economy

economy, mark of the beast, one world economy, prophecy, revelation

Thoughts on Economic Collapse and Tribulation economy

Posted on April 20, 2015 by elizabethprata

Someone asked me about the economy in the Tribulation, and wondered if the global and American economy will collapse prior to the Tribulation or not.

It’s speculation, because the Bible doesn’t specifically say how we will get from here to there, only what will be. I do like to be aware of what the bible says about the seemingly near event on the prophetic timeline, the 7 years of Tribulation. (The rapture is the very next event. I also enjoy thinking about the Millennium which will occur after the Tribulation such as the peaceable kingdom, and the temple and the King’s Highway, and New Jerusalem, etc).

As for the economy, it’s an interesting question because the Bible prophesies that during the Tribulation, the antichrist’s right hand man, the False Prophet, will enforce a mark on people. The mark is one of worship. No one will be fooled, they will know it is a mark of allegiance to and worship of the Beast. (Revelation 14:9). The enticement to take the mark is that one may then participate in the economy, buying and selling. If one refuses the mark, they may not buy or sell. (Revelation 13:16-17). Further, they will be identified as an enemy of the state and be killed (Revelation 6:9-11, Matthew 24:9).

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it, about financial collapse. The collapse of ’07-’08 was incredible, and the subsequent years even more so. I had read a Christian economist who said recently that with the derivatives bubble, college loan bubble, fiat currency and massive outstanding debt, it is OBVIOUS that America, and most nations in fact, are being held up by the supernatural power of God. Nothing in traditional economics makes sense enough to explain how we are going on as we are for so long.

As for the Tribulation economy, that’s interesting too. There IS an economy during the Tribulation. The global economy does not collapse until Revelation 18. Or, at least, it might have partially collapsed prior to then and been rebuilt according to Antichrist specs, with a one world economy and mark of the beast currency. Yes, Revelation 6:6 shows that currency is so inflated that it costs a day’s wage to buy one loaf of bread. But Rev 18 shows a highly advanced trade in luxuries. I believe this shows that the wealth gap will widen so much that many poor starve to death and the love of the rich grows cold in not caring. If Jesus emphasized compassion on the poor and generosity toward same in both the OT and the NT to the degree He did, the antichrist will emphasize the opposite. So there will be an economy, it just won’t look like it does now.

As a brief rabbit trail, you might already know that the sex trafficking and slave trade is growing all across the world. Poverty adds to this sad fact. Many daughters are being sold because people are so poor they cannot afford to feed kids. In Greece a few years ago when their economy nearly failed (before the EU bailout) the problem of abandoned kids was huge. You note in Rev 18:13 one of the luxuries being traded will be slaves. I believe that when the poor become utterly destitute in the Tribulation economy, slavery will blossom massively and that will be the reason why. No food, and in order to get money, they will sell anyone, even their mother. After all, love will wax cold. (Mt 24:12)

I read a prophecy minister’s essay once who thinks that it will be the event of the rapture itself that will trigger the collapse. The sudden removal of thousands or millions of Christians from the economy will certainly put a dent in it. However I’m not so sure the rapture will collapse it completely. Jesus said the way was narrow and few find it. I think there are way fewer Christians who will be taken in the rapture than people think. I think the loss of workers will dent the economy, maybe enough to re-structure it, but not collapse totally. After all, the antichrist only has 7 years, 3.5 actually, to make the Mark of the Beast economy prophesied in Revelation 13:16-17 come about and healthy enough to see such massive collapse as we do in Rev 18. He has to have something to work with to begin with in order to revive the economy.

And think on this, right now gargantuan amounts of money go toward social programs to help the sick, the poor, the disadvantaged. When the Christians are removed, and the Spirit withdraws His restraining ministry, (2 Thessalonians 2:7) then compassion, generosity, and love will cease (2 Timothy 3:1-5). All that money being poured into cancer research and orphanages and welfare and social justice programs will be re-diverted. There will be no compassion, (Matthew 24:12) therefore no money needed to help anyone at any time through any compassion program. It will be the end of philanthropy, effectively freeing up trillions of dollars.

It has been interesting (but sad) to see the drought bloom in CA, and all the while we in GA received 5-6 inches of rain this week alone. Drought has a slow-moving but ultimately devastating impact to economies. CA’s economy is the largest in the US, much of it from agriculture. Personally I think it will be drought that does us in here in America.

You remember the American Dustbowl here in the US during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It sparked one of the most massive internal migrations we have ever experienced in the US

Historians have since clarified some of the dimensions of the misnamed migration. Numbers are elusive but it is safe to say that 300-400,000 Oklahomans, Texans, Arkansans, and Missourians moved to California and settled there during the 1930s. This would have been a significant population transfer in any era but was particularly momentous in the context of the depression when internal migration rates for other parts of the country were low and when high unemployment made any kind of relocation risky. (Source)

Look at this interesting article about drought’s economic impact.

Drought produces a complex web of impacts that spans many sectors of the economy and reaches well beyond the area experiencing physical drought. This complexity exists because water is integral to society’s ability to produce goods and provide services. Impacts are commonly referred to as direct and indirect. Direct impacts include reduced crop, rangeland, and forest productivity, increased fire hazard, reduced water levels, increased livestock and wildlife mortality rates, and damage to wildlife and fish habitat. The consequences of these direct impacts illustrate indirect impacts. For example, a reduction in crop, rangeland, and forest productivity may result in reduced income for farmers and agribusiness, increased prices for food and timber, unemployment, reduced tax revenues because of reduced expenditures, foreclosures on bank loans to farmers and businesses, migration, and disaster relief programs.

In short, the entire economic situation is a myriad of intertwined causes and effects. They go back a long time and they are set in motion through the sovereignty of the Lord. It brings praise for the Lord to mind when I realize how precise He is to have developed all these events together to draw us ever closer to the Tribulation hour. He raises up kings and sets them down. He raises up nations and strikes them down. He thrives economies and He impoverishes them. He will perform what He has decreed.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5)

The only economy is the one in Jesus: repentance, faith, belief, and being doers of the word. This economy will always thrive, never become impoverished, and sustain itself at the magnificent Hand of God.

baltic dry index, economic depression, economy, israel, russia

Economic downturn, depression, tomato, tomato. Developing a Depression mindset

Posted on July 19, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I haven’t done an essay on the economy in a while. I’ve been watching…observing….mulling. What is happening to us in America (and all over the world) is really interesting.

For those of us who know the world is not our home, we are told many times in scripture not to cling to it. (Galatians 6:14, 1 Timothy 6:7) and not to conform to it (Romans 12:2). After all, satan rules it, (2 Corinthians 4:4) the world is enemy territory, (Ephesians 6:10-18) and our vaporous life will soon leave it. (James 4:14).

However, we still have to live here until the rapture or death. So we are of the world but we are not in it. (John 17:14–19). No we are not holograms, lol, but we are islands of holiness dwelling in the midst of a pool of sin.

I know my treasure is in heaven but I still make great efforts to be a good steward of what the Lord has given me in terms of goods and money. (2 Thessalonians 3:10, Philippians 2:4). And as long as I am being faithful to manage the goods and money then I will have more time and money and blessings to enable me to be a good steward also of the gifts of grace He gave. (1 Peter 4:10).

I’ve always been frugal, it is in my nature. Excessive spending is not in me. Buying things that are not practical is not in me. Even if someone gave me $30 to spend on anything I wanted, I’d use it to pay a bill or groceries. About the only spending I engage in that doesn’t directly go to keeping me alive, clothed and in a home with 4 walls are books. I have little money but what I have I like to use for other people.

Because of reading the bible, I know that as time goes on the economy will get worse and worse. Oh, sure, any economy has cycles of ups and downs, but over the long haul the general trend is down. How do I know this? The world is dying. It is cursed. All relationships, projects, economies, and governments are drenched with this curse. None are righteous. (Romans 5:12-21, 1 John 2:17; Matthew 24:35).

This downward trend accelerated dramatically after the presidential election of 2008, a process that began right before the November election in Sept-Oct. In effect, the global economy crashed on or about October 1, 2008, and has never recovered. Though economists continue to call what is happening a ‘recession’ or even insultingly, a ‘recovery,’ I call it what it is, a Depression.

I always thought that with my natural tendency to frugality and a long life of having done without that I’d transition to any economic depression rather easily. I was wrong.

There is a huge difference between frugality as a choice and developing a Depression mindset due to necessity.

What happens to a person who dwells in a long-term state of want, need, constriction, frustration, and fear? To the unsaved, it causes a severely de-stabilizing effect. They want and need something but know not what it is (what they are looking for is peace with God through reconciliation with His Son). That is why they had previously sought to fill that hole where peace goes with the things of this world. When the things of this world are no longer available to them because of drought-like economic conditions, they panic because even the false, temporary pseudo-peace they gained from the things of this world are now unattainable. There are two responses to that panic: turning to God and find that peace, or turning to self and go deeper into the dark hole of unfulfillment. They wonder, is this life just a long, heartbreaking quest for the unattainable? An economic depression brings that hidden question closer to the surface.

The psyche changes during prolonged periods of want and scarcity. This means that societal structure changes too, because the family structure changes. From “Digital History: The Depression” we read:

The Depression had a powerful impact on families. It forced couples to delay marriage and drove the birthrate below the replacement level for the first time in American history. The divorce rate fell, for the simple fact that many couples could not afford to maintain separate households or to pay legal fees. Still, rates of desertion soared. By 1940, there were 1.5 million married women living apart from their husbands. More than 200,000 vagrant children wandered the country as a result of the break-up of their families.

The Depression inflicted a heavy psychological toll on jobless men. With no wages to punctuate their ability, many men lost power as primary decision makers. Large numbers of men lost self-respect, became immobilized and stopped looking for work, while others turned to alcohol or became self-destructive or abusive to their families.

In contrast to men, many women saw their status rise during the Depression. To supplement the family income, married women entered the work force in large numbers. Although most women worked in menial occupations, the fact that they were employed and bringing home paychecks elevated their position within the family and gave them a say in family decisions.

That aforementioned ‘say in the family decisions’ plays into satan’s hands. Men and women were cursed in Genesis 3:16 at the Fall. “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Women’s tendency from that time on will was to usurp the headship of the husband (Ephesians 5:23) and the tendency of the husband has been either be to capitulate, or to become a dictator.

Last week, the NY Times reported that a similar gender gap in jobs during this ‘downturn’ is occurring and I noticed a similarity to the changes in family structure in the First Great Depression. One year after it began in 2008, women held 49.99 percent of all jobs. Even today, women are getting jobs at a much faster rate than men, though jobs overall are still scarce. Economists insist that the “start of the recovery” was June 2009. This statistic notes: “Women gained back nearly 90 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession and men gained back 64 percent, from the start of the recovery to June 2013.” So over the last four years women have gained back an economic power and men have remained stagnant.

As we saw in the first Great Depression, when men don’t have a job for a long time it changes the mental mindset, it changes the family dynamic, and this changes the societal structure. (Because the family, based on marriage, is the basic unit of society).

That is the second major cultural shift when a society enters long period of want. Marital roles are upended. The first was the stress on a person who wonders where the next meal is coming from and begins to panic.

For the Christian who truly relies on Jesus for all things to be added to them, hopefully you are not panicking. He said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” The ‘these things’ are mentioned in previous verses: food, water/beverages, and clothes. In other words, the necessities of life. The passage says ‘do not worry.’

I admit that is easier said than done. I rely on the Lord a great deal and worry only minimally. This is because He has never failed to provide for me. But also I do not have children. I know that if I did, my worries over providing for them would make relying peacefully on the provision of Jesus a challenge.

However the mindset of properly stewarding my resources does take effort, if not stress. I plan, think, budget, and look ahead constantly to ensure that what I have goes a long way. I put pout of my mind the things I don’t have and can’t afford. I constantly review my week to see that I am attaining a good balance between stewardship of the things the Lord has provided for myself and making sure that I am cheerfully ministering in love, whether I tithe, give, spend time, or work for someone else.

Mary Owlsey recalled life during the First Great Depression:

“I knew one family there in Oklahoma City, a man and woman and seven children lived in a hole in the ground. You’d be surprised how nice it was, how nice they kept it. They had chairs and tables and beds back in that hole. And they had the dirt all braced upon there, just like a cave”

Las Vegas hole dwellers, Source

Pauline Kael a well-known film critic, was a college student at the University of California at Berkeley during the Depression.

“When I attended Berkeley in 1936, so many of the kids had actually lost their fathers. They had wandered off in disgrace because they couldn’t support their families. Other fathers had killed themselves so the family could have the insurance. Families had totally broken down. Each father took it as his personal failure. These middle class men apparently had no social sense of what was going on, so they killed themselves.It was still the Depression. There were kids who didn’t have a place to sleep, huddling under bridges on the campus, I had a scholarship, but there were times when I didn’t have food.” (Source)”

David Blankenhorn wrote in his book, Fatherless America,

“The United States is becoming an increasingly fatherless society. A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today, an American child can reasonably expect not to. Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood.”

