Future Bank Failures Will Be Paid For By Investors

Europe has been debating who will ultimately pay for the financial system failure...if it fails.

Surprise!  It will be bank shareholders, bank bondholders and any SAVER who has more than $132,000 at the bank!  That will sure teach you to save money!!

But I guess the good news is that the agreement is made to shield taxpayers from having to pay for all the banks when the Ponzi scheme fails.

The European Union agreed on Thursday to force investors and wealthy savers to share the costs of future bank failures, moving closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have prompted public outrage.

After seven hours of late-night talks, finance ministers from the bloc's 27 countries emerged with a blueprint to close or salvage banks in trouble. The plan stipulates that shareholders, bondholders and depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($132,000) should share the burden of saving a bank.

The deal is a boost for EU leaders, who meet later on Thursday in Brussels, and can show that they are finally getting to grips with the financial crisis that began in mid-2007 with the near collapse of Germany's IKB.

"For the first time, we agreed on a significant bail-in to shield taxpayers," said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, referring to the process in which shareholders and bondholders must bear the costs of restructuring first.

The rules break a taboo in Europe that savers should never lose their deposits, although countries will have some flexibility to decide when and how to impose losses on a failing bank's creditors.

"They can affect German savers just as well as they can affect any other investor in the world," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after the meeting.

Taxpayers across much of Europe have had to pay for a series of deeply unpopular bank rescues since the financial crisis that spread across the bloc to threaten the future of the euro.

Here;  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/27/us-eu-banks-idUSBRE95Q02L20130627

Remember what happened in Cyprus a handful of months ago?  They simply closed the banks and gave their savers NO ACCESS to their money.  After a few days they would open for a few hours but limit withdrawals to a few hundred dollars.

Of course they pretty much HAD to do that...knowing full well that everyone would take out all their money and send it to some German bank.

Can you understand now how the entire paper money system it based on faith and confidence?  Who wants to buy your printed paper dollars when folks realize that no one else in the world wants them...and in fact everyone else in the world is trying to get rid of them?!

That's what happens when a currency collapses.

One day it will happen in America.  We just have NO IDEA when.  However, we are guessing it is going to happen a lot sooner than most people can fathom.

Hat tip to Tom F.

Iran and the 12th Imam

Iran has a new president....so Ahmadinejad is gone for now.

Of course the media seems breathless to report that the newly 'elected' president is certainly more "moderate" than Ahmadinejad....but it appears the new president is also a believer in the soon return of the 12th Imam....so we will probably be posting more on this later.

However, a reader caught this little blurb about Ahmadinejad.  It seems that some folks in the Iranian government believe that Ahmadinejad WILL BE BACK when the 12th Imam returns.

Remember folks, the 12th Imam disappeared into a well about 1000 years ago and has been waiting to return to earth to kill or convert all people to Islam and set up a global rule for Islam.

An Iranian government spokesman has said that outgoing President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will return with the Hidden Imam, who according to Shi'ite belief went into hiding in the 10th century and will reappear to bring justice to Earth.

"God willing, with the manifestation of Imam Mehdi, Ahmadinejad will also return and work for the establishment of pure Islam," spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies.

Ahmadinejad and his close aides have been criticized in Iran over their repeated references to Mahdi and signs of his imminent coming.

Ahmadinejad came under fire in March for saying that former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will be resurrected alongside Jesus and the Hidden Imam.

Here;  http://www.rferl.org/content/ahmadinejad-hidden-imam-spokesman-return/25026784.html

Holy resurrection!!  You mean Hugo Chavez is also going to come back with Jesus and the 12th Imam?!?!  What a party of miscreants that will be!!

Satan is certainly working overtime to corrupt the Word of God in these last days.

Can you see how a billion Muslims may be prepared to accept the Antichrist...whom they will believe is their promised 12th Imam?  And maybe the false prophet, spoken of in Revelation, will actually be some dude parading as Jesus?  "There will be false Christs....", warns Jesus.

Are you ready for the trumpet to blow so the followers of Christ won't have to worry about the mass of confusion that seems ready to befall planet earth?

Hat tip to Tom F.

Is Money the Root of All Evil?

Many of you know that I am a financial advisor...so I work with people in helping them manage their money.  Every day I receive emails the are industry specific.  Today I received this one from a money management firm...a firm that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE!

Is money the root of all evil?

New research suggests that just thinking about greenbacks might cause people to subconsciously make unethical decisions.  

