TTSR The “Compassion” Racket

Politicians are always in the spotlight after cases of natural disasters because they are ever quick to declare their heroic spending plans to rebuild what the foolish have lost with crisp tax dollars.

Only the foolish man builds his house on the sands of a costal ticking time bomb that is sure to detonate every so often, and although this trend is proven, they still refuse to listen.

Why should they when the government will write them a check to ‘rebuild what has been lost’ when in reality, it is the tax payers money that is lost and the fool that left unchecked.

Matthew 7:24-27  “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.   And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

75-3 Does God’s Absolute Predestination Make Him Unfair?

Is it right to challenge the authority of God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, by questioning His predestination in our lives?  

By no means, God’s predestination is not causing the mistakes we make, the sins we commit, or even the accidents that happen; it is God putting plans in place for us to prosper in meaningful lives. 

It is not the designer that drew house plans with walnut flooring that caused the contractor (worker) to knock a bucket of paint over, ruining the dark wooden planks.

Jeremiah 29:11  “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Romans 9:19  “You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?””

Romans 9:20-22  “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,”

TTSR Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

While some judge the success of a person by the way the intelligentsia and the media portray him, others will look to the results of that persons work to see if the fruit is good or bad. 

Ronald Reagan was never a favorite of the media or of the ‘experts’ that did not agree with his choices, but his actions, particularly the ending of price control on petroleum, spoke for themselves which in this case with a price drop of over 60 cents a gallon.

Perhaps we should know that when the media praises someone’s every ‘good’ deed, take Obama for instance, and looks away whenever something or everything proves wrong, it is time to make our own observations and come to our own conclusions based on results.

Matthew 7:17  “So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Proverbs 14:14  “The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways,

and a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways.”

75-2 Could Pharaoh Have Repented?

God raised Pharaoh up to be an example for the generations of Israelites that wandered in the desert and into the Promise Land because he was not righteous or in any good standing with God. In Exodus 10:1-2, God declared that he would harden Pharaohs heart and lay His hand over Egypt with many signs and wonders in a great judgment. 

This judgment was told to the Israelites children and their children’s children so that they would know that the Lord was their God.

Exodus 10:1-2 “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.””

Exodus 7:3-4  “But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.”

Exodus 29:46

“And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.”

Exodus 29:46  

“And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.”

TTSR Ivan and Boris− And Us

When put on the spot, or called to account for their decisions, a politician will never hesitate to sidestep a charge, even if it means the person behind him taking the blame.

They are ever quick to point the finger, pronounce the judgment, and put in place the laws that they see fit, regardless of the adverse effects.

It is never a politicians fault, in their own opinion, because they are only the ones putting in suffocating regulations, not the businesses and employees with hypoxia* that ‘caused’ the economy to drop under those regulations.

*A lack of oxygen is called is called hypoxia. Hypoxia causes the heart to beat faster to push more oxygen to the body and cells. Cells need oxygen for energy and growth. Without oxygen cells can't function and can die. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_effect_does_lack_of_oxygen_have_on_the_body

75-1 Didn’t God hate the unborn infant Esau?

God prophesied to Rebekah before her sons were born that the older would serve the younger and that God would hate Esau and love Jacob. 

This does not mean that God hated Esau before his birth, although both brothers were born into the sin of Adam*, but Esau’s actions were evil in the eyes of the Lord so He warned Rebekah of this sin in His prophesy.

God was not unjust for hating Esau** because His love for Jacob was such a rare blessing under the Old Covenant that only God’s chosen people received it.

* Romans 3:23  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

** Romans 9:14  “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!”

TTSR The Role Of Economics

Why should we take the time to learn the functions and inner workings of the economy?

Because among the vast population of human beings, there is only a handful of people that understand and can interpret the elaborate cycles of the economy, which we are all a part of.   

The lack of knowledge in the populace has given politicians the opportunity to do things that would be considered absurd if the people would admit to knowing nothing and invest time in learning the economy.

