The Bubble and government policy in one lesson

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Retailers – Reality Check Time by Jim Quinn.

Reading this article made me think that I might be able to explain the basic dynamic of the economic meltdown without having to mess with too many details. The details are important, but they can hide the structure.

Start with this basic premise: the government wants to promote industry.

And then add a second premise: the government finds out that people are more likely to buy things if they have easy credit.

So if the government supports and promotes easy credit, then it can get people to buy more stuff.  When people buy more stuff, more industry is supported.

So, they find a way to do this. Unsecured credit is given to many people who in turn buy stuff. Whether it is houses or flat-screen TVs doesn’t matter.

But what happens when people have too much debt? They have to cut back. Not only do they have to cut back because they don’t have enough money to buy; they have to cut back even more because getting out of debt becomes a priority. People want to be free of the debt burden.

But since everyone was given the incentive to use credit everyone is cutting back at roughly the same time. Furthermore, the sudden drop in spending by a small group endangers the viability of industries that are dependent on consumer purchases. So the people whose jobs are endangered suddenly realize their debt load is too high and add to the growing number of people trying to get out of debt rather than purchasing gadgets.

Third premise, once those in government see that this is happening, they do all they can to hide the problem and extend the credit.

So the problem grows as the collapse is delayed.

The only solution to the problem is to end the artificial political debt encourager and enabler, suffer through a massive readjustment to the economy, and then grow at a normal rate from there.

Fourth premise, the government never admits that it is responsible for a problem or that it cannot fix a problem.

And so we go from disaster to disaster.

A question for any of you presuppositionalists out there.

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I still believe in the basic position I outlined here regarding apologetics.

However, I used Romans 1.18-21:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. For that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom 1:18-21; NASB).

The problem is that I no longer believe that this passage is speaking to all men in general in every time and every place regarding the way God is revealed to them. Rather, I think it is speaking of the culpability that exists in the Greco-Roman world in light of the spread of the knowledge of the true God through Israel.

So how do I argue my position from Scripture now?

America as country v. America as State

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The history of America as a country is quite different from that of America as a State. In one case it is the drama of the pioneering conquest of the land, of the growth of wealth and the ways in which it was used, of the enterprise of education, and the carrying out of spiritual ideals, of the struggle of economic classes. But as a State, its history is that of playing a part in the world, making war, obstructing international trade, preventing itself from being split to pieces, punishing those citizens whom society agrees are offensive, and collecting money to pay for all.

via War Is the Health of the State by Randolph Bourne.

RePost: Grace Apart from Sin

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And the Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him (Luke 2.40).

There is nothing faulty in this translation (New American Standard Bible); Jesus was the recipient of the grace of God His Father from whom He is eternally begotten and with Whom he is equal.

Jesus was never a sinner needing forgiveness; and it would be abominable blasphemy to say otherwise. Yet Jesus received divine grace, as an incarnate child growing towards adulthood. Obviously, then, grace can refer to an attitude on the part of God that has no reference to any sinful state in the recipient. It refers to his favor and bounty without regard to personal merit. That grace being shown to sinners is a much more amazing (and to Jesus, costly!) thing, but it is not wrong to say that God shows grace to creatures (in this case, an incarnate one–both creature and creator in one person) who have not sinned.

Thus, it cannot be wrong to claim that Adam, like our incarnate Lord, received grace from God his Father. Luke undoubtedly knows and reveals that Jesus is dissimilar to Adam in that he is himself God. But in giving Jesus the title, “son of God,” Luke makes it quite clear that Jesus is receiving a title that Adam had originally by virtue of his creation by God and their covenant relationship. After telling us of the voice of the Father speaking from heaven and naming Jesus as his son at his baptism, Luke chooses that place to list a genealogy for our Lord which goes all the way back to Adam, and beyond Adam to God. Adam was the son of God and Jesus is a new creation, a new son of God (Luke 3.38).

God’s relationship with Adam was not that of an employer with an employee, but that of a parent and child. As Norman Shepherd has argued so well, the covenant of works with Adam was not a “labor contract,” but rather a familial relationship of love.

To repeat: The Bible explicitly teaches that Jesus of Nazareth received grace from God. Grace has real meaning apart from the forgiveness of sins. Luke’s Gospel is the very Word of God and we dare not quibble about the Spirit’s grammar.