People are more likely to lie or make immoral decisions after being exposed to money-related words, according to researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business who published a report last month in the journal “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.” The findings show that “even if we are well intentioned, even if we think we know right from wrong, there may be factors influencing our decisions and behaviors that we’re not aware of,” says Kristin Smith-Crowe, one of the co-authors and an associate professor of management at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.

People are more likely to lie or make immoral decisions after being exposed to money-related words, according to researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business who published a report last month in the journal “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.” The findings show that “even if we are well intentioned, even if we think we know right from wrong, there may be factors influencing our decisions and behaviors that we’re not aware of,” says Kristin Smith-Crowe, one of the co-authors and an associate professor of management at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.

 

The study asked college students studying business to make sentences out of various word clusters before answering questions and playing several games. Some of the phrases contained a financial focus such as “She spends money liberally,” and others that were neutral, such as “She walked on grass.” Researchers found that people who were exposed to the financial phrases lied more often in subsequent activities if they knew doing so would earn them more money. Subjects shown the money-related words were also more likely to make an unethical decision even when there was no direct financial reward, such as hiring someone who promises to share insider information from a competitor.

Here;  http://thetrustadvisor.com/headlines/thinking-about-money

We will lie if it means more money!!  Who is the "father of all lies"?

There is probably a reason that Jesus talked more about money than he did any other topic...because he KNEW that it was going to be a stumbling stone for just about all of us!!  How hard it is to live in America and resist the lure to worship Mammon.

"But Dennis, I don't worship Mammon!"

How much time do we spend working for money, saving money, dreaming of spending the money, using credit cards to access money we don't have, managing our money, buying stuff we think will make us happy?  How many families have been split apart by money?

Now ask ourselves if we spend an equal amount of time in our relationship with Jesus?  Do we read his word?  Do we take a week vacation every year to spend time with Jesus?  Do we seek His kingdom first before we make our own plans?  Did we spend more time managing our 401k than we do discipling new believers?  Do we have a tough time giving God 10% of everything God gives us in the form of money?  Do we know people who spend more time reading MONEY MAGAZINE than they do reading the Bible?  Is that person you?

When you look at the facts...it's easy to see that most Americans (even those who call ourselves Christians) have a very difficult time living in this Mammon infested land...where wealth can often end up as a curse rather than a blessing.

"But the cares of this world and the desire for riches make it so they never mature." (in their faith), said Jesus.

Gay Marriage Gets Big Boost

The Supreme Court of the United States of America further ruled on gay marriage today.

For those of us who believe that God's ordained plan for the family is ONE MAN plus ONE WOMAN...the ruling was not good.

I believe this will further set the stage for God's wrath.  If God is never changing and he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah....how much longer will He spare us?

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.

As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.

The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.

The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The ruling was a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which had decided two years ago it would no longer defend the law in court. Obama applauded the DOMA ruling and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure that it is implemented.

Here;  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-usa-court-gaymarriage-idUSBRE95P06W20130626

Next stop?...polygamy, bestiality, pedophilia...one day it will ALL BE LEGAL....because that's what the people want!!  And Lord knows, the masses are never wrong in their desires!

How sad to watch this nation, which was once a God-fearing place, continue to slide down the morality abyss.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Certainly we have become an unwise group of people. 

Quite honestly, we all have to be in amazement that the Lord has extended mercy to us as long as He has.

Gold Sinks to 3 yr Low

What's up with this?  Will your gold and silver not save you on the day of the Lord's wrath??  Or is this just another normal up and down of a market that cooked another big bubble....like dot.com stocks of the 1990's and real estate of the 2000's?


Gold has tumbled to its lowest level in nearly three years, putting it on track for its biggest quarterly fall since the collapse in 1971 of the Bretton Woods system of exchange rates, which pegged the value of the dollar to the precious metal

Bankers said there had been a rush among wealthy individuals and asset managers to dump their gold holdings since Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, last week set out for the first time a framework for the US central bank to exit its stimulus programme known as quantitative easing.


“The word at the moment is capitulation,” said Tom Kendall, precious metals analyst at Credit Suisse, adding the past week’s selling had been driven by long-term investors.
 
“Those are the guys who you would have expected to hold on through thick and thin and they’re not,” he said.

Here;  http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9aac9378-de3f-11e2-9b47-00144feab7de.html#axzz2XLxuREtu

What??  The investors who were expected to hold on to gold through thick and thin are even selling??  What's a guy supposed to do??  Buy U.S. Treasury's paying 1% over the next 10 years in hope that our government will just give us our money back...money that will be worth far less than when we gave it to them?

That is EXACTLY what your government hopes will happen....then they can go on spending money they don't have...by taking yours in the interim.

