George Green, former Investment Banker (Registered Financial Principal with the NASD) makes no bones about what is going on with the American economy today.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6456567534341306261


I can't help but think of this phrase found in Last Day Events p134 which states:

"National apostacy will speedily be followed by national ruin".

With this in mind, I personally know of some Adventists who have just recently moved out into the country where there are no modern conveniences so that they may prepare for the last days. Some are withdrawing money from the banks. Others are selling out and buying gold bricks.

If George Green is to be taken seriously, what would you do?

Do you see the Sunday Law looming ominously in the horizon?

The price of gold is very high right now. I am not buying gold. I am buying stocks. Tomorrow I will be making my monthly stock purchases (I wish the market would have waited a week to recover). I am buying stock in Wal-Mart, Phizer, Exxon/Mobil, Microsoft and General Electric.

How have your stocks been doing Shane?

I am 10% down last I checked. Of course I don't plan on selling them for another 25 years so they have some time to grow.

You have done better than I then. And I don't see myself being able to retire at a "normal" age.

I thought the video was quite interesting, especially considering it was made almost a year ago and to see how already some of the things have happened and are happening. I don't know if it's all true or not, but it's something to think about.

QR frame:

There is a man with gold and there is a man with a gun. They meet and one walks away with both gold and gun. Which one has both? --Kurt Saxon

Besides, one cannot eat gold.

Seriously, if the money fails... shortly afterwards, whatever govt is around will be looking to confiscate any gold (or even the smell of gold) - probably by labeling gold contraband with those possessing any - subject to capital termination; both financially and biologically :-o

Holy Writ states that the time will come when men will throw their silver into the streets. The question obtaining would be: what conditions first prevail that persuade men to acquire silver - that they would, thereafter, have it to throw into the streets?

Anyway, .9999 silver may be desirable for the making of colloidal silver - either the next generation antibiotics or the next generation of snake oil. I'd opt that it may prove to be efficacious.

Peace: "...moved out into the country where there are no modern conveniences..."

Should your idea of "modern conveniences" reference such as public transportation, cultural exchanges, Starbucks, etc - I can appreciate what you may be suggesting. However, should you be referring to living where there would be no available potable water, your 'septic' facilities would consist of a plank and a hole in the ground, etc - then I suggest that that is too far away from a support system and leaves such a person much too vulnerable to the depradations of two-legged animals.

jasd, by modern conveniences in this case, I meant no electricity, i.e., no phone service, no computers, PG&E, no garbage service, no natural gas, etc.

Well, I've been doing a little checking on this George Green, because I'd never heard of him before. He is big into aliens, having talked to them, etc. I don't know that I would take what he says too seriously; on the other hand, I suppose Satan knows what the master plan is and can be a pretty good predictor of the future. But just wanted to let y'all know. He's got all kinds of videos on YouTube about his ET experiences.

Gold is not the answer. Building interdependent communities is.

Compare the above video to this one.

All right. Let's put George Green aside since he's got other strange ideas.

What do you think of the American economy today? Should the catastrophic collapse of one of the largest financial banks in the World, Lehman Brothers, be of any concern to us?

Only if I have a stake in the company. Otherwise I have little sympathy when a company goes up in smoke because of greed!

Gerry

Well I am diversified. I purchase some stocks through an online broker. Those are the ones I listed. I also have a life insurance policy that invests in stocks and appreciates depending upon how the market does. It is doing pretty well. I also have a 401K plan but I just got into that this past July and haven't gotten a statement on that yet.

Would purchasing stocks be considered gambling? I suppose everything we do in life is a gamble anyway.

The economic pitfall of Wall Street capitalism is the idea that you can make money by getting rich of someone else's borrowed capital. Any wealth that is based on such idea obviously has to get the excess capital from somewhere else. Where do you think such excess capital is coming from ? The hard working people at the bottom of course :)! In the current system, for someone to gain... someone has to loose. And it will most likely be the people who pay the interest on the long term loans.

Now we have a situation where the people at the bottom can not handle the interest payments to support the Wall street's money manipulation endeavors. So we have to pretend that we are not practicing Communism when we bail out these institutions.

Investing and gambling are not the same thing. An investment actually produces a good or service. Gambling does not. Gambling revolves around a game. When a person invests in a company, the company actually produces goods or services. There are some companies that Christian would not want to invest in because of the goods and services they produce or business practices they engage in.

If there were a mechanism to allow investment but not speculation it would be as simple as you say Shane. But there is no such control hence the problem. mel

Every investment involves speculation. When a person buys a car or a house or even a new pair of jeans there is speculation involved. We can't get away from that.

Trouble is the investors who are not happy with their dividends but are only in the game on the basis of fluctuating share value. There is a difference. mel

It wasn't a bad week for me. I started out being 10% down on the value of my stocks and ended being 8% down.

Exactly! so you are speculating on the stock exchange rather than investing. mel

I am investing my money in God's work. No moth or rust can attack it. The signs are all around us. I don't know how people can make plans for this world.

Well, when I decide to fill up my tank with gasoline I am speculating that the price won't fall later in the day. Life is full of speculation. Yes, investing requires speculation. When we buy stock we are basically loaning a company our money. If the company does well the value increases. If the company doesn't do well, the stock decreases. There is nothing unChristian about investing in the market provided we are not investing in firms with immoral practices. There are Christian investing firms that invest in companies deemed as being acceptable.

I was planning actually, to sell some gold this week, but I couldn't find it. I called the gold dealer here in town and asked about selling gold, and he said it would have to be cleaned and weighted before he could give me a price. I wanted to get rid of it and put the money into our church's building fund.

It was the fillings from my dad's teeth, which had been replaced with amalgam fillings long before his death. . .

(Sorry)

My Stock Market retirement fund is down $35,000. about 20 percent, But I am in for the long haul for the next 20 years or so. I am not concerned yet? This does teach me one thing. Five years from retirement I think I am moving all my stocks into treasury bills unless the economy is in a boom.

There was a time in NAD in that they talked and preached investment. It is still done in the growing divisions. Investment in the kingdom to come.
EGW talks about Gold:
---
"The Lord has given me instruction at the meetings I would attend I would find men encouraging our people to invest their money to work mines. I am bidden to say that this is a device of the enemy to consume or to tie up means that is greatly needed to carry on the work of God. It is a snare of the last days, to involve God's people in loss of their Lord's entrusted capital, that should be used wisely in the work of winning souls. Because so much money is invested in these very uncertain enterprises, the work of God is sadly crippled for lack of the talent that will win souls to Christ. . . . {CS 243.1}

"Last night in vision, I was raising my voice in warning against worldly speculations. I said, 'I invite you to take shares in the greatest mine that has ever been worked.' {CS 243.2}

"If we will invest in God's mining stock, the return is sure. He says, 'Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.'. . . {CS 243.4}

"'Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.' {CS 243.5}

"My brother, will you make an investment to secure the heavenly pearl of great price? . . . This is mining stock, in which you may invest without running a risk of disappointment. But, my dear friend, we have not a dollar of the Lord's money to invest in mining enterprises in this world."

Maybe its a good time to read Counsels on Stewardship again.

I wanted to sell some gold this week, and called a gold dealer to see if he would buy some. He told me he would, but that it would have to be cleaned before he could give me an estimate of its value.

It is some of the fillings of my father's teeth, and I want to give the money to our building fund. But when I went to look for the filings, they could not be found. Guess I'll have to look a bit[e] harder. :)

The price of gold has fallen a lot the last couple of weeks. It is probably best to wait until it goes back up some. Now is not a good time to be selling any commodities. It is probably good to be buying them but not selling.