Part one of this series dealt a little bit with politics and how I feel about politics in relation to Biblical prophecy. The Bible says that during the end times there will exist a global centralization of three major aspects of life… government, economy, and religion. Part one delved into the political aspect of government and how the world, specifically, the political world is leaning toward centralization and collective thinking is the prevailing fad amongst politicians. Part two will explain a global economy existent in the end times and how current events are racing towards that end.
First, I think a brief explanation of economy is important. Economy is the term we use to describe the management of trade of goods and services for one another. We each experienced economy from an early age when we let a friend borrow a toy in exchange for something else. I’m sure every red blooded male who ever had baseball cards was involved in trading them. We placed a value on them and decided what we could get in exchange for them. This is the purest form of economy we can experience and possibly understand. I struggled through an 8 AM Microeconomics class my freshman year in college. My first college class experience was a crazy professor trying to explain charts and graphs involved the economics of apples and beer at 8 in the FREAKIN’ morning! Fun times! Anyway, trading things is what keeps everyone and everything going. Currency is the medium of exchange that we use. The amount of currency you possess indicates your trading power and thus, your wealth. In the beginning, man used land and livestock as currency. Then we upgraded to coinage. Paper money was next and then we decided to go cyber and do it electronically. This progression is extremely important to how Biblical prophecy is fulfilled.
Revelation 13:16-18 describes a case where at some point in the future, one entity will control the economy in such a way that no one in the world will be able to by or sell without the mark of the beast. This is only possible if there is a centralized economy. If every nation but one has a joint economy, then the citizens of that nation could trade with one another outside of the guidelines of the rest of the world. This scenario shows how a centralized global economy is the ONLY way that this prophecy can come true. The world is in such a way that now that the platform for this centralization is built. Allow me to explain.
When man was first trading land and livestock, trade was limited by distant. You could only trade so much land and livestock could only go so far. This was basically regional. Plus, a Himalayan yak would not be worth much to nomads in a desert region, so value was also regionally limited. Man decided that jewels and coins made of certain materials could be accepted. Gold coins could be traded anywhere to anyone because of the intrinsic value of gold. The gold is valuable in and of itself, thus it is universally acceptable. You could buy a certain amount of goods with a gold coin because the seller could then trade the coin for goods of equal value to what he just sold. This, however also has limitations based on quantity. There is only so much gold to go around and it cannot be replenished. Whatever gold came with the Earth is all the gold the Earth is ever gonna get! Plus, gold and silver is heavy. Imagine trying to carry around enough gold to buy stuff. It was burdensome to say the least. Paper currency came along as an exchange for gold. It was a system to where a paper certificate would be worth a certain amount of gold or silver or whatever. Traders could exchange these certificates amongst one another knowing that the value of the certificate was based on the value of gold thus these certificates could be exchanged for a certain amount of gold. The importance of this segment is that it gave trade measurable units to operate with. Gold would need to be weighed, measured, and so forth. Paper money was easily reproducible and was much easier to deal with. One certificate was worth one certificate… easy enough. This is the history of the American dollar. Once, it was backed in gold and silver. However, the dollar is now considered a free floating currency. This means the value of the dollar is based on the strength of how it trades with other currencies. It’s a bit complicated, but noteworthy nonetheless. More on this in a minute. Technology came about in such a way that allowed for currency to be recorded electronically. This allowed the transfer of currency to happen electronically. This latest addition took away the need for people to carry certain amounts of paper money with them. They only needed an access point electronically to make the transfer. In essence, you could trade for goods with only an electronic transfer of funds from one account to another without ever presenting "hard" currency to do it. Whoever receives the funds knows that they can be exchanged for the equivalent amount of hard currency. This was debit/credit based system that we use today.
As populations soared to new heights, demand for goods increased exponentially and trade between nations became inevitable. One nation could then produce a large amount of one good that could be traded to another nation for other goods. One nation could specialize in a particular good and setup exchange for a good that it could not produce as easily. For example, a nation that could produce large amounts of wheat, but not oil could trade with an oil rich country. This created trade exchange rates: so many units of wheat is equal to a certain number of units of oil. Larger nations such as the US were able to produce multiple goods in large quantities while smaller nations specialized. This led to international trade. Now, this is really noting new. This has been going on forever. In modern international trade, nations will hold reserve currency to buy certain goods. The most prominent reserve currency is the US dollar. It is used because it has historically been a strong and stable currency unit. Oil is an example of a good that is traded specifically with the dollar. No one buys oil with any other unit of currency except the dollar. This means that oil consuming nations must hold vast amounts of US dollars within their own treasuries to use when oil purchases must be made. There are several problems with this system, but that is for another discussion. The gist is that the currency of one nation is intrinsically important to the economics of many other nations as well.
What does all of this mean? National economic policies are determined by international factors is this era more than any other. The United States unpegged the dollar from the gold standard during the 20th century. This allowed the dollars to float freely against other currencies around the world. This means that the dollar is no longer backed by the amount of gold reserves the US held. A large amount of US dollars remain in other nations in order to buy oil. What would happened if say an oil producing nation stop accepting dollars as the universal standard and began accepting another currency unit instead (Iran has threatened to do this by the way)? First, the value of the dollar would plummet as nations would need to liquidate its dollar reserve to obtain the new currency unit. This would flood the market with cash. As the rush to trade the dollar escalated, the floating exchange would lead to lopsided values of say five to one or even worse. This means it would take 5 dollars to purchase 1 of the other currency units. Not only that, but some other nations peg their currencies against the dollars value. If the dollar drops in value, so does their own. If other oil producing nations follow suit, then the dollar would drastically lose its value causing economic chaos for many nations. The current economic crisis is being felt by nations all over the world. Trading in European and Asian markets has seen drops associated by the problems here in America.
The nations of the world are beginning to coalesce economically as the realization that solidarity in trading and currencies make for a more secure and stable marketplace. How much so would a common economic unit be? Imagine… trading with one common global currency… economic policies of individual nations converging to benefit the good of everyone. As mentioned in part one, in order for nations to come together under a global, centralized government, they need a good reason to do so. Economics is just as good a reason as any, if not the best. Centralization of economics would need a central body of government to maintain fairness and stability. In a sense, these two work hand in hand. One makes the other more palatable to all involved. Are we leaning in that direction…? Resoundingly… YES!!!
Part three will attempt to wrap up this commentary by looking at the most esoteric and divisive portion of the triad… religion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment