To Infinity and Beyond

Toy Story was recently declared to be the second best animated film ever made. (Who decides these things? It is clearly number one.) The catch-phrase of Buzz Lightyear has entered our collective conscience—“to Infinity and Beyond.” This catch-phrase is starting to make the rounds in the usual places with regard to Ben “Buzz” Bernanke, who has just announced QEIII.

What is QE? It is an abbreviation for Quantitative Easing. Wikipedia describes QE this way. 

Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional monetary policy used by central banks to stimulate the national economy when conventional monetary policy has become ineffective. A central bank implements quantitative easing by buying financial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions with newly created money, in order to inject a pre-determined quantity of money into the economy. This is distinguished from the more usual policy of buying or selling government bonds to keep market interest rates at a specified target value. Quantitative easing increases the excess reserves of the banks, and raises the prices of the financial assets bought, which lowers their yield. 

Financial Times of London describes the current round of Quanitative Easing this way:

It was not so much QE3 as QE∞.  [The symbol ∞ is the “infinity sign” in math.]

Why is this a big deal? Compared to the two previous QEs (it stands for “quantitative easing” and refers to a central bank buying bonds to push down their yields), this one is unlimited. While the previous two were for fixed amounts, this time the Fed will keep buying $40bn of mortgage-backed securities until the labour market has improved “substantially”. That word is to be interpreted by the Fed, allowing it to carry on for as long as it likes.  

Romney and Ryan need to be in this picture too. Buying 40 billion dollars of mortgages every year, er ... no, that should be month… will please Paul Krugman, but no one else. Gold took an immediate spike upward in price. I wish I owned more. While I have been in favor of QE, I wanted it to be a part of a package that included tax increases and budget cuts. Such a package is not even being talked about as a possibility. 

Buying mortgages is also the very worst place that the Fed could buy securities. Interest rates are low enough already in that area. Driving them lower will only distort the market even more and encourage more debt. This we do not need. 

We Americans, as a people, already put way too much of our assets into houses. Why not enjoy it now, and then sell it later for retirement? Unfortunately, the homeowner has run out of bigger fools to sell to. This constant pressure will be with us permanently. Note that since my profession over the last few decades involves buying and selling houses and residential land, and supplying contractors with hardware and lumber, I may need to adjust my personal business plan a mite.  (I will talk more about housing tomorrow.) 

Having sold my 4,000 sq. ft. house and moving into a 2,000 sq. ft. has shown me that my family does not need all that space. My daughter is a little shy on space, but we can move her into the office when she is older if we need to. Or maybe, just maybe, she can learn to cope with one closet. As long as I have room for my toys we will be fine. Actually, I got rid of most of my toys—my books—in the move. I brought ten boxes of books to California. I have ten boxes of books still in storage for a later trip. Those who have seen my former library will instantly realize what a huge reduction in books this is. I counted my books many years ago. I had 1400+ at the time. It has been actually somewhat traumatic for me to pare the collection down. This is not a joke. Well, maybe a little one. 

This chart will show you what I mean. It shows the size of the average house by country by sq. meters. To get the more expected “English” measurements multiple by 10.76. So the average house in Britain is roughly 880 sq. feet as compared to 2300 in the United States. 

Typical Russian Apartment BlockWhile I was not able to find the figures for house size in Russia, it has to be smaller than Britain. In Russia each room has to serve multiple functions. When we go to Russia to visit family, the dining room becomes my computer room and a bedroom. The living room becomes a bedroom at night. The convertible beds are actually much more comfortable than the hide-a-beds we use in America—they have to be as they are used every night. Yes, there is a little work to prepare the bed at night, and a little work to make it a living room again in the morning, but this is minor. While my mother-in-law's kitchen is as small as the average American walk-in closet, it is adequate and we even eat there. The main issue is the lack of closet space, but if you are like me, you have enough clothes to last for years. I might need to buy socks, but that is about it. 

If you want some comparisons between life in Russia and America, click here.

Why am I going on and on about Russian housing? To make a point that you can downsize and not affect your lifestyle very much. Would you rather have a 2500 sq. ft. house that you lose to the bank, or a 1500 sq. ft. house you can keep? Those kinds of times are coming as a permanent reality to all of us. Be prepared. 

Ben “Buzz” Bernanke thinks that he is some sort of superhero. When Buzz Lightyear thought this he got into trouble. Ben is no different. He is just a toy of the banksters. The “powers that be" think they can kick the can down the road with QE, but the fact that this QE episode has no terminus should tell us that they do not expect a recovery any time soon. I fear it is permanent, so be prepared. 

Feast of Trumpets

I saw this video posted on Facebook by a high school classmate now living in Israel. While as a Christian I observe Rosh Hashanah differently, I thought this was a great way to acknowledge the festival. It begins tonight at sunset. Happy New Year! 

Blessed are the Poor

Sometimes the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), on a surface reading, seem to be in conflict. One example is the two different versions of the Sermon on the Mount, one in Luke 6 and another in Matthew 5. In particular Luke says, “Blessed are the poor,” while Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” As this relates to the theme of wealth, I thought this was a good time to talk about it. 

Normally I quote The Message as my usual translational choice. Let’s begin instead with the NIV from Luke 6:20-22

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.
²² Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.

The version in Matthew 5 is different. 

³ ”Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ ”Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

While I suppose these could be two different messages, they are so similar that I think they are the same message. It is possible they were given on different occasions. Was Matthew right in saying Jesus said “poor in spirit”? In one sense no. I think Jesus said what Luke recorded. Jesus said “blessed are the poor.” What Matthew has done is added the words “in spirit” to give us a better idea as to what Jesus meant. This fits in well with the Psalmist’s use of the word that means poor, as the hebrew word ’anaw עָנָו has a wide range of meanings including poor, humble, afflicted, and so on. 

Matthew is giving us a different nuance to what Jesus said. But if you look carefully that nuance is also in Luke’s version. Here is how The Message translates Luke 6:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. 
   God’s kingdom is there for the finding. 
   You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry. 
   Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal. 

   You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. 
   Joy comes with the morning.

The reason I tend to use The Message is that the translator captures these nuances very well. Not always of course. But when this translation “nails it,” it really nails it. 

Here is an additional selection from Luke 6, again from the NIV.

²⁴ ”But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵ Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶ Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Jesus must have had a considerable emphasis in his ministry on the poor. Luke makes that explicit. But Matthew adds enough for us to realize that humility is what Jesus is looking for. As a practical matter the rich are typically not very humble. 

Let’s look at this same passage from The Message:

²⁴But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. 
   What you have is all you’ll ever get.

 ²⁵And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. 
   Your self will not satisfy you for long.

   And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games. 
   There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.

²⁶ There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.

I think that Jesus is talking about an attitude, often present in the rich, of personal self-satisfaction. This is the theme of the last two posts I did on wealth. Last thursday we looked at the Pharisee and the tax collector who had differing attitudes. But the tax collector was the one who was rich, the Pharisee was the one who was proud. On Friday we looked at Zacchaeus, who although wealthy, had the correct attitude. 

Jesus is talking about the rich in a general way. He understood that not all fit the pattern he was condemning but most did. In particular Jesus is talking about trouble ahead for the rich, the politically well-connected. They are headed for trouble and that trouble came in 70 AD when all the “rich” were washed away by the Roman flood. 

Let me summarize the point I am trying to raise today: God has no problem with wealth, or for that matter with sexuality, or with self-defense. But there is a problem when these natural things are turned into greed, adultery, and war mongering.  

The Great Whore

The beloved editor of the prophecy podcast, Pam Dewey, pointed out as she edited Friday’s post that I had not mentioned an important aspect to Romney’s charitable giving. Romney gives most of his money to the LDS church, better known as Mormons.  I have never met a “bad” Mormon, they all seem quite nice. I even dated one. However, I have said in the past that to join the LDS church, one had to be on LSD. Here is Pam’s Wild World of Religion profile on Mormonism.  

