Commodities and the coming "Standard-of-Living Shock"

However, it was the first sentence of the article explains the most important fact: "The threat of inflation is real. It is just a different threat than many realize." That misunderstood threat is being driven by commodity prices, which, in turn, are driven more by emerging nations than by, as the article describes them, "rich-but-stagnating industrial nations" like the U.S. The real danger is from standard-of-living shock, in which maintaining our current way of life becomes impossible. To emphasize the point, Ms. Evans points out that median income for American men in 2009 was actually lower in real terms than it was in 1973.

As the article points out, America is not prepared for what all the technical signals out there indicate may be coming. And what is coming? The last line of the article gives the sobering answer (emphasis ours): "The real risk is that the U.S. faces a poverty cycle rather than an inflationary one."

Chilling, no? Are you ready for a poverty cycle in United States?

American culture is not even remotely prepared for such a possibility. And our "leaders" seem to continue in either a state of denial or, perhaps, in a state of political paralysis, where the unpopularity of possible real solutions make them "vote killers" and thus off the table for consideration.

The prophetic biblical book of Revelation talks about a time when the prices of needed goods are incredibly high: "When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come and see.' So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine'" (Revelation 6:5–6).

Also, as Dr. Douglas Winnail pointed out in our 2005 Tomorrow's World article, "Coming: Resource Wars!" Bible prophecy warns of times when the fundamental substances of life just aren't available. Consider these scriptures, referenced in the article: "Has anything like this happened in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? … the day of the Lord is at hand … the field is wasted, the land mourns, the grain is ruined … the animals groan … the water brooks are dried up" (Joel 1:1–20).

"The earth mourns and fades away … the earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth" (Isaiah 24:4–6).

Notice the real cause: "[T]hey have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." (Read the whole article. Written five years ago, it is still frighteningly relevant.)

A standard-of-living shock is, indeed, coming, but not because of monetary policy or political wrangling. The root cause will be sin: our nation's sin and our general unwillingness to seek the God who is the source of real security and abundance—the God who "gives you power to get wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:18).

And if national sin is the cause, then national repentance is the answer.

Do you want to know more about the real crisis facing the United States—and ultimately the world? Do you want to know how you can personally contribute to the solution and to protect your family from what's to come? You owe it to yourself to read our free booklet, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy.