THE WALL STREET JOURNAL MONDAY, MAR 30, 1981

A Voice Cries Out:

On Forecasting
The Economy

Can you predict the state
of the nation’s economy?

   The FLASH depression of 1920 was the sharp thunderclap prelude before the cloudburst Depression starting 1929.
     A number of my corporate customers in the farm implement industry went into receivership. Business activity was at a satisfactory level in 1919. At a noon luncheon of the Chicago Association of Commerce that year a leading economist was our guest speaker. Rather startlingly, he predicted the most serious depression within the generation inside a year.
     In 1920 this same economist again was our guest speaker at luncheon in the Cameo Room of the Morrison Hotel.
     “Gentlemen,” he said, “a year ago in this room I predicted that within a year we would be in the throes of the most serious depression of our generation. Most of you were not in agreement. That year has rolled around, I am here again and the depression is here with me.”
     He explained his forecast. “It’s now winter. If I want to know the temperature in this room, I look at the thermometer on the wall. But if I want to know what the temperature will be an hour from now, I look to what’s going on down in the boiler room. I look to the factor that will determine the future temperature. A year ago I did not predict according to indexes of business activity, bank clearings, stockcar loadings or stock market quotations. They were the thermometers on the wall. Even graphs and charts of those things for the past year do not determine a continuous trend.”             
     The Boston statistician then explained his contention that the future economy depends not on past records, but on the factor that determines conditions – the way people are dealing with one another. He expressed the source that determines conditions in terms of righteousness. “When 51 percent or more are righteous in their dealings with one another, good times are ahead. When 51 percent or more have become unrighteous in their human contacts, we are headed for economic trouble.”
     Whether or not this man’s theory found approval in the business world, it does determine the nation’s general well—being. And this nation, with the whole world, is definitely NOT in a state of happy and prosperous wellbeing! We are beset with seemingly insolvable problems, troubles and evils beyond the grasp of human mentality!  
     Repeatedly I have said there is a CAUSE for every effect. The CAUSE of the evils that beset us is the “get” way of life—the motivation of self-centeredness—the way of “I love ME—not YOU!” Our positively AWESOME progress and achievements are all materialistic in nature. Our evils, before which we seem to stand helpless, are spiritual in nature. There is a SPIRITUAL LAW that says when we are all selfishly taken from one another, we all have less. But when we all produce in cooperation instead of hostile competition, we all have more.
     Besides the incentive of “GET” materially, we seem to want to find amusement and be entertained. All television basically is entertainment and is leading minds into the downward drift in areas of morality, ethics and ways of peace. We crave the excitement of modern sports, with the ecstacy of winning, but the AGONY of defeat. It seems for some to be joyous others must suffer agony.
     We are breaking the overall spiritual Law of outflowing LOVE—of “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
     Our competitive materialistic progress has for the first time in human history produced the weapons of mass destruction that can blast all humanity out of existence. Our No. 1 problem now is human survival. We are in a world crisis escalating at fast-increasing momentum toward the ZERO HOUR of human extinction! And we’re not repenting of our folly.
     Just before the hand of man utterly destroys mankind, that invisible supreme “Strong Hand from someplace” is going to intervene and save us from ourselves! Mankind will be compelled to live the way that will bring world peace, happiness, universal well-being and eternal salvation. A wonderful new WORLD TOMORROW will dawn. It’s as certain as the rising of tomorrow’s sun!
    
Herbert W. Armstrong
(1892-1986)