Thursday, August 20, 2009

Netanyahu bows to Clinton and Obama

So much happening it makes your head spin. Is this the reason America is in so much trouble? You touch Israel and divide God's land the almighty will react. From ISRAEL TODAY Headline NewsTuesday, August 18, 2009 Israel Today StaffNetanyahu to freeze Jewish construction, settlers furiousIsrael's largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, reported on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reached an agreement to halt all Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and the eastern half of Jerusalem in compliance with the demands of US President Barack Obama. The freeze will last until 2010, and will be presented to the Americans as a gesture of goodwill and a test to see if the Palestinians are willing to live up to finally their peace obligations.The decision sparked immediate outrage among right-wing Israelis, who said the move was reminiscent of Netanyahu's ideological collapse during his first term as prime minister in 1996. Then, just as during his current term, Netanyahu entered office vowing to never give up Israel's right to the land, and to not make any serious concessions until the Palestinians reciprocated previous concessions. Months later, Netanyahu was strong-armed by then-US President Bill Clinton into surrendering nearly all of the ancient Judean city of Hebron. The decision to halt Jewish construction on the eastern side of Jerusalem came as a particular surprise to those who believed Netanyahu was the only candidate that would preserve the capital's unity under Israeli control. Right-wing Israeli leaders said that if Netanyahu continues with the policies of his rival, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, there will be no reason to keep him in office, and he will find himself facing a no-confidence vote just as he did during his first term.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Can It Get Much Worse?

BB&T Acquires Colonial as Regulators Close Five U.S. Lenders
By Alison Vekshin, David Mildenberg and Dakin Campbell

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Colonial BancGroup Inc., the Alabama lender facing a criminal probe, had its banking operations closed by regulators and taken over by BB&T Corp. in the biggest failure since Washington Mutual Inc. collapsed last year.

Regulators also shut two companies in Arizona, one in Las Vegas and one in Pittsburgh yesterday, pushing the tally of failed banks this year to 77.Branches and deposits of Colonial Bank, ranked second in its home state, were turned over to BB&T in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the regulator said in a statement. The failure of Montgomery-based Colonial followed a Florida expansion that left the company with more than $1.7 billion in soured real-estate loans.

“We’re gaining solid market shares in great markets in Alabama, Florida and Georgia,” Kelly King, chief executive officer of Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based BB&T, said in a statement. “It comes with minimal asset risk to BB&T because of our loss-sharing agreement with the FDIC.”

Regulators are closing banks at the fastest pace in 17 years. The Sept. 25 seizure of Seattle-based Washington Mutual was the biggest bank failure in U.S. history; its branches and assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Colonial is the sixth- biggest, FDIC spokesman David Barr said.

Colonial had assets of $25 billion and deposits of about $20 billion, the FDIC said. BB&T will buy about $22 billion of the assets and the FDIC will dispose of the rest later. The FDIC and BB&T signed a loss-sharing agreement on about $15 billion of assets, the regulator said. The failure will deplete the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund by $2.8 billion, the agency said.

Criminal Matters BB&T won’t assume any assets or liabilities “related to fraudulent, criminal or inappropriate activities of Colonial,” the North Carolina bank said. BB&T also won’t take assets or liabilities related to Taylor Bean and Whitaker Mortgage Corp., the Florida-based lender that stopped making loans this month after being suspended by U.S. agencies and Freddie Mac.

Colonial provided financing for Taylor Bean and dozens of smaller mortgage firms.Colonial said last month there was “substantial doubt” it could survive and on Aug. 7 said part of its mortgage-lending business was the target of a U.S. criminal probe. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas for documents related to accounting for loan loss reserves and participation in the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank said.

The Colonial takeover will make BB&T the ninth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, moving it from 11th ahead of McLean, Virginia- based Capital One Financial Corp. and Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc. BB&T said it will rank eighth by deposits. The biggest lender based in Alabama is Regions Financial Corp.New Markets “It’s a good acquisition geographically for BB&T,” Chip MacDonald, a partner specializing in financial services at law firm Jones Day, said in a telephone interview. “It complements their Florida operations and gets them into Texas.”Colonial’s 346 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas will reopen as outlets of BB&T, the agency said. Colonial employs about 4,500 people, BB&T said, adding that it may sell 44 branches in Nevada and Texas.

