Sept 18
Trade Deficit Hits Another Record
The U.S. has set yet another record with its ongoing trade deficit hit. The Commerce Department reported that the July deficit reached $68 billion. The imbalance was worse than expected and surpassed the old monthly record of $66.6 billion set last October.
So far for 2006, the deficit is running at an annual rate of $776 billion, which will easily make it the fifth straight year we set a record for red ink. A big factor making the record deficit possible has been the strike in oil prices. In July, America's foreign oil bill reached an all-time high of $28.5 billion. We now owe the rest of the world about $4.5 trillion.
There are many reasons for the huge trade deficit, but the biggest factor is the fact that Americans like to spend too much and save very little money. Last year, the personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income in this country was negative 0.5 percent, by far the lowest of any industrialized nation. In France, the savings rate was 11.6 percent. Germany's rate was a robust 10.6 percent. Japan clocked in at 6.7 percent.
Wall Street had no negative reaction to the worsening trade figures. The day the numbers were released by the Commerce Department, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 101.25 points to close at a four-month high.
In the mid '90s, there was a lot more concern over the trade deficit. Back then, the annual trade gap equaled 3 percent of U.S. GDP. Today, there is far less coverage being given to the problem and the current deficit now equals 7.7 percent of our GDP.
Many economists seem to welcome these trade shortfalls. Walter Williams recently wrote that we view them with pride:
"The fact that foreigners are willing to exchange massive amounts of goods in exchange for slips of paper in the forms of currency, stocks and bonds should be a source of pride. It means America, with its wealth, rule of law and the sanctity of contracts, inspires foreigners to hold large amounts of their wealth in U.S. obligations."
This week the International Monetary Fund issued a warning about the dollar. It stated a ``disorderly'' drop in the dollar is the biggest risk to world financial markets, and urged policy makers to prepare and act quickly when asset prices slump. "Investors are buying U.S. bonds under the assumption that the dollar won't slide, and a drop in the currency might turn into a rout as foreign investors and central banks move to cut losses," the global financial watchdog said.
The biggest problem with the growing trade deficit is its total reliance on faith in the U.S. dollar. The global love for American debt is what keeps the system afloat. If foreign investors should ever lose their trust in Uncle Sam, our financial house of cards would come crashing down.
I've come to believe that God may be using America's massive debt as part of His end-time plan. The Bible tells us that during the tribulation, Europe will be the main actor on the world stage. An economic meltdown in the U.S. would explain our nation's absence from prophecy.
The rapture could be what triggers this collapse. America has the highest percentage of Christians than any other nation on earth. The loss of such a large portion of the population during the rapture would cause this nation to collapse into chaos.
I'm always getting emails from people who tell me, "I can't wait until you fundamental Bible thumpers are gone." When everything falls apart as a result of our absence, they might regret such a wish.
When I hired professional translators in India and South America to translate several articles into other languages, I did so knowing that the money I was using will someday become worthless. Most Christians seem to think that their material possessions will forever retain value. This false assumption is one reason for their lack of commitment to advancing the gospel message.
There is no guarantee that we will make it to the rapture. If a crash should come tomorrow, I would take heart in
knowing that Rapture Ready's wealth of end-time knowledge is something that does not lose value.
"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4).
--- Todd
The Beginning of the Last of the Last Days
Editor's note: This will be a two-part Nearing Midnight update. The second part will be posted Monday, September 25, 2006.
Most every indicator points to the likelihood that this generation stands at the very end of the age, when considered from the dispensational view of Bible prophecy.
I will confess at the outset of writing this commentary that I borrow heavily from my good friend, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, in considering these matters. He has expressed thoughts along the same lines of what I was thinking when I began to create the storyline of my novel, The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension.
The heart of the story for the novel series (three novels, I prayerfully hope), I determined, would involve the defining moment in modern history when things began to gush like a flood, in fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s forewarning: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city
and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan. 9:26).
The prophecy that Daniel was given for the consummation of man-made governmental control of this fallen world foretold that things would begin winding up for the big finale with the death of Israel’s Messiah. The end would begin with the destruction of the city and the sanctuary (Jerusalem and the Temple on Mt. Moriah). A prince from the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary, the prophecy said without giving a specific timeline, would come on the world scene. History’s conclusion would then, according to the prophecy, rush in a growing tidal wave of devastating events until it became a flood, and this flood would make all things of Planet Earth desolate.
So, I will get back to telling you about what was my thinking on a watershed event, or events, I might use to build into the novel’s storyline before I began writing. It came to me to consider something of our time that is a constituent part of these last days which might seem to have caused a breach in the walls of civilization. A powerful schism-producer that allowed the torrent to grow into a gush that will irreparably burst the dam separating good from evil.
While Dr. Mark Hitchcock expresses it in a different way than I do, we both agree that Daniel’s flood seems to be about to crash through that ever-weakening barrier. The crack in the dam, we believe, has already occurred.
Dr. Hitchcock writes:
“Five years ago, in the solemn wake of September 11, I made the statement in one of my books that it appeared that the events of 9/11 and its aftermath had a major stage-setting effect on the events of the end times. That a kind of 'prophetic shift of gears' had occurred on that day. That many of the major players in the Biblical end time scenario appeared to be rapidly 'shifting' into place. As I look back over the last five years, and gaze ahead to what's looming on the horizon, I believe this statement even more today than I did five years ago” (Prophecy Update - News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).
I like the way Mark used seven distinct indicators to illustrate the “shifting prophetic gears,” as he puts it. I, myself, liken it to a breach in the endtime barrier seemingly inflicted when those fuel-laden passenger planes crashed into the World Trade towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania. I will loosely use Mark’s indicators to frame my contention that this generation is witnessing the beginning of the last of the last days.
1. I’ve said many times that since Israel was reborn as a nation May 14, 1948, the Middle East has been the focus of the whole world. All we have to do to realize this is to ask ourselves where the news cameras and microphones always turn when things heat up in the Mid-East region. No matter what they had been trained on before the heating up occurred, the cameras and microphones always turn back to that troubled land.
Oil, of course, is the catalyst for this concern, thus the region demands attention, rationale would have it. But ancient, satanic rage and hatred is the true catalyst that galvanizes the fears of those who suspect World War III will break out at or near Jerusalem. The attacks of 9/11/01 put Israel and its enemy neighbors who harbor Islamic fanatic terrorists that are blood-avowed to murder every Jew and anyone who befriends the Jew, directly in the last-days spotlight of Bible prophecy.
Those attacks seem to have torn a gash in the fragile fabric of civilization. Indeed, World War III–Armageddon—might have already begun.
2. The Islamic fanatic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 –in less than two hours of murderous carnage—brought through that breach, and into the open, the Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 Gog-Magog forces. Again, Mark Hitchcock says it well: “As one reads the names of the nations that will invade Israel in the end times in Ezekiel 38:1-7, it looks like a 'Who's Who' of Israel's enemies today, especially Iran. The close, developing ties between Russia (Rosh) and Iran (Persia) have been greatly accelerated since 2001" (Prophecy Update-News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).
Not many will argue that at this time, with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad angrily expressing desire to kill every Jew, and with his terrorist-sponsoring regime trying as hard as possible to produce atomic weapons, Daniel’s last-days flood rages onward toward the apocalypse!
--Terry
