Terrible times like no other in American history lurk somewhere in the future, according to FOX News Channel’s Glenn Beck. He is joined in his stated apprehension for what is coming by thousands of American citizens. Many of these are fear-filled Christians who look to Beck and others to inform them of the proposed terrors to come, and to tell them what to do about it. I continue to hear from some of these through email on a weekly, even daily, basis.

I would like us to look briefly at developments across today’s socioeconomic landscape, thus to examine as analytically and as fairly as possible the portentous matters that give Beck and others fodder for their doomsday scenarios.

Economics-minded forecasters great and small watched the stock market bubble build during the days preceding the Lehman Brothers collapse of 2008, speculating wildly what the bubble’s burst might bring. That financial aneurysm, they determined, would certainly rupture–and, of course, it did. Governmental insanity created by ultra-liberal politicians saw to it that people with champagne tastes and beer drinkers’ budgets for years received home loans they didn’t have much more than a prayer of ever repaying.

We are now familiar with the terms “Freddie Mac” and “Fannie Mae.” We are equally acquainted with names such as Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, and others, who–in the name of “fairness” to those who couldn’t afford housing like the more affluent–demanded these be given the loans anyway, despite the fact the recipients didn’t have the income or collateral to support that level of debt.

Rather than govern the housing industry responsibly, the elected officials invested with the responsibility to oversee things, in concert with their Wall Street cohorts, foolishly threw caution to the fiscal winds. A banking crisis of unprecedented magnitude was thus created, with the housing bubble rupture setting in motion bank failures and threats of even greater crises.

Calls for massive bailouts to avert what the president of the United States and others in government and media speciously screamed would otherwise be world-rending calamity brought about the most devastating crisis of all. Trillions of dollars were, in effect, created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve Bank to save entities “too big to fail.”

The totally irresponsible sleight-of-hand accomplished only the creation of an exploding national debt that most likely can never be repaid. Decisions made by some of the same people who help create the problems strapped on the back of American citizens financial burdens with which generations far into the future will have to deal.

The resulting economic uncertainty deepened an abyss-like recession that more soundly thought-out measures would have surely lessened in severity. Jobs, as we know, are being lost; businesses are closing their doors; deflation or hyper-inflation–the experts can’t figure which—might collapse the American economy within a near-time frame (which the experts can’t predict, either).

The stability of the global economy hangs in the balance, with the other nations and their monetary gurus wondering about the financial fate of the U.S. and its all-important dollar. And, make no mistake: Under present world economic structures, the fate of the American dollar is absolutely critical.

Enter Glenn Beck at the tip of the gloom iceberg. And “iceberg” is a viable term here because the things he and others are forewarning are indeed chilling. Statements the TV and radio show host make almost daily send shivers down the spine of many of his viewers and listeners. He says things like (I paraphrase), “Change is coming, and when it happens, you won’t recognize your country. You will wake up next day, and it will no longer be America as you’ve known it. And, it will happen just that fast. I can’t tell you when that transformation is coming, but it’s coming.”

Beck forecasts the same astonishing change for the entire world in his proposed overnight transformational moment. His words sound almost out of the pages of Bible prophecy from the Pre-Trib view, don’t they? But the change he predicts is tied almost exclusively to the earthly, not to the ethereal–almost, but not entirely, as we will soon find.

Economic collapse, thus societal rearrangements of apocalyptic dimension, is at the heart of his fearful forecast. He implies that we will, perhaps, awaken that morning to a monetary cataclysm–our dollar as worthless as the deutsche marks of the Weimar republic of Germany just before Hitler’s meteoric rise to power in the 1930s. The FOX program host often raises the real probability, in his view, that inflation, which is on the rise, will skyrocket to astronomical levels when the great transformation he fears takes place.

He gives some key commodity future dollar amounts for what he claims the experts tell him will be exponential price rises. A small bag of sugar could be as much as $60 or $70. One ear of corn could be $11 or higher. A loaf of bread will likely be $24. Just under a pound of coffee could be $77. Fifteen ounces of orange juice will likely be $45, according to Beck’s forecasters.

A Hershey chocolate bar, standard size, will cost $15.50, his experts say. Now, that is certainly a crisis in the making if it is an accurate prognostication. Chocolate lovers I know would probably join the rioters Beck believes will rage in the streets once cuts to federal government give-away programs have to be made.

Next week, we will think a bit on what a changed America might look like if truly effective remedies to deal with Mr. Beck’s fearful vision of a new socioeconomic paradigm are ever implemented.