How much can you fit into three sentences?

How much can you fit into three sentences?  Three whole ideas and the unbound inspiration that follows.  For the next three months I will be posting three sentences per chapter from The Thomas Sowell Reader by Thomas Sowell and 75 Bible Questions Your Instructors Pray You Won't Ask by Gary North.

TTSR The Economics Of Discrimination

Comments on The Thomas Sowell Reader, The Economics Of Discrimination, pages 87-97.

For hundreds of years, discrimination has been driven by the attitudes bias and prejudice, separating one class or group from another.  Although there are many penalties to open discrimination, whether against race, sex, or appearance, discrimination more commonly occurs quietly.

If a biased restaurant manager is hiring and one of the best applicants is black, the manager may quietly discriminate by not contacting that person.  The manager can afford to do so because the cost of discriminating is low and there are other suitable people to hire.  If the manager was in an environment where the cost for discrimination was high, the restaurant going short staffed or the position being inadequately filled, he might not have made such a choice.

 

Discrimination does not just affect the victim though.  Suppose a landlord, renting out his home, was to turn away all applicants that did not meet his high standards.  He would lose money for every month without a tenant when he could have had an income. That is all part of the cost to discrimination.

The cost of discrimination among higher powers is even more costly.  In World War 2, Jewish physicians made up an absolute majority of the all physicians in private practice because the Polish government would not hire them. They still received enough patients to make a living, but the government hospitals had fewer doctors to help the maimed solders.  The Polish government could have saved lives by allowing Jewish doctors into their medical service, but that was the cost of their racial discrimination.

Today we are paying the price for past discriminations by living in a world where, at the mention of different ethnicities, you will be labeled as racist.  If you talk about the husband being the head of the home, you will be labeled as sexist. Unless you are surrounded by free thinkers that are not afraid to speak out about such topics, the ‘politically correct’ will consider such observations as discrimination.  Although this is not discrimination, it is the price we are paying for those in the past.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

~ George Santayana ~

TTSR “Income Distribution”

Comments on The Thomas Sowell Reader, “Income Distribution," Pages 98-107.

A popular topic of discussion in the news, magazines and Internet that is founded on false pretenses is Income Distribution.  The topic in which ‘Rich’ people are discussed as making ‘X’ amount while the ‘poor’ are making only ‘x’ amount.  Strangely, the news reporters and writers hardly ever define what it is to be categorized as rich or poor (I define this in my earlier writing “A Duty To Die”).

When statistics are brought up, like “The top earning 20% of Americans, those making more than $100,000 each year, received 49.4% of all income generated in the US compared with the 3.4% earned by those below the poverty line ^[1]”, these stats are not talking about living human beings, but households.  The media bases its opinions of income distribution on the average household income that is prone to change and variables that discredit it from the Income Distribution topic. There are too many conditions that make houses an unreliable pointer for judging incomes.  Seldom is one house inhabited by one person.  A house could be the home of two working parents and two working children or more.  A house could be rented out to several people that all lead single lives with school, work, or both.  One cannot base opinions on information that does not apply properly.

A front page New York Times article declared that the “Top 0.1 percent of income earners--- the top one-thousandth” was ‘super rich’ and that they “have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year ^[2]”.  While this report was based on household incomes, a report based on living breathing humans showed that those individuals dubbed as ‘super rich’ had their incomes drop 50 percent between 1995 and 2005 ^[3].  Things are not always as they seem, and even though the statistics were not false, they were misleading.  If this is the not the only topic that is based on misleading information, what other areas are we being fooled into believing deceptive news?

[1] The Global Report, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0FhoratGEk

[2] David Cay Johnston, “Richest Are Leaving Even The Rich Far Behind,” New York Times, June 5, 2005, section 1. Pp. 1 ff.

[3] U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Income Mobility in the U.S. from 1996 to 2005,” November 13, 2007, p. 12.