Keep your lamps lit ~ By Patrice Lewis

Patrice is consistently straightforward. This column is no exception.

Once again, Harold Camping, now retired, came up with another false prophecy about the end of the world right after the previous one on May 21, 2011 that obviously didn't happen on October 21, 2011 as he fortold. That is obviously a good thing. I'm not ready for the end of the world. There are lives I can still touch.

Being a "prepper"? Having everything that I would need to survive should the global economy "go to hell in a hand-basket," or should there be a great war in the Middle East? The fact is, there could be all kinds of disasters that could happen, and there is no way I can be prepared for a very long time. I'd be toast.

But, if there is nothing else that I can do, I am assured of being spiritually prepared. Because of my lack of income that would be required for a long-term - or actually, anything over a week or two - survival plan, I guess there isn't any other choice. Spiritual preparation is my only option.

This is why I think Patrice Lewis was being very straightforward about the topic of preparation in this piece. I doubt it will matter if people have a few guns, a lot of ammunition, a storage of food for a year.... It may not matter. The fact is, spiritual preparation will need to be the main objective for many of us.

Our days may be numbered, but we do not know when, not even if you can predict the collapse of the global economy within a few days. However, there are things you can do to keep your lamp lit.

If you don't mind, I'll do what I can to help you understand that you can "survive" whatever comes at us, from at least the spiritual aspect. You can be good to people. You can spread the message of the Gospel, the story of God's LOVE for us. Believe me, people need to hear it. People need to have plenty of the lamp oil on hand. The good news is that you can give away that lamp oil for free.

You can thank Patrice Lewis for inspiring me just a little more today.

Keep your lamps lit!

Keep your lamps lit

PATRICE LEWIS

By Patrice Lewis

October 28, 2011 ~ 2:24 pm Eastern

© 2011

Well, another miscalculated Day of Judgment has come and gone, and another false prophet who tried to predict Judgment Day is left with egg on his face. I'll never know why people feel the need to try and outsmart God in predicting the end of the world in direct opposition to Scripture, but there you are. I guess if Jesus had to warn us about such things 2,000 years ago, there was a strong tendency even back then to add up the number of "T's" in the book of Isaiah, divide by the amount of time it takes to hop around Jerusalem on one foot and multiply by the number of Tuesdays in the year 2012 (along with other numerical hocus-pocus) and conclude the world will end on May 21 or whatever.

Keeping the Lamp Lit

So what are we explicitly instructed to do, according to Scripture? Keep watch. Be prepared. Be ready. Always keep sufficient lamp oil on hand because you never know when the bridegroom will come.

So smart people keep their spiritual oil plentiful at all times.

Then there are the people who like to keep their physical lamp oil on hand as well. That would be the wacky subculture known as Preppers. After all, since we never know when the financial day of judgment is going to happen, we Preppers like to be ready.

The urge to be prepared has recently sharpened for millions of people as we've watched not only our own country's problems increase, but the problems of the rest of the world as well. America is toppling under debt. North Africa is in shambles and moving ever closer to Shariah law. Europe is about to implode financially and drag who-knows-what down with it. China is not the bastion of financial stability it would like us to believe.

In other words, the economic bottom could fall out from under us at any moment. When that happens, non-Preppers would be as foolish as the virgins who forgot to stock lamp oil, because lamp oil will shoot through the roof in terms of price and scarcity.

We cannot predict the Day of Judgment, so it's best to be constantly prepared for it. Nor can we predict the economic collapse of our nation … but it's no longer a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN. So wise people keep their pantries stocked.

READ MORE on WND.com

Don't be afraid!

WE the PEOPLE

are the MOB
ONE NATION UNDER GOD

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear

What soft socialism has wrought ~ By Robert Ringer

With springtime on the horizon, methinks it's time for the tea-party folks to take it to the next level and let Republicans know – much louder and more aggressively this time around – that they weren't kidding when they said wanted out-of-control government spending to come to an end.

If the deficit is $1.7 trillion, wouldn't a good starting point be to cut government spending by $1.7 trillion? Or is the idea of balancing the budget still just too extreme?

