Look at 100 Years of Weather in Antarctica and You'll Find the Meaning of Christmas
I recently read an economics piece about the opportunity cost of a certain Christmas tradition. The writer--some young financial wonk somewhere--lamented the abject inefficiency of gift-giving, going into great detail about the real value of the practice. His argument went something like this.
Aunt Gladys gets you a $50 sweater when she really could just hand you the $50, at which point you could get what you really want. But because she gave you something you really don't want, the value to you is no higher than $30, graciously considering that even if you don't really like it, it may be serviceable for having on when picking an avocado off the tree on a mildly chilly morning. So it's not just $0, let's grant that it is something.
Making a valiant attempt to think like an economist, he concedes that there may indeed be a value to the simple fact that Aunt Gladys got you a gift, and tacks on another $30 for that, making the value $60. (If he were to be even more proficiently econ-esque, he'd add even more for the consumer surplus you'd get by having the $50 and presuming you'd get something that is even more valuable to you than what the $50 means, but that's a bit more advanced.)
He concludes, however, by saying the $60 item is still not as much as the $80 it would have been if you'd had the $50 to get the thing you'd like in the first place. Answer to the value equation: minus $20. Multiply that by a zillion for the zillion times throughout the world that people do this silly gift-giving thing and you've got quite a value deficit.
On the face of it this sounds reasonable, but as always, people trying to be value assessors, no matter how erudite their economics sounds, never get it.
There is indeed a value not considered here, and it isn't exactly the same value he affords to Gladys merely getting the gift at all (remember his grudgingly added $30?) It is the fact that Gladys had some idea of what you liked even if it was wrong. This may seem like it is just a pointless, but the fact is Gladys actually knew you in some way, some how. (Me personally, I actively try to avoid letting people know what I want because I take much greater pleasure if they get me something they think I'd like because they know who I am.)
Even if you know in your heart that Gladys hates your guts and gave out of the most selfish compulsion, her doing it at all and you being able to participate in the beautiful experience of having a wrapped present which you get to eagerly anticipate opening simply because someone thought about you has much greater value than the thing you yourself would be able to get that would be a tad more useful.
In other words (for the more exacting economist), the value of being loved in such a way is an added, oh, say, $200, making the surplus value to you $120--far above and beyond the maximum $80 value of whatever thing you could have had otherwise.
The point is that anytime we measure things by the World's standards, there will always be a deficit. In fact, there must be because those without Christ must engage in human sacrifice. Gladys must give me $50 because I must be served.
I've been peeking around a bit at Michael Lewis' book Panic, which is just a number of essays regarding the ways contemporary human sacrifice is carried out. That is, it is about the myriad ways exploitive people have exploited markets in recent years to do their value extraction. You've got the 1987 stock market crash, the 1998 Long Term Capital Management debacle, 2000 dot-com bubble burst, the 2007 housing market collapse, and of course a few snippets of the 2008 financial meltdown.
A vast panoply of hand-wringing and head-shaking and eloquent rationalizing on behalf of human sacrifice.
One of the pieces is about how the ratings agencies came to be so revered and ultimately so disgraced. Because value extractors became so ravenous it was very difficult to figure out precisely what they were doing, and many once respected institutions allowed themselves to get carried away with it all so they could stay in the loop.
It was pointed out that eventually Moody's used what was called the "Monte Carlo" method of rating bonds, a formula that essentially encompassed all the considerations of the ways that things have been valued in the past. But because more novel and exotic "innovations" made things so much different, one now-former Moody's exec likened it to "observing 100 years of weather in Antarctica to forecast the weather in Hawaii."
This struck me.
That's the World's value assessment philosophy right there.
Really, what is your value? What is the value of the things you treasure? The people around you? The things you like to have and to do? Your work and your leisure and your fine wholesome charitable contributions?
No, I'm not saying you have to be any kind of scholarly economist, though everyone does economics. The question is whether you do economics well or poorly. But then, you don't have to be a genius to do it well. You just need to understand a couple of things.