"Lay up your treasure in heaven where moth and rust will not destroy."  Plus it will compound interest FOREVER!!

Sounds like great advice, Jesus!!

Gulf of Mexico has Largest "Dead Zone" EVER

When a polluted river, like the Mississippi, runs into the Gulf of Mexico, it creates a "dead zone" where fish can't live.

It looks like 2013 is creating the largest dead zone EVER!...like maybe the size of New Jersey!

Fishermen headed towards the Gulf of Mexico this summer might experience a lighter bite than usual, due to the phenomenon known as “dead zones.” Dead zones are low-oxygen waters caused by events such as algae die-offs, occurring near coasts and often a death warrant for the marine species living there. Scientists at the University of Michigan predict that the region will experience its largest dead zone this year, with high-end estimates placing the size of the oxygen-depleted waters at between 7,286 and 8,561 square miles. If the dead zone reaches the higher end of the estimate it would exceed the largest ever reported in the world, and be roughly the size of New Jersey.

This new and worrying prediction comes on the heels of last year’s near-record low dead zone. Due to drought conditions, 2012’s dead zone was the fourth smallest on record. Dead zones usually happen in high-nutrient waters that promote algae growth. As the algae dies, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean where bacteria can make a meal of it. Unfortunately, the bacteria also consumes large amounts of oxygen while eating the algae. Because of this, dead zones are most pronounced in deep, coastal waters.

Along with other marine life, fish and shellfish face a stark choice: leave or die. A large dead zone could spell disaster for commercial fishing or saltwater anglers. Commercial fishermen pump $629 million into the Gulf region annually and sport fisherman contribute even more. Three million anglers flock to the Gulf every year, spending upwards of $1 billion.

The prediction for a record-sized dead zone jeopardizes the region’s ongoing efforts to protect fisheries and shellfish species such as crab and oysters. Shellfish are most at risk from dead zones due to their low mobility and are often killed in large numbers. Fish that manage to survive in dead zones also suffer long-term health defects such as smaller reproductive organs.

Here;  http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/scientists-2013-gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-potentially-largest-ever/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=June%2026%202013%20Daily%20Newswire%20%281%29&utm_content=

Just more evidence that the earth seems to be groaning on all sorts of fronts.  What is it groaning for?  It's groaning for Messiah to come and set things straight...and usher in a time when the lion will lay down with the lamb and the harvestor will follow the planter.

What a day that will be!

World Now Headed Into Depression

Please remember...we are just posting headlines and commentaries from a whole bunch of different sources.  It is up to all of us to decide whether we are bullish on the economy for the next 30 years or if we are bearish on the economy in the next 3 weeks.

But as you all know, we are very interested in the all the EXTREME news that seems to be hitting the headlines for the past 5-6 years.  We do believe that all of the extremity is very likely the BIRTH PANGS that Jesus told us to watch for.

Here is another one today;

THE WORLD IS NOW HEADED INTO A DEPRESSION

“You’ve seen the releases from China, and now the Fed is feigning an interest in letting markets work.  I believe it’s because they have duped themselves into believing that all of the cocaine they have put the economy on, in order to put a floor under real estate and give a boost to equity markets, isn’t the reason why we have some semblance of growth in global GDP.

So they have now duped themselves into believing they can now remove that cocaine, and yet they think it won’t send us back to the same place where we were in December of 2007.  If the central bankers around the world see a deflationary depression taking hold of the economy, just as it did after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, will they say after 5 years of manipulation of interest rates and markets that now is the time to accept that deflationary depression?  I don’t think so.

Once the economic news shows an increasingly negative trend, and it will, my guess is by the end of the year or by early 2014, they will once again admit the economy’s addiction to QE and manipulation of interest rates, and risk assets will once again be in vogue.”

 

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/6/24_Michael_Pento_-_The_World_Is_Now_Headed_Into_A_Depression.html

 

The dude who said all this is a money manager and he goes on to say that he has been shorting the market with his client's money, meaning that he is positioning their money to MAKE MONEY when the markets go down.

 

Of course no one has any idea how long the markets are going to go down.  In fact the DOW is up 110 points as of noon today.  But what this guy says about the FED and their tactic of pumping money (Cocaine) into the economy to keep things going...all resonates with what we have been saying for the past months.  You simply can't do that forever.  At some point you have to stop feeding the markets cocaine and see if they can function all on their own without a drug induced high.

 

Some analysts think they will do just fine and that the FED deserves a pat on the back.

 

Others believe the markets will tank and lead us all into a new depression...the likes of which none of us has EVER seen before.

