Current Events Blog, June 26

As of today, I have been in Korea for exactly one year.  And, for those of you who are not yet aware, I will not be here much longer.  I have accepted a job in China, teaching history for Missouri State University, which offers a international business degree through Liaoning University in Dalian.  Since the program and degree go through MSU, all of the "basics," including history, must be offered, and thus, I'll be back teaching my first educational love (I speak in secular terms here; the Bible is my greatest teaching love, of course).  My last day of work here in Paju will be July 22.  I will be leaving shortly thereafter; the details are not yet finalized.  It's been a good year in Korea, but I'm ready to leave here.  Given some of the economic woes around the world, I feel very blessed to have had this job in Korea, but even more, to get the job in China.  It wasn't my first choice; I'd like to go back home.  But the Lord moves as He will and we are here for His use.  And if He currently wants me in China, that's where I'll go.  I'll provide more particulars about the job as time moves on.

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To what should have been no one's surprise, the state of New York passed a law allowing homosexuals to "marry."  This is absurd, of course, marriage was established and defined by God as one man and one woman, and homosexual relations have always been thoroughly vile to him.  But the self-anointed "elite" of America--policy makers, academics, and so forth--have abandoned the Judeo-Christian moral code upon which the United States was founded.  And once God is removed from the equation, there remain no more absolutes--none--by which a society is to be governed.  All becomes a matter of expediency.  Thus, a nation of peoples--or rather, those whom the people put or allow in power--will resort to whatever is necessary to create the kind of society they wish to create.  This is abundantly demonstrated in history, and even recent history.  The Nazis, the Marxists, the Japanese imperialists, and a host of others, allowed no moral strictures to stop them.  Why pay attention to the censure of the world if there is no God and no moral absolutes?  What does Adolf Hitler care, right now, what we think of him?  The actions of the New York state government are emblematic of the moral deterioration of the United States and of the tremendous divide that now exists in the country.  This division is not just over policy--it is far more serious, indeed, far more so than what divided the country before our war between the states.  For this current division is one over a fundamental view of what human beings are, where they came from, what the world ought to be, and how we ought to arrive there.  The real lesson--and fear--in what New York did is in the direction such actions are taking America.  For a people who will ignore what God says on one matter in order to create the kind of society they desire, will ignore Him on other matters as well, and that will be based solely on their whim and perceived need.  They will judge based upon their vision of what is right and wrong, and given power--as they have in New York--there is no way of preventing them from doing whatever they think is necessary to create the earthly utopia that exists in their warped metaphysical vision of the world.  The 20th century--so recent and yet the lessons of which are so forgotten--proves this conclusively (and other historical examples could be given as well).  If we think what happened in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia cannot happen in the United States, then...consider what New York state did yesterday.  Nobody in Bismarck's Germany believed a Hitler was possible there, either.  And do not forget that Hitler was democratically elected as Chancellor.

Now, the perceptive reader knows that I'm not equating homosexuality with genocide.  It is the principle described above that is vital.  Where, and when, are these "progressives" in America going to stop?  Where are they going to stop?  And why will they stop where they do?  And, just as important, what will eventually happen to those people who do try to stop them?  Look at how bitter, how vindictive, is their hatred of George Bush and Sarah Palin.  How far is it from hatred in the heart to a gas chamber?  Ask the Jews living in Germany in the 1930s. 

Actually, "hatred" is not even necessary.  Stalin didn't hate the peasants, except as they were in the way of the kind of "new Soviet man" he and his cohorts wanted to create.  And he had no qualms about killing millions of them because he believed in no God to Whom he was accountable.

And if you say, "What happened in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia could never happen in the United States," then you have my pity for your ignorance of history and the nature of man, and his actions, when he tries to live without God.  And obtains the power to enforce his will upon others.  Man, with God, has often proven to be a terrifying creature.  But man without God is the greatest evil conceivable.  And that, dear reader, is the supreme lesson of history--and the one that the man without God wants you to never learn or always forget.

The Rich Have To Eat, Too!

I'm not much of a basketball fan, but I did notice that the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title this year, and since they are from Texas, I was pulling for them.  Actually, their victory is not what I want to comment on, but rather the fact that their owner, Mark Cuban, spent over $100,000 in a celebration party.  Some people would no doubt call that obscene, I call it the free market at work and a blessing for countless people.

The rich people of a country are the ones who provide the jobs for most of the rest of us, of course, by hiring people.  But the rich also provide jobs by spending money.  Think about some multi-millionaire who buys a yacht.  What goes into that yacht?  Well, I don't know, exactly, I've never owned a yacht, but I know there is probably wood, steel, other metals, glass and fiberglass--and what else?  Nearly all of those things start as raw materials, out of the ground, and they have to be dug up by human beings--providing jobs--sent to production factories--providing jobs for the transport industry and production factories--then to the yacht-making plant--providing jobs for yacht makers--then to the yacht-selling store--providing jobs for yacht sellers.  And then the yacht runs on fuel--providing jobs for fuel producers--the yacht owner probably frequently hires some caterers and waiters and...well, I won't mention prostitutes...but hopefully, the reader gets the point.  How many jobs are created and sustained by rich people who buy yachts?  And how many people would be out of a job if they didn't?  Enjoy yourself, Mr. Cuban.

Many years ago a man named named Leonard Read, of the Foundation of Economic Education, wrote an article entitled "I, Pencil" in which he described the process of one pencil getting into the hands of one user.  Think about it a moment.  What's in a pencil?  Wood, graphite, a rubber eraser, that little metal thing at the top that holds the eraser.  How do those four things come together so that you can write with a pencil?  It's mind-boggling.  The wood has to come from the ground and transported, as does the metal, the rubber, (I don't know where graphite comes from).  How many HUNDREDS (thousands?) of people are employed to construct one pencil?  And then there are subsidiary industries, like pencil sharpeners, paper to write on, trash pickup when the pencil has been used up and thrown away...what else?  Ponder it, reader, I'm not going to do all your work for you (I'm trying to keep this article relatively short).  And all of this is done by free-market capitalism, not socialistic government planning.  We saw what happened in the 20th century when government tried to run an economy--shortages, famine, death.  A government does not--CANnot know--how many pencils its people are going to want and need in a given year.  Only the free market can do that.  And if the market overproduces pencils, its resources can be shifted to products that the consumers are demanding.  It's worked for almost 200 years now and given us material blessings that the world had never seen before (not that I am a slave to materialism, but I do enjoy the good things--like food--that the market produces in abundance). 

Yet, capitalism is the most hated economic system in existence--but only by the liberal elite who don't like anything to do with "freedom"--except their own.  They complain that "all businesses care about is profit," which is totally unfair and untrue.  Yes, businesses do want a profit; they won't stay in business if they don't make a profit.  But those profits come by selling goods or services that consumers are willing to buy at prices consumers can afford!  A business must, first and foremost, consider the wants and needs of consumers.  And the businesses that do the best job at that WILL make the most profits--and be able to hire more people.  That process is interrupted only by government, with its countless regulations, high taxes, support of labor unions, demands for extra benefits from business.  All of those raise the costs of doing business--and thus the price consumers must pay.  Americans bemoan the fact that so many of our goods come from China, or some foreign country, today.  The main reason those jobs are "outsourced" by American companies is that the labor is cheaper.  And quite frankly, that's a benefit to the American consumer.  Think about the costs of the basic items you buy at Wal-Mart if they were produced by the high wage labor of American workers and the costs imposed on U.S. businesses by government.  China says to an American company "come do business over here.  Our labor is cheaper and you won't have all the high cost regulation and taxes."  The American government says "You've got to pay your workers at least a certain minimum wage, conform to all these costly regulations, and pay outlandish taxes."  You're the CEO of a company.  Where are YOU going to go and produce your goods?  And who benefits as much as the company?  The consumer does, by paying lower prices for goods.  Folks, government is the cause of high prices, not corporate profits.  Indeed, it would be the tendency of the free market to lower prices due to competition (e.g., the computer and IT industries).  But "inflation" is our bugaboo, and inflation is caused--you guessed it--mostly by government intervention into the economy.

Now, I will NOT say that everything every business is does is fair and equitable.  Of course not.  Every one of us could come up with examples of an improper action by some business.  Given the nature of humanity, that's going to happen in the hundreds of millions (billions?) of transactions daily between business and consumer.  Nor is every government action superfluous and injurious; occasionally they get something right (give me a few days and I'll think of something...maybe).  But I will say that the more government intrudes into the free market system, the more harm will be done, and mostly to those people who make an economy run--the people who buy the goods and the "little man" who works for the industry that produces...yachts for the rich...and pencils for the rest of us.  Mr. Obama, if you want to concentrate on producing jobs, as you recently announced, shut your mouth, eliminate 90% of the useless regulations on businesses, get rid of the capital gains tax, and substantially lower taxes in general.  Oh, you could also cut government spending by about 75% and abolish the Federal Reserve.  Those things would be a good start. 

Enjoy your championship, Mr. Cuban, and spend as much money as you want to.

Current Event Ramblings, June 14

Rush made a great point yesterday on his program in response to a caller who brought the subject up.  One of the reasons why the welfare state doesn't work is the government simply is not a father or husband and cannot replace him in a family.  Money cannot raise children; a "village" cannot raise children; and a "social worker" certainly can't do it.  Only a father and mother can properly do so.  That was God's plan from the beginning and it cannot be improved upon.  But, as noted many times on this blog, one of liberalism's main goals is to destroy the family in order to create dependence upon the state, which means control by a liberal elite that does not believe in God.  But, as is obvious, especially among the black community, their plan is failing, it always has failed, and it always will fail because it is simply not the way God intended things to be.

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Obama recently made the statement that an economy will frequently hit "bumps in the road."  Mitt Romney responded with a brilliant commercial where he had several people holding up the classic "I want a job" signs, and saying, "I'm an American, I'm not a bump in the road."  Nice ad.  Romney has, for the moment, become the media favorite for the Republican nomination because of the Massachusetts health care system (much state involvement) and his statement that he believes in man-made global warming.  Whether he stays the media darling or not will depend, of course, upon his future actions and policy announcements.  He no doubt did not help himself with his "bump in the road" commercial.

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The "mainstream" (i.e., liberal) media is doing everything it possibly can to destroy Sarah Palin.  I really can't understand why.  If she's such an idiot and a dunce like they say she is, why bother?  But they're working through 24,000 of her emails and found nothing which they can use against her.  They are heartbroken, I assure you.  I wonder when they are going to go through 24,000 of Obama's emails.  I'm not holding my breath.  How can anybody, anybody, claim that the "mainstream" media is "fair and balanced"?  Sarah would make a good President, not because of her intelligence level, but because she has a good character and believes most of the right things.  She hasn't decided to run yet, though.

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For you baseball fans, major league baseball is talking about realignment, which should have happened long ago (should never have been necessary in the first place).  There are 16 teams in the National League and only 14 in the American.  There are 6 teams in the NL Central and only 4 in the AL West.  That means a team in the NL Central has to beat 5 other teams to make the playoffs while a team in the AL West only has to top 3 others.  The wildcard is also easier to win in the AL because there are fewer teams in competition.  So there is talk about moving the Astros to the AL West to make 15 teams in both leagues and 5 in every division.  I don't want the Astros to go the AL because I can't stand the designated hitter.  Milwaukee was in the AL once, move them back.  Also, get rid of interleague play; either that, or make it more equitable.  This season, the Brewers have to play the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Reds play only the Yankees, and the Cardinals play neither.  If St. Louis wins the division by one game over the Brewers or Reds, it will be totally unfair.  I don't buy the argument "let fans in the other league see players from the opposite."  Most fans don't go to the ballpark anyway, and if they want to see Ichiro or Derek Jeter, they can watch them on TV.  Get rid of interleague play and balance the schedule like it used to be.  I am in favor of two 15 team leagues, though.

The American Economy

As reported by the media, there was some rotten news on the economic front in the United States last week.  Employers weren't hiring as many people "as expected," unemployment went up to 9.1%, the stock market has been tanking, housing is bad, etc. etc. etc.  After a robust recovery, the economy seems to be heading for a "double dip" recession.  Terrible, huh.

Let me tell you how to interpret all this.

1.  The economy never was "recovering," at least not with the energy the "mainstream media" has been reporting.  Keep in mind, they are unapologetic, devoted sycophants of Barack Obama, so they've tried to portray what has been, at best, a very, very weak recovery as solid economic growth.  That makes Obama look good, of course, which is exactly--and all--they want.

2.  But now, bad news.  Frankly, the news wasn't as bad as all that, at least not given what the economy has actually been doing for the past two years.  But--and this is crucial--by portraying the economic news as terrible, the media can then praise Obama to the hilt for any upcoming "good" reports (provided there are any).  So, it's horrible now, the world is fixing to come to an end, and soon, if things get better, it will all be because of the genius of Barack Obama.  This isn't fooling anybody except those who wish to be fooled.

3.  Some have been saying that a bad economy is exactly what Obama wants, that he is, in effect, trying to destroy the American economic system.  I can't read the man's mind or heart, but I do know he leans very strongly towards socialism.  And socialism's number one enemy is capitalism.  Capitalism means economic freedom; socialism means government control.  Which one do you think Obama wants?  So a failing American economy, blamed on "capitalism" (an absence thereof is the actual reason), can lead to exactly what Obama and his cronies want--more power in their own hands.  I'm not sure the major media outlets are smart enough to catch on to this, but Obama doesn' t care about that.  As long as they portray him as the best President we've ever had, he'll let them believe whatever they want.

Barack Obama has absolutely no clue how to build a strong economy.  Well, maybe he does and just doesn't want it to happen.  Because, again, it is freedom--capitalism--that creates economic growth and freedom is the antithesis of what the liberal elite desires.  So pay no attention, dear reader, to what the "mainstream media" says.  Always remember that they are nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party.