As The Dollar Collapses Bankers Are Taking Measures To Protect Themselves

Elites Reveal Plans For Capitalism Destruction

US Riskier Than Europe For First Time Since 2010

For the first time since early 2010, the risk of European investment grade credit is lower than that of the US. As BofA notes, recall that the European sovereign crisis escalated in the first part of 2010, as Greece had to be bailed out for the first time, and concerns spread to other countries in the periphery. However, that European spreads have now recovered - after trading at times more than 60bps weaker than US spreads - reflects more on differential technicals (flows) than fundamentals (reality). Credit spreads are currently driven mainly by technicals; this is not to say that technicals in the US credit market are not strong – they are – only that European technicals are stronger.

Furthermore, with now completely divergent central banks, BofAML believes that European technicals are going to remain stronger for longer. As they conclude,"relatively stronger US fundamentals lead to relatively weaker technicals," - or put another way "good news is bad news" for US credit markets...

Credit to Zero Hedge

IDF Chief: Israel Will Use “Force” Against Iran

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz warned of the growing security challenges facing Israel at the annual Herzliya Conference.

Gantz argued that the Syrian civil war, which has now entered its fourth year, poses a serious threat to Israel. According to Israeli intelligence, Gantz revealed that Russia is arming the Syrian army under the control of President Bashar Assad.

The chief of staff warned of two major dangers Israel faces from the Syrian conflict. The first is Assad’s strengthening relationship with radical Iran and Hezbollah. The second is the ever increasing, far reaching Global Jihad Islamist terror movement. According to Gantz, rule of law in Syria “is crashing like a house of cards. As long as Assad is there, we won’t see a meaningful solution because they [the rebels are fighting against him and not for the future.”

Hezbollah, which threatens Israel from the north in Lebanon, has aligned itself with Iran, a global sponsor of terrorist. Estimating Hezbollah’s strength, Gantz said “there are maybe four or five countries (in the region) with more fire power than Hezbollah. They have a tremendous fire power which covers all of Israel.”
“In Israel you can be drinking coffee at nine in the morning, and by four in the afternoon be at war,” warned Gantz.

Touching upon Iran’s nuclear program, Gantz made clear that Israel would not stand idly by should Iran continue to seek nuclear weapons.

“It’s possible to earnestly prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon – by force or not by force…It’s preferable without force, but if there is no choice it is possible by force. The main thing is that they don’t reach the nuclear threshold,” he stated.

Gantz believes that the Islamic Republic, which is currently engaged in nuclear talks in Geneva with world powers, is putting on a façade and is not sincere in giving up its nuclear ambitions.

“Iran will try to preserve its abilities to restore its nuclear program in the future, and to advance it. It couldn’t ignore the voice on the street (of the Iranian public), so it was forced to open dialogue with the international community while not giving up on its vision,” Gantz argued.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei echoed these same sentiments in January when he called nuclear talks “stupid and idiotic” and confirmed that Iran was merely stalling for time.


Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/16358/idf-chief-israel-will-use-force-iran/#lo4mYcpzO5qskrpg.99

BLOOD ON THE ALTAR Part Number 7

BLOOD ON THE ALTAR The Coming War Between Christian vs. Christian

Posted: June 08, 2014
8:00 am Eastern

by Sharon Gilbert

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PART 7 - WHEN NACHASH RETURNS

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From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Eph. 4:4–13).

We have in the passage above a beautiful picture of believers across the centuries as a unified group called “the body.” Each believer holds a unique and important position that contributes to the whole. We are ONE, or rather, that is how we are supposed to behave. Sadly, that is not always true now, and the rising of the Beast will—at least for a time—expose this lack of unity to all the world. Note here that Paul is calling for a unity of the body, that we mature in Christ to “full stature.” Sadly, most of us are too busy bickering to notice how our witness has slipped—how our “stature” has diminished. But, despite how the “body” sometimes behaves, Christ is our head; therefore, it is HE who directs the body, telling us how to act and react upon this earth. (Sadly, we’re often very disobedient to the directions given by our wonderful Head.) When He returns, He will continue to direct us as we serve Him during His millennial kingdom and after throughout the rest of eternity. It is my belief that Antichrist, whose wicked spirit Paul told us was already at work in the first century, will seek to mimic Christ in all ways. He will claim to BE CHRIST, therefore the Antichrist must pose as the HEAD of a BODY. This false claim may seduce some within the true body at first, but it is also my belief that this will serve to expose all those who merely profess Christ but have no true salvation relationship with Him.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

            That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is present.

            Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come the falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,

            Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

And now ye know what restraineth that he might be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hindreth will continue to hinder, until he be taken out of the way.

And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming,

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,

That they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess. 2:1–12, emphasis added)

Let’s get a little background. In fact, let’s go all the way back to Genesis 3, to the account of when Adam and Eve sinned. God in His wonderful patience not only provided for their immediate need (covering for their sin), but He also promised redemption for fallen humanity through a coming Savior. We read about this wonderful promise in God’s judgment upon the serpent:

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

            And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:14–15, emphasis added)

Did you notice that promise? God is speaking to the serpent, the tempter and villain in the garden, the original “snake in the grass.” What does God say? The serpent is a type of dragon called in Hebrew “the nachash” (For more on this, see Michael S. Heiser’s wonderful exegesis on Genesis 3 here.) What is going to happen to this serpent, this dragon? For his disobedience and for his rebellion by defying God and tempting Adam and Eve into sinning, he loses his ability to fly (“upon thy belly shalt thou go”), and he shall eat dust. This is a curious phrase, for snakes do not actually eat dust. The Hebrew words translated as “dust” in Genesis 3 appear many other times in the Old Testament, but most numerously in Job. Aphar(pronounced like the English word “afar”) may mean literal dust of the ground, ashes, powder, mortar, rubbish, debris, clay, and even ore (as in gold or silver). In other words, the serpent’s punishment is to crawl about consuming (and perhaps, by reasonable extension, excreting) trash, junk, and rubbish: the leftovers of everyday life. However, the final meaning of “dust” occurs only once, in the book of Job, where aphar is used to represent gold and silver ore, whether metaphorically or not—my Hebrew knowledge is far too scant to discern. However, my mind paints a picture of a disobedient dragon who is no longer able to fly, but instead must burrow its way into the depths of the earth, consuming detritus and even sitting on a cache upon what he perceives to be “gold.” Perhaps, you and I are the dust, the gold, the rubbish (as the dragon perceives mankind), and this sleeping dragon feeds upon our sins and failures, gaining strength so that he might soon awaken from his deep slumber, when he will seek to unseat Christ from the heavenlies.

Ezekiel 28 describes an entity that once lived in Eden but has now fallen into ruin and judgment. Called in verse 2 “the prince of Tyre,” the one referred to in the passage is surely not an earthly ruler but one with greater longevity:

Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee.

            With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasuries;

            By thy great wisdom and by thy merchandise hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches.

            Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God,

            Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.

            They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.

Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am a god? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.

Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy timbrels and of thy flutes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy merchandise; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

All they that know thee among the people shall be appalled at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more. (Ezek. 28:3–19, emphasis added)

The previous passage is often hotly debated as regards the “true” identity of the subject of God’s obvious wrath. The “prince” may have been a human “prince” (the king of Tyre) at the time this prophecy was written, but it is also clear that God’s doom is directed at someone else, someone far older than any human, someone—a creature called “the covering cherub” who walked “in the midst the stones of fire” (stones in the altar perhaps, or even stars, or planets?). God’s Word calls this entity “wiser than Daniel,” a curious turn of phrase since it is Daniel who gives us a major prophecy of the coming Antichrist (see Daniel 11). Despite this entity’s amazing “wisdom,” God promises to fling him to the ground, clipping his wings so to speak and banishing him from his fiery walkway. He will be destroyed by the “uncircumcised” of the earth. He will be brought to ashes (dust?). Why? Haughtiness and pride. His iniquitous “traffick” (i.e., merchandising or commerce). This being apparently uses his “wisdom” to create a kingdom where he benefits from commerce, accumulating gold and riches from these pursuits. Some scholars may write this off as poetry and/or metaphor, but it seems to me that the judgment of this creature is all too glaringly similar to the judgment upon the nachash in Genesis 3.

