04.24.09
How Moral is Inflation?
To make up a little for removing some of my own thoughts on economics, I have decided to post here some sections from Pastor R. C. Sproul Jr.; these show how obviously immoral the Government’s inflation policies are (especially obvious to those who know God’s written Word).
“Inflation is not higher prices. It is an increase in the money supply. The responsibility for inflation rests solely in the hands of the government… [they set targets for it, after all!] Inflation is not the scheme of a butcher looking for a second car; it is the scheme of countless officials hoping for a second term…
Through inflation, the government takes away the value of the money that remains in your hands after taxation. The government taxes your purchasing power by flooding the marketplace with crisp new counterfeit bills. This too is taxation, the kind that is not mentioned in campaign speeches. This taxation doesn’t show up under ‘withheld‘; it shows up in higher prices around the country where businessmen rather than politicians take the blame… The connection is indirect but real and this tax is silent as well as devastating [a lesson we in Britain are about to learn like never before - indeed your shopping bill is showing it continually, and is about to awake you to the reality of the past six months in particular]…
Inflation is not some small government error but counterfeiting on a grand scale. For the private individual the practice of printing bogus, worthless paper and putting it into circulation is a criminal act, yet it is legal [but not moral] for governments to do it. The practice of inflating the money supply with fiat currency is an act of national theft…
[It distorts the markets - especially if also accompanied with artificially low interest rates… think bubbles! - and punishes the prudent who refuse to recklessly spend and over borrow] If you earn 5 percent interest on your savings and the annual inflation rate is 10 percent [the official statistics are always deliberately too low - as you normally feel in your pocket!], you have a net annual loss of 5 percent. You quickly pull your money out of the bank and spend it. Inflation pressures the consumer to spend, spend, spend [and incur debt]… Families cease to save, and a serious depletion of surplus capital occurs. As we have seen, if surplus or investment capital diminishes, investment in tools declines, production falls off, and the wealth of the nation falls.” (Dollar Signs of the Times, pp. 83,86, 95, & 97)
There are many things that could be said about this evil, and many applications could be made to our current mess, but consider just two. Firstly, it is plain and simple theft. And secondly, it hurts not only the prudent but the most vulnerable: the elderly and others who depend on their savings. Therefore, despite the mad love for Socialism that is found among many Christians, this is something we should strongly oppose as those who are supposed to hate sin and care for the poor and vulnerable. These things will become clearer in the years to come, though the poor and the elderly are already the worst hit by this advance in Socialism. Surely we should care!
Just one more interesting and true statement from the above book: “The government cannot save one industry without in turn hurting hundreds of others.” How could we expect such things to work when the Scriptures do not give the government (who should only bear the sword – Rom. 13) any role over the economy or welfare?
This is a good summary of the effect this has on an economy (this is just to show you how it is the main cause of our current crisis and how it will make matters worse to pursue more of it – like digging more to get out of a hole! I don’t think the man is a Christian):
“The effects of monetary inflation are three-fold. First, it brings about an unwarranted transfer of purchasing power (resources) to the creator of the new money and/or the first user of the new money. Another name for this unwarranted transfer is theft. Second, it has a NON-UNIFORM effect on prices, leading to mal-investment and the wastage of resources. The huge amount of savings and resources squandered in real-estate investments over the past several years exemplifies the havoc that can result from monetary inflation and why its effects cannot simply be counteracted at some later time by “withdrawing liquidity”. Third, it EVENTUALLY results in a broad-based increase in the prices of everyday goods and services.” (Steve Saville)
G.M.
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04.06.09
Limited?
It is perhaps regretful that Calvinists speak of ‘Limited Atonement’, since the real issue is not limited or unlimited, but between efficacious and inefficacious. Here is what C. H. Spurgeon had to say on the subject:
“We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, ‘No, certainly not.’ We ask them the next question – Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They say ‘No.’ They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say ’No. Christ has died that any man may be saved if’ – and then follow certain conditions of salvation. Now, who is it that limit’s the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as infallibly to secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death; we say, ‘No, my dear sir, it is you that do it.’ We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it”
We believe Christ’s death actually saves sinners, not that it merely makes it possible for sinners to be saved. Will Christ “see of the travail of his soul” or not? Edwin Palmer puts it this way:
“But if the death of Christ is what the Bible says it is – a substitutionary sacrifice for sins, an act actual and not a hypothetical redemption, whereby the sinner is really reconciled to God – then, obviously, it cannot be for every man in the world. For then everybody would be saved, and obviously they are not. One of two things is true: either the atonement is limited in its extent or it is limited in its nature or power. It cannot be unlimited in both.”
“Can one be purchased for God and then not belong to him?” (Curtis Crenshaw) Will God punish sins twice; once in his son and then again in every sinner who doesn’t make a ‘decision’ for Christ? Will any for whom he died end in hell? John Owen’s answer is rather conclusive:
“The Father imposed his wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
1. All the sins of all men.
2. All the sins of some men.
3. Some of the sins of some men.
In which case it may be said:
a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so none are saved.
b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world [in all ages], and this is the truth.
c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?
You answer, Because of unbelief. I ask, I this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or he did not. If he did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died? If he did not, he did not die for all their sins!”
G.M.
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04.02.09
Wretched Multiculturalism
It is sad that Christians have not instilled a thorough love for Western Civilisation in their children (which requires at least some degree of a Classical education – or at least reading some of the great Classics and doing positive history on the flow of it). Our heritage is a truly great one – despite what the PC crowd say about it – thoroughly affected by centuries of Christianity. Today our culture is dying (consider today’s art, for a stark example!), and it needs to be rebuilt. Christians should seek to do that, or at least preserve it until better days.
Here is a good quotation by Robert Spenser, taken from The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), pp.176 & 230-1:
“The corrosive effects of multiculturalism have bred a suicidal hatred of the West among our children. It is time to roll this back through concerted effort to extirpate the multiculturalism ethos from school textbooks and the culture at large… It is time to say ‘enough’, and teach our children to take pride in their own heritage. To know that they have a culture and history of which they can and should be grateful…
People who are ashamed of their own culture will not defend it.”
I’ve also added a few new quotations, and plan to add a few more in the next few days or so.
G.M.
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