Real Clear Truth

My daughter Elissa asked me to upload a couple of my stories, so here goes the first one…

A conservative friend sent me a news article today which I found intriguing because it serves as a perfect microcosm of how regulated so many issues in our lives are today and all the people who are involved in such issues. For me, this news article would be perfect for instructing students on the forces driving modern society. For example, from this one short piece we see:

• Government bureaucrats who discover a new problem and set about launching new plans, programs and regulations over a multi-year period to deal with the issue.
• Liberal politicians who aren’t satisfied with the glacial pace of the bureaucrats, label the issue a “crisis”,  and pontificate and demand that more things need to be done quicker!
• Reporters who jump onto the issue as a new alarming story to run with.
• Experts who make “findings” that the issue is real, that industry is incapable of dealing with the issue, that government is needed to solve the problem, and who start calling the problem “dangerous”.
• Studies that claim that solving this problem could save 100,000 lives a year!
• Government officials who must now undertake complicated analysis of a wide array of products.
• Public citizens who will be allowed to comment, but who’s support is not needed.
• Health officials who have grown alarmed.
• Government programs failing in their attempt to “educate” consumers of the risks and failing to change consumer behavior.
• Private industry under government pressure racing to deal with government edicts while trying to prevent consumer revolts.
• Industry scientists developing novel solutions to comply with the new edicts while maintaining the factors that compel the purchase of their products.
• Spokesmen for the industry looking to lose the most money, claiming that the science is actually on their side and that the new regulations will create a “disaster”.
• Public interest pioneers who weigh in with their opinions after fighting for such regulations for decades.
• Metropolitan officials who couldn’t wait and have pushed ahead of the leviathan federal regulatory system.
• University researchers who pushed out “recent” studies claiming that even small changes will prevent tens of thousands of health issues.
• Activist scientists, who serve on government advisory committees, who point their finger at one predominate industry as the culprit for all these problems, saying individuals cannot be relied upon to solve the problem, and stating point blank that industry manufactures “have” to change their ways.
• News reports leaving till the end of their reports that the proposed changes will be a “massive and technically challenging” undertaking.
• Psychologists who weigh in on why these changes will be difficult for the public to handle.
• Policymakers who must juggle competing interests and make micro-decisions regarding a multitude of products.
• The marketplace which will judge the results, make adjustments, and possibly make the whole massive undertaking pointless.
• Industry executives who attempt to put a good spin on the issue though clearly under pressure to be politically correct.

And lastly, we have my conservative friend, who because the conservative side of the issue was left out of this news report, was forced to weigh in with her own comments on how this all spells government control of “anything whatever” in our lives.

Incredible.

So what was this new issue that is a “crisis” and that we must undertake massive new government involvement and regulation for?

Why, didn’t you guess? It’s salt!

What a world we live in!

Here’s the link to the actual news story: here.

It has been a huge injustice to me that so many believe our CIA agents engaged in torture of captured al-Qaeda terrorists. People imagine our agents acted somewhat like the fictional agent Jack Bauer of the series “24″. But that is far from the truth. In contrast, we should be quite proud of what our agents accomplished and how well and admirable they did their jobs. Marc Theissen’s article, Meet the Real Jack Bauers, makes this quite clear. Here’s just one quote:

Gardner Peckham, the former national-security adviser to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, recalls having a long conversation late one night with one of the [CIA]  interrogators when he was conducting his review. This was “a very dedicated, capable guy who told me that he had been in with KSM one day, and KSM had basically said to him matter-of-factly, ‘If I ever get out of this hole, I’m going to kill you and your entire family.’ We were sitting there at nine o’clock at night or something, and he said to me, ‘You know, I work long days; this is hard. When I get down about it, I just think back to the film footage of the two people standing on the window of the World Trade Center on the 90-something floor, grasping each other by the hand and stepping out into space.’ He said, ‘I think of those two people, and I just go back to work.’”

Here’s a family photo we took right before Christmas. From left to right is Lalo (my daughter Natalie’s Peruvian husband), Josiah (age 16), Natalie (age 26), Elisha (age 20), Elissa (who turned 18 the day of the photo), my wife Ann, and finally me. I also sang my first ever duet with my daughter Natalie on Christmas eve at her church.