Robert Ringer brings up the concept of how you boil a frog by gradually turning up the heat. The term "Gradualism" is something that I hope you have heard of before, and Robert explains how gradualism has been implemented ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt using the new-baseline strategy. The problem is that it never ends well, because it isn't sustainable forever. That unless we stop it NOW, guess where this country is headed? The Republicans need to do a lot better than cutting $61 billion from a $1.7 trillion budget. There may not be too much time left for our freedom, otherwise.

What soft socialism has wrought

ROBERT RINGER

By Robert Ringer

February 25, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

With the angry uprising of pampered teachers in Wisconsin, the long-awaited Marxist revolution in the U.S. may finally be under way. It's been clear for decades that a forced ending to America's experiment with soft socialism would almost certainly trigger such a revolution.

Soft socialism was destined to fail from the outset, because it is the nature of life that a little bit of something bad tends to expand into a lot of something bad. That reality, however, has for decades been masked by the progressive's best friend – gradualism.

The average American had no idea that he was slowly being boiled alive, because soft socialism made it possible for him to buy a house he couldn't afford, go on vacations he couldn't afford and fill his life with high-tech toys he couldn't afford. This comfy lifestyle made him oblivious to the realities of life.

While there was no official beginning to the era of soft socialism in the U.S., there's no question that FDR's ascent to the presidency and the implementation of his New Deal was a major step in that direction. The centerpiece of FDR's New Deal was the 1935 Social Security Act, which defied the Constitution by implying it was the government's duty to fulfill the needs and desires of individual citizens.

It was billed as a modest program that would help a relatively small number of elderly people who were truly in need. Through the magic of gradualism, however, once the initial funding for Social Security was established as a baseline, a new baseline emerged each year to grow it into the monster redistribution-of-wealth program it has become.

Then, in the '60s, along came Lyndon Johnson with his vote-buying Great Society that destroyed the black community and, with it, the black family. Once baselines were established for hundreds of Great Society programs, Democrats and Republicans rarely spoke about cutting the budget, and anyone who suggested such a far-out idea was viewed as an extremist.

Instead, the debate has always been about restraining the growth of the budget beyond each year's new baseline. This clever "new-baseline" strategy is the key to progressivism: Get a bill passed (e.g., health care), establish a baseline, then, in the future, debate is restricted to what the percentage of increase should be each year for that particular bill. And an integral part of the new-baseline strategy is to vilify opponents of increased spending as cruel and calloused, a psychological ploy progressives have been using since our experiment in soft socialism began.

Long term, however, soft socialism doesn't work. That's because socialism, as both Marx and Lenin made clear, is merely a transitional stage on the way to communism. A little bit of socialism, because it appeals to the avaricious instincts in people, only whets their appetites for more. It is the nature of wealth redistribution to slowly bring down capitalism, which is why soft socialism eventually evolves into hard socialism – and, from there, communism.

Socialism destroys capital resources. And when the money runs out, a nation ends up with angry, spoiled adults – such as those protesting in Wisconsin – who have been happy recipients of years of artificial prosperity. Panicked and enraged, they boldly demand that their neighbors continue to support them in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. They have no interest whatsoever in hearing about economic reality.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Will GOP be able to stand the heat? ~ By Patrick J. Buchanan

Patrick Buchanan is not trying to be a "grumpy old man" when he writes this, but with "the confident enthusiasm of the new Republican class for the assignment history has given it, the balance of power in this city weighs heavily against its success."

This is not to counsel despair. It is to suggest that the true conservatives and tea-party true believers who gave the GOP its victory in November have won a single major engagement in a long war whose outcome remains very much in doubt.

So, is there any hope that things can change? Was the Tea Party effort pointless? Pat offers this:

As Boehner put it, we can't kick the can up the road anymore, because we've come to the end of the road. Like Greece and Portugal, Ireland and Illinois, New York and New Jersey, we have arrived at Hotel California.

Will GOP be able to stand the heat?

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

By Patrick J. Buchanan

January 07, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

"The success of a party means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose," said Woodrow Wilson in his first inaugural. "No one can mistake the purpose for which the nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party."

As with Wilson's Democrats in 1913, so it is with the Republican Party today. It has been called to power for the "large and definite purpose" of halting the growth of government and putting the nation's fiscal house in order. Whether it can succeed is another matter.

While a visitor to Capitol Hill the day the gavel was passed from Nancy Pelosi to John Boehner could not miss the confident enthusiasm of the new Republican class for the assignment history has given it, the balance of power in this city weighs heavily against its success.

Consider. To bring the budget even close to balance in half a decade means cutting projected spending for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But any changes here have to be agreed to by Harry Reid's Senate, and then by Barack Obama, who has a veto that the House Republicans have not a prayer of overriding.

And as Obama showed at year's end when he agreed to a two-year extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts in return for payroll tax cuts of his own and new unemployment benefits, the White House will exact a high price for Obama's signature.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

2010: The year ahead ~ By Vox Day

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Vox Day Posted: December 28, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 While the Great Depression is considered to have begun with the great stock market crash of 1929, the first mention of the words "great depression" was in a speech given by Herbert Hoover in late 1931. The first specific and titular reference did not occur until 1934, when British economist Lionel Robbins published a book titled "The Great Depression." This would neither be the first nor the last time economists influenced by the Austrian School would be the first to identify a major economic downturn in the making or to point out that the policies of the fiscal and monetary authorities were guaranteed to exacerbate it.

What then, are the prospects of enduring recovery? It is clear that they are not bright. It is quite probable, if there is no immediate outbreak of war on a large scale, that the next few months may see a substantial revival of business. If the exchanges are stabilised and the competition in depreciation ceases, there is a strong probability that the upward movement, which began in the summer of 1932, will continue. If the stabilisation were made permanent and some progress were made with the removal of the grosser obstacles to trade, it is not out of the question that a boom would develop. There are many things which might upset this development. The basis of recovery in the United States is gravely jeopardised by the policy of the Government. ~ Lionel Robbins, "The Great Depression," Page 195

At the end of 2009, conventional economists are claiming that the economic contraction which began in 2008 is over. Most government published statistics show growth and the stock markets have recovered half of their previous losses. While some of the wiser economists are hedging their bets by stating that they expect growth to be "sluggish" with "downside risks," there are no more expectations of market crashes, financial collapse or widespread economic contraction than there were at the beginning of 2008. The question is not one of growth versus contraction, but rather how much the economy will grow. However, the conventional economists are just as wrong to think the contraction is over as they were to believe that it was not on the horizon before. READ FULL STORY >

What really caused the Great Depression ~ By Walter E. Williams

From WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: November 04, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Steve H. Hanke is a professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and writes frequently for Globe Asia and Forbes magazine. Professor Hanke starts off his "Hu versus Sarkozy" article (Globe Asia, November 2009) with a warning. There is no more reliable rule than the 95 percent rule: 95 percent of what you read about economics and finance is either wrong or irrelevant. The article contrasts the Chinese versus the French responses to the financial crisis, but the major focus is on economic myths. Hanke says that the most repeated statement about the cause of the U.S. Great Depression is that it was caused by the October 1929 stock market crash. How could that be? By April 1930, the stock market had recovered to its pre-crash level. What is not taught in history books is the Great Depression was caused by a massive government failure. The most important part of that failure were the actions by the Federal Reserve Bank that led to the contraction of the money supply by 25 percent. Then, in the name of saving jobs, Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Act in June 1930, which increased U.S. tariffs by more than 50 percent. Other nations retaliated and world trade collapsed. U.S. unemployment rose from 8 percent in 1930 to 25 percent in 1933. In 1932, the Herbert Hoover administration and a Democratic Congress imposed the largest tax increase in U.S. history, raising the top tax rate on income from 25 percent to 63 percent. The Roosevelt administration followed these destructive policies with New Deal legislation that massively regulated the economy and extended the Great Depression to after World War II. Have today's politicians and their economic advisers learned anything from yesteryear's policy that turned what would have been a short, sharp downturn in the economy into a 16-year affair? The answer is very little. Professor Hanke argues that the chief enabler of both the Great Depression and our latest economic downturn is the Federal Reserve Bank, who sees itself as America's systemic risk regulator. This is the world upside down, Hanke explains: The Federal Reserve is the systemic risk. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Stock analysts issue 'Black Tuesday' warning

