All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” That’s the last line of the well-known nursery rhyme. We doubt that the world’s economic/financial systems will ever be put together … in other words, established upon a stable footing. That can never be the case as long as mankind continues to choose to harness greed and fractional-reserve banking as the foundational theories for progress and prosperity.

It is crucial to realize the huge tsunami-like developments that are sweeping the entire world, not just the seismic upheavals of financial systems. The globe-spanning reverberations have been quick and pervasive. First, a “globalization bubble” unfolded—one popularly thought to never end— then followed by the biggest and most rapid bust of world financial and real estate wealth since the 1930s (in fact, even worse). Next, the most invasive and coordinated intervention of governments ever seen (collectively around the world) has occurred. Most latterly, a flagrant manipulation of money has unfolded on a coordinated basis around the world. (Graph on the front page provides an indication.)None of this was expected by the world’s policymakers nor societies at large. It all happened rapidly … like a sudden trap. What next? We expect the waves to continue and in surprising ways. These are treacherous times where people are being herded from one disaster to another. Just how can the average household either anticipate or navigate through such see-saw conditions? In our view, it is an early sign of the times … the global period trouble and anxiety where faith runs cold (Matthew 24:12).

Forecasts these days are not worth much since there are quite a few scenarios to consider. But suffice it to say that the world will again look very different 3 years from now (perhaps sooner). It would not be surprising that massive inflation problems will have emerged by then. It only follows, given the blatant debasing of money being perpetrated as we speak. Again, the majority of people will likely again be caught in the net. In recent times, many have run to what they perceive are safe investments — government treasury bonds and money markets funds, for example. These investments are now massively overpriced, especially so considering that inflation will again heat up in future years. It therefore would not be surprising if long-term bond funds might lose 25% of their value and more by that time. Time will tell.

That said, the king’s men have been working very hard lately. Humpty Dumpty will again be propped up … whether with massive drug stimulants and/or bailer twine and duct tape. When that will be accomplished is difficult to say. But, you can be sure it will prove to be another surprise. Why? Because no one is expecting anything to improve. Pessimism and confidence measures are at their most extreme. Hardly an economist can be found that doesn’t believe a long, long economic recession is upon the world. Of course, little did they know that the US recession had already started more than a year ago. Then, very few were willing to contemplate the possibility of disaster such as actually occurred. For the time being, the world economy still appears to be in free-fall stage (looking in the rearview mirror). But, before falling prey to groupthink, consider the interventions that have occurred around the world to date.

Remember to expect the unexpected … namely, what the majority do not anticipate. Every major country has been rushing to jump-start business and consumer spending; to coax investors to buy and banks to lend. Interest rates have been slashed to near all-time lows … virtually zero in some cases. US short-term rates qualify in that latter category. In England, the central bank has reduced rates to the lowest level since 1694. In Japan, short-term interest rates are at 0.15%. Huge government spending programs have been announced virtually around the world from China to Canada to Brazil. Just as we go to press, the Obama US stimulus program tallying $819 billion is being pushed through senate. A lot of money will be spent by governments over the next few years. And, we have yet to count the cost of  financial bail-outs, all of this tabulating to trillions and trillion of dollars.

It is indeed very possible that economic troubles can yet worsen before things get better. Yet, at the same time, financial conditions are now beginning to free up, offering huge speculative opportunities. As we often point out, the flipside to large and growing debt levels is that someone must be lending and have assets to lend to begin with.  Commercial systems are binary as they must have a buyer for every seller; a lender for every borrower. The loss of one person may a gain to another. While it is true that capital is being destroyed during this recent financial crisis, in large part, wealth is really only being transferred to different hands and converted into different forms. Wealth has been accumulating into fewer, richer hands. Therefore, there is much idle money at waiting to take advantage of the low prices and emerging opportunities.

Looking ahead, what would be unexpected? At some point, all of the heightened stimulus spending by governments is bound to bring the comatose patient back to sputtering life, if only for a while. That would indeed come as a surprise to most people. However, we do not make any such predictions without at least two qualifiers. Firstly, short-term predictions are hazardous. While trends may indeed unfold as one might expect, the timing can be very different … considerably faster or slower than thought. There are too many complicating factors to consider. While professional investors must try to anticipate such interim developments, they will carefully consider the risks.

