4 Billionaires are Extremely Worried that America’s Next Big Financial Crisis is Coming Soon

If you are worried about the possibility of another large scale U.S. financial crisis, you are not alone.

In recent months, four super-successful billionaires have gone on record with warnings that we are now living in perilous financial times.

Andy Redleaf, for example, is a successful hedge fund manager, who accurately predicted the last major financial panic in America.

Just before the last big financial crisis in America, Redleaf prophetically wrote to his clients in December 2006 that: “Sometime in the next 12 to 18 months, there is going to be a panic in credit markets.”

Redleaf is now worried again. He recently told CNBC: “I think it is a truly scary time.”

RECOMMENDED: Financial Expert explains what’s gone wrong in America and how to prepare for next crisis

A few months earlier, billionaire Sam Zell told CNBC something similar:

“People have no place else to put their money, and the stock market is getting more than its share. It’s very likely that something has to give here. I don’t remember any time in my career where there have been as many wildcards floating out there…”

Just before that, billionaire Carl Icahn told the same network he’s “very nervous about U.S. equity markets… you have to worry about the excessive printing of money!”

Then, just a few weeks ago, billionaire money manager Crispin Odey went on record with perhaps the strongest warning yet about the global economy. He said:

“Everything points to it being a bubble. You can never know the height of a bubble, but by the time it gets to here, you haven’t got much time.”

So, what should you do? How should you prepare and adjust your portfolio?

Well, one multimillionaire businessman agrees with these billionaires, and believes he has the answer…

Porter Stansberry is the founder of Stansberry Research, one of the largest independent financial research firms in America.

In recent years, he accurately predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and General Motors, just to name a few.

RELATED: New book explains shocking ways America will be dramatically different by year 2020

Today, Stansberry says the next big financial panic in America will be even bigger than what we experienced in 2007-2008.

In fact, he says this looming crisis will threaten your way of life, even if you don’t have any money in the markets.

This collapse, says Stansberry, will change everything about our normal way of life: where you vacation… where you send your kids or grandkids to school… how and where you shop… the way you protect your family and home.

I strongly encourage you to check out Mr. Stansberry’s recent write-up on this situation, which explains exactly what is going on, what will happen next, and the simple steps you can take to prepare.

You can access Mr. Stansberry’s full analysis, free of charge, on his company’s website, right here…

Credit to The Crux

What happens if Greece defaults on its International Monetary Fund loans?

The Greek government faces another crucial deadline in its interminable bail-out drama this week, as fears mount that the country could become the first developed nation to ever default on its international obligations. 

After a harrowing March, cash-strapped Athens now faces a €448m payment to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday. 

But with public sector wages and pensions to pay out, a cacophony of voices on Syriza's Left have vowed to prioritise domestic obligations unless creditors finally unlock the remainder of its €240bn bail-out programme. 

"We are a Left-wing government. If we have to choose between a default to the IMF or a default to our own people, it is a no-brainer," a senior Greek official told The Telegraph last week.

The rhetoric is a far cry from February, when Greece's finance minister pledged his government would "squeeze blood out of a stone" to meet its obligations to the Fund. Yanis Varoufakis will now spend Easter Sunday with IMF director Christine Lagarde in a bid to gain some leeway on the country's reforms-for-cash programme. 

Greece owes €9.7bn to the IMF this year. Missing its latest installment in order to pay out its social security bill on April 14, would see the country fall into an arrears process, unprecedented for a developed world debtor.

Although no nation has ever officially defaulted on its obligations in the post-Bretton Woods era, Greece would join an ignominious list of war-torn nations and international pariahs who have failed to pay back the Fund on time. 

What happens after April 9? 

Missing Thursday's payment would not immediately trigger a default however. 

According to IMF protocol, Greece would be afforded a 30-day grace period, during which it would be urged to pay back the money as soon as possible, and before Ms Lagarde notifies her executive board of the late payment. 

Following this hiatus, a technical default could be declared a month later, when "a complaint regarding the member’s overdue obligations is issued by the Managing Director to the Executive Board". 

