Global Economy

"We are living in interesting times. I presume that you have noticed that no progress was made by infusion of enormous amounts of cash into our banking system, and that only as the industrialized nations met and coordinated their efforts was any progress made. That, however, was minimal, and now the president has set an international meeting for November 15, after the election, for the great nations to meet and set an agenda for rules for the global economy, formalizing and authorizing what was a de facto reality in any case, that globalism had already progressed to the point where there is no such thing as a sovereign economy of a single nation, but rather a global economy to which each nation belongs. Thus, step by step, we progress into the world-state." John McCall, spiritual advisor

The Automatic Earth says, "On the international front, there are many miles of dams and dikes about to burst. Denmark joins the list of trouble with a desperate rate hike; Romania does the same. ING Groep loses another 20%, even though it got $14 billion last week. Sterling and the Euro keep plunging (which makes Europeans happy). The Yen is heading for the skies beyond infinity, which takes enormous additional amounts of credit out of the markets, a much bigger issue than you might think. The IMF announces a plan to help developing nations, but even if we were to assume that they have noble intentions -which we don't-, it is too little too late. The Fund is now talking to perhaps a dozen countries at the same time, and it can't seem to conclude any deals. It doesn't want to, it won't, and it can't. There'll be token amounts handed out, but only to countries that agree to give up what can basically be labeled their sovereignty."

"Our societies, all of them, need to spread their remaining wealth, because if they don't, they will fall apart. The poverty this crisis will unload upon our lands will make that inevitable. You either share, or you face street fighting men. Over 90% of the 'money' that makes the world go round is make believe, and it's being renditioned and disappeared at lightning speed, to never be heard from again. In a sense, that's a very healthy development. Yet, the way we are approaching it to date will not end well for many of us. Forget the Wall Street "bloodbath". Unless we change our ways real soon, we are talking real physical bloodbaths."

In a New York Times Op-Ed article on October 21, 2008, A Matter of Life and Debt by Margaret Atwood she states, "As for what will happen to us next, I have no safe answers. If fair regulations are established and credibility is restored, people will stop walking around in a daze, roll up their sleeves and start picking up the pieces. Things unconnected with money will be valued more -- friends, family, a walk in the woods. "I" will be spoken less, "we" will return, as people recognize that there is such a thing as the common good. On the other hand, if fair regulations are not established and rebuilding seems impossible, we could have social unrest on a scale we haven't seen for years. Is there any bright side to this? Perhaps we'll have some breathing room -- a chance to reevaluate our goals and to take stock of our relationship to the living planet from which we derive all our nourishment, and without which debt finally won't matter."

Now how does one interpret all this information? For me, this description of Jesus feeding five thousand hungry followers from two fish and five loaves of bread, best illustrates my view as a Christian Creationist.

"In feeding the five thousand, Jesus lifts the veil from the world of nature, and reveals the power that is constantly exercised for our good. In the production of earth's harvests God is working a miracle every day. Through natural agencies the same work is accomplished that was wrought in the feeding of the multitude. Men prepare the soil and sow the seed, but it is the life from God that causes the seed to germinate. It is God's rain and air and sunshine that cause it to put forth, 'first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.' (Mark 4:28) It is God who is every day feeding millions from earth's harvest fields. Men are called upon to co-operate with God in the care of the grain and the preparation of the loaf because of this they lose sight of the divine agency. Man is glorified in place of God, and His gracious gifts are perverted to selfish uses, and made a curse instead of a blessing. God is seeking to change all this. He desires that our dull senses shall be quickened to discern His merciful kindness and to glorify Him for the working of His power and the blessing of His gifts.

After the multitude had been fed, there was an abundance of food left. But He who had all the resources of infinite power at His command said, 'Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.' Nothing was to be wasted. We should neglect nothing that will tend to benefit a human being. Let everything be gathered up that will relieve the necessity of earth's hungry ones." The Desire of Ages, E.G.White, pp. 367-68, 1898.

LESSON: It is time for us to gather up the leftovers that God has provided and share them.

The Wedding

The Wedding

Our oldest granddaughter married this October. Most of the guests were relatives, immediate relatives. Children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers, cousins, in-laws too. Don't cha just love it!

Autumn in New England

It's Fall!! Yep, today is Fall. The wind picked up after a cold drizzle and the leaves are coming down. I've lived in Massachusetts for just over thirty years. 2008 is one of the two most colorful autumns I have seen.

If you don't live in the north, then you are unaware of the Internal Seasonal Clock (ISC). Like going to bed at 1000 every night or eating breakfast at 0600 regularly, the ISC ticks away the days until the next season.

Tick, Tock, Buzz! Season change.

All things are right with the world.

We can now prepare for the next season.

