With stock markets in free-fall and banks going belly-up, it looks as though the world is headed for a financial 9/11. Governments are trying to step in, attempting to stave off complete collapse. The country of Iceland is on the verge of revolution out of frustration. This, of course, is a time of great confusion, anxiety and panic.
I remember seeing the body of a man lying in the street that had just jumped out of a high rise building in NYC during the 1987-88 market crash. Many people now are asking “Who’s to blame?” Some are pointing their fingers at the stock market, the Fed and even at the US in general as a starting point of panic with the mortgage crisis and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
The US has the largest national debt of any country and the National Debt Clock in Times Square actually ran out of space in September. When the debt went over 10 trillion they took away the dollar sign to make room. They plan for a wider clock for 2009 with a quadrillion dollar capacity (including the dollar sign).
When you look at US history, it’s hard not to see how the troubles began. The interesting thing to me is to see how the banking issues are clearly interwoven with issues of global political intrigue. The Hebrew word “babel” basically means confusion and is the root word of the historical kingdom known as Babylon, but has also been used as a name for a future world system. Is the global economic confusion we are seeing these days preparing the way for new aspects of a new world government? Would a financial 9/11 be more devastating than the physical 9/11 was? In order to answer these questions, it helps to go back into history.
Here is a brief time-line of US banking intrigue:
