Nigel Farage on the Who's Who Within the EU Commission

Nigel Farage is at it again as he speaks of the who's who of the EU Commission

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

THE FACE OF CHRIST

We need to remember that people we interact with, speak to, and meet, are created in the image of Christ..

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Signs of the Times

By Joel C. Rosenberg
Forget the stagnant American economy and our severe debt crisis and the rapidly mounting financial troubles in Greece and Spain, at least for a moment. Consider what’s driving American headlines these days.

Pornography – Did you know the #1, #2 and #3 books on the New York Times fiction best-seller list, and on the USA Today best-seller list, and on Amazon for the last few weeks have been the Fifty Shades of Grey erotic novels by E.L. James that are being widely described as “Mommy Porn”? The sexually explicit trilogy, which revolves around adultery and BDSM (sexual bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) has become an overnight, viral phenomenon among American girls in their young teens all the way up through grandmothers in their seventies and eighties and is making headlines across the nation. The novels have sold more than 10 million copies in just six weeks.

Yes, you read that right — 10 million copies in six weeks.

A backlash is beginning on Facebook, blogs and other social media by women who are revolted by such pornography and warning of its dangers, but it’s coming slow and late. “The series portrays BDSM in the context of an engaging, passionate, tender, romantic relationship that culminates in the characters falling in love, and the conflicted girl assuaging the billionaire’s troubled soul,” wrote Mary Kassian, author of the “Girls Gone Wise” blog. “But it doesn’t matter to me how the author sweetens it up. The tasty red Kool-Aid doesn’t offset the bitter poison. Smut is still smut.” (See “Hotel in ‘Mommy Porn’ novel offering 50 Shades-themed packages,” Fox Oregon, May 23, 2012; “How ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Is Shaking Up the Business of the Romance Genre,” The Daily Beast, June 6, 2012)

Cannibalism — Have stories about human beings eating other human beings ever been a major story in the United States, much less a series of headlines that lasted day after day? Not that I recall in my forty-five years. But the Drudge Report and media outlets across the U.S. have been dominated in recent weeks by stories of six different instances of cannibalistic acts, some here in America and some around the world. “Miami police shot and killed Rudy Eugene, 31, on May 26 after he refused to stop eating another man’s face,” read one news story. “The victim, Ronald Poppo, a 65-year-old homeless man, remains hospitalized in critical condition. Alexander Kinyua, a 21-year-old student at Morgan State University in Maryland, was arrested May 30 on suspicion of killing his roommate, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, and then eating his heart and portions of his brain.”

Such stories are almost too horrifying to read, yet where is the outrage? People are almost treating these stories as bizarre but even a bit humorous, it as if it were no big deal, just another news story. (See “Exclusive: Causeway Cannibal Had Bible, Recently Smoked Pot When He Attacked,” CBS Miami, June 6, 2012; “Cannibal Copycat? Police Say Man High On Bath Salts Threatened To Eat Officer,” CBS Tampa, June 6, 2012; “Cannibalism Trend Can Feed On Itself, Experts Say: 6 Acts Of Human Consumption Draw Lurid Attention,” ABC Indianapolis, June 6, 2012)

Gay Marriage – For thousands of years, society believed that marriage was a sacred union between one man and one woman. In 1996, only 27 percent of Americans supported homosexual marriages. But by 2011, support had grown to 53 percent. Governor Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential presumptive nominee, doesn’t want “social issues” to be prominent in the 2012 campaign.

But last month, President Obama came out in favor of gay marriage, and homosexual activists are determined to force the issue not only into the headlines but all the way to the Supreme Court, hoping to force gay marriage (already legal in some states) on the entire country. This is a very serious development, as I am not certain by any means that there are five votes on the High Court to protect the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. (See “Obama says he supports gay marriage,” Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2012; “Prop. 8: appeals courts set stage for Supreme Court review of gay marriage,” Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 2012)

Abortion – Since 1973, Americans have aborted more than 53 million babies. Before long, we will reach the point where the U.S. will have murdered ten times more human beings than the Nazis murdered during the Holocaust. Try as we might, we cannot seem to get the atrocious Roe v. Wade decision overturned, and the murders just go on and on. How much longer can this go on until God intervenes? And if that were not bad enough, last month President Obama and 168 Congressmen decided to go on the record in support of sex-selection abortions. (See “President Obama, 168 House Members Defend Sex-Selection Abortion,” National Right To Life news story, May 31, 2012)

What in the world is going on? With a stagnant U.S. economy, more than $15 trillion in national debt, and some $65 trillion in unfunded federal liabilities fast coming due, America faces the very real possibility of an economic collapse in the not-too-distant future. But is it possible we’re already imploding culturally? The country is deep in a full blown political war between Democrats and Republicans, but do we honestly believe either party – or either presidential nominee – knows how to fix the mess we’re in? And where is the Church? In a nation of tens of millions of self-professed born-again, evangelical Christians, how can we be in so much trouble? And is there any hope of turning this around?

In my new non-fiction book, Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic and Spiritual Challenges In Time? (which releases on Tuesday, June 12th), I write that these are not normal times. Americans have been gripped by a widespread and deeply rooted pessimism in recent years. They are openly asking whether our nation can survive. A growing number of Americans fear that this period of our history is different and the crises we face today – and those coming up over the horizon – may be far worse than anything we have experienced in the past. Many Americans genuinely fear that God is preparing to remove his hand of protection and blessing from our country, or perhaps already has. The fear that unlike previous dark times in our national history, God may not intend to help us turn things around and get us back on the right track.

We must not kid ourselves. The evidence suggests we may very well be aboard the Titanic, heading for icebergs and inexplicably increasing our speed toward disaster. So many on board are unaware of the dangers fast approaching and not concerned in the slightest. We haven’t hit the icebergs yet, but if we don’t make a sharp turn fast, we soon will, and we will sink. Who will serve as our captain and crew going forward? Will they understand the gravity of the threat and have the wisdom, courage and speed to take appropriate action before it is too late? What is our role as passengers? Are we to succumb to decadence, indulging ourselves in amusements and entertainment and alcohol with no regard for our own safety or the safety of others aboard? Or will we rise up, sound the alarm, and take action will we can?

