The Breakdown of Supply Chains
All over the world, multiple supply chains have become dysfunctional. A common explanation for why they have broken down is that they all related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and once we get past it, all things will return to normal.
Some are related to COVID-19, but many have zero connection to the virus. They have been building for years, and only now are they starting to manifest. The key reason is that people are making decisions that defy basic logic. There is a direct relation between evil and insanity. As the world gets more evil, people make more insane choices.
For several years the price of uranium sold at $20 per pound even though it cost $60 to mine it. China and India are building dozens of reactors that will increase demand for a uranium market that already has a deficit between supply and demand.
The price for uranium languished at $20 because the world decided nuclear power was bad, and few financial firms wanted to invest in this industry. Everyone in 2021 has suddenly realized that having electricity is a good thing, and so we now have a new love for nuclear power. The price of uranium is now at $40 per pound, and the stock prices of many uranium miners have risen several-fold. Since it will take many years to restore supply, the price of uranium could rise to $400 per pound.
Germany is creating its own electrical production problem with its fixation on renewable energy sources like solar and wind. The German government wants renewables to cover 65 percent of the country’s electricity needs by 2030, a key target in Berlin’s campaign to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and help combat climate change. It has pledged to shut down the last nuclear power plants in 2022 and phase out coal power by 2038.
The nation already has 30,000 wind turbines, and it is having trouble building any more. It has become difficult to find the right type of land to build wind farms. The power infrastructure doesn’t even allow for the flow of that much electricity. Germany’s transmission network can barely cope with the flow of electricity from the wind-intensive northern coast population centers and industrial regions further south.
If Germany wants to reach the 65 percent renewables target, it will need at least 4GW new onshore wind capacity every year. This year we will probably not even manage 1GW.
I fear Germany is setting itself up for a major power production crisis. A huge wind turbine collapsed just hours before it was due to be officially inaugurated. The turbine, whose rotor blades reach a height of 784 feet, toppled over last month in a forest near the western town of Haltern. Germany has cold winters that can produce bad winter storms. It would be a disaster if an ice storm locked up wind turbines for just a few days. It would be an apocalyptic nightmare if the weight of the ice caused thousands of turbines to collapse like the one near Haltern.
Sometimes the breakdown in the supply chain results in too much of a product. In China, there is a massive overabundance of housing. All over China, there are thousands of high-rise apartment complexes that stand unfinished. An amazing 20% of all the apartments in China are currently empty.
The giant real estate company Evergrande has been in the news because it faces bankruptcy. The firm has $300 billion in debt, built up from mania-levels of speculation in housing. If it goes under, it would be the largest bankruptcy in all of Asia.
Beijing is allowing the debt-saddled property developer to fail because it realizes it needs to let the air out of the housing speculation bubble. It may turn out that what the government is really trying to do is let water out of a dam that is in the process of designation.
The U.S. is currently having a record backlog of cargo ships at many of its ports. At the LA and Long Beach ports, it’s a particular problem because this is the main entry point for imports from China. On any day, there could be 75 to 90 ships stuck outside the port. Just a couple of years ago, it was unusual for more than one ship to wait for a berth.
The standard explanation for the cargo ship bottleneck is that retailers are restocking from COVID-19 lockdowns. A better explanation would be that the government paid millions of people not to work, and we decided to fill our needs with greater imports from China. Our trade deficit with China only dipped a bit in 2020 because China had its own lockdowns.
We import basic things like pet food, paper, and prescription drugs from China. It is amazing that people would gladly risk the health of their cat or dog with Chinese food standards. I looked through my kitchen shelves and was alarmed to find lemon juice and hand sanitizer produced outside the U.S.
America has become addicted to imports because of laziness and greed. The only thing we should be importing is stuff that can’t be produced here.
When we return at the end of the tribulation, I know we won’t recognize the world we left. It would probably still be true even without the supernatural plagues and nuclear warfare. Mankind is already on the path toward self-destruction.
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13, KJV).
–Todd
This Rapture Resistance
Saturdays are no longer my favorites like they were when I worked full time in my jobs in advertising and public relations. Back then, I welcomed the relaxation that came with the day immediately following hectic weeks of meetings with clients and concocting and conducting campaigns for corporations to get products and services in front of the public.