From WorldNetDaily

Trends on anniversary of 1929 collapse indicate markets on verge of 'crash' Posted: October 29, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily On this 80th anniversary of the "Black Tuesday" stock market collapse, some analysts are experiencing déjà vu, warning a major crash in the stock market is imminent. Graham Summers, senior market strategist at OmniSans Research, wrote in the firm's daily e-letter yesterday that the markets may finally be on the verge of the crash he has been predicting for more than two months. "Well, judging from the market's action today, I believe we may be within 48 hours of getting the "Official Sell" signal I've been waiting for," he wrote in "Gain, Pains, and Capital." The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 119 points yesterday, or 1.2 percent, while the NASDAQ lost 2.7 percent. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies dropped 3.5 percent. Summers explained in an online piece Tuesday that he has been watching an ominous pattern develop in which the trading range shrinks as stocks rise higher. In the past, that pattern has led to a sharp downturn, he said. "I've been forewarning of a potential crash for months now. And the market's current action is precisely what you would expect for a major top (increased volatility)," Summers wrote. Author and WND columnist Vox Day, asserts in book released last week, "The Return of the Great Depression," that the U.S. is entering the early stages of the Second Great Depression. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Get ready, America: Great Depression 2.0

From WorldNetDaily

Author who predicted current crisis shows why it's 'only the beginning' Posted: October 25, 2009 ~ 8:30 pm Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily Drawing striking comparisons between the Japanese economy in 1988 and the American economy today, a new book by an author who predicted the current crisis warns it's going to get much worse before it gets better. Vox Day, a WND columnist, asserts in "The Return of the Great Depression," by WND Books, the U.S. is only now entering the early stages of the Second Great Depression. Day presents a fact-rich case, rooted in economic history and time-tested theory, in which he concludes that an economic contraction of very large proportions is presently developing. But he contends that "due to a reactive wave of positive social mood, statistical obfuscation, and understandable denial, it will take about a year for the consensus opinion to cycle through the various scenarios in descending order of optimism before the grim reality finally becomes apparent to even the casual observer." Though the message is stark, Day believes the book is a much-needed antidote to the self-interested optimism of the financial media. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Renewing the 'Old Deal'? - By Joseph Farah

As America continues to feel its way through a dire economic crisis, our elected leaders in Washington seem determined to repeat the mistakes of the past. In fact, they fail to even see that they were mistakes, despite the clearest of evidence. The so-called "economic recovery" plans of 2009 are policies that were tried by FDR and failed. read more | digg story

80+ year-old economic survivor guide - by Chuck Norris

An old Spanish proverb says, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." I believe that value will hold, in or out of a recession. And being that his 87-year-old mother lived through the Great Depression, her value (and those like her) will actually increase through these tough economic times, because their insider wisdom can help us.

read more | digg story

Death by 1,000 porker cuts - By Doug Powers

We've been told that we face threats of a depression, soup lines, pestilence, famine, upheaval, and locust swarms if we don't shovel $1 trillion toward more government, union goodies and global warming mythology. But don't worry, 3 Republicrats made sure the knife was only plunged 12 inches into taxpayers instead of the originally planned one foot.

read more | digg story

The Death Of Common Sense - An Obituary

Today. we are mourning the loss of a beloved old friend who recently passed away. His name was Common Sense. Common Sense lived a long life but died in the United States from a vicious contagious disease. read more digg story, submitted by rjwusa

Obama's choice: FDR or Reagan - by Patrick J. Buchanan

Obama and the Democrats are taking a historic gamble, not only with their careers but with the country. If this monstrous stimulus package, plus the trillions in hot money, do not work; if the two ignite rampant inflation, rather than real growth, we are all out of options. The toolbox is empty. And what will follow may truly resemble the 1930s.

read more | digg story