The good news is that God has shown mercy to our country in the past. In the early 1700s we experience what became known as the first Great Awakening. In the early 1800s, we experienced the Second Great Awakening. As I describe in Implosion, these were massive, widespread, game-changing eras of spiritual revival in which millions of people became deeply devout and passionately evangelistic followers of Jesus Christ. In 1770, for example, there were fewer than two dozen Methodist churches in America. By 1860, there were nearly 20,000. In roughly the same time frame, the number of Baptists went from under 200,000 to more than one million.

These revivals were not a panacea. They did not save every soul or solve every social ill. No revival ever has or will. But the good news is this: the historical evidence is clear and compelling that many Americans found salvation during these periods, and American society as a whole was dramatically impacted and improved by both of these revivals. One piece of observable evidence in this regard is the explosive growth in the number of church congregations that were established in the wake of both Great Awakenings.

At the same time, Christians during this period sought to put their faith into action to improve their neighborhoods and communities and the nation as a whole. They persuaded millions of children to enroll in Sunday school programs to learn about the Bible and pray for their nation. They opened orphanages and soup kitchens to care for the poor and needy. They started clinics and hospitals to care for the sick, elderly and infirm. They founded elementary and secondary schools for girls as well as boys.

They established colleges and universities dedicated to teaching both the Scriptures and the sciences. They led social campaigns to persuade Americans to stop drinking so much alcohol and to abolish the evil of slavery. These Christians didn’t expect the government to take care of them. They believed it was the Church’s job to show the love of Christ to their neighbors in real and practical ways. They were right, and they made America a better place as a result – not perfect, but better.

Today, the central question of our time for Americans is this: Will God in his grace and mercy decide to allow the American people to experience a Third Great Awakening? If so, may this spiritual renaissance begin immediately, for we are desperate for God’s help. If not, then I believe our days are numbered and a terrible implosion is coming. There is no more middle ground. It is one or the other.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Is Iran ready to mount a resistance against a possible outside attack on Syria?

Iran is ready to mount a resistance against a possible outside attack on Syria, two senior generals of the Islamic Republic said. The statements come as the level of violence in war-torn Syria continues to escalate.

¬The pro-Assad “resistance” would ensure that aggressors do not survive the conflict, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier Gen. Massoud Jazaeri told Mashregh, a media outlet run by the Guards.

“A conflict in Syria will engulf the region and its main victims will be the people of Syria themselves,” he also noted. “The Zionist regime and the interests of the enemies of Syria are all within range of the resistance fire.”

“The defeat of the enemy at this stage will be a big event and, God willing, we will witness that,” Jazaeri added.

Mashragh earlier reported that Iran’s armed forces had formed a joint war room with officers from “the resistance,” which includes Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, which controls parts of Lebanon.

Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Naqdi, (left) the head of Iran’s Basij militia who was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for alleged human rights abuses, said Tehran would not tolerate foreign interference to topple President Bashar al-Assad. He alleged that the United States was considering taking action in Syria to protect Israel.

“After the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and the disruption to their defensive posture in protecting the Zionist regime, America in order to defend the regime of the occupier of the Quds [Jerusalem] is after a new scenario in Syria,” he said. “But they will be defeated.”

Furthermore, he stressed that any attack on Syria or Iran would have negative consequences for Israel.

“Today all the people of the region are ready for wiping out this cancerous tumor and reaction to any aggression will be the freedom of Quds,” he said.

The statements come as violence in Syria continues to spiral out of control. Massacres of civilians, many of them women and children, have become routine, with the latest bloodshed happening earlier this week in the Hama province. Up to 78 people died in the mass killing, which came just a day before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan addressed the General Assembly and the Security Council on the situation in the country.

The UN largely put the blame on the Syrian government and called for all parties to follow Annan’s six-point peace plan. The United States, the United Kingdom, France and others were quick to draw conclusions and called for more drastic measures to be taken against President Assad. Russia and China urged caution in pointing fingers, saying both sides were to blame.

Iran has been a staunch ally of the Assad government. Some analysts believe that the ongoing Syrian conflict is largely rooted in religion. Assad and the ruling elite are mostly members of the Alawite group, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Analysts argue that Shiite-dominated governments, such as Iran and Syria, have been pitted against Sunni countries and groups, including the Syrian opposition, Saudi

Arabia and Qatar. Western nations have traditionally relied on the Sunni side, though this has not always been the case. End of Quote

http://www.rt.com/news/iran-syria-resistance-intervention-441/

The late and great Barry R Smith once said that one has only to read the headlines, as the rest of the article was only just someone's opinion. Accordingly, all that we are able to do in this instance is to take what the writer has said with a grain of salt as all that he is proposing is just one potential scenario, out of a million possibilities.

In the short term both sides are going to continue on with pointing the finger of blame at the other side with no real outcome looking likely on the horizon until we see the emergence and intervention of the Antichrist with a peace treaty sure to be implemented.

That looks like being the substance of the matter what other promises either side manages to come up with?

What we see going on in the Middle East and the Euro Zone in crisis seems to be just the tip of the iceberg with what is ready to emerge out of all of this is going to be the start of something quite out of the box.

In other words, all of this is going to come to some sort of shattering climax, such as the arrival of the Antichrist onto the scene to take control before too much water passes under the bridge. Even though I do not favour the Antichrist, there is still hope that he is able to intervene before the Syrian situation spirals out of control and spreads to other nations in the Middle East.

That seems to be the main problem on the minds of the diplomats (such as Kofi Annan) particularly in the light of the recent announcement that Iran is a staunch ally of the Assad government and will side with their friends should push come to shove: see the attached article.

If looking to identify the Antichrist, look for someone who is a clever diplomat, someone who is able to bind nations together, and someone who is, or has been in politics. Most importantly, look for someone who is able to bring a temporary type of peace to the whole world, (starting in the Middle East) for a very brief period. If there is anyone, you know who has achieved all of the aforementioned than more than likely he would score quite high on the scorecard as possible Antichrist suspects.

