The stock market’s dizzying heights has some people worried. They say it is distorting a frightening reality. The United States “is being eaten alive by a horrific cancer that will ultimately destroy the economy and impoverish the vast majority of its citizens,” says Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. “I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007,” he said. “You’re going to have a collapse in the dollar…a huge spike in interest rates… and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it.”
Schiff says that signs of an economic recovery are “phony.” The reason for the coming collapse is the $16 trillion of federal deficit and the Federal Reserve’s never-ending money creation. This is unsustainable.
The trouble is that everybody knows it, but don’t know what to do about it. Moreover, most citizens are already so dependent on it that they would not know what to do if there was a collapse. And they are not presently preparing.
What happens when the economy does finally collapse? Stocks will “tank” and bonds will be worthless. Unemployment will skyrocket. There will be massive new tax hikes and welfare programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone. Savings will be wiped out, hyper-inflation will send consumer prices to the stratosphere, and interest rates will devastate businesses and consumers.
“The crisis is imminent,” Schiff said. “I don’t think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems…”
“We’re broke,” Schiff added. “We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”
Recent market gains have given investors a false sense of security. The stock market rally (currently the DOW is over (15,000) is being funded by the fed’s money creation, but it isn’t that the DOW is gaining value. The U.S. dollar is losing value. As the value of money goes down, the price of everything including stocks goes up.
The collapse, Schiff says, is being prevented by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easy. When that changes, “everything will implode.”
Most Americans (61%) recognize that a catastrophe is coming, yet most (85%) feel unprepared for it. “All we can do now is prepare for the crash,” Schiff said.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Grantham, well-known head of the investment firm GMO is alarmed too. “Our global economy, reckless in its use of all resources and natural systems, shows many of the indicators of potential failure that brought down so many civilizations before ours…” he wrote. “Even the greatest civilizations like Rome eventually fell.”
Grantham says that civilizations have an average lifespan of around 250 years. “Probably the greatest agreement among scholars, though, is that the failing civilizations suffered from growing hubris and overconfidence: the belief that their capabilities after many earlier tests would always rise to the occasion and that growing signs of weakness could be ignored as pessimistic,” he writes.
Grantham sees declining global fertility, living with less energy, and using renewable technologies as the potential saviors. Encouraging lower populations, he said has “incredibly high” returns. He thinks that if we put our minds to it, and overcome powerful vested interests, we could save ourselves from collapse.
Fat chance. Only the second coming of Christ can solve this world’s problems. And that is also imminent. The best plan for you and your family to protect yourself from the coming collapse of the economy and from civilization itself is to follow God’s counsel.
“But there are not many, even among educators and statesmen, who comprehend the causes that underlie the present state of society. Those who hold the reins of government are unable to solve the problem of poverty, pauperism, and increasing crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis.” Ministry of Healing, page 183
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