"The Coming Economic Armageddon"

It is with great trepidation that I write this series of blogs on the state of our Nations economy.  My reference material is Dr David Jeremiah's book; The Coming Economic Armageddon, What Bible Prophecy Warns about the New Global Economy.  This is not a series on doom for our nation but hope for its people!

Lets start...

Most of us know who Bernie Madoff is, a reminder that he is know as the greatest swindler of Wall Street to date.  Madoff did this by cheating his investors, friends and even family out of $65 billion (that's billion with a B) dollars using a "Ponzi Scheme".

Before I get to far ahead of myself, let me remind you of the difference between a million and a billion (some of you may remember me teaching this 15 to 20 years ago);


If you spend $20,000 a week for fifty weeks, then take a two week vacation to equal one year - you would have spent $1 million.


If you spend $20,000 a week, in the third week of the fifth month of the 961 year you would have spent $1 billion!  That is with no vacation either...


Ok, lets get back.  About eighty years ago, Charles Ponzi  was considered the greatest swindler of all times.  Ponzi would promise his clients 50 - 100% returns on their investments in as little as 45 - 90 days.  He was charged with over 80 counts of mail fraud, spent three and a half years in prison, was deported back to Brazil and later died in a charity hospital.  To this day, a "Ponzi Scheme" is the term used for any scam which pays early investors with money from later ones.

The greatest Ponzi Scheme is not from Bernie Madoff but from our own government, it is called the Social Security Act!  Started by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, it was designed to give every American a retirement at age 65.  Congress over the years has amended the program to include more benefits at a cost of over $1 trillion (that's TRILLION).  Don't ask me how many Millenia it would take to spend $20K per week.

This unfunded entitlement program takes in a lot of money, however it is not protected in a trust fund and consequently spent elsewhere.  It is a Ponzi Scheme:  new contributors fund the political promises made to the older contributors.

Edmund Andrews, New York Times economics reporter writes;
The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.  “What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”  


Dr Jeremiah writes: How long before the system collapses under its own ever increasing weight?

Stay tuned friends - ernie