Sunday 8 March, 2009

Economy
World

MEGABUCKS: All is not quite as it seems with this currency.

By Charles Gardner

As the Bank of England effectively printed £75 billion to bolster up our flagging economy, I thought I had gone one better this week when a friend handed me a one hundred trillion dollar note. I thought I had won the lottery, but in fact I was better off with the pound in my pocket as this was Zimbabwean currency and I was told that it probably wouldn’t buy much more than a loaf of bread.

It’s a frightening, apocalyptic scenario, especially in light of the current efforts of our leaders in our own financial crisis, which could well send us down the same road to ruin as Mugabe’s regime. For our political masters are effectively injecting cash into the economy that has not been earned, presumably in order to encourage spending and lending. But there is a real risk that it will contribute to the kind of hyper-inflation now blighting that once beautiful and bountiful land in southern Africa.

Further confirmation of my thoughts linking the City of London with Zimbabwe came when I picked up a copy of The Times during our weekly shop in Sainsbury’s later in the day. The cartoon inside (by Peter Brookes) depicted Robert Mugabe manning the printing presses of his Reserve Bank with piles of new ‘money’ on the floor and the dictator captioned as saying: “Gordon and I have a partnership of purpose!”

On the opposite page I read of how President Obama – apparently a keen poker player – is playing a $4 trillion poker game, referring to the budget which followed a $787 billion economic stimulus package. Obama was gambling not only his own presidency, but also the future well-being of his country, wrote Tim Reid who added that failure could bankrupt the world’s largest economy.

And it also seemed somewhat appropriate that, right alongside the paper’s front page story on the Bank of England’s £75bn cash injection was a full-depth photograph of American pop legend Michael Jackson – who has debts of $200 million – re-launching his career in London in an attempt to recoup some of his losses.

The bank’s efforts all sound very plausible with phrases such as “quantitative easing” to make us believe they know what they’re doing, but at the end of the day it’s a route untried since the bank was founded back in 1694. In the words of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, it’s “a leap in the dark” and even City experts are warning that the plan is fraught with uncertainties and risks.

In Zimbabwe they can’t print money fast enough to keep up with the economic mess they have created. It becomes almost impossible to get your head around the seemingly endless noughts on their virtually worthless notes. And yet millions of Zimbabweans are on the verge of starvation.

In the same way, how can printing more money help our economy? If it isn’t there, it isn’t there. Only God can create something out of nothing – and herein lies the solution to our problems. It’s time our politicians and bankers stopped pretending they have all the answers and bowed the knee to the only One who does. The nation is in peril – largely through the greed, arrogance and independence from God that has been gathering pace in recent years.

A national call to prayer and repentance is desperately needed, and a group of leaders meeting in Westminster have done just that (see National Call to Prayer and Fasting).

The last section of the Bible – known as the Book of Revelation – has something to say on this subject which resonates alarmingly well with what we are experiencing in these troubled times. It’s the account of a vision given by the risen Christ to the ageing Apostle John when he was exiled on the Isle of Patmos off the Turkish coast, and tells – often in colourful and symbolic language – of the days leading up to Christ’s Second Coming. There is a particular passage describing Four Horsemen bringing death and destruction on white, black, red and pale horses, the black horse representing famine and financial collapse with a litre of wheat costing a day’s wages. The overall effect of the four horsemen would be to wreak havoc on the earth, but it would be seen as the judgment of God when even kings, generals, the rich and mighty would seek to hide from the “wrath of the Lamb”.

A similar event took place in the time of Elisha the Prophet when Samaria was under siege and a great famine resulted, so much so that a donkey’s head sold for 80 shekels of silver, an absolute fortune.

But Elisha promised that if they would turn to God, the economy would be restored to health and they would be able to live in plenty. It happened as he prophesied, but an officer who refused to believe him didn’t live to see the outcome.

It’s time to pray and listen to the word of the Lord!

Photo: Luke Wilson Photography