We have a small group of men that meet regularly for study, most often orientated toward political or economic issues. Ben is one such member of this group and I believe he is an able commentator on the catastrophic economic events we are presently experiencing. He sent out an email this morning that paints a brief, yet concise picture of events as they unfold.
Now is certainly the time to prepare for the inevitable collapse.
From: Benjamin Richards
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 8:11 AM
Subject: Disastrous.
Hi everyone,
Sorry I am to write this email, but the magnitude of the goings on requires it. I will try to be as brief as possible.
Bush has just proposed a $700 billion dollar bailout for toxic mortgage loans. It is promoted as a bailout for homeowners. It is actually a bailout for banks. Just to remind you, in the past few weeks we bailed out AIG for $85B, printed $185B to “promote liquidity”, nationalized Fannie and Freddie with an unlimited line of credit from the Treasury (their liabilities exceed $5 trillion, with a “T”), and earlier this year bailed out Bear Stearns for tens of billions.
Since these numbers may be too big to be meaningful, I will remind you that our national debt right now is just under $10 trillion, and our official budget deficit for this year will be almost $500 billion. G. W. Bush entered office with a budget surplus and a national debt less than half of what it is now. Andrew Jackson was president the last time we had no national debt. From Jackson to Clinton, the national debt grew to $5T. In eight years under Bush, it has doubled, and that doesn’t include any of these bailouts.
The bailouts constitute a transfer of toxic waste investments from the multimillionaire finance managers who personally orchestrated and oversaw this disaster onto the U.S. taxpayer. While the sun was shining, these people were taking billions of dollars in bonuses and drawing annual salaries in the tens of millions. Now that the sun is no longer shining, their disastrous investments will be transferred to you and me, and more importantly, our children and our grandchildren. This is privatizing the gains, and socializing the losses. “Make someone else pay.”
The worst of this is that it is all planned and executed by two unelected officials: a lame duck Treasury Secretary, leaving in January, who is a former CEO of one of the big investment banks, and Ben Bernanke with his Federal Reserve. All of this is illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral on a mind-numbing scale. Congress will do whatever they say. Congress has abdicated.
These measures will not make anything better. They will delay the inevitable for a few months, possibly, and then make things much, much worse. Congress cannot change economic law by printing money, but they will try. They cannot beat the forces of the market. This crisis was caused by too much money and too much credit, but they will try to fix it with even more money and credit.
The immediate results are the following. (1) a mind-boggling expansion of government power. In less than a month, the U.S. housing mortgage industry and the insurance industry have been unilaterally nationalized. (2) the destruction of the US dollar. It cannot possibly recover from these measures. (3) a serious recession, perhaps the worst recession that anyone living has seen.
Nothing like what is going on now has happened in U.S. history. It has happened repeatedly in world history, and the inevitable result is the collapse of the empire. Every empire in world history has eventually bankrupted itself by debasing its currency and overextending itself militarily. People seem to think it can be different this time. It can’t.
What I am encouraging all of you to do is to (1) please, please call each of your congressmen as soon as possible and protest what is going on. National politics is absolutely hopeless, and I never bother to call, but it is about the only thing we can do. Maybe if enough people call, they will not pass this $700B bailout. And (2), please pray for our economy, every day. My pastor reminded us this week that we should be doing this right now. He is right. Many, many people are going to suffer as a result of what they’re doing in Washington, and if it goes as planned, I am not even willing to guess at the magnitude of the consequences.
We cannot thumb our nose at economic law and expect to get away with it, because it is God’s law. We have built an entire economic system on fraud, theft, and deception, and I fear we may be about to be judged for it.
In HIM,
Ben
I’m Ben Richards, and I approve this message.