Protests in Europe

No doubt that people in Western civilizations have gotten used to the good life. We like our highways, sidewalks, park system, public schools, Social Security til we die, Medicare til we die, food stamp program, welfare program, etc.... We like it all! But it turns out we haven't been paying for it...instead we chose to put all those nice programs on a credit card. And when it gets revealed that we can no longer afford the "good life"...so we need to make cuts.....where should we make those cuts?

Social Security?? The folks already collecting on it would scream and protest.

Welfare?? The folks already collecting on it would scream and protest and probably quickly turn to riot.

Highway system?? The folks already driving on them would scream and protest as the pot holes go unfixed and snow doesn't get plowed.

Public schools?? The teachers and and unions scream and protest whenever budget increases are denied. Can you imagine if a 20% cut was handed down?

So you can see that EVERYONE seems in favor of cutting government spending...but NO ONE wants their own personal benefits cut.

In Europe they have been the chief sinners of spending for benefits that they can't afford. And now the governments are having to slash budgets to keep from going bankrupt...and the natives are getting restless.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Tens of thousands of angry workers marched through cities across Europe on Wednesday (29 September) to protest against the wave of government austerity measures that have swept through the region over the past year.

In Spain, unions held their first general strike since 2002, shutting down huge parts of the economy while others were left largely unaffected.

Strikers clashed with police in several cities across the country, as tens of thousands of protesters displayed their unhappiness with the government's package of austerity measures and unpopular plans to reform the labour market.

In Warsaw, thousands rallied outside the government headquarters under the slogan "No to cuts, yes to development." Similar rallies were also staged in Cyprus, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Greece.

See it here; http://euobserver.com/9/30929

Is it possible that America may soon start having street protests in California, Arizona, Nevada, New York, etc... when the painful reality finally sets in of how broke the states truly are...and how deep the cuts truly have to be?

Currency War

We know that our money is really just paper. It's backed by faith in the U.S. government. It can go up or down in value based on a lot of factors...one of which is how much faith investors have in OTHER governments.

Let's face it, if you had a crystal ball and you knew that Government A was still going to be in existence in 10 years and Government B was already fiscally broke and was heading for collapse and anarchy...whose paper money would you rather hold? It really is that simple. You would naturally desire to hold more Government A paper...and would pay more to get it....thereby increasing the value of that currency.

Now here is a problem; most of the major governments of the world (especially the Western world...which has lived WAY beyond our means issuing IOU's) are already broke. Furthermore, their economies are in recession...meaning that their business aren't selling anything...so they lay off workers...who then have less money to buy anything....so businesses aren't selling anything....and the government can't collect taxes from unemployed workers and unprofitable businesses....so they go further down bankruptcy road. It really is a vicious circle.

So what do governments WANT to do to attempt to stop this vicious cycle? One plan is to make your money worth less against other foreign currencies....that way the goods and services of U.S. companies will be cheaper to foreigners...and they will buy more stuff here than at home because the German Mark buys more U.S. dollars...which in turn buys more U.S. products....which in turn makes U.S. companies hire more workers to fill the orders...and then we emerge out of the recession.

So what if Japan, Brazil, China, France, Spain, etc... all come up with the same idea at the same time? In other words,...what if they ALL try and devalue their currency in a race to see who can make their money worth the least...in the quickest time?

The world is in the grip of a currency "war", with leading nations using devaluation to solve economic problems, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega has warned in remarks reported from Sao Paulo.

"We're in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency," he said in remarks reported by the Financial Times newspaper.

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have intervened recently to pull down the value of their currencies, the newspaper noted, and the dollar has fallen by about 25 percent so far this year against the Brazilian real. Such a fall increases the price of Brazilian exports on the US market.

NOW PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THIS:

The United States has complained for years that China has held down artificially the value of its currency, preventing it from rising to reflect the strength of China's foreign exchange earnings from exporting, notably to the US market.

This came to a head at the end of last week while the UN General Assembly meeting was being held when China's Premier Wen Jiabao told a business forum in New York that voiced fears of social unrest if Beijing bowed to US pressure.

"If the (yuan) appreciates by 20 to 40 percent according to requests of the US government, we do not know how many Chinese companies will go bankrupt and how many Chinese workers will be laid off and how many rural workers will go back to their homes and there will be major turbulence in Chinese society," he said.

See it here; http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6ba18dcc0082babe1fb010468f2dd977.291&show_article=1

So there you have it. The USA wants the Chinese yuan to be worth 20-40% more so it will help the U.S. economy...but the Chinese are saying if they allowed that to happen it could crash the Chinese economy and cause "major turbulence in Chinese society."

