“The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.”
When a nation spends more money than they produce, they go into debt and sell bonds to pay for the things they want to spend money on. After generations of debt a nation has to pay the interest on previous debt with more debt. And when the interest on debts becomes too much to pay, the nation turns to increasing their money supply, usually in two ways.
First, they lower the interest rates. This makes is easier for consumers to borrow money from banks, who in turn loan out much more money than they actually have, therefore increasing the currency in circulation. This increase in money in circulation increases the money collected in taxes which can then be used to pay for interest on debts.
The second way the nations increase their money supply is by directly issuing more money. To get the money into the circulation, they just start buying things like Real-Estate or Land or Foreign bonds or US bonds or interest on US bonds. This causes the value of these Assets to increase in value, resulting in the owners of these Assets to have much more money.
Trouble Ahead
The only trouble is that increasing the money supply causes real damage to the economy. It is like taking drugs; the high lasts for a little while but the damage remains for a long time.
In a recent interview, Former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, admitted to the damage caused to the economy by increasing the money supply:
"Capital investment is key to productivity growth. That has slowed down quite dramatically and productivity has followed right along."
Put another way, the increase in money supply destroys the ability to increase savings, and without savings a nation cannot increase growth, and without growth a nation cannot ever pay its debts. Another words, increasing money supply leads to national economic collapse.
So according to the Bloomberg article the entire world is on the path to economic ruin, headed deeper and deeper into debt with no sign of turning around. The only question is when it will happen.
Blessing or Cursing
How did this come about? How did the nations of the world get to the point of global economic collapse? The answer is profound, because it is so simple and yet we deny it. Deut. 28 tells us how a nation grows and why it crashes: “If you obey the Lord your God and carefully follow his commands … all these blessings will come on you. … however, if you do not … all these curses will come on you and overtake you. “
So there you have it, if all the nations of the world are headed for an economic collapse, then they must have collectively forgotten the Lord. This appears to be a unique time in history as predicted in Psalm 2 where David writes: “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed …“.
This is what nations are doing today when they reject the commands of the Lord and the talents he hands out. The nations of the world have removed the commands of the Lord from their laws and they have added laws to redistribute their wealth apart from who the Lord blesses. Rather then the Lord determining who will be rich and poor by the talents he gives out, the nations set themselves against God in an attempt to determine who will be blessed. The nations do not want to trust the Lord and would rather replace God with their own way of determining what is fair and right and wrong. And because their schemes are not working out so well, they have taken counsel with each other at the UN and EU and other Central Banks against the Lord and his anointed one - to no avail.
The Poverty of Nations
Last year Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus wrote the book “The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution”. These guys have studied the nations of the world and determined what makes some prosperous and others poor.
In conclusion, Grudem and Asmus give the economic solution to prosperity for all nations: “What we are saying throughout this book is that obedience to biblical teachings in the conduct of government and economic systems in a nation leads to increasing prosperity, and that belief in biblical values also contributes to prosperity in the lives of individuals and nations. "
Christ is more than the solution to our sins, He is also the solution to the economy. When He comes back He is going to do what we failed to do: establish a global prosperous economy.