However, at the stage of this writing there is no one who has been able to come up with the goods. Accordingly, all that we are able to do is to keep watching and waiting to see how all of this is going to pan out eventually, as per usual.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

George Soros remarks at the Festival of Economics in Trento, Italy

Ever since the Crash of 2008 there has been a widespread recognition, both among economists and the general public, that economic theory has failed. But there is no consensus on the causes and the extent of that failure.

I believe that the failure is more profound than generally recognized. It goes back to the foundations of economic theory. Economics tried to model itself on Newtonian physics. It sought to establish universally and timelessly valid laws governing reality. But economics is a social science and there is a fundamental difference between the natural and social sciences. Social phenomena have thinking participants who base their decisions on imperfect knowledge. That is what economic theory has tried to ignore.

Scientific method needs an independent criterion, by which the truth or validity of its theories can be judged. Natural phenomena constitute such a criterion; social phenomena do not. That is because natural phenomena consist of facts that unfold independently of any statements that relate to them. The facts then serve as objective evidence by which the validity of scientific theories can be judged. That has enabled natural science to produce amazing results.

Social events, by contrast, have thinking participants who have a will of their own. They are not detached observers but engaged decision makers whose decisions greatly influence the course of events. Therefore the events do not constitute an independent criterion by which participants can decide whether their views are valid. In the absence of an independent criterion people have to base their decisions not on knowledge but on an inherently biased and to greater or lesser extent distorted interpretation of reality. Their lack of perfect knowledge or fallibility introduces an element of indeterminacy into the course of events that is absent when the events relate to the behavior of inanimate objects. The resulting uncertainty hinders the social sciences in producing laws similar to Newton’s physics.

Economics, which became the most influential of the social sciences, sought to remove this handicap by taking an axiomatic approach similar to Euclid’s geometry. But Euclid’s axioms closely resembled reality while the theory of rational expectations and the efficient market hypothesis became far removed from it. Up to a point the axiomatic approach worked. For instance, the theory of perfect competition postulated perfect knowledge. But the postulate worked only as long as it was applied to the exchange of physical goods. When it came to production, as distinct from exchange, or to the use of money and credit, the postulate became untenable because the participants’ decisions involved the future and the future cannot be known until it has actually occurred.

I am not well qualified to criticize the theory of rational expectations and the efficient market hypothesis because as a market participant I considered them so unrealistic that I never bothered to study them. That is an indictment in itself but I shall leave a detailed critique of these theories to others.

Instead, I should like to put before you a radically different approach to financial markets. It was inspired by Karl Popper who taught me that people’s interpretation of reality never quite corresponds to reality itself. This led me to study the relationship between the two. I found a two-way connection between the participants’ thinking and the situations in which they participate. On the one hand people seek to understand the situation; that is the cognitive function. On the other, they seek to make an impact on the situation; I call that the causative or manipulative function. The two functions connect the thinking agents and the situations in which they participate in opposite directions. In the cognitive function the situation is supposed to determine the participants’ views; in the causative function the participants’ views are supposed to determine the outcome. When both functions are at work at the same time they interfere with each other. The two functions form a circular relationship or feedback loop. I call that feedback loop reflexivity. In a reflexive situation the participants’ views cannot correspond to reality because reality is not something independently given; it is contingent on the participants’ views and decisions. The decisions, in turn, cannot be based on knowledge alone; they must contain some bias or guess work about the future because the future is contingent on the participants’ decisions.

Fallibility and reflexivity are tied together like Siamese twins. Without fallibility there would be no reflexivity – although the opposite is not the case: people’s understanding would be imperfect even in the absence of reflexivity. Of the two twins, fallibility is the first born. Together, they ensure both a divergence between the participants’ view of reality and the actual state of affairs and a divergence between the participants’ expectations and the actual outcome.

Obviously, I did not discover reflexivity. Others had recognized it before me, often under a different name. Robert Merton wrote about self-fulfilling prophecies and the bandwagon effect, Keynes compared financial markets to a beauty contest where the participants had to guess who would be the most popular choice. But starting from fallibility and reflexivity I focused on a problem area, namely the role of misconceptions and misunderstandings in shaping the course of events that mainstream economics tried to ignore. This has made my interpretation of reality more realistic than the prevailing paradigm.

Among other things, I developed a model of a boom-bust process or bubble which is endogenous to financial markets, not the result of external shocks. According to my theory, financial bubbles are not a purely psychological phenomenon. They have two components: a trend that prevails in reality and a misinterpretation of that trend. A bubble can develop when the feedback is initially positive in the sense that both the trend and its biased interpretation are mutually reinforced. Eventually the gap between the trend and its biased interpretation grows so wide that it becomes unsustainable. After a twilight period both the bias and the trend are reversed and reinforce each other in the opposite direction. Bubbles are usually asymmetric in shape: booms develop slowly but the bust tends to be sudden and devastating. That is due to the use of leverage: price declines precipitate the forced liquidation of leveraged positions.

Well-formed financial bubbles always follow this pattern but the magnitude and duration of each phase is unpredictable. Moreover the process can be aborted at any stage so that well-formed financial bubbles occur rather infrequently.

At any moment of time there are myriads of feedback loops at work, some of which are positive, others negative. They interact with each other, producing the irregular price patterns that prevail most of the time; but on the rare occasions that bubbles develop to their full potential they tend to overshadow all other influences.

According to my theory financial markets may just as soon produce bubbles as tend toward equilibrium. Since bubbles disrupt financial markets, history has been punctuated by financial crises. Each crisis provoked a regulatory response. That is how central banking and financial regulations have evolved, in step with the markets themselves. Bubbles occur only intermittently but the interplay between markets and regulators is ongoing. Since both market participants and regulators act on the basis of imperfect knowledge the interplay between them is reflexive. Moreover reflexivity and fallibility are not confined to the financial markets; they also characterize other spheres of social life, particularly politics. Indeed, in light of the ongoing interaction between markets and regulators it is quite misleading to study financial markets in isolation. Behind the invisible hand of the market lies the visible hand of politics. Instead of pursuing timeless laws and models we ought to study events in their time bound context.

