In the 1920s the United States experienced extreme social changes as the country moved away from being an agrarian economy to an industrialized nation. People moved off the farms into factories to work and the cities grew dramatically. More people lived in cities than on the farms. The Roaring Twenties, as it was dubbed, from 1920-29, saw the gross national product (GNP) explode by 40 percent. The affluence of the twenties brought the new jazz age with musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington out of New Orleans. There was drinking in excess, and dancing, and a raucous party spirit that spread to cities across the country.

It all came crashing down with the dramatic fall of the stock market and the resulting Great Depression in 1929. The Great Depression brought years of hardship worldwide. Are we on the cusp of an even greater depression and replay of the Roaring Twenties? 

Perspective        

There are some who believe the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse and some who believe the economy is just fine. If you listen to those who say everything is fine, it is usually because it is in their political interest to paint as rosy of a picture of the economy as statistically possible. However, the National Debt Clock says the United States debt is $34.152 trillion and climbing. According to 2022 statistics, the United States must pay $476 billion in interest alone on this massive debt, and that figure grew by 35 percent from 2021.

Back on August 11, 2020, it was calculated the national debt per citizen equaled $80,274 per person, and of course, that is now an outdated figure. That means based on that figure for a family of four the debt owed would be over $320,000.

By September 2008, the United States experienced a housing bubble that burst in the real estate market which resulted in a 20 percent decline in housing prices and the ensuing economic recession. People had their home equities wiped out and millions of people lost jobs. Many businesses went bankrupt. That led to loan delinquencies and foreclosures and a great recession. Forbes.com states in a featured article, “How Long Did the Great Recession Last in 2008?” “The recession lasted 18 months and was officially over by June 2009. However, the effects on the overall economy were felt for much longer. The unemployment rate did not return to pre-recession levels until 2014, and it took until 2016 for median household incomes to recover.”

Are we in a similar time when housing prices have skyrocketed and many Americans have overbought and are struggling with heavy debts? In the event of massive job losses and falling wages, higher prices for fuel, food, and the cost of living, many could face losing their homes in another great recession. 

Many variables exist in the economic world which can threaten the way of life people have grown accustomed to living. The world economy, which is so interconnected, makes it easier for the problems of some nations to wash up on the shores of other nations. For example, The Telegraph published an interesting article: “China’s economy is about to implode. We will all feel the aftershocks.” The article states: “Evergrande, the embattled Chinese real estate giant with debts of $300 billion, has just been ordered to liquidate by a court in Hong Kong.”

The article goes on to say, “The collapse of the property and construction bubble has weakened domestic economic confidence, deepening the unemployment crisis and posing major challenges to local government budgets. These domestic concerns have led to the current implosion of the Chinese stock market. In turn this has compelled foreign investors to take a more realistic position on China risk than believing the golden goose fables still being peddled by Beijing…”

How this will impact the economies of the West remains to be seen, but considering the staggering national debt of the United States and other factors, such as, the politics in the country and the world, we should be concerned. On top of all that, there is the war in the Mideast which threatens to widen into WWIII. Beside that conflict, there is the Ukraine-Russia war, Taiwan and China, and the North Korean issues. If the real estate market and the stock market collapsed and banks failed, the U.S. could fall into a greater depression than we can imagine.

We could see all we have known in the United States and other affluent nations of modern biblical Israel disappear overnight. Gone will be the supermarkets down the street, and it will be much more difficult to find food to eat. When it happens, we will wish our predecessors had never left the farms where people could grow their own food. 

We will then realize all of our materialism and wealth contributed to our downfall. God blessed our nations and prosper us because of Abraham’s faithfulness, but we desired the material things more than God. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10).

Are the economies of the West set to collapse? End-time prophecy shows modern Israel (the descendants of the 12 tribes) will be decimated in the future. Ezekiel 6:1-6 warns the nations of modern Israel:

“Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say, “O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: ‘Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.’”

Consider what Ezekiel 7:19 says about this horrendous time: “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like refuse; Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD; They will not satisfy their souls, nor fill their stomachs, because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.”

Gold, silver and money will not matter in the time ahead; they won’t fill the stomach. In this time of terrible trial, the value of precious metals and other material things will be like garbage to be thrown away. 

In the world of tomorrow to come during the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, we will have affluence without the greed and fixation on money and material things which exists in this evil world today. Life won’t be based on getting, but people giving and sharing with others so all can prosper. Wars will cease and peace will last for 1,000 years and on into eternity! 

This is my Perspective and the current edition of the Prophetic Times follows below: 

Prophetic Times

Netanyahu: Israel will not end war, withdraw from Gaza 

February 1, 2024 ynetnews.com reported:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while committed to the release of hostages, Israel would not end the war, withdraw from Gaza or agree to free thousands of convicted Palestinian terrorists.

Netanyahu spoke after a report in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. believes a long lull in the fighting would mean an end to war. Hamas would be willing to compromise in case of a long-term cease-fire according to American officials. In the report an Israeli official is quoted as saying that Hamas wants to end the war, but Israel does not plan to provide it with calm. 

Negotiators involved in the talks, argue that it would be difficult for Israel to resume the war at its current intensity after a long pause, the WSJ said.

China’s economy is about to implode. We will all feel the aftershocks

January 30, 2024 telegraph.co.uk reported:

Evergrande, the embattled Chinese real estate giant with debts of $300 billion, has just been ordered to liquidate by a court in Hong Kong. What effect will this have, both within China and across the global economy?

This latest twist is no surprise. Evergrande has long been dead in the water. The point to grasp is that Evergrande’s latest setback will not trigger a financial crisis in China; it is rather the result of the financial crisis which has been deepening for at least four years.