 

Just remember that regardless of what happens, we all need to have our firm foundation planted in Jesus Christ because I 100% guarantee that the world is going to continue to shudder as the Day of the Lord draws close.  Up will be down and down will be up, right will be wrong and wrong will be right.  We need to be anchored in the Word of God so that the winds, rain, earthquakes and storms will not wash us away from the Gospel.

Sunni-Shi'ite Hatred

Sunni Muslims and Shi'ite Muslims have been hating on each other about 14 centuries.  It all stems back to Muhammad's death and a division evolved over who should take over after he was in the grave. (remember Muhammad obviously never conquered the grave as Jesus did...cuz he is still in the ground)

The Sunni-Shi’ite split is rooted in the question of who should succeed Muhammad in leading Muslims after his death in 632. Shi’ites say the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law Ali was his rightful successor but was cheated when authority went to those the Sunnis call the four “Rightfully Guided Caliphs” — Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman and, finally, Ali.

 

Sunnis are the majority across the Islamic world. In the Middle East, Shi’ites have strong majorities in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain, with significant communities in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other parts of the Gulf.

 

Both consider the Quran the word of God. But there are distinctions in theology and religious practice between the two sects.

 

Some are minor: Shi’ites pray with their hands by their sides, Sunnis with their hands crossed at their chest or stomach.

 

Others are significant. Shi’ites, for example, believe Ali and a string of his descendants, the Imams, had not only rightful political authority after Muhammad but also held a special religious wisdom. Most Shi’ites believe there were 12 Imams — many of them “martyred” by Sunnis — and the 12th vanished, to one day return and restore justice. Sunnis accuse the Shi’ites of elevating Ali to the level of Muhammad himself — incorrectly, since Shi’ites agree that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, a central tenet of Islam.

 

Of course its Westerners who usually get the label of being "Islamaphobes"...when in reality Muslims are right up there at the top in the "bigot" department, now back to the article...

 

It’s not hard to find stereotypes, caricatures and outright bigotry when talk in the Middle East turns to the tensions between Islam’s two main sects.

 

Shi’ites are described as devious, power-hungry corruptors of Islam. Sunnis are called extremist, intolerant oppressors.

 

Hatreds between the two are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria’s civil war. On Sunday, officials said four Shi’ites in a village west of Cairo were beaten to death by Sunnis in a sectarian clash unusual for Egypt.

 

Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides in the region have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect.

 

But among the public, views are complex. Some sincerely see the other side as wrong — whether on matters of faith or politics. Others see the divisions as purely political, created for cynical aims. Even some who view the other sect negatively fear sectarian flames are burning dangerously out of control. There are those who wish for a return to the days, only a decade or two ago, when the differences did not seem so important and the sects got along better, even intermarried.

 

Here;  http://www.timesofisrael.com/sunni-shiite-hatred-permeates-middle-east/

 

Satan has woven a whole pack of lies and about a billion people have fallen for the lies of Islam.  But obviously when you get the demons of Sunni fighting the demons of Shi'ite...you get a horrendous mess, which is currently unraveling in Syria and seems to be spreading to the entire region.  In fact just today we read of four Shi'ites who were beaten to death by Sunnis in EGYPT!

 

As Christians we need to be praying against these demonic forces and we also are clearly told to pray for our enemies.

As we have said, we KNOW it's hard not to think of this as "good news" that Sunni thugs and Shi'ite thugs are murdering each other...but we need to remember that these folks need the same Gospel story as we do.

 

 

8.0 Quake Hits Russia

There aren't too many 8.0 quakes that come along in modern history.

Here is another one.

Moscow: A powerful earthquake has hit Russia's Far East with slight tremors spreading westwards as far as Moscow.

Marina Kolomiyets, spokeswoman for Obninsk's seismic station of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said on Sunday the epicentre was in the Sea of Okhotsk, east of the Russian coast and north of Japan. She said the quake registered 8.0 on the Richter scale.

Emergency agencies in the Far East issued a tsunami warning for Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, but lifted it soon afterwards.

Kolomiyets said the earthquake originated 600 kilometres underground and with the tremors so far down they have the potential to spread quite far.


http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/earthquake-hits-russia-s-far-east_857244.html

File this one under, "Birth Pangs".

Also please continue to understand that it is appearing that as the frequency and severity of the birth pangs increase....The Church in America seems to fall further into a deep sleep.

Jesus was pretty hard on the OT folks who failed to recognize the season of the first advent...and scripture seems to hint that His followers will also fail to recognize the season of the rapture.

Let's be counted among those who are NOT SURPRISED when the trumpet blows.