Health Ranger reveals brush with poverty, financial survival and urgent warning for humanity's future

Saturday, July 19, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Tags: Health Ranger, poverty, financial survival

---

(NaturalNews) Believe it or not, I know what it's like to live in poverty. I've been there myself, and in this article I'm going to share an intimate part of my history that most Natural News may find unexpected.

I'm sharing it because as the reach of Natural News has rapidly expanded across the globe, more and more people know what I stand for but they don't necessarily know WHY.

Here's the why.

I grew up in a middle class family in the Midwest and was gifted with tremendous cognitive abilities that were strongly encouraged by my parents through early reading programs. In school, I always performed at the top of my class, usually without any real effort. When the day came to take my college entrance exams, I was one of a small number of people in the nation who aced three out of four sections, earning a perfect score on mathematics, science and writing and getting the attention of many top universities around the country.

In my senior year of high school I was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to become an electrical engineer, and I had completed college credit courses in microbiology and genetics. With extremely high aptitude in both mathematics and the sciences, career counselors insisted I go to an engineering school to study electrical engineering.

This path was not to be, however, because my family did not have the funds to pay the private school costs of an expensive, out-of-state learning institution like MIT. We were middle class, remember, and definitely not sitting on the kind of funds needed to cover an expensive high-end university.

So I went to college at a state-run university which offered me enough scholarship money to make a college degree affordable. But it wasn't free, so I worked jobs during college to pay for housing and food. My parents also helped out as much as they could, helping me cover costs while I pursued an education. One of my jobs during college, by the way, was working as a computer salesperson for a custom PC manufacturer, where I learned to build PC computers and install them at customer sites. (One of my customers at the time was a local VA hospital, where I caught my first glimpse of veterans being given shockingly bad medical care, even decades ago.)

I got my degree, but graduated with enormous personal debt

Instead of pursuing a technical route, I found myself enjoying writing so much that I studied English composition, creative writing and numerous technical subjects including mathematics, economics, anthropology and communications. I ultimately graduated with a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in technical writing. My specialty was writing English documentation for technical concepts, especially those related to computer hardware and software technology.

Upon graduating, I took the GMAT with the intention to explore graduate school. My high score got me invitations from schools like Stanford, but I knew I couldn't afford to stay in school any longer because, like many of today's graduates, I had funded a large portion of my living expenses with credit cards.

Fresh out of college, I was sitting on a mountain of personal debt and no way to pay it off. The U.S. economy was in a deep recession at the time, and jobs were very difficult to come by. So, in a leap of faith that would forever alter my life plan, I decided to move to Taiwan.

I realize this sounds odd, but I had recently married an extraordinary woman who was born in Taiwan, so it wasn't as outlandish as it might first seem. Plus, I relished the idea of learning to speak Chinese, exploring a new culture and possibly finding work in the emerging Taiwan-based technical industry.

Our brush with poverty

My wife and I gathered what little funds we still had available, packed our lives into two suitcases and moved to Taiwan. There, we rented a small, affordable apartment and hoped our money would last long enough to find work.

That's where we ran ourselves head-first into poverty. Taiwan companies, we soon learned, didn't hire married women because they are terrified of women having children and demanding paid time off. And I couldn't be legally hired by anyone until I had achieved legal residency in Taiwan, a process that requires several months of waiting for paperwork to get processed by the Taiwan government.

Over and over again, we were both denied employment, and we watched our savings dwindle away at an alarming pace. To conserve money, we lived in a true "bare bones" manner, and when I say bare bones I mean it: We had only a mattress on the floor, no furniture and not even blankets. I remember using my one good coat as my only blanket, wishing that one day I could earn enough money to buy blankets and have a dining room table. (Yes, we ate dinner sitting on the floor using styrofoam plates, and "dinner" usually consisted of steamed rice and boiled eggs, the two food staples we could still afford.)

As our money ran out, we found ourselves put to the test in a true "sink or swim" scenario. Either we were going to find work, or we would soon be homeless. The rent we had paid upon our arrival was scheduled to run out in just a few weeks, and without an income we had absolutely no way to cover rent.

A moment of awakening and self-empowerment

This is when something drastically shifted in my mind and unleashed a profound change in direction that set me on a whole new course for the future. It was at this moment that I found the courage to seize my own future and start making my own fortunes instead of asking someone else to give me one. This is when my full entrepreneurial spirit kicked in -- a pattern that continues to serve me to this day as editor of NaturalNews.com.

Realizing we were almost out of funds, I began searching for innovative ways to use my talents to earn money on my own while the government sat on the residency paperwork. I learned that a computer expo was about to be held at the Taipei expo center called "Computex." Being an American, I knew I could easily gain entry onto the show floor by signing up as a buyer and visiting various booths held by Taiwan manufacturers.