God lives in a state of constant now—He IS. You and I live in a timeline in which we experience the present, recall our past, and look forward to an unknown future. God speaks judgment from a perspective outside of our space/time continuum. He pronounces a verdict in present tense, but the final fulfillment as you and I see it may occur at a point somewhere along history’s timeline. Has the nachash been judged yet? Certainly. But has the punishment commenced in full? If this creature, the nachash, is also the dragon that enters the Man of Sin, the “prince to come” who is thrown to the ground (“on thy belly shalt thou go”) during the final seven years of premillennial history, then the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled.

This brings me back to the Antichrist and his plans to subvert Christ’s return by pretending to BE Christ, the HEAD of the BODY. If, as my theory proposes, the Internet plays a role in forming the BODY of Antichrist, then this unified collection of humanity must coalesce prior to his arrival upon the world stage. We, the TRUE BODY, currently await our Lord’s return. When Antichrist appears, He will claim to be the RETURNING MESSIAH, and he will set up his “millennial kingdom” (one that will, in reality, only last seven years). Most likely this will occur at the end of a major war in the Middle East, which Antichrist can claim is “Armageddon.” Today, many people in the world believe Armageddon to be “the end of days”; therefore, it will take very little Bible knowledge to find the Antichrist’s claim plausible. In fact, one could discern enough from the average blockbuster film or graphic novel these days! Even television programs predict an end to life or a coming cataclysm that only the arrival of super humans or one super man can prevent.

Now, we must return to our earlier definitions and the meaning of life (bet you thought I’d forgotten about that!), intelligence, and sentience. Postmodern scientists now prefer to relate life to an organism or collection of matter that can EVOLVE. Without a doubt, the Internet has indeed evolved. From its humble beginnings as an idea expressed by a psychologist who loved machines to nascent cells (individual computers) that found each other and joined along an IMP’s back, to small networks (like forming tissue), larger networks (organs), and finally a worldwide “body” of nearly nine BILLION devices, that’s more than one device for every person alive. In our house alone, we stopped counting at sixteen devices that ping our wireless router throughout the day. That sounds like a lot, and perhaps we at PID Radio and our VFTB radio program are a bit odd, but we have multiple desktops, multiple laptops, tablets, televisions (Roku and Blu-Ray streaming), and smart phones and even an iPod that scramble to bring us the latest news, social media, and email. We use these devices for ministry and work, but not all device owners have God’s will in their hearts. In fact, many—and I’d say MOST—of the connected devices in this world are poised for evil deeds and/or warfare.

Of course, the Internet has not yet permeated every crevice of every corner of the planet, but it is almost there. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is committed to bringing the Internet to all people.^[i] In fact, to quoteZuckerberg in response to one of Steven Levy’s questions from the cited article at Wired.com:

LEVY: You say connectivity is a human right—up there with freedom of expression, freedom from hunger, and other essential rights. Can you explain?

MZ: The story of the next century is the transition from an industrial, resource-based economy to a knowledge economy. An industrial economy is zero sum. If you own an oil field, I cannot go in that same oil field. But knowledge works differently. If you know something, then you can share that—and then the whole world gets richer. But until that happens, there’s a big disparity in wealth. The richest 500 million have way more money than the next six billion combined. You solve that by getting everyone online, and into the knowledge economy—by building out the global internet. (emphasis added)

What Zuckerberg is saying here is that every human being has a RIGHT to knowledge. While that sounds reasonable at first, it echoes the words spoken by the nachash in Eden, who promised access to KNOWLEDGE with the added perk that “ye shall be as gods.”

Singularitans and transhumanists would agree with old nachash. Scientists (men with special “knowledge”) like George Church and Ray Kurzweil dream of a world in which everyone is connected and even uploaded into a mainframe. A recent Doctor Who episode, “The Time of the Doctor,” featured a woman called Tasha Lem,^[ii] who served as the Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe, a church that could change its “faith” on a dime (becoming The Silence, including a subversive splinter group that sought to undo the true mission of the “church”) and that operated across the galaxy using its own military for backup. The program’s premise may not be that far off of truth. Our future as a planet may hinge on whether we fall for the “collective” party line that we are all getting better. As my niece says, that’s “ate up in the head” thinking.

Sadly, most people will indeed fall in step with the new religion of a hive mind—the BODY or the MANY. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many—or the one.^[iii] Doctor Who, mentioned earlier, is a science fiction program with a whole slew of villains who want to remove you from existence, delete you, or upgrade you. Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of mechanized organisms like “the Daleks” or computerized upgrades like “the Cybermen” illustrate what can go horribly wrong when cyber intellects rule the world.