As it usually does, this leads me to ask myself a question. “How does this relate to Babylon the Great?” As my friend Eric commented on Facebook, “Only Dennis could see Babylon the Great in a chicken sandwich.”

But the corporate church world is talked about, in type, in the section of Revelation on which I have been basing a lot of what I do here—chapters 17-18. 

John in Revelation 17 tells us of a woman he saw:

^3-6In the Spirit he carried me out in the desert. I saw a woman mounted on a Scarlet Beast. Stuffed with blasphemies, the Beast had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, festooned with gold and gems and pearls. She held a gold chalice in her hand, brimming with defiling obscenities, her foul fornications. A riddle-name was branded on her forehead: great babylon, mother of whores and abominations of the earth. I could see that the woman was drunk, drunk on the blood of God’s holy people, drunk on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

The primary reference here is the corrupt religious organization that Jesus talked about in Matthew 23, the leadership in Israel at that time. My approach to prophecy is to understand what it meant when it was given, and then think about how to apply it to our situation. Many churches throughout the ages fit this description well. This is still true today. 

A man I admire very much, Billy Graham, even got caught up in this. He was “court prophet” to many presidents. This was not good. I understand from what I read that he regretted it later, especially with regard to Nixon. When you as a religious leader “ride the beast,” no good can come of it. 

It is like the song my mother taught me. If you ride a beast, it will eat you. 

Sooner or later the religious leader/church will be eaten by the beast. 

Here is one additional piece of data that John gives us:

^9-11”But don’t drop your guard. Use your head. The seven heads are seven hills; they are where the woman sits. They are also seven kings: five dead, one living, the other not yet here—and when he does come his time will be brief. The Beast that once was and is no longer is both an eighth and one of the seven—and headed for Hell.

This tells us several things. First the beast is Rome, and the woman is associated with Rome. The Jewish leadership of the time had such a relationship with Rome. Nero even wanted to marry one of Herod’s daughters. 

But in history there are other cities that have seven hills. Jerusalem, Washington, and even Rome, Georgia! The pattern of false religion in cahoots with government has continued through the ages as sinning people repeat the same mistakes their fathers made. 

In any event, the point I am making is that any church as it grows in size will inevitably risk becoming a daughter of the Great Whore, the mother of all prostitutes. The Mormon Church is one of the largest in America. 

Is it corrupt? 

In a June 2011 cover story, Newsweek magazine stated that the LDS Church “resembles a sanctified multinational corporation-the General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions and an estimated net worth of $30 billion.” The PBS special, “The Mormons” estimated the LDS Church’s worth at over $80 billion. Other estimates have placed it in excess of $100 Billion, as it is the wealthiest per capita religion in the world with annual, mostly tax-free revenues estimated to be $6 billion per year (per Time Magazine in 1997).

Why do people build such buildings? Even in my tradition such monstrosities have been built. Wealth by itself is not proof of corruption, but as we have seen it is a good indication of it. While I am critiquing Romney for his choice of where he gives his money, most Christians who tithe do give it to their church. 

It seems to me that each of us would be better off in our charitable giving if we avoid giving to big churches. There is nothing wrong with a portion of our giving going to churches, but you need to look at the big picture. It would not surprise me at all if Obama giving a much smaller total to charity might be doing more good than Romney’s large contribution to a large church. 

Avoid Babylon the Great by avoiding the Great Whore and her daughters. 

Hotel Babylon

Did you ever wonder what the song Hotel California by the Eagles meant? They have been notoriously closed-mouth on the meaning. But they did say that the song is an “interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.”

Our modern consumer society is certainly typified by Los Angeles.

You can leave Hotel Babylon if you wish, but it is difficult. As the song says, if you are a prisoner there, it is by your own device.

BTW, according to the Wiki article on the song, “the term “colitas” in the first stanza of the song is a Spanish term for “little tails” and in Mexican slang it is a reference to the buds of the Cannabis [marijuana] plant.” This is another part of the modern Los Angeles culture you can leave if you wish.