The Value Extractors at Work
This past summer I was visiting my father and we were out on the patio enjoying dinner discussing economic issues. The conversation drifted toward the question of why the dollar is so weak, and I offered some standard economese to explain. Eventually I got to the core reason any currency is valued as it is:
It has to do with the way people perceive value, and a currency is merely a reflection of that value assessment on a macro scale.
My stepmother couldn't understand. She wondered how that could be when our productive capacity in the U.S. is still so much stronger than that of other countries, particularly in Europe where the Euro has seemed to be doing a gleeful trampling dance on the sprawling dollar.
In today's Los Angeles Times Tom Petruno's column bears out incisively the exact point I was making. The dollar is making a comeback and the key reason has to do with perceived value. His main point is that the dollar is appearing attractive again because people are seeing that oversees industries are not producing what people thought this past summer they would against the U.S.
Sooo, the swing is back toward valuing U.S. productive capacity and the measure of that, the dollar.
Nothing has value except that which people do for one another. Nothing. Nada. Zipporino.
There are two ways people can do things for one another that have any value. One is to do it out of fear, from the conception that punishment is coming if you don't whip up something at your job. The law is all over making sure people drudge up some piddle of goop that others will find tasteful in some way.
The second way is actually kind of a radical idea, one that far fewer people utilize than they should. That way is to do it out of the love one has for the one he or she is producing for. This comes easily for the joyfully eager worker simply because he knows he is loved by a God who died for him and has an entire Kingdom available to him through eternity.
Yes, it's true the only way you can do it via that second way is by Jesus Christ. It is only through Him that you can value things with the most accurate assessment of actual value. The World can only bonk about with that perceived value, but followers of Christ know, and do, love. I wrote a whole homepage piece about it at my webzine, it is here if you are intersted.
In my latest homepage piece, however, I wrote about rage. And I thought about how I concluded it, and I think it was fine, but I left out something that wasn't necessarily required for the piece to be complete. I've still sort of scratched my head about it, and I'll elaborate on that here.
It comes from an important question. "If Jesus was so enraged about some things, yet He still went to the back of the line, dying at the hands of Cain's agents, well, what's the point? Indeed, what's the point of feeling deeply about things if we're all just putty in Cain's fingers?"
Note that I emphasized that Jesus allowed Caesar to have his way with Him for a moment. The key is that moment was critical for Jesus to demonstrate the kind of love we are to have for one another, and out of that comes the most paradoxical but quite veritable
Eternal life with Him in the Kingdom.
The thing is that World people will do their World thing. Tom Petruno will elaborate expansively on the rabid value extraction practices of rich powerful World operatives who not only exploit markets but people's combative desires to schlurp up stuff. What is so outrageous is how many people saying they believe in Jesus do this with such abandon.
It is just not complicated. In fact it is right there in Jesus own words:
Gain the World, lose your soul.
This doesn't mean we slosh around in rags pronouncing our great piety. It just means we live in the Kingdom by His love--as holy and living sacrifices I might add, sowing with precisely what God gave you to do that however much that is--and all the glory of the Kingdom is thrown in, right now, not just later in heaven.
Ah. This is just so elementary. I wonder why I even take the time to blog on it.
The point then is, really, how come so many just aren't getting it...
I very much struggle with that. What is up with that? I go way beyond rage into deep sorrow when I speak with Christian leaders and graciously point out Jesus' words right there and get a great big fat
"Guh?..."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in freefall for months, their top execs are about to get their fat rearends fired, and the taxpayer is about to bail them out whether he likes it or not. This is only a symptom of the wretched way the World does value assessment. Because so many of them are paid so much to go "Guh?..." I doubt you'll find a tiny handful of pastors who understand squat about what this means.
There it all is folks. I don't have to make this up.
The World, right there being wretchedly awful. And the Kingdom, right there, with Jesus' words making it as clear as bright shiny daylight.
Who is getting it?
The road is narrow, but I really hope it is not that narrow.
It has to do with the way people perceive value, and a currency is merely a reflection of that value assessment on a macro scale.
My stepmother couldn't understand. She wondered how that could be when our productive capacity in the U.S. is still so much stronger than that of other countries, particularly in Europe where the Euro has seemed to be doing a gleeful trampling dance on the sprawling dollar.
In today's Los Angeles Times Tom Petruno's column bears out incisively the exact point I was making. The dollar is making a comeback and the key reason has to do with perceived value. His main point is that the dollar is appearing attractive again because people are seeing that oversees industries are not producing what people thought this past summer they would against the U.S.
Sooo, the swing is back toward valuing U.S. productive capacity and the measure of that, the dollar.
Nothing has value except that which people do for one another. Nothing. Nada. Zipporino.
There are two ways people can do things for one another that have any value. One is to do it out of fear, from the conception that punishment is coming if you don't whip up something at your job. The law is all over making sure people drudge up some piddle of goop that others will find tasteful in some way.
The second way is actually kind of a radical idea, one that far fewer people utilize than they should. That way is to do it out of the love one has for the one he or she is producing for. This comes easily for the joyfully eager worker simply because he knows he is loved by a God who died for him and has an entire Kingdom available to him through eternity.
Yes, it's true the only way you can do it via that second way is by Jesus Christ. It is only through Him that you can value things with the most accurate assessment of actual value. The World can only bonk about with that perceived value, but followers of Christ know, and do, love. I wrote a whole homepage piece about it at my webzine, it is here if you are intersted.
In my latest homepage piece, however, I wrote about rage. And I thought about how I concluded it, and I think it was fine, but I left out something that wasn't necessarily required for the piece to be complete. I've still sort of scratched my head about it, and I'll elaborate on that here.
It comes from an important question. "If Jesus was so enraged about some things, yet He still went to the back of the line, dying at the hands of Cain's agents, well, what's the point? Indeed, what's the point of feeling deeply about things if we're all just putty in Cain's fingers?"
Note that I emphasized that Jesus allowed Caesar to have his way with Him for a moment. The key is that moment was critical for Jesus to demonstrate the kind of love we are to have for one another, and out of that comes the most paradoxical but quite veritable
Eternal life with Him in the Kingdom.
The thing is that World people will do their World thing. Tom Petruno will elaborate expansively on the rabid value extraction practices of rich powerful World operatives who not only exploit markets but people's combative desires to schlurp up stuff. What is so outrageous is how many people saying they believe in Jesus do this with such abandon.
It is just not complicated. In fact it is right there in Jesus own words:
Gain the World, lose your soul.
This doesn't mean we slosh around in rags pronouncing our great piety. It just means we live in the Kingdom by His love--as holy and living sacrifices I might add, sowing with precisely what God gave you to do that however much that is--and all the glory of the Kingdom is thrown in, right now, not just later in heaven.
Ah. This is just so elementary. I wonder why I even take the time to blog on it.
The point then is, really, how come so many just aren't getting it...
I very much struggle with that. What is up with that? I go way beyond rage into deep sorrow when I speak with Christian leaders and graciously point out Jesus' words right there and get a great big fat
"Guh?..."
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in freefall for months, their top execs are about to get their fat rearends fired, and the taxpayer is about to bail them out whether he likes it or not. This is only a symptom of the wretched way the World does value assessment. Because so many of them are paid so much to go "Guh?..." I doubt you'll find a tiny handful of pastors who understand squat about what this means.
There it all is folks. I don't have to make this up.
The World, right there being wretchedly awful. And the Kingdom, right there, with Jesus' words making it as clear as bright shiny daylight.
Who is getting it?
The road is narrow, but I really hope it is not that narrow.
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