economy – economists

Prophetic Protocol

Prophetic Protocol on December 6, 2008

In the unfolding crisis of global finance and economics, it is important to discern (as best one can) the plans both of the Lord God and of his enemies. Many people may be hoping that the crisis will ease off in the near future, thanks to the apparently energetic interventions of many governments, but such an easing would serve neither the justice and mercy of God, nor the ambition of his enemies . . .

One commentator gives seven structural reasons why the crisis is by no means over. Four of them concern our present lamentable money system, whereby the mass of money circulating in the world is loaned into existence, so that if nobody lends or borrows, there will be no money to circulate: 1 Most potential borrowers in the USA, private or corporate, are now tapped out, so anybody lending to them is liable to go under. 2 Nobody can force households or businesses to borrow or spend. 3 Nobody can force lenders to lend, especially when most borrowers are insolvent. 4 Whatever money people can get hold of is going to paying down debt, or to savings.

The other reasons for the party being over are: 5 The real estate-finance-insurance economy is dead, because transaction and debt velocity are way down, with nothing to stop them falling still further. 6 Governments and corporations alike are living with fantasyland expectations of yesterday`s revenues being sustained tomorrow. 7 The USA already has too much of everything, e.g. hotels, offices, homes, cars, television sets, etc, etc. Inventories are full, and liable to move slowly at best. The party is over. Over.

Now money-men are amongst the most astute and motivated of mortals. It is inconceivable that they did not see this crash coming. Consider this text, published in 1905: “We shall create by all the underground methods available to us, and with the aid of gold which is all in our hands, a universal economic crisis whereby we shall throw on the streets whole mobs of workers simultaneously in all the countries of Europe. These mobs will rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot. But “ours” they will not touch . . . we shall take measures to protect our own.”

Now the class warfare planned for 20th century Europe by means of Communism may have been replaced by race warfare planned for the 21st century globe by means of immigration, but the basic plan, to be achieved by gold through a “universal economic crisis,” has apparently not changed.

And the Lord God`s plan? To use his very enemies, the Masters of Gold hungering for global domination, as a scourge to lay across the backs of his apostate children throughout the world, who have turned away from him, to materialism . . . to gold.

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.

Giga-Shenanigans

Giga-Shenanigans on October 18, 2008

Without pretending to be any kind of an expert on matters financial or economic, I have for over a year now been following with a keen interest the evolution of the financial crisis that burst upon the global scene in the summer of last year, 2007. One could guess that it would have an impact on all of our daily lives, and also it seemed to be the beginning of that massive reality check which a number of us have long since seen coming.

As to our daily lives, a recent article on CREDIT CARDS made good sense. It said, get rid of them! The crisis consists essentially in mountains of debt, piled up over tens, even hundreds, of years, and which must be paid back or defaulted on. Now credit cards are an all too easy way of running up debt, and the rates of interest to be paid on them are often sheer usury. Unless one is very disciplined in their use, they should be torn apart and thrown away, and debit cards should be used in their place, if necessary. St. Paul says, owe nothing to any man, except charity (Romans XIII, 8). The Old Testament says, the debtor is slave of the creditor (Proverbs, XXII, 7).

As for the grander question of a global reality check, many things are not clear in what is happening, because the hidden paymasters of the media make sure that we never get the complete truth on their television or in their newspapers. What their lies will not twist, their half-truths and omissions will conceal. They are an “operation of error” (II Thess, II, 10).

However, a few things seem clear. Firstly, the recent 700 billion dollar “bailout” in the USA is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the problem to be bailed out – a mountain-range of 1.4 quadrillion (thousand thousand thousand thousand million) dollars’ worth of worthless debt hanging upon “derivatives” (highly complicated financial instruments of many kinds, whose value derives from other assets). Secondly, only by fantasy and greed can so many money-men over the last 20 years have chosen to deal, or let themselves be tricked into dealing, in such worthless paper, that its collapse now threatens the global economy.

But it is absurd to imagine that the world’s top money-men did not foresee the danger. The evidence abounds that they deliberately created the danger, so that to avoid losing all our goodies in a global collapse we would come begging to them to impose on us their global police-state. We have worshipped Mammon. Now Mammon is poised to enslave us.

Kyrie eleison.

Anti-Culture Antidote

Anti-Culture Antidote on May 31, 2008

In the recent April 15 issue of “ The Remnant,” there appeared an article “Windy Blather and Lies” by a young man that I don’t think I have ever met, but saying what I have been saying for many years: movies are far and away the most formative influence on young people’s hearts and minds today, and they constitute a tremendous obstacle to the youngsters’ either growing up or acquiring any sense of reality, let alone getting to Heaven.

The author of the article, E.Z., teaches at a Traditional Catholic school for boys which is outstanding in the USA today, yet he says that when the boys come back from a vacation, the one question they are all asking one another is what movies they have seen! I am not surprised, nor do I blame the school. What else does the anti-culture of today’s dissociety have to offer to the youngsters for the feeding of their minds? Worse, what real grip can the Catholic religion have on minds and hearts marinated in such silliness and unreality? As Marcel de Corte puts it, how can someone who has no idea of real being have any real idea of the Supreme Being?

