Modern Monetary Theory
During the past several years, the Federal Reserve has been managing our growing national debt by using a series of financial terms. The shell game started with the Fed taking on the role of our rich uncle and did Quantitative Easing. The Fed reinflated the stock market by loaning the Treasury $3.5 trillion.
Then came Operation Twist in 2011 where the Fed sold short-term Treasury securities and bought long-term Treasuries. By selling a two-year bond and buying a 30-year bond, the Fed was giving Washington 28 years to balance its financial books.
Next came Quantitative Tightening where the Fed would sell off the bond it had on its balance sheet. When Wall Street had a negative reaction to the actual unloading of bonds, the Fed said our credit is so good, it would end the program and hold onto the bonds forever.
The new term that is becoming popular in Washington is Modern Monetary Theory. The core teaching of MMT is that a nation with the ability to print its own money can never go bankrupt. It can always fund its spending by printing more money. The nation’s deficit can be managed by simply printing money to pay for the shortfall.
MMT can trace its origins back over 100 years, but it has gained renewed popularity in recent months thanks to freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and economist Stephanie Kelton. When people add the cost of her proposed Green New Deal to an insane $22 trillion-dollar national debt, AOC said we can use MMT to pay for her program.
Some would argue that the Federal Reserve would never fall for MMT, but former head Ben Bernanke has already laid out the framework for how MMT could work. Bernanke traveled to Tokyo in July 2016 and suggested a way to stimulate the Japanese economy. He said the Ministry of Finance, Japan’s equivalent to our Treasury, should issue non-marketable perpetual bonds with a zero-coupon that the Bank of Japan would buy with printed money. The Japanese government could then use the money from these bond sales to pay its bills.
A perpetual zero-coupon bond means the principal never has to be repaid, and no interest payment is ever due. Bernanke was basically suggesting the issuance of a new form of currency. Cash never matures, and you do not have to pay interest for holding it. He should have just said that Japan should print vast amounts of yen.
Abraham Lincoln once posed the question: “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have?” and then answered his own query: “Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” Abe would have felt lonely on Wall Street. MMT is simply the printing of money for the purposes of funding government spending. It has been tried hundreds of times and has always led to massive inflation.
The Treasury Department is currently using “extraordinary measures” to prevent the US from breaching the debt ceiling. As of the 9th of March, the US officially hit the debt ceiling, capping the national debt at just over $22 trillion. The Treasury can fund the government until late September or early October by using an array of bookkeeping tricks.
The US is not the only nation that is allying MMT to its government spending. Last month, China unleashed a massive credit expansion. In what was dubbed the Shanghai Accord 2.0, the People’s Bank of China announced it had flooded the economy with a gargantuan 4.64 trillion yuan in various new forms of debt. Injecting nearly $700 billion in credit in one month was more than the GDP of Saudi Arabia. In the past 40 years, Beijing has increased the money supply by an amazing 10,000-fold.
Since assuming the premiership in 2013, President Xi Jinping has been a consistent critic of the large-scale stimulus that their predecessors launched in response to the 2008 financial crisis. It is dumbfounding to traders that Xi complains about the dangerous increase in debt by others, and then does the same thing himself.
In a normal world, any attempt to implement MMT would mean instant financial disaster. The same basic financial rule has worked for thousands of years. If you print too much of your own currency, its value will collapse.
The ability of the world’s central banks to throw all cares to the wind is not the result of some new economic miracle. I am convinced that the rapture is the reason why such reckless spending is going unpunished. Everything is to remain calm right up to the moment the Church is removed. To reach the irrational level of MMT spending, it tells us that the end must be very near.
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Mat. 24:44).
–Todd
Third Temple and Trump
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. (Isaiah 50:10-11)
God has spoken the precise consummation of history. His Word about these matters will come to pass. The world’s global elite might not like it; the diplomats of the world might resent it. God’s word about the wind-up of history, however, cannot–will not–be changed.
