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A Service of the Church of God Faithful Flock
Weekly News and Commentary - Last Updated: Thursday, October 09, 2008
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WORLD NEWS BULLETIN
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It was the longest day in the battle to rescue the world's stricken economy from the financial crisis which had left banks teetering. Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor, reports from Washington
The world's central banks and governments appear to be running out of ammo in the face of a financial crisis that has been intensifying by the hour.
Even the unprecedented global interest-rate cut of half a percentage point yesterday had only the most limited effect, while the IMF called the credit crisis "the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s" and warned of a recession in the UK and elsewhere next year.
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There is real danger that Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah could form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Extremist group operatives have already been identified in several Latin American countries, mostly involved in fundraising and finding logistical support. But Charles Allen, chief of intelligence analysis at the Homeland Security Department, said they could use well-established smuggling routes and drug profits to bring people or even weapons of mass destruction to the U.S.
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By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
October 8, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund, in its bleakest forecast in years, said on Wednesday the world economy was set for a major downturn with the United States and Europe either in or on the brink of recession.
The IMF said the worst financial trauma since the Great Depression would exact a heavy economic toll as investors wrestle with a crisis of confidence and global credit is choked off.
"The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook..
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October 9, 2008
By Lesley Wroughton and Emily Kaiser
http://news.yahoo.com
 Critics concerned that unit will be used for law enforcement
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States military's Northern Command, formed in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is dedicating a combat infantry team to deal with catastrophes in the U.S., including terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
The 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry, which was first into Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003, started its controversial assignment Wednesday.
The First Raiders will spend 2009 as the first active-duty military unit attached to the U.S. Northern Command since it was created. They will be based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, and focus primarily on logistics and support for local police and rescue personnel, the Army says.
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Editorial
 Our wretched economy of false valuations cannot continue much longer. It is the domestic counterpart of President Bush's past friendship with Vladimir Putin. It is the fantasy world of an everlasting bull market and "successful" government bailouts. The political leadership in America has demonstrated that it doesn't understand economics. They cannot solve the present crisis unless they go back to school and consult the wisdom they have so long neglected. They have built their post- Cold War world on a false boom, on false "partnerships" with enemies. They have pe rmitted a policy of credit expansion without end.
"Credit expansion," wrote the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, "is the governments' foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods … and to make everybody prosperous." But everyone cannot be prosperous. The boom created by credit expansion cannot last. This is what the leaders of the United States have missed. "The inescapable consequences of credit expansion," wrote Mises, "are shown by the theory of the trade cycle. Even those economists who still refuse to acknowledge the correctness of the … credit theory of the cyclical fluctuations of business have never dared to question the conclusiveness and irrefutability of what this theory asserts with regard to the necessary effects of credit expansion."
And what are these effects?
According to Ludwig von Mises, an upswing occasioned by credit expansion can only be maintained by further credit expansion; and, in the long run, "it turns into depression when the further progress of credit expansion stops." This outcome is absolutely certain and today's financial crisis underscores the point. The economic boom of recent years has been propelled forward by an unprecedented credit expansion. At each turn, when the market was threatened with contraction, further credit expansion was urged.
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by J. R. Nyquist
September 26,.2008
http://www.financialsense.com/
Picture of the Week
Dust Mountains in the Carina Nebula
Bright young stars sometimes sculpt picturesque dust mountains soon after being born. Created quite by accident, the energetic light and winds from these massive newborn stars burn away accumulations of dark dust and cool gas in a slow but persistent manner. Such is the case in NGC 3324, a star forming region near the edge of NGC 3372, the energetic and expansive Carina Nebula. Pictured above, in scientifically assigned colors, is only a small part of NGC 3324. The Carina Nebula itself is one of the largest star forming regions known and home to Eta Carinae, one of the most unstable and variable stars known. The above image was created from archived Hubble Space Telescope data in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Hubble Heritage Project. The Hubble Heritage Project has created, so far, nearly 130 visually stunning images.
World News Bulletin is dedicated to bringing you up to date news from around the world with a Biblical Perspective and Focus. We strive to bring the why behind the news from the standpoint of Bible Prophecy.
As of April 30th, we will be bringing you news as it happens on a daily basis. Instead of creating a new page each week and adding to it, we will be adding and deleting articles as we come across stories of interest. In doing this we will no longer be archiving the stories.
Daily news of great interest will be shown here with links to the page that details the items. We are always looking for ways to improve our service. Please let us know how we can improve. Also any editorial commentary that you would like to post on this site can be sent to this email:
Editorial Comment for review and approval.
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Editorial
Along with some of Wall Street's most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.
