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In northern Ethiopia, more than 350,000 are living in a food “catastrophe,” according to a UN-backed analysis that defines a food “catastrophe” as “starvation and death affecting small groups of people spread over large areas” (BBC, June 10, 2021). Since November 2020, 1.7 million people in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have been displaced by civil war.

In the year 2000, “the Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call a megadrought—the second worst in 1,200 years” (CBS News, April 12, 2021). Today, 60 percent of western states in the United States are in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought—conditions that extend even into the Pacific Northwest. “Lake Powell [which provides water to California, Nevada, and Arizona] is within just a few feet of its lowest level ever observed since it was first filled....

You don’t have to have a degree in economics to recognize inflation. Just go to the grocery store, retail store, gas station, or shop online, and you discover higher prices.

Russia and other nations around the globe are working to disconnect themselves from the dollar. The U.S. dollar, or “greenback,” has been a powerful element of American hegemony for more than a century. When nations trade goods in U.S. dollars, it keeps the currency strong and provides greater American influence in the affairs of those nations. It also helps keep the standard of living very high in the United States.

France and Germany have functioned as the leading nations of the European Union for more than a decade. Both nations contribute significant financial resources to the EU. But a recent article in German Foreign Policy observed, “Merkel’s last Franco-German Ministerial Council meeting feigns harmonious relations. Yet Merkel had successively increased Berlin’s predominance over Paris.” In recent years, the gulf between the two nations has widened.