The World does its value assessment the way it does, and World inhabitants look to all Caesar's minions to see what that is. Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, all the top executives of the banks and rating agencies and all the rest of them, these are a few of the more prominent ones.
But all they do is use the "100 years of Antarctica weather" system for value assessment. Want to know your value? Guess how many candy corns are in the pumpkin at the harvest festival. Want to know the value of those around you? Keep up with how many points the Lakers scored Saturday night. Want to know the value of what's really meaningful? Divine what Obama is trying to say in yet another speech.
You'll always have a deficit.
The Kingdom does its value assessment one way. Or rather, One Way.
That is by Jesus Christ and His blood.
This is not the Jesus of chuches sold out to Caesar with their incorporation contracts--they live just as much by the deficit as any other World institution. Ever hear a 501c3 church talk? "We're so poor and you've got to give so much more to keep us afloat."
Jesus was never about any of that. He gives His entire Kingdom to His heirs, and those people are merely anyone who chooses to make him Lord exclusively. It comes with our response to serve others from His love, and out of that authentic sowing happens.
Then you've got rich, fulfilling abundance.
So yeah, wow. What an overwhelming joy to value things the Aunt Gladys way--that I am thankful God put her into my life to even remotely give me a single thing that I may wholly praise Him for.
Ironically, at the end of the ratings agency piece--after all of the foolish, deceitful value extraction methods are exposed for what they are--the question is asked, "Whom can you rely on?" While in the text the writer asks "What can they [the investors] rely on?" the title of the closing section is indeed "Whom Can You Rely On?" The key is that it is whom.
The answer is not given, because even in this small moment of brutal honesty the World inhabitant cannot answer it. Oh they search feverishly for it--Antarctic weather, candy corns in a pumpkin, Obama's words...it's gotta be in there somewhere!!!
All you need to do to really get it is look at the One Who Loves You.
But again, He is nowhere near the World.
_
Some more about why Jesus is here. Some other stuff about the reality of contemporary human sacrifice is here. The ratings agencies piece in Lewis' book was by the New York Times Roger Lowenstein from April 27 2008.
Aunt Gladys gets you a $50 sweater when she really could just hand you the $50, at which point you could get what you really want. But because she gave you something you really don't want, the value to you is no higher than $30, graciously considering that even if you don't really like it, it may be serviceable for having on when picking an avocado off the tree on a mildly chilly morning. So it's not just $0, let's grant that it is something.
Making a valiant attempt to think like an economist, he concedes that there may indeed be a value to the simple fact that Aunt Gladys got you a gift, and tacks on another $30 for that, making the value $60. (If he were to be even more proficiently econ-esque, he'd add even more for the consumer surplus you'd get by having the $50 and presuming you'd get something that is even more valuable to you than what the $50 means, but that's a bit more advanced.)
He concludes, however, by saying the $60 item is still not as much as the $80 it would have been if you'd had the $50 to get the thing you'd like in the first place. Answer to the value equation: minus $20. Multiply that by a zillion for the zillion times throughout the world that people do this silly gift-giving thing and you've got quite a value deficit.
On the face of it this sounds reasonable, but as always, people trying to be value assessors, no matter how erudite their economics sounds, never get it.
There is indeed a value not considered here, and it isn't exactly the same value he affords to Gladys merely getting the gift at all (remember his grudgingly added $30?) It is the fact that Gladys had some idea of what you liked even if it was wrong. This may seem like it is just a pointless, but the fact is Gladys actually knew you in some way, some how. (Me personally, I actively try to avoid letting people know what I want because I take much greater pleasure if they get me something they think I'd like because they know who I am.)
Even if you know in your heart that Gladys hates your guts and gave out of the most selfish compulsion, her doing it at all and you being able to participate in the beautiful experience of having a wrapped present which you get to eagerly anticipate opening simply because someone thought about you has much greater value than the thing you yourself would be able to get that would be a tad more useful.
In other words (for the more exacting economist), the value of being loved in such a way is an added, oh, say, $200, making the surplus value to you $120--far above and beyond the maximum $80 value of whatever thing you could have had otherwise.
The point is that anytime we measure things by the World's standards, there will always be a deficit. In fact, there must be because those without Christ must engage in human sacrifice. Gladys must give me $50 because I must be served.
I've been peeking around a bit at Michael Lewis' book Panic, which is just a number of essays regarding the ways contemporary human sacrifice is carried out. That is, it is about the myriad ways exploitive people have exploited markets in recent years to do their value extraction. You've got the 1987 stock market crash, the 1998 Long Term Capital Management debacle, 2000 dot-com bubble burst, the 2007 housing market collapse, and of course a few snippets of the 2008 financial meltdown.
A vast panoply of hand-wringing and head-shaking and eloquent rationalizing on behalf of human sacrifice.
One of the pieces is about how the ratings agencies came to be so revered and ultimately so disgraced. Because value extractors became so ravenous it was very difficult to figure out precisely what they were doing, and many once respected institutions allowed themselves to get carried away with it all so they could stay in the loop.
It was pointed out that eventually Moody's used what was called the "Monte Carlo" method of rating bonds, a formula that essentially encompassed all the considerations of the ways that things have been valued in the past. But because more novel and exotic "innovations" made things so much different, one now-former Moody's exec likened it to "observing 100 years of weather in Antarctica to forecast the weather in Hawaii."
This struck me.
That's the World's value assessment philosophy right there.
Really, what is your value? What is the value of the things you treasure? The people around you? The things you like to have and to do? Your work and your leisure and your fine wholesome charitable contributions?
No, I'm not saying you have to be any kind of scholarly economist, though everyone does economics. The question is whether you do economics well or poorly. But then, you don't have to be a genius to do it well. You just need to understand a couple of things.
The World does its value assessment the way it does, and World inhabitants look to all Caesar's minions to see what that is. Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, all the top executives of the banks and rating agencies and all the rest of them, these are a few of the more prominent ones.
But all they do is use the "100 years of Antarctica weather" system for value assessment. Want to know your value? Guess how many candy corns are in the pumpkin at the harvest festival. Want to know the value of those around you? Keep up with how many points the Lakers scored Saturday night. Want to know the value of what's really meaningful? Divine what Obama is trying to say in yet another speech.
You'll always have a deficit.
The Kingdom does its value assessment one way. Or rather, One Way.
That is by Jesus Christ and His blood.
This is not the Jesus of chuches sold out to Caesar with their incorporation contracts--they live just as much by the deficit as any other World institution. Ever hear a 501c3 church talk? "We're so poor and you've got to give so much more to keep us afloat."
Jesus was never about any of that. He gives His entire Kingdom to His heirs, and those people are merely anyone who chooses to make him Lord exclusively. It comes with our response to serve others from His love, and out of that authentic sowing happens.
Then you've got rich, fulfilling abundance.
So yeah, wow. What an overwhelming joy to value things the Aunt Gladys way--that I am thankful God put her into my life to even remotely give me a single thing that I may wholly praise Him for.
Ironically, at the end of the ratings agency piece--after all of the foolish, deceitful value extraction methods are exposed for what they are--the question is asked, "Whom can you rely on?" While in the text the writer asks "What can they [the investors] rely on?" the title of the closing section is indeed "Whom Can You Rely On?" The key is that it is whom.
The answer is not given, because even in this small moment of brutal honesty the World inhabitant cannot answer it. Oh they search feverishly for it--Antarctic weather, candy corns in a pumpkin, Obama's words...it's gotta be in there somewhere!!!
All you need to do to really get it is look at the One Who Loves You.
But again, He is nowhere near the World.
_
Some more about why Jesus is here. Some other stuff about the reality of contemporary human sacrifice is here. The ratings agencies piece in Lewis' book was by the New York Times Roger Lowenstein from April 27 2008.
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