(End of the American Dream)—In all of human history, has there ever been a society more gluttonous than our own? We are addicted to sex, we are addicted to drugs, we are addicted to shopping, we are addicted to eating, we are addicted to entertainment, but our biggest addiction of all may be money. Even though we were handed the keys to the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen, it was never enough for us. We always had to have more, and so we have run up the largest single mountain of debt in the entire history of the planet. If you can believe it, on Monday the size of the U.S. national debt crossed the 33 trillion dollar mark for the very first time…
The U.S. national debt topped $33 trillion for the first time ever on Monday, crossing a critical milestone at a time when government spending is already under scrutiny.
The national debt – which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — hit $33.04 trillion as of Monday afternoon, according to new data published by the Treasury Department. By comparison, just four decades ago, the national debt hovered around $907 billion.
I don’t know if I even have the words to describe how reckless our leaders have become.
It took from the founding of our nation all the way up to 1980 for the national debt to reach one trillion dollars.
But now we have added a trillion dollars to the national debt in just three months.
And thanks to rising interest rates, interest payments on our debt are projected to increase at an exponential rate in the years ahead…
In fact, interest payments on the national debt are projected to be the fastest-growing part of the federal budget over the next three decades, according to the CRFB.
Payments are expected to triple from nearly $475 billion in fiscal year 2022 to a stunning $1.4 trillion in 2032. By 2053, the interest payments are projected to surge to $5.4 trillion. To put that into perspective, that will be more than the U.S. spends on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all other mandatory and discretionary spending programs.
Of course we are far from alone.
At this point, total global debt exceeds 300 trillion dollars…
GLOBAL debt hit a record US$307 trillion in the second quarter of the year despite rising interest rates curbing bank credit, with markets such as the US and Japan driving the rise, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) said on Tuesday (Sep 19).
The financial services trade group said in a report that global debt in US dollar terms had risen by US$10 trillion in the first half of 2023 and by US$100 trillion over the past decade.
It said the latest increase has lifted the global debt-to-GDP ratio for a second straight quarter to 336 per cent.
But we are by far the biggest offenders. And that is because we are extremely gluttonous “pig people” that simply do not care that we are literally destroying the future for our children and our grandchildren.
Sadly, the politicians that are racking up all of this debt are extremely gluttonous “pig people” too. Thanks to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, members of the U.S. Senate will be allowed to dress any way that they want from this point forward…
Breaking news relevant to only 100 Americans: The U.S. Senate will no longer enforce its dress code for members.
Is this yet another sign of constitutional decadence, or is it a step into modernity for the fusty, antiquated chamber? Either way, it’s the best news ever for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who would prefer to do business while looking like he’s on a Saturday-morning jog.
Do we really want our representatives in Washington to look like a bunch of slobs?
What kind of message is that going to send to the general population?
And what kind of message is that going to send to the rest of the world?
It is being reported that Chuck Schumer made this change specifically to accommodate John Fetterman, and in a recent opinion piece Maureen Callahan made it very clear what she thinks about that…
If we are to accept that everything is fine with Fetterman, then reasonable people can conclude that he simply doesn’t care.
We can assume that he is lazy, a slob, and is happy to present himself as someone who is not bringing 100 percent to the job. That he is a narcissist who thinks that a centuries-old dress code for members of Congress should not apply to him, that D.C. should lower its standards to meet his slovenliness, and laughably, as a source close to Fetterman once claimed, that ‘his relaxed, comfortable style is a sign that the senator is making a robust recovery.’
Sure. Nothing says you’ve beaten back depression by dressing as though you haven’t gotten off the couch for a week. Nothing says self-respect like showing up to the Hill in clothes you’d wear to scrub the tub. Most of us dress better for a coffee run.
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
As a nation, we are also deeply addicted to drugs.
Today, more Americans than ever before are addicted to legal and/or illegal drugs. And more Americans than ever are dying from those addictions.
According to NPR, drug overdose deaths set a brand new record high last year…
Drug deaths nationwide hit a new record in 2022. 109,680 people died as the fentanyl crisis continued to deepen, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Eight states saw drug deaths continue to surge by nine percent or more, with the greatest increases of 21 percent coming in Washington state and Wyoming.
Drug overdose deaths also set a brand new record high the year before that.
And the year before that.
You get the picture.
Our addiction to food is also killing many of us. In fact, we are being told that the number of Americans that die from heart disease each year with obesity as a factor has actually “tripled” since 1999…
The number of Americans who died of heart disease with obesity as a factor has *tripled* since 1999.
Obesity now affects 42% of all Americans, and 20% of children.
Of course we are even more addicted to sex than we are to food.
I am about to share something with you that absolutely floored me when I first heard about it. As I discussed yesterday, the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas recently celebrated a “Drag Sunday” during which the church publicly honored “the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”.
If you are not familiar with “”the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”, they are a group of drag queens that relentlessly mocks the Christian faith.
So I was quite shocked to see “the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” standing at the front of the church as the congregation of the Cathedral of Hope “recited a pledge dedicated to drag queens”…
Footage out of Dallas, Texas shows the moment a crowded LGBT-friendly church recited a pledge dedicated to drag queens standing at the front of the congregation.
The viral video shows attendees of the Cathedral of Hope publicly blessing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a drag queen group that was recently at the center of a controversy with the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
The congregants read in unison, “We commit ourselves to be people of faith who stand for justice, proclaim love and defend the rights of all people. We recognize that all people are made in the loving image of God no matter who they are, how they dress, express themselves or who they love.”
I have never seen anything like this in my entire life.
That is supposed to be a church!
The “pledge” got even worse as it went on…
“We celebrate this divine diversity and commit to lifting up the voices of the LGBTQ+ community and creating spaces where everyone can thrive. Drag queens are often targets of hate and violence. But we know that they are often powerful and resilient people who show us what it means to be truly authentic and expressive,” the crowd echoed.
The pledge continued, “We honor their strength and pledge to be allies to the drag community, recognizing their full humanity and their incredible contributions to our world. We embrace radical inclusivity and work to dismantle systems of oppression. We will fight against all forms of hate, prejudice and intolerance and work to build a world that affirms and celebrates every person’s unique identity and gifts.”
YESTERDAY
TFP and Defend Our Kids Texas was on site during a Dallas church’s “drag Sunday” service.
Attendees recited this pledge 👇@SaraGonzalesTX pic.twitter.com/46yFXJWaeg
— Texas Family Project (@FamilyProjectTX) September 18, 2023
What is next?
Are churches going to start reciting pledges to Satan during their worship services?
We can’t fall much farther than we have already fallen, and if we stay on the path that we are currently on there will be no future for our country. But most Americans don’t want to be bothered by any of this. Most Americans just want to continue to enjoy their addictions for as long as they possibly can.
Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking and their seemingly endless party is about to come to a very abrupt conclusion.
Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
