A side track — part II

In the part I, we touched on how the systematic decimation of the job base in America has led to the economic crisis we face today.  The successive administrations in the US have resorted to massive government borrowings to stimulate the economy in face of the depressive effects of the job losses, and the Federal Reserve has continually sought to prop up the economy through printing of money.  The former policy was also used by Europe, and that has brought about their government debt crisis — the US is in real danger of falling into the same trap in the near future.
What I would like to explore more in part II is a more detailed discussion on the Federal Reserve policy — that of Greenspan and Bernanke — and how that has contributed to the current global financial crisis.  Greenspan, while heading the Federal Reserve from the 1987 to 2006 had repeated slashed interest rates and printed money every time the financial markets suffered the slightest threat.  This policy became known as the “Greenspan put” (it is a technical jargon that meant that every time the market went down, traders could buy the stock market as they knew Greenspan would keep printing money until the market went back up again).  This defacto targeting of the stock market (i.e. it was never announced as an official policy, and still isn’t, but this policy of printing money to support the stock market continues under Bernanke) has resulted in the creation of tremendous amounts of money.  This excess liquidity under Greenspan was responsible for the massive growth of the financial sector over the last 20 years — the share of the financial sector as a percentage of the US economy more than doubled.  This combination of excess liquidity and growth in the financial sector resulted in the largest real estate bubble America has ever seen — the mechanics of this has been written about in a number of books.  The bursting of this real estate bubble was the catalyst for the 2008 financial crisis, and the ongoing malaise in the US economy.  However, the investment banks were saved from bankruptcy by taxpayer money and because of this, the investment bankers continue to make billions of dollars while threatening the world with economic depression.
The investment banks remain highly leveraged — which means that they bought billions of dollars of assets with out having the money to pay for them.  These banks borrow these billions of dollars from ordinary people through the financial markets — bonds and inter-bank lending.  Many banks have lost so much on the government bonds they have bought that they would go bankrupt if they were forced to sell the bonds and repay the money they borrowed (like a homeowner who lost his home when the price of the house has fallen so low and he is no longer able to make his mortgage payments).  However, Bernanke of the Federal Reserve has decided to lend these banks as much money as they want for as long as they want — and these bankers still get to pay themselves billions of dollars in bonuses because they were so smart in getting the government to give them money.  That is what the current protest on Wall Street is about — bankers continue to pay themselves billions of dollars in bonuses while the taxpayer keeps their banks from going bankrupt.
So, we see that all of this printing of money has resulted in asset inflation — and this has helped the rich.  It has also resulted in massive inflation of goods (when seen from a 20 year perspective).  This inflation of goods has resulted in higher prices for food and gasoline (among other things).  For the worker, not only has he lost his job, but when he does find one, his paycheck buys him less food and less gasoline.  Maybe he gets another job for the same money, but that money does not buy him as much as it use to.  He must work longer and harder, and still get less and less for that money.  The worker must spend more of his money on food and gasoline and health care — and goes further in debt.  The rich makes money because he can buy gold and stocks and has other ways to protect his wealth from inflation.  The rich doesn’t care if the price of milk doubles because his spending for his daily needs represents such a small party of his total wealth.
Obama’s plan to tax the rich is pure politics — they can hire tax advisers and can continue to minimize their taxes.  He plan to borrow money and spend is the same thing that Washington has done for the last 30 years and will continue to result in the poor getting poorer.  Bernanke continues to look for ways to print more money and create more inflation that will only result in food costing even more money.  This combination of policies has resulted in more people not having enough money to feed themselves in America.
It is the central assumption in this blog that the current government debt crisis in EU and the ongoing global financial crisis will be the catalysts for the prophesies of Revelations to come about.  It all fits so well.  No man knows when Christ will return, and indeed the Believers have been waiting thousands of years for His return.  With this said, we can say that given our understanding of Revelations, it seems that many signs of His return are now unfolding.  We must remain watchful and must work to keep America from being included in the union of the Unholy 10 that the Beast will come to dominate.