Redefining the Meaning of Recession to Avoid Reality

The Biden administration has done a terrible job of handling the economy. Not only has it been blind to the dangers that are headed our way, but it also took steps that made them worse. President Biden ignored inflation warning cries over the trillions we were spending on covid stimulus packages. The Treasury increased the money supply by 40% in less than two years. The Fed bought $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities.

When all this debt creation caused inflation to rise higher, Biden said it was only a temporary problem. When inflation kept on rising, the American people started noticing the financial pain. Figures that the Fed follows closely show that we now have the highest levels of inflation since January 1982. The president’s nose-diving poll numbers finally forced some action. Interest rates have increased by 1.75% over the past two months. Washington is so far behind on inflation, that rates would need to go up by another 7% to generate real yields on bond investments.

The U.S. economy is facing another financial problem – recession. Last week it was learned that the gross domestic product (GDP) had declined for the past two quarters. The U.S. economy shrank at an annual pace of 1.6% in the first quarter and declined by 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022.

Shortly before the new GDP numbers came out, a post was made to government financial sites that stated two back-to-back declines in GDP do not mean we are in a recession. When asked if the Biden administration was trying to change the definition, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the strength of the labor market and other indicators are “not what we generally see as we talk about recession or even pre-recession.”

Biden addressed the debate, predicting the U.S. will dodge a downturn and similarly highlighting the labor market’s rebound as a sign of good economic health.

“We’re not going to be in a recession, in my view. The [un]employment rate is still one of the    lowest we’ve had in history,” he said. “My hope is we go from this rapid growth to steady     growth.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data is what decides whether or not there is a recession. And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong.

The truth-seeking Snopes.com was once a helpful site. Because it is run by leftists, it agreed with Biden’s adjusted meaning of recession. Snopes tried to have things both ways in saying it didn’t want to “give readers the misleading impression that the Biden administration literally tried to revise the criteria economists use to determine when a recession has occurred. But that was not the case.”

Wikipedia has been criticized after the website changed the definition of the term recession and locked the page to prevent editing by the public. Wikipedia said it locked the page to require proper citation and avoid political bias. When you’re editing your content based on the word of the 21st century’s great economist, Joes Biden, no other source is needed.

It is very dangerous to change something that has been the standard way of measuring the economy for over 50 years. Because the NBER doesn’t declare that a recession has occurred until it’s in the past, we will never live through another one.

A bear market is when a market experiences prolonged price declines. It typically describes a condition in which securities prices fall 20% or more from a recent high. An official depression occurs when GDP declines by more than 10% and an unemployment rate that at one point reached 25%.

If we run into a bear market, the Biden administration may declare it to be a bargain market, where investors can buy stocks at a good discount. If we run into a depression, Washington would likely talk it up as just a correction. Biden would say stocks came down so they can go much higher.

The greatest danger we face here is mankind’s arrogance in thinking we have full control of the economy. If something goes wrong, we’ll just rename it. If inflation spikes higher, we’ll raise interest rates. If the economy starts to stall, we’ll print more money.

There have been several times in American history when a financial calamity occurred and people were powerless to fix the situation. The Great Depression and the inflation of the 1970s are two examples. Our political leader tried several plans to restore our nation to a sound economy but failed.

The stock market has remained steady not because our nation is run by geniuses. These people have no idea what they are doing. The financial stability is likely the result of God getting the world ready for judgment. What seems like a blessing is just the calm before the storm.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:120).

–Todd

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Love Your Enemies?

This will be a tough one—for me, at least. The enemies faced each and every hour of each and every day are prolific in dispensing their wickedness. We have looked at their perpetration of evil many times. We have no choice, because it never ends, and we are commissioned from on high to “watch” (Mark 13:37).

This incessant raging against our sense of truth–of what is biblically righteous—evokes human anger, no matter the devotion to trying to be Christ-like in our attitude and comportment.

Now, to get into this just a bit–and I don’t want to go too deeply into the weeds—I’ll just begin by telling, obliquely, a little about conversations I have occasionally with family members. I say “obliquely” because I don’t want them mad at me, so I won’t say who.

The conversations sometimes are as early as 4 am. Yes, I’m an early riser, and sometimes, when family members happen to be around at that hour, we discuss things going on in culture, politics, religion, etc. The more adamant among the conversationalists are quite angry at the injustice, the tyranny, the wickedness taking place as we look at the things being reported. To be frank, they often cook up what they would like to see happen to those engaged in perpetrating the injustice, the tyranny, the wickedness. The punitive creativity is not something I would be comfortable relaying in this forum.

My response to one or the other telling just how they would like this evil to be handled is that that isn’t the way a Christian should think. They say things like “I know, Pops, but it makes me so mad I can’t help it.”

In response to the expressed actions, I say things like, “Do you think Jesus would react that way, even to this level of evil, were He here in the flesh today?”