Credit to Raidersnewsupdate

June 9, 2014 VISION OF THE RAPTURE-Prophet Dr. Owuor

EZEKIEL 38 THE CENTER OF THE CYCLONE

By Paul McGuire

The subject of Israel and the role of the Jewish people is a topic that elicits strong emotions whenever it is brought up. In addition, with America, EU, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, and Israel converging in both economic and geopolitical conflict, Israel is once again at the center of the geopolitical cyclone. The European Union, Russia, Syria, Iran, and Israel are all nations prominently featured in various Old Testament prophecies, especially those in Ezekiel Chapter 38, foretelling a last day’s invasion of the nation of Israel led by Russia and Iran, along with an alliance of Middle Eastern nations. This invasion is also known as the War of Gog and Magog.

It is interesting to note that Bible scholars who have researched Russia and the nations that come against Israel believe that the nation of Russia is clearly identified in the Bible, and specifically the nation of Ukraine and the nations surrounding the Ukraine. Right now Russia is involved in a conflict with the U.S. and NATO over the Ukraine. This is a strategic conflict that goes back to Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, who created one of the world’s fiercest military forces inside of the Ukraine, in order to strike Russia. The military infrastructure inside of the Ukraine that is being financed by NATO and U.S. interests to fight Russia consists of a Neo-Nazi military force. The Ukraine throughout history has been a key nation in the control of Eurasia, and Brzezinski and other leaders have often commented that the empire or nation which controls Eurasia controls the world. Some of Russia’s most important oil pipelines cross the Ukraine, and Russia has partnered with Iran to sell oil to China and to Western Europe.

And Russia, Iran, China, and a growing list of nations are no longer using the U.S. dollar as the defacto world currency. If the U.S. loses the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts this would accelerate the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency and hit the U.S. economically like a tsunami. The Russia and Ukraine conflict is all about oil and the U.S. dollar and the Syrian conflict is about the control of oil in that region along with the power of the U.S. dollar.

Other forces that are at play in these conflicts are the rise of both Neo-Nazi and right wing political groups who oppose the European Union in favor of national sovereignty. In the Ukraine the U.S. and NATO are partnering with Neo-Nazi groups to fight Russia. In Greece and Cypress there is the rise of Neo-Nazi groups like O.T.O. and Golden Dawn. In addition, Western interests are partnering with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in fighting Russia and the competing Muslim forces of Iran. It was Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, who was instrumental in raising up Osama bin Laden and the Mujahedeen, later known as Al Qaeda, to fight Russia in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

Anti-Semitism has continued to spread throughout Europe and the Roman Empire since the time of Jesus Christ. Adolph Hitler blamed the Jews and the alleged Jewish banking elite for Germany’s problems when he wrote Mein Kampf, where he referred to an alleged world conspiracy in a document known as “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” that was first published in Russia in 1903.

“The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” outlined a brutal plan by a secret conspiracy of Jews to take over the world; scholars and historians debate the authorship of the document. Hitler and others believed it was a legitimate document written by an evil Jewish elite. This is still a belief held by millions of people in Russia and in many Islamic nations. Critics of the document believe that it was not authored by the Jews, but that it was a forgery written to instill hatred against them. Others believe that if it was written by Jews, that it was written by a tiny fanatical cult. When you travel in Islamic nations you see copies of the book prominently displayed in the windows of bookstores. The problem in believing that the document represented the consensus of a Jewish elite is that its contents are a total rejection of the Torah and the entire Old Testament. “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” is Satanic in nature and if it was written by Jews, it would have to have been Jews who had completely rejected the Law of Moses and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.



Going back to the time of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem and the soldiers of the Vatican and Europe attempting to control Jerusalem, both Muslims and Catholics have promoted anti-Semitism, passed on to the Protestant Church through the reformer Martin Luther. It is this anti-Semitism which provided fertile soil for the hatred of the Jews by Adolph Hitler and led to the Holocaust.

In Ezekiel 38, Russia, Iran, and an alliance of Muslim nations invade Israel due to a “hook placed in the mouth of Russia” to bring Russia down to invade Israel. That hook could very well be the oil discovered off the coast of Israel.In Ezekiel 38, God supernaturally destroys all the nations invading Israel. The basis for God’s defense of Israel escapes Israel’s critics,although some are aware of the everlasting Abrahamic Covenant where God specifically grants the geographic land of Israel to Abraham and his physical descendants. The argument by those who challenge Israel’s right to the land is that the current Jews in Israel are not actually the genetic descendants of Abraham and thus the covenant is null and void. From a scientific standpoint that is a highly speculative argument because a large percentage of the Jews in Israel are genetically the descendants of Abraham.

The second argument is that the unbelief and secularism of the Jews in Israel disqualifies them from a right to the land. However, Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah specifically predicted that in the latter days the Jewish people would return to the land in unbelief. During a Tribulation Period, known as “The Time of Jacob’s Trouble” the Jewish people would regain their belief in God and in Israel’s Messiah.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is stirred up by groups who exploit the tendency of some Jews and Jewish groups to target Christian groups as being the source of hatred of the Jews. This targeting comes from the experience of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany where Christians and Christian churches joined Hitler in what eventually became known as the Holocaust. I remember meeting the grandparents of my friends in New York City who still had the tattoos put on them in the concentration camps.

However, the greatest support for the land of Israel outside of the Jewish community is among Bible believing Christians, especially those who take the subject of Bible prophecy seriously. Yet it is these very same groups who have been targeted by some Jewish organizations. The charge has been made by some leaders in the Jewish community that these Christians who believe in Bible prophecy see the Jewish people as little more than cartoon characters in some kind of end time’s comic book. In some cases that may be true, but in most cases it is not. It is this demographic of Christians who are Israel’s strongest defenders. When they are targeted and mocked, it only serves to empower other groups who are Anti-Israel.

Whether or not you believe the prophecies regarding Israel are literal or allegorical, it is important to understand them in order to comprehend the global geopolitical situation. The prophet Zechariah said that “Jerusalem would be a cup of trembling in the last days,” and, indeed, Israel is the center of a fearful struggle on a geopolitical level. Economic, geopolitical, and military forces are converging upon Israel, drawing in Russia, Ukraine, EU, America, Iran, and Syria.

The global financial system and the fate of the U.S. dollar are all connected to Israel. The Abrahamic Covenant declares that “Those who bless Israel will be blessed and those that curse Israel will be cursed.” This does not imply a blanket endorsement of everything the largely secular State of Israel does. But according to Bible prophecy Israel is God’s prophetic time clock and there is a reason why Israel was reformed as a nation in 1948 after over 2,000 years of non-existence. Alexander the Great discovered that he was referenced in the Book of Daniel, which was written before his birth, and he traveled to Jerusalem to find out the meaning of these prophecies, which today provide a transcendent understanding of current events.

Credit to Newswithviews.com

An Increased Minimum Wage Equals Greater Unemployment

By Alan Caruba




It’s June, a month famed for marriages, but it is likely to be remembered for the high rate of teen unemployment which has been soaring for a long time. By February, the national unemployment rate for youth, age 16 to 19, had reached 20.7%. By November 2013 it was three times higher than the national average of 6.6% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Teens are rivaled by the number of American men in their prime working years, a record 1-in-8,who are not in the labor force. These men, age 25-54, represent 61.1 million who are either not working or no longer looking for work. The Weekly Standard reported that “This is an all-time high dating back to when records were first kept in 1955.”

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in February that said the wage hike to $10.10 could result in a net loss of about a half a million workers at the same time in increased wages for 16.5 million others.

So, naturally, President Obama in his State of the Union speech, called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to 10.10 an hour. Soon after, he signed an Executive Order to raise the minimum wage for individuals working on new federal service contracts. That means that taxpayers will pay more for those services as the cost gets passed along. Does he have the power to impose the increase? Probably not.

Meanwhile in California where countless businesses are fleeing thanks to the insanity of its liberal legislature and Governor, as May ended its senate approved a measure that would lift the state pay floor to $13.00 an hour by 2017. If it becomes law, Californians will be interacting with machines for everything from banking to filling their gas tank to having a fast-food meal. Even more insane, Seattle has become home to the highest minimum wage in the nation, $15.00 an hour!

Minimum wage laws have been around a long time. Their original goal was to raise the income of the working poor, but the fact that there is still talk of raising them suggests they don’t work as intended. Letting the job market determine wages holds a greater promise of increased wages because businesses have to remain competitive and that means paying a wage that attracts skilled and even unskilled workers.