In the interim, Greece may well stump up the cash having spooked creditors and the markets of the possibility of a fatal breach of the sanctity of monetary union. 

Should no money be forthcoming however, the arrears process may well extend indefinitely. 

Greece's IMF burden would also start piling up, with the government due to pay another €963m by May 12. 

Stopping the cash 

Although the exact process is uncertain, falling into a protracted arrears procedure could have major consequences for continued financial assistance from Greece's other creditors - the European Central Bank and European Commission. 

"If Greece defaults to the IMF, then they are considered to be in default to the rest of the eurozone," says Raoul Ruparel, head of economic research at Open Europe. 

The terms of Greece's existing bail-out programme stipulate that a default to the IMF would automatically constitute a default on the country's European rescue loans.

"Such a scenario would risk the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) cancelling all or part of its facility or even declaring the principal amount of the loan to be due immediately," say analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

Should the EFSF take such a decisive move, it could activate a range of cross default clauses on Greek government bonds held by private investors and the ECB. These clauses state a default to one creditor institution applies to all. 

The political and market damage that may ensue would be substantial. Popular sentiment in creditor nations would turn against the errant Greeks, while the position of the ECB in particular could quickly come under the spotlight. 

The central bank has kept Greek banks on a tight leash, maintaining that it would only restore normal lending operations to the country once "conditions for a successful completion of the programme are in place". 

A wave of defaults may force the ECB into finally pulling the plug on the emergency assistance it has been providing in ever larger doses since February.

Credit to The Telegraph

Passover Blood Moon Predictions by Israeli Rabbi

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.” (Joel 3:2)

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/vaknin-rabbi.jpg

(Photo: אדם אליוא)

A mystic rabbi living in southern Israel is urging all Jews to pray and repent as the third Blood Moon of a tetrad cycle approaches.

Rabbi Amram Vaknin, who similarly predicted the events of the Gaza flotilla and the Carmel forest fire in 2010, and Operations Pillar of Defense (2012) and Protective Edge (2014), warns that Israel is facing great judgment and potential danger at this time.

One of Rabbi Vaknin’s students, Gil Nachman, spoke to Breaking Israel News and, quoting the sage, explained that the numeric value of the Hebrew word for blood, dam, which is 44, alludes to the 44th president of the United States.

WATCH: Rabbi Vaknin Calling for Jewish Repentance

Vaknin predicted that the 44th president would bring bloodshed (dam) to the Jewish people. It should be noted that the rabbi made this prediction before President Barack Obama’s election to office.

Vaknin believes that only 44 plus one, or 45, can counter the danger represented by the blood moons. This, he says, is Adam, or Man, which in this case refers to the Messiah.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/rabbi-vaknin.jpg

The mystical sage Rabbi Amram Vaknin with his student Gil Nachman, praying for the Messiah at the Western Wall, April 1, 2015. (Photo: Yehudis Schamroth)

Rabbi Vaknin called for a day of prayer at the Western Wall this past Wednesday to encourage the arrival of the Messiah and the redemption of the Jewish people and the world.

According to their Facebook page, “In these critical times, Am Israel must join together to pray to Hashem to send us Mashiach Ben David!!!”

The repeated number four is also noteworthy, as in addition to the value of 44 and the four Blood Moons of the tetrad, this will be the shortest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting a mere four minutes, 44 seconds.

Rabbi Vaknin is not alone amongst Jews in associating the current tetrad with Jewish redemption. With the first and third Blood Moons in this current tetrad cycle coinciding with Passover, and the second and fourth with the Feast of Tabernacles, the connections to times of redemption run deep.

The Talmud states, “In [the Hebrew month of] Nisan our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt, and in Nisan we will be redeemed.” Likewise, the Feast of the Tabernacles is associated in Jewish tradition with the battle of Gog and Magog, the final war that is said to precede the final redemption and arrival of the Messiah.

Moreover, this year in Israel is a Sabbatical, or shmitta, year, a time in which the land of Israel is commanded to be left fallow. Yahadoot.net notes a statement by the Sages in the Talmud which says, “In the sixth [year there will be] voices [of war], in the seventh [there will be] war, and at the end of the shmitta, the [Messiah] son of Jesse will arrive.” Although the Talmud never states in which seven-year cycle in history this will be fulfilled, the website suggested that thus far, our modern period fits the description.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/blood-moon-tetrad-2014-2015.jpg

The Blood Moon phenomenon has attracted much attention of late thanks to the efforts and solar discoveries by Root Source’s Bob O’Dell and Gidon Ariel.  Not everyone is an agreement as to what the Blood Moons signify. According to O’Dell, “All the prior blood moon tetrads point to a pattern of blessing on the Jewish people. They are good news for the Jews. They are a great indicator of God’s love and commitment to the Jewish people to preserve them, and a warning to those who stand in opposition to Israel.”

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/110-RootSource-BloodMoons101-600WIDE.jpg

A so-called “Blood Moon” is a total lunar eclipse, the nickname stemming from its stellar red color caused by the bending of the sun’s rays around the Earth.

When four occur in succession without a partial lunar eclipse between them, they are noted as a tetrad. These tetrads are fascinating on their own, but the current tetrad marks only the fourth time in five hundred years that all four Blood Moons of the tetrad fall on Jewish holidays.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/blood-moons.png

Describing the Blood Moons in Hebrew, courtesy of v871.com

The Hebrew-language website yahadoot.net delves into the Jewish perspective on this celestial phenomenon. The Talmud discusses the significance of astronomical events in human history, stating that a solar eclipse is a warning to the nations, while a lunar eclipse signifies danger for the Jewish people, who are likened to the moon.

The Sages go on to explain that this is because God sits in judgment at those times, and human actions and choices are being weighed. It is a time when our mistakes may come back to haunt us.

Rabbi Vaknin adds his voice to other religious leaders calling on their followers to pray for peace and security in Israel. Christian leaders Mark Biltz and Bob O’Dell have organized a prayer gathering for Christians worldwide to pray during the 4 minutes and 44 seconds of the total lunar eclipse late Friday night.

Credit to breakingisraelnews.com
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/35128/shocking-passover-blood-moon-predictions-by-israeli-rabbi-jewish-world/#5M8lUWgJdADE0tKL.99

JADE HELM OPERATIONS TIED TO “TRACKING” TECHNOLOGIES DESIGNED TO LOCATE FUGITIVES

Did you know that according to Daniel Freeman’s study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that paranoid thoughts are common among normally functioning people? In fact, the study concluded that some dose of paranoia is actually quite adaptive and can serve to keep us safe from danger. What is about to be presented in this article should make one paranoid for when one considers why governments in the West, particularly in the United States, spend billions of dollars to spy on our actions, words, Internet browsing habits, places visited and even our thoughts, we should all be looking under our beds as the NSA is compiling a threat matrix score for every American. Will you be “red-listed” and is this a part of Jade Helm 15?

U.S. Army Special Operations Command (ARSOF)

I have spent the better part of three days speaking with ex-military who have current connections inside of ARSOF and my sources are convinced that the leadership of ARSOF have no idea whether or not the drill could go live. Reportedly, the drill has the sophistication and the power to go live and begin to roundup Americans. Or, the drill could simply be carried out without altering the American landscape.

My sources were able to confirm that the drill is indeed about extractions of potential dissident leadership based upon a “list” given to ARSOF commanders. One very strong impression that I was left with is that the leadership of ARSOF is very uncomfortable with this drill because they DO NOT like the prospect of rounding up Americans on American soil. Further, the lack of communication coming to them from both the Pentagon and the DoD is unusual and concerning. Normally, a drill of this magnitude would carry operational rationale for at least the leadership and this rationale would represent the rules of engagement. In this “drill” there are no uniform rules of engagement. In some theaters, the application of deadly force will be applied and in other theaters, non lethal force is to be practiced.

