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Posted At : June 11, 2011 11:15 AM
| Posted By : Dr. Chuck Betters
Related Categories:
Politics
One might wonder what expertise I have in answering such a question. The short answer is - absolutely none! I am not an economist. But I do have a brain and a heart for God. So, here are some random yet common sense points I would like to make.
• Any nation that forgets the God of the universe is sure to watch their silver and gold turn to canker and rust. We are that nation. God has been relegated by the secularist to the church pews. And, even there He is sometimes nowhere to be found.
• Any financial structure that is built on the sandy foundation of borrow (wood), borrow (hay) and borrow some more (stubble) is sure to crumble from within. Since God has been removed from public discourse (except for court cases where He is the defense and the ACLU is the plaintiff) we should not be surprised when He delivers us over to our idols. Many have rightly said that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith,
From spiritual faith to great courage,
From courage to liberty,
From liberty to abundance,
From abundance to selfishness,
From selfishness to complacency,
From complacency to apathy,
From apathy to dependency,
From dependency back again to bondage.
• Taxing the wealthy more may be politically popular for some of the elitist on the left. Here again we must use our brains. Most "wealthy" people took large risks and worked very hard. There is no precedent that shows taxation will increase economic growth or jobs. In fact, the opposite is true. President Jimmy Carter nearly destroyed the American economy with his idea of big government, high taxes and massive entitlements. President Ronald Reagan cut taxes resulting in increased government revenue, job creation and real economic growth. If taxes are raised on the rich they will surely pass their added costs in "trickle down" fashion to the not so rich. They will not hire and salaries may very well go down. Besides, given the enormous percentages the rich already pay of the total tax bill, how much more do you think will be fair? This is the liberal's socialism and demagoguery.
• The private sector is not hiring. There are reasons for this. The stimulus was a massive failure. We gave away $750 billion to what? Last summer was supposed to be according to Obama "the summer of recovery." Was it? Not even close! And what will this summer look like. Obama care is riddled with costs most entrepreneurs are unwilling to assume. Why would they hire people they will be forced to carry on their insurance plan (Obama care) that is far too expensive. It is now estimated that 1/3 of American companies plan to halt health care when the Obama health care program kicks into full gear. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Why is that? Because the homes they live in are now worth a fraction of what they once were. Gas is now close to $4.00/gallon. When Obama took office gas was $1.89/gallon. There is a sense that the current administration doesn't have a clue on how to fix the problems. With the recent rise to 9.1% of the unemployment rate, Obama called it a "bump in the road." Tell that to the millions of Americans who cannot find a job. The immoral debt load on this country has caused many to wonder what would happen if China calls in the loan. After all, they seem to own us. We are messing with a sleeping dragon and have sold our security to them for financing debt we should not have created. Obama's socialism, and the Pelosi/Reid led Congress have been a miserable failure from a policy viewpoint and more of a disaster in the expansion of government waste and size. And I am still waiting to see what the Republican held House has to say about all of this.
• Unions and management need to get real and reasonable. Can you believe the issues that are forcing a possible NFL lockout? They are at each other's throats trying to decide how they will divide up their gazillions of dollars in revenue while the blue collar Joe sits outside the stadium with his Eagles jersey and Eagles hat proudly displaying the name of his favorite player (almost as though he is that player) through whom he is vicariously living his life. He tailgates his fall and winter away paying for Michael Vick or Peyton Manning to entertain him for three hours while paying hundreds of dollars to see each game. And none of his athletic heroes could care two licks about him.
• As long as the current administration is in the "blame Bush" mode they will never have to accept responsibility for the dismal failures of their own policies. The entire financial structure of the country nearly collapsed under Bush. Loans were given to people (no one stuck a gun to their heads to take out these loans) who could not afford them to buy houses they could not afford. They then took out second mortgages to buy more stuff. The premise of such thinking was that real estate always goes up, right? Wrong! Lehman Brothers went belly up. Then AIG (who insured all of those bad debts) nearly collapsed. If that had happened the entire financial structure of the country would have tumbled down and we would be in a Great, Great and Greater Depression right now. Thus, the government bought up all of the bad debt and thrust $750 billion into the banking industry so that they will start lending again, but this time to qualified people. With what result? No one is lending money even to people with great credit.
• Unless the powers to be are willing to cut spending with a hatchet and not a butter knife we will never see our way out of this mess. Since no one else will say it, I will. At the top of the list of major cuts that need to be made are the entitlements - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. After all, they represent close to 90% of the American budget. Additionally, Obama Care needs to be repealed. People close to retirement age should be grandfathered, but the Roosevelt New Deal has now become a Raw Deal. It is time to put it to bed or at least radically alter it.