My interpretation of financial markets differs from the prevailing paradigm in many ways. I emphasize the role of misunderstandings and misconceptions in shaping the course of history. And I treat bubbles as largely unpredictable. The direction and its eventual reversal are predictable; the magnitude and duration of the various phases is not. I contend that taking fallibility as the starting point makes my conceptual framework more realistic. But at a price: the idea that laws or models of universal validity can predict the future must be abandoned.

Until recently, my interpretation of financial markets was either ignored or dismissed by academic economists. All this has changed since the crash of 2008. Reflexivity became recognized but, with the exception of Imperfect Knowledge Economics, the foundations of economic theory have not been subjected to the profound rethinking that I consider necessary. Reflexivity has been accommodated by speaking of multiple equilibria instead of a single one. But that is not enough. The fallibility of market participants, regulators, and economists must also be recognized. A truly dynamic situation cannot be understood by studying multiple equilibria. We need to study the process of change.

The euro crisis is particularly instructive in this regard. It demonstrates the role of misconceptions and a lack of understanding in shaping the course of history. The authorities didn’t understand the nature of the euro crisis; they thought it is a fiscal problem while it is more of a banking problem and a problem of competitiveness. And they applied the wrong remedy: you cannot reduce the debt burden by shrinking the economy, only by growing your way out of it. The crisis is still growing because of a failure to understand the dynamics of social change; policy measures that could have worked at one point in time were no longer sufficient by the time they were applied.

Since the euro crisis is currently exerting an overwhelming influence on the global economy I shall devote the rest of my talk to it. I must start with a warning: the discussion will take us beyond the confines of economic theory into politics and the dynamics of social change. But my conceptual framework based on the twin pillars of fallibility and reflexivity still applies. Reflexivity doesn’t always manifest itself in the form of bubbles. The reflexive interplay between imperfect markets and imperfect authorities goes on all the time while bubbles occur only infrequently. This is a rare occasion when the interaction exerts such a large influence that it casts its shadow on the global economy. How could this happen? My answer is that there is a bubble involved, after all, but it is not a financial but a political one. It relates to the political evolution of the European Union and it has led me to the conclusion that the euro crisis threatens to destroy the European Union. Let me explain.

I contend that the European Union itself is like a bubble. In the boom phase the EU was what the psychoanalyst David Tuckett calls a “fantastic object” – unreal but immensely attractive. The EU was the embodiment of an open society –an association of nations founded on the principles of democracy, human rights, and rule of law in which no nation or nationality would have a dominant position.

The process of integration was spearheaded by a small group of far sighted statesmen who practiced what Karl Popper called piecemeal social engineering. They recognized that perfection is unattainable; so they set limited objectives and firm timelines and then mobilized the political will for a small step forward, knowing full well that when they achieved it, its inadequacy would become apparent and require a further step. The process fed on its own success, very much like a financial bubble. That is how the Coal and Steel Community was gradually transformed into the European Union, step by step.

Germany used to be in the forefront of the effort. When the Soviet empire started to disintegrate, Germany’s leaders realized that reunification was possible only in the context of a more united Europe and they were willing to make considerable sacrifices to achieve it. When it came to bargaining they were willing to contribute a little more and take a little less than the others, thereby facilitating agreement. At that time, German statesmen used to assert that Germany has no independent foreign policy, only a European one.

The process culminated with the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the euro. It was followed by a period of stagnation which, after the crash of 2008, turned into a process of disintegration. The first step was taken by Germany when, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Angela Merkel declared that the virtual guarantee extended to other financial institutions should come from each country acting separately, not by Europe acting jointly. It took financial markets more than a year to realize the implication of that declaration, showing that they are not perfect.

The Maastricht Treaty was fundamentally flawed, demonstrating the fallibility of the authorities. Its main weakness was well known to its architects: it established a monetary union without a political union. The architects believed however, that when the need arose the political will could be generated to take the necessary steps towards a political union.

But the euro also had some other defects of which the architects were unaware and which are not fully understood even today. In retrospect it is now clear that the main source of trouble is that the member states of the euro have surrendered to the European Central Bank their rights to create fiat money. They did not realize what that entails – and neither did the European authorities. When the euro was introduced the regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital; and the central bank accepted all government bonds at its discount window on equal terms. Commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate the bonds of the weaker euro members in order to earn a few extra basis points. That is what caused interest rates to converge which in turn caused competitiveness to diverge. Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, undertook structural reforms and became more competitive. Other countries enjoyed housing and consumption booms on the back of cheap credit, making them less competitive. Then came the crash of 2008 which created conditions that were far removed from those prescribed by the Maastricht Treaty.

Many governments had to shift bank liabilities on to their own balance sheets and engage in massive deficit spending. These countries found themselves in the position of a third world country that had become heavily indebted in a currency that it did not control. Due to the divergence in economic performance Europe became divided between creditor and debtor countries. This is having far reaching political implications to which I will revert.

It took some time for the financial markets to discover that government bonds which had been considered riskless are subject to speculative attack and may actually default; but when they did, risk premiums rose dramatically. This rendered commercial banks whose balance sheets were loaded with those bonds potentially insolvent. And that constituted the two main components of the problem confronting us today: a sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis which are closely interlinked.

The eurozone is now repeating what had often happened in the global financial system. There is a close parallel between the euro crisis and the international banking crisis that erupted in 1982. Then the international financial authorities did whatever was necessary to protect the banking system: they inflicted hardship on the periphery in order to protect the center. Now Germany and the other creditor countries are unknowingly playing the same role. The details differ but the idea is the same: the creditors are in effect shifting the burden of adjustment on to the debtor countries and avoiding their own responsibility for the imbalances.

Interestingly, the terms “center” and “periphery” have crept into usage almost unnoticed. Just as in the 1980’s all the blame and burden is falling on the “periphery” and the responsibility of the “center” has never been properly acknowledged. Yet in the euro crisis the responsibility of the center is even greater than it was in 1982. The “center” is responsible for designing a flawed system, enacting flawed treaties, pursuing flawed policies and always doing too little too late. In the 1980’s Latin America suffered a lost decade; a similar fate now awaits Europe. That is the responsibility that Germany and the other creditor countries need to acknowledge. But there is no sign of this happening.

