It's not gonna be alright.
I want to propose a timeline of events.
But first, I need to explain the cause of a current crisis.
Gas is, officially, $4.00 a gallon (in some stations in Louisville.) Many if not most have attributed the rising costs to greed; "the costs rise with the growing greed of oil 'tycoons.'" They believe, because it is easier to believe this, that the domestic heads of companies like Exxon are simply raising the prices because they want a new garage full of cars, or a new summer home. To an extent, this is true, but the accused are in fact the victims.
Greed is a natural human trait, just like lust, envy, hate....all those traits that the Bible deems sinful...as well as love, admiration, respect, etc. Like a blade, a piece of sharpened iron, they are all completely neutral without the catalyst of a human mind. The human mind can use such traits for good or evil. You can envy your neighbor, for his swimming pool and white picket fence, and be inspired to work harder for yourself until you can achieve those things. Or you can, by way of envy, hate your neighbor and strike him in jealousy. The latter is a "mis-use" of envy, and of hate. You can use the knife to cut bread, or you can use it to cut your neighbor and steal his bread.
The practitioner of theft and fraud misuses greed. I am greedy. I want things for myself, I want things (material and otherwise) that make me happy. That I practice love for my family and friends is an example of my greed. I buy my mother gifts for mothers day not because I am obligated to, but because I love and admire my mother, and it makes ME feel good to do special things for her. I buy my father a fishing pole for his birthday because I respect him, and this is a way of showing my respect. I do such things out of respect and love, not obligation, because it makes me feel good. I am greedy. I also try to work hard and make money to buy things for myself. I am greedy.
Taking something that is not yours, that you have not earned or created, just because you want it, is a mis-use of greed.
Entrepreneurs, aspiring businessmen from the United States, many years ago, built oil derricks and oil wells in middle eastern countries. The peoples of those countries had no technical knowledge of how to extract the oil under their feet. The United States built these wells and derricks, and in doing so provided jobs and money in countries that had very little of either. In exchange, the U.S. was rewarded with productive wells and derricks and large amounts of oil.
Years later, the countries have grown in wealth, political parties have grown, the nations are becoming more modern, whereas before they could be called "3rd world." We brought them out of the stone age.
The thanks we got was the nationalization of those wells and derricks. Political leaders said that, because these wells and derricks were on their land, extracting the oil under their land, that it was all theirs. It belonged to them. Even though they wouldn't have had any way to extract the wealth under their feet without the help of the oil tycoons from the U.S....they claimed it was all theirs by right.
Now many of the wells, derricks, and refineries are, for the most part, in shambles. And the men who acquired these things by way of theft and fraud can sell the oil at any price they wish. We will continue to buy from them, with the aim of fostering "international relations" because we don't want to look like the "bad guys."
Meanwhile, any attempt to retake what was ours by the only course left to us, military action, is met with widespread protest. "No blood for oil." The advocates of this message would rather we send food and aid and flowers and candy in lieu of bombs.
On a smaller scale, it looks like this: You build a general store and stock it with goods, you run a good business. A man comes in to your store one day and claims it is his; he forces you out by gunpoint. He raises all of your prices, runs your store into the ground. A week later, you bring him a pie.
THIS is why the man who runs the domestic refinery pays $120.00 for a barrel of oil, and then we pay $4.00 a gallon for gasoline. The only man who profits, now, is the thief.
Now, on to the timeline.
1: Oil costs $120.00 a barrel. We pay $4.00 a gallon.
2: Oil costs $200.00 a barrel. We pay $9.00 a gallon.
3: You have less money in your pocket to buy goods, because you are spending more to buy gas. Some small businesses close, a number of people lose jobs.
4: Shipping companies (of which there are MANY) are spending more money on fuel for trucks. They are forced to raise their prices, in order to stay afloat and keep the trucks moving. They are accused of gouging prices for no other purpose than to fuel their own greed.
5: Businesses have to pay more to have their goods shipped. In order to alleviate this, and to stay afloat, they raise the prices of their goods...dramatically. They also make employment cuts, terminating some employees who did not already quit because they couldn't afford to commute to work. The owners of these businesses, too, are accused of raising prices and firing employees for no other purpose than to increase profits. They are cursed because they did not consider the "need" or "welfare" of the employees they terminated.
