Not So Rosy Now

Global Economic Forecast from the IMF
The Guardian

The outlook for the global economy goes from bright to precarious

Greg Jericho

The latest IMF report should provide sobering reading for both major parties ahead of the [Australian] federal election

 @GrogsGamut

Thu 11 Apr 2019 02.31 BSTLast modified on Thu 11 Apr 2019 03.10 BST

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 ‘For individual countries, the news is mostly bad, and Australia is not immune. The IMF has cut the projection for Australia’s GDP growth this year from the 3.1% it made a year ago to just 2.1%’ Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The IMF has downgraded forecasts for economic growth across the world in its latest world economic outlook released this week. The report should provide sobering reading for both major parties ahead of the federal election as a substantial slowdown in the world economy could severely affect revenue forecasts and the ability to deliver spending commitments and tax cuts while also balancing the budget.

Should you be after a quick taste for how the world economy has been tracking over the past 18 months, you could do worse than just peruse the titles of the past six IMF world economic outlook reports.

At the start of last year things were looking almost upbeat. The title of the IMF’s January update, Brighter Prospects, Optimistic Markets, Challenges Ahead, is economic speak for “cripes, aren’t we all a bit unusually happy!”. By April 2018 the title had become “Cyclical Upswing, Structural Change”, which again spoke of economic sunshine, even if it did warn of the need to adjust to the post-GFC world.

Short-term growth policies risk new financial crisis, IMF warns

 

Read more

But such giddiness was not to last.

By the middle of last year the July update was warning “Less Even Expansion, Rising Trade Tensions”, and the October outlook was a decidedly measured if still somewhat neutral, “Challenges to Steady Growth”.

But with this new year, all neutrality has disappeared. The January update stated it plain: “A Weakening Global Expansion”. And just in case you had not caught their drift, the latest outlook, released this week, was headed, “Growth Slowdown, Precarious Recovery”

From brighter prospect to precarious recovery in less than two years. Hope you enjoyed that moment of economic joy while it lasted.

The decline is across roughly 70% of the world’s economies, with the IMF blaming the “escalation of US–China trade tensions”, troubles in the “auto sector in Germany” plus “tighter credit policies in China, and financial tightening alongside the normalization of monetary policy in the larger advanced economies.”

In effect the structural changes and rising trade tensions warned in previous outlooks all came to pass. As a result the forecast for world GDP this year has been cut from 3.9% this time last year to just 3.3%

Daily Meditation

Contemplating Our Destiny

Ligonier Ministries

John the Revelator’s vision provides a glorious picture of what will be in heaven. There will be a high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates. The wall will have twelve foundations. The gates will be named for the twelve tribes of Israel and the foundations for the twelve apostles.

The city will be foursquare, with walls of jasper. The walls’ foundations will be adorned with precious gemstones. The gates will be pearls. The city itself will be made of pure gold and the streets will be paved with transparent gold.

These images of breathtaking beauty and opulence pale into insignificance, however, when we consider the most important presence in the Holy City: “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:3–4, NIV).

Heaven is the place of the unveiled presence of God. Christ, in all His splendor, will be there. We shall see Him. We shall speak to Him. We shall hear His voice. We shall serve Him in unspeakable joy. We don’t know exactly what heaven will be. The reality will surely exceed all images or symbols of it. But this we do know—heaven is where Jesus is, and it is our destiny.

Coram Deo

Reflect on what it will be like to be forever Coram Deo … in God’s presence.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 22:1–4

Petition

The Dark Animus of the Anti-Free Speech Mob

A fried posted an invite to sign a petition being promoted by the Free Speech Coalition.  This is one of those petitions which can be signed on-line.  We recommend the petition and encourage all who are like minded to sign. 

JT

Hi friends, 

Justice Minister Andrew Little has confirmed the Government is fast-tracking a review of our speech laws, with an eye to broadening the types of speech that could be restricted as "hate speech".

It seems pretty clear in the current climate that these laws could be used to shut down Christians and prevent them from speaking what they believe. Already people are talking about unpopular opinion as speech that is hateful and shouldn't be allowed. The furore over Israel Folau quoting the Bible on a social media account is a taste of our future. Whatever we think of these two issues, it is a worrying trend that puts us on a trajectory toward a totalitarian state rather than a democracy.

While we may disagree with someone's speech, the minute we say speech should be banned, we are in danger of losing our own freedom to speak. We need strong laws to protect free speech. I want to alert you to the Free Speech Coalition, and the petition they are running at the moment.

Please sign the petition and pass it on to your friends and urge them to support the petition. 

Cheers,

Paying People To Do Nothing

Lazy Kiwis Refuse to Work in Orchards For Good Money

Mike Hosking
NZ Herald


Let me toss a few numbers at you. First number is $23.50 - that's the average pay for an hour to pick kiwifruit. That number alone answers all those who have complained the money is no good. $23.50 is good money.

And instead of the annualised whinge-fest we go through in this country, it behoves us to actually try and drum up a few answers.

Visa issues might be part of the problem. I tried yesterday to explain to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that there will be people here for holidays who want a bit of cash and easy work. Under their visitor visa they need to reapply, that takes time, too much time, they will ask themselves why they bothered.

We also have issues around migrants. They, of course, are the answer. They work hard, send money back home, it all seems successful. But despite that, we still want to try and employ locals. That's all fine, but getting them under a vine and picking seems to be an issue.

So what about those we pay to do nothing?

Daily Meditation

Examining the Clues

Ligonier Ministries

John’s vision in Revelation gives us some clues about what heaven is like. Heaven is charged with the absence of things that are conspicuously present in our earthly environment. What is absent? Some of the missing things include tears, death, sorrow, and pain: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4, NIV).

Certain types of people will also be absent. No unbelievers, abominable and sexually immoral people, murderers, sorcerers, idolaters, or liars will live in that place. This indicates that heaven will be a place where sin is totally absent.

The New Jerusalem will have neither tabernacle nor temple. These were but earthly types, shadows of what is to come. When the reality appears, the shadows depart. “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22, NIV).

The new heaven will have no sun or moon. They are unnecessary because the glory of God gives it light. In heaven there is no night. Nothing can eclipse or dim the light of the refulgent glory of God. No darkness can overcome or even intrude into the splendor of the One who is the Light of the World.

Finally, there will be no curse there. The curse on the cosmic order, which produces groans from the whole creation, will be lifted. It will be banished from heaven. No death, no pain, and no struggle will curse the human enterprise.

Coram Deo

Read Revelation 21 and 22 to learn more about your heavenly home.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 21:3–4
Revelation 21:22

High Treason Via a "Soft" Coup

It Starts to Smell Like A Proto-Dictatorship

So, it's now official.  The Obama administration systematically broke the law and used various intelligence agencies in an attempt to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump.  All the "dirty little (and big) secrets" are now coming to light.  

Here are some excerpts from a piece published in the Federalist, written by Mollie Hemingway:

“Spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Attorney General William Barr told a Senate committee on Wednesday morning. Barr’s comments came in the context of potential Justice Department reviews of the Trump-Russia investigation and how it began in 2016.

While it is important that the top law enforcement in the United States publicly acknowledged that the Obama administration and its intelligence agencies surveilled its domestic political opponents during the heat of a presidential election, it is what he said next that was most startling: that the CIA and other federal agencies in addition to the FBI may have been involved. “I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly,” he said.

The FBI, which has incredibly friendly relations with the media, has taken the brunt of the public outcry against the anti-Trump operation. That project included the use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, national security letters, human informants, and strategic leaking to craft a narrative of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal an election from Hillary Clinton. It even included leaks of classified records from former FBI director James Comey, which he said was done for the purpose of launching a special counsel investigation as retaliation for his firing. . . . 

The fact of the matter is that federal intelligence agencies spied on a rival political campaign. They illegally leaked information about that surveillance. They abused their authority to at best undermine the duly elected president and at worst to attempt a soft coup against him. They did so with the near-total cooperation of the American media establishment.

This is a scandal of epic proportions. It is one that threatens the foundations of constitutional government. It is a direct attack on American democracy.

If it is true, as the Washington Post asserts, that democracy dies in darkness, then every single improper deed done under the cloak of secrecy must be fully brought to light. The only way to restore the definitively lost credibility of the FBI and other intelligence agencies is through a thorough investigation of what happened, who was involved, and how they will be held accountable.

Sean Davis contributed to this report.  Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway 

We hope that the guilty are hauled into the dock.  We hope they are fined to a state of  impecunity and spend most of the rest of their lives in klink.  The stakes are high.  If they are allowed to get away with their treasonous acts, it will signal the end of the rule of law in the United States, and possibly throughout the West. 

Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve, But As For Me . . .

Woke or Awakened?

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog


INTRODUCTION

You may depend upon it, say I, that any evangelical church, denomination, publisher, magazine, study center, society, or seminary, or any other collective Christian thing that we might fashion or think up, that is not in an open, unremitting and hostile war against every form of social justice, identity politics, or wokeness of any sort, is an entity that is doomed. Not only are they doomed to apostasy, but given the acceleration rates we are seeing, they are probably doomed to fall into barking nonsense years before anyone might have predicted just a few years ago.

“And just who do you think you are?” some might murmur. I am glad you asked, and so I will tell you. Do not repine, there is an answer coming. Hold your horses, and cool your baby jets. I am Churchill in 1931. Not only am I Churchill in those times of culpable and willful denial, this is not megalomania on my part because it should be added that in 1931 Churchill was a nobody.

It should also be added that Neville Chamberlain was not a Nazi. In a time of crisis like this there are two kinds of adversaries. There is the threat proper, the adversary deluxe, the rearming Germany. That is one kind. The other kind of adversary is the one underfoot—the friend, the associate, the counselor, the ally, the guy on your side, the appeaser, who cannot be persuaded to be anything more helpful than a sob sister. And so it is that the evangelical world is filled with what Margaret Thatcher once called the “stench of appeasement.” . . .


THE IMAGINATIVE HIRELING

Too many Christian leaders, far too many, are just like other kinds of leaders. They are admirals who know nothing except how the last war was fought and won, not realizing that military technology has passed them by, and that battleships have been replaced by aircraft carriers. They are dinosaurs failing to adapt to the new conditions after disembarking from Noah’s ark. They are shepherds who have begun to think like hirelings in certain specified situations. They were stalwart shepherds once when they were guarding the flock against coyotes, but after the federal government reintroduced the timber wolf, they don’t know what to do.

They are supposed to fight whatever threatens the flock, but they have become convinced that the coyotes are the only authorized threat. That was the only threat mentioned in the shepherd’s handbook back when they first began shepherding.

Daily Meditation

Unraveling the Mystery

Ligonier Ministries

The place we will occupy in the future will be similar to places we occupy now, but there will also be differences. The heavenly place will be a place of manifest glory. Our bodies will have continuity with our present bodies. There will also be discontinuity. Our new bodies are shrouded in mystery—we see through the glass darkly. Yet we receive hints about our glorified bodies by comparisons with Jesus, as well as by His words that we will be “like the angels” (Matt. 22:30).

Paul gives further hints: After discussing various kinds of bodies we experience on this planet, and various levels of glory of created objects, he adds: “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44, NIV).

We understand corruption, dishonor, weakness, and natural bodies. Only by contrast or eminence do we contemplate an incorruptible, glorified, powerful, spiritual body. The new body will be clothed with immortality. It will receive a garment it does not presently or intrinsically possess.

Coram Deo

Spend some time in worship, thanking God for the eternal destiny He has planned for you.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 15:42–44

Holy Remembrance

Is Anzac Day a Sacred Day?

We have been struck over the past few years by the rise of interest in Anzac Day to the point where it begins to be festooned with quasi-religious reverence amongst many. 

This is probably inevitable.  New Zealand is a thoroughly secular society, acknowledging no deity, leaving all to create their own gods in whatever garb they fancy--including the god called No God.  But Anzac Day is supposed to be a national remembrance, so a plethora of deities sanctifying the day risks undermining its national significance. 

Some have begun calling Anzac Day a sacred day.  It is deemed sacred to veterans, and by extension, sacred to all who march, attend, and revert to the pub afterwards.  On the other hand, the presence of religious representatives identifying their particular religion with Anzac Day and with a memorial of those who fought and died in the defence of our country is confusing to say the least.

We, being Christian, reject the religious sanctifying of Anzac day as a national holy day.  Ironically, we find ourselves standing much closer to the secularists on this matter.  Here is our take:

• The fundamental responsibility of the State is to punish evildoers, maintain justice, and protect the citizens of the State from external and internal attack.
• This, from time to time, necessitates armed conflict, in which people will lose their lives or suffer injury.
• The service of such people is on behalf of us all.  They deserve to be honoured publicly, even as we honour our doctors, our firemen, and police, etc.  
• Those who pay the ultimate price must not be forgotten in our gratitude.
• Those who suffer injuries in their service to us all must be provided for and cared for at our expense.
• Anzac Day should therefore be one of public remembrance and thanks to those who have kept guard upon the walls on our behalf.  

As Christians, we believe all these duties are ordained and commanded by the Living God.  We see them as sacred and holy.  We express these beliefs amongst ourselves, particularly during our public services of worship.  We fear and honour God: therefore, we honour those who help provide the peace and security commanded by God for all men.  We also encourage every citizen to remember those who stood in our place in providing these things. 

But in our memorials and public honouring, we do not deify Man, for we believe that God does not give His glory to another, to His creatures.  That, we believe, is the Christian way to celebrate Anzac Day.

In this pluralistic world, other confessions and professions may celebrate and give honour as they please.  But for us and our houses, we will serve the Living God.

Gun Laws

A Better Bill Than The Initial Draft

Derek Cheng provides a summary of the report on changing the Firearms Act by the Parliamentary Select Committee to the House.

Select Committee Recommends Arms Amendment Bill To Pass, With Extra Exemptions

Derek Cheng
derek.cheng@nzherald.co.nz

After more than 13,000 submissions, a parliamentary select committee is supporting the Government's gun law reforms but has added some further wiggle room on who can keep semi-automatics as collectors' items or use them for pest-control on farms.

Among the finance and expenditure committee recommendations, released late this evening, are that semi-automatic firearms should be allowed for pest control on farms, but restricted to specialised businesses approved by police.

It also recommended that collectors should be allowed to keep semi-automatics, as well as those who have them as heirlooms or mementos - but only if a gun part is removed to ensure the firearm is inoperable, and that part is stored at a separate address.  But the committee has rejected pleas for further exemptions, including for shooting competitions and for semi-automatic shotguns to be allowed up to seven-round cartridges.  And it has kept the bill's clause that would allow Governments to change the definition of what should be banned without parliamentary approval.

Daily Meditation

Understanding the Future

Ligonier Ministries

When we ask questions about matters that elude our full understanding, we tend to look for models or patterns that are similar to what we do understand. We seek for clues to a new and different paradigm. The shift from earthbound thinking to conceiving of heaven is a massive paradigm shift.

To speak of our mysterious future is to search for analogies that will give us a hint about what to expect. We cannot say what heaven is, but the Bible does give us hints as to what it is like. We try to imagine the unknown in the light of what is known. John tells us: “It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

We do not know for sure to whom the “He” and the “Him” refer. Do they refer to God the Father or to Christ? God the Father is the subject of the preceding verses, but what follows seems to indicate Christ.

The difficulty of the reference is mollified when we realize that to be Christ-like is to be God-like. The firstfruits image of Christ in His resurrection indicates that, ultimately, we shall be like Christ. As Christ rose with a glorified body, we too will enjoy glorified bodies at the final resurrection.

Coram Deo

Pause a few moments to think about your eternal future in heaven.

Passages for Further Study

1 John 3:2
Psalm 17:15
1 Corinthians 15:51

Fertile Group for Psy-Ops

What Ordinary North Koreans Think of Their Neighbours

If one is unfortunate enough to live as a hermit the risks of developing ideas and world-views that are far from reality are high.  The population of North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, provide an example.  

Here are some of the myths that have developed in North Korea.

Now, what do North Koreans think of China?  I am not sure about what the North Korean government thinks of China.  But most ordinary North Koreans don't like China that much.  North Koreans know that China has a better economy than North Korea.  But North Koreans think Koreans are more civilized and cultured people, with better manners than the Chinese.  North Koreans have this notion that Chinese people take a bath only once a year, don't keep their houses clean, wear shoes inside their house and so on--for these reasons, North Koreans think Chinese are filthy and therefore, less civilized than Koreans.

While South Korea is a heavenly place to North Koreans, North Koreans wouldn't ever want to live in China.  Mot of the time, North Koreans think China is worse than North Korea.  In North Korea, one can find derogatory terms and racial slurs referring to the Chinese and Japanese.  But no derogatory terms about South Koreans exist in North Korea.

Among South Korea, China, and Japan, the North Korean government may hate the South the most.  But ordinary North Koreans?  They hate Japan the most, with China second only to Japan.  But oh boy, North Koreans love South Korea and its pop culture and want to live there!  [Daniel Tudor (ed.) Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2017), p. 121f.]

Knowing that the world-view of the Kim regime is radically divergent in some aspects from the world-view held by a large percentage of the general population is intriguing.  It should provide plenty of fertile ground for what the professionals once called psy-ops. 

Stranger Than Fiction

The Mouth of Shane 

We are all familiar with the hideous visage of The Mouth of Sauron. 

It seems as though New Zealand is afflicted with its own version of The Mouth.  It is probably about what we deserve since we are now inextricably bound up with Tolkien's masterpiece in so many ways. 

Shane Jones has become such a sinister buffoon that amongst the many names and titles he gives himself ought to be Chief Mouth.  Heather du Plessis-Allan has sent up the Mouth by summarising all the titles Shane Jones has taken to himself and all that he likes to call himself:

Matua Shane
Champion of the Regions
The Sonny Bill Williams of Politics
Prince of the Provinces

To this list can be added st least one more:

The First Citizen of Regional New Zealand

Put all these together and you end up with the title he most likes to call himself: The Mouth.

Guilt By Association

Injustice on Steroids

Being just and and practising justice is a divine attribute.  As it says in Deuteronomy:

For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.  [Deuteronomy 32: 3-4]

The opposite is also true: depraved humanity manifests injustice.  The more depraved, the more injustice. 

Few nations have reached the nadir of perversity and injustice achieved by North Korea.  One attribute in particular of the Kim tyranny illustrates this--namely, the law of "guilt-by-association". 

North Korea has long had a law of guilt-by-association, and punishes its people accordingly.  I cannot think of any other government that utilizes such a savage and cruel system.  When I was living in North Korea, if someone defected, it was inevitable that their family, including distant relatives, would be jailed and sent to a camp.  Because of this barbaric law, no one in North Korea ever thought about opposing the government through real action. 

So why do they need this system?  In North Korea, there is no one more aware of the absurdity and irrationality of the North Korean system than the diplomats themselves.  In this respect, the government is well aware that brainwashing diplomats and asking for their loyalty will be ineffective in reining them in.  Alternatively, the authorities use parents' love for their children as leverage.  As such, it is obligatory for North Korean diplomats to leave at least one of their children at home when going abroad.   Those children who stay at home are then looked after by relatives.  [Ji-min Kang, quoted in Ask a North Korean, edited by Daniel Tudor (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2017), p. 174f.]

For those of us privileged to live in relatively free societies with power divided and spread amongst a variety of powers such depravity is difficult to comprehend.  North Korea truly has become a nation of slaves--like Pharaoh holding Israel under the whip. 

Right On the Money!

Leading Muslim cleric says Islamophobia a result of Islamic extremism and not racism

---

3 April 2019

The senior member of the world’s biggest Muslim organisation has insisted that Islamophobia is not rooted in racism and that the distrust of Muslims in many countries is a result of Islamist extremism and terrorism throughout the world.

Yahya Cholil Staquf, the secretary-general of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama movement, which claims to have more than 90 million adherents, wrote in an article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph saying that the traditional Muslim mindset needed to change.

He called for a rejection of Islamic orthodoxy, condemning it as “obsolete and problematic” and “fuelling violence on both sides”.

Yahya Cholil Staquf, secretary-general of the world’s largest Muslim movement, believes Islamic extremism based on “obsolete” religious orthodoxy is fuelling Islamophobia

The influential cleric wrote that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims was “factually incorrect” in linking the definition of the word “Islamophobia” to racism, and that it was “counter-productive” to do so.

“The truth, we recognise, is that jihadist doctrine, goals and strategy can be traced to specific tenets of orthodox, authoritative Islam and its historic practice. This includes those portions of sharia that promote Islamic supremacy, encourage enmity towards non-Muslims and require the establishment of a caliphate. It is these elements – still taught by most Sunni and Shiite institutions – that constitute a summons to perpetual conflict,” he wrote.

Staquf stated that Brenton Tarrant’s murder spree, which killed 50 people  at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March, was part of an “ancient cycle of violence” and that the killer shared a “historical framework” with many Muslims that went back almost 1,400 years. He explained the traditional Islamic teaching that “Muslims and non-Muslims are and shall remain in a state of permanent conflict, until the end of time (according to Islamists) or the disappearance of Islam (according to advocates of a ‘counter-jihad’).”

“If Muslims do not address the key tenets of Islamic tradition that encourage this violence, anyone – at any time – can harness them to defy what they claim to be illegitimate laws and butcher their fellow citizens, whether they live in the Islamic world or the West. This is what links so many current events, from Syria to the streets of London,” he added.