Posted in Immigration, Radio Lux Lucet, tagged Antichrist, Financial Crisis, Immigration, Inflation, Joe Biden, Papal Antichrist, Radio Lux Lucet, Rome and Immigration, Rome and World Government, USCCB on June 19, 2022| 4 Comments »
“A message for Americans” YouTube video by Gonzolo Lira, 6/18/2022
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DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyPosted in Politics, Roman Catholicism, Uncategorized, tagged 2020 Election Fraud, 2022 Midterm Elections, Ecumenism, Financial Crisis, Joe Biden, Papal Antichrist, Pope Francis, Vaccine Mandates on January 9, 2022| 2 Comments »
Happy New Year 2022!
I had meant to write this post last week, but, as they say, life got in the way. So here’s the belated version for you.
As do many, I find New Year’s a convenient time to stop and reflect on the year past and consider what may lie ahead.
In my case, I like to mention upfront that I’m thankful to the Lord God Almighty for the opportunity to write this blog during 2021. Before I begin each post, I pray that the Lord would grant me the grace to write truthfully, clearly, and in a way that glorifies His name and edifies his people. Moreover, November 2021 marked the seventh anniversary of my prayer to God asking him to help me write at least one blog post a week. By his grace I have kept this pace, posting at least one new item every week since then. Thanks be to God for giving me the strength to do this!
There are times as a writer when I really do wonder if I’m doing the Lord’s will or my own. Has God called me to do this work, or am I just kidding myself and rebelling against him? That he has honored my prayers for this blog, that people still seem to get something out of it, and that I continue to enjoy writing are big hints to me that, yes, I am doing what the Lord has called me to do.
Posted in Politics, tagged 2020 Presidential Campaign, Financial Crisis, Martin Luther, Quantitative Easing, Social Media Censorship, The Fed, The Reformation, Wall Street on January 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »
And it cast down truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.
Truth is cast to the ground.
I’ve thought about that quite a lot in recent years. It seems as if the lie always prospers, while truth, it if even is heard at all, is quickly dismissed as nonsense and those who speak it as fools or worse.
I was reminded once again of just how corrupt things have become after watching some of the shenanigans in the stock market last week with the big dust up over the Gamestop stock and how, supposedly, a group of small investors beat the big guys on Wall Street.
I’ll not dive into the details of what took place, but on the surface we can say that at least one major hedge fund sustained significant losses when its short position on Gamestock was blown up by investors piling into the company’s stock and driving it to over $400 per share.
For our purposes, what important to understand is that when an investor – either an individual or an institution such as a hedge fund – short sells a stock, he profits when the price goes down. If the price goes up, the short seller loses money. If the stock price goes way up, as was the case with Gamestop, the short seller loses a lot of money.
When the losses were piling up for the big guys during the week, it didn’t take long for the weeping and gnashing of teeth to begin. Billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman went on an epic rant on CNBC last Thursday, 1/28, saying, “The reason the market is doing what it’s doing is people are sitting at home getting checks from the government. This fair share, is a (bleep) concept. It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people and I think it inappropriate and we all gotta work together and pull together.”
Just how true is the narrative that a bunch of unemployed Robin Hood traders on their own drove up the price of Gamestop, thus inflicting heavy losses on some hedge funds, I cannot say for sure. I have my doubts that things are what we’re being told, but, at the very least, Cooperman seemed to accept that narrative when he went on his rant last week.
Posted in Politics, Scripturalism, tagged Arminianism, Civilizational Collapse, Debt Crisis, Debt-Based Currency, Decline of America, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Act, Financial Crisis, John Robbins, Judaism, Justification By Faith Alone, Romanism on July 19, 2020| 1 Comment »
“…because of Western civilization’s love of material comforts, there is an unwillingness to face unpleasant realities.”
“‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’“ So wrote Ernest Hemmingway in his novel The Sun Also Rises.
Although Hemmingway’s book was a work fiction, what he said about bankruptcy is a phenomenon many of us have seen in real life. Individuals and organizations that appear to be in robust financial health experience sudden financial collapse.
Perhaps the poster child for sudden financial ruin is Lehman Brothers, a famous 150-year-old Wall Street investment bank. Having earned record profits during the height of the real estate bubble from 2005-2007, early in the morning on Monday, September 15,2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers to this day is still the largest bankruptcy in American history.
Gradually, then suddenly. That same pattern can be seen in the Scriptures as well. In Deuteronomy 32:35 we read, “Their foot shall slide in due time.” Some will recognize this as the text on which Jonathan Edwards based his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Wrote Edwards,
It [the saying “their foot shall slide in due time”] implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in ‘Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment? (Psalm 73:18-19).
