Den of Thieves

I’m really worried about the economy. We just reached one and a half trillion as our country’s deficit for the year and our national debt is on an accelerated track now to exceed our entire economy for the first time ever by end of year. Remember when this happened to Greece earlier this year? Their credit line plug got pulled and they nearly collapsed.

This doesn’t seem to register with politicians, they seem obsessed with the 2012 election and gaining the upper hand in getting reelected and don’t seem cognizant about the deeper meaning and danger of this crisis. Unbelievably the stock market seems unaffected too. It just keeps going up higher and higher as though it is oblivious to what is happening. I don’t think they care about the country either.

I’m reading a book, “Den of Thieves”, about Michael Milken and other Wall Street tycoons whose greed was incredible. They had one goal and one goal only and that was to make more money. They broke laws, lied, hired prostitutes to influence clients, threatened takeovers, paid off politicians, and deliberately started untrue rumors about businesses and people, to accomplish their goals of making more money.

Milken was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and securities fraud in 1989 as the result of an insider trading investigation. After a plea bargain, he pled guilty to six securities and reporting violations but was never convicted of racketeering or insider trading. Milken was sentenced to ten years in prison and permanently barred from the securities industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. After the presiding judge reduced his sentence for cooperating with testimony against his former colleagues and good behavior, he was released after less than two years. He is currently trying to get a presidential pardon.

He made $500 million in just one year and was paid over a billion dollars in just four years and is listed in Forbes as one of the richest men in America and is now considered to be a leading philanthropist and top civic leader and politicians are falling all over themselves trying to gain favor with him.

Go figure. This is America the great? We really know how to pick our heroes don’t we?

Our forefathers who founded this great country were men of integrity. They served because they wanted to help their country. Now it is mainly about greed and lust and power and fame.

The Bible teaches that we will not know peace until Jesus returns and rules for 1000 years. The world will enjoy peace as it has never known during this millennium. Don’t you wish Jesus was running things in Washington now? I wonder if he will run the bums out of the capitol and off Wall Street and angrily tell them they have turned those institutions into a “Den of thieves”.

Luke 19:46
He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”