As Thomas E. Hall, the author of “Aftermath: The Unintended Consequences of Public Policies” (Cato Institute, $24.95, due in August) notes, “The living wage concept moved to the forefront during the Industrial Revolution, along with calls to end practices such as child labor and conditions poor working women faced. Massachusetts passed the nation’s first minimum wage law in 1912.

One of the outcomes of the Great Depression, 1929 to 1941, was the inclusion of a minimum wage as part of the New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act. Suffice to say, the NIRA, which actually encouraged businesses to collude together to set prices, failed to promote economic recovery. It was very unpopular and in 1935 the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

Because liberals never learn anything from experience, the NIRA was resurrected later in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that raised the minimum wage to 40 cents in 1945. “The United States has had a federal minimum wage ever since.”

Politicians and even some demented economists like the minimum wage. Every time it is raised, it appears to the general public that working people benefit. The problem is that the wage increases also include increases in unemployment as businesses try to contain costs in order to remain competitive and make a profit.

As Hall, a professor of economics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, notes, “The minimum wage’s first significant impact on national labor market conditions occurred in 1956, when the hourly rate was raised from 75 cents to $1.00.” The increase had its “greatest impact on teenagers because they possess the fewest marketable skills among the working-age population. Also, teens often do, or have in the past, worked at jobs easily replaceable with machinery or by conducting business in a different manner.”

The minimum wage rate, nonetheless, has continued to increase since the 1950s and, “By the early 1990s, these changes had caused to minimum wage to apply to over 90 percent of the U.S. workforce.”

Here’s the fundamental lesson about the minimum wage that continues to be ignored. “President Ronald Reagan, who occupied the White House from 1981 to 1989, did not support further increases because he believed that raising the minimum wage would discourage employment growth…during that decade, the U.S. economy created 18 million new jobs.”

As Hall succinctly points out “Remember that the minimum wage is just a government-imposed price-fixing scheme that creates winners and losers.”

Teens that stayed in school and will either be facing a summer vacation or graduating are particularly disadvantaged by a minimum wage law.

“The effects of high unemployment among this demographic group,” says Hall, “should not be discounted. One reason is that the lack of employment opportunities for young people deprives them of valuable work experience in the form of learning the responsibility of showing up for a job on time, learning to follow directions and complete tasks, learning to work with others…these skills can prove to be beneficial later in life.”

It is likely that the minimum wage is also a factor in why many men in the 25-54 age cohort are not working either. This is hardly the time to be increasing the rate unless you want to see the rate of unemployment increase for all ages and both sexes.

By contrast, in addition to the energy sector, the sector that builds machines to replace human workers is likely to do very well over the coming years.




Credit to Canadafreepress.com

Less than ten percent of all born again Christians have a Biblical world view

George Barna, a pollster with an independent marketing research company, found in a recent survey that only 4% of the overall population of America and 9% of born-again Christians have a biblical world view, suggesting that many of the nation's moral and spiritual challenges are directly attributable to this fact.

For the purposes of the research, a biblical world view was defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists, that such truth is defined by the Bible, and that the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.

Jimmy De Young's Prophetic Prospective on the News

A biblical world view based upon understanding Bible prophecy is essential for an understanding of the times we live in today.
Let's look at the provision in scripture for a biblical world view. All scripture is God breathed. That means it's inspired and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, and instruction in righteousness, that's II Timothy 3:16. God gave the scriptures to the Jew to preserve and communicate to mankind, Romans 3:1-2. And thus, we have His written Word for us today. Our blessings and understanding comes from God's provision of His heart, His mind, His thoughts in written form, the Bible.

Now, let's look at the priority for studying a biblical world view. The Apostle Paul wrote that we must study the Word of God, a workman that need not be ashamed, relying on God's Word for all of life's questions. We must rightly divide the Word of truth, the Bible, to ascertain its true meaning. These two principles, study and rightly dividing the Word of God, are instruction for the End Times and they come from Paul's exhortation to young Timothy found in II Timothy 2:15.

