By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

It seems that every day when I look at our finances, I now have to adjust. Eating out at all is swiftly becoming a luxury of the past. If you’ve been to McDonald’s lately, you’ve probably noticed their dollar menu is now five dollars. A meal at any drive thru that used to cost $5 dollars a few years ago, now costs north of $10. You start thinking to yourself, that could go towards the power or water bills.

Then you go to the store and reality slaps you along side the head. Hamburger Helper, just a month ago was $1 a box… now it is $1.50. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that is an example of inflation kicking in at 50% and to anyone on limited funds it scares the crap out of them. Tuna is $2 a can. Milk is $6 a gallon in places. To buy 3 Rib Eye steaks, you are looking at a minimum of $35 and things are about to get a whole lot worse. I actually started thinking last week for the first time in my life, I can save money and make our budget stretch further if I skip a meal a day. There would be more for my family that way. We are not poor or destitute – not even close. And yet, we find ourselves beginning to think in terms of our grandparents, when they faced the Great Depression.

In Oklahoma, energy costs are getting ready to skyrocket. The utility companies and government will play it down and say it is only an average increase of $4 a month, but this is just one in a series of increases. Increases to bills we already can’t afford. And, the state is getting ready to mandate smart meters whether people want them or not. AEP-PSO announced late last year that it will replace all of its 520,000 meters statewide with smart meters by 2016. All under the guise of a Progressive governor — big brother will be monitoring each of us like cattle. Oklahoma may be one of the most conservative states in the Union, but it is infected with Progressives and their policies just as badly as other states and certainly worse than the American Redoubt. The claims of some of the lowest prices in the nation are not true either. We paid far less in Idaho to heat and cool a home twice the size we are in now. Oklahoma, you seriously need to clean house and get a real conservative in the governor’s mansion.

And don’t even get me started on the massive taxation. We spend more on taxes than we do food, energy, housing and clothing combined. Uncle Sam will get his grubby cut even if we starve along the way. It’s become impossible to plan expenditures because I’m never sure just how much I’m going to get hit with taxes and shipping. It is quickly becoming prohibitive.

According to the Economic Collapse Blog, if food prices keep trending the way they are now, they will double by the end of the decade. Your pay from work, however, will not. Many, many things are leading up to this, not the least of which are Marxist policies from our government. There are also global droughts hitting 142 different cities. We’ve always lived with drought, but now random authorities can ration water as they see fit and places like Lake Mead that supplies Las Vegas seem to be running dry. The drought is driving fruit and vegetable prices up, along with over regulation and taxation. The same factors are reducing our cattle herds and causing beef prices to soar. A deadly and virulent pig virus has wiped out up to 6 million pigs nationwide to date — pork will rise in price by 20% by the end of this year because of this.

The CEO of Tyson Foods has this to say about meat prices:

“I think consumer[s] should expect record high meat prices his year,” Tyson Foods CEO Donnie Smith told CNBC last month. “You should expect to see very high prices for your ground beef, your other meat cuts, all the pork cuts will be higher this year.”

More:

An ongoing contraction in the U.S. dairy herd, for example, is pushing up retail prices of cheese, ice cream, and other processed dairy foods.

Farm egg prices have been among the most volatile, jumping by 20 percent in February after dropping by 28 percent in January.

U.S. farmers aren’t the only ones facing a production squeeze. A drought in coffee growing regions of southern Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, has pushed up the cost of a cup of Java worldwide. Coffee futures have surged 57 percent this year and rose above $2 a pound last month for the first time in two years.

With bacon and coffee prices surging, breakfast is becoming more expensive—especially if you include a glass of orange juice. Future prices are up 12 percent this year, hitting two-year highs, after Florida’s orange crop was hit by an insect-borne disease that’s expected to cut yields to the lowest levels in nearly a quarter century. Production could fall by about 15 percent to 114 million boxes this year, according to government forecasts, the lowest level since 1990.The recent series of food price hikes follow a relatively long stretch of stable consumer prices. Since 1990, retail food prices have risen by an average of 2.8 percent a year, according to USDA. From February through December of last year, average supermarket prices fell by 0.2 percent.

And what are we doing to prepare for shortages? Nothing. We are not as a nation stockpiling food or addressing any of this with the attention it should demand. You can’t just ignore these events – it invites nationwide and global catastrophe along with all the other Progressive policies being put into place financially, militarily, etc.

Some stats for you:

  • Avocados – likely to go up 17 to 35 cents to as much as $1.60 each.
  • Berries – likely to rise 21 to 43 cents to as much as $3.46 per clamshell container.
  • Broccoli – likely to go up 20 to 40 cents to a possible $2.18 per pound.
  • Grapes – likely to rise 26 to 50 cents to a possible $2.93 per pound.
  • Lettuce – likely to rise 31 to 62 cents to as much as $2.44 per head.
  • Packaged salad – likely to go up 17 to 34 cents to a possible $3.03 per bag.
  • Peppers – likely to go up 18 to 35 cents to a possible $2.48 per pound.
  • Tomatoes – likely to rise 22 to 45 cents to a possible $2.84 per pound.

For you chocolate lovers out there, it is about to become a luxury item as well. Cocoa prices are skyrocketing, so enjoy it while you can.

Rent rates have also risen 2.7%. People can’t afford to buy a home anymore, so expect to see this trend continue.

We are only one black swan event away from hyperinflation, but we just keep on printing money. The dollar is being dumped as the global reserve currency — Russia and China are doing that right now. Our enemies within and without have used our own battle tactics against us and have succeeded in bankrupting the greatest, freest nation on the planet. Even our own military is war gaming the failure of the dollar and what it could mean for our troops globally. The ride over the next few years will be a test of every American’s mettle and fortitude.

As bad as it is now, imagine walking into the store and everything has doubled in price. Imagine your children going hungry. Imagine some very tough choices that will have to be made. The good news is our families will strengthen even more. More families will move in together and face hard times together. That is how our family survived the Great Depression. Faith in God and one another will get us through these dark times.

These major hikes in expenses are hitting all of us as employment is harder and harder to find and we are all tightening our belts. It will hit the poor and elderly the hardest — those the Progressives claim they champion are the ones they will be hurting the most. Typical.


Kate Humble on her farm in Trellech, Monmouth. Photograph: Stephen Shepherd

Now on to propaganda, lies, insanity and deceit. Trust me when I say I wish this were a plot of a movie, but it’s not. The Guardian has a piece up that is creepy beyond words – it shows the true intent of Fabian Socialists.

In this piece of Progressive crap, Kate Humble talks about food waste, keeping sheep, not having children and her mission with aquaponics. I’m sure you will be shocked that she feels people do not appreciate food enough. Since they are wasteful, prices should skyrocket to compensate. She also does not believe in having children and is for population reduction. But notice how they have wrapped all of this Communist rhetoric in a pretty prepper package. She grows food and livestock and lives off the land. Evidently it is meant to appeal to survivalists, while preaching a message of living with less and with fewer humans. Did I mention she’s an atheist? Go figure.

Communism with a perky smile:

“I’m over here!” shouts Kate Humble, and she of Springwatch and Lambing Live gambols towards me, closing the gate on a field of anxious goats and their Disney-cute babies. She’s carrying a bucket. “I was just about to muck out,” she announces, and I’m reminded this is a working farm in the Wye Valley and in no way a TV set.

The photographer has already done his work and gone. Apparently Humble had no idea he was coming. It is hard to think of another TV person on the planet for whom an impromptu photoshoot while wearing a well-loved fleece and no makeup would be OK, but Humble couldn’t give a hoot. She’s been up since the wee small hours: “I love getting up early. I can bounce out of bed at 5am but I’m useless at night.”

She leads me to a kitchen, which doubles as the HQ for Humble by Nature courses on animal husbandry and rural skills, from foraging to building an outdoor pizza oven. Her assistant Rebecca wonders if I’d be OK with some old coffee heated up in the microwave. I’m wondering how to explain that although I’m against food waste, there are limits. “No! That sounds disgusting,” says Humble, even though she’s a green tea drinker. “Make some new!” It’s an earthy introduction.

Kate Humble has been the poster girl for a particularly immersive brand of popular science and wildlife programming for the last 15 years. Behind the scenes TV executives are full of admiration for her prowess at delivering live broadcasts (one tells me she has a photographic memory) and her ability to pull in the viewers. Lambing Live is an unlikely hit on paper, but it has proved to be a ratings juggernaut, pulling 2.5 million viewers, even on a Friday night. What you get as a viewer is her warmth and natural curiosity. She gets right in there, sometimes quite literally; her inspection of a ram’s testicles on the most recent series of Lambing Live caused quite the Twitter frenzy.

Much has been made of her decision to be child-free too. She rightly thinks it’s rude of journalists to pry about this. But then she brings the topic up quite naturally, so I feel at liberty to ask her how she feels about those who think your environmental conscience only really forms when you have kids. “I think one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do is NOT have children,” she says. “Yes, I know we have an ageing population but I’ve got a great plan for my old age, which is a return to communal student living. The idea that people have to have children before they wake up to the idea that the world might not be a great place in 15-20 years’ time is nonsense. I’m not particularly clever, nor brilliant nor insightful but I don’t need to have kids to tell me that. I’ve got godchildren. I don’t know why: I’m woefully unqualified on both parts of that equation – can’t be a mother, don’t believe in God. But you know, I want them to have a world that’s functional and great to live in.”

The EPA and the Progressives must love this woman to death. And millions are buying into her tripe of living off the land in a manner reminiscent of Progressives, worshiping nature (not God), population reduction, resource reduction, increased food prices, raising taxes and all things Marxist. This is what Obama and his ilk want in America. Being master propagandists, they think slapping a pretty face on the message and claiming they are preppers will win over American patriots. They think if you’ll buy into this horse manure, you’ll give up your arms as well. A starving and defenseless America would be Marxist heaven.

Elections have consequences and voting in leaders who want us to be brought down to a level playing field with the rest of the world has brought this situation to our doorstep and our elected leaders don’t plan on helping alleviate it. The Marxists want prices and taxes to increase and wages to decrease. This is why we must elect conservatives this year and in 2016 who believe in Constitutional principles and conservative ideals. If we are to survive as a nation and feed our families, we must remove the Keynesian dictators at our helm and replace them with Tea Party conservatives.