[Arktwo] Is it happening?

[Bruce Beach]

For weeks I have received
sometimes as many as four calls a day
asking if I want to refinance our home.
(Couldn't - but that didn't stop the calls).
This week -
nary a call.

All those callers -
and there must have been tens of thousands
so employed -
are now out of work.

Also the people who took the applications
and processed the paper.
More tens of thousands,
because subprime mortgages just aren't happening,
anymore.

Real Estate agents and brokers -
are also unemployed,
even though they may not yet know it -
because they can't get a house financed
if they could sell it.

House Builders -
won't be able to sell the houses
they are building,
because buyers won't be able to get mortgages.
When the builders figure this out -
which won't take long -
because the banks will stop giving them money
to build
then trades people will be out of jobs.

This is a ball
that just keeps rolling down hill.
Lots of people are trying to figure out -
how to stop it.

To blame the borrowers
for this crises
is much like the rapist blaming
the victim -
saying, "she made me do it".

Proverbs 22:7
"The rich ruleth over the poor,
and the borrower is servant to the lender."

The rules of the game
are established by the Money Men.
It is their greed
that has brought us to this point.
I am talking about the REALLY big powers -
the one's so big -
that none of us know their names -
but they are the ones who
own and control the Fed,
and I am not talking about the hired managers
who run the individual banks
or who sit on the various committees.

Some will tell you -
that they have brought us to this state
intentionally.
Those people will tell you that it is all part
of a great conspiracy
to bring the world to ruin
so that the hidden powers
can take it over completely.
I believe that not.

Neither do I believe that
it was stupidity on their part.
Nope.
Just greed.
Greed to such an extent that
you, I, and the average person
can't understand it.

Greed and a humanly designed system
that grew somewhat like Topsy
and which they lost control of.

Whichever.
The result will be the same.
Greed created the situation -
and greed will see it through
to the end.

The BIG money powers
are trying to look out
for the BIG money powers.
Billions, and billions, and billions,
being poured in
to save the bacon of the BIG guys
so that they can continue their lifestyles.

All of what is happening
actually has little to do with
the actions of sub-prime borrowers -
who just happen to be caught in the meat grinder.

I read an interesting quote -
where four years ago,
billionaire investor Warren Buffett
coined the phrase
'financial weapons of mass destruction'
to describe the mind-numbingly
complex and tangled world
of the credit derivatives market.

They have just bombed us,
whether intentionally or not.

Conventional wisdom says -
save your money
stay out of debt
build up a big nest egg
plan for retirement
put your savings into long term investments
buy lots of stocks and bonds.

Many people have said to me -
only a fool
would worry about nuclear weapons
which are not going to be used.
Only a fool
would spend his time, energy and resources
building and equipping a shelter -
because if they were used -
none would survive -
or want to survive anyway.

So now -
I have done the opposite.
Here I am
with a big shelter -
and a big debt.

In my paradigm
the financial bombs
and the nuclear bombs
are joined at the hip.

Financial Armageddon
with the
collapse of the stock market
massive unemployment
the dollar controlled by the Chinese
the world seeking other currencies
rather than the dollar
for oil and goods -
all results in nuclear war anyway.

My gamble / choice
is that everything is falling apart.
Others gambled that everything will be great
and saved up for a glorious retirement
which they are enjoying now.

In response to my previous newsletter -
some have written to me
that I have made an immoral choice.
That one's first priority must be
to pay their debts.

>"Honoring past agreements with other men is not a high priority on your
part."

I am quite in agreement
that society must be built upon
honesty and truthfulness.

I very much try to honor commitments to other men.

Many times I have done things
like when driving through a toll booth
at a parking lot -
have parked and gone back
because the attendant gave me too much change.

Recently, when the ATM spit out the money to me
I thought it had given me one hundred dollar bill too many.
Immediately,
I made the decision in my mind -
that if that were so
that I would go right into the bank
and correct the error.

It is in dozens of little acts like these
at the checkout counter -
in finding money -
in going through the bill at the restaurant -
that one has the opportunity to determine
whether they are an honest person or not.

