The Nature of Exploitation
So what is it? Should we have severe government regulation to help things out or not? Should we let the free market be truly free when all it wants to do is be greedy and selfish and evil? What is it? What is it?
What is it?
You can actually find the answer. It is in the Bible. Thing is you gotta actually look in it. You can't just listen to the people who say they know what it says. That's a trick the Catholic Church has used for eons to keep their people ignorant. Sure the Protestant Reformation was supposedly the thing that enlightened us all, but the sad fact is many good wholesome Protestant churches have so thoroughly made themselves Roman Catholic again that they still hope people will only listen to those guys bellowing from the pulpits.
By all means, don't even listen to me. That's cool.
But here's one guy I really like to read because he is so much fun. His name is Bill Frezza, and he's a financial advisor guy of some stripe. Recently he wrote a piece railing against wealth distribution as carried out by the government. In some ways his cry for unfettered free market freedoms is similar to all the others. Don't et me wrong, I like the free market. I just don't think these people really know what it is. But he's still fun to read.
Anyway, in his latest he asked us to graphically imagine a world in which incentives are eviscerated, and his description of the power of government to exploit is pretty dang great. From the inimitable Bill Frezza:
"Imagine a society in which politically connected individuals enrich themselves by giving money to politicians in return for earmarked dollars extracted from taxpayers. Imagine political entrepreneurs displacing market entrepreneurs by weaving fantastic tales of energy independence and a green tomorrow, sucking down billions in taxpayer loan guarantees for businesses that cannot possibly achieve economic sustainability. This is how crony Capitalism works.
"Imagine a handful of executives earning hundreds of millions of dollars selling toxic mortgage bonds pyramided on low cost government-guaranteed capital made available by key Congressional committee chairmen who got special mortgage deals. Imagine a revolving door between reckless Wall Street derivative gamblers selling fraudulent unbacked insurance products and the regulatory agencies that bail them out using unlimited quantities of fiat currency printed up by unelected bureaucrats. This is how Washington works."
Ahh, yes. Very very true indeed. (And splendidly articulated.)
This is the way the World works.
The trouble comes when Mr. Frezza and just about every other of the thousands and thousands of highfalutin finance or economic guys and gals belch some marble-encrusted plap about this or that World solution.
But, umm, ahem,
Didn't you all just finish explaining that's how things work?
I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard about "The New Economics," about the new wave of intellectual rigor that must be employed and barfed about at the next Davos hoedown. Never ever do World people ever extend anything new, and if it looks new it's just the old dressed up in the latest fashion.
What people must do to be truly fulfilled is to do something that is very old but would certainly be radically new to a jaded World follower. What is that thing?
Recognize that you're worthless.
Wow, I know. An impossibility for people who've been told a thousand different ways they're special, they're okay like you're okay, they must love themselves, and all the rest of the ultimately pointless dreck that belies the truth that in the end it is all dust in the wind.
Unless, unless...
The solution to the economic crisis is merely getting people -- yes, thousands and thousands of them who know and understand and follow the One Who Is Worth to vibrantly live by loving others with His love and from that sowing, thousands of them doing nothing other than deep rich wise compassionate investment with the expectation of return simply being what the sowees continue doing for others with everything He has to give for us to do that.
That's all that sowing is. Having people who really know God's economics and finances, and building and sustaining the Kingdom here and now. This isn't pie-in-the-sky bring-heaven-here-now stuff. It is just doing what He wants us to do, authentically, truthfully, charitably...
I've put all this together as a blog post here simply to say that I elaborate a bit on this concept in my latest home page piece. I invite you to read it, and offer your thoughts. It is here.
What is it?
You can actually find the answer. It is in the Bible. Thing is you gotta actually look in it. You can't just listen to the people who say they know what it says. That's a trick the Catholic Church has used for eons to keep their people ignorant. Sure the Protestant Reformation was supposedly the thing that enlightened us all, but the sad fact is many good wholesome Protestant churches have so thoroughly made themselves Roman Catholic again that they still hope people will only listen to those guys bellowing from the pulpits.
By all means, don't even listen to me. That's cool.
But here's one guy I really like to read because he is so much fun. His name is Bill Frezza, and he's a financial advisor guy of some stripe. Recently he wrote a piece railing against wealth distribution as carried out by the government. In some ways his cry for unfettered free market freedoms is similar to all the others. Don't et me wrong, I like the free market. I just don't think these people really know what it is. But he's still fun to read.
Anyway, in his latest he asked us to graphically imagine a world in which incentives are eviscerated, and his description of the power of government to exploit is pretty dang great. From the inimitable Bill Frezza:
"Imagine a society in which politically connected individuals enrich themselves by giving money to politicians in return for earmarked dollars extracted from taxpayers. Imagine political entrepreneurs displacing market entrepreneurs by weaving fantastic tales of energy independence and a green tomorrow, sucking down billions in taxpayer loan guarantees for businesses that cannot possibly achieve economic sustainability. This is how crony Capitalism works.
"Imagine a handful of executives earning hundreds of millions of dollars selling toxic mortgage bonds pyramided on low cost government-guaranteed capital made available by key Congressional committee chairmen who got special mortgage deals. Imagine a revolving door between reckless Wall Street derivative gamblers selling fraudulent unbacked insurance products and the regulatory agencies that bail them out using unlimited quantities of fiat currency printed up by unelected bureaucrats. This is how Washington works."
Ahh, yes. Very very true indeed. (And splendidly articulated.)
This is the way the World works.
The trouble comes when Mr. Frezza and just about every other of the thousands and thousands of highfalutin finance or economic guys and gals belch some marble-encrusted plap about this or that World solution.
But, umm, ahem,
Didn't you all just finish explaining that's how things work?
I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard about "The New Economics," about the new wave of intellectual rigor that must be employed and barfed about at the next Davos hoedown. Never ever do World people ever extend anything new, and if it looks new it's just the old dressed up in the latest fashion.
What people must do to be truly fulfilled is to do something that is very old but would certainly be radically new to a jaded World follower. What is that thing?
Recognize that you're worthless.
Wow, I know. An impossibility for people who've been told a thousand different ways they're special, they're okay like you're okay, they must love themselves, and all the rest of the ultimately pointless dreck that belies the truth that in the end it is all dust in the wind.
Unless, unless...
The solution to the economic crisis is merely getting people -- yes, thousands and thousands of them who know and understand and follow the One Who Is Worth to vibrantly live by loving others with His love and from that sowing, thousands of them doing nothing other than deep rich wise compassionate investment with the expectation of return simply being what the sowees continue doing for others with everything He has to give for us to do that.
That's all that sowing is. Having people who really know God's economics and finances, and building and sustaining the Kingdom here and now. This isn't pie-in-the-sky bring-heaven-here-now stuff. It is just doing what He wants us to do, authentically, truthfully, charitably...
I've put all this together as a blog post here simply to say that I elaborate a bit on this concept in my latest home page piece. I invite you to read it, and offer your thoughts. It is here.
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