Today I woke up to the sight of snowflakes gently falling to the ground outside my window. It should have been a happy moment, but rather than feel any sense of joy, I just pulled the blanket closer to my chin and started thinking about the long winter ahead. I used to live in California, Southern California to be exact, and didn't ever have to worry about changing seasons. It was always sunny in California, and the worst it ever got, at least for the thirteen years I lived there was somewhere in the high fifties.
Having moved to Wisconsin after my wedding, I realized I had to keep track of the seasons a bit closer than I did while living on the West Coast. Yesterday, it was a bit breezy, but there were no outward signs that it would snow today, yet here the snow was falling to the ground this morning. Seasons change suddenly and without warning. What we took for granted today, (for me it was the ability to walk outside in a t-shirt without freezing), we realize the importance of, and feel the loss of tomorrow.
For a long time this nation didn't have to worry about changing seasons. We were the only superpower in the world, the big boy, with the big stick that all the other kids were scared of, we had a booming economy, an excellent housing market, and the only way someone didn't work in America was if they didn't want a job. Well, even though it's highly doubtful that I need to point it out to anyone, the seasons they are a-changing.
An empire can rise or fall, and economic system can fail and collapse irreparably so, as quickly as the seasons seem to change here in Wisconsin. If we have placed our trust in anything other than the heavenly Father, if we believe our security is in the color of our passport, our bank account, or our retirement portfolios, we will be shaken and uprooted, tossed asunder and trampled underfoot as readily as the rest of the world.
For over twenty years our ministry and others of like mind have been warning about the things that are beginning to take shape in this country. Some mocked, some laughed, some rejected, but some received and drew closer to God, growing in grace and faith and in their ability to trust God even for the smallest of things.
Yes, the warnings have ended. I believe the warnings ended some years ago, since a warning is basically a message informing of danger, far enough in advance wherein the danger can be avoided if the necessary steps are taken. We have gone past the point of no return, merrily gorging ourselves on the delicacies of prosperity, never once stopping to think that God Himself said the earth and everything in it shall pass away. Every time judgment was mentioned, we always assumed it was for a future generation, our children's children, or their children, but alas we see that all those messages all those warnings were for us, today.
I take no pleasure in saying that things will get significantly worse very soon, and that which has been foretold is being fulfilled. I realize I'm rambling, but for good reason. The hour is late!
If anyone was waiting to see the signs, if anyone was skeptical and wanted to see further proof before they committed themselves to God, before they took the call to repentance seriously, well perhaps the time has come to choose. Tomorrow is an uncertain time, and today may be all you have to surrender your heart to the heavenly Father.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.
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6 comments:
A Scripture has come to mind of late, quite often, where God says let them who are holy remain holy, let them who are unclean remain unclean. This infers that there is a time coming when it will be impossible to change ones condition. When the door is shut, it is shut. When God shuts a door, no man or being can open it.
The door is still open for a season. Today is the day of salvation. Do not delay. Tomorrow may be too late.
Believers could turn in for this evening planning what they are going to do tomorrow, and wake up in Heaven. Whether by rapture or some manmade event; we are that close.
Hey Mike! Good word. Its amazing to think about times past when the church would recognize natural disasters and national calamity as a sure warning from Heaven. God calling us to repentance. There was a reverent fear stirred in the hearts and minds of Gods people that even spilled over onto the lost. Today, we not only write it off as some weather pattern but we fail to recognize the sound of the trumpet and also shrug off any sense of deeper devotion God may be calling us to. In Psalm 27:8 David replies as we all should.
"When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek ."
Jesus tells us, "In this world you WILL HAVE tribulation...." It is a certainty for those who are truly followers of Him. He did not want us to be surprised by it, or to fear it, but to expect it. He wants us ".....to be of good cheer, for HE HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD." He listed the warning signs and told us when we see them to look up, for our redemption is drawing near. He chose each one of us for these very times, placed us here for His work, knowing full well our fallen natures & weakness & sinfulness. We do not have to overcome the world, for He has already done it! We do not have to live in a spirit of fear, for He has given us access to His power, His love, and a sound mind! We have only to hold tight to His hand and follow His leading with unquestioning obedience. You were meant to be here, in this place, for this time. He will use you! He will sustain you! He will bring you finally into the true reality of His eternal kingdom! Out of the shadowlands that we call our reality and into the light and life of His presence! Forever! Look up, for your redemption is drawing near!
