Papa Government Will Take Care Of Everything

I don't know how many of you watched Bush's Presidential Address given last night, but it's pretty big. I'd recommend taking a look at it below.




I only caught the last few minutes of this address last night, so after it was over I called my grandfather, who is pretty up on this stuff. He definitely gave me some good insight and things to think about.

Here's a basic history of how we got here, as I understand it...

In the past the real estate companies and banks would require a sizable down payment when someone was buying a house, condo, mansion, shack in the woods, etc. Typically they had to put down around 20-25% of the total cost to buy. So if you're buying a $100,000 house, you would be required to give a down payment of $20-25 thousand, and the bank would loan you the rest.

Now what that did was allow the bank/lender to come out on top whether you could pay or not. If you are able to make all of your payments, then they are paid back all their money plus the interest included in the loan. If you are not able to pay and go into default, they can seize your house and sell it for its value. In that case they will have whatever money you have already paid them, and the value of your house, which as a general rule would increase in worth (appreciate in value) as time and inflation went on.

Things were going so well that companies got a little ahead of themselves. Reel estate was going well and people were buying houses, credit was becoming more and more popular, so they increased the credit you can get on a house. Where you used to give about 20% upfront, now they would give you a 100% loan... but wait, more. They wouldn't just give you 100% of what you needed for your house, but they'd give a 125% loan, which the purchaser could use to buy furniture, peanut butter, kittens, and whatnot. And this is the real problem.

With the banks and lenders giving so much money, like the white trash hick that gets approved for his first credit card, people felt like they had free money. They didn't even need to have anything saved up to buy a house. When a bank gives a crazy good loan like that, you can expect some crazy hard interest. Plus you have all these people who aren't financially intelligent celebrating in their free money and not looking down the road. After the first 6 months their loan payments tended to get much higher, to the point where often times people could not afford them. They would default on their payments and their house would be seized.

When the lenders seized the house, they would need to get 125% of the initial worth of it (or something around there depending) in order to break even. And that would be possible under the normal way of real estate, where it increases in value over time. But due to so many people buying houses, the supply went way up... lots of houses being built. But people who were initially excited started to not have the finances to afford them, or realize they wouldn't be able to make the payments. With a high supply and a small demand, the value goes down. Houses started losing value or staying the same with time, instead of gaining value. All of this left banks and lenders in a tough place where they couldn't get their money back because of the housing market.

This is a big reason you have heard recently about banks shutting down and all this stuff about real estate lenders. And when the banks don't have money, credit doesn't work. Credit depends on your bank/lender being able to pay your bill until you can pay them back, when the bank can't pay the bill, you can't have credit. If you can't have credit, people will stop buying things; if people don't buy things, others will lose jobs; if people lose their jobs they can buy even less; if no body is buying much of anything or working then we're in a bad bad place.

What the government has done, is decide to put $700 Billion into buying these properties that are mortgaged, but nobody is buying, so the bank can make back their money. If they didn't do this, the real estate market would crash, builders wouldn't build, electricians wouldn't install electric in houses, plumbers would plumb, realtors wouldn't sell houses, and millions of people would be out of work, which would cause basically the same chain reaction seen above.

The businesses that decided to up the credit so high are at fault here. It isn't the governments responsibility to act, as the president said, in a free-enterprise economy. But it's either give up some of what we believe in or face The Great Depression again. So the government is purchasing these mortgages, and in a sense acting as the lender, the one responsible for the financial essence of the property. They are hoping that as the economy picks up, and the housing market picks up, they will be able to get paid back (same as anyone who gives a loan) as the properties are sold, and will be able to get more return as the properties will be worth more than what they are buying them for. There's a good chance it'll work, but not 100%.

The government is taking some serious looks at socialistic control tactics to keep businesses from causing such a threat to American economics. The fact that the decisions of so few companies could impact the entire country in such a dire way blows my mind. It's also why I personally am not a fan of big business in most cases. The government is also going to potentially limit executive income in these businesses, to try to eliminate "bad" business decisions that will put the company in jeopardy, but reward the executives running it. Even in the situation we're in now, the executives could make a lot of money at the expense of others, by receiving/buying more stock once it goes down, and sitting on it until it goes up again, or a type of corporate bail-out getting paid tons in the collapse of the business.

