PROPHETS OF GLOOM & DOOM!!!
I trust that this is worth your reading. In 1985 a book was published called, The Great Depression of 1990 with the sub-banner, Has it already started coming true?. The book was written by a respected and noted historian and Wall Street financial expert, Dr. Ravi Batra. The front and back covers had glowing reviews by various published experts from such places as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the brokerage firm of Morgan Stanley. The book was republished in 1987, and cited other similar financial books by Dr. Batra.
Dr. Batra did a great job crafting his work, laying out the history of socio-economics in the first half as the premise on which in the second half he discusses our then current economic woes just ahead. His charts of the pre-1929 crash matched to a “Tee” the developments up to 1987. He was so certain of his predictions that he sold all his hard assets and became totally liquid. This added a certain credibility to his work for him to follow his own advice and stake his career and reputation on his own projections!
He recommended everyone get themselves debt free and hold a minimum of $11,000 in cash. He based this on the deflationary effects of the dollar in 1929 - 1936 when you could buy a whole breakfast for 10 cents, and a cup of coffee for a penny. A person with $11,000 cash would appear like a millionaire as the markets crashed. In October 1987, the Stock Market crashed 2 years ahead of Dr. Batra’s schedule. And it was the greatest single crash in its history. The 1929 crash was about a 10% drop, but the 1987 crash was 20%.
My View at the Time: I read Dr. Batra’s book with great intrigue. It seem to match my own beliefs at the time that we were headed for Armageddon. I was not able at the time to liquefy my assets, but that mattered not, because we would soon be in Jehovah’s Kingdom (aka New System) and I would be a co-ruler in Heaven - in the economics department of course. The Watch Tower Society in 1985 picked up on the political changes brewing in the former Soviet Union and started a round of speculation about Peace & Security. I was pretty excited! as were many JWs at the time.
Prophets vs Profits: One difference between Dr. Batra and other Prophets of Gloom & Doom, is that he was somewhat modest in that he allowed for the fact that any number of political moves and changes could throw off his predictions. But he was most certain that by the early 1990s it would be inevitable that a major Depression would happen. He felt that the political climate would never allow for the proper decisions to be made that would head off a major depression. And we were due for a big huge collapse! But, he, like other Prophets, also made Profits on the sales of their books and literature ... and that, is THE bottom line!
1991 Arrives! By this time I had also read Crisis of Conscience by Ray Franz. I was not so certain about any predictions as I had been before. But, I kind of clung to the WTS as a hedge against being wrong anyway. Then in August 1991, Soviet President Gorbachev and US President Bush jointly announced Peace & Security! This was exciting! I felt that maybe Dr. Batra might be correct, and just a little off in his predictions. I carried the theme of Peace & Security into a discussion with a religious fellow (non-JW) and his remarks shook me to the ground. He unintentionally exposed my JW views as totally fraudulent. It was a turning point. My
faith in the Watch Tower religion was shattered.
My Next Moves! While I was no long certain about any Watch Tower predictions, I still felt that the national and world economy might collapse. I paid cash for my house, sold off other assets, and became liquid and debt free! I was in line with Dr. Batra’s recommendations. I figured that being liquid and debt free would not hurt, and I was right about that. But, I was ridiculed by JWs for being in good financial shape. They saw this a succumbing to Satan's greed.
By late 1991 I was reading Ray Franz’s second book In Search of Christian Freedom and coming to realize that there was no hope in anything to do with the Watch Tower religion. I staged my family’s exit starting in January 1992, and after I gave my last Memorial Talk in April 1992, I resigned and walked away in May 1992. But, I still felt that it would be even more prudent to take some extra measures to shield myself economically, and did so.
Time Passes: Then 1992 ended, and 1993 rolled around. Nothing yet, other than Bill Clinton was President. The nuclear plant I worked at closed, and I moved to another nuclear plant. The economy was in a mild recession. So, I wondered about Dr. Batra’s predictions, and felt that with a Tax and Spend Liberal in the Oval Office, Dr. Batra’s analysis may be right after-all, and his predictons would be soon realized.
1994 passes and in early 1995, the Conservative Republicans take over both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Rush Limbaugh is having political orgasm on his national TV and Radio programs (incidently, I enjoy Rush - he has some good points). And before long, the economy picks up, the stock market booms, and all the woes and gloom seem to fade away.
What Happened?: Neither Clinton or the Republicans did all that much. Yes, the Republicans rolled back a lot of taxes and stopped many of the excessive Clinton spending plans. But what really happened is that High Tech companies, the Internet, and mostly foreign investment made our country liquid capital rich.
By this time I had changed careers from engineering to real estate and the financial markets. The Pacific Rim nations were in trouble and so they were dumping massive capital into American banks to hedge against inflation. Interest rates dropped like a rock as the Fed lowered their rates. High Tech was soaring, and life was beautiful. This trend continued until about August 2000.