The major concern conveyed to myself was the lack of specific, focused operational detail. It is as if the entire apparatus of the drill is to be activated prior to learning mission critical variables. In other words, the drill could be premised upon one set of guidelines and quickly be morphed into another more dire set of circumstances. These factors have given pause to some of the leadership’s conformity with this drill according to my sources. In fact, one of my sources said this fits the strictest definition of a “Snap” exercise which could go live. Therefore, if it is any comfort, there is discomfort among ARSOF’s leadership, at least in some circles. However, do not make the mistake of reading this as a victory for the citizens of this country. Soldiers carry out unpopular and disturbing orders every day. The moral of this story is that it appears to this author that ARSOF is not to be trusted with intimate operational details which will be revealed at a more opportune time at the behest of the forces behind the curtain.

Law Professor Alarmed by DHS Data Gathering Could Lead to One Being Put on the “Red List”

Professor Margaret Hu from the Washington and Lee University School of Law states that “The implementation of a universal digitalized biometric ID system risks normalizing and integrating mass cybersurveillance into the daily lives of ordinary citizens”. And when this system shows up in Jade Helm, we should all be worried.

Professor Hu explains that the FBI’s Next Generation Identification project will institute the following:

“A comprehensive, centralized, and technologically interoperable biometric database that spans across military and national security agencies, as well as all other state and federal government agencies. Once complete, NGI will strive to centralize whatever biometric data is available on all citizens and noncitizens in the United States and abroad, including information on fingerprints, DNA, iris scans, voice recognition, and facial recognition data captured through digitalized photos, such as U.S. passport photos and REAL ID driver’s licenses. The NGI Interstate Photo System, for instance, aims to aggregate digital photos from not only federal, state, and local law enforcement, but also digital photos from private businesses, social networking sites, government agencies, and foreign and international entities, as well as acquaintances, friends, and family members”. Biometric ID cybersurveillance might be used to assign risk assessment scores and to take action based on those scores“.

The healthy side of your paranoia is about to emerge as we consider the fact that Professor Hu describes a DHS program known as FAST, which is a DHS tested program and has been described as a “precrime” program. FAST will gather upon complex statistical algorithms that will compile data from multiple databases and will subsequently “predict” future criminal or terrorist acts.

The “precrime” data will be gathered” through cybersurveillance and stealth data monitoring of ordinary citizens. The FAST program purports to assess whether an individual might pose a “precrime” threat through the capture of a range of data, including biometric data. In other words, FAST accuses non-convicted individuals as being a security threat risk of becoming future criminals and terrorists through data analysis. No charges, no police interviews, the system is designed to become “judge, jury and executioner“.

Under the Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), criminal cues are captured through the following types of biometric data including body and eye movements, eye blink rate and pupil variation, body heat changes, and breathing patterns. Various linguistic cues include the analysis of voice pitch changes, alterations in voice rhythm patterns, and changes in intonations of speech. Hu notes that in documents released by DHS clearly show that individuals could be arrested and face serious consequences based upon statistical algorithms and predictive analytical assessments.

Professor Hu issued the following warning:

“The prognostications of FAST can range from none to being temporarily detained to deportation, prison, or death“. I am very nervous because this technology is a part of Jade Helm and their “extraction drills”.  

Unfortunately, the madness does not end with the FAST system. There is a new DHS funded multi-billion dollar spy tool and it is called FirstNet. This is a citizen information gathering device like no other. A company called New World Systems is in charge of implementing this system.

The Radio Access Network (RAN) part of this elaborate network consists of the radio base station infrastructure that connects to user devices including cell towers and mobile hotspots embedded in vehicles which connects to the satellite network or other types of wireless infrastructure. This is a “search and destroy system” as FirstNet is designed to hunt you down in remote areas. The extraction component of Jade Helm in rural Texas communities, is noteworthy when these two systems are considered with regard to the potential of these two systems to abuse American citizens.

Firstnet is going operationally live just prior to the Jade Helm announced kick off of July 15th.

For Immediate Release: March 31, 2015
Media Contact: Kyle Richardson (703) 648-4121 or (202) 510-8122
kyle.richardson@firstnet.gov

RESTON, VA – “The First Responder Network Authority (“FirstNet”) today announced that it is extending the comment period for its recently released Second Notice to ensure interested parties, including states and territories, have additional time to provide meaningful responses. Comments will now be accepted through April 28, 2015…

Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and other public safety entities need a dedicated nationwide wireless broadband network. They need a network that they can count on during emergencies and to meet their everyday missions”.

