The U.S. Financial Crisis, Is It Time To Panic Yet?
Posted: Monday, September 22, 2008
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
If you are the type, or inclined to panic, if you have medication for anxiety attacks or if you are on edge and scream when someone touches you on the shoulder, then yes, it is time. Our current problems are manifold. Few realize just where we are or where we are going. It is time to stop blaming someone else and try to come together to resolve this terrible mess. But the attitudes and intellects now prevalent throughout this nation are set on only one thing... greed. We've all had it good here in the U.S. for many years and we never dreamed it would be different. It will be different, and now is, in the infancy of drastic (I wish I had a stronger word there) change. Not the change being touted by McCain or Obama, but change that no one wants unless it be our enemies. We have known enemies who will watch us die with broad smiles while flashing victory signals as we gasp for our last breath. One such is George Soros whose greatest hopes are in seeing America in bankruptcy.
"We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and encouraging of all religions. And this does not weaken us; it strengthens us. ... You know, if we look back through history to all those great civilizations, those great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated, declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God." (Ronald Reagan)
A democracy is a fragile thing. If you have ever considered it, you will realize that a government BY THE PEOPLE will of necessity become the will of the majority, sooner or later. And we have now grown into a people whose mindset is not considerate of the welfare of this nation. Oh, our politicians profess that the welfare of this nation is their only intent. Wrong! Their only intent is that which will give them fat pocketbooks, fame and fortune...power! And we, the people are full of the contention that we will only vote for those who will make this a better nation. Wrong! We then vote for the one who will promise us greater handouts, free health care for all, free food, free money via stimulus checks (and yes, I accepted mine), no more wars, plenty of easy, good paying jobs for everyone.
One problem is that, as of now our national debt is approximately 9.7 trillion dollars or $13,700 per citizen of the U.S., man woman or child. The only residents here who do not share the debt are our illegal immigrants. But that isn't all! Read this excerpt from Wikipedia concerning this:
"If, in addition, unfunded Social Security, Medicare etc. promises are added, this figure rises to a total of $59.1 trillion."
The higher our national debt becomes, the more difficult it becomes to keep the interest paid on it! Now, this current crisis is not the result of our national debt. But it is going to result in a tremendous increase in our national debt! It absolutely must stop somewhere and reverse. Our finances are now so strained that we cannot afford to wage a war and maintain a military strength adequate for our own security. Wall Street, which has such terrific influence on our economy as to be almost absolute, has become so greedy, unethical and even criminal, to the point of jeopardizing our entire national economy.
Our congress has always controlled our purse strings and if any public officials are to be blamed, they are the ones, for not keeping a tighter reign on the financial powers. Now, with all of the extremely expensive bailouts which have become necessary, not only is it going to inflate our national debt but also greatly increase our federal bureaucracy. The last two years with a democratically controlled congress with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi trying to steer it cannot but accept their share of the blame. Those two have been more engaged in Bush bashing and instigating gridlock in congress than any other matters. I suggest that the self proclaimed "Most powerful woman on earth:" use her power to get us out of this mess or relinquish her most powerfulposition.
But, we are not without blame also. We have become spoiled to a point that is unbelievable. We have decided that it is unacceptable to live in a small 2 or 3 bedroom house with one bath, share one vehicle, eat meals prepared at home or take a lunch bag of food to work. One phone per family is unheard of. One 20 in screen television is unheard of. Buying clothes and shoes from Walmart or Haband is so unacceptable. I know of young couples who have just started out with only moderate household incomes who have invested in large homes, automobiles, boat and trailer and more, never imagining what will happen to them if one becomes sick, disabled or pregnant. The vast majority of our present mortgage foreclosures are simply from those reasons. Yet, our financial institutions are willing to loan those couples 6 to 8 times their annual income! I get offers for beautiful credit cards with a promise of high credit limits more than weekly, from institutions all over the U.S., some that I've never even heard of. I would be jailed if I accepted a bunch of those offers and could not repay them (and I surely could not).
But what comes now? I fear the worst. I don't know what the actual immediate results will be but you can be assured they will affect us for decades. And with the atheistic attitudes we now have controlling most of society, I'm not sure this nation can recover from this. Now that is pure pessimism. But I feel that this will result in the election of those who promise us more than they can possibly produce, more bureaucratic government, more and higher taxation to pay for it all which will stymie our economic growth even more, and more and more. Here are a few quotes that have meaning.
"The unhealthy gap between what we preach in America and what we often practice creates a moral dry rot that eats at the very foundation of our democratic ideals and values." (Whitney Moore, Jr., To Be Equal, 1964)
"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non-work." (Milton Friedman)
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." (P.J. O'Rourke)
Pray that God will answer our prayers, not those of Jeremiah Wright.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Joel, you are a good man and this is a good article yet what has happened, what you hear but chose to ignore, what is written in the fine print and yes what they say from their own lips is the destruction and dismantling of America as we know and knew it. It is that simple. I certainly have written enough to it for years and found no interest. Americans will reap what they sow. There is only one thing left, smile and say thank you and as they say bend, etc. Yes and these Americans will hang their very own children with an enormous burden and wake up one day not knowing just what happened. Too late my friend much too late. As A Christian I'm voting moral, I'm voting Keyes. Best Wishes.Hi Robert, thanks for commenting. I understand where you are coming from, yet I cannot agree with just making a symbolic move. This is probably the most serious election of my 78 years. More is riding on this than can possibly meet the eye ahead of time. If Nancy Pelosi and her crew are not voted out, we haven't seen anything yet, so far as skyrocketing living costs are concerned. And frankly my income won't handle any more. I'm losing ground now!She wants to "Save the Planet". Save the planet and destroy the people is what she is after. Who else in this world is failing to access their resources except us? Can the U.S. save the planet while all others are destroying it? On June 18 of this year, President Bush made a strong appeal to the Democratic congress to take the ban off or our drilling for oil NOW so that we could concentrate on alternative energy sources without paying our the billions of dollars monthly to foreign nations for their oil. I have to cast my vote against all of Pelosi's bunch.
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