Greed and Corruption in America
The collapse of most empires is not the result of warfare. The downfall of most of them has been triggered by moral decay. When greed and corruption become widespread, the fabric of society begins to break down.
The left likes to blame the nation’s problems on the rich. They claim, if we just make them pay their fair share, America’s difficulties will be resolved. We could tax the richest 1% of Americans at a 100% rate, and we would still not have enough money to fix the nation’s financial woes.
Our key monetary problem is not the lack of taxpayers. We simply have too many people receiving money from the government. The New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the nation down a dangerous path. The welfare state system has grown with each new president adding his own program to the mix. The people’s addiction to federal handouts reached a new low during the pandemic when the state paid citizens $6 trillion to not work.
The recent surge in Covid cases makes me wonder if more stimulus checks will be called for. More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the Omicron variant. New cases per day have more than doubled over the past two weeks, eclipsing the old mark of 250,000 set in mid-January, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The Omicron variant is less deadly than the original virus but is vastly more contagious. Johns Hopkins also said that it’s possible that 60% percent of the population could contract the virus. It is unthinkable that we would spend another $6 trillion on Covid. Few people protested the previous stimulus checks, so they would gladly take any new money.
The greatest damage is not that our national debt went from $22 trillion to $29.5 trillion. The stimulus caused millions of people to drop out of the workforce.
Our lawmakers love to hand out cash, but they also like to enrich themselves with government money. They do so by investing in companies that benefit from the bill they pass. Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are two of the dumbest members of Congress. You would think they were both financial geniuses if you looked at their stock accounts for the year 2021. Nancy had a return of 56%, and Mitch had his stock account rise by 67%. Both of them beat the top 12 money managers on Wall Street. The best performer was David Shaw, with a return of 42%.
Despite bipartisan support for prohibiting members of Congress from buying and holding individual stocks in office, Pelosi recently said that lawmakers should be allowed to make trades while serving. “We’re a free-market economy,” Pelosi told reporters during a news conference. “They should be able to participate in that.”
It’s not fair to the average investor to have Congress trading on knowledge that could have a profound impact on stock prices. If we are going to allow members of Congress to trade on inside information, we might as well allow them to sell their votes to the highest bidder.
When Joe Biden came to office, it’s pretty much a given that his son Hunter Biden was going to use his father to make money. Hunter has a long history of moral failings. He has a fondness for a variety of drugs. Over the past two decades, Biden has been in and out of rehabilitation several times. He fathered a daughter with an Arkansas stripper and then claimed to have never met the woman.
The president’s son was part owner of a venture involved in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s largest cobalt deposits. Hunter opened an art gallery, which has some wondering if people who buy one of Hunter’s paintings will be able to use the acquisition to influence his father’s administration.
The White House has made it clear that Hunter is free of any safeguards. Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to commit to “basic transparency” about Hunter’s involvement in that Chinese investment fund during a White House Press Briefing. She also refused to admit his infamous laptop is authentic.
“The president’s son is not an employee of the federal government, so I’d point you to his representatives,” Psaki snarked after being asked about the China connection. She used the same lame excuse back in February: “He’s a private citizen — I would point you to him or his lawyers on the outside on any update.”
Greed and Corruption have become so profound in America, I think there’s a 100% chance that we will suffer a financial meltdown. The reason for my certainty is that most people have lost the ability to see the danger that is headed in their direction.
“The way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not at what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19).
–Todd
Rapture or Rupture
Twenty something years ago, Pat Robertson was on his network, Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). I remember him saying in an almost amused, mocking tone that there would be no Rapture of the church. He declared that if that were to happen, it would completely disrupt all of the human condition across the world.
Planes would be crashing, cars would be wrecking, trains would run wild, and destruction of every sort would take place in such a moment. That’s not going to happen, he said. There will be no Rapture. He implied rather that there will be a “rupture” of all culture and society across the world. The Tribulation would be the implosion that wrecks everything, rather than the explosion a so-called Rapture would cause.
I remember distinctly Pat talking with his then co-host Sheila Walsh, the Scottish Christian broadcaster. As a side note, I presume Sheila has since moved on from agreeing with Mr. Robertson and his dismissing the pre-Trib Rapture “theory,” as he called it. I’ve heard her just within the past year on air with Dr. David Jeremiah, who teaches solidly on the pre-Trib Rapture of the church. She seemed to agree totally with all he said on the prophetic topic.
Over the years, there has been banter coming from those who adamantly hold that the pre-Trib Rapture is a myth. These sometimes use the word “rupture” to sneer at the idea of a Rapture, which we believe is Bible truth as taught by the Apostle Paul—and, by the way, by the Lord Jesus as well. He said the following as recorded by the Apostle John.
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)
In these words of the Lord we are told, I’m convinced, the same as the Apostle Paul foretells.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)
For all the fun-making against pre-Trib Rapture and those of us who believe it to be the next catastrophic intervention by Christ into human affairs, they can’t erase these powerful promises. That is, they can’t without spiritualizing and allegorizing as they make their case. They have to conclude that neither Jesus nor Paul meant what they said in a literal sense.
There is, however, a biblically prophetic passage that speaks, I believe, of a rupture. It is a key prophecy that will take place immediately after the Rapture of the Church. As a matter of fact, we’ve seen this rupture beginning for some time. It will be the tear in the fabric of this world system that will rip civilization the way Mr. Robertson once feared.
The prophet Zechariah forewarned of this coming rupture.
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:3)
The prophet is saying here that when the world takes on Jerusalem and Israel–God’s chosen city and nation—it will be a load too heavy to lift. They will be injured severely, or ruptured, in their attempt to remove the city and nation from being in the place where God put them.
We’ve seen almost daily leaders from countries surrounding modern Israel declaring they will destroy the tiny Jewish state. Those such as Nasser and Sadat have tried to do so. Israel not only remains, but is now in a stronger position than ever, even though constantly threatened.
Antichrist and his juggernaut will finally manage to invade Israel, following all of Israel’s surrounding enemies being destroyed in the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel 38 and 39. But the man of sin will, too, be severely injured and ultimately bound in chains and removed to eternal punishment. Israel will become the chief nation of the entire world during the Millennium—Christ’s thousand-year reign on planet earth.
Thankfully, all who accept Christ now, this side of the Rapture, will not endure the rupture the whole world will suffer when God again begins dealing with His chosen people, the Jews.
Here again is how to avoid being part of that future injury—that rupture—that will condemn the soul to eternity apart from God.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
—Terry