• Our energy policy is...well, I do not know what our energy policy is since we do not have one. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and OPEC in general owe America their oil. There is a bill we need to submit to those countries for setting them free with American lives. That is how oil prices can come down. And we need to drill, build refineries, harvest coal and build more nuclear reactors. America is sitting on massive oil supplies we are blocked from getting out of the ground. The massive Department of Energy began officially on August 4, 1977 during the Carter administration on the heels of the nightmarish oil crisis and embargo. Now the DOE has 16,000 employees, 100,000 contract employees and an annual budget of over $24 billion with the stated goals of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, developing energy efficient technologies, strengthening America's energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality, and bringing clean, reliable and affordable energy technologies to the marketplace. How well are they doing? When someone doesn't do the job shouldn't they be fired? Really, is the swamp toad more important than Johnnie's daddy finding a job? People are more important than the spotted owl.
What say you? Is there anyone out there I have not yet offended? Believe me, it was not intentional. I just had to get these things off my chest.
Next time - How should Christians approach the bad economy?
In His grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters
MARKINC Ministries, its staff, or volunteers accepts no liability for the content of this blog, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided, unless that information is subsequently confirmed in writing. Any views or opinions presented in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of MARKINC.
Posted At : July 6, 2010 2:01 PM
| Posted By : Dr. Chuck Betters
Related Categories:
Politics
America got it completely wrong, not that we had much of a choice. The presidential election of 2008 was driven more by hype about hope than substance. As I said in earlier blogs, "I wish I could have voted for Mr. Obama." I wanted more than anything else in my role as an American citizen to vote for the first African American president. But his politics, ideology and mentors was too much for me to handle. Thus, I voted for John McCain. I must say, I was not too thrilled with him either. But what choice did the American political system give me? Were these two men the best we could offer? Given the plethora of brilliant political minds we have in this great country, was this really our brightest and best? Now we have children running the greatest country on the face of the earth. We have a president who continues to embrace our enemies and make apologies for America while shunning our friends as he recently did with the Prime Minister of Israel, at least until he saw the political fallout of the Jewish liberal community. Now he is rolling out the red carpet for Netanyahu. He continues to drive this country into a forced socialism, ignoring the will of the people with Obama-care. He has more than tripled the national debt he criticized when running for office with no end in sight. The campaign promise of an open and televised government has become a joke. He continues to bless Islam as a peaceful religion. Most recently he has instructed NASA to become more user-friendly toward Islamic nations. He mocks the Tea Party as out of touch and has thumbed his nose at the will of the people. I truly believe we got what we knew we had - an immature and inexperienced community organizer at the helm. He continues to "blame Bush" for everything while accepting no responsibility for his policies that have driven our country to the brink of financial ruin. Had he allowed the flow of financial capitalism (i.e. the survival of the fittest) to run its course when he first came into office with no bailouts, no stimulus packages, no bank purchases and no irrational bridge leaps into the massive debt from which we will never recover we would have emerged from this recession by now. It all comes back to the purpose of government - to protect its citizenry and to punish wrongdoers. Now we have a commander-in-chief who the top generals do not respect. One even went as far as to vent his frustration to the press. He was promptly (and correctly) fired. But what did he actually say to Rolling Stone Magazine? Surely he knew he would be fired, but he did not care. His conscience would not permit him to blindly follow a president who seems more concerned about offending the Muslim world than he does about winning the war. There is so much more I could say - the horrible choices he has made for the Supreme Court vacancies, his handling of the Gulf oil crisis, the sure to come middle class tax hike, and the denigration of Arizona's new immigration law and the refusal of the Federal government to seal the borders to mention a few. It is time for America to cut its losses and for the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush. In His grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters
MARKINC Ministries, its staff, or volunteers accepts no liability for the content of this blog, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided, unless that information is subsequently confirmed in writing. Any views or opinions presented in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of MARKINC Ministries.
Posted At : June 26, 2009 2:40 AM
| Posted By : Dr. Chuck Betters
Related Categories:
Politics
In this blog since the election, I have tried to give our new president every benefit of the doubt to fulfill his many campaign promises. I did so with the hope that his ideas will work, even though I believed they would not. It is thought that one will campaign from the extremes of his party but then, if elected, governs from the center. Not so for Obama. He campaigned from the left and has governed beyond even the extreme left of his own party. He is making Ted Kennedy look like a conservative. His answer to our economic woes - we can spend our way out! We now have a debt that is beyond comprehension with no end in sight. Socialism is right around the corner if not here already. His plan for health care reform - nationalized medicine with the certain net result that all of us will eventually be mired in a Canadian-like model where the government makes the decisions on your care. Ask any Canadian if he likes his health plan. They don't and that is why they come to America when they are really sick. His answer to Iran's totalitarian regime and its slaughter of young people in the streets over a rigged election - let's talk and reason together. Check out this site and tell me if these jihadists are even remotely reasonable. Click here for video. His laxity in condemning this joke of an election is appalling. Congress had to pass a bill to condemn the slaughter going on in Iran because our president would not. He even went as far as to take credit for what he calls the "debate in Iran" attributing the revolt to his speech in Egypt. This is narcissism at its worst. Only after his own party urged him to be tougher in his condemnation did he do so. When Ronald Reagan stood before the Berlin wall what did he say? "Oh, please Mr. Gorbachev let's talk about how we can learn to respect each others' ideas." No, he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." That is leadership. That is decisiveness. Obama has lost an incredible opportunity to effect change in an enemy country, an axis of evil state. I am sure he thought that if only he could talk to their Ayatollah he could use his power of oratory to convince them to hold a new election. Instead, men and women in Iran looking to the U.S.A. for encouragement and support are being brutally suppressed while our president bows to his own immaturity. His solution to the North Korean threat - we will follow your boat and ask for permission to board, but we must say, "Please." And if they say, "No?" "Pretty please with molasses on it." I am convinced Mr. Obama is too inexperienced and immature to lead this great nation. The hope is that he will not do too much damage before the next election when hopefully someone with greater wisdom can be elected. Until then, we must pray that our nation will not sink into the abyss of the dangerous left-wing agenda.
