An interesting case study on socialism and the effects it has had in Brazil. A lot of the problems that the speaker mentions with Brazil have to do with corruption, and defenders of socialism might say that it was the corruption of the people implementing the system that was the problem rather than inherent problems of socialism itself. However, central to the concept of socialism is centralized government control, and this in itself provides opportunities for corruption to occur.
Category: Political Issues
How socialism and crony capitalism merged
An insightful article about the parallels between socialism and monopoly capitalism.
Source: Greetings Slaves | PJ Media
Alan Greenspan on “Gold and Economic Freedom”
In 1966, long before he became chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan wrote an article titled “Gold and Economic Freedom.” Here are a couple of excerpts:
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other….
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
Greenspan also includes an analysis of the causes of the Great Depression. Mainstream economists blame the gold standard, but Greenspan demonstrates that it was actually by attempts of the Federal Reserve to manipulate the economy (as Ben Bernanke admitted in 2002).
Here is the whole article: Gold and Economic Freedom – Alan Greenspan
Bernanke Attacks Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed Bill
Federal Reserve Open Market Committee Chairman Ben Bernanke is pulling out all the stops to kill legislation sponsored by Congressman Ron Paul to audit the Fed, this time with a November 29 op-ed column in the Sunday Washington Post. by Thomas R. Eddlem
An insightful article into the political dimension of current economic problems
This insightful article is from the Sydney Morning Herald, August 28, 2015.
Why we need to lie to ourselves about the state of the economy
Governments are unwilling to tell the truth about the magnitude of the economic problems, the lack of solutions and cost of possible corrective actions to the electorate.
Source: Why we need to lie to ourselves about the state of the economy
Great Myths of the Great Depression
“Great Myths of the Great Depression” is a fascinating analysis of the Great Depression. The popular myth is that laissez faire policies caused the Depression and government intervention was what finally ended it. Lawrence Reed points out that the Federal Reserve “presided over a dramatic contraction of the money supply that began late in the decade [of the 1920s]. The federal government’s responses to the resulting recession took a bad situation and made it far, far worse.”
Read the full story here: “Great Myths of the Great Depression”
Lessons from the French Revolution
Here is a revealing research paper about the French Revolution which was first presented at the International European Conference of Keepers of the Flame in Paris, France, in August 2009. It is significant in looking at the economy in that it addresses some of the basic issues that we are dealing with today as well as revealing the strategies of the fallen ones then and now.
We see that the intellectual currents that were instrumental in what took place during the French Revolution are alive and active today. Our universities are permeated with the doctrines of scientific humanism and moral relativism and a profound lack of eternal absolutes. The clear lesson is that the realm of ideas is the most important arena for turning things in a positive direction, and spiritual work must support that effort.
An Analysis of the Current Crisis
In 1992 Archangel Chamuel told us, “The problems in the economy and the national debt, beloved ones, are problems that defy human solution and they almost defy angelic solution. There are only two ways out: collapse or victory. You might as well go for the victory with all of your might! For if you do not, then the collapse will come.” [Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 35, no. 58]
In this post we bring you “An Analysis of the Current Economic Crisis,” a PowerPoint presentation which was given by Keeper of the Flame Wendy Marcano to the Minneapolis Community Teaching Center. It contains some excellent information for our calls and decrees. Also attached is a call on Gold and the Economy adapted from the God of Gold dictation from 1977, and a fascinating report Rolling Stone magazine on Goldman Sachs, “The Great American Bubble Machine: From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again.”
Thank you to those of you who have written to tell us that you and your groups are giving decrees and holding services on the economy. Praise God! This is the kind of sacrificial giving that delights the Lord! I ask you to please get together in groups of two or three or more at least once a week to give the decrees for the economy, even for half an hour or an hour or two. Wherever two or more are gathered in His name, there is the Christ in the midst of them.
Morya says “Tempis fugit!”–time flies! The sands are indeed running through the hour glass.