That usually brings down their heated temperaments, to some extent. They then might retort with something like, “Yes. But He’s God and I’m not.”

At any rate, the whole matter, I believe, is a valuable exercise in evaluating ourselves in regard to our own dealing with this injustice, tyranny, and wickedness we as Christians endure each day.

We all know about the outrageous acts, issues, and events that afflict us that challenge our temperaments. We’ve covered all of them so many times in these commentaries.

Those who inflict these evil upon our lives, while we only want to live peaceably, are enemies. We can say this, because they are the tools of the archenemy of God, thus enemies of each of us within God’s family who are living on planet earth.

Those who want to break into our lives and steal our tranquility, our peace, and even our children, not even to mention our welfare financially through unfair-to-absurd confiscatory taxation, can be compared to the “thief” in the following:

“When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils” (Luke 11: 21–22).

Jesus, although in the context of prophecy involving watching for the suddenness of the Rapture, further gave, through analogy, warning about being watchful for evil break-ins:

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up” (Matthew 24:42–43).

So, it is clear that the Bible instructs believers to be aware of enemies wanting to do us harm. We are told even to be armed in order to protect our households–defend ourselves against harm. But nowhere are we told to hate our enemies. On the contrary, we are told the following through a quite lengthy instruction for how to deal with our enemies. It comes from the Lord, Himself:

“But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6: 27–38).

Now I must admit that I find loving the enemies today who murder babies by the millions, who more and more draw this culture into the cesspool of pedophilia–a thing that has been prevalent in most every civilization at its end—all but impossible. But that doesn’t alter the truth that we are told by our Lord that this is what we should do.

He showed that love Himself, we remember, while hanging on that cross on which He died for us. The martyr Stephen did so while being stoned, and the Lord stood from the right hand of God’s throne to applaud him.

Apart from the love of Christ–of God the Father—ours would be fate much worse than the punitive actions sometimes concocted in those early-morning sessions to which I referred.

I guess the answer to how to begin to appropriate such love–and we cannot do it apart from the Holy Spirit who indwells—might be found in my friend, the late Dr. Tim LaHaye’s, book–The Spirit Controlled Temperament. That book, of course, was filled with God’s Word in coming to its conclusions.

I should probably pick up that book and read it again.

—Terry

 

—Terry

Constant Contact Stabbed Rapture Ready in the Back

On the 10th of July, we sent out an email to all the people who had supported Rapture Ready over the previous three months. Two weeks later, we discovered that 75% of emails didn’t go out. We were using the email service Constant Contact, and for some strange reason, it decided to block us from communicating with most of our donors.

When we looked at the send file for all the emails, Constant Contact said that most had unsubscribed. We’ve been with the service for over a decade, and the number of people who didn’t want to receive emails from us had always been less than 2%. Since I always included my email in the list to make sure it went out, I was furious to see that I was also on the unsubscribe list.

Once you send money to most Christian ministries, they will put you on a mailing list. Normally, about every two weeks, they will send you a letter asking for more donations. Rapture Ready has never asked for future donations. The thank you letter we send out every quarter has always been about past donations. If you don’t send funds to RR in the Jul to Sept quarter, you will not be bothered by us until you decide to donate to the site at some future date.

About two years ago, we had a similar conflict with another tech giant. The search giant suddenly decided that they didn’t know who we were and wanted Rapture Ready to verify its existence. I was mystified by the demand and told them that I was essentially RR. I sent them a copy of my driver’s license and various documents related to the incorporation of the site.

This firm was not satisfied with any information that we sent. It seemed like they were deliberately satisfied to remove us from the internet. The conflict was resolved by what I think was divine intervention. I was speaking with a worker in India, and this woman said we should list Rapture Ready as run by Rapture Ready. I thought the change was meaningless, but the next day, the company gave us the all-clear signal.

We have called Constant Contact four times and gotten hung up each time. We would call and explain the problem and be put on hold only to be sent back to square one. I wanted to call a fifth time and ask the tech worker, why are you about to hang up on me? I’m sure I would not get an answer.

Years ago, Rapture Ready was able to avoid these types of problems. Because the topic of Bible Prophecy was so weird to these leftists, they don’t understand us. Now that computers have gained the ability to analyze every site, they can flag us for various comments that we post.

Every time I get in contact with tech support, I have always been connected with someone in India or Sri Lanka. It seems that the reason I don’t get great stateside support is that they are too busy being dictators of the web. YouTube said last week that it’s cracking down on videos containing abortion misinformation and will take down videos deemed unsafe.

“Starting today and ramping up over the next few weeks, we will remove content that provides instructions for unsafe abortion methods or promotes false claims about abortion safety under our medical misinformation policies,” the company said in a tweet.

There must have been a laughing fest when they concluded that tweet. They are not going to focus on unsafe abortion methods. They are going to ban videos that oppose abortion. A group of lawmakers began urging the company to clamp down on search results that allegedly steer people looking for abortion services to crisis pregnancy centers opposing abortion.

I don’t know if we will ever be able to trust Constant Contact for future emails. A decade ago, it was unthinkable for a tech giant to discriminate against Christians and conservatives. Today, they can openly attack sites like RR with no consequences. This level of open hatred shows that we are close to the end. Going forward, the only meaning for constant contact to me will be our relationship with my Lord and Savior.

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:18-19).

–Todd

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 Has God given up?

This writer has to be honest. When I survey the earths and the nation’s landscapes of human rebellion I’ve said inwardly, “it’s all just not worth trying to save it.”

By that, I’m not thinking of the billions of lost souls, but of this system increasingly driven by evil intention, obviously in the grip of the principalities and powers of Ephesians 6: 12. In speaking with others interested in Bible prophecy (and it is an increasing number interested, I’ve found) I find the same attitude at times.

Why not just give up and let them have the planet? That is, let ‘em have what’s coming to ‘em…

One such matter of late that feeds this wrongful attitude by those of us who long for Christ’s Return is found in the frustration engendered by apostate defectors by those who are supposed to be at the top of Christendom.

At the same time, the very word Christendom is, in my opinion, a word created by the humanist vernacular corrupters who include every strange wind of doctrine within this terminology. In fact, the word Christendom, in my view, postures the apostates for their imposition upon the end times religious landscape. Something we witness by, again in my view, perhaps the apex apostate of this time so near the beginning of the Tribulation.

The following, I hope, will demonstrate the point.

ROME — We humans “must repent and modify our lifestyles” because of our abuse of Mother Earth, Pope Francis states in a message released Thursday.

In his Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, the pontiff decries the “mistreatment” of our common home stemming from “our consumerist excesses,” “tyrannical anthropocentrism,” “predatory economic interests,” and “short sighted and selfish actions” leading to “the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems.”

“In the first place, it is our sister, mother earth, who cries out. Prey to our consumerist excesses, she weeps and implores us to put an end to our abuses and to her destruction,” Francis declares in his Message.

Because of human irresponsibility “countless species are dying out and their hymns of praise silenced,” the pope laments, while the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples “are being invaded and devastated on all sides, ‘provoking a cry that rises up to heaven.’”

Because of the “climate crisis,” the poor disproportionately suffer the impact of “the drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves that are becoming ever more intense and frequent,” the pope asserts.

***[Ang, Source: Woke Pope Francis goes all in! Calls for ‘Green economics,’ ‘Green spirituality,’ and ‘Green education’! https://t.co/XE18kiUP0f — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 25, 2021]***

The article referenced above contained much more –all pointing to Mother Earth worship and agreement with the globalist mantra of climate change as the number one crisis facing mankind. It is the same madness spewed incessantly by those who sit in the high places of Ephesians 6: 12. –The same human minions who occupy the seats of power within the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the political powers that be within the United States who tell us we must suffer along with the world in order to keep from murdering the planet. –The same ideological types of wickedness and evil that institutionalizes the murder of millions of babies in the wombs of their mothers each year.

The scripture burns into the cogitation while considering these times that must certainly be the last of the last days before the Rapture of the church.

”Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Romans 1: 21-25)

So, it is with this type of thinking, foisted by the likes of this apostate pope, that makes me sometimes say, why not just let ‘em have it? The scripture says that when they worship the creation more than the creator, God gives up on them, does it not? Why not just concentrate on putting out the Gospel Message and not worry with trying to correct the situations of geopolitical, cultural, societal and religious, satanic evil storming upon this doomed planet?

Then the Conviction comes from the Holy Spirit Who Indwells… God is God and you are not.  He hasn’t given up and will not until the prophecies are fulfilled. Who are you to do so? You are to be salt and light. Salt is a preservative and you are here to delay the complete corruption that is coming –delay, not stop the decay. You are to be light in an ever-darkening world of rebellion against the Creator of all things.

Points well made –and understood. And, Points taken to heart.

God changes not, and His word, I believe, tells us today like He did the prophets of Israel as given in Ezekiel 3: 17-19. This, of course, is not to say that we are prophets in that Old or New Testament sense, but we are to watch (Mark 13: 37) for Christ’s Return. We do so by observing the times and seasons, unlike the Judaizers who weren’t paying attention, thus missed their Messiah’s coming in the first Advent.

We are responsible for getting out the prophetic Word of forewarning In these closing days of the age. We are not to give up or give in, because the Lord we serve tells otherwise.

And we are Charged by that same Lord to put forth His Wonderful Grace Gift Offer so you, too, if you don’t know Jesus as Savior, can be Urged by the Holy Spirit to accept Him this very moment. You will then have the Promise of going to Heaven and to be Gloriously Alive forever with all of God’s Riches as your Inheritance.

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