The Rider on the Black Horse
Pastor Dale Morgan
Commentary on the News
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Jack Kinsella
More than a billion people living on this earth today do so on a dollar
a day or less, according to the latest UN poverty statistics. They
qualify as 'poor' whereas those persons living on $2 a day are classed
as 'middling' poor.
To those of us living in the 'First World' of developing nations, (the
"West", Australia, NZ, Japan, etc) it is unthinkable. The poorest person
in the developed world couldn't imagine living on a dollar a day -- even
two dollars a day.
In America, the official 'poverty threshold' for a single American, on
average, is $10,400 per year, or $28.00 per day. As to the wealthy in
America, well . . . it is estimated that 28% of the total net wealth is
held by the richest 2% of families in the U.S. The top 10% holds 57% of
the net wealth.
If homes and other real estate are excluded, the concentration of
ownership of financial wealth is even more glaring. As far back as 1983,
54% of the total net financial assets were held by 2% of all families,
those whose annual income is over $125,000.
Eighty-six percent of these assets were held by the top 10% of all
families (US Bishops Economic Justice 183, quoting 1983 Federal Reserve
Board figures).
As to the American "middle class" -- the American version of the
'middling poor' are those with incomes ranging from $25,000 to $70,000
per year.
Pulling it all together, here is the overall Big Picture as it stands
today. The population of the earth is roughly 6.6 billion people. To be
poor among the billion richest is to be at least 28 times richer than
the standard for poverty among the billion poorest.
To be rich among the top billion is a status of unimaginable wealth.
Bill Gates' personal fortune alone, divided among the world's billion
poorest, would elevate their status to that of the American poverty level.
At last check, based on Microsoft's current stock price, Bill Gates was
worth $26 billion -- a figure that can fluctuate from day to day by
billions either way. And that is ONLY his Microsoft stock holdings, not
the rest of his vast empire.
If Bill Gates were a country, instead of an individual, he would rank
between Syria and Lithuania, between the 74th and 75th wealthiest
nations in the world.
If every American had the same share of America's Gross Domestic Product
as Bill Gates has, America could only have a population of 480 people.
If Bill Gates wealth were converted to one dollar bills laid end to end,
they would stretch from New York to Seattle -- and BACK -- 431 times! If
you could stack them together in a single stack, Bill Gates' personal
wealth would reach 1,757 MILES high and would weigh almost twenty-seven
TONS!
New York's Empire State Building has a listed volume of 37 million cubic
feet. Bill's cash would only fill 2.84% of that space!
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of
wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see
thou hurt not the oil and the wine." (Revelation 6:6)
In the Apostle John's vision of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
(with which we opened today's briefing", the third horseman on the black
horse holds in his hand a pair of balances.
He represents famine, but he also represents income distribution as it
will exist in the last days. A measure of wheat or three measures of
barley represent a day's rations. A penny represents a days wages.
The 'oil and wine' were items of luxury, representing great wealth.
So the economic dynamics necessary for the Rider on the Black Horse to
mount up and begin his ride are already well entrenched.
Over the past year, some 30 nations have experienced food rioting. That
threatens political regimes in the Middle East, where food prices have
doubled in the past two months; Indonesia, home of the world's largest
population of Muslims; and Malaysia, whose export of cheap manufactured
goods contributes to lower living costs in the West.
Food riots erupted recently in Haiti, while in El Salvador, food
inflation is running as high as 45% per year. Already this year the
price of rice, one of the world's most critically important food
staples, has increased a staggering 141 per cent.
And one particular variety of wheat jumped 25 per cent in a single day
during that period. Granted, the population of the earth is increasing,
but so are new agricultural techniques that can double or triple crop
yields.
So, where's it all going? Into your gas tank. Crops produced for
bio-fuel are more profitable, since nobody is going to eat it. And so
farmers are increasingly switching over to bio-fuel crop production.
Bio-fuel is one of the Al Gore solutions to global warming. It allegedly
burns cleaner, is cheaper to refine and produce than fossil fuels, and
the supply, in theory, is endless.
The environmentalist lobby claims that the production of alternative
biofuel supplies is high on the list of necessary solutions to the
global warming 'crisis'.
It seems like the right thing to do, assuming that man-made emissions
from fossil fuels contribute to global warming. But that is a broad
assumption, considering that global warming is neither 'global' nor
demonstrably warmer.
But it IS profitable.
Al Gore's Global Management Fund sells 'carbon credits' -- you invest
with them, and they invest in alternative fuels, and issue you a 'carbon
credit' that minimizes your 'carbon footprint 'on the planet.
Al erased his own 'carbon footprint' (20 times that of an average
American family) by buying 'carbon credits' (which, for Al Gore, amounts
to buying stock in his own company).
It seems like the right thing to do, even if it DOES impose additional
cost of living expenses across-the-board. Al Gore is an 'oil and wine'
guy and his oil and wine is being squeezed from the existing global food
supply.
If a farmer can make more money producing corn for biofuel than he can
for producing wheat for food, then where is the incentive to grow wheat?
So he grows corn, creating a wheat shortage.
Of course, as supply shrinks, demand grows, which raises the price of
wheat, which then spurs wheat production, but now all the poor can
afford is barley because wheat is too expensive.
The production of crops for fuel, or energy farming, competes with food
production for land, for water and for fertilizer. One-sixth of all the
grain grown in the United States this year will be "industrial corn"
destined to be converted into ethanol and burned in cars.
The choices are stark. The amount of food necessary to create the
biofuel to run ONE SUV for a year is enough to feed twenty-six people.
Although the UN has been at the forefront of pushing for "bio-diversity"
and alternative fuels to combat global warming, one UN official told a
German interviewer that biofuel production constitutes a 'crime against
humanity.'
UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler warned that the
world was heading "towards a very long period of riots" and other types
of conflicts stemming from food shortages and price increases.
Ziegler blamed rising food costs for sparking food riots in Cameroon,
Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritania,
the Philippines and other countries, like Pakistan and Thailand, where
army troops have been deployed to avoid the seizure of food from fields
and warehouses.
The Bible's scenario calls for "a measure of wheat for a penny, and
three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and
the wine."
The UN's scenario makes the identical prediction, but it blames the
coming famine on what seemed like a really good idea.
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are
the ways of death."
"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up
your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28)
And I STILL get emails from critics telling me that the Bible isn't
relevant to the modern world.