On opening day, I walked onto the show room floor with a smile on my face, because I knew I was now in the epicenter of a land of enormous economic opportunity that would allow me to earn enough money to buy food, blankets and clothing... and would even give me the dollars to pay off all my student loans. The plan had come to me in a flash, much like many of the ideas I continue to receive today (I recently filed two patents, for example, on breakthrough nutritional supplements that capture radioactive isotopes and toxic heavy metals).

Here's exactly what I did at the Taipei expo center back in the 1990's:

I walked around the show, visiting hundreds of booths and picking up brochures and other literature from each booth. These brochures were almost all written in broken English, authored by local Taiwan computer experts who had no access to professional English writers or translators. So these companies all had amazing technology and hardware, but they were distributing literature riddled with glaring text errors.

Over the next week, I became Taiwan's "English professor," using a red pen to correct all the English grammar and spelling mistakes on all the literature for hundreds of technology companies. With my wife's help, we then printed a cover letter describing my technical writing services and placed each corrected brochure into a large envelope along with my cover letter and business card. Each envelope was mailed to the manufacturer's address listed on their brochure, inviting them to radically upgrade their brochures, manuals and literature with the help of an expert technical writer fresh out of college from the USA.

This idea, it turned out, was pure genius. My phone rang off the hook.

I began being offered a steady flow of writing and editing projects from some of Taiwan's best computer manufacturers, earning fees that were far higher than what I could have possibly earned in the United States. My work covered the gamut: I wrote manuals for video games, motherboards, computer cases, image editing software and more. In just the first few weeks, I had earned enough money to buy blankets and food. In another few weeks, we had acquired a bed frame, a dining room table and additional clothing. In less than a year, I had paid off all my credit card debts and was finally on my own two feet, financially speaking.

Before long, I was a contributing journalist to a Hong Kong-based magazine called Asian Sources, covering computer hardware and software companies. I also began to receive full-time job offers from technology companies. By that time I had received a residency visa, so I was able to take a job with a Taiwan-based anti-virus software company which is now one of the three most successful anti-virus companies in the world.

At the anti-virus software company, I revolutionized their computer software manuals and on-screen user interface text. I was also given the opportunity to tour Southeast Asia and give lectures to large groups of people on the subject of computer security, where I found a natural affinity for its technical subject matter. So I toured Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries, delivering computer security presentations to corporations. (Got my picture in the South China Morning Post, too, which was fun.)

The launch of a software company

My wife and I moved back to the states a few years later and started our own software company, inventing pioneering email automation technology that's still used by banks, universities, e-commerce giants and government offices. The software I invented has been used by somewhere around 20% of Fortune 500 firms, if I remember correctly, and I sold my interest in the company many years ago to pursue natural health activism and truth-telling journalism in a world that I increasingly saw as being controlled by oppressive corporations.

By this time my own health was failing. Having burned out from working insane hours and living on processed junk food, I soon found myself suffering from borderline diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and chronic pain. That's what ultimately led me to Natural News -- I radically transformed my own health and healed my body my changing my diet and lifestyle choices, and I wanted to share the power of that transformation with others who could benefit from that knowledge.

Today, that mission has been a remarkable success. When I started Natural News back in 2003, almost nobody knew about "organics," BPA, aspartame, MSG, hormones in milk, the dangers of antidepressant drugs or the fact that vaccines contained mercury. But today, all those things are now common knowledge. Organics have gone mainstream. The masses demand GMO labeling. People read labels and demand honest foods made without synthetic chemicals.

Natural News was a key voice in this rapid transformation of health consciousness, climbing from zero influence to now reaching over 7 million unique readers every month. We were also part of a rising community of such voices which also include Dr. Joseph Mercola, Ronnie Cummins of the OCA, John Robbins, David Wolfe, Jeffrey Smith and many more. Each of us brought a unique personality and activism style to the internet, reaching out to tens of millions of readers with a message the world was hungry to hear: FOOD can be your medicine; and YES the corporations are lying to you most of the time.

Today Natural News is recognized as one of the most powerful content platforms in the world, and it's continuing to expand due to the authenticity that people innately recognize in our message.

The struggle became the success

Notably, none of this ever would have been achieved if I had been given an easy life in my younger years. My family wasn't wealthy and I never had any preferential treatment in the corporate world. I once teetered on the edge of poverty and homelessness, and yet when my back was up against the wall, I created a winning solution through entrepreneurism and strategic thinking.

That experience gives you the kind of courage it takes to be a content innovator and to take on any challenge you might ever face. Today, I know with 100% confidence that if I were to lose everything I owned and have to start over, I could launch any one of a thousand profitable ideas that would not only earn an honest living but would also help make the world a better place.

This is one reason I'm such a strong supporter of education and such an outspoken opponent of lifelong welfare: Handing people money month after month, year after year, teaches them nothing and only encourages dependence. But giving people skills, confidence and knowledge they can use in the real world turns individuals into self-sustaining income earners who can support themselves and their families for a lifetime.

My personal philosophy on money

If you saw the house I live in, you'd laugh out loud. I don't live in a mansion on Lakeshore Drive, as the very idea of doing that contradicts my fundamental personal philosophies. I've never been into material wealth and have zero interest in material things for their own sake. It really is true that the most expensive vehicle I own is a John Deere tractor (which I enjoy operating from time to time on the ranch).

I don't see money as something to be accumulated but rather something to be invested in a better future for humanity. That's why I have always sought to have the money earned by Natural News redirected into important projects for humanity such as the construction of the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, a project that ultimately cost more than $1 million.

Long-time Natural News readers know that I live on a ranch where I routinely engage in all sorts of ranch activities, including the mundane ones like shoveling chicken poop out of the hen coops (oh what fun). I've milked goats, captured dozens of snakes (with a snake grabber), buried dead chickens killed by owls, protected wild deer, rounded up cattle, treated wounds on animals, drilled post holes with a tractor auger, built goat fencing (which is WAY more difficult than cattle fencing) and a thousand other ranch activities. During all this, I've been bit by scorpions, attacked by fire ants, surprised by wild coyotes and stung by hornets.

I've saved wild baby birds trapped in containers, expanded water reservoirs ("tanks") for wildlife, and sadly buried several baby armadillos that the dogs dragged in. (They think armadillos are giant field rats.)

Living on the ranch in Texas, my best pair of boots is split wide open down the right side, my best truck is covered in pigeon poop, and my best pair of pants has holes in the right pocket caused by droplets of nitric acid from the forensic food lab digestion prep.

Here's a picture of one of my goats during the Spring bloom of Blue Bonnets, the Texas state flower:

Living on a ranch changes your character

There's a remarkable growth of personal character that occurs when you live a ranch. It makes you strong in spirit and moral character because you're always dealing with life and death, forcing you to make decisions in the best interests of the living creatures under your responsibility.

I've had to learn effective ways to prevent rat snakes from devouring our baby chicks, and I've had to take a shotgun to a wounded hen that was half-eaten by a large predatory bird (to put her out of her misery). I've shot rattlesnakes with a 12 gauge, fired warning rifle shots at coyotes (intentionally not hitting them) and defended our chickens, geese and goats against countless predators that are always trying to eat them for dinner.

If you're squeamish about snakes, ticks or wounded animals, you'll never be able to really live in the country. A typical day here involve me finding a large tick on my dog, yanking it off her and tossing it to the chickens who quickly devour it. One day I had to capture a goose that suffered from a mesquite thorn in its foot, grabbing it by the neck and wrenching it under my arm to keep it under control while I removed the thorn. The goose wasn't happy about it, but I got the thorn out, and she's all better now. (Geese bites leave bruises on your arms and legs, by the way...)

Every day that I wake up surrounded by nature and happy animals, I realize I'm one of the luckiest persons alive on the planet today. I have a voice for positive change in the world, I'm blessed with the responsibility of caretaking animals and nature, and I never have to worry about financial poverty for as long as I live because I know I can create wealth through innovation anywhere I happen to find myself. Very few people are ever blessed with this combination of freedom and influence, and that's one reason why I take my responsibility to the world so seriously these days. It's also why I thank God every day for granting me the gifts that I'm tirelessly working to put to a good use for the betterment of humanity.

The Health Ranger is a real person, not a fictional character

Why does Natural News have so many readers? What I'm told is that people feel a personal connection with the Health Ranger and they "get it" when I explain that I'm working hard to protect life on our planet.

Natural News fans and readers know that the Health Ranger is a real person with real challenges, dreams and concerns for humanity. I'm not a fictional character, and this is not an act. I live what I teach, and I live to fight for the uplifting of humanity in a time of incredible chaos, destruction and oppression across our planet.

I fight for humanity because I feel for humanity. I truly understand what it's like to live in poverty. I know firsthand the fear of not knowing where your next meal will come from. I have tremendous empathy for fellow human beings, which is one reason why I fight so hard to expose the crimes of the medical industry that causes so much needless suffering among our people.

I also fight for universal human freedom across the planet, because I know that the single most dangerous entity that causes human suffering is government gone bad. Nearly all the human suffering that has taken place on our planet across the last century was caused by governments gone bad: corruption, criminality, genocide, war and more.

Refugees only exist in our world because governments go bad. Wars only take place because governments fail to protect the peace. Today's failed system of medicine is held in place entirely by government corruption and monopolistic practices, trapping hundreds of millions of world citizens in a system of medicine that only causes disease, suffering and financial destitution.