This is about the disguised takeover of the Internet and all cell phone communications under the possible false premise of an emergency. Does the recent implementation of Net neutrality by the FCC make a little more sense now? When we go into martial law, communications will be suspended so potential dissidents cannot warn one another and you have just learned how they plan to accomplish this communications blackout.

Firstnet boasts a map along with the embedded graphics from the FirstNet website. From this, it is easy to conclude that they have developed the technology to track you and find you should you be a fugitive from their own special brand of justice. RAN has the ability to track you anywhere on the planet. Soon, there will be nowhere for people with high threat matrix scores to run and hide without being found by this system. These two technologies are a part of Jade Helm 15.

Conclusion

As we move closer to July 15, more operational details will emerge. However, I have seen enough to know that Jade Helm 15 is very draconian and should serve as a threat to every American. The operation circumstances related to the roll out of Jade Helm frightens the hell out of me.

Credit to Common Sense

Iran’s missile program aims at you, not us

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that the political framework for a nuclear deal with Iran reached Thursday in Switzerland would keep Tehran’s vast nuclear program in place, and that its inter-continental ballistic missile system (ICBM) — an issue not addressed in the deal — was more of a threat to the US than to Israel.

Speaking to CNN as part of a US media blitz, the Israeli prime minister said the deal will not roll back Iran’s nuclear program. The deal “keeps Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure in place, not a single centrifuge destroyed, not a single nuclear facility shut down, including the underground facilities that they built illicitly. Thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, enriching uranium, that’s a very bad deal.”

“They’re getting a free path to the bomb,” he said.

Netanyahu also warned that Iran’s ICBM program, an issue that was not negotiated on as part of nuclear talks, was a real threat to the US.

“The ending of their ICBMs, that’s not in the deal, and those missiles are only used for you, they’re not used for us. They have missiles that can reach us and they’re geared for nuclear weapons,” he said.

In a similar interview with NBC, Netanyahu said: “They’re developing ICBMs to reach the United States. Don’t give them these weapons. Don’t give them nuclear ICBMS with which they can threaten you.”

The PM said he was in favor of a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis because “for any military option, the country that will pay the biggest price is always Israel, so we want a diplomatic solution but a good one, one that rolls back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and one that ties the final lifting of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program with a change of Iran’s behavior.”

“I’m not trying to kill any deal. I’m trying to kill a bad deal,” he told NBC. Countering the assertion by President Barack Obama that the deal was potentially historic in a positive sense, he added, “It could be a historically bad deal.”

“The alternatives are not either this bad deal or [going to] war,” Netanyahu told CNN, challenging Obama’s assertion Thursday that Netanyahu does not want a “peaceful” resolution to the Iran stand-off . “I think there’s a third alternative and that is standing firm, ratcheting up the pressure until we get a better deal. And a better deal would roll back Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure and require Iran to stop its aggression in the region, its terrorism worldwide and its calls and actions to annihilate the state of Israel. That’s better deal, it’s achievable.”

Such a deal was still attainable, he said. “What is required is the application of very strong sanctions that have proven effective, financial sanctions and the oil sanctions. There’s still time to get a better deal.”

He warned that the restrictions in the deal were time-limited, and that when it lapses, “after a few years, Iran will have unlimited capacity to build unlimited nuclear infrastructure.” And with sanctions lifted, it would also have untold millions more to pursue its nuclear weapons goal. That’s “very bad,” he said, calling the Iranian threat “a palpable danger to the peace of the world.”

“Iran’s nuclear program is being legitimized and they are given the ability not only to maintain their infrastructure but also within a few years, to increase it,” he said. “They can just walk into many bombs.”

Asked about dissenting Israeli assessments of the deal, Netanyahu noted that he had just been reelected, and that the Israelis who reelected him by a substantial margin knew his positions on Iran. “The overwhelming majority of Israelis support the position I just put forward, because they know their life is on the line.”

