In the summer of 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Mike Dukakis held a lead over George H.W. Bush, but that advantage evaporated quickly. A photo opportunity where Dukakis posed in a military tank, complete with an awkwardly fitting helmet, backfired spectacularly when Republicans turned it into a devastating ad campaign. The imagery portrayed him as an out-of-touch intellectual pretending to be tough, ultimately costing him the election—and many agreed it was a fair assessment for someone unfit for the presidency.
A similar awkward moment unfolded on July 24, 2025, when President Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell toured the Fed’s under-construction headquarters—a lavish $2.5 billion project dubbed a “Taj Mahal.” Both men wore hard hats, but while Trump, a seasoned real estate developer, appeared at ease and dominant in stature, Powell seemed uncomfortable and out of place, like an economist thrust into an alien environment. Trump highlighted the project’s notorious cost overruns during the visit, though Powell corrected him on the exact figure, noting it wasn’t quite as inflated as claimed—yet still excessively high.
Trump’s primary motivation for wanting Powell removed stems from the Fed chair’s reluctance to cut interest rates and stimulate economic growth. However, the construction-site episode, orchestrated by Trump to underscore Powell’s unease, served as a fitting symbol—much like Dukakis’ tank mishap—suggesting broader reasons why Powell might need to step down sooner rather than later. While the event could be dismissed as typical Trump theatrics, where he excels at commanding attention and Powell struggles even with core responsibilities like rate-setting, it highlights deeper issues.
The Importance of Fed Autonomy
It’s not a position taken lightly: Calls to oust Powell risk undermining the Federal Reserve’s independence, a cornerstone principle enshrined in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. This autonomy ensures the central bank isn’t swayed by political pressures, such as presidential demands for rate cuts to boost the economy artificially. Without it, investors might view U.S. debt as vulnerable to inflation, leading to a refusal to buy bonds and triggering a financial catastrophe far worse than the 2008 crisis. Global confidence in U.S. debt underpins the nation’s standard of living.
Moreover, prematurely slashing interest rates could be ill-advised, especially amid potential inflation from Trump’s proposed tariffs. Yet, justifying Powell’s tenure based on preserving independence is challenging given his track record. Appointed by Trump in 2017 during his first term, Powell clashed with the president over demands for lower rates amid a booming economy fueled by tax cuts. Initially resistant—correctly, as the economy was overheating—Powell eventually yielded and implemented significant rate reductions.
This capitulation forms the first major critique: Powell demonstrated a lack of true independence. Those pre-COVID cuts depleted the Fed’s toolkit, leaving fewer options for injecting liquidity during the pandemic lockdowns.
Persistent Money Printing and Inflation Mismanagement
The second key issue arose during the COVID-19 crisis, when Powell deployed every available measure to flood the economy with money, essentially printing it prolifically. Even after restrictions lifted and the pandemic subsided, he continued this aggressive approach, maintaining near-zero interest rates well into the Biden administration. (Powell was reappointed by President Biden to a term ending in 2026.)
This persisted as Biden’s policies racked up trillions in spending, ballooning national debt and priming the pump for inflation. Powell, in coordination with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, downplayed the risks, labeling the emerging inflation as “transitory.”
Far from temporary, inflation surged to 9.1%, marking one of the gravest errors in Fed history. Only then did Powell hike rates aggressively. Combating inflation is central to the Fed’s mandate, and its unchecked rise acts as a regressive tax, disproportionately burdening working-class families unable to hedge through investments.
Admittedly, endorsing Trump’s desire to replace Powell aligns with the president’s goals but for different rationales. Tariffs might drive up prices, and premature rate cuts could exacerbate inflation further. Removing Powell before his term concludes could spark a major constitutional showdown. Nonetheless, Powell’s pattern of policy missteps—from yielding to political pressure to mishandling inflation—and even his awkward presence at the headquarters tour make a compelling case for change. His departure, sooner rather than later, could benefit the institution.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
