I was only thirteen years old in 1960, when establishment Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was the running mate of Richard Nixon in the presidential campaign, that they lost to John Kennedy. I recall Lodge being criticised by the John Birch Society and some religious groups as being supportive of a one-world government, which they believed was described in the Bible as the last step before the End Times.

Another establishment Republican, David Rockefeller, finally established the organization that Lodge favored, called The Trilateral Commission in 1973 to coordinate economic policies between the U.S., Europe, and Japan. It still exists today and does almost nothing except make each country more sensitive to the impact of its own economic policies on its two most important trading partners.

Recently, my mother asked me to read “The Coming Economic Armageddon” by Dr. David Jeremiah. Although it never mentioned the Trilateral Commission, I was reminded of it throughout the book. It begins with the classic (but true) argument from Austrian economics that we are living beyond our means, proceeding to the Bible’s prediction of a one-world-government. It cites the current effort to improve international regulation of major banks as ominous. However, I reject the argument that globalization will cause the End Times.

Despite this ham-fisted effort to blend Austrian economics with Biblical prophecy, Dr. Jeremiah does an excellent job of discussing three very important subjects that seems to give laryngitis to elected politicians:

First, “we spend more on national defense than China, Japan, Russia, Europe, and several other nations combined.”

Second, “the average federal worker’s pay is now $71,206, much higher than the average private worker’s pay of $40,331.”

Third, he discusses at some length that politicians like to talk about the relatively minor problems with our annual budget, instead of talking about the much more serious problems with our over-promised long-term commitments to Social Security and Medicare.

While I cannot recommend this book to others, I did appreciate the trip down Memory Lane, especially with Henry Cabot Lodge, one of my all-time favorite politicians.