The curse of knowing

It pains me to see people suffering. It hurts my heart and my soul to witness the strife in our world. Even worse, I have been burdened with the "gift" (or curse) of being able to foresee many of the things that will unfold in the near future. This is not some sort of psychic ability, and I'm not claiming to have "visions from God" or any such thing. Rather, I simply have the ability to look at present-day events and see with unusual clarity where they are headed in the future.

This is why I now know -- with 100% certainty -- that humanity is headed for a time of tremendous suffering. What many Bible scholars call the "End Times" is nearly upon us. War, starvation, desperation, pestilence and conflict will multiply across our world in the very near future, causing unprecedented loss of life and a collapse of human civilization as we know it today.

I have faith that many of us will survive these times of great turmoil, but doing so will require bearing witness to untold suffering of those in need. Money will be all but useless in these End Times, and those of us who are prepared to survive will never be able to help the full roster of those in need. People will die by the millions across our planet, and there is little we can individually do to halt the tides of fate from crashing into the self-destructive reality that humanity has foolishly set out for itself.

My responsibility to humanity is to help save as many of those as I can. My curse is the knowledge that such action will be needed.

The coming collapse is a mathematical certainty

Many Natural News readers are not aware of this, but I correctly predicted the dot-com stock market crash of 2001, the housing bubble crash of 2006 / 2007, and I publicly predicted the massive Bitcoin crash of 2013 less than 24 hours before it took place.

I can tell you as someone who absolutely aced academic mathematics in my younger years that the global economy is headed for a disastrous debt collapse. Trillions of dollars of asset valuation (in derivatives) will vanish literally overnight. Widespread economic destruction will strike humanity like a thousand hurricanes hitting major population centers all across the world, all simultaneously.

The timing of this is impossible to predict, but its inevitability is not. What really alarms me about all this is knowing in advance that this event will usher in a global wave of poverty and destitution that is unprecedented in all of human history. This is going to put honest, hard-working people on the streets, living in destitution, through no fault of their own. And the mere awareness of knowing this is coming causes me tremendous pain.

Even worse, you and I can't save them all. We can only teach people to get prepared and hope they have the wisdom to listen. We cannot make their decisions for them, and we cannot alter the laws of economic reality which dictate a global day of reckoning.

My commitment to Natural News readers

I commit to every person who reads Natural News that I will do everything in my power to bring you truthful information that can help you save yourself from the global chaos that now descends upon us.

I cannot give you money, or prevent your bank from collapsing, or even make sure your house sells for the price you're asking. But what I can do is share with you the truth about my own history and how I know what it's like to live in financial desperation... and then empower you with the knowledge you need to make sure that situation never happens to you or your loved ones as the world collapses into chaos around us.

I can share strategies that really work, such as the powerful idea that everyone should be paying attention to right now: Buy farmland with water sources on it, because that's going to be the new "gold" of the future. A farm with a year-round spring will be worth more than gold, in fact, in the coming years.

Those who bet all their money on the U.S. dollar by holding accounts in U.S. banks will ultimately lose their shirts (and maybe their homes, too). Diversity is the key to survival, and right now you should all be trading in dollars for real assets such as land, tractors, medical supplies, precious metals, ammo, food and so on. You should also be preparing to survive a plague, a pandemic or a wave of superbugs that's sure to sweep through the human population in the aftermath of an economic crash. Your immune system can save you, but not if you've weakened it with mercury injections (vaccines) and toxic chemicals (medications and chemotherapy).

Natural News will help keep you on a path of survival and courage

Truth be told, I can help keep you alive no matter what comes our way. You can count on Natural News to report the truth as best we see it, to empower you with urgent knowledge, and to do so regardless of whatever lies are being promoted by the White House or the national media.

As the good Terminator once said, "If you want to live, come with me." Today, I'm saying something similar: If you want to survive what's coming, keep reading Natural News. I've been in the financial gutter, I know how to get out, and I know how to help you protect yourself from the worst of what's coming.

If urgent events unfold, I will post urgent alerts. If the NaturalNews.com website goes down, I will send out email alerts to the email newsletter list (subscribe below). If that fails, I'll keep trying to get us back on the air so you can connect.

I care for you, I care about your welfare, your survival and your contribution to the new society that will inevitably follow. I want you to stay alive, informed and financially intact as much as possible. Much of the world is going to lose 90% or more of their savings in the coming years, so anyone who simply is able to hold on and break even is actually WAY ahead of the curve.

From my spirit to yours, I wish you a successful journey in the years ahead, and I hope that you may give me the gift and the honor of contributing to that journey in a positive way that makes a lasting difference in your life.

- Mike Adams, the Health Ranger