A tale of Christmas Future

As I sat listening to the homily this morning at Christmas Liturgy the image of the Nativity scene in Bethlehem played out in my mind. I couldn't help but contrast this image of a quiet peace amongst the shepherd's fields with the consumer mentality that so dominates our existence today.

Jesus said " No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and Mammon." Matthew 6:24

(Mammon is a term that was used to describe riches, avarice, and worldly gain in Biblical literature. It was personified as a false god in the New Testament. The term is often used to refer to excessive materialism or greed as a negative influence.)

Mammon is what our society is all about. It's no accident that we are often referred to collectively as "consumers". I always like to say that we in America are intent on proving Jesus wrong. We think we can serve two masters. Well, we will at least try. Mammon has held a special place in our market driven economy, but I believe we are entering the end days of this consumer oriented existence.Just the thought of being a consumer is disgusting --it makes me think of a parasite. I forget the exact number, but I think something like 70% of our economy is based on the consumer. In simple terms we consume and no longer produce. Unfortunately for the most part we've been consuming things we don't make or need, with money we don't have. We think we have credit. All it really is though is debt and debt has made our world go round.

What a great gig. Some poor foreigner works his butt off for a pittance while we sit back and consume and consume. Here's the real deal : You can't borrow your way to prosperity. We are finding out that a bill does come due and does need to be paid. No additional TARP plans or stimulus packages are going to change the situation. Retail sales are down big-time, car sales are in the toilet, stock prices and real-estate values have fallen off a cliff. We're not as rich as we thought we were and the ramifications are going to be monumental.

The next several Christmas's might see a premium on such things as family, fellowship, friends and simple food. In the end, maybe something good will come out of all of this. We've been serving Mammon way too long.

Father closed the Christmas homily with a quote for Isaac the Syrian on the Incarnation. I'll have to do more reading of Isaac. My favorite along these lines is from Athanasius "God became man so that man might become a god."

If we ponder that line the only conclusion is that the Incarnation was one awesome Christmas gift and awesome might be a vast understatement.

Boston Tea Party

Today, December 16 is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. The strange thing about the Tea Party is that it more often than not, associated with the concept of " no taxation without representation". But as in many situations, the truth is not quite that simple. This Wikipedia entry provides a little background on this event from 1773:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

Hancock organized a boycott of tea from China sold by the politically well-connected British East India Company, whose sales in the colonies then fell from 320,000 pounds to 520 pounds. By 1773, the company had large debts, huge stocks of tea in its warehouses and no prospect of selling it because smugglers, such as Hancock, were importing tea from the Netherlands without paying import taxes. In response to this the British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in Britain, instead paying the much lower American duty. This tax break allowed the East India Company to sell tea for half the old price and cheaper than the price of tea in England, enabling them to undercut the prices offered by the colonial merchants and smugglers.[citation needed]
Many American colonists, particularly the wealthy smugglers, resented this favored treatment of a major company, which employed lobbyists and wielded great influence in Parliament. Protests resulted in both Philadelphia and New York, but it was those in Boston that made their mark in history. Still reeling from the Hutchinson letters, Bostonians suspected the selective removal of the Tea Tax was simply another attempt by the British parliament to squash American freedom. Samuel Adams, wealthy smugglers, and others who had profited from the smuggled tea called for agents and consignees of the East India Company tea to abandon their positions; consignees who hesitated were terrorized through attacks on their warehouses and even their homes.[1]

So it was actually a removal of a tax that angered the colonists-- not a tax increase. You can't make that up. I wonder if Sam Adams and his boys would be considered "terrorists" in today's world?

Gospel According To Luke

Over the past couple Sunday's the Gospel readings at Liturgy have come from the Book of Luke and have been chock full of content. Last week was the familiar story of The Good Samaritan ( Luke 10:25-37).This well-known parable will get it's own post shortly.

Today's reading was from Luke 12: 16-21.

16And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
17And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
18And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
19And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
20But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
21So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God

What I find fascinating about this passage is that it is so universal in it's application. In this particular parable we are dealing with a rich man who is enjoying the fruits of his labor and is doing nothing "wrong'' per se. He's not a bad man-- at least as far as we can tell. In fact he is being prudent in that he is building bigger storage facilities for his goods. I think the message here is that he is totally focused on his worldly existence and is busy making plans for his future, yet his life is about to end that very night and he is woefully unprepared for that. When I think about it this story in a nutshell is about all of us. In some cases we are making business plans. In other situations we are making Thanksgiving and Christmas plans.We are all about planning our future and we spend a lot of time involved in this planning. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that kind of stuff. It's just that the emphasis is totally misplaced and that emphasis --the eat, drink and be merry and the storing up of our earthly goods is what so preoccupies much of our existence in present day America. We are the rich man in the story, we just don't want to admit it.

