Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last week, WorldNetDaily was blaming President Obama for economic problems. Now it's blaming God.
Remember the Shemitah? That's the prophecy theory promoted by WND friend Jonathan Cahn that various world disasters and cataclysms operate according to a biblically dictated 7-year cycle. When things didn't happen exactly to plan last year -- Cahn and WND had strongly hinted that the U.S. would suffer an economic calamity last Sept. 13 -- they moved the goalposts to claim that as long as something happened in, oh, the next year or so, the Shemitah prophecy was fulfilled.
Cahn takes full advantage of this in a Feb. 14 WND column, in which he declares that "I shared how the Shemitah of 2015 caused stock markets to collapse all over the world, wiping out trillions of dollars from the global economy." He continued with the credit-taking:
Though it is one of the most overlooked and significant of stories, the Shemitah of 2015 caused global trade to literally collapse!
As the Shemitah began, industrial export orders in the world’s economic engine, China, began to crash. The collapsed continued throughout the Shemitah, month after month after month.[...]
The Shemitah of 2015 collapsed the Baltic Dry Index to the point where it stood at its worst levels ever recorded since the index began! When 2014 began, the index was over 2,000. By the time 2015 had ended, it had descended to the 400s! The Shemitah of 2008 had pulverized world trade. The Shemitah of 2015 had now decimated it.
[...]
The Shemitah of 2015 caused global commodities to collapse. Demand dried up. Prices plummeted. Commodities were, in effect, abandoned. The Shemitah of 2015 caused global commodities to collapse so dramatically that it matched that of the Shemitah of 2008, and then exceeded it. The Commodity Index crashed to its worst levels of the 21st century.
[...]
One of the most important commodities in the modern world is oil. The effect of the Shemitah of 2015 could be seen every time one drove into a gas station. The decline in trade and production caused a collapse in the oil market. What was welcomed by those filling up their cars was bad for the global economy. During the Shemitah of 2015, the price of oil plunged, and the average energy stock collapsed by 52 percent!
Cahn's explanation of falling oil prices runs counter to the facts. The idea that a "decline in trade and production" of oil caused prices to decline doesn't make sense. In fact, what happened is that Saudi Arabia increased oil production specifically to drive down prices to the point that high-cost producers like fracking operations in the U.S. would be forced to halt production, thus preserving Saudi Arabia's share of the oil market.
We don't know enough about the commodies market to know if Cahn's being accurate about it, but his misinformation about oil is not a good sign.
Also of note: Cahn does not mention Obama once in his column. Which brings up the flaw in WND's economic philosophy: If the Shemitah is to blame for economic problems, then Obama cannot be. If the economic cycle is a slave to the Shemitah, as Cahn insists, then it's impossible for Obama to affect it.
WND cannot worship both God and mammon -- or in this case, blame a bad economy on both Obama and the Shemitah.