The implosion of America's most storied investment banks. The vanishing of more than a trillion dollars in stock-market wealth in a day. A $700 billion tab for U.S. taxpayers. The scale of the Wall Street crackup could scarcely be more gargantuan. Yet even as Americans ask why they're having to pay such mind-bending sums to prevent the economy from imploding, few are discussing a more intangible, yet potentially much greater cost to the United States—the damage that the financial meltdown is doing to America's "brand."
Ideas are one of our most important exports, and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was elected president. The first was a certain vision of capitalism—one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be the engine for economic growth. Reaganism reversed a century-long trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world.
The second big idea was America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world, which was seen as the best path to a more prosperous and open international order. America's power and influence rested not just on our tanks and dollars, but on the fact that most people found the American form of self-government attractive and wanted to reshape their societies along the same lines—what political scientist Joseph Nye has labeled our "soft power."
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Francis Fukuyama
October 13, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/
Morning Edition, October 8, 2008 ยท Iceland could become the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial crisis. The nation's currency has lost nearly half of its value and banks are collapsing under the heavy debt.
In recent days, Iceland has taken over the country's second-biggest bank, fixed the exchange rate of its plummeting currency, and asked Russia for a euro4 billion loan as it scrambled to stop the collapse of its economy.
It has also introduced emergency laws that give the government sweeping new powers to take over companies, limit the authority of boards, and call shareholder meetings.
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Editorial
Alan Greenspan, that grandmaster of good timing, last week described the current financial crisis as "probably a once-in-a-century event". The Great Depression began less than 80 years ago but, then again, we are in a different century. Whether or not this will be the worst such upheaval the world has to face between now and 2099, the fact that nothing as bad as the Depression occurred between the 1930s and now is in itself remarkable.
It was Hyman Minsky, one of the few economists of his generation to think seriously about financial crises, who observed in 1982 that the most significant economic event since the second world war "is something that has not happened: there has not been a deep and long-lasting depression". Could it now, at long last, be happening?
If so, it is no wonder that Wall Street's finest have been caught out so completely. After all, the average bank chief executive's career has spanned little more than 25 years. Nothing that happened between 1983 and 2007 remotely prepared today's masters of the universe for this.
The widely read newsletter published by the Bridgewater hedge fund put it bluntly last week: "With interest rates heading toward 0 per cent, financial intermediaries broken and the deleveraging well under way, it appears that we are headed into a new domain in which the classic monetary tools won't work." This domain is likely to have a "1930s dynamic".
Biblical Perspective
Here is a link with some information which will not be emphasized in the national news. You are all, no doubt, aware of the continuing mortgage/housing crisis which is intensifying in the USA. There are numerous articles and stories about that fact. Some of these stories have cited the incredibly large number of unsold and/or foreclosed properties in the residential property markets. This huge surplus of "supply" in the housing market is occurring at the same time that a major decline in the purchasing power and liquidity of American consumers is creating a reduced "demand" for such properties. This has to lead to a continuous decline in American property values until some point of equilibrium is obtained in the markets. Either prices must fall a lot more or more buyers must come into the market to reach that equilibrium point.
The link below details that foreigners and foreign Sovereign Wealth Funds are buying up "tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country." One West Coast mortgage broker is acting as an agent for an anonymous foreign national fund which has earmarked "$29 billion" to buy up distressed US properties. If just one property broker is serving to buy up a vast swath of US properties for just one foreign government's sovereign fund, one wonders how many properties are being bought up all across the nation by brokers representing the sovereign wealth funds of many other nations. The link mentions Abu Dhabi, Norway, Singapore and Kuwait as having large sovereign wealth funds which could be buying up US properties. Given the gargantuan dollar surpluses now located in China, Chinese sovereign wealth funds could also be buying up large tracts of US real estate. Russia's dollar surpluses from its energy businesses could also buy up many American properties.
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Health Alert
 MERCENARIES HARASS CHEMTRAILS RESEARCHER IN FLORIDA
"Sandra" started out "trying to figure out the chemtrails" in November 2007. Debilitated with Lyme disease, she was directing a conference when some researchers concerned for her health and exposure told her about chemtrails.
A few months ago, Sandra went to the mayor, chief of police and county commissioner near Tampa, Florida with her pictures of chemtrails over the Tampa, Florida area - and chemtrails complaint. The county commissioner went to see Senator Bill Young, and the state congressional Representative.
The chemtrails stopped.
"They weren't completely blatant. They would go out into the gulf and spray and let them come in," Sandra explained. "They're not spraying directly anymore," she reconfirmed. "They're sneaky about it. When it's getting ready to rain, they'll spray above the clouds." more...
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