Not that reality will let itself be overwhelmed. Through finance, economics, soon politics and war, it is coming back at a rate of knots. The danger is rather of our children being so progressively caught up in the wilfully immature fantasy that it will be too late for them to re-adjust to reality. “Movies are all they know,” says E.Z., “they aren’t learning anything about life except from movies. How can they reconcile a phony Hollywoodian perception of reality with their Catholic Faith?” No wonder Conciliarism took over from Catholicism!

The whole of E.Z.’s article, especially for adults who may never have thought about the matter, needs to be read and pondered on (four copies available for 4 from Remnant Reprints at PO Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025, USA), because not only was E.Z. himself in his youth, as he tells, totally trapped in movie-mania, but also he found a wholly practical way out – recordings of lectures on the classics, especially Shakespeare, by Dr. David White.

Says E.Z., “You’ll learn more about the world and more about yourself and more about your Catholic Faith by listening to those hundred lectures than in any school anywhere.” Strong words, but they make sense. Dr. White knows both where youngsters (and adults) are at today. and he knows his Faith, so that his tapes can provide an incomparable bridge between the two. Get the article, get the tapes (I get no commission).

Kyrie eleison.

Credit Crunch

Credit Crunch on September 8, 2007

A global financial problem may soon be changing the lives of all of us. Let me offer a few answers

(A) to a few elementary questions (Q):

Q. What is the problem? I have not yet felt anything. A: The problem is a credit crunch, or, a worldwide lack of money. Money circulating in an economy is something like oil circulating in an engine. Just as an engine will seize up if there is not enough oil, so an economy will seize up if there is not enough “liquidity,” or money circulating.

Q: I might understand one or a few nations being short of money, but how can they all be short at once? How can such a problem be global? A: Because the unprecedented ease of communications and trade between modern nations by, for instance, airplanes and electronics, is making the world into a “global village” where all the national economies interlock, so that if one nation, especially the USA, sneezes, they all catch cold. That is what is now happening.

Q: Still, how can not enough money be circulating amongst all the nations at once? A: Because the 300-year rise of “fractional reserve banking” means that the vast amount of money circulating worldwide comes into existence in the form of a loan. For instance you are most likely unaware that there is every probability that even the cash in your pocket was borrowed by your country’s government from the country’s (non-government) central bank, to which the government is paying interest on that cash! Now for a loan to take place, both lender and borrower need confidence, the lender that he will be paid back, the borrower (if he is honest) that he will be able to pay back. This confidence has been dwindling in a big way, worldwide, since about July.

Q: Why? A: Mainly because of a new form of debt paper being introduced a few years ago called “derivatives,” named from debt deriving from other debt. Even many experts are not exactly clear how derivatives work, which must be part of the problem. However, one very successful American investor, Warren Buffett, who must have studied them, has called them “weapons of mass financial destruction.” Indeed. There is now a shaking 30 trillion US dollar mountain of derivatives threatening the world’s financial system.

Q: What do we do? A: One, be ready for hardship. Two, do not be surprised if a 9/11 Part II happens to distract us. Three, turn to the Gospel:— “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.” “Fear not him who can harm only the body. Fear him who can throw body and soul together into Hell.” Economics are only of things bodily.

Kyrie eleison.

Get Real

Get Real on August 11, 2007

The state of mankind today is desperate. The mass of human beings in the nations that – alas! – lead the world are living not in God’s reality but in a dream-world of their own making, which they then impose on reality. There will soon be a hefty reality check, and it is one check that will not bounce!

Take for instance how Western women – and men – who can do so, fight the reality of their ageing. While God certainly designed the beauty of youth to ensure that marriages would continue the human race, he never designed this beauty to last into middle – or old! – age as an ongoing temptation. Is there not something pathetic about how wives – and parents, grandparents – can feel forced to look as young as possible, as long as possible?

Or take finance, a reality now looming. All the Western nations are deeply in debt. The United States in particular was technically bankrupt in the early to mid-nineties, yet its insane borrowing has gone on and on. On June 7, the US national debt stood at nearly nine trillion dollars. The annual interest on that debt is 406 billion dollars a year, or well over one billion dollars every day. The debt is increasing at the rate of 1.38 billion dollars every day.

Within the USA, here summarized is how one realist describes the financial situation: “The Credit Market has dislocated, liquidity has evaporated, and if the Federal Reserve intervenes once more in an effort to save the Bubble Economy, the day of reckoning may be delayed but it will only be the harsher. Confidence in “Wall Street finance” has been shattered because the manic bubble in Credit Insurance, derivatives and guarantees is bursting, the manic bubble in leveraged speculation is in serious jeopardy, and the currency markets are a derivative accident waiting to happen. It has been a senseless Credit and speculative orgy. There will be a very, very heavy price to pay.”

By whose fault? That of the money-men and their hidden masters? Of course. But who allowed themselves to be suckered into believing in easier and easier money? Unreal investors!

By the fault of the politicians and the same masters? Of course. As one US Congressman recently said, he and his colleagues are unhappy because they deep down know they have heavily indebted their children tomorrow to get re-elected today. But who did the re-electing of such free-lunch politicians? Unreal electors!

So what should Catholics (and not only Catholics) do? Get real. Fasten seat-belts. Get out of debt (Rom. XIII, 8) as far as possible, as soon as possible, though it may be too late. And prepare to thank God for the coming reality check, because it will be rather healthier for the salvation of souls than today’s Goldilocks economics.

Kyrie eleison.