For North America and other nations it will likely prove to be a false dawn. Longer-term, a different outlook is in view. America and other high-income countries will again sink under the weight of much higher burdens (debt, unfunded pensions taxes, interest rates … etc.) than exist now. Consider thatAmerica entered into the current crisis in a weaker condition than in the 1930s. Says, George Soros, the intrepid mega-investor, “[…] the problems facing the administration of President Barack Obama are even greater than those that confronted Franklin D. Roosevelt. Total credit outstanding was 160 percent of gross domestic product in 1929 and rose to 260 percent in 1932; we entered the crash of 2008 at 365 percent and the ratio is bound to rise to 500 percent” (Financial Times, January 29, 2009). Other parts of the world will emerge more strongly following present economic dislocations. It’s part of the endtime transition to “multipolarism,” a concept described in this issue’s Feature Article, Endtime Shoe.

Just how do recent trends fit on the cosmic time line? Bible prophecy does not provide the required detail on short-term developments. We are forced to speculate which we do not want to do. But here are some guideposts to consider: As already mentioned, the world eventually will end up in a state of multipolarism where globalism and humanism are resplendent under 10 kings. At some point, world conditions will again appear prosperous, global policymakers likely exulting over their success of having successfully engineered a recovery. This prosperity is sufficient to enrich the kings and sea captains of the world as foretold in Revelation 18. This later commercial edifice will likely stand on legs even more wobbly than the last global boom. The final economic collapse of this dispensation—complete and eternal—occurs in the latter half of the future Tribulation period. As fearsome as the current economic crisis may seem, it will compare as a small tempest to that future time of destruction.

One lesson of the last few years is a modern-day rendition of an Old Testament teaching: Man’s idols all must topple. It is a characteristic of all idols. In the end they come up empty. Surely, many of mankind’s idols have toppled recently. The very largest of companies thought to be indestructible engines of profit and stability have required bail-outs. The largest US bank failure occurred—Washington Mutual Inc. with $307 billion in assets. The largest insurance company needed to be rescued—American International Group. The world’s one-time largest car company, General Motors, was technically bankrupt, requiring bail-out financing from governments. One of the largest and most trusted investment funds ended up utterly worthless due to the Ponzi-scheme swindle of Bernie Madoff. $50 billion disappeared into thin air.

God laughs at mankind’s attempts to build and set-up their own idols. He chuckles that these idols have to be propped up. “A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple” (Isaiah 40:20). “The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer spurs on him who strikes the anvil. He says of the welding, ‘It is good.’ He nails down the idol so it will not topple” (Isaiah 41:7).

In the same way it is today revealed that the world’s venerated global systems of commerce—invested with the hope of humanism and future peace—are held up by the prop of man’s confidence. This Babylonian idol must be nailed down by human hands so that it will not topple. Try as its worshippers might, the propped-up idols will ultimately again fall. It is a lesson to take to heart.

Wilfred Hahn, (Article excerpted form Eternal Value Review – February 2009)

Has the financial bust of the Apocalypse started after all? One could be tempted to think so. Since financial markets began to fracture more than 15 months ago, waves of selling, unwinding and deleveraging have continued unabated around the world. Just before this writing, the entire global stock market had fallen 55% (as represented by the MSCI Barra, All Country World Index in US dollars. See chart on back page.) Imagine that? By more than half, or almost $36 trillion! Of course, there has been rampant devastation everywhere, not just in the stock markets. US housing values are sinking the fastest since the Great Depression and everything from bond markets to art and used trucks are deflating in value.

Any extra-terrestrial visiting this planet would greatly wonder about a civilization that is so fickle about the value of its wealth. Of course, we know better. This world—which Christians surely live within, but its values do not endorse—is vulnerable to mankind’s idolatries and vain confidence. In fact, it is hubris and confidence taken to the extreme—mankind’s confidence in its surveys of confidence—that has brought the planet to this brink. But is it the beginning of the end?

Well yes … and no. Yes, great global events such as are occurring now must be seen as part of mankind’s progression to an end … actually, one of several ends that still lie ahead as the Bible tells us. But it is not yet the start of the Great Apocalypse, though surely very close. We lay out the reasons for this perspective in the recent article series, What Chance a Global Financial Apocalypse Now.

