capitalism

Third Position

Third Position on January 17, 2009

When I am out driving somewhere in unknown territory and I come to a fork in the road, and I take the road to the left and it turns out to be a dead end, and I take the road to the right and it turns out to be a dead end, then unless I give up going anywhere, will I not turn back to the last previous fork or junction and look for any other road than the one I just came down?

To save “capitalism” in the USA, the outgoing Republican Administration has resorted to such a massive degree of Government intervention and control as to resemble more and more closely a “communist” government. And, just before the incoming Democrat Administration comes in, it gives all the appearances of resorting to the same “communist” solution for the “capitalist” problem. But ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has not Communism been evidently a loser? In which case do not both Administrations resemble the motorist who turns from one dead end to another?

Of course just as diehard Communists will claim that “true” Communism was never given a fair trial, so many believers in “Capitalism” will today claim that only abuses of the system are forcing it to morph into Government control. But just as the worst horrors of Communism do not contradict, but follow from, its basic principles, so, given poor old human nature, was not free enterprise Capitalism bound to morph into that finance Capitalism now obliging the Governments to take over?

After all, cannot Capitalism, named from capital – money – be defined as a maximizing of freedom for all citizens to make as much money as they will and can? And how could that not end in the stronger devouring the weaker until they become TBTF: too big to fail?

Then in what direction might one look for a third road, leading to neither implicit nor explicit atheistic materialism? How about the Sermon on the Mount? – “You cannot serve God and Mammon . . . Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things (economic goods) shall be added unto you” . . .(Mt. VI, 24, 33). But who wants the solutions of God?

Kyrie eleison.

Money-Men Supreme?

Money-Men Supreme? on November 1, 2008

There is a fascination in reading commentaries on the ever-evolving crisis of global finance. How much more do the commentators tell than they say, of a natural order being violated and taking its revenge! Yet nobody seems to know how the crisis will play out – except the master violators?

To get a glimpse of that natural order, it may be necessary to step back a few centuries. Let us briefly for our purposes define (1) religion as man’s relations to his God, (2) politics as his social relations to his fellow-men, (3) economics as the art of distributing goods between producers and consumers, and (4) finance as the art of handling money. Then the natural order is that as money exists to facilitate the exchange of goods essential to any society, so finance should serve economics. And as the State is ultimately responsible for the well-being of all its citizens, especially those most in need of protection (Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum”), so the material goods of economics should come under the common good of politics. But politics can only adjust and ensure the common good of all men in any society if it is properly understood what man is here on earth for, and so politics should come under the true religion.

However, modern times, especially since Protestantism, have step by step turned this natural order upside down. England is a clear example. Firstly, politics in the persons of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, etc., virtually stamped out the true religion of God in England. Then within a hundred years the Bank of England was founded, the world’s first central bank, and the English government and people were off in pursuit of economics and the wealth of nations. But having made free enterprise sacrosanct meant freedom for the major money-men to gobble up the minor money-men, and so free enterprise capitalism turned progressively into the finance capitalism now reigning supreme, not only in England but all over the world.

Thus what we can observe today is both politics and economics vainly struggling against this overthrow of their natural priority over finance. To clean up the mess created by the financiers through derivatives in particular, the politicians are resorting to huge bailouts by the State, in a desperate effort to keep money circulating. On the contrary old-fashioned economists are appealing for a return to free enterprise, as though the mass of today’s citizens do not want to be nannied by the State.

But when the most decent of politicians and economists themselves believe in little but money, how can they possibly get their necks out of the noose prepared for them by the Masters of Money? These most likely think – by means of a slipknot around Vatican finances? – that they have the Lord God himself on a leash! Little, literally, do they know. Poor things!

Kyrie eleison.

Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening on September 20, 2008

Over the last few years I have advised several owners of a house with a yard or garden to pull up the rose-bushes and plant potatoes. Some of them must have wondered what on earth I was talking about. With the collapse of Wall Street and finance capitalism now well on its way, they may understand better.

It is the last Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the banksters’ puppet at the head of the banksters’own Sesame Cave, who for several years promoted, pushed and protected those financial instruments known as “derivatives” which the famed American investor Warren Buffett denounced prophetically soon after they appeared as “weapons of mass financial destruction.” In other words the banksters themselves put in place the rolling rock to let loose the avalanche.

“Free enterprise” means in effect survival of the fittest, with freedom for the stronger to eat up the weaker, until takeovers and mergers make enterprises so massive that they become too big to fail. Then, by capitalism’s internal contradiction, the failing enterprises that used to scream for the government not to intervene, now scream for it to intervene, and we see, for instance, the US government nationalising Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (Sept. 13), AIG, etc. Thus capitalism and socialism that always pretended to be enemies suddenly discover they are friends, while the banksters’ globalism is waiting in the wings to swallow up both of them.

So what is the solution to the grand problem of the false split between capitalism and socialism? Many serious and honest non-Catholics recognize it is to be found in Pope Leo XIII’s famed Encyclical of 1891, Rerum Novarum. That solution is the Gospel. Yes, both capitalism and socialism are problems ultimately religious!

And what is the solution to the immediate problem of rising food prices and imminent war (classic solution for capitalism’s problems)? See the article on “Guerrilla Gardening” in the August 25 edition of the admirable “American Free Press” – dig up the lawn and plant potatoes.

Kyrie eleison.

La-La Landslide – II

La-La Landslide – II on August 9, 2008

On November 17 of last year Eleison Comments said that the Great Warning prophesied at Garabandal might take place in February or March of this year. That did not happen. One reader asks me why.

The reason is simple. It was not yet the time fixed by Almighty God. When is that time? I do not know. However, I still believe that Garabandal is a sleeping volcano, and I believe it may easily erupt in 2009, because my main reason for taking seriously a few pointers to 2008 was the instability and precariousness of the world situation, which is more unstable and precarious than ever.

The capitalism launched in England by the founding in 1694 of the first Central Bank of a nation is collapsing around our ears. The hurting capitalists who just recently would blast any government that interfered with free enterprise, are now themselves begging the US government to bail out their banks. So capitalism, having made itself “too big to fail,” is now, sure enough, mutating into government control, which, being atheistic and materialistic, amounts to communism!

What will happen then in the next few years, only God knows. But it is easy to imagine inside the USA martial law becoming necessary to maintain a semblance of law and order, and outside the USA the Third World War, which is coming and will be terrible. It may well come soon, because for years now the vile media have been beating the drums of war for an attack on Iran, and as the people become more and more discontented with the collapse of money inside the United States, the temptation for the politicians to distract them with a war outside may become virtually irresistible.

There is much evidence that both collapse and war have long been planned by enemies of God to give them control of the entire world. The only light in which one can grasp the full problem and its correct solution, is the light of God and of our Catholic religion. God is not mocked. Read the Old Testament prophets, especially Jeremiah, and pray up to or over 15 Mysteries a day of the Holy Rosary.

Kyrie eleison.