Michael,
You are right on the money. Choices have gotten us into this mess and choices will determine the future. Some choices to that end will be made apparent on Tuesday. But I'm making the same choice that Joshua made and I'll say it the same way he said it. And I plan to say it to everyone I meet, especially to my family and in the church.
I am storing up goods for the difficult times that may be ahead but first will be some of the same oil that the 5 frugal virgins had.
Blessings on you and yours.
--Jerald
I'm really scared right now you would think something like the economic hell were in is merely Babylon (USA) losing the yolk on the world AKA world reserve currency status. but now i wonder when exactly the 4 horsemen are to be released.. or if 2 or 3 by the looks of it have already been released into this hell we call Earth
Dear Michael, I believe the Lord has shown me to begin to prepare to stock up on food and water this was a week ago, I don't have a lot of extra money so I am getting a few things each time I go to the store, I don't know I thought I was getting 6months to do this, I was talking to a brother in the Lord and he is for the first time also has an urgency to begin to do this along with some of his bros in the Lord, I am just wondering if you may be getting the same thing? I am not doing this out of fear, I believe I was shown this 5 yrs ago, but never did anything until now the urgency is very strong in my spirit, only God knows what is to come, and I sense it is not a good thing coming, possibly martial law. These articles I found and some sent to me after I had gotten this urgency, it seems to me like a confirmation.
Constitution Party 2008 Presidential Candidate
According to the Army Times (dated Tuesday, September 30, 2008), "Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT [Brigade Combat Team] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."
The article continued by saying, "But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
"After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."
The Times column also reported that the Army brigade "may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control . . ." It seems that the Army’s new domestic duties also include "traffic control" as well as subduing "unruly or dangerous individuals."
The brigade will be known for the next year as a Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf").
I am assuming that the planners and promoters of this newfound function for the Army brigade envision the Army assisting local first responders in dealing with natural emergencies such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and the like. Good intentions notwithstanding, to assign domestic police duties to the U.S. military is extremely disturbing.
To understand my concern for this new "homeland Army brigade," it is important that we rehearse the principles of liberty as they relate to standing armies.
One of America’s most sacred principles has always been that the U.S. military was never to be used for domestic law enforcement. The fear of standing armies ran very deep in the hearts and minds of America’s founders. The tyranny and misery inflicted upon the colonies by British troops weighed heavily upon those who drafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights. In their minds, the American people would never again be subjected to the heavy weight of army boots. Furthermore, they insisted that America would have a civilian--not military--government.
And after the fiasco of the abuse of federal troops in the South following the War Between the States, the doctrine of Posse Comitatus was enacted into law. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia says this about Posse Comitatus:
"The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services ... from exercising nominally state law enforcement police or peace officer powers that maintain ’law and order’ on non-federal property. . . .
"The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. . . .
"The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement."
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878 and was universally accepted as being a very just--and extremely important--law of the land.
But in 2006, President George W. Bush pushed a Republican-controlled Congress to pass the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which included a section titled "Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies." This section provided that "The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines...." In effect, this bill obliterated Posse Comitatus.
When the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, however, the restrictions of Posse Comitatus were restored. But when President Bush signed the Act into law, he attached a signing statement (Executive Order) indicating that the Executive Branch did not feel bound by the changes enacted by the repeal. Translated: President Bush wiped out Posse Comitatus by Executive Order.
Now, just a few months after expunging Posse Comitatus, President Bush has authorized an Army brigade to be assigned the new role of dealing exclusively with domestic law enforcement and related duties. This evokes serious questions.
Who will give the order to send U.S. troops against American civilians, and under what circumstances? What will the rules of engagement be? How will "unruly" and "dangerous" be defined? How will soldiers be asked to deal with "crowd" or "traffic" control? And perhaps the biggest question is, Once we begin to go down this road, where will it lead?
For several years, the federal government has been accumulating to itself more and more authority that was historically understood to reside within the states and local communities. More and more, our police departments have taken on the image and tactics of the armed forces. And to a greater and greater degree, the rights and liberties of the American people are being sacrificed on the altar of "national security." It seems to me that to now ascribe law enforcement duties to the U.S. Army only serves to augment the argument that America is fast approaching police state status.
If Hurricane Katrina is the template that our federal government is using as a model for future events, Heaven help us! Do readers remember how National Guard troops were used to confiscate the personal firearms of isolated and vulnerable civilians shortly after that hurricane devastated the New Orleans area? Do you remember how representatives of the federal government were calling upon pastors and ministers to act as spokesmen for gun confiscation? Is this what the new Army brigade is preparing for? And do President Bush and his military planners envision an even broader role for military troops on American soil?