In His Grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters
MARKINC Ministries, its staff, or volunteers accepts no liability for the content of this blog, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided, unless that information is subsequently confirmed in writing. Any views or opinions presented in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of MARKINC Ministries.
Posted At : September 26, 2008 12:04 AM
| Posted By : Dr. Chuck Betters
Related Categories:
Politics
As I write, the entire country awaits the outcome of a meeting between Obama, McCain, leaders in Congress, and President Bush on the bailout of some of the greedy  financial institutions who have sent this economy into near oblivion while their CEOs walk off with gazillion dollar bonuses. I do not know how it will turn out but there are certain things of which I am very sure. We are reaping what we have sown as a nation. This bailout will likely be successful but short-lived. As a nation we have been fighting a culture war for almost two generations. The cultural issues have been more than political. They have been moral in nature. As a nation in the past 40 years we have poked fun at "Father Knows Best" and buried the nuclear family. We have aborted millions of babies, ordained homosexuals in the church, married lesbians in California and Massachusetts, emasculated the American male, divorced at a 50% clip (even in the evangelical church), raised an entire generation of latchkey kids whose parents have sold them out for their careers, and turned the church into a faint shadow of what God intended her to be. In the past 24 hours as I write...
- New home sales have plummeted by nearly 12% with a $35,000 drop in value.
- Jobless claims are up, bell weather GE is in trouble, and the fingers are pointing with lightning speed.
- Warren Buffet invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and in one day made a profit of $748 million.
- Iran's (Biblical Persia) vile president, Ahmadinejad, freely railed against the great harlot America - in free America of all places.
- A bomb killed scores of people in Pakistan in a hotel frequented by Westerners.
- The Democrats and the Republicans reluctantly sat down together to try to resolve the financial crises while Americans are warned of the coming Great Depression. But they couldn't even put aside partisan politics for a moment in the best interest of the country.
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, designed to help poor people buy into the American dream, have all but buried the poor with foreclosures during their drunken sailor mortgage binges.
- Kids continue to make "Grey's Anatomy," a morally bankrupt drama, one of the most watched TV programs, as their parents watch the two hour season premiere with them.
- Philadelphia police officer Patrick McDonald was shot and killed in the Iraq of the West, the city of brotherly love known as Philadelphia, in another of this city's death spree in their killing fields.
- The
trailer for the new movie with Bill Maher, "Religulous," an assault on Christianity starring the nut cases who have long embarrassed us, was just released with this statement from the cynic himself:
"Since starting on Politically Incorrect in 1993, it has been my pleasure over the last  decade and a half to make organized religion one of my favorite targets. I often explained to people, 'I don't need to make fun of religion, it makes fun of itself.' And, then I go ahead and make fun of it too, just for laughs. With religious fanatics like George Bush and Osama bin Laden now taking over the world, it seemed to me in recent years that this issue -- this cause of debunking the man behind the curtain -- needed to have a larger, more insistent and focused forum than late night television. I wanted to make a documentary, and I wanted it to be funny. In fact, since there is nothing more ridiculous than the ancient mythological stories that live on as today's religions, this movie would try to be a real knee slapper. Unless, of course, you're religious, then you might not like it." I could go on and on. But it would be too depressing. As bad as things are, "you ain't seen nothin' yet! This is but the beginning of sorrows. And what is the response of the church to this coming economic and moral earthquake? We argue the fine points of theology that divide us while people are dying and going to hell. We argue over music styles while Satan laughs at our immaturity. We leave our churches and sinfully challenge the motives of our leaders - men we have rarely supported, never prayed over, and criticized in a thousand ways without ever entering into their struggles and joining them as co-laborers. And we often do these ugly things without giving a dime to support them. And then there are the pastors who abuse their office in horrific ways while at the same time preaching the "gospel" every Sunday. How brazen can we be? I believe God is sickened by our immaturity and lack of a Biblical world-view. Meanwhile, the world continues to wait for a message of hope, someone to tell them that all is going to be OK. The Democrats cannot say it. The Republicans cannot say it. And most of the church cannot say it. Why? Because too many believers no longer believe God is sovereign and that He can be trusted. Maybe we are too busy studying our 401k accounts and little time in the Word of God. And yet when it comes right down to it, we will be forced to say and echo with Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we turn? You have the words of life."
In His Grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters
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