It must have been sometime around 1970 when I first heard The World Tomorrow broadcast with Garner Ted Armstrong. I would subsequently listen to it on the drive home after teaching my night school class. I had never heard about the âdivided kingdomâ or the 10 Lost Tribes and I was greatly intrigued by the idea that the people of Israel might actually have migrated to Europe, Britain, and America, and that Bible prophecy might pertain to present-day geo-politics.
My longstanding interest in history was further stimulated by these assertions but my energies at that time were preoccupied with my young family and academic career. It was a few years later, after a personal crisis and divorce that I began to look more deeply into all aspects of my life, including the spiritual. I had already a few years earlier put aside my belief in Catholic teachings but had not made the effort to supplant that faith with anything else.
It was with some trepidation that I began to read the Bible, something that the Church did not encourage. I quickly discovered why. There was much in the Bible that contradicted Catholic doctrine and practice, and it became obvious that the institutional objective was to keep âthe faithfulâ in line and dependent upon the clergy. One case in point: Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven (Matt. 23:9 KJV). And, of course, Catholic priests insist on being called, âfather.â
I also, about that time, took a subscription to the Plain Truth magazine, which I looked forward to reading each month. I found most of the articles on geopolitics and current affairs to be well researched and quite insightful, which helped me to gain a more realistic worldview. I also made it a point to listen more regularly to the World Tomorrow broadcasts, which, following Garner Tedâs banishment had been taken over by Herbert Armstrong. I was rather dismayed to see the chaos and disintegration that followed Herbert Armstrongâs death, but there was a lot going on in my life at the time, and I had never involved myself with the Worldwide Church of God organization, so it simply passed out of my life.
A little less than two years ago, while waiting in my doctorâs office, I happened to notice a magazine that bore a peculiar resemblance to the old Plain Truth. I discovered that the Philadelphia Trumpet, under Gerald Flurry, is now being published by an organization that calls itself the âPhiladelphia Church of God,â which looks to be a reincarnation of the Herbert Armstrong enterprise. Iâve been subscribing to the new PT for a little more than a year now and I must credit it with being similarly informative and insightful, despite some obvious political biases and blind spots.
It is clear that humanity is currently confronted with a multi-dimensional crisisâit is at once economic, financial, environmental, political, and social. A recent issue of Philadelphia Trumpet highlighted this in a lead article titled, The Upside-Down World (by Joel Hilliker). I can surely agree that the World is âupside-downâ but that authorâs assessment of underlying causes has the ring of  typical âChristian conservatism.â Like so many of that ilk, it rails against liberal social norms but overlooks the gross inequities inherent in our political economy. I cannot recall ever seeing, either in the old PT or the new PT, any mention of usury or the debt-trap, and very little about social injustice, gross economic inequities, or state-sanctioned corporate privilege that enables the few to dominate the many.
Over the past several years, Iâve made a careful study of the structures of the money and banking system and discovered that there are serious flaws inherent in the way money is created and allocated. This has profound implications for all of us. As Thomas H. Greco puts it:
Money is a topic that few people understand. Sure, we use it every day and it seems familiar; but like water to the fish, we take it for granted and seldom give its role any notice. Yet the quality of the water that the fish inhabit is crucial in determining the quality of their existence. If the water happens to be polluted, the fish sicken and die. Likewise, money is a primary element of the modern economy that we inhabit. The quality of the money we use determines, to a great extent, the quality of our lives. (Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender. Chelsea Green, 2001)
Did you ever wonder why both the Bible (Old Testament and New) and the Koran make such a big issue about the practice of usury, or why it was so severely punished under Canon law for hundreds of years? Well, it turns out that the compounding of interest (usury) demands exponential growth, in this case the exponential growth of debt. All questions of equity aside, it is clear that in a finite world nothing can grow exponentially forever. Growth must at some point either level off, or there will be a catastrophic collapse. This is often seen with insect and animal populations. When they grow at an accelerating rate they inevitably overrun their habitats and exhaust their food supplies. So too, the amount of debt in the world must soon exceed the ability of the real economy to bear it.
This is not just theoretical; we can see it playing out right now. As the chart shows, even 
as late as 1965, total debt for all sectors in the United States was a relatively small one trillion dollars, or 1.5 time total economic output (GDP). By 2007 that had grown to more than $50 trillion or 3.5 times GDP, and George Soros, the billionaire financier and speculator is predicting that debt will soon reach 5 times GDP.