The Washington Times reported in their article from a few months ago, “Fathers Disappear from households across America,” that 1 in 3 kids in America live in a household without a father.

source

Psychology Today published an article in 2010 called “The Psychic Toll of the Great Recession“.
“There is little doubt that financial struggles and uncertainty take a significant toll on people. They must confront the daily stress that comes from being unable to make ends meet with few prospects for the immediate future. This stress isn’t just psychological, but can also exact real physical costs in terms of poor sleep and diet, increased illness and injury, and, even worse, alcohol and drug abuse as a means of coping with the stress.”

“With each day of unemployment, people’s belief in themselves atrophies, causing them to question how capable they are of surmounting this immense hurdle. Their faith in the ability of the economy to recover is also shaken. And, of course, their trust in our government is lost as well. The result is a crisis of confidence.”

And there you have it. The LORD shakes them so that the only place they have to go is looking up. And as for us believers, we must, I repeat, must display the confidence we possess in the Lord. Faith in Jesus means knowing He will take care of His own, in every way. As people increasingly develop a Depression mindset, and it wears on them and they begin to panic, how much of a balm can we be to them in our placid trust of a wondrous Jesus who provides for His children?e The purpose, I am convinced, for this current, and last, time of sever restriction and privation before the rapture is to strip people away from their comforts. They are of the world, but let us give them a glimpse of the better world, the world of Jesus and His kingdom.

After the rapture the constrictions and privation in place now will blossom into pure hell. People will work all day just to procure a loaf of bread.

Bread line during First Great Depression, NYC

They will be so desperate for faith in something, anyone, that they will believe the lie of the antichrist when the LORD sends the delusion. Oh, please develop your Depression mindset now, and fast. It is one of trust in the Lord for His provision, reliance on the Holy Spirit to enable us to properly shepherd the provisions He does send, and an attitude of peace and calm in the midst of economic turmoil. How that will stand out to the lost person will be like a floodlight into the eyes of an alligator hiding in the muddy waters.

Lo, the lilies of the field!
Reginald Heber, hymn

Lo, the lilies of the field!
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to nature’s lesson given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles trust and piety:—
Mortals, banish doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow.

One there lives, whose guardian eye
Guides our earthly destiny;
One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps His children lest they fall:
Pass we, then, in love and praise,
Trusting Him through all our days,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow,—
God provideth for the morrow.

———————–

Sequestration, world commerce, and the coming antichrist economy

Posted on February 23, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

If there is such a thing as a ‘reverse miracle’ the global economy these last five years is it. In 2008 when the global crash startled the world and the housing bubble imploded, and jobs went away, it seemed that the house of cards that is world finance and commerce would collapse. It didn’t. And all these five years, it hasn’t. This defies logic, tradition, and all economic principles. (Above, A crowd gathers at New York City’s Federal Hall opposite the Stock Exchange at the news of the crash – 1929 AP / Wide World Photos Time – 75 Years)

Or does it?

What has to change is our perception of what an economic crash is. If you live in America like I do, we have a notion that economic crashes suddenly occur, like the October Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. We often think of the crash happening in October and then immediately of the lines outside banks to get disappearing deposits and right away the Okies traveling away from the Dust bowl states. But it all unfolded much more slowly than that.

Oct 10, 2008, Source

But what most people do not know is that the 1929 crash was similar to the 2008 crash in that it was but one marker of an ailing, upside down economy. Bankers and Brokers didn’t realize the depth and extent of the crash and that it would spark a 10-year Depression.

Time Magazine reported on the 1929 October crash, “As the story goes, the opening bell was never heard on Black Tuesday because the shouts of “Sell! Sell! Sell!” drowned it out. In the first thirty minutes, 3 million shares changed hands and with them, another $2 million disappeared into thin air. Phone lines clogged. The volume of Western Union telegrams traveling across the country tripled. The ticker tape ran so far behind the actual transactions that some traders simply let it run out. Trades happened so quickly that although people knew they were losing money, they didn’t know how much.”

And that is what we remember of the most devastating and terror-ridden moment in America’s financial and economic history. But the crash continued-

As a matter of fact, the Market recovered on October 30, regaining 12% of losses. Time reported, “In total, $25 billion — some $319 billion in today’s dollars — was lost in the 1929 crash. Stocks continued to fall over subsequent weeks, finally bottoming out on November 13, 1929. The market recovered for a few months and then slid again, gliding swiftly and steadily with the rest of the country into the Great Depression. Companies incurred huge layoffs, unemployment skyrocketed, wages plummeted and the economy went into a tailspin. While World War II helped pull the country out of a Depression by the early 1940s, the stock market wouldn’t recover to its pre-crash numbers until 1954.”

After the crash of 1929 it wasn’t until 1932-1933 that the economy hit rock bottom. This timeline has the facts about why 1933 was the worst year of the Depression for the common man. So you can easily see that the crash was not a one-day event but took years to unfold, rebound and for the stock market to recover..

Like 1929, the 2008 economic crash followed a speculative boom. The era was so speculative and the attitude was so optimistic, that the entire era is called The Roaring Twenties. The era was dynamic, vibrant, creative, and was undergirded by sustained economic prosperity. This attitude was not prevalent just in America, but also Europe. France’s name for the era was The Crazy Years. Britain called it the Golden Twenties.

The president of the Chase National Bank said at the time of the crash, “We are reaping the natural fruit of the orgy of speculation in which millions of people have indulged. It was inevitable, because of the tremendous increase in the number of stockholders in recent years, that the number of sellers would be greater than ever when the boom ended and selling took the place of buying.” (Wikipedia)

Economist Albert Scardino said in 1987, “The panic of October 1929 has come to serve as a symbol of the economic contraction that gripped the world during the next decade.”

As an aside, when economists say “contraction”, I think of the contraction of a woman in labor. (Matthew 24:8).

The same conditions that sparked the crash of 1929, wild speculation and bloated spending, sparked the 2008 crash, but like the unfolding Depression of the 1930, it unfolds slowly. The crash is actually a long period of decline, not a one-day event. We have been ‘crashing’ since October 2008. We are in a crash right now. Let’s take a look at the present-day facts.

Wal-Mart is undergoing a silent sales disaster. The Daily Beast reports, Wal-Mart customers have disappeared, will they take the economy with them?
“Where are all the customers?” asks an internal Walmart email published by Bloomberg last week. “And where’s their money?” Another email states “In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February [month to date] sales are a total disaster . . . the worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.” Brad Plumer notes that Walmart sales are often a bellwether for the rest of the economy. Should we be freaking out?”

Yes. Yes we should.

Why? The higher payroll tax kicked in this January. Higher payroll taxes mean less money for consumers and less money for consumers means, well, they spend less. The Economic Collapse blog says “The Big Dogs of Wall Street are starting to get very nervous“.

And according to a CNN article, corporate insiders are now selling nine times more of their own shares than they are buying… These corporate insiders have one word for investors: sell. Insiders were nine times more likely to sell shares of their companies than buy new ones last week, according to the Vickers Weekly Insider report by Argus Research. We wonder why corporate bigwigs like Google’s Eric Schmidt is selling nearly half of his stock in the company.

The crashing economy is seen not just in consumer spending, stocks, and retail, but in government. The United States has not passed a budget in years. Heritage reports, “The House and Senate have not agreed on a budget resolution since April 29, 2009 (though the House has passed budgets the past two years). If current trends continue, the end of the 113th Congress will mark five straight years without a congressional budget. … The temporary tax policies of recent years, the debt ceiling debacle of 2011, and the short-term “solution” of last year’s fiscal cliff have only worsened the budgetary dysfunction. Congress now faces across-the-board spending cuts (sequestration) on March 1, another deadline March 27 for funding government operations, and another debt ceiling vote in May. Halfway into the fiscal year, major budget decisions remain in flux. These incoherent practices have yielded no entitlement reform—indispensable for getting deficits and debt under control—but they have produced a $618 billion tax increase.”

Caption- Some of the 6,000 men who queued up for jobs offered by a New York employment agency – 1930 (135 found jobs; by 1932 almost 30% of the American workforce was unemployed) Corbis / Bettmann – UPI

Pentagon informs Congress of plans to furlough 800K civilian workers
“The Pentagon notified Congress on Wednesday it will be furloughing its civilian workforce of 800,000 employees if sequestration goes into effect March 1.”

Sequestration defined: “Under sequestration, an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated is “sequestered” by the Treasury and not handed over to the agencies to which it was originally appropriated by Congress.”

As we already know, there is trouble everywhere. The UK lost its credit rating yesterday. Forbes reported, “Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the sovereign credit rating of the U.K. on Friday, stripping its coveted triple-A status one notch to AA1. The agency blamed U.K.’s rising debt levels, adding that there was “a deterioration in the shock-absorption capacity of the government’s balance sheet, which is unlikely to reverse before 2016.” Forbes asks the $64 question, ‘Is the US next?’

Imagine what the loss of pay for 800,000 workers would do to our economy, already staggered by loss of jobs and cash flow. In other words, under sequestration, all money flow comes to a forced halt and during a depression voluntary money flow comes to a halt. Like retail spending–

CBS News reports, “The entire economy is headed for trouble in just eight days — when massive across-the-board cuts in the federal budget are scheduled to kick in automatically. The cuts were designed to be so deep and harmful, that they would force the president and Congress to find a better way. But they haven’t. Just for example, there would be $46 billion cut from the Defense Department and benefit cuts for 4.7 million long-term unemployed.”

Retail is failing, and this is a marker of the crash.

Best Buy is forecasting 200 to 250 store closings
Sears Holding Corp. forecast store closings: Kmart 175 to 225, Sears 100 to 125
J.C. Penney, forecast store closings: 300 to 350
Office Depot, forecast store closings: 125 to 150
Barnes & Noble, forecast store closings: 190 to 240, per company comments
Gamestop, forecast store closings: 500 to 600
OfficeMax, forecast store closings: 150 to 175
RadioShack, forecast store closings: 450 to 550

In addition to closings, we hear about layoffs.

Blockbuster recently announced that this year they will be closing about 300 stores and eliminating about 3,000 jobs. Toy manufacturer Hasbro recently announced that they will be shrinking their workforce by about 10 percent. And we already heard about the Walmart email that said February was the worst month, ever.

So what does this all mean? It means God is doing a work! Did you know that the bible has a lot to say about finances and economy? There are verses which instruct us on personal level and on a national level. For example, Proverbs 22:16 says,

“Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.” The NLT makes it even clearer. “A person who gets ahead by oppressing the poor or by showering gifts on the rich will end in poverty.” Tell that to the Occupy Wall Street people…

But now I am going to contradict myself. The Great Depression seems to have begun in October 1929 and the stock market did not recover until 1954. These things take a long time to set up, to occur and to recover from. They are long cycles. (Kondratiev wave). The one exception to the slow cycle of up and down will be the Tribulation. Why? It will be a time like no other before or since, (Matthew 24:21).

In my opinion, the fact that the global merging of all national economies into one economic force (Revelation 13:16-17) under the management of one man, (Revelation 13:5-8), bespeaks that something massive has to have happened for the people to accept such dramatic moves. And it has to happen fast, because the Tribulation is only 7 years, and since Revelation is mostly chronological, by the time Revelation 13 occurs, it is midway through the entire period. We read in Revelation 13:5 that authority is given to the antichrist for 42 months (3.5 years).

There will be an economy in the Tribulation, it will be vigorous and will trade in all the usual things like flour (Revelation 6:6) but there will also be a trade for luxuries (Revelation 18). There will be people rich enough to buy these luxuries. So much so, that the merchants selling them become incredibly wealthy.

WHAT will have happened that will reduce the world into an entire economic and financial restructuring within just 3.5 years? (first half of the Tribulation). Something terrible and dramatic. It only takes three and a half years for the global economy to be turned completely upside down, restructured and by the time the antichrist comes along, for the world to accept his proposal of a one world government- and enact it!

Of course, the beginning of the events that would cause the acceptance of the one world economy may begin prior to the Tribulation, but given the last five years of slow decline (despite warnings of the ‘fiscal cliff) I don’t think so. Personally I believe it will be one or more of the following that will cause the final and/or sudden economic collapse:

1. The rapture. If enough consumers who hold withhold their money from retail circulation could cause panic in Walmart execs during just one month, what will the sudden removal of all the Christians’ economic input cause the world economy?

2. War. And not just any war- but nuclear war and/or EMP. The coming wars of Isaiah 17, Isaiah 19, Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38-39 may not occur just in the Tribulation. There is nothing about the prophecy that says these wars have to happen during the 7 years of judgment (except by the very end of the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog/Magog war the Tribulation will have begun, because the Jews are brought back to covenant with God, (Ez 39:7) and the world knows that God is judging the world. (Ez 38:16, 23). Those prophesied wars contain intimations that they will be nuclear. I wrote about that last week. With war often comes…disease.

3. Disease outbreak. The 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic which infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—1 to 3 percent of the world’s population at the time—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. (source). Most of the deaths in the US took place within only 9 months. The sudden removal of human capital, either through death or illness from which they later recovered, was dramatic. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that a pandemic similar to the 1918 flu would decrease annual U.S. GDP levels by 5% if it happened in today’s economy. There were mandatory closings of schools, churches, theatres, and places of public assemblage toward the end of the year in 1918. The entertainment industry was hit hardest.

For example, legal gambling in the US is a 90Billion dollar industry. Factor in other entertainment such as cable, internet, film, music etc and you have a trillion dollar industry. An outbreak of disease could put a severe dent on all that, just as it did in 1918. As a matter of fact, officials are worried about an outbreak of tuberculosis in LA. And yesterday it’s reported that a Long Island teen died of a mysterious illness while on a school trip to Disneyland

4. All of the above. All these events could happen simultaneously or nearly so. It is not possible to go through the removal of millions in the blink of an eye, and/or war, and/or pestilential outbreak on a global scale and not have other segments of the global infrastructure such as economy be impacted too.

5. Other. God is creative. I do not know what else He may have planned that will cause the world’s economy to fail or at least come to the point where the population of the planet accepts an entire restructuring. Who expected the 9.0 quake and tsunami in Japan? Who expected the Pope to resign? Who thought Obama would be re-elected for another 4 years? Who thought that a massive sinkhole in Bayou Corne or a BP multi-month oil breach would occur?

We Christians can look forward to the rapture and will escape all these things. We see the rapture in Revelation 4. The Church is seen in Heaven in Revelation 5. The wrath begins in Revelation 6. No matter how close the wrath is, the rapture is closer!

economy, israel, prophecy

Israel’s economy in 2012: did the recession affect her?

Posted on January 1, 2013 by elizabethprata

A few days ago, a reader asked me to look into the Israeli economy, to see if this past year had impacted it more than other countries. Of all the world’s nations, Israel had been consistently in the top echelon of nations that were growing in many different sectors, irrespective of the downtown. 2012, especially the latter half, saw a slight change in that.

The Israeli economy is slowing, but not as much as the rest of the world. Here is the news from the last week:

CBS report: Israeli economy declining
Gad Lior, Published: 12.26.12, 15:16 / Israel Business
Figures released by Central Bureau of Statistics point to slowdown in nearly all industries in August through October. Bank of Israel sees similar trend

“The Central Bureau of Statistics has released a negative report pointing to a decline in the Israeli economy. The few positive figures included in the report are still worse than in previous months. The figures reveal that the total export of services fell by 4.5% in October, amounting to just $2.2 billion, following a lower drop of 1.8% in September. The export of business services dropped 8.4% compared to the previous month, with revenues from tourism falling by 2.5%. It should be noted that the data are seasonally adjusted, considering the fact that some of the High Holidays took place in October. Without the seasonal adjustment, the declines would have been sharper. A 2.9% drop was recorded in industrial production in August through October, excluding the high-tech industry. The entire industry, including high-tech, registered a 3.5% increase.”

“A sharp 4.6% decline was recorded in the proceeds from sales to the local market of Israel’s industrial factories. The same period also saw a 0.4% drop in the number of hired workers’ jobs in the manufacturing industry and a sharp 2.7% drop in the number of working hours in industrial factories. Things are not looking good in terms of the proceeds of all industries either. Although August through October saw a 3.3% increase in the income according to an annual calculation, May to July recorded a double increase of 6.5%.”

—————————

GDP expanded 3.3% last year in slowest annual pace since 2009

The Israeli economy grew in 2012 at its lowest rate since the economic crisis of 2009, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday, citing preliminary figures.

“Israeli GDP grew only 3.3% in 2012, after two years of higher growth: 4.6% in 2011 and 5% in 2010. In 2009, which was a difficult year for the global economy, Israeli GDP grew only 1.1%”

The article above presents a graph, and you know how much I love graphs, but they also can be used to skew the data or alter the reader’s perception. Here is the graph:

Though the tag “Netanyahu’s government” makes the graph seem like the blip in the economy is his fault, I think recovery in 2009 from the negative to ABOVE where the economy was in 2005 is astounding. We’ve all become used to the downturn, recession whatever the economists are calling it today. But the fact is, the 2008 crash was a global failure that tanked whole nation’s economies (Iceland…Ireland…).

Germany is called the engine of the European Union’s economy. So let’s compare Germany’s GDP before the crash and afterwards to Israel’s. Click to enlarge–

Source

You can clearly see Israel is far ahead, even in these dark days.

However, the prophecies indicate that no matter what happens in the near term, Israel will be abundantly rich in the future. So rich, the alliance recorded in Ezekiel 38-39 makes Israel’s further neighbors jealous. (Ezekiel 38:13).

In recent years, Israel has discovered huge oil, shale, gold, and gas reserves. It won’t take long for Israel to begin extracting, producing and then exporting. I wrote about some of that, here.

I’d said,

“Remember this promise of blessing from Deuteronomy 33:19 -“They will summon peoples to the mountain and there offer sacrifices of righteousness; they will feast on the abundance of the seas, on the treasures hidden in the sand.” God gave Israel treasures, among them, riches under the sea and under the sand. Matthew Henry Commentary says that this prayer is a prophecy, that they would keep His favor and that the tribes shall always receive the earthly blessings that the Lord had bestowed on them: including what was under the sea and under the sand.”

No matter what the economic forecasters say, this is what God has said about Israel:

“Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” . . . Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.” (Isaiah 46:9-10, 12-13).

No matter what, God has blessed Israel with the promise of salvation. There is no greater treasure.

baltic dry index, economy, the fed

The Fed is on a dollar devaluing spree

Posted on February 9, 2012 by elizabethprata

From Forbes Magazine this week,

The Federal Reserve’s Explicit Goal: Devalue The Dollar 33%
“The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level.”

“An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of modest inflation would be followed, in time, by declining prices. As a consequence, over longer periods of time, the price level was unchanged. A dollar 20 years hence was still worth a dollar. But, an increase of 2% a year over a period of 20 years will lead to a 50% increase in the price level. It will take 150 (2032) dollars to purchase the same basket of goods 100 (2012) dollars can buy today. What will be called the “dollar” in 2032 will be worth one-third less (100/150) than what we call a dollar today.”