Finally, let's look at the prophetic scenario of a biblical world view. A study of Bible prophecy reveals the scenario for the Last Days with a seven year period of judgment in our world followed by the return of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, to establish His Kingdom here on earth. However, preceding that seven years of judgment, those who are true born again Christians will be taken out of this world to be with Jesus Christ, that's the Rapture.

Allowing the Bible to form our world view prepares us for these future events and gives us evidence as to how close they may be.


Credit to Prophecy Today.com

County Sheriff’s Chilling Justification for Bringing Former Military Vehicles to Local Police Forces

Pulaski County, Indiana, is home to less than 14,000 people. In all of 2012, they saw only 11 larceny or theft incidents, one murder and a grand total of 17 property crimes.

Yet, their police force has a mine-resistant ambush protection vehicle at their disposal.


Mine resistant vehicles and other wartime assets are going to law enforcement agencies across the nation. The Pulaski County Sheriff in Indiana received an MRAP to police its roughly 14,000 citizens, and a county with the same name in Arkansas got one as well, shown here (Image source: KTHV-TV).

“It’s more intimidating than a Dodge,” Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer told the Indianapolis Star.

Eight Indiana law enforcement agencies acquired MRAPs from military surplus since 2010, The Indianapolis Star reported. The vehicles are among a broad array of 4,400 items — everything from coats to computers to high-powered rifles — acquired by police and sheriff’s departments across the state.

“The United States of America has become a war zone,” Sheriff Gayer said when justifying the purchase. “There’s violence in the workplace, there’s violence in schools and there’s violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Mark Wright, a Pentagon spokesman, told TheBlaze any federal or state law enforcement agency whose officers “have arrest and apprehension authority can request and potentially receive excess DoD personal property,” but a quick look at the type of equipment the police forces across the nation are arming themselves with indicates preparation for worst-case scenarios rather than typical criminal activity.

Since 2006, police in six states have received magazines that carry 100 rounds of M-16 ammunition, allowing officers to fire continuously for three times longer than normal. Twenty-two states obtained equipment to detect buried land mines. Law enforcement in 38 states have received silencers, which soldiers use to muffle gunfire during raids and sniper attacks; one rural county in North Dakota has 40 silencers to police the 11,000 people in the county.

According to an April 2013 audit, Utah police possessed $2.8 million of weapons and other military gear received through the program, including four grenade launchers, 17 .45-caliber pistols and a handful of magazines and weapon accessories.

“The United States of America has become a war zone.” — Sheriff Gayer, Pulaski County, Indiana.

Congress created the military-transfer program in the early 1990s, when violent crime plagued America’s cities and the police felt outgunned by drug gangs, according to the New York Times. Today, crime has fallen to its lowest levels in a generation, the wars have wound down and, despite the Department of Justice’s insistence that a revival of the Domestic Terror Task Force is necessary, the number of domestic terrorist attacks has declined sharply from the 1960s and 1970s.

The DoD 1033 program allows surplus military equipment to be handed over to state and local civilian law enforcement agencies for use in counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism operations, or to enhance officer safety. And keeping their officers safe is the primary reason most law enforcement leadership offer for why they take on the advanced weaponry.

Credit to The Blaze

Gun and ammunition shortage hits Australia

A shortage of guns and ammunition in the US has spread to Australian shores, causing problems for farmers, security contractors and sporting shooters across the country.

Domestic importers say the shortage is being driven by the current gun debate in America.

The managing director of Nioa, Australia's biggest wholesaler of firearms and ammunition, says the situation reached crisis point at the end of last year.

"The current situation came about immediately after the last US election where Barack Obama was re-elected," managing director Robert Nioa said.

"The American shooting population felt that in his second term he would be likely to introduce more restrictions on firearms and ammunition and they all have started buying up in expectation of those changes."

Mr Nioa says the company has been forced to wait up to three years for some of its American stock to arrive, leaving customers to make do with existing products.

"It's meant increased lead times for customers that are waiting up to a year, sometimes two years, for firearms or specific ammunition, and it's meant that our stockpiles that we had previously are being diminished so we don't have much of a buffer stock," he said.

"Some firearms have been delayed as much as three years for getting deliveries, but we're starting to see that delivery time come back down to the six months to 12-month timeframe now.

"The big delays have been in centre-fire ammunition that farmers might use and also projectiles and ammunition components that [a] target shooter might use for competing in Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games-style events."

Credit to Australian Broadcasting Corporation News