Going, going, gone?

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• 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

• 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

• For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.

• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking..

3 persons giving themselves to 1 another

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The image God has given us in the Trinity is an image of three Persons giving themselves to one another in eternal communion. Is there any wonder that the redemption offered to the human race by our Creator in the Lord Jesus Christ has to necessarily produce a lifestyle which would indicate redeemed relationships as the reality of salvation? All of the philosophical speculations, positions, and debates in the world cannot argue against a society of God’s people who in their corporate life demonstrate the reality of the god whom they worship.

Our individualistic theologies have substituted personal and private holiness for true inter-personal holiness among God’s people, and by implication, all other levels of creation. In his command to love one another, Jesus calls us to redress this misunderstanding. May we, under God, trust the Holy Spirit to quiet our disunity, remake our mindsets, and heal our relationships.

via Love One Another.

A Secular Reason Why We’re Doomed

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When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.

Ayn Rand

Paedobaptist Propositions (from Reformed.org)

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1. The rite of baptism is God’s act by which, through His representative and the power of the Holy Spirit, He confers citizenship in His Kingdom upon the one baptized, and incorporates the person into Christ’s body, the Church. This is not done to some baptized individuals (the elect) but to all who are baptized. God’s promise in baptism is worthless if it cannot be trusted.

2. Baptized believers are covenant keepers, and baptized unbelievers (in doctrine or life) are covenant breakers. A “believer” here refers to one who simply demonstrates a credible confession of faith (in doctrine and life).

3. Baptized infants who cannot demonstrate faith as is legitimately expected of older Christians, are believers. Simply being baptized counts as a credible confession for a baby.

4. The children of baptized believers possess the right to membership in the Covenant, and their parents are under obligation to offer them to be baptized into the Church. They are God’s by right, like the tithe, because He demands that they be brought to Him. They are His by possession when they are incorporated into His Kingdom by baptism — just as the tithe is possessed by God when the tither relinquishes it to the Church (otherwise the tither has stolen from God). Thus, though baptism incorporates one into Christ, one need not fear for the salvation of babies and other believers who die before baptism can be administered. God will not be robbed of his elect by their death.

5. All covenant keepers are to be considered regenerate. Not “presumed” (which implies an unwarranted assumption), but considered — reckoned, regarded, and / or treated as — regenerate.

6. All covenant keepers are given the Holy Spirit. They may have been regenerated before they entered covenant (infants perhaps, and adults converted from unbelief almost certainly), or at their baptism (infants perhaps). Since some people do apostatize and break covenant, we know they never were truly regenerate. However, all are truly given the Holy Spirit at baptism, and either persevere in His fellowship (if truly regenerate) so that they attain to Eternal Life, or grieve the Spirit so that He departs from them and they die in their sins (if unregenerate). Furthermore, for a baptized individual who apostatizes (as a child or adult) and then is brought back by a new understanding of the Gospel, there is virtually no way to be sure when he was truly regenerated. Nor does it really need to be known.

7. All covenant keepers, infants and adults, must continue to be discipled and persevere in the faith in order to inherit Eternal Life.

8. All those who die in the covenant, have persevered by God’s grace, and thus can be assured of Eternal Life.

9. Parents of baptized babies can be assured of the eternal salvation of their infants, should untimely death befall them. They do not need to be told that, “If your infant was elect then he is in Heaven.” That tautology is a useless torment from Satan. A promise to be the God of you and those of your children of whom God decides to be the God,” is no promise at all. The promise is to us and our children. Our covenant children who die have died in the Lord. They are shown to be elected unto Eternal Life.

10. Baptized children are just as much Christians as their parents are. Both are in covenant with Christ and both must endure to the end to be saved. God is equally the God of parents and their children.

SOURCE

Keep hoping I will like these but…

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All the Rage (Repairman Jack, #4)All the Rage by F. Paul Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite my problems with the hero’s morality, I had to give this another chance. This story found him in a monogamous situation, and I’m surprised I didn’t like the novel more. It reads like a anarchic version of Xfiles. What’s not to love? But I didn’t love it. A lot of authors I like really love “Repairman Jack,” but something about him creeps me out. This got better toward the end but once I reached the ending I was disappointed.

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