America’s Economic Collapse

Storm clouds loom over the world’s dominant economy.

The United States became a world superpower after World War ii, and what people called the “almighty dollar” became the world’s reserve currency. But since then, the currency has lost more than 94 percent of its value.

Individual investors and national governments now doubt the good faith and credit of the United States of America. Still, the U.S. government is spending the dollar further and faster into oblivion. One out of every four dollars currently in circulation has been put into circulation since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. It now takes the U.S. government less than 100 days to add another $1 trillion to its national debt. At this rate, within the next decade, the debt will surpass an incredible $50 trillion.

This is a huge national security threat.

Americans have been living beyond their means for generations, and they can no longer escape the consequences.

The Trumpet newsmagazine’s predecessor, the Plain Truth, began publishing in 1934 the forecast that America would suffer a collapse more devastating than the fall of the Roman Empire. The longest-standing and most consistent forecast the Philadelphia Trumpet has made since Volume 1, Issue 2 (June 1990) has been that America and Britain will fall, and that the fundamental reason for their fall is their rejection of biblical statutes, judgments and laws. This is the message of biblical prophecy, and it is increasingly proving to be accurate.

Anglo-American Rise

There is a far more important cause behind America’s rise and fall than budgets, debt levels and Federal Reserve interest rates. The late Herbert W. Armstrong addressed this hidden cause in his May 1983 Plain Truth editorial “Prepare to Greatly Reduce Your Standard of Living!”

“Few indeed realize that hundreds of years before Christ, God had made certain unbreakable and irrevocable promises to the descendants of the patriarch Abraham,” he wrote. “This has never been realized or proclaimed by ‘traditional Christianity.’ Abraham is designated in the New Testament as the ‘father of the faithful,’ since all of God’s promises of salvation and eternal life through Christ were made to Abraham—and Jesus Christ was directly descended from Abraham. But what not even theologians understand is that God made dual promises to Abraham. He made the promise of grace, to come through Abraham’s descendant Jesus Christ—but also He made unbreakable promises of race—overlooked entirely by ‘traditional Christianity’ and theological ‘scholars.’”

The promises of “grace” were the spiritual, individual promises. Those of “race” were physical, national promises. God promised to make Abraham the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4-5), and He promised to make Abraham’s grandson Jacob, whose name He changed to Israel, the father of a nation and a company of nations (Genesis 35:11).

The Bible specifies that the promises of grace were fulfilled through the descendants of Jacob’s son Judah, but the promises of race were fulfilled through the descendants of Jacob’s son Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:2). Joseph’s son Manasseh would become the forefather of the greatest single nation to ever exist. His son Ephraim would become the forefather of a multitude or commonwealth of nations (Genesis 48:19).

Manasseh and Ephraim indeed grew into large tribes within the ancient nation of Israel. God would have blessed them with this immense wealth in antiquity, but they disobeyed Him. Manasseh and Ephraim were among the 10 tribes that split away from the kingdom of Judah and formed a separate nation, the kingdom of Israel. They failed to obey God, and their kingdom was destroyed between 732 (when Assyria carried away the eastern half of Manasseh) and 718 b.c. by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

But God had made unconditional promises of national greatness. How then could He fulfill them?

Mr. Armstrong explained in his landmark book The United States and Britain in Prophecy that the answer is found in Leviticus 26. There, God prophesied that if the children of Israel disobeyed His law, He would punish them for the equivalent of 2,520 years.

Count forward 2,520 years from 732 b.c. and you arrive at a.d. 1789. That was the year that the Constitution of the United States of America went into effect. Count forward 2,520 years from 718 b.c. and you arrive at a.d. 1803, when President Thomas Jefferson changed history by authorizing the Louisiana Purchase.

Even geopolitical analyst George Friedman recognizes the importance of the dates 1789 and 1803. “The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies,” he wrote in The New York Review of Books. “That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the East and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry” (Oct. 6, 2005).

In other words, the U.S. Constitution destined the U.S. to become a free nation, and acquiring the Louisiana Territory, for about 4 cents per acre, destined the U.S. to become an agricultural, industrial, financial and military superpower. The fact that God gave these twin gifts to the U.S. exactly 2,520 years after ancient Manasseh went into captivity is deeply significant.