6: Larger businesses begin to go bankrupt. They cannot afford to ship goods, people cannot afford to buy their goods. They have to spend more than they earn. All of the business owners have but one vision in their mind as their business crumbles; the vision of a bucket being filled with water, and a hole in the bottom of the bucket that grows and grows and keeps growing in size until the bucket can no longer hold any water.
7: Hundreds and thousands of people are jobless. They begin to plea for help from the government. The government obliges. Politicians begin recognizing the importance of "need."
8: Fuel is rationed. In order to "freeze" the economy, to ensure that it does not completely crash, all businesses are required by law to purchase the amount of fuel they purchased in the previous year....no more, no less. As earnings have collapsed and continue to dwindle, many more businesses go bankrupt. All U.S. citizens, regardless of vehicle ownership, are given credit cards for the purchase of fuel, with a set limit.
9: Domestic heads of oil companies and refineries are required by law to sell fuel "at cost." As they can no longer make any profit whatsoever, these companies go bankrupt. The government nationalizes their refineries. All domestic oil refineries are now the property of the U.S. Government.
10: U.S. citizens cannot afford healthcare. The U.S. government socializes healthcare (although they don't use the word "socialize.") The salary of doctors and nurses and surgeons is cut nearly in half. Hospitals and medical offices, facing a government mandated budget, can no longer afford advanced medical equipment. Rather than work at half pay, with worn outdated and obsolete equipment, many medical professionals quit. Others are required by law to remain in their positions, or face fines or imprisonment (because people need doctors.) During operations and procedures, defective and outdated equipment malfunctions, causing in some instances the death of patients. Doctors are imprisoned for medical malpractice. Facing shortages, the U.S. government puts out a call for more doctors. None can be found. The government recruits people, puts them through a hastened training process, and places these "Conscript Doctors" in hospitals. Healthcare now consists of standing in a long line, waiting to be processed in a 5-minute or less examination, and spit back out with medicines. As prescription medication companies like Pfizer have long been out of business, the quality and safety of medicines has fallen dramatically. In response to this, a "black market" of medication arises, providing medications that more often result in death than curing an illness. Surgeries are hastened and often result in death. Hospitals are jokingly referred to as "Slaughterhouses," and doctors and surgeons as "Butchers."
Step 11 is total Socialism. All businesses are required by law to neither hire nor fire any employees. Salaries are frozen. Any employees who quit are imprisoned, and replaced by persons selected by a government-run hiring board. Owners of businesses who violate the no-hire no-fire policies are imprisoned, and replaced. All prices of all products are government mandated, and are based on the "Lowest-common denominator." (i.e., a bar of Dial soap must cost the same as the cheapest bar of off-brand soap.) People facing starvation, while being forbidden from working for profit to earn money to buy food, turn to "Black Work:" an underground free-market economy. Anyone who partakes in this and is caught is deemed a "traitor" and imprisoned or put to death.
The trigger for all this happens around step 8. At this point, the supply chain has broken. The supply chain is what pulls a free-market economy. I mine for metals using a pickaxe, the metals are sold and shipped to a steel mill to make steel ingots, which are sold and shipped to a business which makes nuts and bolts, which are sold and shipped to a company that uses the nuts and bolts to make parts for cars, which are sold and shipped to an automobile manufacturer, which ships fully assembled cars and trucks to a dealership, where I go to buy a truck to move my mining equipment.
The greatest wonder in the world, to me....the most beautiful facet of our existence, can be found in something so simple, like a T.V. remote, that so many take for granted. That every single part of it, down to the tiniest transistor, down to the most base material, is a product of human ingenuity that is tied by spider-web strings to hundreds and thousands and millions of people and places and materials and factories and refineries and.....things. That the smallest resistor on a circuit board was designed by a man, and was manufactured at a plant using equipment that was designed by ten men, and a component of that equipment was designed by twenty men, the materials of which was extracted from the earth using a mining process created by thirty men.
It's like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except in this case you could play One Million Degrees of a Bowl of Cereal.
Once the supply chain breaks, this is all gone. Destroyed. It might never happen, but the way things are now, the chain is weakening. People are letting this happen, pushing back their fears by putting blind faith in God or the Government. "Someone will help us, some savior will come out of the dark and deliver us. Everything will be alright." It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna be alright.
But first, I need to explain the cause of a current crisis.
Gas is, officially, $4.00 a gallon (in some stations in Louisville.) Many if not most have attributed the rising costs to greed; "the costs rise with the growing greed of oil 'tycoons.'" They believe, because it is easier to believe this, that the domestic heads of companies like Exxon are simply raising the prices because they want a new garage full of cars, or a new summer home. To an extent, this is true, but the accused are in fact the victims.
Greed is a natural human trait, just like lust, envy, hate....all those traits that the Bible deems sinful...as well as love, admiration, respect, etc. Like a blade, a piece of sharpened iron, they are all completely neutral without the catalyst of a human mind. The human mind can use such traits for good or evil. You can envy your neighbor, for his swimming pool and white picket fence, and be inspired to work harder for yourself until you can achieve those things. Or you can, by way of envy, hate your neighbor and strike him in jealousy. The latter is a "mis-use" of envy, and of hate. You can use the knife to cut bread, or you can use it to cut your neighbor and steal his bread.
The practitioner of theft and fraud misuses greed. I am greedy. I want things for myself, I want things (material and otherwise) that make me happy. That I practice love for my family and friends is an example of my greed. I buy my mother gifts for mothers day not because I am obligated to, but because I love and admire my mother, and it makes ME feel good to do special things for her. I buy my father a fishing pole for his birthday because I respect him, and this is a way of showing my respect. I do such things out of respect and love, not obligation, because it makes me feel good. I am greedy. I also try to work hard and make money to buy things for myself. I am greedy.
Taking something that is not yours, that you have not earned or created, just because you want it, is a mis-use of greed.
Entrepreneurs, aspiring businessmen from the United States, many years ago, built oil derricks and oil wells in middle eastern countries. The peoples of those countries had no technical knowledge of how to extract the oil under their feet. The United States built these wells and derricks, and in doing so provided jobs and money in countries that had very little of either. In exchange, the U.S. was rewarded with productive wells and derricks and large amounts of oil.
Years later, the countries have grown in wealth, political parties have grown, the nations are becoming more modern, whereas before they could be called "3rd world." We brought them out of the stone age.
The thanks we got was the nationalization of those wells and derricks. Political leaders said that, because these wells and derricks were on their land, extracting the oil under their land, that it was all theirs. It belonged to them. Even though they wouldn't have had any way to extract the wealth under their feet without the help of the oil tycoons from the U.S....they claimed it was all theirs by right.
Now many of the wells, derricks, and refineries are, for the most part, in shambles. And the men who acquired these things by way of theft and fraud can sell the oil at any price they wish. We will continue to buy from them, with the aim of fostering "international relations" because we don't want to look like the "bad guys."
Meanwhile, any attempt to retake what was ours by the only course left to us, military action, is met with widespread protest. "No blood for oil." The advocates of this message would rather we send food and aid and flowers and candy in lieu of bombs.
On a smaller scale, it looks like this: You build a general store and stock it with goods, you run a good business. A man comes in to your store one day and claims it is his; he forces you out by gunpoint. He raises all of your prices, runs your store into the ground. A week later, you bring him a pie.
THIS is why the man who runs the domestic refinery pays $120.00 for a barrel of oil, and then we pay $4.00 a gallon for gasoline. The only man who profits, now, is the thief.
Now, on to the timeline.
1: Oil costs $120.00 a barrel. We pay $4.00 a gallon.
2: Oil costs $200.00 a barrel. We pay $9.00 a gallon.
3: You have less money in your pocket to buy goods, because you are spending more to buy gas. Some small businesses close, a number of people lose jobs.
4: Shipping companies (of which there are MANY) are spending more money on fuel for trucks. They are forced to raise their prices, in order to stay afloat and keep the trucks moving. They are accused of gouging prices for no other purpose than to fuel their own greed.
5: Businesses have to pay more to have their goods shipped. In order to alleviate this, and to stay afloat, they raise the prices of their goods...dramatically. They also make employment cuts, terminating some employees who did not already quit because they couldn't afford to commute to work. The owners of these businesses, too, are accused of raising prices and firing employees for no other purpose than to increase profits. They are cursed because they did not consider the "need" or "welfare" of the employees they terminated.