The European authorities had little understanding of what was happening. They were prepared to deal with fiscal problems but only Greece qualified as a fiscal crisis; the rest of Europe suffered from a banking crisis and a divergence in competitiveness which gave rise to a balance of payments crisis. The authorities did not even understand the nature of the problem, let alone see a solution. So they tried to buy time.

Usually that works. Financial panics subside and the authorities realize a profit on their intervention. But not this time because the financial problems were reinforced by a process of political disintegration. While the European Union was being created, the leadership was in the forefront of further integration; but after the outbreak of the financial crisis the authorities became wedded to preserving the status quo. This has forced all those who consider the status quo unsustainable or intolerable into an anti-European posture. That is the political dynamic that makes the disintegration of the European Union just as self-reinforcing as its creation has been. That is the political bubble I was talking about.

At the onset of the crisis a breakup of the euro was inconceivable: the assets and liabilities denominated in a common currency were so intermingled that a breakup would have led to an uncontrollable meltdown. But as the crisis progressed the financial system has been progressively reordered along national lines. This trend has gathered momentum in recent months. The Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) undertaken by the European Central Bank enabled Spanish and Italian banks to engage in a very profitable and low risk arbitrage by buying the bonds of their own countries. And other investors have been actively divesting themselves of the sovereign debt of the periphery countries.

If this continued for a few more years a break-up of the euro would become possible without a meltdown – the omelet could be unscrambled – but it would leave the central banks of the creditor countries with large claims against the central banks of the debtor countries which would be difficult to collect. This is due to an arcane problem in the euro clearing system called Target2. In contrast to the clearing system of the Federal Reserve, which is settled annually, Target2 accumulates the imbalances. This did not create a problem as long as the interbank system was functioning because the banks settled the imbalances themselves through the interbank market. But the interbank market has not functioned properly since 2007 and the banks relied increasingly on the Target system. And since the summer of 2011 there has been increasing capital flight from the weaker countries. So the imbalances grew exponentially. By the end of March this year the Bundesbank had claims of some 660 billion euros against the central banks of the periphery countries.

The Bundesbank has become aware of the potential danger. It is now engaged in a campaign against the indefinite expansion of the money supply and it has started taking measures to limit the losses it would sustain in case of a breakup. This is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once the Bundesbank starts guarding against a breakup everybody will have to do the same.

This is already happening. Financial institutions are increasingly reordering their European exposure along national lines just in case the region splits apart. Banks give preference to shedding assets outside their national borders and risk managers try to match assets and liabilities within national borders rather than within the eurozone as a whole. The indirect effect of this asset-liability matching is to reinforce the deleveraging process and to reduce the availability of credit, particularly to the small and medium enterprises which are the main source of employment.

So the crisis is getting ever deeper. Tensions in financial markets have risen to new highs as shown by the historic low yield on Bunds. Even more telling is the fact that the yield on British 10 year bonds has never been lower in its 300 year history while the risk premium on Spanish bonds is at a new high.

The real economy of the eurozone is declining while Germany is still booming. This means that the divergence is getting wider. The political and social dynamics are also working toward disintegration. Public opinion as expressed in recent election results is increasingly opposed to austerity and this trend is likely to grow until the policy is reversed. So something has to give.

In my judgment the authorities have a three months’ window during which they could still correct their mistakes and reverse the current trends. By the authorities I mean mainly the German government and the Bundesbank because in a crisis the creditors are in the driver’s seat and nothing can be done without German support.

I expect that the Greek public will be sufficiently frightened by the prospect of expulsion from the European Union that it will give a narrow majority of seats to a coalition that is ready to abide by the current agreement. But no government can meet the conditions so that the Greek crisis is liable to come to a climax in the fall. By that time the German economy will also be weakening so that Chancellor Merkel will find it even more difficult than today to persuade the German public to accept any additional European responsibilities. That is what creates a three months’ window.

Correcting the mistakes and reversing the trend would require some extraordinary policy measures to bring conditions back closer to normal, and bring relief to the financial markets and the banking system. These measures must, however, conform to the existing treaties. The treaties could then be revised in a calmer atmosphere so that the current imbalances will not recur. It is difficult but not impossible to design some extraordinary measures that would meet these tough requirements. They would have to tackle simultaneously the banking problem and the problem of excessive government debt, because these problems are interlinked. Addressing one without the other, as in the past, will not work.

Banks need a European deposit insurance scheme in order to stem the capital flight. They also need direct financing by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) which has to go hand-in-hand with eurozone-wide supervision and regulation. The heavily indebted countries need relief on their financing costs. There are various ways to provide it but they all need the active support of the Bundesbank and the German government.

That is where the blockage is. The authorities are working feverishly to come up with a set of proposals in time for the European summit at the end of this month. Based on the current newspaper reports the measures they will propose will cover all the bases I mentioned but they will offer only the minimum on which the various parties can agree while what is needed is a convincing commitment to reverse the trend. That means the measures will again offer some temporary relief but the trends will continue. But we are at an inflection point. After the expiration of the three months’ window the markets will continue to demand more but the authorities will not be able to meet their demands.

It is impossible to predict the eventual outcome. As mentioned before, the gradual reordering of the financial system along national lines could make an orderly breakup of the euro possible in a few years’ time and, if it were not for the social and political dynamics, one could imagine a common market without a common currency. But the trends are clearly non-linear and an earlier breakup is bound to be disorderly. It would almost certainly lead to a collapse of the Schengen Treaty, the common market, and the European Union itself. (It should be remembered that there is an exit mechanism for the European Union but not for the euro.) Unenforceable claims and unsettled grievances would leave Europe worse off than it was at the outset when the project of a united Europe was conceived.

But the likelihood is that the euro will survive because a breakup would be devastating not only for the periphery but also for Germany. It would leave Germany with large unenforceable claims against the periphery countries. The Bundesbank alone will have over a trillion euros of claims arising out of Target2 by the end of this year, in addition to all the intergovernmental obligations. And a return to the Deutschemark would likely price Germany out of its export markets – not to mention the political consequences. So Germany is likely to do what is necessary to preserve the euro – but nothing more. That would result in a eurozone dominated by Germany in which the divergence between the creditor and debtor countries would continue to widen and the periphery would turn into permanently depressed areas in need of constant transfer of payments. That would turn the European Union into something very different from what it was when it was a “fantastic object” that fired peoples imagination. It would be a German empire with the periphery as the hinterland.

I believe most of us would find that objectionable but I have a great deal of sympathy with Germany in its present predicament. The German public cannot understand why a policy of structural reforms and fiscal austerity that worked for Germany a decade ago will not work Europe today. Germany then could enjoy an export led recovery but the eurozone today is caught in a deflationary debt trap. The German public does not see any deflation at home; on the contrary, wages are rising and there are vacancies for skilled jobs which are eagerly snapped up by immigrants from other European countries. Reluctance to invest abroad and the influx of flight capital are fueling a real estate boom. Exports may be slowing but employment is still rising. In these circumstances it would require an extraordinary effort by the German government to convince the German public to embrace the extraordinary measures that would be necessary to reverse the current trend. And they have only a three months’ window in which to do it.

We need to do whatever we can to convince Germany to show leadership and preserve the European Union as the fantastic object that it used to be. The future of Europe depends on it.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

EU's President of the European Union Council of Ministers, Herman Van Rompuy, sees a Euro Zone Economic Integration Plan by the end of the year.

Does the plan they are proposing take into consideration the prospect of appointing a Super President of the EU by effectively combining the presidencies of the Council of Ministers and the Commission into one. The only way the EU is going to achieve the objective they are aiming at is to hand total control for the running of the Euro Zone over to one man the word of God calls the Antichrist.

If that were ever to happen by the end of the year, then the stories that we are hearing running around the Internet relative to the end times starting sometime at the end of this year are correct.

(Reuters) - The euro zone is likely to come up with a plan for deeper economic integration by the end of the year, after agreeing on what elements it should include and how to achieve it in June, the chairperson of European Union leaders' meetings said on Monday.

Herman Van Rompuy told a news conference in St Petersburg, Russia, that by the next summit of EU leaders at the end of June he and three other top EU officials would present "the main building blocks for this deepened economic and monetary union" and "a working method to achieve this objective".

"In those building blocks, banking integration is an important chapter... I will deal at this stage on supervision, on deposit insurance and on resolution," Van Rompuy said.

"So we are working on it. It is the beginning only of the work... and hopefully we can present results of that work already by the end of this year," he said.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Is the Reign of the Antichrist to be a Totalitarian Left Wing German Regime?

There is a lot of information that comes across my desk relative to the end times. Some of it is quite interesting, while there are other bits and pieces that are really far too way out there to ever be really taken seriously. Relative to that statement, someone once said to me that the numbers of the Australian dollar note add up to 6. However, even after looking there was

nothing there that I could find that could verify that statement.

Nevertheless, it is with interest that I decided to take a closer look at the Australian dollar notes sometime ago after there was considerable interest shown by some preachers about the two seals on the back of the American dollar bill.

After studying all of the bills, I did indeed note that there were certainly points of interest attached to the bills.

Bearing in mind that what I am about to present here is not new and fresh information, and in fact what I noted at that time goes back quite a number of years. What I found on the back of the Australian $20 dollar note was a Left Wing German Plane. I call it a left wing plane because as the plane was facing to the left of the bill, it meant that what we were able to see was the left hand wings of the plane. I also know that it is a German Plane because there was a German Iron Cross on the side of the plane so often favoured by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Of course, there are no doubts that others may have different and varying opinions relative to the meaning of the information that I have presented above. The facts being that there may be some who are going to say that what I have presented above has no real meaning at all, and to those I would say you may be right. On the other hand, as the purpose of this blog is to present information relative to the end times, it may be that what we are shown here is quite early glue to the final Worldwide Empire of the Antichrist as a Left Wing German Dictatorship.

In fact, the dictatorship of nations, or even the whole world, by a single brutal ruler dates back to dawn of civilization. Nevertheless, leftist ideas of dictatorship are the more modern out of the two. Hence, 99% of dictatorships in history starting from ancient Greek tyrannies till Hitler, Franco and then to numerous modern day military juntas, and lately of course Saddam Hussein, were all right wing.

Right wing tyrants use the brute force of loyal troops and police. Right dictatorships favour cult of power, nationalism and sometimes even adopt the ideologies of the Nazis.

Leftist Dictatorships, on the other hand, while often also making good use of a police state, rely on utopias of social equality (something that was quite unthinkable before the industrial era. Plato and Aristotle often imagined ideal societies, but none ever blamed slavery). As a result, in left-wing dictatorships people are sacrificing their comfort, freedom and even their very lives in the name of the magnificent dream. Therefore, in a Left Wing Dictatorship there is no reason at all to oppress anyone. If there is anyone, who dares to go against his or her ideology the result is always going to be imprisonment or execution.

In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a direct personal connection with God. For example, a prophet like Moses led the Israelites, and the prophet Muhammad ruled the early Muslims. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation. For example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, since the pope did not claim he is a prophet who receives revelation from God, but merely the (in rare cases infallible) interpreter of already-received revelation. Religiously endorsed monarchies fall between these two poles, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.

FOOTNOTE:
Totalitarian regimes differ from older concepts of dictatorship or tyranny.

Totalitarian regimes seek to establish complete political, social and cultural control, whereas dictatorships seek limited, typically political, control. Two types of totalitarianism can sometimes be distinguished: Nazism and Fascism which evolved from "right-wing" extremism, and Communism, which evolved from "left-wing" extremism.

Traditionally, each is supported by different social classes. Right-wing totalitarian movements have generally drawn their popular support primarily from middle classes seeking to maintain the economic and social status quo.

Left-wing totalitarianism has often developed from working class movements seeking, in theory, to eliminate, not preserve, class distinctions. Right-wing totalitarianism has typically supported and enforced the private ownership of industrial wealth. A distinguishing feature of Communism, by contrast, is the collective ownership of such capital.

Totalitarian regimes mobilize and make use of mass political participation, and often are led by charismatic cult figures. Examples of such cult figures in modern history are Mao Tse-tung (China) and Josef Stalin (Soviet Union), who led left-wing regimes, and Adolf Hitler (Germany) and Benito Mussolini (Italy), who led right-wing regimes.

Right-wing totalitarian regimes (particularly the Nazis) have arisen in relatively advanced societies, relying on the support of traditional economic elites to attain power. In contrast, left-wing totalitarian regimes have arisen in relatively undeveloped countries through the unleashing of revolutionary violence and terror.

Such violence and terror are also the primary tools of right-wing totalitarian regimes to maintain compliance with authority.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Will 2012 and 2013 usher in the End Game?

By Tyler Durden
If Raoul Pal was some doomsday spouting windbag, writing in all caps, arbitrarily pasting together disparate charts to create 200 page slideshows, it would be easy to ignore him. He is not.

The founder of Global Macro Investor previously co-managed the GLG Global Macro Fund in London for GLG Partners, one of the largest hedge fund groups in the world. Raoul came to GLG from Goldman Sachs where he co-managed the hedge fund sales business in Equities and Equity Derivatives in Europe...

Raoul Pal retired from managing client money in 2004 at the age of 36 and now lives on the Valencian coast of Spain, from where he writes." It is his writing we are concerned about, and specifically his latest presentation, which is, for lack of a better word, the most disturbing and scary forecast of the future of the world we have ever seen....

And we see a lot of those.

Consider this:

We are here...
We don’t know exactly what is to come, but we can all join the very few dots from where we are now, to the collapse of the first major bank…

With very limited room for government bailouts, we can very easily join the next dots from the first bank closure to the collapse of the whole European banking system, and then to the bankruptcy of the governments themselves.

There are almost no brakes in the system to stop this, and almost no one realises the seriousness of the situation.

The problem is not Government debt per se. The real problem is that the $70 trillion in G10 debt is the collateral for $700 trillion in derivatives…

Yes, that equates to 1200% of Global GDP and it rests on very, very weak foundations

From an EU crisis, we only have to join one dot for a UK crisis of equal magnitude.

Then do you think Japan and China would not be next?

Then do you think the US would survive unscathed?

That is the end of the fractional reserve banking system and of fiat money.

It is the big RESET.

It continues:

• Bonds will be stuck at 1% in the US, Germany, UK and Japan (for this phase).
• The whole bond market will be dead.
• Short selling on bonds - banned
• Short selling stocks – banned
• CDS – banned
• Short futures – banned
• Put options – banned
• All that is left is the Dollar and Gold

It only gets better. We use the term loosely:

We have around 6 months left of trading in Western markets to protect ourselves or make enough money to offset future losses.

Spend your time looking at the risks of custody, safekeeping, counterparty etc.

Assume that no one and nothing is safe.

After that…we put on our tin helmets and hide until the new system emerges

And the punch line

From a timing perspective, I think 2012 and 2013 will usher in the end game

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

What does one make of the use of Biometric Identification Technology to reduce fraud in the USA Food Stamp Program - and is it going to lead to the Mark of the Beast?

As the implimentation of the Mark of the Beast gets ever nearer the USA is now considering RFID implants for everyone who joins the food stamp programme. Is the chip THE mark or is it just the forerunner? We will see as time moves along.

Use of RFID Tracking Technology To Be Mandatory In US Food Stamp Program
Food stamp welfare individuals must soon be chipped.

"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Revelation 13:16-17)

In a little while, the above scene in Revelation 13 will become a global reality. People can no longer buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast. And sometimes that would mean no longer being able to eat!

The USDA is now considering biometric identification for all individuals who will want to benefit from their Food and Nutrition Services. The RFID chip may just soon be a must for everyone who does not want to starve!

The following is an excerpt of the executive summary of the FINAL REPORT of the Use of Biometric Identification Technology to Reduce Fraud in the Food Stamp Program:

Biometric identification technology provides automated methods to identify a person based on physical characteristics—such as fingerprints, hand shape, and characteristics of the eyes and face—as well as behavioral characteristics—including signatures and voice patterns.

Biometric identification technology provides automated methods to identify a person based on physical characteristics—such as fingerprints, hand shape, and characteristics of the eyes and face—as well as behavioral characteristics—including signatures and voice patterns. Although used in law enforcement and defense for several years, it has recently been used in civilian applications and shows some promise to reduce the number of duplicate cases in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and other assistance programs .

Biometric identification systems are currently operational at some level in Arizona, California (under county initiative, first by Los Angeles County), Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. Finger imaging is the principal form of technology used in all eight States, though alternative technologies have simultaneously undergone trials in Massachusetts (facial recognition) and Illinois (retinal scanning). By the end of 2000, new systems are expected to be in place in California (statewide unified system), Delaware, and North Carolina. Other States are currently in the initial planning stages, including Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. However, there is little information available at this point regarding the specific course and trajectory these States will follow in terms of system types, implementation schedules, and the benefit programs in which they will implement the new requirement.

This report provides an overview of the experience of nine States with biometric identification technologies as of September 1999 and discusses some of the major policy and operational issues encountered during implementation and testing. The report also synthesizes available information on the effectiveness of the technology in reducing duplicate participation and provides a discussion of measurement complexities and issues on the horizon as use of the technology continues to expand. A companion report contains an overview of biometric identification technology, examining the functional capabilities, performance, and applications of the various technologies with a particular focus on finger imaging, the most commonly used and well known.

Telephone interviews of 1-2 hours in duration were conducted in May-June 1998 with representatives of human service agencies in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. As part of an earlier task of this study, we conducted site visits to San Antonio, Texas to observe the Lone Star Image System (LSIS) demonstration and to interview State and county agency staff. Information on Texas is based on those visits and interviews. The States interviewed, with the exception of Pennsylvania, have installed biometric identification systems and are requiring applicants to federal and State benefit programs to submit to the new procedures during the eligibility determination process.

