Sunday, March 13, 2011

[1620] JAPAN- As of last night, the disaster in Japan is far greater than originally thought. The building surrounding the nuclear reactor blew up in dramatic fashion- the leaders were claiming that the steel casing around the reactor was intact. It seems like the leaders might be covering something up- or maybe they don’t know everything that’s going on inside. The death toll is sure to climb, though they talk about the numbers as in the hundreds- or right around 1800 hundred, yet they say ‘9,000’ are missing [which means swept out to sea]. Now- what does all this mean? The U.S. economy [and govt.] rely heavily on 2 nations that serve as our ‘bank’. Japan used to be our number one borrower- they bought our debt. China just recently surpassed Japan as our number one buyer of debt. So Japan is our 2nd biggest ‘bank’ [both nations hold right around 900 billion of U.S. debt- other nations also hold our debt- own our credit cards- yet Japan and China are our biggest banks].Okay- this past year we have made trips to the region- have had our debates over fiscal policy [with China] and we have done our best to keep a fairly good relationship going [even willing to overlook real human rights abuses- with China] in order to keep the cash flowing. So what now? Well look at it as if your number 2 credit card co. just went under- that’s what has happened. Japan is in no position to keep buying our debt- and they will not be in that position again for a long time. Now Japan too is in debt- but most of their debt has been bought by private investors who are Japanese- they are not dependant like us on a foreign nation [s]. So we just lost a very important bank. It’s not the end of the world for us- but not good at a time when we thought we were going to really come out of this recessionary stagnation- our country actually showed some good financial signs in recent weeks- yet this confluence of events [Arab unrest, Revolts, Libya- earthquakes, etc.] is sure to put a hold on any real strong economic growth. Now- the president gave a speech the other day- and surprisingly his number one concern was to convince the public that he is not at fault for high gas/oil prices. It was very strange for him to have focused so much on not wanting the blame. He gave some numbers- all in all he was not being totally honest with us. There are presidents who are ‘pro big oil’ [Bush] and others who simply are not. It’s not to say the more environmentally minded presidents are bad [Teddy Roosevelt did a great thing by preserving our natural habitat] but it’s deceiving to be on the less ‘big oil’ side- and then say you are one of the biggest proponents of big oil to ever be on the scene. Overall our country currently produces 7 million barrels of oil a day. We use around 20 million barrels daily. So we import the difference. Our country used to produce 10-11 million barrels a day- do the math- it’s not hard to figure this thing out. Now- why did oil prices drop recently? Japan is the 3rd biggest economy in the world [behind the U.S. and China]. The facts on the ground are Japan will not be using the large amounts of oil that they were expected to use- because they obviously will be struggling for quite some time to get back up and running again. So the demand for oil on the world market has just gone down. Overall this Japan disaster will affect the global economy in a much greater way than the unrest in Libya- Libya is important mainly because they produce oil- but their overall economy is in shambles- and has been for years. Japan is/was an economic powerhouse- a major player on the world stage. For them to have suffered such a ,major disaster- this is really devastating- if you add up all the things going on in the word right now- we haven’t been this ‘shaky’ in years- probably since the world wars. I’m not saying that will happen- I’m saying we have not seen this type of global upheaval since that time. Yes other events have happened that were big- Vietnam- 911- etc. But the totality of recent events is huge. Pray for the Japanese people- pray for Libya [Gadhafi is taking advantage of the worlds eyes being on Japan] and put your trust in God- there are many in the media who are not being upfront about the real dangers we are now facing- they do not want to cause people to panic- yet anyone who follows the events realizes we are in a very dangerous time- don’t fear- but recognize the time we are in.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

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