U.S. Nears the Precipice

Whew!!! 2009 is in the past and now we can look forward to 2010. For those of us who are optimists, we may like to believe we can ignore the problems that were with us the last week of 2009 and simply turn the page and hit the "reset" button.

Truthfully, that only happens in movies and fairy tales.

The reality is that we do still have the problems of 2009....and we can expect them to get worse in 2010.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!, says Debbie Downer.

Remember, Jesus our savior says that we can expect the tribulations of the world to continue to increase as His return draws close....they will be like labor pains where the pain becomes more frequent and more sharp.

For the U.S., those labor pains are going to be contracting around our financial condition...and today's Wall Street Journal says we are near the precipice....and precipice means the very edge of a cliff.

Here is the headline;
Deficit, Budget Woes Need Solutions as U.S. Nears the Precipice

The Obama administration has a lot to wish for in 2010, including a new health-care system and a sustainable economic recovery. But even if those wishes come true, policy makers face an even bigger problem in the new year and beyond: convincing the world that the U.S. government can get its finances back in order.

Economists have long fretted about how an aging population and growing health-care costs will cause the U.S. budget deficit and public debt to balloon -- an outcome that could wreak financial havoc by undermining confidence in the U.S. dollar. But the latest recession and related stimulus efforts have made the problem more acute, a point four prominent economists made Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association.

"We've moved closer to the precipice, and the precipice has moved closer to us," Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who has focused on U.S. government finances for about 15 years, said in an interview. The other three panelists at a session on the deficit -- Robert Barro and Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, and Tom Sargent of New York University -- agreed that the situation is dire. It "frightens all of us," said Mr. Sargent.

Did you catch those statements I put in bold above? Havoc could result if the world loses confidence in the U.S. dollar...and this "frightens" the best economists in the country.

Read it all here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126255761275914079.html

The Bible is very clear that in the Last Days men will faint with fear for what is coming upon them. I believe that passage more relates to the rising oceans, earthquakes and erupting volcanoes....but it may also apply to many men fainting when they realize that the labors of their entire lives has simply vanished along with the value of the paper money.