This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at The Birch Gold Group.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, the executive vice president of UPS asserted that “regionalization” of the supply chain is critical to economic stability in a world where geopolitical conflicts continue expanding.

The word “regionalization” is basically another way to describe decentralization, a concept that the UPS representative obviously did not want to dive into. Almost every trade expert and industry insider admits that supply chain problems are going to persist into the foreseeable future, and some are starting to also admit (in a roundabout way) that localized production and trade models are the keys to economic survival.

Think globally, source locally

Localized production and trade are two challenges I and many other alternative economists have been talking about for a decade or more. The globalist dynamic of interdependency is a disaster waiting to happen, and now it’s happening.

Without decentralized mining of raw materials, local manufacturing, locally sourced goods, local food production and locally integrated trade networks there can be no true stability. All it takes for the system to implode is one or two crisis events, and the economy’s ability to meet public demand stagnates. The system doesn’t completely stop, but it does slowly shrivel and degrade.

We’ve seen examples of this recently…

Who can forget the saga of the Ever Given which halted traffic through the world’s most vital chokepoint for six days?

More recently, the war in Ukraine has been the scapegoat for supply chain disruptions, but these issues started long before that. Years of central bank stimulus and fiat money creation have triggered the inevitable landslide of inflation/stagflation that alternative economists have been warning about. Price inflation is a direct contributor to production declines and supply chain disruptions because costs continually rise for manufacturers. Also, the wages of workers cannot keep up with rising prices, inspiring many employees to quit and look for work elsewhere. All of this leads to less supply, or slower production, and thus, even higher prices.

We were right, the mainstream media was wrong. Or they lied.

Malice or incompetence?

When he finally admitted that he was wrong on inflation, Paul Krugman claimed that “no one saw this coming.”

Sound familiar?

This is the same thing mainstream economists said after the credit crash of 2008. It was a lie back then and it’s a lie now.

Plenty of people saw it coming; we’ve been repeating our warnings for years, but they didn’t want to listen or they did not want us to be heard.

Krugman is perhaps the worst and most arrogant liberal economist mouthpiece in the US. Though he belatedly acknowledged the inflation and supply chain threat after arguing for the past two years that it was “transitory,” he now claims that the traditionally accepted indicators of recession “don’t matter” anymore and that there is no downturn.

How many times can this guy be proven ignorant and still keep his job?

It’s this kind of disinformation that keeps the public in the dark about what is likely to happen. Maybe it’s because of stupidity and ego, or maybe it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the population docile (I say it is deliberate). In either case, the American people are being put in great danger when it comes to the false narrative on inflation and the supply chain. The longer they are led to believe the disaster will simply go away on its own, the less time they have to prepare.

Prepare how, though? I’ve covered that extensively here. It’s up to you to ensure the security and well-being of yourself and your family. Eliminate dependencies where you can, and source locally where you can’t. Making sure your financial security isn’t completely dependent on the whims of the Federal Reserve is a good consideration, as well. Since the days of the Roman Empire, high-value, easily-portable physical precious metals which are also untraceable, uninflatable, and don’t rely on a first-world infrastructure to retain their value, have been seen as the ultimate safe havens. I doubt that will ever change.

The bottom line is this: Things are only going to get worse from here on. Maybe slowly, or maybe quickly depending on a handful of factors.

Here’s what to watch

Most of the world right now is focused on Taiwan and China’s persistent threats to invade. Nancy Pelosi’s widely publicized plan to visit the island nation (yes, CCP, it is a nation) is a bizarre act of non-discretion that is clearly meant to instigate wider tensions between the US and China. Why would Pelosi do this now? Well, she’s not doing it on her own and it’s certainly not the dementia-addled Joe Biden’s idea. There are clearly other hands and other interests involved.

The supply chain crisis is going to accelerate into winter as stagflation persists. Price inflation will remain high. The US is indeed officially in a recession today. Two consecutive negative GDP prints is a recession. This is a fact that no one can change, including Joe Biden, Paul Krugman, or Wikipedia. Reality does not answer to these people.

The system is breaking, and certain people greatly benefit.

A regional conflict with China could be the perfect smokescreen for a financial and supply chain collapse that was going to happen anyway.

But when the mainstream media talks about the triggers and culprits, they’ll never mention central banks and political corruption, they will only talk about Russia and China.

As I have noted in the past, the “Great Reset” agenda of the World Economic Forum, International Monetary Fund, the Bank of International Settlements, and other globalist organizations requires an extensive destabilization of the existing order.

In other words, they need a controlled demolition of certain pillars of the economy. To frighten the public into accepting new collectivist and authoritarian models like the “Shared Economy” (where you will own nothing and like it), they will need a large and semi-chaotic disaster. People would have to be threatened with the loss of certainty, unsure each day whether they’d be able to get necessities like food and fuel when they need them.

This level of uncertainty drives calls for solutions, and the globalists will be there to offer their pre-planned objectives and “save the day.”

Beware of globalists offering to help

Generally, inflation and shortages lead to price controls, government rationing, government “aid” with strings attached (Universal Basic Income), and eventually nationalization of all production as well as the attempted confiscation of supplies from prudent people who prepared ahead of time.

Redistribution will be the name of the game. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but inevitably.

The limited corporate calls for “regionalization” or “slowbalism” are too little too late, just as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are too little too late. They all know it, and they don’t care. These actions are only designed to make it appear as if they tried to stave off the crisis and provide plausible deniability of their involvement in the crisis.

Stagflation and supply chain shortages are going to become the all-encompassing issues of our era.

They will be terms that are spoken about daily at every dinner table in America and probably throughout most of the world. These are dangers that were predicted extensively by the liberty media well ahead of time. They are NOT a surprise. And, there are plenty of institutions, corporate and government, that could have done something about them, but they chose not to.

It’s important for people to accept the fact that this is not a product of stupidity; it is a product of malicious motive. You have been warned – it’s not too late to prepare, but it’s later than you think.