And we owe the Chinese $1 Trillion dollars...all of which may soon have to be refinanced.

Can you spell the word P-I-C-K-L-E?

One final thing...I remember this from history class....most wars start out as trade wars and evolve into fighting wars.

Silver and Gold

The buzz about silver and gold continues....more so about gold. In fact the front page of the Wall Street Journal today says, "Gold Vaults to New High".

The optimists say that even at $1300 per ounce, gold has a long way to climb before it gets to the inflation-adjusted level that it reached back in the early 1980's....under Jimmy Carter's fiasco at President.

The Bible tells us in Ezekiel 7 that silver and gold will not save us from the coming wrath of God.

And this article says that silver and gold may soon be falling;

Based on the information from today's media, it may not seem plausible to think the gold and silver boom could become bust, but one investor points out that the bubble could soon reach its end.

Every day there are advertisements, sometimes during every commercial break, that proclaim even though gold and silver prices are at an all-time high, they will only get higher. But Art Ally, president of the biblically minded investment group The Timothy Plan, says it is possible that the industry could soon hit rock bottom.

"I've been in this business 32 years. If I've learned anything, I've learned this: Whenever there is a feeding frenzy on any segment of the investment world, be careful. That is a sign that we're somewhere near the top," he shares.

See it here; http://www.onenewsnow.com/Business/Default.aspx?id=1186174

But then this investment dude goes on to give the best possible advice EVER:

He advises the best investment is for people to humble themselves, pray and seek God's face, and turn from their wicked ways -- a reference to 2 Chronicles 7:14.

AMEN!!

Destructive Tipping Point

According to the Dean of Columbia Business school, America is "close to a destructive tipping point."

"America is very close to a destructive tipping point," co-authors Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro warn in their new book Seeds of Destruction. "We must change how we conduct our politics and economics...or we will inevitably go the way of all once-great nations and suffer an irreversible decline."

But if Bush was a big spender, President Obama is "taking it to a whole other level," Hubbard says, citing the familiar critiques of ObamaCare and Financial Reform and "excess government spending" in general.

In short, Hubbard believes Obama inherited a mess but has made it worse with nearly every one of his major policy initiatives and general governing philosophy.

"We as a nation cannot resolve what have become deep and systemic structural imbalances in our economy simply by throwing more money and more and more regulations and more and more taxes at the problem," Hubbard and Navarro write.

See it here; http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/u.s.-economy-%22close-to-a-destructive-tipping-point%22-glenn-hubbard-says-535457.html

My question to these guys is, "What do you mean by destructive tipping point? What do you actually think it will look like to the average guy on the street if America has a destructive tipping point?"

That's the same question I always want to ask of the authors who say that America is close to a systemic collapse. What does that even mean? Is Cub Foods empty? Are they even open? Are people running around trying to change their dollars for Euros? Are the banks closed? Does the National Guard show up to stop the rioting in the major cities? Or do they stay home and try to help their own families through the collapse?

What I do know for sure is that the people living in America today have no idea what life will be like if the U.S. dollar starts to plummet in value....and ends up to not be worth the paper it is printed on.

What Ahmadinejad Knows

One of my cousins had emailed me yesterday after reading President Ahmadinejads comments during his UN speech. He wanted to know if Ahmadinejad was crazy.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens answers the very question my cousin posed to me yesterday.

Could it work? Like any politician, Ahmadinejad knows his demographic. The University of Maryland's World Public Opinion surveys have found that just 2% of Pakistanis believe al Qaeda perpetrated the attacks, whereas 27% believe it was the U.S. government. (Most respondents say they don't know.)

Among Egyptians, 43% say Israel is the culprit, while another 12% blame the U.S. Just 16% of Egyptians think al Qaeda did it. In Turkey, opinion is evenly split: 39% blame al Qaeda, another 39% blame the U.S. or Israel. Even in Europe, Ahmadinejad has his corner. Fifteen percent of Italians and 23% of Germans finger the U.S. for the attacks.

What Ahmadinejad knows is that there will always be a political place for what Michel Foucault called "the sovereign enterprise of Unreason." This is an enterprise whose domain encompasses the politics of identity, of religious zeal, of race or class or national resentment, of victimization, of cheek and self-assertion. It is the politics that uses conspiracy theory not just because it sells, which it surely does, or because it manipulates and controls, which it does also, but because it offends. It is politics as a revolt against empiricism, logic, utility, pragmatism. It is the proverbial rage against the machine.

Chances are you know people to whom this kind of politics appeals in some way, large or small. They are Ahmadinejad's constituency. They may be irrational; he isn't crazy.