So what is better... the integrity of the democratic system... or compromising ideals instead of compromising the American standard of living?

I am somewhat torn. I do not pledge my allegiance to the democratic system. I think it's worked fine, but that it will at some point fail or be replaced with something better. It's inherent greed will be our destruction (as it is about to destroy us already). The government is building safe-guards against such free-enterprise greed by stripping away some of our democracy. It seems all systems fail at a certain point, and new ones will emerge as we learn. Everyone is afraid of communism, mostly because they don't quite understand it... but here we have our own political officials, under a republican president, taking a big step toward communism, as our only foreseeable way of solving our crisis. It's just interesting.

See, this is why I don't have a credit card!


So some questions for discussion...

- Which is more important, the integrity of our government structure or the integrity of our financial means?

- What would you do if things aren't resolved in the next few days and everything crashes.

- Is this the beginning of more mixing of democracy with other systems? If so, how long will we continue to call it democracy? If not, how will democracy deal these emerging issues?

The Official Drink of Jesus

I went to a convention this past weekend in Atlanta, GA and have been wanting to write a blog about it.

The convention was for a health drink I promote called MonaVie. Let me just say at the very beginning of this, MonaVie is great! I completely back it and would agree it's pretty much the healthiest food you can put in your body. Good stuff. None of my problems stem from the validity of this product.

So I go to this MonaVie conference put on by it's top earner in the MonaVie network marketing company, Brig Hart. I expected to learn a lot more about the science of the drink and its components, maybe hear some testimonies, and of course get some info on how people have promoted it themselves. What I did not expect was Christian Prosperity Fest '08. I knew that Brig Hart was a Christian, but I've been to Christian conferences that talked less about God.

Now I'm certainly not against preaching the Gospel or anything like that, but when someone comes for a business conference and is preached to 85% of the time, paying a decent chunk of change to go, I'd be a little peeved. And I'd probably hold Christianity responsible. As my aunt and I were on our way there, I was asking if certain people would be there. She responded "no" a lot because of the religious aspect of the message. I didn't expect so much though.

Much of it was motivation from Christian speakers, authors, and pastors. A lot of the points I agreed with, but generally I disagreed with the direction each talk pointed the listener toward. Brig would have the crowd of nearly 5,000 cheering "Black Diamond, Black Diamond, Black Diamond," claiming that they will achieve the high and lucrative rank of Black Diamond. This was shown as an opportunity for freedom. No longer do you have to be a slave under a boss, no longer do you need to work 80 hours a week to provide for you family, no longer do you even need to "work." MonaVie has all the answers. Lots of money will little effort.

The "Christian" Prosperity message is one that makes my stomach turn. When someone tells me that God wants me to have lots of money, I know that they don't know that. I may be "blessed" with lots of money, but that blessing could be a huge curse. What good is it for a man to gain the world but lose his soul? Jesus taught living with less... even less than what most would deem adequate, but it was adequate.

When I have preachers on stage and family members in my ear telling me that I can do much good with wealth, I know there is a truth to that, but there is also a deception, a temptation. Jesus even tempts his disciples in this manner. He exposes to them what they will really do with wealth, or more than they need. If you keep reading in Luke 22, you see that Jesus tells his disciples to get all the things they just said they don't need, including swords. A few verses later you see his disciples relying on one of these items instead of on the Word of the Lord. As Peter pulls out his sword and cuts a man's ear off, Jesus rebukes him and shows him the error of believing in possessions, as well as how easy it is to lose focus.

I truly do find myself in the same situation. There is a voice in my head or sometimes standing right in front of me, saying that it's ok to have all this stuff. God wants me to be blessed and to be a blessing to others, money helps God do that. Words like this will lead me away. Money isn't evil, but a man's heart is easily swayed when money is present. I can bless others with my life. I can inspire the multitudes to give small amounts, rather than having a few wealthy give large amounts. Simplicity, relying on God, keeping my priorities straight; these are all blessings greater than money. And work should be a blessing too. Not working for the rest of my life is not something that appeals to me. Not toiling in a job is something that appeals to me. If you love your work, why wouldn't you want to work for life. Whether it's in a job, your community, your church, your family, someone else's family, or whatever, you have a purpose and you must work at that purpose.

