What about adding in our "Captains of Industry" among the culprits? Even in the boom days of the W. administration, public mood was still black because real wages had actually fallen for eight straight years. For sure, many borrowers were plain irresponsible, but many solid workers simply cannot afford to be in the middle class any more because industry just hasn't been expanding. I fear that this stagnation in the economy is not a financial I-can't-get-a-business-loan issue, it's really a complete lack of vision and actual technical / business know-how among our leaders. The economy was only "growing" because of financial smoke and mirrors.

Sir;...The head line of your article makes you a man instead of a mick, and then you throw it all away with your first line, of IT being a verdict upon a generation...Was it a generation that executed Jesus, or Socrates???Was it a generation that hung John Brown, or shot Lincoln??? All these crimes were the guilt of those who had the power to do them, and no more... So with the crimes of capital...The terrible thing about forms is the good thing about forms: That they resist change...The form of a house would not be much good if it were made of straw... A good house is made to resist the elements... But if a house should stand in the way of a better house or a highway or progress, then watch people scramble to change the situation...A good economy, or a good government should also resist change; but this very resistence to change that puts it beyond the power of any generation, also means catastrophic failure alone may bring on change... What we must realize is stated in the Declaration of Independence...People are naturally conservative... We have a visceral fear of change because change will eventually bring death....But death is all the more certain where people cannot change their forms...It is human nature, especially in a place like this, a nation state where not one man has any naural affection for another, for people to turn their form to their own benefit, and to suck the life and the value out of it... The value has been sucked out of our government... The value has been sucked out of our economy...I trust the value has been sucked out of our common religion....We must understand that our society is unnatural...It is not based upon a common shared nature....We are no true nation; so the temptation to fatten self on the body politic is often irresistable....And such behavor takes the meaning from our shared history and common desires...You are correct that this is a systemic failure...It is a great mistake to build forms for the ages that may not serve the needs of the ages...We have organizations that are essentially outside of the form...Parties are extraconstitutional...Churches in their political organization are extraconstitutional... This does not limit their power to influence progress, or to limit change, or even to divide this people into helplessness....But if our constitution cannot limit these extraconstitutional forces, then the constitution is a systemic failure...The existence of labor unions to accomplish what the government was formed to accomplish, and refuses to accomplish, or prevented from accomplishing by extra constitutional forces means a systemic failure.... WE have to understand that governments and economies are not different as forms from marriage as a form....We all have too little life, and too little time to beat our brains out against forms that do not serve our existence, or the long term existence of our kind....People break forms that do not work...Our form works for one percent of the people, and yet all the people live in fear of what might be made in its place....Get control over change.....Change before it becomes a matter of violence and civil war....Look at how often the issue of slavery could have been addressed if people had been willing to chomp the bit, and drag the plow...Instead, out of laziness, or cowardice they put off a small problem to future generations; and again, that was a systemic problem, that people like Lincoln could see coming a mile away....The civil war did not end our problem with property rights, and we have reached the point where we must surrender to slavery or take our land back...We must not fear to change our forms, but have the courage to seize change and control it so we will not be the victims of peacemeal change as we have been....The system has failed..We must decide whether we will fail with it, or progress beyond it... Thanks....Sweeney

PB wrote: Systemic Failure it is hard not to see in all of this history's verdict upon this generation. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Their name is legion. There is that den of thieves at Fannie . . . In short, this generation of political and financial elites has proven itself unfit to govern a great nation. What we have is a system failure that is rooted in a societal failure. Behind our disaster lie the greed, stupidity and incompetence of the leadership of a generation. . . . "Avarice, ambition," warned John Adams, "would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." . . . In this deepening crisis, what is being tested is not simply the resilience of capitalism, but the character of a people. . .
HERE IS WHAT IS COMING: Ezekiel 39 selections to be compared with the Zechariah 12 selections following.
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog [China in Aramaic], and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog [China in Aramaic] , the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: . . .
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. . .
21-29 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward. And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword.

If you read the previous chapter please notice that the timing for Ezekiel 38 is when they dwelt safely in their land.
This is just the opposite of how Israel is today as Dr. John F. Walvoord pointed out. Ezekiel 38 does not apply to the situation in Israel today. However, Ezekiel 39 shows us Israel today, strong militarily, as it is also in Zechariah 12. The next siege of Jerusalem and Judea [southern Israel] is what is next, Here is how it will turn out.

1: The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2: Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3: And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4: In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5: And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
6: In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
7: The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
8: In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
9: And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10: And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

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