ezrider
Member
Deuteronomy 25:13-16
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
We live in a time where the scales of justice have been bent in the favor of the few. It is evident that the distribution of wealth is measured out on unbalanced scales. But what is the meaning of wealth? What is it’s true value? How is it created? And what is a just measure?
It is our monetary policy that sets the rates by which these measures are valued at, and they are inflated or deflated by the powers that be that control the dollar. Because of inflation, a hundred dollars saved today may only be worth ninety dollars ten years from now. But what is our monetary policy based upon? Where does it derive its value? What is its just standard? Why have the scales tipped to dis-proportionally reward those at the very top?
There used to be a standard for our monetary system, it was abandoned in the early 1970’s; it was called the gold standard. It set the value of the dollar against an ounce of gold. I’m not exactly clear as to why we came off of the gold standard; was it because gold was a limited resource? But since we came off of the gold standard the value of gold has certainly soared against the standard of the dollar: Someone made a lot of money!
During the transition away from the gold standard inflation soared, and money became tight. If I remember the mortgage rates were as high as 20% and above at one point in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Money was expensive to borrow. It was a time and place when tax rates were high enough that it made sense to lower the tax rates to infuse capitol into a stagnant and transitioning economy. But it was also the beginning of a policy of accumulating enormous amounts of wealth for the very few by creating and amassing a public debt to the burden of all.
There is one political party that continues to believe that tax cuts are always the answer to growing the economy, but this is not the 1980’s anymore. Money is no longer expensive to borrow, in-fact it is dirt cheap. The interest rates are no longer 20%, they are nearly 0%. Money is awash in the system, and they have devised ways for money to make more money, and then not pay taxes on that money. Cutting taxes when money was expensive was like tapping into a well and irrigating the land during the midst of a long drought, but when the money was eased and the rains began to fall again and quench the land, taxes should have increased accordingly, as the wells were not required to water the land. But the taxes did not go up, and the wells pumped more water into the land to increase production beyond its natural standing to the increased profits benefiting the few.
The Bush tax cuts of 2000 had a reverse effect, and did damage to the economy. With interest rates then at an all time low, those tax cuts flooded a market already awash in money and led to a real estate market boom and bust that resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth at the expense of the debt held by the little guy. The promise of tax cuts benefiting the masses when money and real wealth has been devalued is like trying to water the land to increase its productivity even after it has received so much rain that the rivers can barely contain them. Common sense should tell you when to water and when not to water, and almost everyone knows that over watering can kill a plant just as easily as giving it no water at all.
Today's capitalism is not the capitalism of our forefathers. Today's capitalism borrows wealth into existence through debt, and that debt is intern bound to our monetary policy. The debt soars while only a few percent reap the rewards. They call it trickle down economics. Oh it trickles down alright, just not equally. It is an economic system that rewards you with a cup of milk; but just like a freshly milked cow, when left to sit, the cream will always rise to the top.
But the capitalism of our forefathers was founded in the creation of wealth as capital, and this system worked because it was an agrarian society. Less then a hundred years ago our economic output was nearly 80% agriculture and manufacturing, and less than 20% service and public sector. The wealth created in the 80% fueled those in the 20%. But today's economic model is not sustainable when agriculture and manufacturing make up less than 20% of the economic output. The 20% simply can not create enough new wealth to serve the other 80% in a growing economy, and so it is supported through the creation of debt.
But if it is the Lord that we trust in to provide, then why the need for debt unless the scales have been tipped with an unjust weight. I’m sure that many of you have heard the phrase “money doesn’t grow on trees,” well who ever told you so, they were wrong. Real money, real wealth as the Lord provides absolutely grows on trees; And in the vines, and the grains of the field and the flocks of the pasture.
So how does money grow on trees? Take for yourself an apple. The apple by nature has been given a unit of energy we measure in calories. The economy has monetized its value somewhere around two dollars per pound. So with a little rain, some sunshine and the fortune of good soil, the seed from a single apple can grow into a tree that produces thousands of apples in its stead, all new wealth created through nature and brought into circulation, new money infused into the economy when harvested and brought to market.
I began to understand this principle a few ago when I read a book to learn more about an economist that my mother has held in high regard and talked about quite frequently. The economist was a man named Carl Wilken, who if I remember correctly from the book he was a farmer from Iowa back in the early to mid 1900’s. The name of the book was Unforgiven ...the American Economic System Sold for Debt and War by Charles Walters.
From the book cover:
“They demonstrated how all new wealth enters an economy as raw materials provided by Nature. By fairly monetizing the raw materials, an economy is diverse, balanced and debt free.”
http://www.amazon.com/Unforgiven-Charles-Walters/dp/091131167X
Thinking about the idea that all new wealth enters the economy as raw materials provided by nature for me is to say that all new wealth enters the economy as raw materials provided by the Lord. How a single seed can multiply itself into thousands.
At any rate, and back to the thought of fair balances and our monetary standards. The country was on the gold standard for years up until the early 1970’s. The economist Carl Wilken in the book proposed that instead of the gold standard, they should instead standardize based upon renewable commodities such as a bushel of wheat or corn.
So how would this fit in with the principles found in the old testament. How was wealth looked at then as opposed to how we see it now. What was the standard for their fair balances?
Leviticus 27:16
And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
Maybe it was the barley standard?
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
We live in a time where the scales of justice have been bent in the favor of the few. It is evident that the distribution of wealth is measured out on unbalanced scales. But what is the meaning of wealth? What is it’s true value? How is it created? And what is a just measure?
It is our monetary policy that sets the rates by which these measures are valued at, and they are inflated or deflated by the powers that be that control the dollar. Because of inflation, a hundred dollars saved today may only be worth ninety dollars ten years from now. But what is our monetary policy based upon? Where does it derive its value? What is its just standard? Why have the scales tipped to dis-proportionally reward those at the very top?
There used to be a standard for our monetary system, it was abandoned in the early 1970’s; it was called the gold standard. It set the value of the dollar against an ounce of gold. I’m not exactly clear as to why we came off of the gold standard; was it because gold was a limited resource? But since we came off of the gold standard the value of gold has certainly soared against the standard of the dollar: Someone made a lot of money!
During the transition away from the gold standard inflation soared, and money became tight. If I remember the mortgage rates were as high as 20% and above at one point in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Money was expensive to borrow. It was a time and place when tax rates were high enough that it made sense to lower the tax rates to infuse capitol into a stagnant and transitioning economy. But it was also the beginning of a policy of accumulating enormous amounts of wealth for the very few by creating and amassing a public debt to the burden of all.
There is one political party that continues to believe that tax cuts are always the answer to growing the economy, but this is not the 1980’s anymore. Money is no longer expensive to borrow, in-fact it is dirt cheap. The interest rates are no longer 20%, they are nearly 0%. Money is awash in the system, and they have devised ways for money to make more money, and then not pay taxes on that money. Cutting taxes when money was expensive was like tapping into a well and irrigating the land during the midst of a long drought, but when the money was eased and the rains began to fall again and quench the land, taxes should have increased accordingly, as the wells were not required to water the land. But the taxes did not go up, and the wells pumped more water into the land to increase production beyond its natural standing to the increased profits benefiting the few.
The Bush tax cuts of 2000 had a reverse effect, and did damage to the economy. With interest rates then at an all time low, those tax cuts flooded a market already awash in money and led to a real estate market boom and bust that resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth at the expense of the debt held by the little guy. The promise of tax cuts benefiting the masses when money and real wealth has been devalued is like trying to water the land to increase its productivity even after it has received so much rain that the rivers can barely contain them. Common sense should tell you when to water and when not to water, and almost everyone knows that over watering can kill a plant just as easily as giving it no water at all.
Today's capitalism is not the capitalism of our forefathers. Today's capitalism borrows wealth into existence through debt, and that debt is intern bound to our monetary policy. The debt soars while only a few percent reap the rewards. They call it trickle down economics. Oh it trickles down alright, just not equally. It is an economic system that rewards you with a cup of milk; but just like a freshly milked cow, when left to sit, the cream will always rise to the top.
But the capitalism of our forefathers was founded in the creation of wealth as capital, and this system worked because it was an agrarian society. Less then a hundred years ago our economic output was nearly 80% agriculture and manufacturing, and less than 20% service and public sector. The wealth created in the 80% fueled those in the 20%. But today's economic model is not sustainable when agriculture and manufacturing make up less than 20% of the economic output. The 20% simply can not create enough new wealth to serve the other 80% in a growing economy, and so it is supported through the creation of debt.
But if it is the Lord that we trust in to provide, then why the need for debt unless the scales have been tipped with an unjust weight. I’m sure that many of you have heard the phrase “money doesn’t grow on trees,” well who ever told you so, they were wrong. Real money, real wealth as the Lord provides absolutely grows on trees; And in the vines, and the grains of the field and the flocks of the pasture.
So how does money grow on trees? Take for yourself an apple. The apple by nature has been given a unit of energy we measure in calories. The economy has monetized its value somewhere around two dollars per pound. So with a little rain, some sunshine and the fortune of good soil, the seed from a single apple can grow into a tree that produces thousands of apples in its stead, all new wealth created through nature and brought into circulation, new money infused into the economy when harvested and brought to market.
I began to understand this principle a few ago when I read a book to learn more about an economist that my mother has held in high regard and talked about quite frequently. The economist was a man named Carl Wilken, who if I remember correctly from the book he was a farmer from Iowa back in the early to mid 1900’s. The name of the book was Unforgiven ...the American Economic System Sold for Debt and War by Charles Walters.
From the book cover:
“They demonstrated how all new wealth enters an economy as raw materials provided by Nature. By fairly monetizing the raw materials, an economy is diverse, balanced and debt free.”
http://www.amazon.com/Unforgiven-Charles-Walters/dp/091131167X
Thinking about the idea that all new wealth enters the economy as raw materials provided by nature for me is to say that all new wealth enters the economy as raw materials provided by the Lord. How a single seed can multiply itself into thousands.
At any rate, and back to the thought of fair balances and our monetary standards. The country was on the gold standard for years up until the early 1970’s. The economist Carl Wilken in the book proposed that instead of the gold standard, they should instead standardize based upon renewable commodities such as a bushel of wheat or corn.
So how would this fit in with the principles found in the old testament. How was wealth looked at then as opposed to how we see it now. What was the standard for their fair balances?
Leviticus 27:16
And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
Maybe it was the barley standard?
