(End of the American Dream)—All over the United States, major cities are descending into a state of chaos. Every day, more migrants that came pouring through our wide open borders arrive in our inner cities, and many of them end up joining gangs or selling drugs. Meanwhile, more of our young people get hooked on drugs with each passing day. In the worst areas, you can see hordes of them literally staggering around like zombies because they have been drugged out of their minds. All of this addiction is fueling an unprecedented homelessness crisis. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that homelessness in the United States is growing faster this year than ever before.
In this sort of an environment, it should be no surprise that violent crime is absolutely exploding all over the nation. If you choose to wander the streets of America’s hellish inner cities, you are literally taking your life into your hands, because a violent predator could literally be around the next corner. Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early stages of this crisis. It will inevitably get even worse in the months ahead as economic conditions deteriorate even more.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in an “urban area”…
Despite the increase in the urban population, urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population, down from 80.7% in 2010.
So what is happening to our inner cities directly affects most of us.
Even if you don’t live in a very densely populated area, there is a good chance that you work in one.
Many years ago, I actually worked right in the heart of Washington D.C., and even though I had a few close calls I generally felt safe.
But now everything has changed.
Crime is rising so fast in our capital city that even members of Congress are giving people advice on how to “minimize the risk of being victimized”…
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, (R-Wis.) on Monday warned would-be visitors to Washington, D.C. of rising crime in the nation’s capital and advised people how to respond to criminal acts and to minimize the risk of being victimized by violence like carjackings.
The District of Columbia is currently struggling to contend with increased criminal activity that has many questioning the safety of living in the city at all. Compared to this point in 2022, data from the D.C. Metropolitan Police shows that homicides are up 28% and on pace to reach their highest levels in more than 20 years. Robberies, meanwhile, are up 67%. Residents have testified to increasingly driving for short distances due to fear of going outside.
This is how bad things have gotten.
We can’t even maintain law and order around our most important government institutions.
At this point the violence has escalated to such levels that even the Mexican consulate is warning about “a significant increase in crime in areas previously considered safe”…
Amid the crime wave, the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., has warned its citizens that “The city of Washington, D.C. is experiencing a significant increase in crime in areas previously considered safe. Take precautions. In an emergency, call 911.”
When one of the most crime-ridden nations in modern history feels compelled to issue a warning about violence in your city, you know that you have a problem.
On the west cost, homeless encampments are sprouting like mushrooms. Earlier today, I learned that one has even popped up right in the middle of Beverly Hills…
The homeless population has been growing out of control in California, and it was only a matter of time until the epidemic began spilling into the wealthier areas of the state.
Well, it appears that day has finally arrived, as a homeless encampment has emerged in swanky Beverly Hills. Adding to the irony, the homeless tents are located right in front of The Altman Brothers’ office, which is featured on the popular show “Million Dollar Listing” on Bravo.
Needless to say, the wealthy people that live in the area are not pleased about this one bit…
How would you feel if a bunch of homeless people decided to camp out on your front lawn? I am sure that you would not be thrilled either. But many of these people desperately need help. Housing is now more unaffordable in the U.S. than it has ever been before, and this is creating a tremendous amount of hardship.
A lot of those that are homeless would love to have homes of their own if they could afford them. Of course it is true that there are a lot of addicts among the homeless too. And when it is time to go to the bathroom, many of them will go wherever they decide it is convenient.
In Denver, one businessman has had enough. He took some human feces that had been deposited in front of his business and he dumped it on the steps of the Denver City and County Building…
While Mayor Mike Johnston says addressing homelessness is his number one priority, a Denver businessman says he’s had it with the homeless going number two wherever they want. In what he calls an act of civil disobedience, Jon Caldara dumped human poop that he found outside his business on the steps of the Denver City and County Building on Monday.
Video of Caldara’s “protest” has now been seen by thousands of users on Twitter.
This is genius!!
A Denver businessman, Jon Caldera says he's had it with the homeless going number two around his business. In what he calls an act of civil disobedience he dumped human poop that he found outside his business on the steps of the Denver City and County Building… pic.twitter.com/tn1kSCQeVj
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) September 26, 2023
In addiction to human feces, Caldara says that he also has to clean up “vomit and urine and syringes and used condoms” on a regular basis…
He says at least twice a week security cameras catch a homeless person defecating outside his business or worse.
“We have to clean up vomit and urine and syringes and used condoms and feces. We didn’t cause the homeless problem in Denver but we have clean up after it,” Caldara said.
I can definitely understand why he is so upset.
I am sure that you wouldn’t want to deal with such nonsense either.
But this is our country now.
It has become a very filthy place, and it has also become a very violent place.
Over the last 24 hours, video of a particularly violent assault in the Bucktown section of Chicago has made headlines all over the globe…
A horrifying video has emerged showing the moment that an innocent man is jumped by two opportunistic muggers on a Chicago street in broad daylight in the latest disturbing crime to occur in the Democratic-led Windy City.
The incident occurred on Monday in the Bucktown section of the city.
The man that was brutally assaulted was just minding his own business.
That was his first mistake.
If you are going to live in a core urban area in America today, you have got to constantly be mindful of your surroundings.
He should have never been walking down those streets by himself, and when he heard someone rapidly running up behind him he should have known that trouble was coming.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1706516524666884512
According to the Chicago Police Department, robberies in that particular area of the city are up almost 100 percent since 2019…
‘Disturbing as hell. Could be me. Violent crime is out of control in Chicago. Lawless, these people. Heartless and lawless. No consequences. This poor man was just minding his own business, and his life will never be the same after this kind of attack,’ another commenter said.
Chicago Police Department statistics show that robberies are up nearly 100 percent from 2019 in the Bucktown neighborhood and up 53 percent from 2022.
Not too far from Chicago you can find the ruins of the once great city of Gary, Indiana.
YouTuber Peter Santenello recently dared to visit Gary, and he encountered residents that are “terrified to walk down the streets at night”…
He spoke to residents who described being terrified to walk down the streets at night out of fear of being robbed – or even shot – and showcased an array of decaying buildings and abandoned homes, raising the question of how the once-bustling city that was the home to over 200,000 people turned into a vessel of drugs, violence, and murder, which now has a population of a mere 69,000.
I admire his courage. It takes guts to go into the heart of Gary all by yourself.
One local resident that he spoke to says that she has been robbed more times than she can count…
‘In Gary, you gotta watch your back,’ another resident warned. ‘When you go into a store, you gotta watch your purse.
‘They’ll follow you around the store to see what you got. Pick pocketers, stuff like that. They stole from me I don’t know how many times.’
But even in the midst of all the misery, you can still find remnants of Gary’s glory days…
Sadly, countless other cities are going down the exact same path as Gary.
In 2023, stores and other businesses are being shut down in droves in crime-ridden communities all over the nation.
For example, Target just announced that they are shutting down nine more stores “because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests”…
Target said Tuesday that it will close nine stores in major cities across the country, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime.
The company will close one store in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, two locations in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland area and three more in Portland, Oregon. The discounter said it will shutter the stores for good on Oct. 21.
“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in a news release.
Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a major retailer to come out and make a statement like that.
But now everybody can see that our country is coming apart at the seams all around us. And thanks to Joe Biden and his minions, conditions are getting worse with each passing day.
They are allowing vast numbers of migrants to pour across our wide open borders, and many of them end up in our core urban areas.
In New York City, officials are planning to spend more than a billion dollars “on hotel rooms for immigrants for three more years”…
New York City is planning on spending a staggering extra $1billion on hotel rooms for immigrants for three more years.
The city’s contract with the more than 100 hotels-turned-shelters, which was supposed to end this year, will now end in August 2026 and cost a total $1.365 billion – almost five times the original price tag of $237 million.
The new cost does not include other facilities turned into shelters such as the tent shelters set up in the McCarren Recreation Center in Queens or the Island Shores Assisted Living in Staten Island.
A billion dollars is a lot of money. But it won’t be nearly enough.
The Big Apple has already run out of room to put people, and more migrants are constantly showing up. I would say that we are setting the stage for a societal meltdown of unprecedented size and scope, but the truth is that such a meltdown has already begun.
Decades of very foolish decisions are catching up with us in a major way, and the chaos that we are going to witness in our inner cities during the months and years ahead will shock the entire world.
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.