“This is the time when smaller banks can take advantage of the weaker banks,” said Ken Thomas, an independent bank consultant in Miami. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair “has had a lot of sleepless nights, but this is one headache gone.”Colonial posted a $606 million second-quarter loss, its fifth straight, mostly because of soured loans to developers and home builders in Florida.

A planned $300 million injection by an investor group led by Taylor Bean collapsed and the bank hasn’t met capital requirements to qualify for money from TARP, the $700 billion U.S. bailout program for troubled financial firms.Other BiddersLosses under BB&T’s agreement with the FDIC are likely to be “very minimal,” Daryl Bible, BB&T’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “It’s a very low-risk acquisition from a credit perspective.”The FDIC told BB&T that “up to four people were looking seriously” at Colonial, Bible said. At least one other bid was received and it was very close to BB&T’s, he said, adding he didn’t know who made the competing offer.

BB&T has 450 people working on the acquisition this weekend, Bible said. BB&T is considering continuing Colonial’s so-called warehouse mortgage program that helps finance other home lenders, he said.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Something of Historic Proportions is happening?

By Tim Wood
I am a student of history. Professionally! I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two. We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back. Why? We learn just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has 'loaned' two trillion dollars (that is$2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine! And that is three times the 700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us?Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of 'we the people,' who loaned our powers to our elected leaders, Apparently not? We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why? We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why? We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago? We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose? Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are infree fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare andour entire government, our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about) the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so. And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary. Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders. No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important. Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: CHANGE. Why? I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now! This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again. And that is only the beginning. And I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his 'brown shirts' would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office, a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department-by-department, person-by-person, bureaucracy-by-bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did it with a compliant media. Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and . . .. Change. And the people surely got what they voted for.(Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe.. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities, and in less than six years 'a shorter time span than just two terms of the US. presidency' it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors, all with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them. As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me. Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am.But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe, and why I believe it.I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Note by Robert J Muir: Just in case Mr. Wood is not aware of what is happening, as I am sure he is , it's called New World Order

Friday, August 14, 2009

US President Barak Obama set to announce a Middle East peace plan within a few weeks

There have been a lot of quotations made on this blog relative to the signing of seven year covenant by the Antichrist. The covenant is re-quoted below.

The signing of the covenant is quite significant as it not heralds the return of the Lord Jesus Christ back onto the earth, but also it heralds the beginning of seven years of tribulation spelling the end of mankind’s existence here on the earth as we know it. This information is not intended to frighten but only to inform!!!

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Daniel Chapter 9, Verse 27.

There is news now starting to emerge that a peace plan will be announced in a few weeks by the US president Barak Obama. At this stage I do not know any of the details of the plan, BUT, if it were to be seven year Middle East peace treaty between Israel and all of the Arab states in the region then that is the one we have been looking for.

No I am NOT saying President Obama is the Antichrist.

However news reported by the Times on line (here) suggest we may be on the verge of an historic, and perhaps prophetic, step forward in the preparation for the appearance of the Antichrist; that is if he has not already been revealed in the form the previous British Prime Minister and current head of the international quartet of four towards Middle East peace -- Tony Blair

Times online announced Obama is close to revealing the Middle East peace plan within weeks.

What makes this peace plan different from the rest that have gone before is the suggestion that this plan will include / involve not only Israel and the Palestinians but Syria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon, see the aforementioned

Thus Daniel 9:27 takes on even more significance when we read "......he shall confirm the covenant with the many...."

Now this does not mean Obama is the Man of Sin but if he isn't then he is paving the way for the coming Antichrist to "confirm" (rubber stamp) the covenant with the "many".

The word "confirm" in the Old Testament is an interesting one. Because it not only can mean to strengthen the covenant but it also means to "act insolently".

Sort of conjures up the picture of Antichrist Chuck Misler gives when he calls this coming evil person "Mr. Big Mouth".

Another interesting development along the same lines is the recent UPI news (here)
of a report outlining the details of a future Palestinian State.

We know the Antichrist will base himself and his forces in Israel so the fact that the above report mentions 3 times the deployment of a "multinational force" on the borders, in the Old City of Jerusalem and (now get this, prophecy buffs) they will also be stationed on the Temple Mount, could also be very significant.

Remember the word "could". This means we take note but do not shout to the world that this is it.
Things are moving very fast and we can only do as I always say, do as the master said and "Watch".

May Messiah bless you until next time?