I think it's wrong to correlate business and Christianity in such a way, even though I think Jesus should be in your workplace. If anything Jesus would probably call you to less "work" and more life. He wouldn't be as concerned with productivity, as he would enjoying what you're doing and staying focused on the cause. And I don't know if Jesus would be selling Joel Osteen books like crazy at his business convention.

After this past weekend I decided that MonaVie isn't about the money. It's about trying to help people with health. It's a stepping stone to a better lifestyle and diet. MonaVie is not the answer, but it can help a lot. I'm not opposed to making a little money with MonaVie, but I need to stay strict on giving away anything I don't need before I become bound by it. This is hard, and I'm not there; however, I have made great strides and I'm going to continue chugging along.

I was going to mention network marketing in our economic hardship and question whether it's really a good thing. Does having people quit their jobs to sell juice really help our consumer-based economy? Shouldn't we be moving towards jobs that provide products, rather than gaining quick wealth through another (in some manner) service industry. There's a product there, but these people are all selling something they don't manufacture. Also, if our economy dips pretty bad, MonaVie will be one of the first things people drop to save money. I in no way would put my heart and soul into the security of MonaVie. But like I said, it's an incredible product and I'd recommend everyone give it a shot.

If you want more info on MonaVie let me know.

Do We Have A Choice Other Than Regression From Depression?

I should be reading a book right now, but I'm not. Instead I'm going to try to present sense of the nonsense in my head.

I was talking to my grandfather last night on the phone for quite a while. We often get into economics in our talking. He believes, as many do, that the United States is on the border of a depression. He's frustrated with the people in Washington who keep doing things that are blatantly bad to do, but they pretend like they're right (such as printing lots of dollar bills to depreciate the value of our money).

I started to think about that thought in relation to The Great Depression. My concern was this... During the great depression we were a production society, largely. We made lots of stuff and were much more self-sufficient than we are now. At this point we have outsourced all of our production, and we consider our country a country of managers. The corporations are here, but the work and product are elsewhere, being made my third world preteens. When the economy collapsed in the 1930's we could at least produce what we needed. We still had lots of private farms, we made lots of steel, clothes were still made here a lot, etc. Times weren't great, but we got by because people knew how to produce and survive. But what about now?

How does a consumer society survive in a depression? How much harder is it going to be for us to get food from nations with a much stronger currency. At least when goods are produced within the same country the currency should maintain a relative value... outside that country it just isn't so. If our dollar drops to $3 = 1 Euro how will we trade effectively? How will we afford things to survive? Do you get what I'm saying? Depression = poor people and few jobs, little money, having just enough to survive... how do you add the relative doubling/tripling/etc of the cost of everything we import when we import almost everything? Let me admit right now, I'm not economist, but this seems common sense with the little I know.

A depression will be hard and there will much bad from it, but I ultimately think it will do more good than bad for our future. It will reset American ideologies to being less greedy and more set on the "good ol' ways." I think and hope at least that would happen.

I've been thinking about the barter economy lately. It seems to me that implementing a barter economy into our current one would be more beneficial to individuals, and more conducive to individual small businesses. Even beyond that I see it as allowing for a lower cost of final product if you trade services/products for others. This is so abstract I apologize. I'm really having trouble grasping this in my head.

My grandfather told me about how things used to be much more barter-oriented. So and so needed help, so I went and worked on their house for about 20 hours, and in a month during harvest I'll need help on my farm, so they'll help me for about 20 hours. Or I'm an electrician and he's a plumber. I do his electrical work if he does my plumbing. It really ends up working better for me that way, at least it appears that way. Instead of having to pay the for the expensive electrical work, I just spend a little of my time. Looking at this I guess it is more normalizing of wages, where no one is worth more (or much more) than another. It seems to naturally do that to some extent, although it does not negate supply and demand.