Netanyahu has come out strongly against the political framework since it was announced Thursday, charging that it threatens Israel’s very survival and paves the way for Iran to become and nuclear state.

“If a country vows to annihilate us and is working every day with conventional means and unconventional means, if that country has a deal that paves its way to nuclear weapons, many nuclear weapons, it endangers our survival,” he reiterated Sunday.

“It will also spark an arms race with the Sunni states because they understand exactly what I just said,” he warned.

Netanyahu also warned that Iran would find ways to evade the much-hyped new inspection procedures.

Dianne Feinstein (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Responding to some of Netanyahu’s complaints, Senator Dianne Feinstein said tetchily, “I think he’s said what he has to say” and “I wish that he would control himself… To be candid, I think this can backfire on him.”

Feinstein (D-CA) contended that Netanyahu “has put out no real alternative” to the US-led deal.

In a phone call with Netanyahu after the deal was reached Thursday, Obama said the accord “in no way diminishes our concerns with respect to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and threats towards Israel and emphasized that the United States remains steadfast in our commitment to the security of Israel.” The White House and State Department made similar statements.

“I trust the president is doing what he thinks is good for the United States. But I think we can have a legitimate difference of opinion on this… I think it’s not a question of personal trust. Of course we have a mutual, respectful relationship,” Netanyahu told CNN. “But as the prime minister of the one and only Jewish state, when I see a country, a terrorist regime committed to our destruction, and not only to our destruction, having the path, the clear path to the bomb, it’s my obligation to speak out.”

He and Obama “had a respectful hour-long conversation” after the deal was done, he noted, “as befits two allies.”

On Friday, Netanyahu demanded that any final deal contain Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist — a demand rejected by the US State Department.

Iran and six world powers announced a series of understandings Thursday, with a final agreement to be reached by June 30. A final deal is meant to cut significantly into Iran’s bomb-capable technology while giving Tehran quick access to assets and markets blocked by international sanctions.

Netanyahu has harshly criticized the negotiations, demanding instead that the Iranian program be dismantled. He claims Iran cannot be trusted, and that leaving certain facilities intact would allow the Iranians to eventually build a bomb.

Netanyahu said Friday after an emergency cabinet session that “Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period.”

However, he also acknowledged the possibility of a final agreement being reached, and said that such a deal must “include a clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.”

Netanyahu said his government “is united strongly opposing the proposed deal,” which he said would threaten Israel’s survival.

“Such a deal does not block Iran’s path to the bomb,” he said. “Such a deal paves Iran’s path to the bomb. And it might very well spark a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East and it would greatly increase the risks of terrible war.”

The commitments announced Thursday, if implemented, would substantially pare back some Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. According to a US document listing those commitments, Tehran is ready to reduce its number of centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads.

Of the nearly 20,000 centrifuges Iran now has installed or running at its main enrichment site, the country would be allowed to operate just over 5,000. Much of its enriched stockpiles would be neutralized. A planned reactor would be reconstructed so it can’t produce weapons-grade plutonium. Monitoring and inspections by the UN nuclear agency would be enhanced.

Credit to Times of Israel

Read more: Netanyahu on US TV: Iran's missile program aims at you, not us | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-deal-keeps-iran-nuke-infrastructure-in-place/#ixzz3WXFAafzd

Global Black Hole of Derivatives

How Many People Will Have To Migrate Out Of California When All The Water Disappears?

The drought in California is getting a lot worse.  As you read this, snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains are the lowest that have ever been recorded.  That means that there won’t be much water for California farmers and California cities once again this year.  To make up the difference in recent years, water has been pumped out of the ground like crazy.  

In fact, California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of groundwater a year since 2011, and wells all over the state are going dry.  Once the groundwater is all gone, what are people going to do?  100 years ago, the population of the state of California was 3 million, and during the 20th century we built lots of beautiful new cities in an area that was previously a desert.  Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century in 1000 years for that area of the country, but now weather patterns are reverting back to normal.  Today, the state of California is turning back into a desert but it now has a population of 38 million people.  This is not sustainable in the long-term.  So when the water runs out, where are they going to go?