WARNING: ISC will be altered by climate change.

Comments on the Financial Situation - Power

As a kid spending summer vacation at the family cabin in northern Minnesota, my brother and sister and I very often played cards on rainy days. War, spades, cribbage, canasta, and whatever we could think up. Even as kids there were moves to be made, strategy to win the game. "You show me yours and I'll show you mine." Who had the most convincing bluff?

As with playing cards, governments in crisis are now planning their economic strategy, their next move. The question is no longer who has the highest card but who can bluff to win. Ilargi at The Automatic Earth blog writes,
I told you: this is not an economic crisis anymore, it’s a full-blown political emergency, and they’re all trying to hang on to "power".

"We see again that every crisis in the aging political-economic-military-cultural unity that now makes the infant globalist world-state is used to shore it up more firmly. Each crisis ties the system together more closely and more powerfully." John McCall, spiritual advisor

A couple days ago while standing in line at Rite-Aid the clerk told the woman in front of me that her debit card had no money. The customer, who could not communicate in English anyway, was confused. She pulled out her Rite-Aid discount card. While the clerk explained that the discount card was not a credit card, I wondered what the woman was trying to buy - it was already in a bag.
How much did it cost? Should I pay for it?

The customer walked out without her item. When I left the building, I saw her walking down the road. As I drove home, I decided to carry an extra twenty dollars that would always be available to whomever might need it.

LESSON: I can't control the international economy but I can respond with assistance to those around me.

Comments on the Financial Situation - Home Invasion

Several years ago my husband decided to take a chance and hire the husband of one of his employees. The man had just been released from jail and really needed a job. Day One went all right. He trained fairly easily. On Day Two when I walked into the shop with my husband, I noticed him doing something in my work space which was next to his but separated by a computer table, chair, and counter. What is he doing? As I approached my work area, he returned to his own. Immediately I looked to the shelf where I kept my purse. It had vanished!!

Well, I marched over, took the box of trash he was carrying, and uncovered my purse in the bottom of the box. When I asked about it, he coldly lied right to my face. Seeing I didn't believe that whooper, he switched his story and expected me to believe him as he denied doing anything wrong at all. I was flabbergasted at his total disrespect for me and how stupid he thought I was. This guy could be a CEO today!!! Wish I had recognized his potential back then. I just fired the guy on the spot in front of all the other employees - no severance pay, no limo, no day at the spa.

Five days later I called the police to report a break in at our home. Most everything of value was gone. They lifted a few partial prints but not enough to nail the guy. Wonder who it was? A potential CEO?

Comments on the Financial Situation - Thomas Jefferson

Though my life moves on seemingly unchanged amidst all the financial clamour, my brain won't let it go. This is more than a bad day at the office. It is more than a poor quarterly net income. More than a profit loss for the year.

It is more than balloon payments and property devaluation. More than the disappearance of retirement investments, plummeting market, and uninsured savings.

It is more than a bad day at the White House. More than not meeting a trillion dollar budget. More than unemployment on the rise to an expected 8%.

Thomas Jefferson addressed the subject of banking institutions nearly two hundred years ago.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

--Thomas Jefferson in The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, 1809

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds... [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816

"Our government is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction; to wit: by consolidation first and then corruption, its necessary consequence. The engine of consolidation will be the Federal judiciary; the two other branches the corrupting and corrupted instruments."

--Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1821.

"It is well to note that the collapse of the mortgage market in the United States was not due solely to the burst of an economic bubble created by many bad mortgages. It was also due to the series of events that began in 2004 with the destruction of so much of the real estate and economy of Florida, the fourth largest state in the U.S. Then came the violence of Katrina that destroyed so much of the Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana coast, and this year the sequence that culminated in Ike's enormous destruction in Texas, which led to the collapse of AIG, which held much of its value in "derivatives," or financial instruments whose value is "derived" from the underlying mortgages -- much of it on property now non-existent or in ruins.With that collapse came the collapse of the great investment houses, who had much of their value held in AIG's derivatives. And so forth. All beginning with a sequence of natural disasters that were nothing less than judgments on a system that was based on greed and showed no appropriate care for the poor."

John McCall, spiritual advisor

Quick catch up

A couple months ago I imagined myself quitting my job and wrote about it here. Sadly David wasn't sure if I was serious or not. Well, I'm serious now. This past week I started a new job. It's good to be busy in different surroundings learning new procedures with fresh faces.

Over a thousand fresh faces appeared on the beaches of Brazil. Read about it here. These little guys found their way on changing ocean currents. "While climate change has been implicated in melting polar ice caps and the transformation of parts of the Amazon rain forest to drier savannah lands, some scientists say there is not enough data on how weather changes are driving these currents." (taken from the same Washington Post article)