Sodom and Gomorrah met with destruction in a single day.
After centuries of rebellion against God, Jerusalem was sacked in a single day.
In Daniel’s time, the mighty city of Babylon was overthrown in a single day.
In Revelation, the voice from heaven prophesies that the destruction of Babylon the Great will come in a single day. The kings of the earth are said to lament her destruction, crying out, “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come” (Revelation 18:10).
In all of these cases, the sudden final destruction was really the end result of a process that had been going on for many years.
Posted in Politics, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged Civilizational Collapse, Critical Race Theory, Financial Crisis, George Floyd, The Monstrous Regiment on June 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire.
Writing late in the history of Judah, the prophet Isaiah’s work has long struck this author as having special application to our own time. In his long career, Isaiah witnessed much, including the final destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria in 721 B.C. and a remarkable restoration of the Southern Kingdom under King Hezekiah.
In the opening chapter of the book named for him, Isaiah painted a stark and unflattering picture of the current state of Judah and Jerusalem in his day. Although they had a Godly heritage, the people of the Southern Kingdom had not only abandoned that heritage but were acting in ways that were the exact opposite of what had been laid down for them in the Law of Moses. Speaking through Isaiah, the Lord called them “children who are corruptors.” Not only were they themselves corrupt, but they corrupted others. Further, the Lord said of them that, “They have turned away backward.’ The inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah not only were off course but were going 180 degrees away from the direction God had called them to go.
Posted in Financial Markets, Financial News, Prepper, tagged 2008 Financial Crisis, Biblical Prepping, Donald Trump, Financial Crisis, Plunge Protection Team, Stock Market on November 17, 2019| 3 Comments »
A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
Proverbs 22:3
The hits – negative economic news, that is – just keep coming. To underscore what I mean by bad economic news, consider the following headlines from just last week:
Yet for all that, stocks hit a record high on Friday with the Dow closing above 28,000 for the first time. CNBC’s headline on Thursday summed up the mainstream financial press’ exuberance quite well, “This is now the best bull market ever.”
How is it possible, on one hand, for there to be so much bad economic news and, on the other hand, for stocks to be hitting record highs? We dealt with this topic last week, but this topic is of such importance that it bears additional commentary. The answer to this question, to borrow a turn of phrase from one commentator I follow regularly, is that nothing’s real. We have fake financial markets designed to manipulate your perception of reality.
Posted in Financial News, Prepper, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged 2008 Financial Crisis, Biblical Prepping, Financial Crisis, Jesus Christ, Scripturalism on September 22, 2019| 1 Comment »
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her.”
– Luke 21:20-21
Last week we looked at the third of three case studies in prepping from the Old Testament, Joseph, Prime Minister of Egypt. The other two case studies were the accounts of Noah and the end of the world as he knew it and Lot’s narrow escape from Sodom. This week, I’d like to turn our attention to the New Testament and in particular to the teaching of Jesus himself that relate to the subject of prepping.
But before turning to Jesus’ teachings on prepping, it’s worth taking a little time to review the events in the financial markets last week. The general title for this series The Ongoing Financial Crisis of 2008, because it is the contention of this author that the crisis which manifested itself that year, sometimes referred to as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), has never gone away. Rather, the symptoms only were treated by massive money printing by the world’s leading central banks and other financial fakery, a great deal of which probably is still kept under wraps by the powers that shouldn’t be.
The first event from last week I’d like to look at was the New York Fed’s (The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most prominent of the Fed’s regional banks) bailing out the overnight Repo market to the tune of $53 billion late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning, September 17th and 18th. Now you may be asking, “So just what is the overnight Repo and why should I even care?” Good questions.
Investopedia defines a Repurchase Agreement (Repo) as, “a form of short-term borrowing for dealers in government securities. In the case of a repo, a dealer sells government securities to investors, usually on an overnight basis, and buys them back the following day…Repos are typically used to raise short-term capital…Classified as a money-market instrument, a repurchase agreement functions in effect as a short-term, collateral-backed, interest-bearing loan. The buyer acts as a short-term lender, while the seller acts as a short-term borrower. The securities being sold are the collateral.”
For most of us, the repo market is a fairly obscure corner of the financial system, something that runs in the background. But what happened overnight while most of us slept was a sudden spike in the repo interest rate, which the week before had been 2.29%, but shot up to 10% before the Fed stepped in. As CNN reported, this was the first time the fed had to bail out the overnight repo market since late 2008, which just happened to be the height of the financial crisis.
The Fed conducted further bailouts on Wednesday night and Thursday night.
Finally, on Friday the Fed announced that it would conduct daily repurchasing operations through October 10.
One big takeaway from operation repo is that market forces want to take interest rates higher, which is exactly the opposite of what the Fed wants to have happen.
Which brings me to the second event of note in the financial markets last week, the Fed’s announcement that it was lowing interest rates by 0.25%. This is the second such announcement in the past two months, the previous one coming at the end of July.
Many mainstream commentators are confused by the Fed’s decision to lower interest rates. The reason is that lowing interest rates is something central banks do when the economy is struggling, but the official line is that the American economy is doing great and has never been better. Why is this?
Think of interest rates as the price of money. If the economy is doing well, this means businesses are borrowing to expand their facilities to keep up with demand, consumers and taking out car and home loans. And what happens when demand for a thing increases? All other things equal, the price goes up. With respect to demand for loans, this means that interest rates go up.
The opposite is the case when the economy is doing poorly. There is little demand from businesses to expand, so there is little demand for business loans. Consumers don’t have the income to support car an home loans, so they too are unable to take on debt to fund these purchases. When demand for money decreases, its price, that is to say the interest rate, tends to drop.
This is where the confusion comes in. Donald Trump is out there telling the whole world that the American economy is doing great, while at the same time forcefully arguing for lower interest rates. The Fed’s decision to lower rates strongly suggests that the economy is not doing as well as the Trump administration would like you to believe. Taken together with the Fed’s needing to bail out the repo market, lower interest rates are another data point suggesting an oncoming recession.
A third item of note from last week was the return of talk about a not too far off return to Quantitative Easing (QE) from none other than Fed Chairman Jay Powell. In plain English, QE is simply massive money printing (aka counterfeiting) by central banks to buy assets no one else wants to keep interest rates under control. First employed during as an emergency during the 2008 crisis, QE is now being seriously discussed in public. Question: If the economy really is as great as the powers that shouldn’t be want us to believe, why is the Fed talking about bringing back QE?
In the opinion of this writer, the three items mentioned above – the Fed’s bailout of the repo market, it’s decision to lower interest rates, and talk about QE – strongly suggest the Fed is worried about major problems in the financial system, perhaps even a financial crisis, just around the corner and strongly suggest what the Fed will do to combat those problems: print money.
So, what are Christians to make of all this? The most logical conclusion is that we are, in fact, facing a major financial storm and we need to rig for heavy weather. That is to say, we need to get prepared and to stay prepared. All which brings us back to where we started, the teachings of Christ on the subject of prepping.
Posted in Prepper, tagged Financial Crisis, Gold and Silver, Money and Banking, Noah's Flood, Prepping on September 8, 2019| 1 Comment »
A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
Proverbs 22:3
In a recent article titled “The monetary policy endgame,” Rick Rieder argued that central banks have two ways of creating inflation – inflation in this case being defined as rising consumer prices. The first is to create increased consumer demand through demand stimulus (lower interest rates). Secondly, Rieder argues, central banks can engage in monetary debasement. Continuing with his argument, Rieder contends that he believes central banks will turn to monetary debasement to achieve their stated inflation goals.
So what is monetary debasement? As the Investopedia link puts it, “Debasement refers to lowering the value of a currency, particularly one based on a precious metal, by adding metal of inferior value.”
But even though we don’t have a precious metals based monetary system doesn’t mean that governments can’t debase their currencies. As the Investopedia article on debasement goes on to say, “[D]ebasement [in fiat monetary systems] only requires that the government print more money, or since muc hmoney exists only in digital accounts, create more electronically.”
In light of the coming central bank driven currency debasement, Rieder asks the important question, “How should one position for such an endgame?” Rieder’s answer? “[A]ll of this leads one today to consider assets that can participate in an inherent devaluation of the local currency, which is to say, real estate, and even hard assets that have historic value-relevance, such as gold.”
Rieder’s post is remarkable, not just for what he said, but also for who it is that said it. Rieder is not some tin foil hat wearing gold bug, but is a Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at BlackRock, a New York City based investment management firm that is the world’s largest asset manager with $6.84 trillion in assets under management as of June 2019. Put another way, BlackRock is Wall Street royalty. Further, Rieder’s post appeared on BlackRock’s blog, giving his statements the implicit approval of the firm itself.
Given the decades long propaganda campaign of hatred that has been directed at gold and at those who advocate for the return of gold to the financial system, Rieder’s comments are significant indeed.
There’s a lot to unpack in Rieder’s article, more than what can be discussed in this post. Lord willing, I shall return to his post at some point in the future. But I mention in today mainly to let readers know that mainstream financial analysts are quietly warning that the US dollar – and all other fiat currencies – are in trouble and likely to suffer significant devaluation in the not too distant future.