See it here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704654004575517632476603268.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So how do you build common ground with the Pakistanis when 14 times more of them think the U.S. government did 9/11 than believe Al Qaeda had anything to do with it? Same thing with the Egyptians. How about those Germans?? How long does it take to convince hundreds of millions of Muslims (many with little or no education) that the US government DID NOT blow up the Twin Towers in order to start two wars. I'm pretty sure we're fighting a losing battle on that front.

Ahmadinejad isn't crazy. He has Obama on the ropes and knows Obama isn't going to use strong arm tactics (U.S. military) to enforce anything he says. He also knows that by keeping the world focused on the Palestinian problem....he can continue to spin his centrifuges in quest of a nuclear bomb. And if he does manage to get one, the entire world will be on the ropes....as we wonder if Hezbollah or Hamas will end up the recipient of an Iranian gift.

U.N. Appoints Alien Greeting Committee

The world is definitely preparing to meet some aliens...and according to many of the "alien" signs (crop circles, increase in sightings) and communications (channeling through mediums and the occult)...the "aliens" are planning on coming just as soon as they possibly can.

So this headline from the United Nations should come as no surprise;

U.N. Appoints 'First Contact' for Visiting Space Aliens

The United Nations is set to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth's first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the U.N.'s little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), will describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference center in Buckinghamshire, England.

She will tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before -- and that means the U.N. must be ready to coordinate humanity's response to any "first contact."

See it here; http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/27/appoints-contact-visiting-space-aliens/

In some of the reading I have been doing, many prophecy watchers believe that what is actually holding the "aliens" (actually demons in disguise) back from working their grand deception is the Holy Spirit that indwells in all Christ followers on planet earth. In essence the Holy Spirit is acting as a "restrainer"....to restrain Satanic evil from TOTALLY swamping this planet and humankind....until the fullness of the gentiles is complete. (See 2 Thessalonians 2:7 and Luke 21:24)

Also some of the quotes I am reading, from the mediums who believe they are communicating with aliens, claim that there is soon going to be a mass evacuation of people from planet earth. But when this happens, don't be concerned, they are told, because the folks who were taken were actually the ones who were holding the aliens back from joining us on earth....and that they have been taken someplace nice to be reprogrammed...so their brains will get rid of the "old ways and beliefs" and instead be loaded with thoughts of the New Age.

Hmmmm.....sounds to me like Satan is getting some serious explanations ready to explain to the folks left behind on planet earth what just happened to millions of Christians....Christians who suddenly vanished in the twinkling of an eye.

If the rapture wasn't a true Biblical teaching....why would Satan be so insistent on preparing non-believers for some type of mass evacuation of millions of people? Think about it.

Personally, I believe that Satan knows his Bible better than most of us because he has been studying it for thousands of years. He can read the signs and knows that the rapture of the church may be close to being a reality.....so he is ramping up his plans to deceive the nations (just like the Bible says will happen) soon after the rapture.

Hat tip to Tom.

So Much for Obama's Reset Button

President Obama campaigned on the promise that, if elected, he was going to hit the reset button and undo all the nastiness of the George Bush presidency. He was going to offer respect to the nations that President Bush had so grossly offended by calling them "evil"...and in doing so peace, happiness, prosperity and a general sense of good will would automatically flow around the world. (cue the Kum ba yah sound track please) It all sounded really good.

So I am sure that these latest comments from Iran are deeply troubling to Team Obama.

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's parliament speaker on Saturday called US President Barack Obama an "international villain" for saying the United States supports the Iranian people's democratic aspirations.

"How dare Obama announce that he wants to help the Iranian nation? He should know that he is an international villain," Ali Larijani was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying during a visit to the southern city of Shiraz.

"The Americans are displaying an act that deserves an international evilness medal... Mr Obama should know that we do not need his message, what we need is to be able to trust the words he utters," he said.

See it here; http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100925/wl_mideast_afp/iranusdiplomacyobama

What the heck?? Did this guy not get the global memo?? He was supposed to drink a Coke, hold hands with people of all races and faiths and gather on a mountain hilltop while all singing, "....grow apple trees, and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves...."

And instead he has the audacity to say Team Obama, "deserves an international evilness medal"?? What the....?

That's just flat out not nice. Even worse, that rough talk may delay the possibility of Team Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace price someday...

Wait a tick?....didn't Obama already get a Nobel Peace prize simply for his awesome talk of peace during his campaign?

What a funny world we live in. It is so thoroughly confused that it appears that it is being run by a master of confusion. Let's see....didn't the Bible say something about the "Prince of the earth"?