If you want to understand how the money system operates and the root causes of economic depressions, inflation, and so much of the violent conflict in the world, you should study Grecoâs websites, http://beyondmoney.net/ and http://reinventingmoney.com/. You should also view Paul Grignonâs animated video Money as Debt (http://paulgrignon.netfirms.com/MoneyasDebt/index2.htm) which is available on DVD or on YouTube , (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8).
More about this in the next installment–Santos
The facts about international banking, the Federal Reserve, etc. have been out there for decades. I’m afraid I can’t be optimistic about the outcome. In the final analysis, we are all owned lock, stock and barrel by people we know nothing about. They have steadily been tightening their stranglehold on the enitre world generation after generation. It’s set up in such an interconnected way that trying to stop them would interject societal and infrastructure chaos. Besides, all political entities are bought and paid for by them, whether their lackies are aware of it or not.
Back in 1971, Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system which was the standard created after WW2 that allowed other nations to convert their fiat currency to gold that the United State held. When all this gold started going out, Nixon eliminated gold as the standard of money to increase the US government to pay for the trade and spending deficits.
As of now the dollars basically is backed by nothing except something I call the “credit standard.” A system designed to put value into the dollar before the work has been done by this and generations yet born.
If Ron Paul ever gets his way as to auditing the federal reserve and the gold supply at Fort Knox, I would not be surprised to see that there is little stored in the vaults.
There’s some interesting articles by another ex-WCGer Orlin Grabbe on money, digital money and Gold here: http://orlingrabbe.com/view/articles/
Some of the urls may have been corroded by time, what articles missing can probably be located at archive.org using the same URL.
Orlin wrote the book on derivatives.
His musings on the state of the financial system before his death in 2007 are quite interesting. It seems when it comes to the money system it is a bit of a hydra with many heads, intelligence agencies, ancient banking families, criminals, and corrupt government officials.
Bill, this is the best link to his article I could find.
http://www.orlingrabbe.com/view/articles/
Orlin Grabbe’s entire website has been preserved here: http://billstclair.com/grabbe/index2.html
Orlin is now dead. I knew him and his brothers and sister when I was at the college. Ina Grabbe, who became Mrs. Edward Lain, was my first date at Ambassador. She died of breast cancer that could have possibly been successfully treated many years ago. I believe both Lester and Crocket are still living. That family was distinguished by outstanding academic achievements.
Good article on ballooning student loan debts and the quash that puts on future economic recovery.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-student-debt-wrecks-marriages.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29
The World Tomorrow – gloom and doom, as usual. Just be glad it’s not HWA handling the finances.
Corky,
Did you watch the videos? What is your take on the information presented?
Certainly, and more besides. There has been the idea of a one world government with a one world religion and currency since the time of Cyrus of Persia. It won’t work. It’s like an Amway pyramid scheme only on a huge scale. It depends on exponential growth – more or less forever – and that can’t work. Sooner or later it’ll break. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
Now, since those folks who “do” this stuff know a hell of a lot more about the hows and wherefores of it than I do and assuming that some of those folks really are financial geniuses – what would my opinion on it amount to?
I hear all kinds of negative stuff – where is the positive? There has to be a positive side or else they wouldn’t do it. Because, if in the end, those few ended up with all the money – it would still be worthless and they wouldn’t have gained a thing.
The end result is a world with the super rich at the top and everyone else as a peon. Bankruptcies and an endless round of bubbles and bursts are built right into the system. The winners are those who control the banking system and ultimately own everything and everyone while those individuals think they really do own something. Play ball, and you do pretty well if you happen to be in the right position. Everybody else is inconsequential.
Ain’t it kinda always been that way?
Just in America, from the very beginning, it was a bunch of rich aristocrats who owned everything (and everybody, by indebtedness) who wanted to quit giving the king his share.
You’ll notice though, that it wasn’t the aristocrats who died in the fight. That’s where the old adage comes from that says, “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”.
Actually, HWA would have been very much like those handling world finances. No money comes into circulation without these vampires draining everybody’s financial lifeblood through their usury. Very good system of slavery.
Some of those who could be branded aristocrats also risked and someitmes lost everything in the revolution. We will never be without this struggle between haves and have nots as long as human primates strive to dominate each other.