A 33% devalue broken down, if it was gradual and controlled, would be 11% devalue each 7 years. Roughly. That was me saying that. I like smaller numbers to work with. To continue:

“Why target an annual 2 percent decline in the dollar’s value instead of price stability?” … [yadda yadda yadda a bunch of stuff in the article I don’t understand, now to sum up:] “In other words, a gradual destruction of the dollar’s value is the best the The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) can do.”

Just as I thought.

“The Fed’s finger prints in the form of monetary manipulation are all over the dozen financial crises and spikes in unemployment we have experienced since abandoning the gold standard in 1971. The financial crisis of 2008, caused in no small part by the Fed’s efforts to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates too low for, as it turned out, way too long is but the latest example of the Fed failing to fulfill its mandate to achieve either price stability or full employment.”

Anyone who thinks the economy is getting better has potatoes for brains. Baltic Dry Index plunged to a 20 year low this week. The BDI is always used as a barometer and a harbinger of the strength or weakness of the global economy, because it is a snapshot of commodity trade through global shipping. Here is another take on the Fed’s plan to devalue the dollar. He is easy to understand.

I used to love our economy. But just as Jesus is nearing His return, He is showing us that it is not something to cling to. Just as He is showing us that our ways and our management of His earth are flawed, we release attachment to our man-made constructs and ready ourselves for His currency, truth, and His economy, faith.
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economy, european union, eurozone, prophecy

International alarm grows over fate of Europe’s failing economy

Posted on September 14, 2011 by elizabethprata

I had written last night that Greece was said to be defaulting. However, those reports were almost immediately retracted. I wrote that no matter if the default is now or later, it will come, given the numbers. The level of debt Greece is staggering under cannot be borne much longer. Nor can Italy’s, Spain’s, or even the US’s debt be borne by those nations much longer for that matter.

This Jefferies report quoted in Zerohedge lays it out clearly on how and why the European economic failure will be just as bad if not worse than the one the US suffered in 2008. Jefferies is a full-service securities and investment banking firm serving companies and their investors globally, not some pajama blogger or fringe guy who thinks he has a handle of geo-political economics. This is the real deal. In the report, Jefferies lays out the European end game.

“The bottom line is that it looks like a Lehman like event is about to be unleashed on Europe WITHOUT an effective TARP like structure fully in place. Now maybe, just maybe, they can do what the US did and build one on the fly – wiping out a few institutions and then using an expanded EFSF/Eurobond structure to prevent systemic collapse. But politically that is increasingly feeling like a long shot. Rather it looks like we will get 17 TARPs – one for each country. That is going to require a US style socialization of each banking system – with many WAMUs, Wachovias, AIGs and IndyMacs along the way. The road map for Europe is still 2008 in the US, with the end game a country by country socialization of their commercial banks. The fact is that the Germans are NOT going to pay for pan European structure to recap French and Italian banks – even though it is probably a more cost effective solution for both the German banks and taxpayers.”

It is a very good report. Even I understood it, and math and economics is not my strong point.

British economics reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote about Germany’s and Greece’s mutually assured destruction. Pritchard is another guy I like to read. He is sound. He wrote,

Germany and Greece flirt with mutual assured destruction
Bild Zeitung populism has prevailed. Germany is pushing Greece towards a hard default, risking the uncontrollable chain reaction so long feared by markets.
“Whoever thinks that Greece is an easy scapegoat, will find that this eventually turns against them, against the hard core of the eurozone,” said Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos. Greece can, if provoked, pull the pin on the European banking system and inflict huge damage on Germany itself, and Greece has certainly been provoked.”

In the wake of all this economic news from Europe, Moody’s downgraded France’s largest banks today.

“Moody’s Investors Service downgraded two of France’s biggest banks Wednesday, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, citing their exposure to the Greek economy and the fragile state of bank financing markets. It kept a third, BNP Paribas, under review … France brushed off concerns about its biggest banks Wednesday, insisting that it had no plans to nationalize any of them despite a credit rating downgrade linked to their exposure to the limping Greek economy.”

The Polish Finance Minister warned that Europe was about to collapse, though his comments engendered a firestorm under which he ‘clarified’ and partially retracted. He said,

“While speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski warned that Europe was in grave danger of collapsing if the euro zone debt crisis was not resolved rapidly. Europe must be saved at all costs, he added. Anxieties regarding the euro zone debt crisis have been mounting this week. Many judge US Treasury Timothy Geithner’s announcement that he will attend a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Wroclaw this Friday as yet another sign of the seriousness of the situation. “We should not deceive ourselves, if the euro falls apart, then Europe will not survive the shock for long,” said Mr Rostowski during his speech on Wednesday. … Also speaking in the European Parliament on Wednesday, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso also underlined that Europe’s future was at stake. “We are facing the biggest crisis of this generation,” said Mr Barroso. “It’s a struggle for the political future of Europe, for European integration as a whole,” he added.”

It IS a struggle to hold things together when all the forces of evil, history, and prophecy are tearing them asunder. The final empire that reforms out of this crisis and emerges in the last days will fall apart, as well. This is foretold in Daniel 2.

Wayne Blank wrote, “In the Bible study Daniel’s Statue we looked at the curious prophetic symbol found in the book of Daniel. The vision of the statue was given by God to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in a dream. The dream was interpreted by the prophet Daniel. The statue was a composite, made up of different materials to represent the successive human empires that ruled the land of the Bible and beyond. With the starting point of the Babylonian “head of gold” plainly stated to us by Daniel, Bible History and secular history both provide us with the other pieces of the puzzle that fit perfectly: after the Babylonian empire came the Persian empire (the chest and arms of silver); then the Greek empire (belly and thighs of bronze); and finally the Roman empire (the legs of iron). The legs of iron terminated in the feet which were composed of a mixture of iron and baked clay. Daniel provides us with a fascinating description of the “feet.” The iron in the feet is described as a group of different peoples (nations) that despite their differences in language and culture, come together for a short time to fulfill an important stage in God’s plan. The “baked clay” in the feet is the necessary binding agent that holds the pieces of iron together. A common religion, led by a popular, and eventually great miracle-performing leader, is thought to be the baked clay.”

We do not know what the exact catalyst will be for the last Empire to emerge, nor are we told exactly when, but we do know that it will happen. Will Europe collapse all the way, only for the antichrist to arise from the chaotic smoke of the falling empire? Will Europe hang on and the antichrist appear at the right moment to offer a solution so that it will not fall? Either way, the pieces are in the air and it is both exciting and unnerving to watch them play out their final arc in the face of bible truth.
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economy, end time, prophecy, tent city

Shocking tent city in NJ

Posted on August 16, 2011 by elizabethprata

The UK Daily Mail does a good job of keeping up on news from the United States. Better than even the United States media.