Add to the above rumors of thousands of plastic caskets--along with thousands of portable prison cells--being shipped and stored across the country, and one is left to ask, Exactly what is it that our federal government is planning?
I think there is an even bigger question, What exactly will members of our armed forces do if and when they are commanded to seize Americans’ firearms, arrest them at gun point, or even fire upon them? How many soldiers and Marines love liberty and constitutional government enough to resist such orders, should they be given? And how many officers would resist issuing such orders?
Remember, it is the job of the armed forces to kill people and blow up things, not to do police work. Then again, Presidential administrations from both major parties have been using the U.S. military as U.N. "peacekeepers" for decades now. So, was all of this preparation for what is yet to take place in the United States?
God forbid that any of the above should actually take place in our beloved land, but I believe it would be naive to not see that the actions and attitudes of the federal government over the past several years do nothing to assuage such fears.
News ArchivesHard times have some flirting with survivalism
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27244465/
Atash Hagmahani is not waiting for the stock market to recover. The former high-tech professional turned urban survivalist has already moved his money into safer investments: Rice and beans, for starters.
“I hoard food,” says Hagmahani, 44, estimating that he has enough to last his family a year or two. “I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
“People keep asking when this (economic crisis) is going to clear up,” says Hagmahani, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he be identified only by this pseudonym, which he uses for his survivalist blog, or by his first name, Rob.
The answer, he predicts, is that the country is entering what he calls a “Greater Depression.” “Maybe they jolly well better get used to the change in lifestyle.”
Hagmahani is not alone in concluding that desperate times call for serious preparations.
With foreclosure rates running rampant, financial institutions teetering and falling, prices for many goods and services climbing, and jobs being slashed, many Americans are making preparations for worse times ahead. For some, that means cutting spending and saving more. For others, it means taking a step into survivalism, once regarded solely as the province of religious End-of-Timers, sci-fi fans and extremists.
That often manifests itself as a desire to secure basic emergency resources — what survival guru Jim Wesley Rawles describes as “beans, bullets and Band-Aids.”
Rawles, speaking by phone from an “undisclosed location” somewhere between the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains, said he has seen traffic on his Web site, SurvivalBlog.com, explode in the last year.
Getting ready for ‘TEOTWAWKI’
“There are a lot more people — a lot more eager people — who are trying to get themselves squared away logistically,” said Rawles, who lectures and writes books on preparing for and surviving “TEOTWAWKI” — The End Of The World As We Know It.
Rawles, a self-described Christian conservative, said most of his readers had similar backgrounds when he started his blog in 2005. But he said that as the financial crisis has unfolded — particularly when oil prices began to soar — he started hearing from a much broader segment of the population.
“Now it’s the entire political spectrum — far right, far left and everything in between,” said Rawles. “I’m getting over 200 e-mails from readers a day. Now it is quite apparent how many more liberals are writing. Same concerns, different outlook. Greens, for instance, put less emphasis on self-defense and guns.”
Buoyed by an industry that flourishes when others languish, his site also is attracting record advertising revenue. The offerings include “secure, off-grid” mountain retreats, firearms training, home schooling aids, gold, freeze-dried food and water filtration systems.
Long-lasting food in demand
Others more directly embedded in the survival industry say they, too, are seeing the biggest surge of orders since the run-up to Y2K, when angst surged over whether computers would survive the dawn of a new millennium.
“I’m getting slammed with big orders,” said Kurt Wilson, a distributor of freeze-dried foods and other provisions with decades-long shelf life, like canned meat, cheese and butter.
“I have customers who were spending 200 bucks a month now spending $5,000 to $8,000,” Wilson said from his warehouse in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “I get little old ladies calling up, stocking up for their grandchildren.”
Wilson, who also has an online radio show called the Armchair Survivalist, said one of his new clients is a New York interior designer who specializes in outfitting cramped Manhattan apartments with hidden food storage units that double as tasteful furnishings.
Richard Mankemyer, general manager of the Survival Center, in McKenna, Wash. said he too is swamped.
“There are a lot more people interested in being prepared, stocking up and being on their own for extended periods of time, as we’ve been advising,” he said. Among them are businesses, he said, including a major Northwest corporation that recently spent “tens of thousands of dollars” to stock up on shelf-stable foods for its executives. He would not identify the company, but he said he urged the officials to stock up for its other employees as well.