In light of warnings from Rieder and others, the application of Proverbs 22:3 to our current financial circumstances cannot be overstressed. Here we have a highly placed man at a highly respected financial firm going on record to warn us in advance that the Fed is going to debase the dollar. What is more, he provides for us sound advice on strategies savers can use to protect themselves.
In Scripture, we find several examples of men who were given advanced warning by God of coming disasters, and who, in faith, took action to save themselves and others. In last week’s installment, we looked at the case of Noah. This week, we shall continue our look at Biblical case studies in prepping with a review of Lot’s narrow escape from Sodom.
Posted in Financial Markets, Prepper, tagged 2008 Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis, Gordon Clark, Prepping on September 1, 2019| 3 Comments »
A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
Proverbs 22:3
“US Slaps New Tariffs On China; One Minute Later China Retaliates,” was the headline on ZeroHedge this morning. This, of course, is in reference to the US/China trade war which has been ongoing for the past two years.
Just last week, US stock markets rallies on reports that China was going to be “calm” in its response to the trade war. But in this headline we see that China immediately retaliated when the Trump administration imposed tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports. Whether China’s response, a decision to place higher tariffs on $75 billion of imports from the US, will be considered “calm” by American financial markets when they reopen on Tuesday after the Monday closure for Labor Day is a matter of opinion.
In the view of this author, come Tuesday the moves by the US and China to impose a new round of tariffs on each other likely will put downward pressure on US stocks, force money into bonds, drop long-dated US treasury yields further inverting the already inverted yield curve, and cause gold and silver to spike. This opinion comes with the usual caveats that things could change between now and Tuesday morning and that past performance does not guarantee future results.
I bring up the trade war, not because it’s the focus of this post, but just by way of warning that there is a lot of uncertainty in the financial markets, a great deal of which is caused by the geopolitical stresses in the world today, none of which seems likely to be resolved anytime soon.
And geopolitical stresses are not the only things that pose a threat to the well-being of private citizens of the US and the West generally. The Western financial system is in a state of collapse. Deficits and debts are out of control, yet there is no political will to address these issues. To date, politicians and central bankers have largely been able to hide the destructive effects of out of control spending government spending has had on the lives of average citizens, but this will not go on indefinitely.
Speaking of debtors, Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount that, unless they settled with their creditors, they would be thrown in jail and not get out until they paid the last cent. In God’s economy, the books always balance in the end. Put another way, no debt goes unpaid. The once Christian West has managed to rack up the greatest debts in the history of mankind, and these debts most certainly will be paid in full. That payment will come in the form of currency devaluation, loss of standard of living and, probably, a loss of personal freedom as well.
So what are Christians, in particular, Western Christians to do in the face of the challenges facing our nations? In the first place, we must remember who it is we serve. The Lord Jesus Christ is our king and it is in his name we put our trust. Jesus never promised his people that they would have lives of perfect, uninterrupted bliss. On the contrary, he repeatedly warned his hearers that following him came at a cost. But Christ has promised that he will always be faithful and that our Father in heaven will supply our needs.
In the opinion of this author, barring the near-term return of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no possible way for the West to avoid a major financial and political crisis in the next few years. But in light of the promises of Scripture – for example, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things (food and clothing) shall be added unto you” – Christians have no business falling into despair.
This leads me to my second point. Rather than falling into despair, we Christians need to get to work. That is to say, we need to get prepared for what is coming. We want to be the prudent man in the verse from Proverbs quoted at the top of this post and not as the fool who ignores all warnings signs and is punished for his failure to take reasonable action.
Put another way, recognizing potential dangers and making prudent preparations against them is part of the Christian enterprise.
In today’s post, beginning with Noah I’d like to begin exploring some of the major examples in Scripture of prepping and what applications these examples have for Christians in the early 21st century.
A Scripturalist (Clarkian) podcast about Christian theology, politics and economics.
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Coronavirus, Financial Collapse, and the One Thing Needed
Posted in Scripturalism, Theology, tagged Coronavirus, Financial Crisis, Scripturalism, Scripture Commentary on March 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Signs hanging inside a Costco store notified customers that they were out of supplies on Monday, March 2. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
What’s my topic? That’s the first question every writer must answer before starting. Sometimes topics suggest themselves easily. Other times, coming up with an appropriate subject can be a bit daunting.
With all the events of last week – coronavirus, and the stock market crash to name two – you’d think that finding a topic would be easy. But it’s been more of a challenge than may seem at first.
I had a number of ideas coming into today and had even written an outline for a possible series addressing ways in which entrenched vested interested manipulate events and the reporting on those events, giving people a false sense of reality and allowing them to surreptitiously advance their own hidden agendas.
Lord willing, I hope to be able to write that series. But today, it just didn’t seem right.
(more…)
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