I have written quite a few articles about the horrific drought in California, but conditions just continue to get even worse.  According to NPR, snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains are “just 6 percent of the long-term average”…

The water outlook in drought-racked California just got a lot worse: Snowpack levels across the entire Sierra Nevada are now the lowest in recorded history — just 6 percent of the long-term average. That shatters the previous low record on this date of 25 percent, set in 1977 and again last year.

California farmers rely on that water.  Last year, farmers had to let hundreds of thousands of acres lie fallow because of the scarcity of water, and it is being projected that this year will be even worse…

More than 400,000 acres of farmland were fallowed last year because of scarce water. Credible sources have estimated that figure could double this year.

Fortunately, many farmers have been able to rely on groundwater in recent years, but now wells are running dry all over the state.  Here is more from NPR…

Last year was already a tough year at La Jolla Farming in Delano, Calif. Or as farm manager Jerry Schlitz puts it, “Last year was damn near a disaster.”

La Jolla is a vineyard, a thousand-or-so acres of neat lines of grapevines in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. It depends on water from two sources: the federal Central Valley Project and wells.

Until last year, Schlitz says, wells were used to supplement the federal water.

“Now, we have nothing but wells. Nothing. There’s no water other than what’s coming out of the ground,” he says.

Last year, one of those wells at La Jolla dried up. The farm lost 160 acres — about a million dollars’ worth of produce, plus the wasted labor and other resources.

Are you starting to understand the scope of the problem?

Despite all of the wonderful technology that we have developed, we are still at the mercy of the weather.

And if this drought continues to drag on, it is absolutely going to cripple a state that contains more than 10 percent of the total U.S. population.

In an attempt to fight the water shortage, Governor Jerry Brown has instituted statewide water restrictions for the first time ever…

California announced sweeping statewide water restrictions for the first time in history Wednesday in order to combat the region’s devastating drought, the worst since records began.

Governor Jerry Brown issued the declaration at a press conference in a parched, brown slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains that would normally be covered by deep snow.

“Today, we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet (1.5 meters) of snow,” Brown said. “This historic drought demands unprecedented action.”

So what will these restrictions include?

The following is a summary from Natural News…

• A ban on non-drip irrigation systems for all new homes.

• A requirement for golf courses and cemeteries to “reduce water consumption.” (And yet, the very idea of green golf courses in the middle of a California desert is insane to begin with…)

• Force farmers to report more details on their water usage so that the state government can figure out where all the water is going (and where to restrict it even further).

• Outlawing the watering of grass on public street medians.

• Discussions are also under way to throw “water wasters” in jail for up to 30 days, according to another LA Times article. The most likely source of intel for incarcerating water wasters will be neighborhood snitches who monitor water usage of nearby homes and call the authorities if they see too much water being used.

If the drought does not go on for much longer, these restrictions may be enough.

But what if it continues to intensify?

The following graphic shows the U.S. Drought Monitor map for the state of California for each of the last five years in late March…

It doesn’t take a genius to see the trend.

And scientists tell us that this might just be the beginning.  There have been megadroughts in that area of the country that have lasted more than 100 years in the past, and there are fears that another megadrought may have begun.  The following comes from National Geographic…

California is experiencing its worst drought since record-keeping began in the mid 19th century, and scientists say this may be just the beginning. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadrought—one that could last for 200 years or more.

As a paleoclimatologist, Ingram takes the long view, examining tree rings and microorganisms in ocean sediment to identify temperatures and dry periods of the past millennium. Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California.

“During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself,” says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

If this is a megadrought, it is just a matter of time until massive migration will become necessary.

In fact, one UN official is already talking about it…

If the state continues on this path, there may have to be thoughts about moving people out, said Lynn Wilson, academic chair at Kaplan University and who serves on the climate change delegation in the United Nations.

“Civilizations in the past have had to migrate out of areas of drought,” Wilson said. “We may have to migrate people out of California.”

Wilson added that before that would happen, every option such as importing water to the state would likely occur— but “migration can’t be taken off the table.”

So how many people will ultimately have to leave if this drought continues for many years?

5 million?

10 million?

20 million?

And where will they go?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

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