For far too long, up to 30 per cent of the Chinese economy had depended on a grossly inflated domestic property bubble. By 2020, when the government finally took urgent measures to limit this debt, its corrosive effects had distorted and disabled both the formal banking sector and also the much less accountable and manageable Shadow Banking system. Both are now in serious disarray as a result.

Ramifications of this unregulated borrowing and lending crisis have spread across the economy at large. The collapse of the property and construction bubble has weakened domestic economic confidence, deepening the unemployment crisis and posing major challenges to local government budgets. These domestic concerns have led to the current implosion of the Chinese stock market. In turn this has compelled foreign investors to take a more realistic position on China risk than believing the golden goose fables still being peddled by Beijing.

Iran-Backed Terrorists Promise ‘More Pressure’ on West After Killings of Americans on Syria Border

January 30, 2024 breitbart.com reported:

A leader in one of the several groups identifying under the ‘Islamic Resistance in Iraq’ brand declared on Sunday that any negotiation between Baghdad and Washington on the presence of U.S. troops there will prompt ‘more pressure on the occupiers.’

The statement, republished in the Iranian state newspaper PressTV after appearing in the New Arab publication, followed an announcement by President Joe Biden on Sunday that jihadists had killed three American servicepersons and injured dozens in a drone attack on the border between Syria and Jordan. Biden claimed the strikes occurred in Jordan, where the Pentagon has about 3,000 troops stationed; the Jordanian government insisted that the attack occurred on Syrian territory.

Saudis, Egypt, Jordan, and PA meet in secret to discuss future of Gaza – report

January 29, 2024 jpost.com reported:

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) held a secret meeting in Riyadh about a week ago, focused on plans for Gaza governance when the war is over. They also reportedly discussed ways in which a ‘renewed Palestinian Authority’ can take part in the management of the Strip, according to several sources.

The meeting indicates that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries are making progress in planning moves for ‘the day after’ the war in Gaza. Meanwhile, in Israel, the same discussions are underway, though no solutions have been accomplished so far.

The meeting in Riyadh was organized by the Saudi National Security Adviser Musad Al-Aiban and was attended by the Palestinian General Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj, the Egyptian Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel, and the Jordanian Intelligence Chief Ahmed Hosni.

Three US service members killed in Iran-backed drone attack in Jordan

January 29, 2024 jpost.com reported:

Three US service members were killed and at least 25 others were wounded in a kamikaze drone attack on an outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border on Saturday night, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday. This is the first time that US troops have been killed by enemy fire in the Middle East since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

According to CENTCOM, the attack took place at a base in northeast Jordan. CENTCOM stated that the identities of the service members will be withheld until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified. At least 34 personnel were being evaluated for possible traumatic brain injury, a US official told Reuters. A defense official told The Washington Post on Sunday evening that the drone struck the living quarters of the base, causing injuries from cuts and bruises to brain injuries.

For Europe and NATO, a Russian Invasion Is No Longer Unthinkable

January 29, 2024 nytimes.com reported:

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia once proclaimed the dissolution of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” At the time, back in 2005, few expected him to do anything about it.

But then came Russia’s occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, its backing for Ukrainian s Now, with the rise of former President Donald J. Trump, who in the past has vowed to leave NATO and recently threatened never to come to the aid of his alliance allies, concerns are rising among European nations that Mr. Putin could invade a NATO nation over the coming decade and that they might have to face his forces without U.S. support.

That could happen in as few as five years after a conclusion of the war in Ukraine, according to some officials and experts who believe that would be enough time for Moscow to rebuild and rearm its military.

“We have always kind of suspected that this is the only existential threat that we have,” Maj. Gen. Veiko-Vello Palm, the commander of the Estonian Army’s main land combat division, said of a possible Russian invasion.

“The past few years have also made it very, very clear that NATO as a military alliance, a lot of countries, are not ready to conduct large-scale operations — meaning, in simple human language, a lot of NATO militaries are not ready to fight Russia,” General Palm said during an interview in December. “So, it’s not very comforting.”

Anxiety over what experts describe as Mr. Putin’s imperial ambitions have long been a part of the psyche of states that border Russia or are uncomfortably close. “I think for Estonia, it was 1991” when his country’s alarm bells started ringing, General Palm said wryly, referring to the year that Estonia declared independence from the crumbling Soviet Union.

Just as Mr. Putin played down the Biden administration’s warnings that he was planning to invade Ukraine; Moscow has dismissed concerns that Russia is planning to attack NATO. The head of Russian’s foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, said in an interview last week with the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti that they are part of a Western disinformation campaign to stir up discontent against Moscow.

Europe’s worry has been further fueled in recent months by Mr. Putin’s militarization of the Russian economy and huge spending increases for its army and weapons industry while, at the same time, some Republicans in Congress look to limit American aid to Ukraine.

‘Europeans Will Succumb to Islam,’ says Former Intelligence Chief

January 26, 2024 pjmedia.com reported:

Islam is on the verge of completely taking over Europe, in all ways—at least according to one who should know, Hans-Georg Maaßen, Germany’s top domestic intelligence chief from 2012 to 2018. In a recent interview, he stressed several points that spell the imminent downfall of Europe to Islam.

His warnings are buttressed by disturbing demographic changes. According to conservative estimates from Pew Research, over the next 25 years—meaning most of the current generation’s lifetime—Europe’s Muslim population will triple to a staggering 76 million. In fact, the actual current and future numbers of Muslims appear to be higher, though there are no official tallies.