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However, the big timber is going down and I’m hoping to knock it out and then start building up the big, big emergency fund and then whack at our mortgage and save up for retirement and all that fun stuff.

OK, that is all, just wanted to publish a bit of an update since its been so long.

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My suggestion at the time was to contact the doctor’s office and ask them about their schedule and about payment options.  I don’t recommend debt, but you have to have glasses to drive in some cases, and if he couldn’t drive he couldn’t earn money and the disaster would be worse than a few hundred dollars in debt.  So, I haven’t heard how the situation went in response from the doctor’s office in regards to payment plans or billing schedules but I did want to ask: what would you do?  Would you go into debt to get glasses?  Would you put things on a credit card?  Get a loan from a friend or family member?  Put tape on things until the tape fell apart?

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Did you know that your body needs Cholestrol and fat? I bet that all of the negative ‘news’ you hear doesn’t lead you to believe that you do, but you do.  In fact some fats will keep your brain healthy, and some cholestrol actually helps your heart.  Crazy, huh? [disclosure: this is not medical advice - seek a doctor and all that jazz].  Here’s the kicker: some debt in the economy, as a tool to help companies get started seems to be OK.  Some debt for consumers seems to be helpful at times when major things need some attention.  I don’t recommend debt, but small levels in specific locations are safer than others.  The safe types of fat and cholestrol in appropriate quantities keep your body moving and grooving.

Here’s the deal: too much of the debt doesn’t keep things moving, it makes things stop up and causes strokes just like regular human body blockage.  Adding more debt to the economy’s ‘breathing room’ by ‘unfreezing’ the credit opportunities is just like putting a stint into an artery but them immediately going out to guzzle down the largest fast food meal you can find.

Trent of the Simple Dollar posted on twitter that he had a person asking how they should tell their children that they’re losing their home.  More credit doesn’t help this situation.  If I lose my home due to foreclosure having access to more credit doesn’t fix the problem that I’m in over my head.  The ability to infinitely borrow doesn’t help anyone.  The ability to aggressively pay back the debt and get to a positive cash flow matters a lot.

If I cheat and have a nasty, super-duper grody dripping rack of ribs all by myself but then go run a mile and then eat another sloppy rack of ribs (which is wrong, because ribs do not have to be prepared like that) I’ve not fixed the problem either.  If I got into debt, pay back most of it and then buy a bigger TV on it, but am not saving for retirement I’ve blown it.  If I go into retirement with money saved, but still have stupid amounts of debt, I’ve blown it.  Debt, much like a medical condition that needs attention, can’t be put off indefinitely.

So, watch your diet, watch your spending, take care of any debt or health issues, and don’t be fooled into thinking that we can quickly fix the economic situation with more debt.  More debt doesn’t help like more cholestrol doesn’t help.  Which is why I’m going to stop typing and go eat a carrot.  The Vitamin A will help my eyes so that I can read more of the stuff coming in over the wire on this screen;)

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Those who believe in a large role for governments in the economy believe it was mostly a failure of the free markets and those who believe in free markets believe it was mostly a failure of government that compounded the problem.

This is a false dichotomy.  There is a need for us to recognize the two conceptual entities, but they operate like conjoined twins with the same heart: the people that make them up.  In the United States that is the voters and the consumers, who are not one-and-the-same, but very nearly one-and-the-same.  We elect leaders and while we don’t vote on every issue ourselves, we have an impact as a corporate group.  And as consumers we impact the buying and selling trends.  Peter of Bible Money Matters tweeted earlier today, “Does it seem like a major component of the current financial crisis is fear? Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if everyone didn’t panic.”  The problem is that emotion controls the market to a certain degree.  I’ve written before that emotions cost me a huge amount of money.  Huge.  All because of emotions.  But I am not about to make the false assessment that the consumer and the government are only related superficially and really operate separately.  Its a simple assertion that shifts blame, but the reality is that we’re in this together.

In the Wikipedia section that talks about Debt it is interesting to see how they assert that over-bearing debt leads to a downward spiral of financial catastrophe.  There has been a common mindset in the last several decades that debt lubricates the system and keeps the machine of industry going.  While I will agree that it can help facilitate in some situations, it doesn’t keep the industry going indefinitely and debt that is unchecked clearly leads to collapse or major, major turmoil.  This is true in the American household and also proves out in business and government.  Germany after World War I was so financially beaten down by war debts that their money was hyper-inflated.  The debt killed their economy.  Our current United States dollar is flailing in the water due to its being produced ‘cheaply’ and flooding the market.  Our debt is costing us.

Money Supply is next on the list at Wikipedia.  Interestingly enough the philosophy held by at least some is that the central bank controls the supply of money and that during the great depression the supply of money available on the market was trickled down to a fraction of what was available earlier in the decade.  The problem is that inflation is happening by ‘over-supplying’ the money.  So if over-supply stops the economy from slowing down, but causes inflation, which causes other economic issue you still have to answer the question of why supply of money being more liberal (by which I mean more readily available and am not talking about politics) is overall a better thing?  I imagine that like many things this comes down to moderation.  If the Federal Reserve had loosened things up back in the 30′s it might have been beneficial, but not as loose as they are now, in which case we’ve seen an extreme pendulum swing.

My Own Personal Philosophy

I had a boss at a Christian Book Store in College who made a statement that has set in my mind as an axiom of truth: Good businessmen pay their employees wages that respect the needs of the employee.  This is to say that if the employee needs $1,000.00 a month to live and provide for his family, then that’s what the business person pays the employee.  The business person knows that its better to take moral comfort in knowing that you provided for your employees, and the employees know it, than to drive an insanely expensive vehicle, to live in a mansion, or to die rich, but still be dead.  This is not anti-capitalist.  It is not anti-wealth, it is just encouraging fiscal responsibility.

Furthermore, employees should be willing to work dilligently to make the business profitable or more profitable and not just do the least amount of work possible.  This respects the business person’s leadership and provision.  I work as a contractor for a group of four men who own and operate a company with roughly 50 employees and contractors.  Their respect and care for employees is stunning.  Part of why I have chosen to continue my relationship with them for more than 8 years is because they take care of me.  I work hard to take care of them as well.  They have earned my respect and so I work hard to make sure that their needs are met or exceeded where possible.

The crash of 1929 and the following great depression have some similarities.  Government doesn’t deserve all of the blame, neither do the masses of consumers, or the big businesses.  Instead we all own this responsibility.  We all fail, or we all succeed together.  If this is a recession, a depression or any other financial scenario it is something that we work through as a global community, a nation, a state, a county, a city and a neighborhood.  We work on it together and we grow – that’s something that we need no matter the time.

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There are some genuinely good reasons to have them in town and one of them is that a reader of this very blog will more than likely come into town to support her husband who will more than likely rule the world before its all said and done, and I’d like to have him in my pocket be in his pocket have the right connections.  The financial impact that is suspected to come with this national convention is roughly $160,000,000.00 in currency influx.  They’re expecting a huge crowd at the Bronco stadium (branded Invesco field) for  B. Obama’s acceptance speech.  Big money, big names, and they bring them in with enough people to populate the town I grew up in.  Which, if it were to be receiving the Democratic Nation Convention, would self implode.  Lets hope that the Dems bring money, but its not debt money, we don’t need that in Denver, Colorado or the US Government

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The symptom of debt is actually a symptom of the root problem: lack of self control.  If you understand where your finances are and you maximize your use of the card within the constraints of your budget, you might be able to pay for your family’s vacation in rewards.  James, a long time reader of my blogging (I don’t recall how James found me, but I’ve been grateful for the things I’ve learned from him and his commenting), actually left a comment stating that’s what he does some time ago.

My dad, a financially astute guy, uses his Discover card for as many expenses as he can and maximizes his rewards this way.  I have to admit to thinking this was crack smoking crazy until I realized that I was putting the blame on the wrong thing.  I’m not recommending everyone get as many credit cards as they can or that folks use credit cards if they can’t control themselves when they have access to the credit cards, but I am saying that I recognize that my previous stance was legalism.  As Romans 14:23b states: “…whatever is not from faith is sin.”  Don’t spend a dime that is not spent in reliance on the Lord.  This could be spent virtually with a credit card or literally with cash, but if you’re doing it out of compulsion and not in the abiding life of Christ, then its not the right attitude or way to be spending money in the first place!

This isn’t just a paradigm shift, this is a right-aligning with what the word of God teaches about walking by faith.  If I make a law about credit cards then I have failed to see the fullness of my relationship with Christ in the area I have created the law in.  I died to the law and the nature of the law when I was identified in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.  I’m going to pay off my credit cards, cancel all but one, and then as I abide in Christ, I’ll focus on my heavenly relationship, knowing those earn eternal rewards, and use the Discover to maximize the earthly rewards which might just be used to help those in need (Romans 12:13).

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I mentioned the $4.00 a gallon above. We left on Memorial Day Weekend. This is a classic time for gas stations to jack prices up. Somehow they don’t call it price gouging I watched the price of gas jump by ten cents between Thursday and Saturday when we left. By taking a day off and leaving one day earlier, I could have saved some money (though it would have cost me a day off).

Lastly, we’ve still got one Discover card and this Discover card has a special 5% cash back bonus on various purchased at different times of the year. We’re doing our best to pay off the discover card as quickly as possible. However, since I knew we’d be spending so much money on gas we pre-paid the amount we had budgeted for gas on the discover card to get the cash back bonus. This is part of a paradigm shift I’ve gone through, but I’ll write about that later. Credit cards are a major temptation when our minds aren’t focused on heavenly things and so we get caught up in their trap – a clarifying blog post will be forthcoming. We’re not using credit cards for credit, this was a pre-paid spend that will allow us to get some relief, minor as it is, on the cost of gas. We didn’t use it for anything but pre-paid, known expenses and came out having pre-paid more on the card than we spent. Between June and September Discover is offering 5% cash back on gas – we’re going to participate in that discount.

So: remember to do the gas math, remember to plan, as best as you can, around known pricing schedules, and figure out how to maximize your dollar.

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Dear Johnston, Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to
comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little
you have said to me, “We can get along very well now”; but in a very
short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only
happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I
know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether,
since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day.
You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much,
merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.
This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is
vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you
should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have
longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it,
easier than they can get out after they are in.

You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall
go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody who will give you money for
it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home,
prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best
money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and,
to secure you a fair reward for your labour, I now promise you, that for
every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your
own labour, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then
give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars
a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month
for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or
the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to
go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County.
Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is
better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt
again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would
be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in
heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in
heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the
seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. You say if I
will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don’t
pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can’t
now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have
always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the
contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more
than eighty times eighty dollars to you.

I guess we could call this a guest post by Abraham Lincoln

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