Paper Money

Why is it that if I hand you a U.S. bill that says $100, that many people would be willing to work hard for 8 hours in exchange for that bill?

Simple answer....because we have faith. Faith in what? Faith that we will be able to take that same piece of paper and give it to someone else in exchange for some form of labor, service or good. Of course, you first need to find that "someone else" who also has the same faith in order to accept your bill. And presently, that "someone else" is just about every person or company in the country.

Now expand that same idea and go globally. Why would China be willing to take a piece of paper in exchange for 100,000 tons of steel that they worked their butts off to produce, put on a ship and bring it to one of our ports? Same answer; because they have faith that they will be able to spend that paper somewhere else in the world.

Faith is really just a belief based on a set of circumstances. And faith can vanish like mist on a sunny day if those circumstances change and crush those beliefs.

Is it possible those circumstances are setting up at this very moment to utterly crush the U.S. dollar?

I wonder, though, just how far we have really come in the past 200-odd years. To give modernity its due, the dollar has cut a swath in the world. There's no greater success story in the long history of money than the common greenback. Of no intrinsic value, collateralized by nothing, it passes from hand to trusting hand the world over. More than half of the $923 billion's worth of currency in circulation is in the possession of foreigners.

But now the world is losing faith, as well it might. It's not that the dollar is overvalued—economists at Deutsche Bank estimate it's 20% too cheap against the euro. The problem lies with its management. The greenback is a glorious old brand that's looking more and more like General Motors.

A monetary economist from Mars could only scratch his pointy head at our 21st century monetary arrangements. What is a dollar? he might ask. No response. The Martian can't find out because the earthlings don't know. The value of a dollar is undefined. Its relationship to other currencies is similarly contingent. Some exchange rates float, others sink, still others are lashed to the dollar (whatever it is). Discouraged, the visitor zooms home.

Read it here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574575761660481996.html

Remember friends, most likely it will be a crisis of epic proportions that will usher in the Antichrist. Ask yourselves this; if the global financial system shattered....could that be a sufficient mechanism to usher in this coming world leader?

Also remember the Bible tells us that we are supposed to hold all things on earth VERY loosely....because all things are passing away. Don't fall in love with ANYTHING on earth. And certainly don't put your faith in ANYTHING but the Lord Jesus Christ.

How miserably we have failed at those clear instructions. Forgive us Lord.