Disasters are hardly unique to our time. Periodic drought, flood, wildfire, recession, boom-and-bust cycles, famine, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes—all have darkened the human experience for generations.
Yet something unique in this tired old world’s history is now occurring. The realists within our society, the real thinkers, those who deeply consider just what is going on upon planet Earth, are taking notice. All of a sudden, there appears to be a confluence of numerous catastrophes that are affecting not just one or two nations here and there, but the entire global system.
If you check the record books, you will see that the past two decades have been unique in the number of records continuously being broken in various fields of study from weather to economics.
Weather
Record floods, record drought, record cold and record heat, all have been a phenomenon of the past two decades compared to the rest of the period over which weather records have been kept. Recent catastrophes in Myanmar and China added their own statistics to the record books. At the same time, record drought ravages Australia and vast extremes of weather hit the United States.
Economy
In the world of finance and economics, the U.S. continues to break records as to its level of indebtedness to other nations. Oil prices continue to smash records, with the result that there has been a record drop in motor vehicular traffic in America. In the U.S., only one major airline remains solvent. In the meantime, while the U.S. is being squeezed by opec, Middle East oil-producing nations are awash with capital. Oil, gas, iron ore, coal, copper, steel and a host of other mineral products have hit record prices over the past year, pushing construction bills way beyond realistic levels.
Food
The result of rampant farm input costs, within a global economy that is literally out of control, coming on top of a time when unprecedented weather and industrial disruption has hit the world’s main breadbaskets, is drastically being felt at the family dinner table.
Business
Record fraud and corruption from the highest levels of the boardroom down to junior bank officers has been not only a recurring, but an increasing theme of the past 20 years.
War
A great global armaments buildup within the non-English-speaking nations is under way as global tensions rise ahead of an emerging new global order. Twenty-six armed conflicts currently blight the globe. Murder, torture and rape are a daily way of life in too many African nations still caught up in tribal warfare merging at times into genocide.
Isolated disaster can be handled within an economy that is in a healthy condition. But this unprecedented array of catastrophes, seemingly overtaking each other in strength of negative impact on world markets and populations, is occurring as the pall of worldwide economic depression is an increasing reality.
Three high-powered financial institutions have issued warnings about the state of the world economy.
The prestigious Bank for International Settlements (bis) has sounded a warning bell on the outcome of the global credit crisis. This bank, which negotiates deals with central banks, “warned that the credit crisis could lead world economies into a crash on a scale not seen since the 1930s” (Banking Times, June 9; emphasis mine throughout). This warning came a year after the bank reported its fear that the world had already moved into the mentality that presaged the Great Depression of the 1930s. The editor of Banking Times observed that “bis have indeed already warned of repeat of conditions that could be as extreme as the Great Depression, and are now describing that process as we move through it” (ibid.).
A team of bankers at Morgan Stanley has warned that conflicting policies between the Fed and the European Central Bank could lead to a “catastrophic event.” At issue is the bankers’ observation that indicates they see “striking similarities between the transatlantic tensions that built up in the early 1990s and those that are accumulating again today. The outcome of the 1992 deadlock was a major currency crisis and a recession in Europe” (Daily Telegraph, June 17).
The Royal Bank of Scotland “has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets … as inflation paralyses the major central banks. ‘A very nasty period is soon to be upon us—be prepared,’ said Bob Janjuah, the bank’s credit strategist” (ibid., June 18).
Financial Times reported that German economist and former European Central Bank executive board member Jürgen Stark, in a further warning, declared that eurozone inflation was unacceptable, having hit a 16-year high at 3.7 percent in May, and a “reason to be alarmed” (June 19).
National governments and international institutions have operated for too long like a boy with his finger in the dike seeking to stem the flow from a great, swelling breach.
It’s time to get real! This world is facing global disaster of unprecedented proportions. That’s not alarmist talk. It comes from a perspective of clear-eyed observation and analysis, born of decades of studying the global situation in relation to history, current events, and irrefutable Bible prophecy. It’s the perspective Herbert Armstrong possessed, from which he warned for over half a century that great global catastrophe—of which the world is now beginning to have a foretaste—would become a reality unless humanity changed its ways.
The Trumpet is in the vanguard of declaring the unsavory news of the dark days ahead. But more than that—much more—the Trumpet is at the forefront of declaring the greatest hope for the future of mankind that lies just beyond this world’s looming darkest hour!
Read our booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like. Open your mind to the vision it contains and begin to look beyond this age of increasing catastrophe, on to the world of great peace and abundance that lies ahead! A world of the confluence of blessings!