The Tent City of New Jersey: Desperate victims of the economic slump forced to live in makeshift homes in forest
In scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression these are the ramshackle homes of the desperate and destitute U.S. families who have set up their own ‘Tent City’ only an hour from Manhattan.
More than 50 homeless people have joined the community within New Jersey’s forests as the economic crisis has wrecked their American dream. And as politicians in Washington trade blows over their country’s £8.8 trillion debt, the prospect of more souls joining this rag tag group grows by the day. Building their own tarpaulin tents, Native American teepees and makeshift balsa wood homes, every one of the Tent City residents has lost their job.”

The photos are amazing, the Daily Mail really does a good job with pictures. I feel for the people who have been affected and are reduced to living under tarps, exposed to the weather, and scrounging for food. These statistics from The Economic Collapse Blog show that this kind of living standard awaits many more of us:

“At this point, there is no solution to our national debt problem under our current financial system. Most state governments are also facing huge financial problems. The state government of Illinois is so broke at this point that it can’t even afford to bury the poor people that are dying. But Illinois is not alone. All over the country, state and local governments have been implementing austerity measures. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state and local governments have slashed more than half a million jobs since August 2008.”

There are more statistics at the link that paint a bleak economic picture for the near term. But for Christians the near term looks very bright. GLORIOUSLY bright! Our Lord and Savior, who loves us, will come down from His abode in heaven, issue a shout, and we shall rise, the dead and the living, to meet Him in the air. (1 Thess 4:17; 1 Cor 15:52). You can be part of this grand reunion as well. All you have to do is confess your sins to the Lord, for He is righteous judge, and ask Him to pardon you, for He is merciful judge. Your sins will be forgiven and forgotten, and you can be part of the wonderful Marriage Supper of the Lamb, a banquet of cleansed saints and our Groom, Jesus. It is up to you, for He is kind Judge, allowing you to choose Him, and not forcing Himself upon you. You won’t get the same treatment from satan.
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bank of america, economy, prophecy

Too big to fail? Maybe Bank of America is not too big

Posted on July 18, 2011 by elizabethprata

I’m not posting a lot of my own stuff this week, but I wanted to point you toward Michael T. Snyder’s blog entry today:
“Too Big To Fail?: 10 Banks Own 77 Percent Of All U.S. Banking Assets “

His blog entry contains a devastating amount of information that concludes with saying the ‘too big to fail banks’ are likely to fail soon, one of which is Bank of America. And even as I finished reading the essay, the first third of which I posted below, then I read this news: “Bank of America needs 50Billion or may go bankrupt“

And of course, there was a bank run and a stocks shedding.

Here is Michael T. Snyder’s excerpt of today’s blog entry, I recommend it in its entirety.–

“Back during the financial crisis of 2008, the American people were told that the largest banks in the United States were “too big to fail” and that was why it was necessary for the federal government to step in and bail them out. The idea was that if several of our biggest banks collapsed at the same time the financial system would not be strong enough to keep things going and economic activity all across America would simply come to a standstill. Congress was told that if the “too big to fail” banks did not receive bailouts that there would be chaos in the streets and this country would plunge into another Great Depression. Since that time, however, essentially no efforts have been made to decentralize the U.S. banking system. Instead, the “too big to fail” banks just keep getting larger and larger and larger. Back in 2002, the top 10 banks controlled 55 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Today, the top 10 banks control 77 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Unfortunately, these giant banks are also colossal mountains of risk, debt and leverage. They are incredibly unstable and they could start coming apart again at any time. None of the major problems that caused the crash of 2008 have been fixed. In fact, the U.S. banking system is more centralized and more vulnerable today than it ever has been before…”
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economy, end of days. prophecy, end time, global economic crash, one world government

Economic crash dead ahead: prophetic fulfillments one after another

Posted on July 13, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The economy around the world is in a shambles. The US has a debt limit ceiling of August 2. However, by that time they must have already come to an agreement on whether to raise it or not because any proposal to raise it must have gone through Congress first, and that takes a minimum of two weeks or so. The talks on the debt ceiling are breaking down like a shreds of a popped balloon. Anger, threats, and inability to come to a conclusion have been the hallmark of these talks, with the world watching and getting more fearful and angry by the minute.

US default is inevitable, says CNBC analyst. Just a few years ago just saying default and US in the same sentence would have evoked laughter. Now they are talking about its inevitability, the only question remaining as to what KIND of default the US will have.

“It is inevitable that the US will default when the debt ceiling deadline on August 2 comes around, David Murrin, chief investment officer at Emergent Asset Management told CNBC. “It’s inevitable that the US will default – it’s essentially an empire which is overextended and in decline – and that its financial system will go with it. The question is: does it default when it is forced to by the outside world, probably the Chinese, or does it take the option to default on its own terms in such a way that it may have a strategic advantage,” he said.”

I’m flabbergasted that just four years ago America seemed to be on top of the world in every arena, including economic, and now we are taking of not only the inevitability of default, but of what KIND of default. Sovereign default is what we used to make fun of in the Banana Republics, but now Obama is vehemently denying that we are one. In high finance, vehement denials always come just before the thing that is being denied comes about.

The ‘Eurozone’ also has difficulties, worse ones actually. While the US has been staying the execution of our economic system by printing more money, Europe can’t do that. Those in the zone, the EU, have one currency. One nation just can’t go off and print more drachmas, because there is no such thing any more as drachmas. Or Lira. or Escudo. There was an emergency meeting on Italy’s looming default that ended with no solutions. There is a meeting scheduled for this Friday about Greece that is already in disarray. Ireland was cut to junk status. Italy is coming apart like a $20 suit.

Greece is rumored to be preparing to leave the Eurozone, but denies it vehemently. Remember the truism that in economics the more vigorous the denial, the more true the thing is that they are denying. The Eurozone crisis is growing larger while stocks dip and slide, and it is reaching a critical point with Italy’s cracks being added to the already crumbling foundation.

Those are some of the details of what is happening in the economy and how close we are to total collapse. A US default, and/or Greek, Italian or Irish would pull everyone else down with them. And I haven’t even mentioned Spain and Portugal.

Now for the bigger picture. These meetings in the US and Europe are held with the greatest minds on the subject. They are the top officials. They have the most experience, the longest resumes, the most power. In some cases, they are the people who put the economic system together, and have intricate understanding of how it works, and therefore should have intricate understanding of why it isn’t working. But they don’t. They try and try and fly here and there and go to and fro and meet and meet and still things are worsening.