What Changed?: High Tech hit a peak, as it has in the past before rebounding and much the same as other industries have before their rebounds. Foreign capital started moving out again as the Pacific Rim nations have rebounded. But, things have slowed as they will do from time to time. Nevertheless, we still have 30 lows in mortgage interest rates, the Fed Rate is at its lowest in years, and we have just been given a major tax reduction by the Conservatives. All this will add stimulus to the economy. And as High Tech and other industries rebound, things will likely improve greatly.
But, what IF?: What if the tax reduction does not help, and/or we lose more foreign capital, and/or the Fed rate goes back up, and/or some other major and unforeseen economic development happens that causes a major Depression? My comment is SO WHAT! Will not this prove that the Watch Tower Society was right afterall and Armageddon is right around the corner again?
In 1972 the economy went down when President Nixon took the USA off of the Gold Standard. Arabs oil nations reacted with major price hikes, and gasoline went from 30 cents a gallon to over 50 cents a gallon. We went into a recession, nad my JW mentor was nodding his head at me that this lined up with Armageddon being due by 1975! And I bought into this crap lock, stock, and barrel!!!
Will this not prove that You Know’s Lyndon LaRouche is correct? Will this not show that Dr. Ravi Batra was right on target, even though just 10 few years off? NO, NO, NO!!! It shows that men make guesses, some proclaim tham as Prophets, and others see them as mere calculated or maybe educated guesses. What the economy does is more a function of some predictable and much unpredictable dynamics that take place. NONE OF IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH GAWD!!
What if Armageddon Does Come?: Again, I suggest, SO WHAT! We can’t do anything about what God may or may not do in his Divine Intervention. God is not bound by our national or planetary economic cycles or what the Prophets of Doom & Gloom say. If God brings Armageddon tomorrow, it will have absolutely NOTHING to do with anything going on among humans, but it will have everything to do with what God has in mind, and we all will be so scared shitless, that I doubt we will give a rats ass about You Know, Lynden La Rouche, Dr. Batra, H20, Watch Tower Society, me or anything else. We will all be worried about whether we survive. (JWs, in my estimation, will be the most worried, because they have been trained to worry the most.)
The Bigger Question is - What if Armageddon Does NOT come:? I am far more concerned about my short life and the fact that there may never be any Divine Intervention. If all the predictions of Doom & Gloom never come true, then this brings into question our whole concept of God, the Bible, and where we really fit into the grand universal scheme of things. And if the atheists are correct in there being no super being or God as we like to say, then it is going to cause even more problems amongst people than ever before. Why? Because much of the world is religious if you add the 2 Billion Christians and the 2.5 Billion Moslems together, you have about 75% of the world believing in GAWD!
What of the Prophets of Gloom & Doom?: Their predictions are pointless! If the economy goes down according to some lucky or even educated guess, SO WHAT! There were people who predicted that the Japanese would attack the USA. They were right! And the USA was bombed anyway. World War II was already happening in Europe, and was merely extended to the Pacific Rim. It was going to happen anyway. If the USA would have acted to pre-empt or thwart the Japanese Fleet, and say sink their Carriers and Destroyers out in the Pacific, the Japanese Empire would have declared war and fought the USA anyway.
The really dangerous Prophets of Gloom & Doom are those that do two serious things: 1) They obligate people to follow them either emotinally nad/or finacially (e.g. the Watch Tower) and 2)
they back-fit their predictions to account for serious errors and make their predictions match up with what history really proved to be. La Rouche followers point to the 1987 Market Crash and declare how accurate they were (but they leave out the glaring fact the their real prediction of Gloom & Doom did not happen.) The Watchtower points back to 1914 and how accurate they were, but leave out the glaring fact that what they predicted for 1914 NEVER happened! That is called back-fitting your predictions to match history. To my knowledge Dr. Batra did not back-fit his theories to fit what happened. As far as I know, he slipped off into oblivion, as he should, and this at least means that he was not of the dangerous variety of false prophets.
WHAT of JWs and people like You Know and ApostleAK, and other who get caught up in conspiracy theories, and believe in Prophets of Gloom & Doom? They waste their time and short lives, and often money, in chasing after such ideas. They waste precious moments that could have been better spent with loved ones, and they waste emotional energy, and sadly waste whatever real talents they do have that could have been used for far nobler purposes.
They fail to learn the lessons of history and of millions who have left the Watch Tower religion and religions like it, and that is, JWs and groups like them are followers men, and men-pleasers. They fail to understand the value of thinking for themselves because they have been ripped off by con artists using fear of the devil and fear of Gawd to get them to stop thinking! Everytime I have listened to anything that Prophets said that caused me to stop my individual thinking, I ALWAYS lost, both time and money to what were really Profits of Gloom!
So, You Prophets of Gloom and Doom, beware, we have taken our minds back away from you! And in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are "FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, OH THANK GOD! WE ARE FREE AT LAST!" - Amazing