Income tax becomes a problem when you are on a barter system. So do services like broadcast television that it becomes hard to barter with. I simple enough solution would be taxes on imports or just living in an area, paying a city tax. There certainly is a question of "is there currency if there is all barter." Good question. There would have to be some kind of IOU for workers of widespread service industries, e.g. Broadcast TV workers. In that sense there would need to be a currency of sense. Where we acknowledge that these people are giving us a service, even if it seems intangible or even if we don't use it, and in response we give these people a portion of what we have as compensation. I think I just defined what money is, but hopefully I reshaped it a little.

Don't get me wrong... we won't be a cashless society ever (or at least not for a very very long time). But I do think we should start implementing barter more. We're moving that way anyway. The government will need to restructure as this gains steam. They will no doubt pull the IRS with it's Federal Income Tax, and instead it will increase a tax on raw products or imports.

As we simplify we require less money. As the government pulls back frill that we've grown accustomed to it will need less of our money. Taxes will become less demanding. People will gain more freedom. Bartering will grow, especially with the help of our technology. We will become a relational people again, instead of a people that associate with institutions and businesses bureaucratically. We will bring caring, grace, leeway, situation, and more into our transactions. Our conscience and goodwill will trump our greed for getting more and more. It seems life used to be much more like this, not even that long ago. This is a fantasy I know. I believe it is a fantasy to be further developed and continued in hope.

Like I have stated, I am no economist, but I know if we simplify we can have more freedom. I know that big business and big government have taken away life we forget is even a possibility. They are largely the secret oppressors of us, our country, and to some extent, large parts of our world. Things used to work differently in the past, why should we not be able to recreate them, but with a new flare and hopefully better than they were?

Please leave some comments if you're a smart person. I feel like I make sense, but I'm fully aware that I'm largely ignorant about this topic.

Ron Paul... He May Not Be A Winner, But He's Got Integrity

Ron Paul...

I had heard nothing about him dropping out of the race, but in every way it seemed like he had vanished. I thought there would at least be some recognition if he had dropped out. Apparently I wasn't the only one confused.




How refreshing to have someone running for President, who is concerned most with winning. Paul is just desiring that the message continue to move, inspire, and transform the people of The United States. Doesn't it make you want to trust him? Doesn't it show you that he fully believes in what he is preaching?

Ahhh, refreshing. It's like a nice glass of water with a spritz of lemon on a hot summer's day.

I do still hope that Ron will run as an independent. He's said much to make us believe he won't be doing any such thing, but he hasn't given an absolute negative to that possibility.

I did stumble upon this old 1970's government conspiracy video. I was shocked that people have thought this for so long. This is the crap that people are making documentaries on now and Ron Paul is trying to expose (although I don't think he's privy to the word "Conspiracy"). I had no idea that these thoughts had been around so long.





I feel that this documentary is based in truth. There may be a few over-embellished aspects, but over all, I agree with the governments misuse of money, building up of itself, misdirection with "enemies," and so on.

Are you sick of me talking about this topic? Do you think it's nuts that anyone could think our government could be misusing our money or deliberately distract us with other incidents? Do you agree with me? Speak now or forever hold you peace.

That'll Cost You 15 Intimacy Points

I just got back from a great weekend at Youth For Christ Metro-Pitt's Student Leader Retreat.

It's different than a lot of the other trips, because this one is not an outreach. These are the kids that have decided they really want a close relationship with God and desire to share the gospel with others. When you start with that desire the doors are open. Small group meetings, where you usually need to pull teeth to get responses that are even slightly deep, had a dynamic of trust. Kids shared some things that were very dear, very revealing, very hopeful, very painful, and all very honest with the others, themselves, and God.

The theme of the weekend was prayer. Certainly a hard topic to tackle in a way that isn't the cliche, "You should pray before every meal and in the morning and at night, and all the time, yea!" But to actually put purpose into it and form an intense desire of high schoolers to pray is just... daunting.

The best teaching on prayer was when we prayed. We started out the whole weekend praying for probably 30-60 minutes. The kids loved it! The weekend has shown me a lot about myself and my priorities. I would say that it's a need to pray more, but that's only the beginning.

I love worshiping together in joy. I still picture all 50 of us huddled up in a group, with the instrumentalists in the center playing "One Name Under Heaven." The excitement at the chorus, "God's gonna move this place, God's gonna move this place, God's gonna turn this world, Gonna turn it upside down" is what makes me feel alive. Times when worship is solemn, communal, intimate, and at the same time joyful, excited, sincere, and passionate I feel like we are at that moment in line with God. That experience is truly heaven.


I try to always include something to think about in these blogs. So here is something that I slightly played with in my head, but need to dedicate thought to...

The speaker said that some people seem to think the "currency" (an obvious metaphor) of God is faith. If we have so much faith we can get or be this or that. He said that the true currency is intimacy. The closer I am to God the more I can have in God. James', the speaker, illustration as that of him asking for money. His father is someone who doesn't give up money very easily in large amounts. He is a generous man who will give someone a few bucks if they ask it of him, but were to ask for $100 he'd probably have a problem with that. If James asked his father though, he would certainly give him the money because there is much more intimacy between them than his father and a stranger. Likewise, if James' mother asked for her husband to donate $500 to an orphanage in Africa that she believes in the cause of, he would certainly do it, because their relationship is even more intimate.

I think that thought is a good one. It certainly shows something big about how humanity works. Is that how God works? I hate that I just said "how God works," it sound demeaning, as if we could understand how God works. But does God follow the same reasoning or laws that we follow as humans in this regard?

Part of me is unsure, the other part feels like God is too far above that in benevolence. Like God would give intimacy at any level at any second if we desired. That may be the issue, our desire for it. What would the money of intimacy buy anyway? Ability to heal people, healing ourselves, spiritual feeling, prophesy, doing well with our skills, knowing right from wrong? Maybe all of those, maybe some, maybe none... but I'm thinking all or some.

What do you think? How does the notion resonate in your thought?

I'm very interested in some intelligent thought, which I have none to offer.

Hurry Up And DON'T Pay Your Income Tax!

I recently watched a documentary by Aaron Russo, America: Freedom to Fascism.

I wasn't totally sure what the movie was about and I can't remember what led me to watch it, but it certainly brought up some interesting points.

I'll summarize what it's about kind of, but wikipedia does a much better job of it.

It starts out talking about how there is no legal backing for a federal income tax. It is actually unconstitutional to have an federal income tax. But if you do not pay this tax the IRS has a FIT about you not paying your F.I.T. They put people in jail all the time, seize assets, and actually raid houses and business, when they can't even back the Federal Income Tax with a law.

Many IRS works are challenged to find the legal backing for this and cannot find anything. The higher ups who are questioned have nothing of any merit to say in defense of this tax.

We feel like the U.S. couldn't function properly without the citizens paying this tax; however, there was no Federal Income Tax before 1913, and things worked fine then. In face, most of the money paid towards the F.I.T. goes toward paying of interest of the U.S.'s debt to the Federal Reserve.

This is the second big argument of the movie. The Federal Reserve is ridiculous... it's not "federal" at all... it's a bunch of private banks that are not the government, but they can in some ways control the government since they control the money. These banks are the ones who print our money. They can create currency out of thin air that is backed by nothing but credit. Where paper money should be a receipt for something of real worth (gold, silver) it is now a receipt for the paper it is printed on... it has no merit.

It is for this reason that we see the U.S. dollar plummeting. We keep printing money that is backed by nothing. And the thing is, we don't even know the state of the gold that should be backing it. Where is the gold, where did it go, how much of it is there?

The U.S. can pay all of its bills on the other taxes that are legal taxes. The Federal Income Tax goes toward paying our debt and then the rest of it goes...? It's missing. Unaccounted for. Gone.

To real truth is that I didn't understand everything in the documentary the first time around, but I got a good gist. I also know that a documentary is inherently biased in almost every situation (except for anything Michael Moore has done, obviously). I have found misquotes (or at least not full quotes) from this documentary. The wikipedia page has a lot of criticisms of the documentary; but, these don't seem to argue the real points being made, only some of the minor backings of the points.

I would check out the movie if you can. There are some clips on the website, which I linked to at the beginning. If you want to borrow my copy, you can do that too.

I certainly think there is a lot of corruption in this country that gets fluffed over by politicians energizing with passionate talk of the "freedom" of our country. We certainly appear to be free, and we certainly are free-er than other countries, but are we as free as we think?

Thoughts are encouraged.