ll discuss the effects of that later on.

FOOD – the food supply is under attack in several ways. Food sources are now being diverted to increase the production of ethanol. It’s recent, but it’s happening. Productive land that used to be farmed now lays fallow due to new environmental rules. Other land is now in the hands of Chinese investors and Bill Gates. Do they intend to actively farm and ranch on those lands? We don’t know. Today, we hear about food processing plants of all kinds being burned. What’s going on with that? I’ve never heard of an egg-processing plant burning down. We’ve heard of mysterious outbreaks of avian flu that have resulted in the slaughter of millions of chickens. Two days ago, I heard of thousands of cattle that supposedly died from the heat wave in Kansas. I thought that was extremely odd, because cattle in Texas bear as much as a month solid of 100+ degree heat, and they don’t drop dead. Was it really a mass killing of some kind?

Meanwhile, the price of pretty much everything in a grocery store is going up. Foreign-produced goods are on the rise due to transportation costs. Domestic-produced goods are on the rise from a combination of fuel and regulatory cost increases.

We all understand the situation in Ukraine and Russia is bound to create food shortages in the poorest parts of the world. We look like we’ll have some shortages, but not to the point the shortages themselves will cause starvation. Our problem that regards shortages will be an irritant. In the third world, it’s far more serious. They’re staring famine in the face, and they know it.

HOUSING – did you know there’s a nationwide housing shortage? There is. Oddly, a lot of low-cost housing has been disappearing. It’s being torn down by the investment houses that buy at property auctions. I can’t prove for certain the housing shortage is a manufactured crisis, but I know Blackrock Investments has been buying up low-value properties across the nation for the past five years. Did you know that? Have you wondered why? The shortage is soon to get worse. Rising interest rates will stifle new construction. It’s already slowed due to high material costs and the overall inflation of goods and services. Couple that with a higher interest, and you’ll see people ditch their plans to buy or build new houses. People generally stay put in recessions. Those who can’t may find themselves among the new homeless.

WHAT MAY COME – this may be a disastrous winter for many. As many as 25% of Americans live on the margins of their income. Most of those people are leveraged to the maximum and maintain credit card balances they can barely keep up with. It doesn’t take much to squeeze them. The higher fuel prices are enough all by themselves. Couple that with increases in food prices, and many families in that situation will be forced to make compromises.

It reminds me of the Carter Recession, when people who were living on fixed incomes resorted to eating cat and dog food because it was all they could afford. You may not recall it, but it’s true. It became something of a national scandal. Do you know how the government reacted? The USDA imposed new standards on the processing of all pet foods made in the country. To ensure all those people eating the stuff were getting “good” food, the pet food industry was required to meet all the requirements of human food processing. I’m not sure my cats were all that excited by that change. Some of those bug and rodent parts found in pet foods were probably good for the critters. I hope you understand the message. We may revisit those days and see people buying and eating the cheapest pet foods available. It may come down to that or starving.

As the winter temperatures plunge, people will turn on their home heating systems. They should all understand their gas, heating oil, and electric bills are going to double or maybe even triple over last year. This is going to get very, very serious.

Here’s the predicament many will face. One day, they will have to choose to either fill up their car so they can go to work or buy food and eat. Many will chose to buy gas and keep going to work. They’ll just skip meals. Others will give up and buy food, hoping they can figure out their job later on. Those with kids will have the hardest choices of all. Keeping a job means keeping some security – but the kids need to eat. When it comes time to pay the electric bill, the gas bill, or the home heating oil bill there might be a crisis. There just might not be enough money left. What will they do? They’ll first max out their credit cards. Next, they’ll borrow money from any friend or relative who might be willing to lend some to them. It won’t take long before there’s no credit left and no money in the bank. What happens then? Think about it, because there may be millions this winter facing that exact scenario.

Expect crime to rise. Burglary, theft of all kinds, robberies, and yes, even murders. All categories of property crime will rise, and so will almost all categories of violent crime. Desperate times lead to desperate measures. People who are basically honest in good times may resort to crime to stay alive, to keep their family fed, or to ensure they don’t go bankrupt.

My worst-case scenario is when those who live on the margins in the large cities begin to figure out they have no real way out other than crime. The cities could well descend into generalized chaos, with looting, rioting, burning – the very same kind of mayhem we saw almost all of 2020. The underlying reasons will be far different, but the actions and results might well be the very same, or far worse.

Now, consider the effects of this economic collapse on the mental health of people who are already struggling. They will have no money left and few places to turn to for any help. It’s reasonable to expect the incidence of mental illnesses to rise. Suicide rates will increase, reflecting the general increase in desperation. People will result to more and more alcohol and drug consumption. It’s going to get really grim, really quickly.

At the end of the second paragraph above, I stated, “They’re trying to kill us.” That was not meant in a metaphoric sense. “They” is our government, and the governments of other nations. “Us” is the average citizen. You may think of that as hyperbolic in the extreme, but what other conclusion can you reach when you are forced to grapple with the truth that every aspect of the coming economic downturn is the result of ideologically-driven policy decisions made since the COVID pandemic was unleashed on us. It was already bad the entire last year of Trump’s administration, but all hopes of recovery were dashed on the day Joe Biden was sworn in.

I’ll make it as clear as I can. The people in power have no interest in us or making our lives good again. Their interest is in seeing the United States of America broke and broken; a vassal state of the impending New World Order. They do not care what happens to us. They do not care how many among us dies or the manner of our deaths. They refer to us as “useless eaters,” and we are a problem they’re going to fix.

There are a couple of ways out of this nightmare. They may not work, but unless you’re willing to throw in the towel they must be tried. We have to be much more vocal in our public commentary about all that’s happening. We have to grab camera time and force our local news media to cover our dissent about it all. We have to hold public demonstrations to encourage our neighbors. We have to push back and keep yelling “NO! I WILL NOT COMPLY!” If we can keep the governmental forces off balance for a while longer, maybe we’ll see the elections held in November. That will be too late for a lot of people, because the newly elected politicians won’t be able to have any impact on policy until next spring. But, if we can succeed, we have another chance. If we fail, we may have none.

If the so-called “Red Wave” does become a reality, we can’t sit back and rest. We have to force our people in Washington to do our bidding. We have to continue to raise our voices, to write, to call, and to protest anything and everything we see that’s wrong in our land. We have to lay it all at their feet and demand, “You did this. Now, you fix it!”

If we can succeed for two more years, then we have another chance in 2024. But, we can’t kid ourselves about that. I still give 50-50 odds that the elections will somehow be suspended this November. My odds for 2024 are far worse. Every ideological enemy we have in the world will be fighting us in 2024. It will be like being in the middle of an EF-4 tornado that never abates.

The next six months are going to be increasingly difficult for all of us. The last quarter of the year may prove disastrous for millions. Everything points to that as our future reality. If we make it into the second quarter of next year as an intact nation, my belief is – IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE THAN YOU’LL EVER IMAGINE! A “Red” Congress may alleviate some of the worst of it, but we’re up against Satan’s Minions in 2023 and 2024, and those Minions won’t give us a minute of peace.

I don’t believe this is the “End Times.” I know many who do. Maybe this is a warm-up for it, but I don’t believe this is that time. But, I do believe there’s a huge battle that has to be waged if we don’t want to end up as proles in some future nightmare we never should have to endure. We either learn why and how our ancestors mustered up the courage to spit in King George’s eye, or we silently assume our places in line and wait for our grey jumpsuits to be issued.

Tick-tock, people.

In Liberty,

Steve