David Bahnsen Missed The Boat

Back in August 2002, the Chalcedon Report printed an article by David Bahnsen entitled On Missing the Boat: When Well-Meaning Christian Economists Force Us to Look Elsewhere for Financial Advice. His point? That false financial prophets (Gary North, anyone?) were causing Christians to miss out on great kingdom building (and personal riches to boot!) opportunities in the stock market. It bears mentioning that Bahnsen was a “Financial Advisor” with UBS Paine Webber at the time. At the time, the S&P 500 stood at  916.07.

It closed this past week at 872.80. Let’s look back at some of David’s comments.

Most adults who were alive during the 1980s and 1990s saw a period of economic expansion and financial prosperity that may possibly be the largest of its kind in human history. Sadly, most Christian investors took no part in the gains and growth that the period produced. This is not just sad, however: it is intriguing. In this article, I want to explore why that is the case, and what attitude a Christian individual or investor ought to have towards his financial planning.

Financial prosperity? I don’t think so. It was a remarkable debt-fueled consumption binge, true enough. And surely, we bought more crap, more cheaply than ever before. It was a time of “irrational exuberance.” But prosperity it was not. Would that more Christians had declined to participate in the stock markets and home equity loans.

Several brilliant individuals have written about economics, investing, proper planning, etc. from a Christian perspective. … The large majority of Christians I have met throughout my life have not been successful in this endeavor especially in the Reformed circles I have grown up in. I firmly believe that this is largely due to a “head in the ground” mentality that has ignored the equity markets, prioritized survivalist nonsense over intelligent investing, and replaced rational concerns about certain economic fears with irrational concerns about the future of our nation and economy.

 There needs to be more written about the equity markets. Christians should know what companies they are investing in, and decline to invest inc companies whose “economic expansion” is based on disobedience to God’s laws (e.g. Sabbath-breaking, usury, theft via the State, promotion of adultery and fornication, etc.). I daresay that would rule out 90+ percent of all equities publicly traded. Christians should understand that the idea of the limited-liability corporation is evil (see R.L. Dabney on this topic, among others), and that they are responsible for the actions of companies that they own via equity securities.

Let me preface my next comments with this statement: We worship an awesome God, and He is certainly free in His own covenantal love and wisdom to do with our nation as He wills. However, if God wanted to destroy the American culture for its disobedience by causing a collapse of our banking system, or through any type of “sky is falling” scenario, I do not believe that our biggest concern should be whether or not we have gold coins in our sock drawers, as opposed to stock holdings in our portfolios. God is an awesome God, and He will deal with His people as He sees fit. Our responsibility, in the meantime, is to be “wise as serpents, and gentle as doves,” as the Messiah taught. It is not to tout the “nightmare of the month” every time we feel that an economic collapse is coming, render irrational panic in the hearts and minds of Christian investors, and keep our churches’ and Christian families’ capital forever on the sidelines. The pastors and authors who are guilty of this have done so to the detriment of many people and many churches. I do not want to depress those of you who have held savings bonds or gold/silver positions for the last twenty years, instead of participating actively in the American stock market, by showing a comparison of investment performance. The results would be unbelievable to you, and would probably only force you to commit various violations of the 10th commandment. I do, however, hope and pray that our next generation will not make the same mistakes.

… It is my opinion that active participation in the equity markets through dollar-cost averaging is the greatest means of obtaining wealth available to an investor. Running one’s own business with success can be a greater means (as can finding success as a professional actor or athlete). But for those in a bit more realistic place in life, an intelligent, safe, diversified, proper participation in the equity markets can be the greatest wealth-building habit in the history of America, especially in the twenty-first century.

This is sad in so many ways. Christians should indeed be “investing”, but the equity markets are a lousy place to do so, both from a pragmatic and a moral perspective. It is unfortunate that David did not and does not understand this, but perhaps a look-back can give us some perspective. David sought to chastise the Church while crowing about debt/inflation fueled stock market gains, but a little over six years later it appears that David was the one that missed the boat.

Why You’re Getting Laid Off

Everything you’ve been working on, producing, servicing, planning, monitoring, or building for the last decade (being conservative) was bankrolled by loans based on empty promises of future streams of income that will never materialize.

We don’t want to believe it, of course. Like Wile E. Coyote, we’re still running, even though we’ve long since departed terra firma.

Wendell Berry’s Time Is Now

Rod Dreher writes that Wendell Berry’s time is now, and gives an overview of Berry’s thoughts on foreign policy, the economy, food, community, and the environment.

Dreher’s point is that our time provides the perfect backdrop to understand the relevance of agrarianism in general, and Berry’s thinking in particular. Floyd couldn’t agree more, because not only are things bad, but we seem to be coming to a point where the consequences of those bad things are on the event horizon.

Here’s an excerpt from Dreher’s article I found compelling:

A sense of place

Mr. Berry’s argument with the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the industrial leadership class and, indeed, with most of his countrymen, depends on his most radical critique of modern American life: its rootlessness.

We find it all too easy to misuse and abuse our own places, and the places of others abroad, because so few Americans in our highly mobile society come from any place anymore. He writes bitterly:

“In order to be able to desecrate, endanger or destroy a place, after all, one must be able to leave it and to forget it. One must never think of any place as one’s home; one must never think of any place as anyone else’s home.”

Fidelity to one’s place and the people in it, not to upwardly mobile careerism, is a fundamental moral principle of Mr. Berry’s thought. In a commencement speech last year to college students, he wondered aloud why we support an education system devoted to preparing young people to leave their homes.

Ours would be a far better country, he believes, if folks would learn to love their own little piece of ground and be loyal to it. As he concludes his poem, “Stay Home”:

I am at home. Don’t come with me.
You stay home too.

Wait A Minute – I Already Saw This Movie!

Read the script:

INTERIOR: CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER – EVENING

JAR JAR stands in his pod as it floats in the middle of the
vast space.

JAR JAR: In response to the direct threat to the Republic
mesa propose that the Senate give immediately emergency
powers to the Supreme Chancellor.

Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish.

Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR
beams and bows.

PALPATINE rises.

PALPATINE: It is with great reluctance that I have agreed
to this calling. I love democracy… I love the Republic.
But I am mild by nature, and I do not desire to see the
destruction of democracy. The power you give me I will lay
down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And as my
first act with this new authority, I will create a grand
army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of
the separatists.

Think Healthy!

Though I have been busy the last week or so eating MRE’s and listening to shortwave radio in my FFB (Financial Fallout Bunker), I decided to take a short break from preparing for financial doom this morning and read some headlines. I noted with interest that sales of personal safes are running particularly strong.

I also noted the Treasury Department is spinning its bailout strategy in a particularly amusing way:

Treasury to Invest in `Healthy’ Banks, Kashkari Says (Update3)

By Rebecca Christie and Robert Schmidt

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Neel Kashkari, the U.S. Treasury official overseeing the $700 billion rescue of the financial system, said government equity injections will be aimed at “healthy” firms.

“We are designing a standardized program to purchase equity in a broad array of financial institutions,” Kashkari, who heads the department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, said in a speech in Washington. “The equity purchase program will be voluntary and designed with attractive terms to encourage participation from healthy institutions.”

Well sure! We’re nationalizing banks – but only healthy ones! Because we don’t want them to fail, those healthy banks. Financial retards such as myself were completely unaware that it was the healthy banks that were in need of cash infusions.

Being locked up in my FFB for so long has probably dulled my mind, for here I was thinking that it was unhealthy financial institutions that the government was worried about, and needed to prevent from failure. But no! We are only helping the healthy banks.

I know that this must make sense at some level, I must just be too stupid to understand it. Because if it meant what I think it meant, then that would mean either the government is stupid or the government is lying.

Nothing To See Here, Folks, The Fundamentals Are Strong

Charts courtesy the St. Louis Fed.

Who Is To Blame For The Financial Crisis?

Its an oft-heard misnomer that the contraction of credit (or “freezing up” of the credit markets as the talking heads repeat incessantly) is the grand villain which threatens our financial freedom. But rather, it is credit itself which is our financial Ahab, and usury our Jezebel.

And it is no less true that just as God gives us rulers which reflect the condition of our own heart, he has given us financial taskmasters which do the same. For during this present time, when God is shaking out the kingdoms of this world and calling the extortioners to account, should not God’s people be rejoicing? And yet we seem as distressed and in peril as they! Perhaps we should consider the extent to which we have thrown in our lot with Babylon the Great by “investing” our resources in it, enticed by its hollow promises of profits without liability.

One of America’s greatest Congressman said this:

Many of us were children when the extortion began, and we can hardly blame our parents for permitting the initiation of what we have allowed to be developed into a full-fledged, scientific, legalized system of extortion. But now, since we understand its effects, our children ought to look back on us with shame if we permit its continuance. It is not the bankers who have primarily fastened upon us this system of capitalizing our life energies for their own selfish use. It is the banking and currency system, which we have allowed to remain in operation, and create special interests. The people alone have the power to amend or change it. Therefore we and not the bankers are responsible for the existence of the present system.

~ Charles A. Lindbergh, Banking and Currency and The Money Trust, National Capital Press, 1913, p. 47.

Let us not be men upon which our children must be ashamed. Let us remove ourselves, our families, and our communities from the tentacles of this monstrous “money” system, and bequeath to our children the gifts of freedom, a noble heritage, and an example that the promises of God are more precious than the promises of usurious mammon.

JP Morgan and the Fed

I invite you to check out this interesting article: Did JPMorgan Almost Fail? Jekyll Island Investment Still Paying Dividend.

Tolkien’s Practical Agrarianism

This sounds like an interesting lecture:

Matthew Dickerson presents “Beyond Romanticism” at Marquette University

October 23, 2008
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
“Beyond Romanticism: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Practical Agrarian Romance”

Professor Dickerson will explore one element of Tolkien’s comprehensive ecological vision expressed in his Middle-earth legendarium: the agrarianism of the Shire, and its contrast in the industrialized agriculture of Sauron and Saruman. While Tolkien’s works might be dismissed as mere romanticism–idyllic fantasy with no implications to our world–the talk will defend a claim that the underlying ecology in these works is fundamentally practical (at many levels). Thursday, October 23, 2008 4-5:30 p.m in the Prucha Archives Reading Room, John P. Raynor, S.J., Library (3rd floor).

REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Wow, my spam is getting more and more realistic!

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson

Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with
a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has
had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800
billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be
most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you
may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement
in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in
the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account
numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov
so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect
the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson

Source: http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/minister.html