Dizzying Heights

The rise of the English-speaking peoples on the world scene was truly astonishing. When God first started bestowing Joseph’s birthright on the peoples of Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States, these peoples had a high standard of living, constituted 3 percent of the world’s total population, and generated 9 percent of the world’s wealth. But neither the United States nor Great Britain could be considered superpowers in any sense of the word. France held the world reserve currency, and Russia had the world’s biggest military. The Industrial Revolution changed everything.

Within 120 years of 1803, the U.S. and British Commonwealth ruled over almost 30 percent of the world’s people and 30 percent of the world’s land area, much of it the best and most desirable land. Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States generated 35 percent of the world’s wealth each year and, by some counts, controlled three quarters of the world’s capital. The standard of living for the average person didn’t change much during these years as industrialization brought wealth inequality. But once the Machine Age was well underway, technological advancement brought higher living standards.

In the U.S., average after-tax income adjusted for inflation tripled between 1930 and 1980. Toward the beginning of this period, few U.S. households owned an automobile, a television or even a water heater. Most families were content with a home and plenty to eat. Yet today, the average U.S. household has two cars, two televisions, 10 Internet-connected devices, an air conditioner, a water heater, a refrigerator, a stove, a microwave, a washing machine, a dishwasher and numerous other marvelous devices that even kings did not have access to a century ago.

It is easy for anyone born after World War ii to take these blessings for granted, but these labor-saving technologies are a direct result of the industrialization that began when farmers in Louisiana Territory started selling their excess crops to the Eastern United States and Western Europe. All nations have materially benefited from this development, which is why the Prophet Micah wrote that “the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord” (Micah 5:7).

The Prophet Moses foretold that Manasseh and Ephraim would possess “the precious fruits brought forth by the sun,” “the chief things of the ancient mountains,” and “the precious things of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 33:13-17). These blessings include fruitful land, precious metals, material wealth and a huge population.

Even today, when the British Empire has fallen from power and the United States has lost many of its geopolitical advantages to China, these nations continue to enjoy a high standard of living. U.S. News & World Report says Britain has the 13th-highest quality of life on the planet, while the U.S. has the 23rd-highest quality of life. Most of the nations with a higher quality of life than the U.S. are relatively small and are also descended from ancient Israel.

Germany, Italy and Japan are the only major Gentile powers with a comparable standard of living to the U.S. and Britain. And consider that the U.S. and Britain rebuilt these powers after defeating them in World War ii.

Americans still have a tremendous number of blessings that they should be thanking God for every day. Yet the fact that the U.S. dollar is losing its reserve currency status while the U.S. government hurtles toward bankruptcy should concern them. God’s promises of race to Abraham were unconditional. But God did not promise to continue blessing America if it rebelled against Him, as its ancestors had done.

America’s current economic problems illustrate to Americans and the world that they have indeed rebelled against God.

Coming Curses

America’s Founding Fathers knew that self-sufficient family units were the basic building blocks of any stable society. God had given Americans the constitutional freedom to manage their own finances and the natural resources needed to become wealthy. But it was still up to the farmers in the Louisiana Territory to produce enough food to feed their families with enough left over to sell excess crops in the Eastern U.S. and Western Europe, thus financing industrialization.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution believed what King Solomon wrote about the rich ruling over the poor and the borrower being servant to the lender (Proverbs 22:7). So after winning their independence from Britain, the founders worked hard for the next four decades to pay off the national debt. The Civil War threw the nation back into debt, but the American people never let things get out of hand until the Great Depression. Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt forbade the Treasury and other financial institutions from converting dollars into gold coins and ingots, the U.S. government has relied on borrowed money to finance projects it could never afford using tax dollars alone.

This slide into debt intensified with the onset of the “new morality” in the 1960s and ’70s. The growing acceptance of pornography and premarital sex has undermined marriages that once bound families together. This has fueled the rapid increase in divorce. And as the traditional family withered, the social welfare functions traditionally performed by the family were increasingly passed to the state. The result was even more debt.

