The Wonder Springs Chronicle

We have AIDS — Acquired Integrity Deficiency Syndrome

8 November 2010

We are going to do something today in the Cult Football series, that we haven’t done before, probably in anything I have ever written. We are going to totally attempt to move off the playing field, out of the stadium and even beyond the realm of wildness that so totally frightens people with its transcendent reality. Today we are going to discuss “Strategic Shocks.”

Thankfully we have a guidebook for our journey, not only for today, but also for our training well into the future. Now for the good news, the book is free for the download. The booklet is only 52 pages and should be read and reread, as we move forward into what I wrote about last Wednesday in “spooky times.”

Finally something useful from your taxes at work, the book is called, “Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development,” and is prepared by the Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College. A link to this book is also found under our RESOURCES TAB above.

The book describes both strategic shocks and strategic surprises, that may or may not be foreseen, but the consequences of both take us beyond where we have planned, or what we can envision.

A quotation by Thomas Schelling from page 18 of the book probably best summarizes the contents:

There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. The contingency we have not considered seriously looks strange; what looks strange is thought improbable; what is improbable need not be considered seriously.

Today we have listed three things that will profoundly change our world in the weeks, months and years ahead. Two of them happened last week, one has been building for a long time, but is sort of the overriding instigator of the other two.

That inducement is the title of this week’s article: “We have Aids: AIDS — Acquired Integrity Deficiency Syndrome.” This form of AIDS is more dangerous than the common physical disease, because it affects the human soul and then its effects infect all of society. In its pure essence this form of AIDS brought about the other two strategic events, the United States midterm elections and the Quantitative Easing (QE-2) of the money supply by the United States Federal Reserve (FED).

This definition of AIDS comes to us from Howie Hendricks, one of the best-known professors at Dallas Theological Seminary. We will have more to say about the cure for this Form of AIDS as we close this article with some strategic resources that might not be considered conventional solutions to a currently improbable reality.

Last week two potential strategic shocks happened back to back in the space of less than twenty-four hours. The first was the takeover of the House of Representatives by the Republican Party with over a sixty-member change. The basis of that change centered upon federal government spending restraint, now focusing upon budget cuts of $100 billion in the first year, according to the new Republican leadership.

The other was the decision that came from the FED with QE-2 totaling $600 billion over eight months ($75 billion per month) with the rolling over of maturing financial instruments bringing the total stimulus to $900 billion over the program length. According to the FED other changes may come after that — depending upon results of this monetizing of national debt.

When you look at the world of economic procrastinators, which includes the whole world, about the only people who think that QE-2 is a good idea are those who are highly faithful to those who find their substance from this fourth and essentially unchecked arm of the United States government policy. These would be people who have built a world of financial leverage by FED easy money creation. They are or are beneficiaries of bankers, investment bankers, market makers and traders, their insurance companies and special interests.

Let’s see, $100 billion in restraint and $900 billion in stimulus. What is missing from this equation, less the spin and the wishful thinking? Nobody knows because the sum total adds to some sort of strategic reality, either a shock or a surprise.

Perhaps a better way is to look at the proper answer, and then back out the means to get there for both the Congress and the FED. We would define that economic answer as “Qualitative Restraint.” A Google search for that term returned 305 results. None of them we looked at seemed to have anything to do with finance or economics. This is where things get difficult for there is an old reality that comes into play immediately, not just in the strategic sense, but also all the way down to you and me. That reality is that “bottlenecks are always at the top.”

Put in a more complex form, the vested interests are too engaged to compromise, which stems from the problem that true interdisciplinary solutions really require an ability to communicate in common ways and this form of wisdom or knowledge no longer exists in our world. Hence the reality that the solution to this country’s and our world’s financial problems will more than likely come, post a number of strategic shocks.

A little background is in order. When I got out of graduate school, my job was as a lab researcher in a program that was attempting to market a patented process to dry waste sludges. That was about as interdisciplinary as you could get if you wanted to make the process economically viable. At the beginning you had this material that nobody wanted to talk about, especially in politically correct ways. Then through this hi-tech magic black box on the other end of the process, you came out with this sterile, useful product that was still referred to in terms not consistent with black gold; other four letter words seemed to be more often applied.

What I was able to find in the library was a significant body of literature, centered at the University of Washington (UW) that dealt with what was called, “Interdisciplinary Research Management. The term research was just the action word for the program’s funding, but what was clearly shown was that to develop and effective interdisciplinary team it took two to five years, if you really worked at it.

So in terms of bottlenecks, we have Barack Obama, who is the most specialized president in United States history. His dream from his father was that of a hopefully successful anti-colonial global world changer, using liberal special interest wealth redistribution politics. His detractors say he knows how to give a good speech off a teleprompter and vote present in political office.

Ben Bernanke knows a little bit about investment banking, was mentored by Alan Greenspan, the major creator of this economic mess. Ben has specialized in the causes of the Great Depression and is bound and determined that another Great Depression will not happen on his watch at the FED.

Then we go to the Congress of the United States. The sole reason for the Republican resurgence in the House, was that none of the above, really wasn’t a provided solution to anything.

As time progressed I kept my job as a researcher and put my wife through the MBA program in finance at the UW. I received tuition assistance for a lesser MBA at Seattle University. We lived in a small bungalow in the Wallingford district of Seattle, about a mile from the UW campus and since we were the only couple with a real house, we served has hosts for many of the class functions.

This was the time of the Argentine National Reorganization Process (1976 - 1983), which eventually led to the Argentine Debt Crisis 1999 - 2002. Argentina’s strategic shock, when coupled with Brazil and Mexico, eventually became a partial cause of the related Latin American Debt Crisis and the Mexican financial default in August 1982. These strategic shocks also influenced the last major recession of that period in America.

After graduation my wife became a Latin America loan officer for then Seattle-First National Bank, eventually rising to the position of Vice President by the time all the funny money hit the fan.

What we learned practically, as also verified in history, is that countries get rid of debt one of two ways. One is that they inflate out the debt; the other is that they default and devalue the currency overnight. This concept that conservatives seem to like discussing, about not repaying debt is just political spin. Debt is always repaid – essentially with worthless money.

A number of years later, when I was in the process of developing my precious metals equipment, a friend took me to meet someone, who I was told had some very important insights into the precious metals reality. At first this person was very reluctant to talk to me, but upon the insistence of my friend, this much older man began a story that he said caused him to change is line of work.

The essence of that frightening story was that he once had connections that took him to the gold vaults below the World Trade Center in New York. When he saw all the gold he asked, what was the purpose for all the gold, since the United States was no longer on the gold standard, and the dollar floated in the pool with all the other world currencies exchange rates, as it still does to today?

His vault guide told him that a time was coming when the world’s fiat money system would be strategically collapsed and then the gold standard would be reintroduced for all world’s financial dealings. Then the true wealth and power of the world would consist of a new authoritarian golden rule, those who have gold make the rules for everyone.

Now that is really a conspiracy theory strategic shock that would definitely bring unconventional change to our world.

This brings us really to the true strategic shock that could change the world for the good. In the light of the entire human based potential strategic solutions this one is based upon that primitive, non-evolving absolute concept of God. We have long held that really a significant cause of the current economic mess is that all those greedy heathens really can’t tell the difference between Christianity and the world’s other religions or even the world of gold’s golden rule.

If the world is going to change for the better, change needs to come from the church. In that light I was thinking about some truly significant means to shock the world. In an email I was asked to comment on some recordings that dealt with the concept of church organization, which related to the topic of “Biblical Eldership.” I had read the book by Alexander Strauch just as I was leaving Seattle for God’s country but really had not thought about the topic since that time.

The email contained a link to five audio teachings on Biblical Eldership by the book’s author and asked my opinion. The audio is available for free download, the recordings total about five hours in length. As I listened to the first recording I found it amazing that this specific revelation from God’s word about the proper organizational method for the church, was really quite similar to the organizational structure of what today we call primitive people groups and tribes.

As I listened I also heard the definition of AIDS as the Acquired Integrity Deficiency Syndrome and realized that without curing this form of AIDS all the rest of whatever we attempt to do, is really just a vanity prayer flag waving in the wind.

Continuing to listen, I realized that church organization in evangelical churches today in the United States, is not based upon the principles of Biblical Eldership, but more the corporate elite. The senior pastor at the typical church is really the CEO of the business and even more pronounced than in the corporate specter, in church it is really the Pastor’s way or the highway.

If you look at the diversity of leadership within the Biblical Eldership model, it is really quite similar to what I learned in my study of interdisciplinary management. Furthermore functioning eldership models require pretty much the same amount of time to implement properly, but once properly implemented they are capable of achieving the mission of the church, of building a church based upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, not building a church based upon human values and personalities.

We recommend that every reader of this article download and read the Known Unknowns book to understand the nature of change in our world of strategic shocks. In that same light the specific revelations of church Biblical Eldership can also be applied to more common applications of large and small business, politics, and even the family.

We live in times in which any number of strategic shocks can alter the world we understand in short order, and the old ways, which we found so comfortable, will never return. So listen to the audio, buy the Biblical Eldership book if you think it will help, and use the principles contained therein to help change the church and all human enterprise. Read and understand Known Unknowns to be prepared for the changes to come.

The only real cure of AIDS — as Acquired Integrity Deficiency Syndrome; and to allow us to manage any stupendous change of a strategic shock, is to make integrity one of our most valued attributes which will finally bring about Qualitative Restraint to govern our economic lives.