Americans are beginning to awaken to the fact that they face annihilation by a weapon of mass destruction.
It's not nuclear. It's not chemical. And it's not biological.
It's financial.
It's the debt bomb.
Debt is the root of the economic crisis America – and, indeed, the whole world – faces.
We have ventured too far from a monetary system tied to anything of intrinsic value – like gold or silver. We have even ventured well beyond a system of fiat currency. We now live in the age when wealth is measured by how many electronic numerical digits appear in your bank account and by how many electronic numerical digits appear in the banks of your creditors.
It's crazy. And it's unsustainable.
The popular culture is so concerned about "sustainability" these days. We're told we should make sure our lifestyles are compatible with nature to ensure "sustainability." It's the governing ethos of our time. Yet, when it comes to economics, few can see that our debt culture is clearly unsustainable.
One thing is certain. The debt bomb has not been defused by the federal governments bailout plan. Remember how we were told that if this package was not railroaded through the Congress there would be calamity in the financial markets? What have we witnessed since in the financial markets? Calamity.
No government-orchestrated transfer of wealth is going to get us out of this mess. After all, it was largely government schemes that got us into this fix. When government pushed banks and financial institutions to lend money to people who were not qualified for loans in the best of times, we ensured massive defaults in not-so-great times. Now government, in all of its wisdom, is trying to right the listing economic ship by bailing out its partners in crime.
Now there are plans afoot to bail out individuals who were snookered into securing loans and homes they could not afford. This will only make matters worse – encouraging even more personal irresponsibility by individuals, in fact, subsidizing it.
And this debt bomb is not just a problem in the housing market.
Here's a sobering statistic to ponder: In 2006, just two years ago, Citigroup made 18 percent of its profits from credit card debt. Last year, that figure rose to an astonishing, breathtaking, mind-boggling 70 percent!
America needs a radical change in the way it is doing business.
No halfway measure is going to work. I don't even believe major tax cuts will be enough to get the job done. We need to think outside the box. We need to study historical precedents – or the American Dream will become a nightmare.
Debt is literally a killer. It destroys individuals, families and nations. It always has. That's why God gave us a prescription for dealing with it.
If we're willing to forgive some debt by individuals and institutions, maybe it's time to look at forgiveness of all debt. Maybe that's the merciful and fair way out from under. Perhaps that's the grace we all need to get us back on course.
That's what the doctor – the Great Physician – prescribed in Leviticus 25. It was the Jubilee system. Every 50 years, debts were wiped out, forgiven, there was a fresh start.
No greater mind than the late economist Julian Simon offered up this as a solution to the looming debt bomb – long before it became a weapon of mass destruction. Some think tank, with intellectual and research resources greater than my own, should start drawing up a plan – and the very basis of it should be Leviticus 25.
God promises supernatural blessings if we obey His laws. And the sabbatical system that includes the Year of Jubilee was not a suggestion. It is a law. Like any law, there are punishments for ignoring it and breaking it, and there are rewards for observing it and honoring it.
Maybe you think it's too far-fetched. Maybe you don't believe in the Creator of the Universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who performs miracles and judges mankind. Maybe you think those laws were simply for another time. Maybe you think John McCain or Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid has the answers.
Maybe you should think again.
Or maybe you think you have a better idea than God's for dealing with the economic crisis. Let's hear it. Put it on the table. The hour is late.