Mr. Armstrong addressed the root causes of America’s economic decline in his April-May 1976 Plain Truth editorial, “What’s Happening to the U.S. Standard of Living—and Why?” “What have we done with these multitudes of national and individual blessings, which actually were the gift of the living God?” he asked. “God did not promise to continue the blessings if we rebelled. We have been rebellious and unwilling to yield to our God and His ways, which would have guaranteed lasting peace and prosperity. We have become arrogant and selfish. We have polluted the fertile lands the living God gave us. We have polluted the air, the rivers, lakes and oceans. We have polluted our own minds and those of our children—teaching the anti-God fable of evolution. We have given public acceptance to the misnamed ‘new morality,’ which is gross immorality! We have given public acceptance to homosexuality, premarital sex and perversion. We have polluted the sacred institution of marriage, and through a constantly increasing divorce rate, we have started on a course of destroying the home and family relationship—the foundation of any stable society.”

In other words, because America had turned its back on God and His laws, God would strip away the material blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. There is obviously an element of cause and effect behind America’s economic decline. You can’t run trillion-dollar deficits year after year and expect to stay rich. Yet there are also more than merely economic factors at play. God is supernaturally intervening to punish America for its sins.

This means that if Americans do not repent of their sins, they will have to adjust to a much lower standard of living than they currently enjoy. The Prophet Jeremiah called the period just before the Messiah’s return “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7). Jesus called it “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24).

Down With Free Markets

Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 are called the “blessings and curses” chapters. They describe the blessings that come when Israel obeys God and the curses that befall when Israel disobeys. One of the primary blessings listed in Deuteronomy 28 is that Israel “shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow” (verse 12). One of the primary curses is that the stranger “shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail (verse 44).

The U.S. was the world’s leading creditor nation between 1915 and 1985, when it became the world’s largest debtor country. Despite the looming threat of national bankruptcy this disaster poses, few U.S. leaders seem too concerned. Why? Because they have abandoned the sound biblically based economic principles espoused by Presbyterian economist Adam Smith. Instead they have adopted the Communist economic principles espoused by atheist philosophers Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

Today, many U.S. leaders openly espouse a neo-Marxist idea called “modern monetary theory.” This postulates that “deficits do not matter” because the government can print as much money as it needs. Such thinking has rubbed off on many conservatives and is a root cause of America’s economic decline.

God warned that this kind of senseless and shortsighted policy would contribute to our ruin.

In “The Plain Truth About Communism!”, Mr. Armstrong warned that communism is a tool of the devil to blot out America’s blessings. “The real goal of the Communist plotters is the violent overthrow of the United States and the British Empire,” he wrote. “Why? We are the real ‘capitalist’ nations. We possess nearly three fourths of all the world’s ‘capital’—its developed and usable resources and wealth. … The plain truth, known by so few, is that we possess greater wealth and national resources than any other nation ever did because Almighty God gave us this wealth in fulfillment of His birthright promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! And communism is the devil’s effort, through his demon-inspired human tools, to take from us this greatest national and economic blessing God ever conferred on any people! And since this blessing from God is the world’s ‘capital’ atheistic communism shouts, ‘Down with capitalism’” (Plain Truth, January 1949).

Mr. Armstrong based his forecast of future events and trends on Bible prophecy. A prophecy in Hosea 7:8-9 says the modern-day descendants of ancient Israel would mix themselves with foreigners and, by extension, with their foreign ideologies. The far-left ideas put forward by the Democratic Party today are not based on traditional American culture, which is largely based on the Bible. These ideas were imported from German and Russian universities.

For decades, these anti-Bible ideologies have subversively “devoured” America’s strength while the average citizen “knoweth it not.” Many proponents of modern monetary theory believe America is stronger than ever; therefore, the government can provide its citizens with college tuition, health care, child care, retirement packages and numerous other benefits that were once provided by the nuclear family. This neo-Marxist attempt to nationalize benefits traditionally provided by the family has led to America’s imminent economic downfall.

America’s current problems are the natural consequences of broken laws. If America does not turn back to God, the day is coming when God will punish it with supernatural curses that are sevenfold more intense than the natural curses America has brought on itself (Leviticus 26:15-18).

