"God Speaks – Part IV"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "God vs. Man… the Trial of the Millennium. Just to bring new readers up to speed, God has been on the witness stand for three days. Today marks his fourth day of testimony. What we’ve learned so far is that God accepts the blame for the “system,” with its “planned obsolescence” for everything in it. But He specifically denies blame for “every dumb thing done by man.” This is important, because if man is to blame for the decline of America, for example, then he can also turn it around. Making America great again is then not just a campaign slogan, but a real possibility. But if the decline is just “in the cards,” as God put it on Monday, there is nothing that can be done.
Complicity of Man: God clarified yesterday that there are “soft” limits and there are “hard” limits. The soft limits – like the lifecycle of empires – require the complicity of man. As we saw, presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden were a godsend… if you wanted to bring America down a peg. Self-serving, stupid, and incompetent – history couldn’t have asked for more.
In 1999, the U.S. federal government owed only $5 trillion. Now, thanks to their efforts, it owes more than five times as much. And now, with so much debt, and so many people depending on government “transfer” payments, it cannot afford “normal” interest rates… It cannot stop “printing” new money… And it cannot fight inflation. It is now caught in a trap – Inflate or Die… U.S. leaders walked right into it. We can’t blame God for that one.
God’s Doing: The hard limits, meanwhile, do not require any help from man. An Ice Age or an asteroid impact… a real plague – these are God’s doing. It doesn’t matter what men do or what they think. Sometimes… up against these “hard” limits… empires collapse. And sometimes, whole civilizations are destroyed forever. Like the Olmec or the Khmers… all that remains are stone buildings peeking up through the jungly vines. And today, God warns that we, too, may be facing a hard limit as well as a soft one… God takes the stand…
Life Source: You people amaze me. So smart… but so dumb. Some of your dear readers even write in to say that they “don’t believe in God.” Or that “there is no God.” How do they know?
They don’t. They just want to believe that THEY are in charge… and don’t have to respect My limits. They just think it’s all a matter of “knowledge” and “technology,” like fixing a kitchen faucet. Just find the right inflation rate… the right interest rate… and the right amount of stimulus, and presto!… you don’t have to worry about spending more than you can afford. They even think they’re going to “Save the Planet” by controlling the Earth’s weather with carbon credits and windmills. Ha ha. Good luck with that. But that brings me to my point.
I made the Heavens and the Earth. It took Me six days. But then, it took millions of years to stock them with energy. All life comes from Me. And all life, if it has any sense, trembles before Me. I am the source of life… and death. Everybody dies. Every empire declines. Some of them disappear forever. And once in a while, when I lose my temper, I even bring on an Extinction Event. The last one, 66 million years ago, caused the extermination of 75% of all species.
So pay attention. With some very minor exceptions, all the world’s energy comes from My sun. And over millions of years – when the Earth was much warmer than it is today, by the way – the sun made plants grow… which gave animals something to eat. Is this too basic for you?
The point is, these plants and animals all died – as everything in My world does. And their bodies then decayed and got compressed… and eventually, turned into coal, oil, and gas. So essentially, almost all energy is solar energy. It is My energy.
Growth Spurt: For thousands of years, after eating, mating, and sheltering, man barely had any energy left for making progress. But all that changed when he figured out how to use those millions of years of stored-up solar power I gave him. In the 18th century, man saw that he could change the heat energy of coal, gas, and oil into the kind of energy you can use to turn wheels. And then, it was a whole new ballgame. That was the beginning of the biggest… and only… great “growth spurt” of progress in human history.
Now, you plow your fields with great tractors… and harvest your crops with huge combines. Factories – often equipped with robot labor – run night and day. When someone comes to clean your gutters or fix your plumbing, he arrives in a truck powered by an internal combustion engine… often with tools that also depend on power, ultimately, from fossil fuels. It was this “industrial revolution,” powered by millions of years of the sun… that raised standards of living all over the planet. But please understand, it was My sun that made it possible, not man’s creative genius. (Did I mention that man’s brain is getting smaller?)
Slowing Progress: But let me ask you something: Once you have an automobile, a microwave, and a leaf blower… what more do you need? And how much difference is there between an Allis-Chalmers tractor from 1970 and a John Deere or Massey Ferguson in 2021? Does the new climate-controlled cab make it more efficient? Or just more comfortable? And here’s the revelation: The growth spurt caused by the Industrial Revolution may have been a one-time thing.
England… America… Germany… Japan… China – wherever it was put to use, people got a big boost. But once you are making full use of fossil fuels, what do you do next? You can only use so many factories and so many tractors, trucks, and backhoes. Then what?
[We interrupt God, briefly, with corroborating testimony of our own. We’ve seen this process up close. When we bought our ranch in Argentina, there were no internal combustion engines on the place. None. And no electricity, either. Plowing, cultivating, harvesting – it was all done with horses and mules. Very picturesque, but not very productive. We brought in modern machinery – tractors, harvesters, solar panels. We saw an immediate increase in output. More hay, more cattle, more onions, and more grapes. But this increase took place over 24 months. Then, it was over. There has been no growth in output in the 10 years since then. Back to God…]
In other words, drawing on My stored-up energy, you were able to make progress faster than ever before. China was the last major economy to experience this “growth spurt;” it went from pre-industrial to post-industrial in less than two generations. But growth rates did not speed up permanently, only temporarily. And now, the machine is slowing down in almost all fully modern economies. And guess what? So is the use of fossil fuels. Here’s the World Economic Council, doing My work: "U.S. fossil fuel consumption is at its lowest in 30 years."
What does it mean? It means your big growth spurt, driven by fossil fuels, is over.
Expensive Promises: But wait… this hard limit might not matter so much, except… your democracy depends on growth. Take your Social Security system, for example. It only makes sense if each generation gets more out of it than it puts in. Otherwise, it might as well just save its own money.
Up to now, Social Security benefits could rise – thanks to an increase in the population (more people “contributing” to the system) and economic growth (as society got richer, it could afford to pay out higher pensions). The expectation of something for nothing became embedded in the whole system. Politicians promised voters of all ages more and more “free stuff,” counting on “growth” to catch up. Earlier retirement. Free medical care. Free education. Stimmy checks. Unemployment toppers. Housing, food, transportation assistance. Just this week, Chicago may enact a “basic income” program of $500 a month for 5,000 low-income households.
The Party’s Over: And now, the “birthing parents,” ha ha, just aren’t having as many children. And with the fossil fuel growth spurt over… coming on top of wars, bailouts, and boondoggles… all of the major economies now have debts and obligations that can’t be met – not honestly. All must default, either directly, by missing payments and cutting back on “transfers”… or indirectly, by inflating their currencies. All will choose inflation as the least-honest alternative.
Instead of getting what he has been promised, in other words, the common man will be ripped off even more. He’ll have to pay higher prices for everything. And he won’t be very happy about it. Remember the “insurrection” of January 6 on Capitol Hill? Well, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. The bottom line? You ignored My limits. You scoffed at My rules. And now, you will suffer the consequences.
War. Revolution. Bankruptcy. Hyperinflation. It’s all ahead. And no, AI… 5G… and the “metaverse” won’t save you.
Tomorrow, God takes to the stand once more to explain why…"
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