The purpose of the interviews was to explore State experiences with biometric identification systems, including factors in the decision-making and planning processes, the dynamics of system start-up and implementation, issues and problems related to system and agency operations, and perceptions regarding the impact of biometric identification procedures on the application and eligibility determination processes. Each of the States participating in the study was asked to provide a description of the critical early events that occurred during the planning phases of their respective projects. In addition, those States that had already implemented systems were asked to describe their implementation experiences.

When finger-imaging technology was first applied to reduce multiple participation fraud in assistance programs, there were many concerns about the performance and reliability of the technology in a social service application, as well as about the potential stigma that a finger-image requirement would place on potential clients. The experience of the eight States that have incorporated finger imaging into the process of applying for welfare assistance suggests that many of these fears were unfounded. Finger imaging has been readily integrated into the human services programs of the affected states. However, despite the positive reaction to finger imaging from the State officials we interviewed, there is still uncertainty regarding the extent to which this technology can reduce multiple participation fraud.

The States planned for implementation of their biometric identification systems in response to a wide variety of factors and considerations idiosyncratic to each State environment. Some States reported that their respective legislative mandates, which prescribed specific dates by which biometric systems were required to be in place, allowed insufficient time for development and planning. The States developed and followed implementation schedules in accordance with internal priorities and considerations. The States uniformly described their implementation processes as largely uneventful, though they encountered a variety of minor implementation issues, most of which were associated with the logistical difficulties of mobilizing and managing such a complex initiative.

Preparing staff for the implementation of the biometric systems, both philosophically and operationally, took different forms, priorities, and levels of effort in the States. At implementation, advance notification to clients and/or the general public about new biometric client identification procedures was considered important by all State representatives. The objective of providing advance notification was to inform and prepare clients for the additional application or recertification step (i.e., to explain the requirement and who is required to submit, and to address client concerns), as well as to accelerate enrollment of the existing caseload. All States prepared informational mailings to clients advising them of the new requirement. Some States reported developing additional outreach media including multilingual (English and Spanish) videos, posters, and brochures for viewing and distribution in the local office. Most of the States also identified various outlets in the community through which they informed the general public in advance about the implementation of biometric client identification procedures.

The States with operating systems reported that implementation of new biometric client identification procedures had a negligible impact on operations at the local office level. In general, States also reported that the problems and obstacles encountered in operating their respective projects are not unlike those encountered in demonstrating any new technology or procedural modification. These States also reported that their systems and procedures were implemented without unexpected difficulty and were rapidly institutionalized. All the States confronted a range of basic physical space and logistical issues, including where to situate the new equipment, how to appropriately alter job descriptions, who to reassign or hire to handle the new procedures, and how to adjust the flow of clients and paperwork most efficiently. However, none reported any particularly noteworthy difficulties. States reported that clients have been cooperative and accepting of the technology.

Assessing the ability of finger imaging to reduce fraud is difficult because the amount of fraud caused by duplicate participation in welfare programs is unknown, and because changes in caseload after the introduction of finger imaging cannot be interpreted unambiguously as reduction of fraud. The evaluations of finger imaging systems conducted by six States have produced the following findings.

A small number of duplicate applications (approximately 1 duplicate for every 5,000 cases) have been detected by finger imaging systems. Finger-imaging systems appear to detect more fraud in statewide implementations than in regional pilot systems. Additional matches have been found by interstate comparisons of finger-image data.

Institution of a finger-imaging requirement can produce a significant, short-term reduction in caseload, because some existing clients refuse to comply with the requirement. The number of refusals depends on the implementation procedures and appears to be lower when finger imaging is incorporated into the recertification process.

The most carefully controlled estimate of non-compliance among existing clients suggests that introduction of a finger-imaging requirement reduces participation by approximately 1.3%. However, this estimate reflects both reduced fraud and deterrence of eligible individuals and households.

Clients do have some concerns about finger imaging. Roughly 15% expressed concerns in the State surveys and interviews conducted to evaluate finger-imaging programs. These concerns center on issues of privacy, unjust treatment of poor people, inconvenience, and fear of interagency sharing.
There is little data on which to estimate the size of the deterrence effect. Based on the results from client surveys in five States, a substantial majority of clients had no objection to finger imaging and thought it was a good idea.

There was little evidence that clients discontinued benefits because they were intimidated by the finger-image requirement. Interviews with former clients in Texas found that only two of the 78 former food stamp recipients (both of whom had refused to be imaged) attributed their loss of benefits to finger imaging. Similar interviews in Los Angeles County found that, of those former clients interviewed, no one who refused to be finger imaged expressed a concern with the process.

Since there is no reliable estimate of the magnitude of duplicate participation in the FSP, there is uncertainty regarding the cost effectiveness of finger imaging. Available data are inadequate to make precise estimates of either the costs or benefits of finger imaging for the FSP. Calculations using the data that are available, supplemented by a number of assumptions, suggest that reduction in caseload covers the costs of finger imaging technology. However, the percentage of the caseload reduction due to decreased multiple participation is unclear.

The analysis makes no assumption about how costs or benefits are allocated among Federal or State agencies. In addition, it does not include the cost required to modify existing software to make it compatible with the finger-imaging system. Finally, it does not take into account that certain cost elements, such as the cost for infrastructure or centralized equipment, may be independent of caseload fluctuation.

As I rapidly approach pension age what bothers me somewhat is if when the time comes and I have to put my hand out for government benefits will I be then told that I will not be given a pension unless I take a microchip implant under the skin akin to the Mark of the Beast.

Effectively, what that would then mean is that they are going to have those of my age the preverbal barrel in that if we want to eat, then we will have to take the Mark of the Beast.

That is how the carnal man is going to think, but should not be the way the Born Again Christian should think relative to the prospect of the Mark ever becoming compulsory.

The word of God makes it quite plain that those who have Christ will miraculously be provided for irrespective of the state of their respective bank balances. I am still not one of those who is thinking along the lines of something that is not in the word of God to begin with - the Rapture of the Church.

Meaning, I do not believe that I, or anyone else for that matter, is suddenly going to be whisked off the face of the earth before the Mark of the Beast becomes compulsory, as that is simply not going to happen.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.