Israel is Not a Member

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Jul 13, 2015 at 18:33

Hi, Tovey

I actually prefer the King James Translation over all others, for several reasons. Their drawback is that they tend to follow Greek syntax as much as possible, leading to hard-to-follow English. The biggest flaw in Greek syntax, in turn, is its propensity for extremely long sentences.

Going back to the OP and President Obama, it's ironic that his most enduring foreign policy "success" is likely to be a whole bunch of trade deals. The biggest ones on the table right now, are with Europe and East Asia -- agreements won over the opposition of his own party.

Prophetically, these agreements ought to bring together a lot of pet prophetic streams. Whatever the final name of this trade conglomerate, it will be the largest economic agreement in history. It will be centered on the United States, whose economy will be as large, probably, as those of all the other members together. That said, it is not designed to benefit the American people, but rather a handful of extremely wealthy international corporations.

These are being billed as "trade" agreements; but it should be obvious that they will evolve into a much deeper union. In order to have a "level playing field" for trade, the trade union and business policies of all the members need to be synchronized. That means that these areas, which up until now have been under the control of various state and federal governments, will be controlled by the treaties. Freedom of movement of workers, from one contracting country to another, will also need to be guaranteed, putting immigration policy into the hands of the treaty-crafters as well, as has already happened in Europe with the "Schengen Zone". There will also be a push for a Euro-like common currency.

Down the line, the countries involved will realize, as Europe is realizing with the Greek debacle, that it is impossible to effieiently integrate economies without also integrating the countries politically.

Will this produce a ten-horned "United States of the Beast"? It could, for what that's worth. I already see the former colonial powers of Europe, possibly plus the US, Japan and/or Russia, as the "horns" of the beast, because they have been the great powers of modern history. With some 3-4 dozen countries in this new construct, we might very well end up with more than ten notables. If one considers that the "ten" aspect finished with the end of World War II, and that today we are dealing with the "eighth" (head), which is "the beast himself", we no longer need to count horns.

Needless to say, this "free trade area" will also become bound by a military arm. Even today, most of the potential members are significant allies of the US.

For the curious, here's a list of the countries involved (and GDP in billions):

EU-EFTA:

• Germany (3,720)
• France (2,580)
• UK (2,550)
• Italy (2,130)
• Spain (1,566)
• Poland (954)
• Netherlands (799)
• Belgium (482)
• Switzerland (473)
• Sweden (448)
• Austria (396)
• Romania (393)
• Norway (345)
• Czech (315)
• Greece (284)
• Portugal (280)
• Denmark (250)
• Hungary (246)
• Ireland (227)
• Finland (221)
• Slovakia (153)
• Bulgaria (129)
• Croatia (88.5)
• Lithuania (79.6)
• Slovenia (61.1)
• Luxembourg (51.4)
• Latvia (48.2)
• Estonia (35.6)
• Cyprus (27.4)
• Iceland (14.2)
• Malta (14.1)
• Liechtenstein (3.20)
• Malta (.425)

TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (NEGOTIATING PARTNERS):

• USA (17,400)
• Japan (4,750)
• Mexico (2,140)
• Canada (1,590)
• Australia (1,100)
• Malaysia (746)
• Vietnam (511)
• Singapore (453)
• Chile (409)
• Peru (371)
• New Zealand (159)
• Brunei (30.2)

I underlined the fifteen richest countries in the group, just for the curious. If anyone hasn't noticed, it has a "Cold War" look to it, of countries banding together to protect themselves against the Chinese and Russians. Notably, Israel is not a member.

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