That is why America’s economic decline is about far more than economics. As a result of sin, God is stripping away the blessings promised to Abraham.

Massive Banking Crisis

In terms of overall economic power, the English-speaking nations peaked in 1950—when Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States together accounted for 38 percent of the globe’s gross domestic product. In the decades since then, these nations’ collective contribution to global gdp has fallen to less than 28 percent.

This gradual decline in economic power will persist as the U.S. continues to run up trillion-dollar deficits. Most economic analysts predict that China’s gdp will surpass America’s sometime in the mid-2030s. Yet God’s promise to punish America “seven times more” for its sins will likely hasten its slump. In Deuteronomy 28:49-52, God promises that after a period of economic decline, He will further punish Israel with captivity at the hands of foreigners.

Other scriptures such as Isaiah 10 and Revelation 17 show that the foreign power that will take Americans captive will not be China. It will be a 10-nation confederacy in Europe. Currently, the U.S. military is much stronger than any military in Europe, but this will change rapidly; Bible prophecy foretells of an invasion.

Mr. Armstrong believed strongly that a banking crisis could be the catalyst for this abrupt reversal of fortunes. Specifically, he warned in 1984 that a massive banking crisis in America “could suddenly result in triggering European nations to unite as a new world power larger than either the Soviet Union or the U.S.” (co-worker letter, July 22, 1984).

In other words, a banking crisis could scare European nations into surrendering control to a central authority. Once the euro is supported by a central government strong enough to regulate its member states’ tax and spending policies, the dollar’s day as the dominant reserve currency will end. The greenback will be a co-regent with the euro at best, an isolated North American currency at worst. Most importantly, Europe will surpass the U.S. in military power.

When investors begin dumping dollars and rushing to other currencies, demand for U.S. Treasury bonds will plummet and interest rates will spike. The U.S. already spends 15 percent of its total tax revenue to pay the interest on its debt. If interest rates returned to the level they were at during the 1981–82 recession, America would have to spend 44 percent of its tax revenue on interest. Under such conditions, it would be almost impossible for the government to borrow money. The nation would be forced to either slash spending in half or print its way into a hyperinflation crisis.

For insight into what happens when a financially isolated nation prints massive amounts of money to remain financially solvent, look at Venezuela. When this nation entered an economic crisis in 2013, its government responded by printing 500 million bolívars. This expanded the nation’s broad money supply by 70 percent—and caused the bolívar’s value to plummet 44 percent. The nation continued to print bolívars until you had to be a millionaire to buy a cup of coffee.

Similar conditions are coming to America after the dollar is dethroned and the nation is economically besieged.

Worldwide, the average household lives on $13,000 a year, while the average American household lives on $63,000. This tremendous disparity is primarily due to God’s promises of race to Abraham. These promises are being stripped away, so it is time to heed God’s warning. Know that He is going to allow economic calamity to come upon America to correct the nation for turning away from Him.

Return to Greatness

The Bible shows us that God did not promise the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim great material blessings because they were His favorite tribes. Rather, God chose these tribes to represent Him at a time when other tribes were rebelling against Him. The United States and Great Britain were supposed to set an example for the rest of the world.

These nations have failed in this great responsibility. Instead of showing the world how self-sufficient family units following biblical virtues are the basic building blocks of a stable society, they have shown how family breakdown and Marxist vices lead to bankruptcy and ruin.

Yet God still intends for Israel to fulfill its glorious purpose.

Jeremiah 33:7 says God will send Israel into captivity again. Yet verses 8 and 9 say God will “cleanse [Israel] from all their iniquity” and make them “an honour before all the nations of the earth.” This is a prophecy about the thousand-year reign of the Messiah; God still intends to make America and Britain the leading nations on Earth once they learn to value His law. Then “the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men” (Micah 5:7).

The evil that permeates America and Britain today must be removed for these nations to truly live the abundant life and for that godly way of life to cover the Earth. The horrors of the Great Tribulation will lead into the Pax Millennium—the 1,000-year rule of Jesus Christ. This will be the greatest time of peace and prosperity that has ever been.

Until then, the warning must go out. This hope-filled message culminates in the establishment of God’s soon-coming Kingdom!