I’m on a email list where a center-left pastor made this comment:

I was taken “shooting” on Christmas with some [Christian] gun enthusiasts at their club, and all they could talk about was how Obama was regulating them and how the costs had gone up for their ammunition.  I doubt if Obama has spent one minute figuring out a way to regulate ammunition for gun enthusiasts, but that was their perception!  And they want the government to stay far away from health care, and global warming/climate control.  But they want the government right in the middle of gay marriage!  I have a hard time finding the common thread!  But perhaps there is someone who can help bring light!

This made me smile. I can just imagine this pastor shaking his head at these conservative gun enthusiasts and how they want the government to back off in the their own areas of self interest while at the same time urging the government to push restrictions on others. How indeed does one make sense of this?!

First, just because conservatives want limited government in no way means we want NO government. Even conservatives recognize that government is needed in certain areas, like establishing a military for our defense, or creating laws for a decent and civil society. We just want things kept to a reasonable minimum because we know that in general, the more laws and regulations government passes, the larger and more powerful the government becomes, the less liberty each of us will have and the less we will personally be able to be responsible or accountable for our lives and the lives of our families. In our view, for example, welfare is what contributed in large part to the destruction of the black family, which used to be quite strong.

But conservatives are not libertarians.

Libertarians want as much liberty as possible, so long as your liberties don’t cross the line and infringe on me. Conservatives, on the other hand, add to the desire for liberty, a desire for wisdom that has been taught us over the generations (and especially through the Bible). Wisdom shows us what things can lead to the fall of our society, and what things we need to nurture and protect. American conservatives have especially been endeared to the wisdom of our founding fathers and the amazing documents they created for us over two centuries ago.

Truly, conservatives want to conserve the wisdom and principles of our founding fathers. I for one, honestly believe that Providence guided them. I think God did so because He knew what would be required to protect liberty in the twentieth century from Nazism and communism. And I don’t want to lose what God has bequeathed us.

So yes, there is a moral component to conservatism. We do want the government to set certain moral restraints. An unborn baby is a person no matter how small it is and deserving of respect and value. Marriage is principally meant to care and provide for children which deserve both a mother and father. But such standards don’t expand the size of the government. Health care does. Drastically so. And in a manner that moves towards a socialistic solution which history shows us simply doesn’t work.

As I wrote previously on this email list:

What do conservatives hope their game plan will achieve for the world?  They hope it will facilitate Godly wisdom and thereby increase accountability, responsibility and individual decency while also restraining destructive behaviors and protecting our civil society.

I meant exactly that. Conservatives don’t want to just allow anything. We do want to restrain destructive behaviors that we believe will hurt our society. At the same time we want to encourage personal accountability and responsibility. And to do that we need a limited government that grants us lots of liberty.

How about you? Does that make sense?

I have followed global warming for some time now but was surprised recently to discover just how ignorant I have been. I have read excellent articles on the subject from world renown scientists (like this article by Richard Lindzen), but somehow they have missed key information I was unaware of until I watched this video by Lord Moncton, the former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher.

I came across Lord Monckton because I was interested in what was being learned in the release of documents and emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Very little is being reported currently but it is actually quite sensational. If you don’t believe me, try reading Lord Monckton’s summary on it here.

For example, here he lists the steps these major global warming scientists took to thwart scientific verification of their results:

This is a copy of the letter I sent my two senators from Arizona this week:

Dear Seantor McCain,

I’m a conservative Arizonan, but I haven’t been too happy with the Republican proposals I’ve seen for health-care reform, especially when it comes to pre-existing conditions. So how about a real compromise?

Why not give Democrats single-payer universal coverage – but only for catastrophic care, while basic care would be covered exclusively by health savings accounts that could be rolled over?

Pay for the catastrophic care with a new payroll tax, that employers pay half of, and require the dollars employers currently spend on health insurance to be transferred to people’s salaries (minus the part for the new tax).

The health savings accounts could work just as they do now, except allowing the money to be rolled over. The same companies that currently manage such accounts could also manage when the catastrophic deductible has been reached and bill the government when it is exceeded.

The deductible itself could be means tested, lower for people with lower incomes and higher for those that are richer. The lowest income people could even be given a tax credit to help pay part of their deductible.

