{"id":348,"date":"2009-04-22T09:07:38","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T14:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.servias.org\/?p=348"},"modified":"2009-04-22T09:07:38","modified_gmt":"2009-04-22T14:07:38","slug":"protecting-the-status-quo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/servias.org\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the &quot;Status Quo&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I have written in the past huge amounts of bailout money have been made available to financial institutions.&nbsp; Some local institutions were forced to take the money, and expect to send it back as soon as possible.&nbsp; It would paint the picture that bailout money is being widely distributed rather than targeting a narrow audience.&nbsp; Over time, we have consistently seen the &#8220;paint a rosy picture&#8221; scenario by various administrations tinkering with government statistics- employment numbers, consumer price index, core index, money supply, etc.&nbsp; The latest &#8220;tinkering&#8221; is the accounting standards applicable to the banks&#8217; valuation of toxic assets.&nbsp; Effectively, the banks can play with their balance sheets thus effecting a drastic improvement of income and painting a better financial picture.&nbsp; If you or I did the same in an effort to receive a loan from the bank, we would be convicted of fraud.&nbsp; If those banks with toxic assets were to value the toxic assets at current market value, they would be &#8220;insolvent&#8221; and that is a scary prospect for the current financial system.<\/p>\n<p>Why are the world leaders pursuing this path?&nbsp; They are attempting to protect the counterfeit reality that keeps them in power.&nbsp; The current structure promotes and protects its power structure from any outside interference.&nbsp; Students of history know that this will not last indefinitely.&nbsp; Rome fell, the British Empire lost its status, and the United States is on the same road to ruin.&nbsp; There is no way in the current system to pay back the money committed other than defaulting on future obligations or inflating the currency thus devaluing individual wealth.&nbsp; Either option will be devastating to the American taxpayer and future generations.&nbsp; It is important to remember, government has no real money of its own, all the money it spends or commits comes from the taxpayer or is created out of thin air.<\/p>\n<p>In the current system, economies require energy to grow and the &#8220;easy&#8221; energy is gone.&nbsp; All of the easy to reach oil has been discovered and is being extracted.&nbsp; We have not run out of oil but it is now more expensive to find and extract.&nbsp; The same is true for the other commodities.&nbsp; Cheap prices mask the problem and the current leaders have mechanisms in place to paint a rosy picture.&nbsp; How unfortunate is short-term thinking!<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"1\"><\/a>2Kings 7:1 THEN Elisha said, &#8220;Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD: &#8216;Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour <i>shall be sold <\/i>for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.'&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>This story reflects a &#8220;black swan&#8221; event.&nbsp; The Samarians were living life as usual, expecting the linear progression of their lives to continue.&nbsp; &#8220;Then suddenly&#8221; Our Heavenly Father evoked a change to the Syrians&#8217; future.&nbsp; HE told Elisha to expect the change to the local economy and it happened as expected by the prophet who heard the voice of THE LORD.&nbsp; The Book of Job reminds us that there are larger cycles in the universe than what we can comprehend and that when sudden change comes, don&#8217;t be surprised.&nbsp; Job had everything stripped away so that he could prepare for a greater ministry.&nbsp; That method goes against what most believe is optimum but we must shed the counterfeit realities that we have created in order to clear the way for Our Heavenly Father&#8217;s plan. <\/p>\n<p>Below is a little humor to offset the dismal financial picture described above:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wlWriterSmartContent\" id=\"scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:c41223a3-c5b5-47b5-b9ae-529584a51b58\" style=\"padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<div id=\"e58f76eb-2ca5-44f7-82fe-3402af67269a\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;\">\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aO3v9Hwaip4&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" target=\"_new\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.servias.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/videof06f52479cf2.jpg\" galleryimg=\"no\" onload=\"var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('e58f76eb-2ca5-44f7-82fe-3402af67269a'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = &quot;&lt;div&gt;&lt;object width=\\&quot;425\\&quot; height=\\&quot;350\\&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=\\&quot;movie\\&quot; value=\\&quot;http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/aO3v9Hwaip4&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\\&quot;&gt;&lt;\\\/param&gt;&lt;param name=\\&quot;wmode\\&quot; value=\\&quot;transparent\\&quot;&gt;&lt;\\\/param&gt;&lt;embed src=\\&quot;http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/aO3v9Hwaip4&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\\&quot; type=\\&quot;application\/x-shockwave-flash\\&quot; wmode=\\&quot;transparent\\&quot; width=\\&quot;425\\&quot; height=\\&quot;350\\&quot;&gt;&lt;\\\/embed&gt;&lt;\\\/object&gt;&lt;\\\/div&gt;&quot;;\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I have written in the past huge amounts of bailout money have been made available to financial institutions.&nbsp; Some local institutions were forced to take the money, and expect to send it back as soon as possible.&nbsp; It would paint the picture that bailout money is being widely distributed rather than targeting a narrow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biblical-economics-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/servias.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}