In filming documentaries on prophecy, whether it’s about Bible prophecy, or prophecy by the Nostradamuses of their times throughout history, the documentarians make sure a certain statement is made in summation: “These prophecies are given as a warning. They are given so we can alter things we as human beings do in order that these terrible things not come to pass. Man can change the outcome if he only strives to do so.”
The Lord of all Creation says: “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” His Word says further: “yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).
God’s prophetic Word will come to pass–100 percent, even if it comes to pass in ways and through people, places, and things we don’t necessarily foresee or understand.
Developments of a profound nature seem in the making. some who observe things going on behind the scenes in Israel believe those developments are farther along than might be suspected by those of us who are most diligent in observing and reporting on the prophetic weather. I must admit that I don’t particularly like the way things are shaping–that is, I don’t like to have dissolved my neat, little order of how I perceive prophecy unfolding.
The Lord doesn’t always proceed in neat, little ways in order to get things done. Looks like I would have figured that out in 76-plus years of living. He, as often as not, uses the good, bad, and the ugly to work in fulfilling His ultimate will.
While not a sure thing, it looks to some as if He might be allowing the unfolding of a couple of prophecies, using all three ingredients to bring about stage-setting for the Tribulation and Armageddon.
Movement toward the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem is almost certainly and swiftly racing forward. My friend, Tom Horn, CEO of SkyWatch TV is, in my estimation, among those leading in the examination of developments in Jerusalem concerning building of the Third Temple. Recent developments indicate just how near the Tribulation era might be, based upon apparent Temple planning.
Horn states on his ministry website that developments in the plans for the Third Temple “are, in fact, earth-shattering, and will accomplish nothing less than altering the course of history. What is about to unfold could set in motion arrival of Antichrist and Armageddon, followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”
Regarding intrigues in Temple planning, he writes further, “It’s happening right now behind the scenes in clandestine negotiations between global powers and religious leaders.” Horn and others observe that some of the Jewish clerical hierarchy are convinced that American President Donald Trump equates to the reincarnation of a Cyrus-like figure. Cyrus was a king whom some rabbis believe the God of Israel raised up to initiate the Messianic era and construction of the Third Temple.
On a more cautious note, I’ll report that Tom Horn offers that Saudi Arabia, Jewish religious leaders, and Donald Trump are negotiating behind the scenes to transfer control of Israel’s holy sites—including the Temple Mount—to the Saudis, to complete a “peace covenant” that could result in, among other things, the building of the Third Temple. This unverifiable conjecture–as I view it at this point–has yet to be seen, but it is worthy of consideration because of other developments of significance.
A Jerusalem Post article reports the following:
A senior reporter for the Al Riyadh, one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent newspapers, claimed that the US President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” will divide Jerusalem.
The reporter Hadeel Oueis wrote on her twitter account that “The Old City of Jerusalem will be divided in half: the Arab and Christian quarters will go to the PA [Palestinian Authority], while the Jewish and Armenian quarters will fall under Israeli control.”…
Oueis further tweeted that “Arab areas adjacent to Palestinian Area A and B will go to a future Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.”
Saudi Arabia has been in touch with the US administration regarding the peace initiative, as it was rumored that the deal will include recognition of Israel by surrounding Arab countries. (“The U.S. Peace Plan Will Divide Jerusalem,” Hadeel Oueis [@hadeelOueiss] March 5, 2019])
It is quite disconcerting to yours truly that this president could be complicit in developing plans that God’s Word says will leave to His bringing all nations into the Valley of Jehosephat and the killing fields of Armageddon. However, the Lord’s prophetic Word will be accomplished, regardless of the people, places, and things involved in its fulfillment.
You and I need not be a part of that history-ending conflict and all the carnage leading up to that bloodiest of all wars. Simply and genuinely believe that Jesus Christ died to redeem you from the dread sway of sin. Then confess with your mouth that God has raised Him from death, and you will be saved. You will go to be with Christ instantaneously when your heart beats its last beat, or at that glorious moment of Rapture when the living and dead are called into His presence forever.
–Terry