Do me a favor; work this simple problem in your head. Do not use a pencil or a calculator or you will lose the benefit of what follows:

Take 1000 and add 40 to it.

Now, add another 1000.

Now, add 30.

Add another 1000.

Now 20.

Then another 1000.

Finally, add another 10. How much do you have?

Did you get 5,000? If you did, you got the problem wrong: the correct answer is actually 4,100. If you do not believe me, now you can check it using paper and pencil or a calculator.

So, what is my point? Simple: I can teach you a mathematical formula, but, if I do not teach you to understand how it is derived, you will not understand how to work it properly and  you may not be able to derive the correct answers. This is important because it illustrates a primary difference between the two dominant ideologies in this world:

One cares about accepting the world as they find it and trying to understand it by determine truth to the best of their ability. These people want to know how the formula is derived so they can plug the values for what they observe and work it correctly to arrive at an answer that provides some confidence of reliability.

The other school is convinced the world is not fixed, and that it can be redesigned according to their will. These people are more interested in how they can use and manipulate the formula so they can manufacture the result they need or want.

Now, before you dismiss this, let me point you to a real world example. The famed British astrophysicist, Steven Hawking, has a new theory of universal origin that purports to ‘prove’ that the universe can be self-generating. The problem is, his ‘proof’ depends on mathematical equations that use imaginary math. Well, imaginary math is called ‘imaginary’ for a reason: because it has no connection with the real world. When real numbers are plugged back into Hawking’s formulas, they return to the “Big Bang” observation, and that observation cannot provide an answer for how ‘something’ can come from nothing, which, in turn, points to the necessity for a Creator – an answer Hawking rejects. So, instead of accepting observed reality, Hawking rejects it and tries to manipulate the equation to arrive at the solution he wants.

Now, if a man of Hawking’s reputation can make such a simple mistake, why should the rest of us believe our teachers are immune? And if our teachers are not immune, how could we be? But what happens when our schools are primarily filled with teachers who believe Hawking’s methodology is actually the correct method to follow and teach? The result is simple: they will produce students who will be out of touch with the real world, but they will not know it or understand why it is.

I submit that this is where our society now finds itself: in a world that has become filled with people who are out of touch with objective reality, but they do not know it, and do not understand why they are out of touch.

The evidence can be found in something as obvious as Greece. Greece is in financial collapse because – for decades – they spent more money than they produced. Now the bill is due and they have no solution. Now, this nation has more per capita debt than in Greece, yet we are not suffering from the same economic and social collapse as Greece, so our ignorant and out-of-touch citizenry believes there is no connection: a belief that our schools, politicians, news media and other leaders in our society support. But this is the result of manipulating the equation.

The truth is, Greece cannot print money because it does not control the Euro. We do not have that problem: we control our dollar. What’s more, the U.S. dollar is still used as the world’s reserve currency. As a result, at least for the near future, we can print our way around but not out of the situation in which Greece has fallen. But we can only ignore objective reality for so long. With every dollar we print, we devalue the savings and investments of other nations, and they will not tolerate this theft forever. Yes, it is theft because it takes value from other people for our own use and purposes. And the rest of the world is already starting to react to our theft. China has already started a new international trade currency, and many Pacific Rim nations are switching to it. What’s more, Russia has agreed in principle with China over the need for a new world exchange currency. When the rest of the world finally joins them – and it will – the U.S. dollar will collapse and we will be Greece over night.

This is not a ‘possibility,’ it is reality. We have countless historic examples of how this process works, and, in principle, each example teaches the same exact lesson. Greece is what happens to all socialist societies – every time. And the reason is simple: sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money. This is why the people who tell us that we are different or that it won’t happen to us expose themselves as being in the camp who manipulates the formula to create the answer they want instead of trying to find and deal with the correct answer. They do not look to history and try to understand what lessons it can teach us; they look to history and try to tell us how to look at it so it results in the solution they want. But this is the same mistake Hawking made: it is using imaginary math and pretending like it yield a real world answer. It doesn’t, and it never will.

 
Sooner or later, reality will assert itself!