Nowadays, Saturdays bore me, because I like to start my days early by listening to TV programs while sipping coffee. The programs are mostly preacher boys (as they’re sometimes called here in the south) such as Dr. David Jeremiah, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Les Feldick, and others who present daily programs. These regularly scheduled programs aren’t on my satellite system on Saturdays. My routine is disrupted.
However, a past Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised while clicking through the channels when I heard a program that was presenting a documentary that piqued my interest. It was on Daystar Television, and it featured of a number of men and a couple of women talking about how true Bible prophecy is a dwindling topic in most all churches in America.
I suspected who a couple of the men were, but never knew for sure, because, of course, I’m now blind. I started watching somewhere in the middle of the documentary, so didn’t have a frame of reference for those speaking in brief clips.
I did think I recognized my dear friend Jan Markell—she will have to let me know—but she was the only one who sounded familiar.
Those who addressed the matters involved were true Bible teachers, to be sure. They outlined precisely how the churches in America today are avoiding talk of prophecy and of Christ’s return. Pastors, they correctly surmised, are most afraid that talk of the Rapture of the Church and of Christ’s return and other prophetic topics will somehow interfere with “growing their churches.”
How sad but true their collective assessments were. The closer the time comes for Jesus to return to earth and correct this horrendous mess Satan and his minions have made of the planet, the less preachers want to preach it, and the more many in the pews prefer not to hear about it.
I thought while listening: How true it is, the forewarning of Jesus Himself when He asked whether He would find faith on the earth when He comes back.
Those being interviewed in the documentary went into depth about how those with the Holy Spirit were the people mentioned in the parable of the ten virgins. How those who have the Holy Spirit within will go into the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Those without the “oil for their lamps” (the Holy Spirit) won’t be part of that glorious event. They spoke of how there was great resistance not only to talk of the Rapture, but to the belief that the Holy Spirit even, in fact, exists.
It is abundantly clear that those who don’t even believe the Holy Spirit exists lead the way in the “Rapture resistance” that is the title of this commentary. A study looks more deeply into this tragic, downward spiral in Christendom.
Of an estimated 176 million American adults who identify as Christian, just 6% or 15 million of them actually hold a biblical worldview, a new study from Arizona Christian University shows.
The finding was published by the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University in its recently released American Worldview Inventory, an annual survey that evaluates the worldview of the U.S. adult population. Conducted in February, the survey included a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults.
The study shows, in general, that while a majority of America’s self-identified Christians, including many who identify as evangelical, believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and is the Creator of the universe, more than half reject a number of biblical teachings and principles, including the existence of the Holy Spirit.
Strong majorities also errantly believe that all religious faiths are of equal value, people are basically good and that people can use acts of goodness to earn their way into Heaven. The study further showed that majorities don’t believe in moral absolutes; consider feelings, experience, or the input of friends and family as their most trusted sources of moral guidance; and say that having faith matters more than which faith you pursue. (“Most adult U.S. Christians don’t believe Holy Spirit is real: Study,” by Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter, Christian Post, October 1, 2021)
How accurate this polling research is, I don’t know. But certainly all one has to do is to mention the Rapture to most who claim to be Christians and there is either silence or statements like “I don’t like to think about prophecy. It scares me.”
It apparently scares most pastors, too, but for a different reason—the one mentioned earlier.
To eliminate the Holy Spirit is to eliminate the “hope” that is within the “blessed hope” of Titus 2: 13.
Jesus told the disciples—and us down through the centuries—that if He went away, He would send the “comforter”—the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit (the Third Person of the Triune Godhead) came at Pentecost (see Acts chapter 2) to indwell and comfort believers until Jesus returns bodily to set up His Millennial Kingdom.
The Holy Spirit is the Restrainer (see 2 Thessalonians chapter 2). He holds back full-blown wickedness at this very moment. The Holy Spirit will remove from that office of Restrainer when we who are true believers are taken instantly to be with Christ.
Here is what Jesus said about that moment. And, despite what a number of seminary professors say, it is a Rapture passage—a mystery that the great Apostle Paul would later reveal in His epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians.
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:1–3)
—Terry