From One We Can Judge The Rest

It would seem that there is about 13.7 million people unemployed in America at the moment giving us a current unemployment rate of 8.6% (which is sure to go up). A sad number indeed.

Well, you can say it's 13.7 million and one now, as I reluctantly join the ranks of the jobless.

I was laid-off due to lack of work on 5-8-09, and I'm afraid the company I once worked for is in serious danger of crumbling like a sand-castle against wave after wave of economic despair.

It seems the economy may be on the up-swing, and that's a good thing for our 401k's, our pensions, our jobs, our country, etc. Now, Time will tell whether this is the real-deal or a "dead-cat-bounce"/"bear-market-rally" choose your favorite term, but the problems that got us in this mess in the first place have still yet never been fixed.

I heard one profound statement and a great analogy on the radio recently regarding our economic troubles, one was on Hugh Hewitt's radio show and the other on Glenn Beck's, both of which made by economic historians fluent in what exactly happened during the New-Deal.

Hewitt's guest (sorry, I don't recall the name), said that basically the fed's a con-man (the "con" in con-man stands for confidence). What a con-man does is builds confidence in his mark so that he willingly hands over his loot to the crook as opposed to the crook stealing it against his will. Similarly, the government is printing money out of thin air, pumping it into the banks so as to re-inflate the burst balloon of our economy. If you put enough air (money) into that broken balloon it will loosely inflate creating the illusion that things are getting better, all the while the air is escaping into the void outside of it. This inspires confidence in the private sector. As long as the American public, economically speaking, is fat and dumb, we'll generally be happy and forget about the woes of yesteryear and what brought about those woes to begin with. Before long there is loads of money from the private sector flowing into the balloon, however the balloon no longer has the structural integrity to hold that much air and the original hole gets bigger. The balloon deflates a bit. Everyone notices, panics, and before you know it the private sector cuts off the air supply by hanging on to their money causing the balloon to deflate. Then the cycle starts again and again, except with each occurrence the economy must inflate the balloon with more air then before. And, ultimately in the end nothing gets fixed, especially when the real fix is to get rid of the balloon system to begin with, but to do such a thing would require pain and sacrifice. This leads me to the next example.

Beck's guest (once again I don't recall, but I do recall the book he wrote; A New Deal or Raw Deal?) was posed a question by a caller that went something like this,

The basic gist was that the same problems we are dealing with now are just previous generations pushing the problem off to future ones (sound familiar?). What is required is pain and sacrifice to rebuild a more stable economy based SOLELY on capitalist principles, not any capitalism mixed with socialism like we have now. However, we, the public, are adverse to personal sacrifice, so essentially it'll be pushed out and on a generation that is going to be forced to deal with it because the balloon is so badly damaged it can't possibly be blown up again. The sad part, is by that time it may be to late, because not only will investors from our country never want to do business in America again, but neither will any other country, for the global economy will see what a sham our economy has become. It's not plainly visible now, some are starting to see it, but in the future it will be as transparent as ever when these cycles of rest and unrest become more and more frequent, when we won't be able to hide behind short memories and long spans of prosperity.

You know, one experiment in socialism back in the 1930's and we are still paying for it, and in the end it may bring about the end of our great nation. So what's the solution now? More Socialism? Really? It's so frustrating to be caught between a lazy and dumb what-have-you-done-for-me-lately society, and an incompetent government. Yet, I digress!

I've been interested since my lay-off on what are some of the possible economic futures on the horizon, and the prospect is not good. In my next posts I will list some articles to further buttress my assessment. I'll warn you, some of it is really bleak!

The best thing for anyone is to look to the Lord and trust that he knows exactly what he's doing in times like this. I truly believe God is chastening us as a nation for the fraudulent and unfair economic system we have (among our many other politically endorsed sins). We, as in all things, need to repent of our covetous desires and unjust ways as a nation. I'll leave you with a prayer: