More Of The Word Coming To Pass

Further to the message of 22 June and Blog of 7 Aug 08, more of the word released are coming to pass in an unprecedented and dramatic way.

Below is a re-cap of the main points of Blog of 7 Aug based on 22 June message and how it has come to pass:

On 22 Jun 08, I shared during the Sunday message that it seems that the worst of the NZ economy and property market is not yet here - perhaps in 2010.

These have come to pass:

# NZ confirmed in recession

# The two projects in Orewa - Kensington Park and Whisper Cove - worth NZ$800 million are in receivership together with Zane Grey Resort (near Paihia) and the $2 billion Five Mile proposed township in Queenstown.
Today 13 Oct 08, it has been reported that the Sale of 15 farms throughout NZ failed to settle last week because of the credit crunch. This means that three farm sales a day could not be settled last week because of the credit seizure forcing buyers to walk away from their contracts forfeiting deposits of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10537169

# The global economy is in a crisis like never seen before - which was something I never imagined when I released the word.
Not only are companies in serious financial crunch, banks and countries too are not spared from the fallout.
Iceland was an epitome of success just a year ago with its people rated as the happiest people in the world (see Economist article: http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10529960).
But Iceland now is struggling with two of its main banks in receivership and the largest bank being rescued by the government (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3147866/Financial-crisis-Icelands-dreams-go-up-in-smoke.html ; http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D93MUPAG0.htm ).

Now banks are even afraid to lend to each other that the Central Banks have to step in to pump in liquidity.

I also shared earlier :

The easing of interest rate will help house owners in servicing mortgages.
But this means that the kiwi $ will be under pressure - and so has declined against other currencies. …

# Late on Wed night (8 Oct 08 midnight) when I started to prepare Sunday's message, I “happened” to have an urging (I believe it is a prompting and no coincidence) to check on the currencies. And I looked for the first time to add a currency converter gadget to my igoogle default start up webpage. As I checked the currency converter for kiwi $ to S$ at around midnight Wednesday night, to my amazement, the kiwi $ plunged 4.8 % against the S$ from S$0.92=NZ$1 to S$0.87=NZ$1. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The S$ is weakening against the US$ but the kiwi $ is weakening even further. Just 3 months ago in Jul 08, it was S$1.04=NZ$1.

I sense this is a foretaste of things to come.

I shared earlier:

The downturn in the property market has a multiplier impact on other businesses e.g. real estate agents, anything to do with houses e.g. contractors, carpets, household appliances and even restaurants. (today I just heard of a company that does concrete jobs going under). All these hit the stock market. Unemployment is up slightly.

These unfortunate events have come to pass:

# More contractors are laying off staff because of low work volume.

# Even vegetable farmers are hard hit because restaurants are not ordering as much as before and people are not eating out as often.

# NZ Stock market has fallen by about 20% in the 6 months from 3,500 in May 08 to 2,800 as of 13 Oct.
The Dow Jones from about 12,000, 6 months ago to 8,500 (now) - a massive drop of nearly 30%.

With all these grim figures and grim future, what is in store for us Christians and what can we do?

In my next blog, I will share of the preparation we can take to seize the window of opportunities that will come our way when property prices in particular start to fall from the economic fallout - though NZ may not suffer as much as other countries, but fall it will.