American Albatross

It is very easy to be labeled a ‘doom and gloomer’ these days for simply reporting the facts.  “But facts are a stubborn thing,” John Adams once said.

Seemingly, simple problems for nations to solve often come with extremely complex strings attached. The United States is addicted to spending money. What does one do if they are neck deep in debt? Well, for starters, you stop spending so much money. The muddy waters part is where to stop spending and which programs you are willing to cut that actually makes a difference.

The United States purse strings are ultimately being pulled in two different directions between the leftist and conservative agendas.  Each side has their sacred cows they refuse to touch and will only do so at an excruciatingly high cost to the other.  I realize I am staying vague here, but my intent is to show you the forest and the trees, seeing the picture as a whole, rather than just individual issues.

Our system has three legs of power that constitute the operational managers of a complex system of systems.  The controlling authority actually being an architectural contract our founding fathers created (the Charters of Freedom) 242 years ago. 

The basic premise is that man does not guarantee our rights, God does. Therefore, rights are unalienable. The overarching theme is that governments tend to grow into overbearing monstrosities, thus, the checks and balances are largely against itself to prevent that from happening. This is done by dividing the governmental authorities into three branches, which then act as a system of checks and balances against each other, to prevent any one from becoming too powerful.

The Trees

One branch (the Executive) has the responsibility to implement the duties of leadership and enact the laws and powers granted to it by a bi-congressional (two-house) legislative body.  However, many past administrations have worked around that legislative body to create an army of un-elected bureaucrats. While every administration adds to this, we have not seen anything like the previous Obama administration, which literally, attempted to create another government under our current one. We have come to know this as both the Deep State, and the Swamp. Them aside, past administrations have flagrantly ignored or bypassed the legislation to initiate warfare, emplace unconstitutional bureaucratic legislation (mandatory healthcare), and often refuse to enforce the laws that were already in place.

The governmental branch entrusted with creating the laws and controlling spending (Legislative), cannot. This because it primarily remains invested only in being re-elected and retaining power, or is in the deep pockets of the various special interest groups.  The handful of actual honest and trustworthy legislators have a difficult time getting anything passed either by committee or through house votes due to the divisiveness that the special interests represent there.  Both houses recognize the dire dilemma we are in financially speaking, but cannot agree on meaningful steps toward achieving that goal without risking their own political interests (i.e., careers).

The last branch (Judicial) acts as the official authority created to interpret the laws of the land acting as the ultimate last resort for legal interpretation of the Constitution.  The problem with this branch is lifetime appointments. Lifetime appointments were initially meant as a safeguard against the shifting political climate of any given decade. However, this also means that they (the judges) end up becoming defenders of their interpretation that we have to live with for most of our lives. 

Appointments, whether right or left, have long-term ramifications.

And to think we have the best system on earth. The problem with our system is that man is running it, and man is flawed and sinful. Thus by default, mankind would never have a system that actually functions as it should for any longer than a brief period of time.

The Forest

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the titular mariner kills an albatross that has been following his ship, bringing down a curse that leads to the death of all other crewmembers. As a punishment, the crew hang the dead bird from the mariner’s neck, and he remains alive to witness the ship’s fate unfold. This potent emblem led to the coining of a metaphorical meaning for albatross as something that causes anxiety or guilt or that burdens and encumbers. Source

Geopolitical strategists often use terms like ‘red-line’ or ‘point of no return’ to signal events that once happen, cannot be undone.  Like the proverbial bell that cannot be unrung, so too are the redlines that once crossed, forever change the geopolitical and/or economic landscape.  We (the U.S.) have crossed that economic redline some time ago.  We have put ourselves in such a financially distressing situation, that most politicians and talking heads would rather discuss things abstractly than deal with them honestly. Those who are honest are labeled alarmists. Is it alarmist to yell ‘fire’ in a theater if it was actually on fire?

We crossed that economic ‘red-line’ some years ago and have no other recourse than to radically and fundamentally change the way we function as an economy. True, America has a diverse and robust economy. However, it is also true that we have attained such a colossal debt; it threatens the entire world with a tsunami of inflation and/or deflation, when the next major crisis occurs.

