Happy New Year to a World in Turmoil

     

  As I said in the prior post, there are some things, my boy, that are unfolding in the world that sometimes make me feel that I am glad you are spared the worries of the world just now.   Last evening, I watched a program in which Gerald Celente provided forecasts about things that might occur in the world within the next year.   You might remember the name, Gerald Celente, from his accent in a New Yorker, and is a frequent contributor to RT (Russia Today).   Some news groups consider RT unfairly biased against the United States and its economy because Russia and its growing economic machine clearly benefit when world markets consider the US economy poorly managed or in trouble.  However, I listen to all the news outlets from Deutche Welle, to BBC, the Japanese News NHK, France 24, Al Jazeera, and the Israeli news.  Between those outlets and the blogosphere, the truth generally lies somewhere between all of their concerns.  There is no doubt there are some significant concerns.  The economy worldwide is not in stellar shape. Unwise business practices and unwise lending practices have resulted in a large stock of toxic loans. Mortgages, for example, that people borrowed and now, due to unemployment, cannot pay back.  Homes have been repossessed, and are not being maintained and are deteriorating.  Some of these homes are being sold in auctions for as little as a dollar, but there is no work in those cities,  and now there is crime.  Investors picked some of them up, only to find no one will rent the large glut of homes available, and now, have greedily bought so many homes, the investors are losing money paying the taxes on them.  When US investors are losing money, they do not spend money anywhere else in the world, and then economic issues which already exist, worsen.  The US, which has always been fond of spending too much money in its domestic program, continues its addiction, even though it no longer has the tax base to do so.  Meanwhile, more and more people distrust the US federal government as it passes laws which impede the basic freedoms people had from the country's inception.  Many people are leaving here, but I don't know that South America is a wiser place to be going, or to be buying beachfront property.
            Europe continues to have its own problems. The Euro has been in use now for ten years.  I have never been a proponent of one currency. I always thought there was inherent danger in typing all of Europe together.  Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy are having economic difficulties, and are likely to be bailed out by Germany and Frances more secure economies.  England has said it cannot afford to help, although the United Kingdom wisely kept its pound sterling.
          Across the world, people are rebelling against their leaders. In turn, their leaders are proposing or enacting emergency laws which protect government, and the result is a new fascism, rather than the democracies that were prayed for.
           In addition, Muslim nations across the world are experiencing their own pains.  The past year has seen the deaths of many as they rebelled against leaders they saw as unfair, in a hope of constructing a better and more equitable nation.   Many of them are still waiting for that equitable nation to emerge.   Meanwhile, Iran's government of renegades still believes that they are to be the match that sets the world ablaze to fulfill prophecy which ends the world as we have known it.
           On the farm here, things are the same. the animals are cared for, somehow the taxes are paid. Half of us work off the farm. Half of us work here. We watch and we worry.  We ask for God's blessing and for safety and protection in the year to come.   Daniel, love to you, and to my Dad.