Archives For Economics

Our Babel Moment

April 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

babel2I’ve grown up in the middle of the Media-Lucy-and-Charlie-Brown game. So I don’t believe anything they say. I don’t believe the suits. I don’t believe the shiny smiles. I don’t believe your sexy low-cut blouse. I don’t watch the news. I don’t read it. I subscribe to no newspapers. I do not have cable television. And whenever I have a few minutes to catch a bit of what they call news, I’m always reassured that I’m still not missing out. Someone recently asked how I get my news, and after a minute I realized that the simple answer is some kind of combination of Twitter feeds and Facebook (though I’ll admit I’ve occasionally practiced a bit haruspicy in my son’s full diaper). I’m not saying I’ve got an edge on anyone here, but I am saying I don’t think it matters.

I’ve thought for some time now that living here in the 21st century watching the talking heads and not giving a rip about what they say must be what it was like in Babel a little over four thousand years ago when God came down on their building project to confuse them. We are living in a Babel moment. God has confused our words. He has done this partially through the advent of social media and the internet: the proliferation of news outlets, news sources, coupled with the fact that anybody and their grandma can post something on Facebook or Twitter or Youtube and it has the potential to go viral. And so we have pictures of kittens and political cartoon memes and people trying to speak straight-faced on the TV about snipping the spinal cords of living babies. And this leads to the other way God has sent confusion: sin. Down the street there’s a discussion going on about whether a man with a proclivity to hump other men should be granted a marriage license. Unmanned drones are dropping bombs here and there. Terrorists are blowing themselves up in various places, rumors of economic crisis and collapse, Christians being persecuted in other countries, nuclear crisis in North Korea, and government conspiracies to confiscate all our guns and turn America into a police state. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Genesis, Culture, Economics, Justice & Mercy, Politics, Prayer
permalink

Fundy Politics

November 8, 2012 — 7 Comments

I’m not much of a political pundit. I suppose this is because I’m a child of my generation, born wedged at the end of Generation X and at the beginning of Generation Y (according to the venerable Wikipedia). I’m an old Millenial or a baby GenXer, one way or the other. I have skepticism and disillusionment deep in my bones, and I would say apathy is a nice way of describing the sort of mountain I have to overcome most days. I have a deep distrust of the political establishment, little to no hope that anything that takes place inside the District’s beltway amounts to more than paper shuffling (at best) and various schemes to make money, have sex with page boys, and abuse power (at worst).

I didn’t vote for Romney or Obama because they both smell like corporate and political BS from a mile a way. I could kind of get excited by someone like Ron Paul since he said extremely reasonable things and didn’t make ridiculous promises couched in meaningless rhetorical fluff. But he has his problems too.

At the end of the day, I’m a Bible thumping fundy. I don’t mean in the “don’t drink/don’t smoke” variety. In fact as a Bible believing Christian, I think the legalization of marijuana is a good thing because if God had wanted governments to criminalize mind-altering drugs, He would have said so and He didn’t. I happen to believe that smoking dope is something like drunkenness and so there’s that, but I don’t think it should be against the law to drink a bottle of Jack Daniels and puke your guts out the next morning. The Biblical name for that is stupid, but it ain’t against the law to be stupid. Now, if you run someone over in your 4×4 while three sheets to the wind, you ought to have the book thrown at you. I drink and smoke and play cards and dance like a fool with my wife and kids. So I’m not talking about that kind of fundy. Continue Reading…

In Against Christianity, Bible - Romans, Culture, Economics, ethics, Justice & Mercy, Marriage Bed, Politics
permalink

Second Sunday after Easter: Eighth Commandment: Gen. 2:8-3:13, Phil. 4:8-19, Lk. 12:13-34

April 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

Introduction
The Eighth Word introduces perhaps one of the areas of greatest conflict and stress in all of life: the areas of possessions and property, economics and money. If you are human, you struggle with being at peace with your situation in life and the world around us. Typical situation: Husband is laid back and the wife is stressed. This causes tension in marriages. Are we saving enough? What about health insurance? What about school? Are we giving enough? Are we charitable enough? Children grow up hearing – “That’s sooo expensive. That’s outrageous. That’s a rip off. We can’t afford that.” This can cause tension with kids: how come you get to buy a new four wheeler and can’t get those shoes? Or maybe you have money, but it’s just stressful. Do we buy this or that? Do we go ahead with the remodel or do we upgrade the car or replace the dryer? What if I lose my job? What if we can’t make the mortgage payments?