Then what does the present global financial storm signify? We think at least two … perhaps three developments. Firstly, it is the natural outcome of bad, bad economic policies and financial management. Here, leaders and voters can be blamed. Any common-sense observer will confirm this view. The world is simply reaping what it sowed. A second one is that a massive world crisis is required at this late, great stage of global economic and financial integration. For this, accountability can be given to powers in high places (Ephesians 6:12) but also flesh and blood complicitor elites. But why? This current crisis will serve the familiar role of catalyst, drawing most nations together and further setting up the conditions for the last-day 10 kings (more about which in a moment).

A third corollary development that must fall out of this prophetic fulfillment of 10 kings, is that the world must first enter an age of multipolarism. What is multipolarism? It is a world power arrangement that is balanced between many countries and not dominated by one or more powerful nations. Certainly, there can be no world power structure comprised of 10 kings as the Bible prophesies (Daniel 2:41-42, Daniel 7, Revelation 12, 13, 17) if there is one superpower that can ignore or undermine such a world order. We have recently written a 2-part article series on this exact question, entitled Endtime Shoe: Fitting The World for 10 Toes.We touch on a few of its points in this article.

Financial Meltdown: How Much Further

We have long expressed our concerns that the day of a financial meltdown was becoming ever more probable. (In fact, we laid out the possibilities for such a scenario in the 2002 book, The Endtime Money Snare.) But, we are not prophets. It has not been given to mankind to know the near future, thankfully. Yes, the Bible clearly lays out the future in advance, but it provides no specific calendar dates for this dispensation. It would be a much more chaotic world than it already is, were humankind to be given the capacity to know the near-term future(in other words, perfect future visibility). It couldn’t work, given mankind’s fatal penchant for money (“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” -1 Titus 6:10) security and self-reliance. Imagine. If we did know the exact timing of future events, everyone would act on this information at the same time, thus changing the future. It would be a maniacal world.

Related to this is the reason why God doesn’t much oblige so-called “spirit-led” investors. The Holy Spirit must have much more important functions than to provide “buy/sell” advice to materialistic Christians. Investors continue to get scammed by so-called Christian advisors who see themselves as divinely inspired to meet people’s appetite for gains. Beware. There are already plenty of prosperity gospel teachers who fill this service niche. Crucially, this deceptive, corrupt teaching lies at the very foundation of the troubles that America and other nations are presently experiencing.

Prosperity gospel is deeply imbedded in the psyche of Western Christians. While many will guffaw at the shamefully transparent teachings and techniques of the likes of Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar and Peter Popoff—he of the “divine transfer”—and many others, this false gospel has much more sophisticated forms. Why, of course, Christianity and the Bible was invented by God for no other reason than the sanctification of human esteem and as a self-help regime to personal betterment in the here and now. In this view, eternity gets short shrift—either not believed nor promising sufficient instant gratification to the earth-bound consumer. In fact, I am personally ashamed to sometimes fall for the more subtler forms of prosperity gospel myself, as likely will most others. We whine sometimes to God as did Jeremiah, “Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?” (Jeremiah 15:18).

Jeremiah figured that since he was walking with God and answering His calling, that he deserved a few easy breaks. He bargained with God, saying “I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me, and you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?” (Jeremiah 15-17-18). How did God respond? He didn’t even acknowledge the complaint. He simply said this: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me” (verse 19). No doubt, all 12 of the New Testament apostles met this same issue. They were doing the Lord’s will, yet 11 of them died an unnatural death. Was this just? Said Paul, “Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love […]” (2 Corinthians 6:4-6). Yes, there is great eternal value to be found in the privilege of serving Him; the undeserved promise of eternal life and the indescribable prospect of being in His presence forever more.

But, most so-called Christians today would not identify with such a perspective. That is exactly why the present juncture in America is so terrifying at present. For, what will be the result of the deep economic troubles that have now come upon the America? Will there be repentance or rebelliousness and anarchy? Both outcomes are possible. But I greatly fear for the latter outcome. As Revelation tells us about the Great Tribulation, we learn that people refused to repent, despite the wrath and hardship on no less than 4 occasions. (Revelation 9:20-21, 16:9, 11, 21) They would not let go of their idolatries.

That could happen now. It would be understandable, after all. Hasn’t our great society ingrained in us the right to prosperity … the good life … and effortless, endless progress to greater wealth? Haven’t countless pastors told us that prosperity is the emblem and purpose of our Christian faith? It would be no surprise, therefore, if many “fair-weather” Christians turned on God, bewailing the same perspectives as will the earthdwellers during the Apocalypse. What God would allow such economic hardships and prove to be such a “false brook” of prosperity? Fair-weather Christians and most others would reject such a God, and instead turn to the promises of government or some future demagogue. And, if in turn these don’t end the economic sufferings, would some resort to rioting and pillaging? We certainly hope not, although some are actually predicting such an outcome. One reputable trend watcher (Gerald Celente, CEO of Trend Research Institute) goes so far as to open the possibility that America will “plunge to the status of an undeveloped nation” and that “America’s going through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for.” He predicts that by December 2012, consumer Christmas will only be a memory, since getting food on the table will be the priority, not gifts. Anything is possible. However, we are suspicious of the date he uses, (December 2012) which seems to be coming up in a lot of forecasts lately, particularly from those seers basing their views on the Mayan calendar.

But why is America being hit so hard financially and economically? Indeed, the current troubles facing the US are epic and much more severe than most other countries. Who are we to confirm the reasons why God would want to either test or discipline the US (this also being true from some of its sister nations like the UK and Canada)? Could it be that He finally has remembered the sins of this once “evangelistic” Philadelphian nation? Or has Americashot itself in the foot?

As always. we seek to take the pre-millennial perspective (in other words, we take a literal Biblical view). Then what might be underfoot? It indeed has much to do with a foot, we think … the foot with 10 toes seen by Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:41-42). Is America now being downsized, making way for the 10-king multipolar world to arrive? Bible prophecy confirms such an outcome. As such, at some point, in some way, America must become a relatively smaller power. This may be a process that may yet require a long time. However, conditions are such that this shift on the world stage could happen rather suddenly.

Just how bad will things yet get? To this point, I have been rather silent on this issue. After many years of warning that America and other Western nations were on an unsustainable path leading to certain disaster, I do not now want to be a fearmonger. It has happened. Yet blindness is as entrenched as ever. People do not know the purposes of the Lord. While the current crisis is now obvious to everyone, few still have any idea as to the next developments … the traps, both economic and political, and likely the rapidly-nearing  multipolar reign of 10 kings.

But, even were an economic downturn to become as severe as in the Great Depression of the 1930s (possible, but likely not that bad) violent upward surges can be expected to occur in financial markets. Two major recoveries were experienced in the 1930s, triggering stock markets surges that doubled and tripled market levels. Similar surges are likely today.

However, it will not be easy navigating this environment. These are treacherous, diabolical times. The world seems to be urgently wanting to meet its destiny … hurrying along the path. I expect enormous shifts over the next several years that the vast majority of savers and investors will not anticipate. Just consider the recent deceptions of the Mammon realm. No sooner was everybody convinced that the US dollar was going to collapse forever (after the euro had already risen 93% in US dollar terms from its low), the US dollar soared 29% over a few short months.

It is virtually impossible to forecast anything accurately. All the doomsters who had predicted that gold bullion prices would explode when the long-awaited financial crisis finally arrived, also have been wrong. Most of them are licking their wounds … some of these Christian prophetic ministries. There are assuredly explainable reasons for these twists and turns, aspects of which are the subject of our studies. Though we might understand many of these developments, it is yet quite another matter to predict their timing. As we often mention, we are not prophets but simply “seeking to understand the times” as this slogan is Eternal Value Review’s motto (EVR).

Given the manic and desperate situation that is unfolding for America, you can be sure that everyone who is running into Treasury bonds will eventually be caught in a trap. Once the panic phase is over, it is likely that the US dollar will again fall markedly. And, then gold will likely again surge as will inflation. It is all very confusing and desperate. But such is the times … the approaching brief time of the emerging 10- king order before the Antichrist appears. It is only “one hour” that they will have the dubious honor of holding global power in the service of the Antichrist (Revelation 17:12).

Just how deeply could America fall? As we have already suggested, there are sufficient reasons to worry, especially with respect to a deeply imbedded condition of idolatry. However, even secular economic analysts see ominous long-term problems. The next few years are critical.  Will America earn a reprieve? The jury is out.