Not just for the ‘Planet X’ crowd
Also reporting an uptick in business is Utah Shelter Systems, which makes underground dwellings designed for surviving the aftermath of a biological or nuclear attack.
“I think the economy certainly is part of it,” Sharon Packer, part owner of the Salt Lake City company, said of the surge in orders this year. “Anytime we become vulnerable, our risk of a terrorist attacks increases.”
She emphasizes that most people who purchase the shelters, which run between $40,000 and $50,000, are wealthy professionals interested in hedging their bets.
“Every once in awhile I have people who are concerned about Planet X or little green men, but they are usually not our clients,” she says.
A less surprising indication of the public nervousness about the recent financial turmoil can be found in gold brokerages and coin shops around the country. Many say that demand for gold and silver has been off the charts in recent months — a clear measure of concerns about the U.S. dollar and the soundness of the economy as a whole.
“We’re seeing absolutely unprecedented demand,” said Peter Grant, gold broker and analyst at USA Gold in Denver. “We’re seeing the full gamut … from high net worth (clients) to people looking at just a couple of ounces at a time.”
Preparing for a ‘major paradigm shift’
Seattle survivalist Hagmahani sees such commodity hoarding as just a partial measure for weathering a financial crisis.
On his blog, mutuallyassuredsurvival.com, he advises people to prepare for a “major paradigm shift” that will, in a decade, leave the U.S. with a Third World economy.
The $700 billion government financial bailout, in his view, only ensures a crisis that cannot be avoided after unbridled lending and spending.
“One of the most frightening possibilities is the banking system freezing up,” he said. “... Our remittance system is almost entirely through the banking system. … Without ATMs, you can’t get groceries, you can’t get paid… Is that a possibility? Yes.”
So Hagmahani, whose pen name is derived from the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, is focused on procuring and stashing away enough food to last his family — himself, his wife and three kids — up to two years.
He said he began his preparations after witnessing the burst of the high-tech bubble in 2001, paying off the family’s debt, moving his assets away from stocks into safer investments, including, he implies, some precious metals and offshore accounts.
In the last three or four years, he has led his clan away from what he calls their former “yuppyish lifestyle.” They no longer eat out, cook most meals from scratch, and rarely drive their one car. They also are all learning practical skills — such as sewing, nursing and wielding a gun for self-defense.
“One thing I’m adamant about is that each of the kids needs real skills; they can’t just be a pencil pusher,” says Hagmahani of 19-year-old Hans, Sofia, 14, and Erik, 12. “You might get lucky and get a cushy job, but you might not. You need high-tech skills and low-tech skills for dealing with a systemic breakdown.”
Looking for farmland in South America
In addition to shifting some of his high-tech windfall into safe havens, Hagmahani is looking into buying farmland in South America — a last-ditch destination should the economic crisis become a catastrophe.
At the same time, he wants to be a model for others who want to be prepared. And he has his fans, relatively mainstream Americans who are worried by what they see and hear on the evening news.
“I didn’t want to be the crazy aunt in the attic,” said Susan Oakes, a fan of Hagmahani’s Internet site. She started worrying about the state of the economy a few years ago. “I started reading more and trying to find people who were credible, and not the tinfoil hat group…. trying to figure out what I could do,” she said.
To save money, she combined households with her two daughters’ families in eastern Washington state. She cashed out of some of her savings and bought gold, and then started to garden on their half-acre plot. She has stockpiled staples and learned to can her fruits and vegetables. She now has enough, she believes, to last her family for six months and to have some left for charity, which she expects to be in high demand.
But Oakes said she finds no comfort in being well-prepared for what she fears is coming.
“We’re in deep doo-doo,” she said. “I honestly believe the government thinks we’re idiots. … I get that they can’t come out and say ‘the sky is falling’ but it is.”
sit993 Fax: 717-299-5115>
> © 2008 WorldNetDaily
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> A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to "start stockpiling food" and an ABC News Report says "there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies." Now there's concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food.
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> "We're told that the feds bought the entire container of canned butter when it hit the California docks. (Something's up!)," said officials at Best Prices Storable Foods in an advisory to customers.
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> Spokesman Bruce Hopkins told WND he also has had trouble obtaining No. 10 cans of various products from one of the world's larger suppliers of food stores, Oregon Freeze Dry.
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> (Story continues below)
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> He said a company official told him on the telephone when he discussed the status of his order that it was because the government had purchased massive quantities of products, leaving none for other customers.
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> That, however, was denied by Oregon Freeze Dry. In a website statement, the company confirmed it cannot assure supplying some items to customers.
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> "We regret to inform you Oregon Freeze Dry cannot satisfy all Mountain House #10 can orders and we have removed #10 cans from our website temporarily," the company tells frustrated customers. "The reason for this is sales of #10 cans have continued to increase. OFD is allocating as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well."
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> The company statement continues, "We want to clarify inaccurate information we’ve seen on the Internet. This situation is not due to sales to the government domestically or in Iraq. We do sell products to this market, but we also sell other market segments … The reason for this decision is solely due to an unprecedented sales spike in #10 cans sales.
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> "We expect this situation to be necessary for several months although this isn’t a guarantee. We will update this information as soon as we know more. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We sincerely hope you will continue to be Mountain House customers in the future," the company statement said.
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> But Hopkins wasn't backing away from his concerns.
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> "The government just came in and said they're buying it. They did pay for it," he told WND about the summertime shipment of long-term storage butter. "They took it and no one else could have it.
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> "We don't know why. The feds then went to freeze dried companies, and bought most of their canned stock," he said.
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> A spokeswoman for Oregon Freeze Dry, sales manager Melanie Cornutt, told WND that the increasing demand for food that can be stored has been on the rise since Hurricane Katrina devastated large sections of the Gulf Coast, cutting off ordinary supply routes.
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> "We are currently out of stock on our cans. We are not selling any of our cans," she confirmed.
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> She then raised the issue of government purchases herself.
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> "We do sell to the government [but] it is not the reason [for company sales limits]," she said.
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> Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told WND whatever government agency is buying in a surge it isn't them. They reported a stockpile of about six million meals which has not changed significantly in an extended period.
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> But Hopkins said it was his opinion the government is purchasing huge quantities of food for stockpiles, and Americans will have to surmise why.
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> "We don't have shelters that [are being] stocked with food. We're not doing this for the public. My only conclusion is that they're stocking up for themselves," he said of government officials.
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> Blogger Holly Deyo issued an alert this week announcing, "Unprecedented demand cleans out major storable food supplier through 2009."
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> "It came to our attention today, that the world's largest producer of storable foods, Mountain House, is currently out of stock of ALL #10 cans of freeze dried foods, not just the Turkey Tetrazzini. They will NOT have product now through 2009," she said.
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> "This information was learned by a Mountain House dealer who shared it with me this morning. In personally talking with the company immediately after, Mountain House verified the information is true. Customer service stated, 'I'm surprised they don't have this posted on the website yet.' She said they have such a backlog of orders, Mountain House will not be taking any #10 can food requests through the remainder of this year and all of the next.
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> "Mountain House claims this situation is due to a backlog of orders, which may very well be true, but who is purchasing all of their food? This is a massive global corporation.
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> "One idea: the military. Tensions are ramping up with Iran and news segments debate whether or not we will implement a preemptive strike in conjunction with Israel," she wrote.
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> Hopkins raised some of the same concerns, suggesting a military conflict could cause oil supplies to plummet, triggering a huge increase in the cost of food – when it would be available – because of the transportation issues.
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> The ABC report from just a few weeks ago quoted Jim Rawles, a former U.S. intelligence officer who runs a survival blog, saying food shortages soon could become a matter of survival in the U.S.
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> "I think that families should be prepared for times of crisis, whether it's a man-made disaster or a natural disaster, and I think it's wise and prudent to stock up on food," he told ABC.
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> "If you get into a situation where fuel supplies are disrupted or even if the power grid were to go down for short periods of time, people can work around that," he said. "But you can't work around a lack of food – people starve, people panic and you end up with chaos in the streets."
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> At his California ranch, the location of which is kept secret, he said, "We have more than a three-year supply of food here."
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> In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Brett Arends warned, "Maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
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> "No, this is not a drill," he wrote.
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> His concern was about various food shortages around the globe, and the fact that in a global market, prices in the U.S. reflect difficulties in other parts of the world quickly.
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> Professor Lawrence F. Roberge, a biologist who has worked with a number of universities and has taught online courses, told WND he's been following the growing concern over food supplies.
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> He also confirmed to WND reports of the government purchasing vast quantities of long-term storable foods.
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> He said that naturally would be kept secret to avoid panicking the public, such as when word leaks out to customers that a bank may be insolvent, and depositors frantically try to retrieve their cash.
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> "[These] circumstances certainly raise red flags," he said.
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