This situation of economic gridlock causing so much consternation is exactly the beginning of fulfillment of prophecy. In Luke 21:25 it says: “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves.”

Barnes Notes explains the state of distress from the Greek word used: “The word translated “distress” denotes anxiety of mind – such an anxiety as people have when they do not know what to do to free themselves from calamities; and it means here that the calamities would be so great and overwhelming that they would not know what to do to escape. There would be a want of counsel, and deep anxiety at the impending evils.” Is that now, or what?!

Further, the roaring of the waves does not denote tsunamis or hurricanes but is parallel to this scripture from Isaiah 17:12 “Oh, the raging of many nations–they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproar of the peoples–they roar like the roaring of great waters!” Is that happening now, or what?! The ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, the anger of the people everywhere at the leaders who can’t and won’t and don’t fix this, Greek and UK riots on austerity measures…Just now there have been successive bomb blasts in Mumbai, killing many.

I personally think the remainder of the summer will be really interesting prophetically. Between the deadlines regarding Israel and dividing of her land, either through the peace process or a unilateral vote at the UN, and the deadlines for resolving the debt before it crushes us, and continuing natural disasters hammering away at the economy, I don’t think we will have much longer before the cracks in that old foundation give way to a heap of rubble that used to be our economy. And prophecy students know that at the middle of the Tribulation, the antichrist has gained so much power that he can monitor every single person on the planet and include them or exclude them from buying or selling. (Rev 13:15-17). For there to be so much power and capability on one person’s hands there must have been a reformation of the economic system to allow it. I think we’re on that brink.
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currency, economy, end of days. prophecy, gold, university of texas

University of Texas Investment Fund defects from paper currency: buys 1B in gold

Posted on April 17, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Something happened Friday. It seems that it is significant. I am not familiar enough with global economics to be able to place it in a context for you, but it is something, my gut is telling me. The guys at Zerohedge noticed that during the week, gold prices were going funky. Silver was going stratospheric. Why? Economics is a causal relationship- when one thing happens it causes ripples elsewhere. No ever stands in a vacuum. So what was causing the commodity price to skyrocket in this way? Friday came the answer, and the Zerohedge guys call it a tipping point:

A Golden Tipping Point: University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Physical Gold
“Tipping points are funny: for years, decades, even centuries, the conditions for an event to occur may be ripe yet nothing happens. Then, in an instant, a shift occurs, whether its is due a change in conventional wisdom, due to an exogenous event or due to something completely inexplicable. That event, colloquially called a black swan in recent years, changes the prevalent perception of reality in a moment. This past week, we were seeing the effect of a tipping point in process, with gold prices rising to new all time highs day after day, and the price of silver literally moving in a parabolic fashion. What was missing was the cause. We now know what it is: per Bloomberg: “The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board.” And so, the game theory of a nearly 100 year old system of monetary exchange has seen its first defector, but most certainly not last. With an entity as large as the University of Texas calling the bluff of the Comex, the Chairman, and fiat in general in roughly that order, virtually every other asset manager is now sure to follow, considering there is not nearly enough physical gold to satisfy all paper gold in existence by a factor of about 100x.”

I noticed their phraseology in saying that the event is a signal of a defection from our monetary exchange. Also, in the third sentence, they mention the black swan. The Black Swan theory was developed by Nassim “Nicholas Taleb to explain the disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology.”

It’s evident that we are entering into the realms of never-before-traveled territory in economics and finance. Not that economies haven’t crashed before. Not that there hasn’t been hyperinflation before. But never in such global proportions and never before when we have been so intertwined.

Forbes explains the University of Texas activity as a response to the falling dollar:

“It should come as no shock to financial markets that university endowments have followed in the wake of central banks and hedge funds to become the newest major investors in precious metals like gold. Just as central banks in China, India, Russia and many other nations view gold as a monetary reserve protection against the falling dollar, major academic institutions are looking for new asset classes like precious metals and commodities to produce returns that can be put to work as a source of funds for a large portion of college operating expenses.”

So Friday, UT invested 5% of its entire portfolio in gold. Did you know that last July, they invested 3% of their entire portfolio in gold? “The Houston Chronicle reports that the university bought the gold out of fears of “unstable international financial markets and the possibility of high inflation.” It is relatively uncommon for a university to invest in gold, the value of which only increases through inflation.” So by now, UT has at least 8% and likely 10% or more of its investments in gold. How many others are doing the same? Many, I suspect.

Thursday, Kyle Bass, a Dallas Hedge Fund Manager and representative of the UT Board, made the recommendation to buy more gold. In his reasoning, he’s quoted as saying, “Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”

In don’t know how large University financial institutions work normally, but in my experience, they work slowly. In this case, they bought the gold the next day. The next day.

Maybe it’s facts like these that cause the haste:

It’s clear that we’re tanking. America’s economy is on a downward slide and as a snowball rolls downhill it goes faster and faster. Do the people experiencing a crash ever know it at the time? The folks in 1929 didn’t. They thought things would get better. When they didn’t for two years, they finally woke up. By then the Depression was at rock bottom.

Refusal to believe what is happening in front of your eyes is called normalcy bias. There obviously are some people who see the coming crash and are doing something about it, like the folks at Univ. TX. Others see the coming spiritual crash and are taking steps to prepare, by converting from craven sinner to forgiven saint thanks to the blood of Jesus and their confession to the Lord. But most won’t do anything different right up until the end. Normalcy bias is defined as:

“a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of the government to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.”

Does that sound like any unsaved person you have tried to talk with lately? Does that sound like any nominal Christian who refuses to heed the warnings to persevere? Jesus described the normalcy bias in the bible:

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:26-29)

It seems hard to believe that as a third of the rivers and waters turn to blood, that as wars are happening all around, as millions have disappeared in the rapture, & etc., that people will continue to carry on expecting things to return to normal at some point. It won’t.

The normalcy bias is described again, in 2 Peter 3:4 – “They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”” They say that since things have always remained the same that the rapture won’t occur. Oh, but it will.

This week I listened to four sermons. One from my local pastor, another from John Hagee, from John MacArthur, and from Steve Hadley. They all preached the rapture. They all explained the prophesies. They all said the same things and interpreted the scriptures the same way. I glory in the Holy Spirit when things like this happens! I believe the Spirit is prompting the bible-teaching pastors to speak these things to encourage the body and to prepare us for His calling us ‘up there.’

Things are not normal and each day that passes they get less normal, but the praise is, as each day passes, we are one more day closer to being with the Lord! Therefore, brethren comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

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