In regards to our economic situation, something has to change, because there simply is no other way around the magnitude of unsustainable debt we keep accumulating. There is not enough tax-paying American citizens, nor years left on the planet, to pay off or even down what we owe. We keep borrowing from the next generation, that by the time they come of age, there will not be anything left for them. This means that our current financial conundrum is a bit of a paradox. Either they (government officials, economists, and elected politicians) recognize that we can never pay off or down our debt and have decided to keep operating the way we are anyways, or we are in some form of delusional denial. Even the former Joint Chief of Staff under President Obama (Admiral Mike Mullen) stated that our national debt was the single, greatest threat to our national security.

By the way, we are not alone. Almost every other industrialized nation on the planet is in similar (or worse) situations. Budget cuts and austere measures are about as popular here as they are in places like Greece, London, and Spain. Nobody wants to give up the golden goose. However, the choice will be either we (as a society) agree to reduce the quality of life here in the good old US of A and pay down our debt, or we keep things as they are and go to a new financial system. Mind you, this new system will be something we do not exclusively control anymore. President James Garfield (1881-assassinated) once stated, that he who controls the money supply of a nation, controls the nation.

We are at a loggerheads as a nation in that we have reached a point of both having unsustainable debt and an unwillingness to change our ways. Something will have to give and I am willing to bet that tweaking the Constitution will be offered as the least painful alternative. According to the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), Congress has the responsibility to control currency and debt. However, this duty was surrendered to the nonfederal and private entity known as the Federal Reserve on December 23rd, 1913 with the now infamous Federal Reserve Act. The Federal Reserve (a form of Central Bank) has never been externally audited (think about that for a moment), and yields enormous power. It has been likened to that of a cartel of bankers, and could be said to control almost all the economies of the world, since the world relies on the stability of the US Dollar for their own fiscal policies and systems.

This is a recipe for global economic disasters of Biblical proportions.

As mentioned before, something will have to give. Likely, the perfect crisis will present the perfect opportunity to introduce some new global standard of commerce. Perhaps some existing or new digital crypto-currency that is either enabled or enforced through Next Generation Identification (NGI) technologies for enhanced biometric security. This system then utilizes a mixture of quantum level computing (for data and information processing), along with an artificial intelligence system (for market analysis), and requires implantable technology that uses the wearer’s unique genetic markers as an un-hackable security function. According to Revelation 13:16-18, a system similar to this will be mandated by the world’s final governmental system to control ALL buying and selling in the world.

The big picture then is that America is at that point now, where it will soon have to trade autonomy for security because of its financial dilemma. Soon, we will be no different from Greece or Italy in terms of our economic vulnerability. At present, we just happen to have the best military on earth, which is why no one is currently forcing our hand.  However, there is coming a day when all of our military-might will not be able to stop the shadowy forces seeking to make us become subservient in our role as the big stick in someone else’s hand. The rapid advancement in technology is quickly leveling the playing field. The wealth, power, and might of the US will soon come to naught, and everything people have worked and slaved away for all their lives will seem rather irrelevant in the months and years to come.

The Silver Lining

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matthew 6:19-21

Where is your treasure laid up?  Is it in the next Ronald Reagan? Gold and silver?  A 401K with stock options?  This age is coming rapidly to a close.  Our current system is unraveling faster and faster and if you have placed your faith and trust in your own ability to provide a long, comfortable life, you are going to be disappointed.

Satan can see the storm clouds gathering, so he is instituting his plans and schemes with greater swiftness and ferocity.  The fact that we are becoming irrelevant is only relevant as it pertains to how close we are to the end of this dispensation.  It is becoming more apparent that the US will not have some kind of massive revival and repent as a nation again.

There is a reason why the Bible makes no mention of great nation in the west in the last days. Regardless of how it happens, something does. We are as a nation, buckling under our own weight.  At this point, super-committees and last minute budget deals are as meaningful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

The silver lining is that salvation is yours for the asking.  You need only place your faith in Jesus Christ to change your life and your eternal destiny forever.  Oh, and some sound spiritual advice is, you should not wait too long either.  Because His return is, a lot sooner than you think.

Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Philippians 3:17-21

Even so, Maranatha!