Turkey Is Asking The United States To Take Part In A Ground Invasion Of Syria

Middle East MapReuters is reporting that Turkey is asking the United States and other western allies to participate in a massive ground invasion of Syria.  But of course the Turks are not exactly sitting around and waiting for their western allies to get on board.  Turkey shelled northern Syria for a fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, even though the Obama administration has been asking them to stop.  The targets were Kurdish and Syrian military positions, and the goal appears to be to slow down their advance toward the Turkish border.  The Sunni militants that Turkey has been supporting for five years are now being completely routed, and Turkey is in a great deal of panic about this. (Read More...)

Chinese Exports Plunge 11.2 Percent As Economic Activity Continues To Collapse All Over The Planet

Cargo Ship - Public DomainIf the global economy is in fine shape, then why does all of the hard data tell us that global trade is absolutely collapsing?  The Baltic Dry Index has fallen below 300 for the first time ever, and export numbers are way down for almost every major exporting nation on the entire planet.  As you will see below, this includes China.  The Chinese account for more global trade than anyone else, and so the fact that their imports and their exports are both collapsing precipitously is a huge red flag.  When less stuff is being bought and sold and shipped around the world, that tells us that the “real economy” is contracting.  Tremendous efforts are being made to try to prop up financial markets all over the globe right now, but in the end those efforts are going to prove to be rather futile.  The global economy is clearly plunging into recession, and at this point it is becoming exceedingly difficult for even the most optimistic economic analysts to deny this reality. (Read More...)

Financial Crisis 2016: High Yield Debt Tells Us That Just About EVERYTHING Is About To Collapse

Money Tornado - Public DomainDid you know that there are more than 1.8 trillion dollars worth of junk bonds outstanding in the United States alone?  With interest rates at record lows all over the world in recent years, investors that were starving for a decent return poured hundreds of billions of dollars into high yield debt (also known as junk bonds).  This created a giant bubble, but at first everything seemed to be going fine.  Defaults were very low and most investors were seeing a nice return.  But then the price of oil started crashing and the global economy began to slow down significantly.  Energy company debt makes up somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the junk bond market, and the credit rating downgrades for that sector are coming fast and furious.  But it isn’t just the energy industry that is seeing a massive wave of defaults, debt restructurings and bankruptcy filings.  Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, investors are starting to wake up and realize that the paper that they are holding is not worth a whole lot.  So now investors are rushing for the exits and we are starting to see panic on a level that we have not witnessed since the last financial crisis. (Read More...)

Suicide Epidemic: Why Does The Number Of People Killing Themselves Just Keep Going Up?

Suicide - Public DomainDid you know that more Americans now die from suicide than are killed in car crashes each year?  According to the CDC, there has been a substantial spike in suicide deaths in the United States in recent years.  Today, approximately 9.3 million Americans admit to having suicidal thoughts, and approximately 2.7 million Americans each year actually make a plan for how they would commit suicide.  We are a deeply, deeply unhappy nation, but of course this phenomenon is not just limited to America.  According to the World Health Organization, suicide is now the third highest cause of death in the entire world.  Globally, suicide rates have soared by 60 percent over the past 45 years, and the WHO is now projecting that by the year 2020 someone will be committing suicide somewhere in the world every 20 seconds. (Read More...)

World War III Starts In The Middle East? Saudi Arabia And Turkey Consider A Ground Invasion Of Syria

Skull War - Public DomainAre Saudi Arabia and Turkey about to send ground troops into Syria?  If so, how will Russia, Iran and the Syrian government respond?  In 2016, Syria has become ground zero for a conflict that has been raging for centuries.  For more than a thousand years, the Sunnis and the Shiites have been wrestling with one another for control of the Middle East.  Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Sunni nations had hoped to turn Syria into a Sunni nation, and for years they have been funding and arming ISIS and other Sunni insurgent groups in an attempt to overthrow the Assad regime.  Initially the Assad regime was losing quite a bit of ground, but the tide turned once the Syrians invited the Russians and the Iranians to help them.  Of course the Iranians have their own long-term goals.  Once Assad leaves power, the Iranians hope to turn Syria into a truly Shiite nation that is run and dominated by Hezbollah.  At this moment, the Sunnis and losing and the Shiites are winning.  Relentless Russian airstrikes have enabled Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah ground forces to advance, and now they have surrounded Aleppo.  Before the war Aleppo was the largest city in Syria, and if it falls, the war will be very close to over. (Read More...)

ISIS Plot To Shoot Up A Detroit Megachurch Revealed As ‘Christianophobia’ Spreads Across America

Aggression - Public DomainIf you are a Christian, you better brace yourself for great persecution. It has gotten very little attention from the mainstream media, but federal authorities have uncovered an ISIS plot to “shoot up” a Detroit megachurch. 21-year-old Khalil Abu-Rayyan of Dearborn Heights, Michigan told authorities that he actually intended to take a gun into a very large church in Detroit that can seat up to 6,000 people and start killing Christians. He has been charged with supporting the Islamic States and with “illegally having a firearm while using a controlled substance”. Abu-Rayyan actually admitted that since he can’t be part of the jihad in the Middle East, that he would “do my jihad over here”.  As I have warned so many times before, ISIS terrorists are already here, and what we have seen so far is just the beginning. (Read More...)

The American Dream Is Dead, And Now Even The Mainstream Media Is Starting To Admit It

Cemetary Graveyard - Public DomainAre you living “the American Dream”?  If so, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate, because most Americans are not.  In fact, as you will see below, a new survey has found that there is nowhere on the entire planet where the average wage earner is making enough money to live “the American Dream”.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class makes up a minority of the population, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year, and poverty is growing rapidly.  The American Dream is essentially dead, and even the mainstream media is starting to figure this out. (Read More...)

Retail Apocalypse: 2016 Brings Empty Shelves And Store Closings All Across America

Closed - Public DomainMajor retailers in the United States are shutting down hundreds of stores, and shoppers are reporting alarmingly bare shelves in many retail locations that are still open all over the country.  It appears that the retail apocalypse that made so many headlines in 2015 has gone to an entirely new level as we enter 2016.  As economic activity slows down and Internet retailers capture more of the market, brick and mortar retailers are cutting their losses.  This is especially true in areas that are on the lower portion of the income scale.  In impoverished urban centers all over the nation, it is not uncommon to find entire malls that have now been completely abandoned.  It has been estimated that there is about a billion square feet of retail space sitting empty in this country, and this crisis is only going to get worse as the retail apocalypse accelerates. (Read More...)