Germany Slams "Stupid" U.S. Plan

According to this article, some German officials were pretty peeved at Team Obama comments regarding the European fiscal crisis....even calling them stupid.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said it would be a folly to boost the EU's bail-out machinery (EFSF) beyond its €440bn lending limit by deploying leverage to up to €2 trillion, perhaps by raising funds from the European Central Bank.

"I don't understand how anyone in the European Commission can have such a stupid idea. The result would be to endanger the AAA sovereign debt ratings of other member states. It makes no sense," he said.

Mr Schauble told Washington to mind its own business after President Barack Obama rebuked EU leaders for failing to recapitalise banks and allowing the debt crisis to escalate to the point where it is "scaring the world".

"It's always much easier to give advice to others than to decide for yourself. I am well prepared to give advice to the US government," he said.

The comments risk irritating the White House. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been a key driver of plans to give the EFSF enough firepower to shore up Italy and Spain, fearing a drift into "cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic risk" without dramatic action.

NOW PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH:

The danger for Germany is that America will lose patience, with unpredictable consequences. The US Federal Reserve is currently propping up the European banking system in a variety of ways, including dollar swaps.

See it here; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8793010/Germany-slams-stupid-US-plans-to-boost-EU-rescue-fund.html

What??....could it be possible that the Federal Reserve is propping up the European banking system...as well as propping up the U.S. Treasury and to a large extent the U.S. stock market?  Where are they getting all this money to prop up the entire world?  Who will prop them up if they start to falter under the stress load of propping up the world?

In other words, if Italy is propping up Greece, and Spain is propping up Italy, and Germany is propping up Spain, and the Euro Central Bank is propping up Germany, and the U.S. Federal Reserve is propping up the Euro Central Bank....then who is propping up the U.S. Federal Reserve? 

How come I get the strange idea that this whole thing could unravel like a bunch of dominoes?

Will we be here to see it?  Or does Jesus' words about the time before the rapture and following Tribulation give us a hint that we won't see it?  "For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away."

What Jesus appears to be saying here is that life before the rapture is going to be going on pretty much as normal with people pretty unconcerned about what is going on around them...even making plans for the future.  On the contrary, if the USA totally collapsed and anarchy was raging all over the streets with curfews imposed and National Guardsman patrolling the streets, and people were looking for squirrels to eat for dinner....this doesn't sound like life as normal....and certainly even the most cynical atheist might start wondering if Jesus was coming or Armageddon was at hand because of what he was witnessing.

Of course if the rapture came today, Jesus' words would be right on, because people ARE getting married, people ARE buying cars, going to soccer games, remodeling church sanctuaries, eating at restaurants....pretty much life as we have come to know it.  And the trumpet could certainly blow today calling us all home.

Jesus tells us that when we see all these things (Israel back as a nation, wars, coalitions building, earthquakes, rumors of wars, etc...) begin to happen then we should understand that time is short and we should run the rest of the race hard, focused on the finish line and doing our best to snatch people from the fire that is coming.

So....what has the Holy Spirit gifted us to do?  Are we busy about the Master's work?  Are we making each day count for the Kingdom?  Are we laying up treasure in heaven?  Are we ready to meet the Lord and have Him expose the things we have done since He saved us?  Are we satisfied with the race we have been running as of late?.....or are we being convicted that the Holy Spirit wants to turn our focus to something else?  What if He told us to sell all our stuff and follow Him?  Would we do it?

Good questions for all of us.