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Responsibility is Painful
One of the books I read this past year was Bankruptcy 1995—the
Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It, by Harry E. Figgie, Jr.
Mr. Figgie is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Figgie International
Inc., a diversified Fortune 500 operating company. He was a co-chairman
of President Reagan's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, also known
as the Grace Commission. This privately-funded group examined the federal
budget and operations and recommended hundreds of ways to save money—hundreds
of billions of dollars. Nothing much was ever done with this report.
This sober businessman now warns that within a couple of years "America
will enter an age of financial disaster that will dwarf the Great Depression
and hail the end of the United States as we now know it."
I now have on order The Great Reckoning—How the World Will Change
in the Depression of the 1990's, by James Dale Davidson and Lord William
Rees-Mogg.
So, do I enjoy gloom and doom books? Not at all. I am just convinced
that these men are right, even if they are off by a couple of years. I have
observed the politicians and looked at the numbers, and there is no way
to avoid what Larry Burkett has called The Coming Economic Earthquake
(I read that last year). I want to gather all the wisdom I can in preparing
for disaster. For me it is a matter of applying Proverbs 22:3.
Specific steps I have taken to prepare include: getting completely out
of debt three years ago, beginning a family business last year, and preparing
to move away from the big city (St. Louis), Lord willing, some time in 1994.
The city will feel the social spasms more directly, and in the country we
can have a measure of economic self-sufficiency in conjunction with supportive
Christian community.
Actually, although I am an extreme pessimist regarding the short-term
picture for our nation, I am a long-term optimist. I do believe God is preparing
a remnant who will survive the crisis and become the leaders on the other
side of our national day of reckoning.
Do you believe hard times are ahead? What are you doing to prepare for
them?
For the rest of this column let me share some selections from Gary North's
Remnant Review of September 3, 1993 (PO Box 84906, Phoenix, AZ 85071).
People are usually quite trusting. They think that the economy normally
improves. They think their government is on their side. And they think
there will not be a disaster that threatens their future. Signs do become
obvious to a small minority that these assumptions are high-risk assumptions,
but the vast majority pay no attention. Even if a few of them do hear about
this information, they suppress it emotionally. The responsibility of seeing
storm clouds is just too great.
Responsibility is painful. It is expensive. Those who see a crisis coming
have to take specific steps to protect themselves. But these costs are
added to our daily expenses and routines. Those daily routines do not go
away in a convenient fashion. They seem to be urgent. The tyranny of the
immediately urgent is very powerful. Most of the time most people submit
to this tyranny....
Change comes imperceptibly over long periods of time. Then, seemingly
without warning, the pace of change speeds up almost overnight. Most people
are swept along by the process. They have little control over what happens
to them once the pace of change escalates. Only a few people take effective
action in advance to avoid the crisis. Most people prefer to sit quietly
and hope for the best.
Most people are trusting. When this trust is betrayed, they get ruined:
Russian aristocrats and middle-class businessmen who could have escaped
in late 1917; Jews in Germany in 1938, who could have gotten out any time
after 1932. They assume that 'all this will pass.' Eventually, it does
pass, including us, but what happens to us in the meantime is what counts
in our daily lives. Men become conditioned to small changes that are headed
in the wrong direction. The tyranny of the immediately urgent usually has
most people in its grip. They do not sit down and plan their step-by-step
way to get out of harm's way. They do not think through what will happen
to them.
Let me tell you a true story. It's one that serves as a model for me.
It's about Henry B. Holliday. You've never heard of him, but you may have
heard of his son: John H. 'Doc' Holliday, Wyatt Earp's friend. Doc was
a poor dentist, a better gambler, and a consumptive. His father's story
is more interesting to me than his. His father had been a major in the
Confederacy. He was wounded in 1862 and forced into retirement. He had
a farm in Griffin, Georgia. His wife owned property there, too: in between
Atlanta and Savannah. He understood military strategy. He could read a
map. He looked at the South's rail system and decided that the North would
attack Atlanta eventually. He moved his family to tiny Valdosta, Georgia,
close to the Florida border. Valdosta was off the beaten path. It had no
military significance. The people of Valdosta never saw a Union soldier
until after Lee surrendered. Those who stayed behind in Griffin got trapped
by Sherman's army.
Moral: read the map. Think it through. Then act.
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