6: Larger businesses begin to go bankrupt. They cannot afford to ship goods, people cannot afford to buy their goods. They have to spend more than they earn. All of the business owners have but one vision in their mind as their business crumbles; the vision of a bucket being filled with water, and a hole in the bottom of the bucket that grows and grows and keeps growing in size until the bucket can no longer hold any water.
7: Hundreds and thousands of people are jobless. They begin to plea for help from the government. The government obliges. Politicians begin recognizing the importance of "need."
8: Fuel is rationed. In order to "freeze" the economy, to ensure that it does not completely crash, all businesses are required by law to purchase the amount of fuel they purchased in the previous year....no more, no less. As earnings have collapsed and continue to dwindle, many more businesses go bankrupt. All U.S. citizens, regardless of vehicle ownership, are given credit cards for the purchase of fuel, with a set limit.
9: Domestic heads of oil companies and refineries are required by law to sell fuel "at cost." As they can no longer make any profit whatsoever, these companies go bankrupt. The government nationalizes their refineries. All domestic oil refineries are now the property of the U.S. Government.
10: U.S. citizens cannot afford healthcare. The U.S. government socializes healthcare (although they don't use the word "socialize.") The salary of doctors and nurses and surgeons is cut nearly in half. Hospitals and medical offices, facing a government mandated budget, can no longer afford advanced medical equipment. Rather than work at half pay, with worn outdated and obsolete equipment, many medical professionals quit. Others are required by law to remain in their positions, or face fines or imprisonment (because people need doctors.) During operations and procedures, defective and outdated equipment malfunctions, causing in some instances the death of patients. Doctors are imprisoned for medical malpractice. Facing shortages, the U.S. government puts out a call for more doctors. None can be found. The government recruits people, puts them through a hastened training process, and places these "Conscript Doctors" in hospitals. Healthcare now consists of standing in a long line, waiting to be processed in a 5-minute or less examination, and spit back out with medicines. As prescription medication companies like Pfizer have long been out of business, the quality and safety of medicines has fallen dramatically. In response to this, a "black market" of medication arises, providing medications that more often result in death than curing an illness. Surgeries are hastened and often result in death. Hospitals are jokingly referred to as "Slaughterhouses," and doctors and surgeons as "Butchers."
Step 11 is total Socialism. All businesses are required by law to neither hire nor fire any employees. Salaries are frozen. Any employees who quit are imprisoned, and replaced by persons selected by a government-run hiring board. Owners of businesses who violate the no-hire no-fire policies are imprisoned, and replaced. All prices of all products are government mandated, and are based on the "Lowest-common denominator." (i.e., a bar of Dial soap must cost the same as the cheapest bar of off-brand soap.) People facing starvation, while being forbidden from working for profit to earn money to buy food, turn to "Black Work:" an underground free-market economy. Anyone who partakes in this and is caught is deemed a "traitor" and imprisoned or put to death.
The trigger for all this happens around step 8. At this point, the supply chain has broken. The supply chain is what pulls a free-market economy. I mine for metals using a pickaxe, the metals are sold and shipped to a steel mill to make steel ingots, which are sold and shipped to a business which makes nuts and bolts, which are sold and shipped to a company that uses the nuts and bolts to make parts for cars, which are sold and shipped to an automobile manufacturer, which ships fully assembled cars and trucks to a dealership, where I go to buy a truck to move my mining equipment.
The greatest wonder in the world, to me....the most beautiful facet of our existence, can be found in something so simple, like a T.V. remote, that so many take for granted. That every single part of it, down to the tiniest transistor, down to the most base material, is a product of human ingenuity that is tied by spider-web strings to hundreds and thousands and millions of people and places and materials and factories and refineries and.....things. That the smallest resistor on a circuit board was designed by a man, and was manufactured at a plant using equipment that was designed by ten men, and a component of that equipment was designed by twenty men, the materials of which was extracted from the earth using a mining process created by thirty men.
It's like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except in this case you could play One Million Degrees of a Bowl of Cereal.
Once the supply chain breaks, this is all gone. Destroyed. It might never happen, but the way things are now, the chain is weakening. People are letting this happen, pushing back their fears by putting blind faith in God or the Government. "Someone will help us, some savior will come out of the dark and deliver us. Everything will be alright." It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna be alright.