A backlash against rising inequality—evident from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring—risks derailing the advance of globalization and represents a threat to economies worldwide, according to the World Economic Forum.

Severe income disparity and precarious government finances rank as the biggest economic threats facing the world, according to the group’s 2012 Global Risks report.

The unsustainable level of government debt in many countries had already been highlighted as a top threat in the previous two WEF risk reports but the chronic nature of fiscal deficits means the issue remains center stage.

“We’re seeing governments kicking the can down the road and not trying to get their hands on it,” said Lee Howell, the WEF managing director responsible for the report.

Since last January, the euro zone’s debt crisis has spread and deepened—toppling governments in Greece and Italy—while the United States has lost its triple-A credit rating, after failing to stabilize its debt position.

There will be a greater focus than ever in Davos this year on the failures of the modern market economy, including discussion on the uncertain future of capitalism, a subject that would have got short shrift in the years before the financial crisis.

“The Arab Spring demonstrated the power of interconnected communications services to drive personal freedom, yet the same technology facilitated riots in London,” said Steve Wilson, chief risk officer for general insurance at Zurich Financial Services.

“It’s completely mind-boggling how complex the world is becoming and it is hard to understand the risks that come from that,” Wilson said.

Other threats identified in the 2012 report include the risk that financial and other regulatory systems designed to safeguard the modern world may no longer be up to the job, as well as rising greenhouse gas emissions and looming water shortages.

Governments and corporations must also stay abreast of a host of “X” factors—emerging concerns with still unknown consequences—such as the risk of a volcanic winter or a major accident involving new technology, such as genetically modified organisms or nanotechnology.

-www.reuters.com, 11 January 2012




Indeed, the development of our modern world is mind-boggling, particularly in view of the “still unknown consequences.” Besides the World Economic Forum Global Risks report, there are many other experts who are at a loss to explain what is really happening in our new world.

During the so-called Cold War period, the goals were crystal clear. Under the leadership of the United States, the European world (West) followed plainly defined guidelines. But all that has changed. The so-called free market economy, driven by capitalism, has almost run into a dead end. Since the near financial collapse that began in 2008, it was communist China with socialist Brazil and Russia that kept the torch of global economy alight. Particularly China, bulging with foreign currency cash, contributed to a significant degree to the stabilization of the global economy, helping it avert a total collapse.

But what will come next is the great question. No one really knows, but all agree, more cooperation is an urgent issue to avoid a possible global economic meltdown.

Are these the signs of the end? Based on Bible prophecy, the answer is no. Man will continue to progress, industry will go on functioning, and the global economy must grow. 

Scripture tells us that the end will come suddenly. Jesus gives us two examples—Noah and Lot, “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-29). 

In spite of near chaotic conditions, near collapsing markets, all things will continue until suddenly the world’s greatest chaos will start. 

(For more on the coming economic turmoil, read Global Financial Apocalypse Prophesied, Item 1068.)


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