What frosts me is the crafty way the haves have engineered the return of the robber barons through destroying common sense regulation while systematically destroying unions and the rights of the middle and lower classes by torpedoing the progressive aspects of taxation to where the middle class has all but totally disintegrated and those below the middle class are simply out of luck. Anybody who opposes them is labeled a socialist. There are some aspects of socialism that are desperately needed. Capitalism isn’t all that lily white and wonderful.
Screw the Unions. Go to your county web-site and see what the cops get paid, the firemen, your mayor. This is what Unions have evolved into and you wonder why your taxes are so high.
Yes, unions can get out of hand, but look at how out of hand executive pay has gotten. Nobody is worth what these bastards are ripping from the system at the expense of everyone else. We have airline stewardesses who have to exist on food stamps!
I worry about the calibre of pilots who are paid so little now that the best candidates are not interested in pursuing the career. Why take a job with such overwhelming responsibility when you can go for a CEO position, basically sit on your can and play golf and walk away with obscene millions every year and even more when you retire?
We’ve got a system that is doomed to implode and the plight of the middle class reminds me of czarist Russia.
“I worry about the calibre of pilots who are paid so little now that the best candidates are not interested in pursuing the career.”
Yes, I saw that on television. Who would believe that 20k a year buys a pilot? Who would think they would care about their job for such a low wage?
“Weâve got a system that is doomed to implode and the plight of the middle class reminds me of czarist Russia.”
Wait and see. This year is not a normal election season. If we can get in a congress that can contain Obama’s insane spending we and the following generations have a chance to stay away from the poor house.
I guess you’ve forgotten Bush’s insane spending while cutting tax rates for the wealthiest and borrowing to pay for them. It’s all right when the socialism goes to the richest among us but is insane when it’s headed toward the average Joe.
I guess you can tell I’m a rabid liberal and I won’t be changing. Thirty years of so-called conservative double talk and deception has cured me as thoroughly as I’m cured of religion. Incidentally, I swallowed Dubya’s crap just as thoroughly as I swallowed HWA’s and voted for the sob twice. What a fool I was. Again!
“I guess youâve forgotten Bushâs insane spending”
No, and I will not let him off the hook either. He basically bought the vote of those on medicare by upping the benefits to the point that the budget office said it was not sustainable.
Once you reach a certain point in watching these snakes, you begin to see that they are all the same. Just as money is debt, it is also power over others.
Look what these city “leaders” get paid.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/16/c_13514990.htm
I can’t quite fathom what you mean about twenty thousand a year. Do you think that is a good wage for a pilot? I certainly don’t. A starting salary in such a field would be many thousand more if it were fair, and it would go up with time.
When I was going strongly in my flooring business about ten years ago, I cleared somewhere around fifty to sixty thousand a year, and I did not live high. I managed to pay all bills and live comfortably, but I couldn’t save anything. All my customers expected of me was enough expertise to do their carpet work or carpet cleaning in a professionally adequate way. Their lives didn’t depend on my expertise and judgment.
I’m not conversant with what pilots are paid in all airlines. I just know that the average working stiff has been getting shafted steadily for several years while the a-holes at the top have been having a party and the politicians in both parties don’t give a damn. “Tricle down” is one of the stupidest phrases ever coined.
The cops, firemen, school teachers and mayor get paid surprisingly little where I live.
What do they get paid? Ever go online and look it up?
There’s always a con man or woman waiting to game the system if they can get away with it. That’s where a free press and vigilant citizenship should come in, but we all have a tendency to go to sleep at the wheel and assume everything is on the up and up and honest. The older I get, the less trusting and naive I become.
The firemen are all volunteer so $0.00 for them. Last I heard they get $100.00 a month after retirement. The police get about $25,000 a year. The mayor’s job is a joke – about $20,000 for him.
That’s about typical for small town Arkansas. I haven’t checked the big city of Little Rock – it probably pays a lot more.
My youngest daughter is a 5th grade school teacher with a master’s degree in elementary education and gets paid less than I did when I still worked in a mobile home factory.
And we wonder why people don’t want a teaching career. This nation has been totally shortsighted for decades. We are now in danger of losing our leading position in the world because other nations are out educating us. The only people who get ahead in the educational system are those who manage to get into administrative positions where they push papers and pretend to be important.