As unpatriotic and insane as it may sound, an economic depression may be the best thing that could happen to America in a long time. It will force Americans to get back to the basics of life, and rebuild their lives on a foundation of productive work and sensible spending. We should not forget that the Pilgrims came to these shores when there was nothing here but wilderness, and it was through their hard work and faith in their Creator that they started to build this great nation.
Of this miraculous process, William Bradford wrote: “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by his hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation. Let the glorious name of Jehova have all the praise.”
Lee Eisenberg wrote in now defunct Portfolio magazine (March 2009): “The bottom line here is that things that truly matter in life do not come with daunting price tags attached. Sure, we all need food, health care, and shelter from the storm. But other than that, we don’t need an especially big Number to buy that which we ‘can’t live without,’ things that are ‘bedrock important.’… To sell a house we love is no small lifestyle relapse. But if the tradeoff is freedom gained — the opportunity for creative expression, doing good for others, keeping loved ones connected — well, I call that comfort, even if it’s cold comfort, in this, the winter of our discontent.”
What is missing from Mr. Eisenberg’s psyche is faith in the goodness of God who gave us so much, most of which we have managed to squander in an excess of materialism. All of our houses and apartments are crammed with things we have bought, usually on credit, to satisfy some momentary desire. And we are being urged by our politicians to buy more!
And, how can one feel sorry for all of those millionaires who lost tons of money which they entrusted to Bernie Madoff, money earned in businesses or inherited, which is now gone? Anyone with that kind of wealth should have known better. But wisdom does not come naturally with wealth. So they too will have to return to basics and rediscover what makes life worth living.
Are our present economic woes a blessing in disguise? It’s no fun losing a job, losing a house, going bankrupt, closing a business. Just in the area where I live — a suburb of Boston — I’ve seen three major stores go out of business: Circuit City, Linens ‘n Things, and Expo (an upscale Home Depot). But I lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s, and we all made it through, which included a World War.
There have been bank panics, recessions, and depressions before in America. William Berkey, in his book, The Money Question, The Legal Tender Paper Monetary System of the United States, published in 1876, writes about the Money Panics of 1809, 1814, 1819, 1825, 1837, 1839, 1841, and 1857. So the American people have had to deal with expansions and contractions of credit throughout their history. But we were told that with the institution of the Federal Reserve System these problems would be solved.
Yet, it was after the creation of the Fed that we had the worst depression in our history, one that lasted a decade. And today, we are again suffering from a recession that our socialist government is determined to turn into a depression. But this time, we don’t know if we can pull out of a government induced depression.
Meanwhile, the organized left is calling for taxing the rich, not cutting government spending. Made up of brainless socialists and anarchists, the mobs are calling for an end to capitalism and for more social justice. If they destroy capitalism they will have destroyed the engine of economic growth and prosperity. They will have destroyed the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.
As for social justice, the mobsters want equality of income, which means they want universal poverty, the kind they have in Cuba and North Korea. Not even Communist China believes in equality of income. That is why they are encouraging Chinese entrepreneurs to become rich (albeit under tight government control).
Our Founding Fathers built the American way of life on the principle of universal freedom and justice, acknowledging that some people will become rich and others remain poor. God made some people beautiful and some ugly, some smart and some not so smart, some with great singing voices and some tone deaf. Should we say that God’s world is unfair and unjust? We must be grateful for the gifts God has given us. The first gift is life. The second is talent. The third is human spirit. In America we are free to do as we please with what we’ve been given. And many people have made little into a fortune. The stories of self-made millionaires ought to be studied in our schools, instead of inundating students with stories of capitalist unfairness.
That man is capable of making a mess of his life and his nation is what we are now experiencing in spades. We have lived beyond our means, we have borrowed too much money, we have indulged our appetite for pleasures like no other nation on earth. But reality cannot be avoided, and the piper will be paid. So if it takes a depression to set things right, let it come.
The unwashed mobsters are not only unwilling to face reality, they want everyone in America to live at their level of ignorance and moral anarchy. They don’t see their lives as a gift from God, but as digestive tracts to be fed for the rest of their lives by the government at the expense of others. They live on emotion, not intelligence. In fact, most of their brains have been fatally lobotomized by their government schooling. But they won’t demonstrate in front of their schools, but in front of the Stock Exchange, which is a nerve center for the distribution of corporate property and wealth. Nobody on Wall Street has stopped any of them from using their brains. But their public schools have.
And so, in their ignorance they choose socialism, an economic system that has been tried in many nations and shown to be lethal to the health and happiness of human beings. If they cannot see the difference between North Korea and South Korea, or the difference between Cuba and Puerto Rico, then such blindness can only be self-inflicted.
It is hoped that there is still enough sanity left in the American people so that they will throw the socialists out in 2012 We need a conservative president who understands what must be done to restore this country to its greatness. We have the resources, the technology, and the people needed to rebuild our economy, but we also need conservative legislators who are willing to cut the size of the federal government to what it was before Lyndon Baines Johnson launched his crusade for The Great Society, which put America on the high road to socialism.
It should be noted that The Great Society was the title of a book written by Fabian socialist Graham Wallas, published in 1914, and dedicated to Harvard socialist Walter Lippmann. Wallas was also a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He died in 1932, but his influence lives on.
The Wall Street mobsters want to use our present difficulties as a means to create a popular socialist revolution. This will bring them into direct confrontation with the Tea Party movement (and other defenders of the Constitution, such as the people publishing The New American), which also wants a revolution, but a revolution for freedom. However, in America such revolutions are not fought on the streets but in the voting booths. And as far as the mobsters are concerned the only candidate they can support is Barack Obama. He is the most pro-socialist president in history and his re-election is what all of these mobs are about. They already have a socialist in the White House. They just want to keep him there.