On the one hand, some of this stress is just called being grown ups, being mature. God wants His people to grow up into wisdom. But the great complicating factor, the thing that makes this truly stressful, worrisome, terrifying is the fact that every descendent of Adam has a fundamental distrust of God and His world. Because of our own sin, we are thieves. We cheat, we steal, we commit fraud, and vandalism. And because we know that we are untrustworthy, we suspect that everyone else and this world in general is untrustworthy. Whatever the gods of this place are up to (economic forces, societal pressures, bad guys, etc.), they are surely trying to steal and cheat.

Luther said that we are all thieves. Calvin said much the same. You steal from God when you do not tithe. You steal from the poor, when you don’t care for them. You steal from others when You try to get something for free or next to nothing. You steal from your wife/children when do not provide for them. Everyone is complicit in the evil economic systems in our world, run by wicked men. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Genesis, Bible - Luke, Bible - Philippians, Creation, Culture, Economics, Justice & Mercy, Sermon Outlines
permalink

Missionaries Hurting the Cause of Christ

June 7, 2011 — Leave a comment

In Reformation in Foreign Missions, Bob Finley describes the problems with the modern tradition of foreign missions. In particular, he points to the stumbling blocks created by the vast economic disparity between most western missionaries and the people they minister to:

“Missionaries’ houses served to assist the Communist cause in China. Zealous young Marxists would point out the mission compounds and ask, ‘Where do all these rich foreigners get all their wealth? They don’t work at any job or profession. They are not engaged in business. There is only one answer. They are spies sent here by the CIA.’ And most people would believe these allegations. To follow the Communists (at the time) was considered patriotic because they were exposing these foreigners as enemies of China…

Individuals who have above average property and power are assumed to be working with the government (even more so after World War II when so much foreign aid was doled out to socialistic government bureaucrats by industrialized countries) unless they are land-owners who rent to sharecroppers. They are universally envied and despised by the poor. So when foreign missionaries build spacious houses, drive around in cars, and seem to have abundant money for food, clothing, special schools for their children, medical care and plane tickets, it is assumed that they have been sent here by their governments or are absentee landlords. This assumption hurts the cause of Christ in many nations because it identifies the Christian faith with the wealthy class of people who are usually hated.” (39-40)

In Books, Economics, Evangelism, Justice & Mercy
permalink

Food Inc.

January 4, 2010 — Leave a comment

We watched Food Inc. over the weekend, and while I was fairly braced for most of what we saw, I was slightly surprised (Ok, not really — but it was still enlightening) to see the money trail in the food industry.

Big Beef/Poultry/Pork in bed with the ginormous corn industry and mass produced fast food, and this threesome marriage bed jealously guarded by trade and patent regulations and generously pampered with federal subsidies.

Why is it that a cheeseburger is frequently cheaper than a head of lettuce? Because the government pays part of the bill for us. They pay farmers to plant and sell certain products at below market values, seed patents protect the source of pesticide resistant seeds, and beef/poultry/pork companies lobbying in DC for more protections and help.

At the same time, what the movie did not emphasize much is the fact that there is a free market element to all of this. The fast food industry was not forced on America. As the film notes, we do vote three times a day for what sort of food we’d like. And at least when the McDonalds brothers were first getting started, lots of people voted for that kind of food. And lots still do (like my kids for instance, who view Happy Meals are glorious gifts from God).

I know some of my readers are probably more attuned to this than others, but if the money trail is correct, for all these free market choices and blessings of inexpensive mass produced food (and there have been some), it seems like we have Uncle Sam helping the blessing along a fair bit. And depending on how much propping up is going on, at what point could we legitimately conclude that it hasn’t been worth it? Would people continue to vote the same way without the Feds keeping it so cheap?

And I might add that I’m guessing there might be an interesting documentary done on the booming organice/free range/all natural/whatever industry as well. There’s money in them hills too, and as the film showed, even Walmart knows this.

In Economics, Food, Movies, Politics
permalink

Morality vs. Production

May 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

In Economics in One Lesson Henry Hazlitt says: “The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs.” (73)

Hazlitt originally wrote this over fifty years ago and revised it some thirty years ago. He writes against the various schemes designed to mindlessly create more employment, as though employment in and of itself is a necessary good and benefit to society. Contrary to this, Hazlitt argues that production is the greatest good and benefit to society. As it turns out, employment is a necessary means to that end, but frequently the means is turned into the end.

The quote above however suggests that there are specific cultural values driving at least some of the economic policies. Making it “unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs” is now a string of political cuss words. If there is a higher priority of putting women in the work force, then the drive for employment as the highest good and benefit makes more sense. Framed as the liberation of an oppressed social class, the push for employment as a status symbol, as an emblem of liberty takes precedence over drives for greater production which in that light sound greedy and materialist in comparison. Liberating American women from unemployment is a moral issue. How can you value “production” over morality and freedom?

In Culture, Economics
permalink