On the other hand -
we deal in a society of institutions.
Soulless institutions governed by policies
rather than the Ten Commandments.

We have no opportunity to negotiate
rightness or wrongness
regarding what they charge us for
taxes, air fares, utilities, licenses,
interest, finance charges, penalties
or whatever.

We often have no option to contract with them -
or not contract with them.
The rules are set entirely by the institutions
FOR THEIR PURPOSES
and we have to play within those rules.

The institutions set the rules of loans -
for THEIR GREED -
and not because in some way
they wish to benevolently serve us.

They set rules to protect themselves.
Loans against assets.
Control of credit.
Control of credit rating.
Capabilities of garnishment.
High barriers for legal contest.
Insurance of transaction.
Endless repetitive fees to guarantee
their position.

Collectively -
their greed will eventually destroy the system -
and bring ruin to us
as well as to them -
but in the meantime
we have no choice but to work within the system.

>Stating your position to others, the email list, can be seen as
encouragement for others to do the same thing.

It is a statement of reality.
I doubt that many others would follow what I have done -
because almost all that come past me
follow a path of self-interest.

I have sacrificed my self-interest
and my families security
to build a facility to serve humanity.

>You can use your plan again and again wherever
and whenever you deem it necessary and fruitful to gain advantage.

That does not follow at all.
Different circumstances call for different plans.
You are hinting at something evil here -
and it may be that you see my motives
as you would your own.

Many,  many, many times
people come supposing that I would do -
or have done a particular thing -
because THAT is what they would have done.
They accuse me of various things -
again because that is what they would have done.
They just can't imagine
that my motives
and actions
were of the altruistic nature that they were.

>You are milking The Ark Two group to carry out your plan for current and
future society rebuilding.

Here again -
you are looking at what I have done -
from your own perspective -
of how and what you might have done.

But, the fact is
that over ninety-eight percent of the expense
of Ark Two
has come out of my own pocket -
and that I have donated to others
far, far, far beyond any donations that I have received.

>How can your position be termed honorable and moral?

That is the problem
we all struggle with
in our own souls.

God alone is the Judge -
and we all know that we fall short.
However, I am not a Christian who can say -
"I am born again -
and the Lord Jesus Christ
has forgiven all my sins."

Nor am I a Christian
that can hide away in a monastery
and be concerned only about my own salvation.
Rather -
I feel that it is God's command
that we take up the burden of the world
and work to restore the whole of mankind.

I simply do what I can do -
and I know it is not enough.
Fortunately, God is merciful as well as just.
If I am to be judged by you -
then obviously I have failed
and am doomed -
although I know not for what.

Let me, however, speak a little further
to the matter of indebtedness in our society.

There are some terms / concepts
that need to be better understood.
Two such concepts
are the difference between
liquidity and assets.

Our assets far exceed our indebtedness.
Unfortunately, just as with the gigantic banking structure,
since no one will loan us money on our assets -
we do not have the liquidity to make our payments.

This same is true for much of America.
All the houses are still there.
It is just that the veil of
money, debt, interest rates -
and other rules of the game
are breaking down.

People still want to live in their houses,
go to work,
and to be productive,
just as they so wanted
in the Great Depression.

It is the structure of the game -
something which is beyond their control
that will bring down the house of cards.

The icy sea grasps at me -
as much as at the bankers.
Whether or not I have built
a sufficient lifeboat
to reach the shore
and to begin building again -
remains to be seen.

The risk and gamble that I have taken -
has deprived us of luxurious homes and cars.
My children are deprived of an inheritance
and struggle to make their own ways in the world
bereft of the kinds of assistance that were lavished upon me
by my parents.

Have I made the right choices?
If so -
then God knows -
and if not -
then we will have to abide by those results also.

Mark Twain once said
that if everyone knew for certain
that the world was going to end the next day -
that they would all rush around
paying off their debts.

That observation
was perhaps from a different era
and a different time -
because if I knew for certain
that the world was going to end tomorrow -
then I would recommend to everyone
that they use up every bit of credit
they could lay their hands on
to help get their loved ones through
the Great Catastrophe.

Peace and love,
Bruce
DawnSayer@webpal.org