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to the editor from this week's Chronicle Redneck Review! No. 376 - 7/10/22 So what is happening next? With the 4th of July behind us, reminding us of the struggles this country has had in the past, and the challenges that are faced in the future, now would be a good time to review what experts have to say about our dear old U.S.A.! (By the way, for clarification it is added here that the poem you saw in RNR 375 was my own creation back in the 1980's, July 4th, 1984, as one article published in the Cottonwood Chronicle under the title LET FREEDOM RING, during the years roughly from 1982 - 1985. All lines except the first three, which should be recognized by all at the beginning of our Star Spangled Banner! Some readers wondered why no credit was given to the author! Selected articles from that series of articles have been reprinted in a 52 page book by the Chronicle, and are still available from myself or from the Chronicle itself! Copies of all Red Neck Reviews are also available from the same two sources, with 50 columns in each book, from April of 2015 to the present!) So again it might be asked, what is happening to our dear old country? From dozens of emails and the nightly news, and a bit of common sense, some direction our country might be headed can be guessed at below. Also, following that are comments made by experts about current happenings, which might send signals about what tomorrow might bring! Food shortage! Daily news tells us that the struggle over Ukraine is seriously impacting the fact that "40% of the World Food Program's wheat supplies normally come from Ukraine. And approximately 22 million tons of grain are stranded in Ukraine waiting export." Also news reports state that several food processing plants in the U.S. have been destroyed by fire or by plane crashes in a couple of cases. And what about the high prices and lack of availability of fertilizers here and around the world which also may impact the food supply? Are these and other news reports simply scare tactics or do we Americans really need to be concerned about food shortages in the future? The stock market! Reports tell us that the stock market has lost roughly 20% of its value during the first months of 2022! And skittish investors are paying record high prices for real estate and homes and businesses around the country in an concerted effort to counter the collapsing value of the dollar and the rising spectre of inflation. Lack of availability of new cars has driven up the prices of used vehicles, and now we are told that their average cost around 140% of normal is suddenly leading to a sharp increase in repossessions. Buyers who used Covid dollars to access that market are finding payments are impossible to make, impacted also by the near record price of fuel at the same time. And every housewife knows that the cost of groceries today definitely exceeds the 9 % inflation rate reported by the government! And just how serious is the huge amount of fentanyl crossing our southern border impacting us? Meanwhile, what is happening in the silver, gold market? Big bank manipulation of the prices of silver especially has driven its price recently below $20/ounce, only 40% of its historic high near $50 in 1980. And despite the price of gold edging lower recently, the historic ratio of gold/silver has risen drastically from a historic 16/1 far back in our history, then stabilized a bit at 35/1 later, to an average around 80/1 lately reaching as high as 150/1. The result? Many investor's efforts to invest in silver are bugged by shortages that delay delivery up to several weeks! Renowned silver guru Ted Butler was recently quoted saying: "No one will argue that gold is more suppressed than silver, so it follows that the biggest price pop to come must be in silver. Where I see hundreds of dollars higher in gold, I see a much bigger move in silver involving tens of dollars per ounce in relatively short order." (Many more comments next week!) Jake Wren
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