It's also interesting to look at the 3 verses preceding this parable for some context:

13And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.
14And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?
15And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth

I believe the wisdom proclaimed in verse 15 will become more and more evident as we work our way through the economic mess we find ourselves in. Maybe some good will come out of our travails after all.

Citi--DOA

This morning there are numerous stories documenting the mounting problems at Citigoup .Here's an example from the paper of record Shares Falling, Citigroup Talks to Government .

So the mighty Citi is in trouble and company top dogs are "entered into talks with federal officials about how to stabilize the struggling financial giant. "

Screw Citigroup , Sandy Weill and Chuck Prince!

I did my Saturday Post Office run and pulled an official looking document with a Citi logo on the envelope out of my PO Box ( I do have a Citi MasterCard). Amazing! This is what the letter from Citi said:

1) We are changing how we calculate your variable APR for purchases:
We are increasing your variable APR for purchases . Your purchase APR will equal the
US Prime Rate plus 8.99% with a minimum APR of 14.99%. As of October 1,2008 this purchase APR is 14.99%.
2) We are changing how we calculate your variable APR for cash advances:
We are increasing you variable APR for cash advances. Your cash advance
APR will equal
the US Prime Rate plus 16.99% with a minimum APR of 21.99%. As of October 1,2008 this cash advance APR is 21.99%.

Number 3 had something to do with what they call a Default APR. I'm not sure that that is but this was the bottom line.

The default APR equals the greater of 1) the Prime Rate plus up to 23.99% or 2) up to 29.99%

If I understand this properly they can charge me almost 30% for the right to borrow money from them. There is a word in the English language called usury. Some consider it a sin. It's good to know that our government is considering helping Citi get out of their financial mess. I think they should just die.

Citigroup RIP!!!

Election Day

I woke up this morning and with great excitement drove with my wife over to the local firehouse to cast my ballot. The act of voting , especially in a Presidential Election always gives me a special feeling---almost one of reverential awe. When I think of the joyful faces of the Iraqi's a few years ago after they voted for the first time and I often ponder how much we take for granted in our own country.

There is no mystery as far as my vote. Obama! I think we are looking at an Electoral Landslide tonight, but even with that, I really wonder if our new President has any idea what he is about to encounter. We as a nation have spent ourselves silly. We are in the early stages of what could be an ugly recession and have very little ammunition to fight it with. Things could get ugly quickly. My vote for Obama had very little to do with policy ---I guess his opposition to the Iraq War would be one stance in particular. Taxes are probably going to go up, and who really wants to pay more taxes? It's pathetic that the current campaign dialogue has focused on taxes, yet almost nothing has been said about our prodigal ways. Who do we expect is going to pay the bill for all of our spending?

I said back in April of '07 that I was betting Obama on the come and my support was based more on hope than anything else. Well, hope is grossly underrated as a human emotion and something we've not had much of--at least in the political sense over much of my adult life.

As far as hope is concerned, this short essay from yesterday's CS Monitor is worth a read. It was written by a 55 year old white conservative Southerner who was dragged by his wife out to canvass for Obama. Here's a tid-bit:

I don't see either of the candidates as having all the answers.
I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It's about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

Georgia on my Mind

Came across this article in the NYTimes the other day. The gist of the piece can be gleaned from this passage:

But Lincoln A. Mitchell, a Georgia expert at Columbia University, contended that Mr. Saakashvili now presided over a “semiauthoritarian” state, while saying that it was the most democratic of the former Soviet states in the region.
“The reality is that the Saakashvili government is the fourth one-party state that Georgia has had during the last 20 years, going back to the Soviet period,” he said. “And nowhere has this been more apparent than in the restrictions on media freedom.”

What bothers me in this case is the lack of follow up by many of our traditional "News" outlets. Maybe we Americans are an incurious sort, but we have actually had Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates allude to the possibility of US military support for Georgia , in the event of further conflict with Russia. The possibility of bringing Georgia into NATO is dangled by candidates from both parties. Do we really need to add another semi-authoritarian regime into our satellite system?

I'm wondering if US interest in Georgia is another example of Realpolitik. Are we really helping push for a new democratic state or are we simply developing another client for weapons sales and another piece for an ongoing geopolitical chess game. As I said in The Bear is Back it's a whole new game now in the US-Russian rivalry and I'm not entirely sure we still have the upper hand.

LIBOR

Ran across this post today on Lew Rockwell.com. The Rockwell site is a pretty hard-core libertarian site. I contend there is much wisdom there to be acquired. This post on LIBOR is deep but it's worth a read and a bookmark. I guarantee we'll be hearing more about LIBOR as our credit woes grow.

What’s in a Number? Donald MacKenzie on the Importance of Libor