The Third Horseman
It’s that time of year again, Chinese New Years celebrations are going off across the country and the 11th annual Red Envelope Show put on by Grumpy Bert is this Saturday, February 7 at Pearl River Mart in NYC. I’ve been submitting to this event for the last decade and I must say that this show gets better with each passing year. The artist lineup is stacked with creative masterminds from across the country and their unique interpretations of this iconic Lunar New Year tradition. Come for the art, but stay for the Lion Dancers.
This year is the Year of the Horse. Last year, I fumbled and depicted the wrong animal on my envelope. oops. Not this time, I did my research prior to starting. With all that is going on with our current economy this is an appropriate time to explore the tale of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Bible. Specifically, the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse who appears in -Revelation 6:5 - 6. Written over 2,000 years ago, yet the story told then mirrors today’s time. An emaciated man riding in on a black horse, the Third Horseman is a Food Merchant and is believed to represent Famine, but famine caused through deliberate inequality. Orders were given to create scarcities of food crops and to raise the price of necessities such as bread and grain, while leaving the price of superfluous items such as oil and wine untouched. As a result, the common man would not be able to afford much other than the day’s food while the rich could go on living with only minor disturbances due to their wealthy abundance.
A continuing abundance of luxuries for the wealthy, while staples are scarce but not depleted. In short, crash the economy, weaken the dollar and sell off everything to the billionaires while the poor get poorer and are sentenced to lives in servitude of the wealthy. Home sales in the USA are down overall, but home sales of properties listed at $10 million or higher are up. Lower interest rates means that the wealthy can buy property during a market downturn with little risk. Tariffs are destroying small businesses by raising operating costs. Crypto and Stock market Pump and Dump schemes are draining money from retail investors while the price of Gold and Silver is rising to all time highs. AI is replacing low end workers and driving up unemployment. The promised financial salvation of the gig economy is dying through fees while Uber is being replaced by driverless Waymo’s and Zoox. But don’t worry, Amazon is always hiring delivery drivers to move those packages around the country. Until the robots come for that job too.
The masses of the people don’t realize how much the president, his administration, the billionaires and the tech oligarchs are benefitting from the ruin of this country.
Cheers. on the bright side, there’s a Lion Dance performance at the show on Saturday!