Manufacturing slowdown and Gaza

Greetings Ladys and Gents.

Signs of the Times:

U.S. Economy: Manufacturing Shrinks as Orders Hit 60-Year Low

Mid-America economic activity gauge hits record low

Illinois grinds to halt

Last evening, I realized that I was looking at this impending collapse wrongly. This isn't going to happen all at once, and its not going to be fixed all at once. I feel this sence of urgency because, as the months continue, less and less options will be available to us. This is going to be a long process, I'm thinking at least a decade, possibly more. This is going to define the rest of our lives. I worry because when the last great depression hit, most of US citizens were agrarians. This is no longer true. When the last great depression hit the average person was far more educated than we are now. We like to think we are smarter now, but we're not. Elementary school classes in the beginning of the 20th century were reading books like The Last of The Mohicans, which is hard for me to read and I consider myself fairly bright. Painfully this has been done to us on purpose. So we have this mixture of less moral character, mixed with less intelligence, less practical knowledge, feelings of meaninglessness, and growing frustration. Some people will inevitably turn this frustration into violence. Its just how people are when they feel like that. Especially hungry people. We need to begin to change this mixture. We need to start learning about practical ways to purify water, grow food, generate power, and take care of medical needs. We need to share as much as this information is possible.


I know some of you really hate talk radio, just skip the first part if that is the case. This man has some good advise.

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Important News:



Yes, in a round about way I'm telling you to read some books. We have to be as educated as possible. Maybe even learn mandarin. Oh it would be funny if it wasn't true. To further that goal, Eric at market skeptics gives us an idea of what the dollar faces in '09:

Top Ten List

I've thought about what is happening in Gaza, and the best article I've found on it is this one:

Why Gaza?

The simplest thing I can compare it to, was what happened with the American Indian here in North America. One of my history instructors a very smart man, Mr. Beeman explained it like this. So you have two different cultures that feel like they are entitled to use of the same land. A settler moves in and starts ranching cattle. One day, an indian hunting party wanders through their hunting grounds and finds a big nice fat cow, they kill it and eat it, then move on. The rancher goes on a round-up and finds that one of his prize expensive animals has been un-lawfully slaughtered. He knows who did it, it was those "dang injuns". So the next time he sees one he takes a shot at him, and drops him dead. He leaves the indian there dead as a message, "don't mess with me or my cattle". A few weeks pass and the cousin of said dead indian wanders through, and finds his kin dead, and left disrespectfully. He wants revenge, this man he loved dearly, and he can't understand why some pink faced devil, would kill a man that never did any harm. So he gathers a war party, and in the dead of night they attack the ranch. The man is killed the women and children are taken as prisoners, and the home place is burnt to the ground. A few days pass, and then the neighbor of the rancher finds an atrocious scene, the indian's massacred the Smiths!!! He beats back to the nearest town and rounds up a posse, to get some justice. We can't have savage heathen Indians wiping out good christian families that never did anyone any harm. The posse rides to the nearest Indian camp and butchers everyone they can find. The next Indian camp over becomes alarmed, and angry so they start raiding settlements left and right. At this the whole territory goes into a panic, and the governor is asked to do something about this madness. So he rounds up the militias, and they go out looking to kill every indian they find. The only good Indian being a dead Indian. The cycle of violence builds and builds until one side is effectively eliminated as a viable population. All of it could be avoided by communication, however there were barriers to this from the get go, and as people were killed the bad blood only grew. Unwillingness to even try and talk becomes more and more prevalent. Neither side trusts the other, and neither side has the other's best interests at heart. That is what is happening in Gaza. In a world with WMDs you would think such a simple lesson would be figured by now. Sadly, this isn't the case. Pray for these people, for their sake as well as our own. The suffering over there hurts us all.

The future can be very frightening indeed. We need to learn from the past as much as we can, so we don't keep doing the same foolish stuff over and over. We are going to need guts. I know you have them. There is a positive way to resolve every conflict, crisis, and collapse. We simply have to be mindful of our inner thoughts and feelings. The keys are with in us all. Its a beautiful day here, I'm going to walk down to broadway and play some skee-ball =). I hope this information helps you draw your own conclusions. Your own research is always the best.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.~~~Twain

Prov.
18:19
An offended brother is harder to be won back than a stronghold city, and his contentions are like the bars of a castle.

~My Love Truly,
Joshua F.