The point is to let people spend their own money and allow the market to truly function. But the catastrophic insurance guarantees that no one need ever be checked for pre-existing conditions, and very few people would ever face bankruptcy due to medical costs. Health insurance companies would largely not be needed, as people would use their own money, and the market would truly function, without the need for much regulation.

The catastrophic insurance would still need regulations and cost controls, but since that insurance would be used by fewer people, hopefully such controls would not distort the market substantially.

And while tort and MediCare reform would be nice, those reforms are of course politically infeasible, so leave them as is.

The more I considered the problem of pre-existing conditions, and the inadequate conservative proposals to solve the problem, the more I realized the Democrats may partially be correct. And what better way to broker a bipartisan solution, then by giving the Democrats a large part of what they want?

I saw an interesting video on YouTube regarding Global Warming called, How It All Ends. The science teacher who created these videos suggests we look at GW from the angle of risk management and proceeds to break the problem up into four possibilities. He creates a chart with two rows and two columns. The two rows represent whether GW will happen or not. And the two columns represent whether we take significant action to stop GW or not. 

Thus, there are four possibilities: 

1) We take action but GW doesn’t happen. The risk here is that the economic hardship of fighting GW could lead to a global depression.

2) We take action and GW DOES happen. In this case we will be glad we DID take action.

3) We don’t take action and GW doesn’t happen. In which case, life goes on as normal.

4) We don’t take action and GW DOES happen. And here is the worst case, where mankind devolves into famine, war and economic hardship.

This teacher’s videos have been seen approximately ten million times and now he has a book coming out in June. I liked his logical approach, so here is my logical response.

Ten logical problems with the chart: 

1) Even if GW is true and we do nothing, there is no way to know HOW BAD things will get. Hurricanes may NOT actually get worse. Who can say for sure? Yes, water may rise, but at such a slow rate that we have time to deal with it. The same can be said for forced relocations, droughts, water shortages, etc. How bad things get largely depends on how QUICKLY GW changes the climate. GW may not be near as bad — if it simply takes decades to happen. 

2) Even if GW is true and we do nothing, not everything will be bad. Plants thrive on CO2. GW may actually help us to grow MORE food than ever — just not in the places we have been used to. The point is that you have to balance the GOOD with the BAD that will happen. Some of this is simply a question of how much it will cost us to ADAPT to climate changes – not how much the on-going costs will be – which may be minor when all things are considered. 

3) Even if GW is true and it’s true that GW will trigger a climatic tipping point, it is quite possible that we’ve already gone TOO FAR and such a tipping point is now inevitable. In such a case, why waste precious resources trying to stop the inevitable? Better to use our resources to deal with whatever bad events happen due to GW. In other words, the box that shows us taking action and thankful that we did may well be an illusion. 

4) Even if GW pushes us to a tipping point, if that tipping point takes decades to play out, then we still have far more time to deal with those consequences than an economic tipping point that could realistically be tipped in a matter of HOURS — if the global economy is stressed too greatly by the actions taken to prevent GW. Economic collapses can happen overnight. A GW tipping point provides MUCH more time to deal with by comparison. 

5) We’re asked to choose a column, but how do we assess the risk of those two columns? The risk of chaos and war are very real with an economic depression. Moreover, global depression could easily HALT all attempts at stopping GW allowing it happen anyway. Why in the world would we want to pick the column that could cause BOTH column’s disasters to happen? Think about that! 

6) The chart simplifies between “significant” action and “insignificant”. But what if there were actions we could do that would reduce GW significantly AND cost us relatively little? Nuclear energy is a clear alternative that would be cheap enough to employ AND would drastically cut down on our CO2 emissions. Nuclear is a “significant” action that WON’T create a disaster — making a perfect “middle” column. 

7) Why not WAIT to take action? The longer we wait, the more advanced our technologies will get — in many fields. Drought may become meaningless if we can desalinize sea water cheaply enough. So why not wait and apply our best technologies as problems come up? The sooner we take action, the more COSTLY it will be — given our more primitive technologies. In the mean time, create X-prizes to spur real innovation and breakthroughs. 

8 ) Some actions have benefit regardless of GW. Reducing dependence on Middle-East oil could fundamentally alter the global political landscape, changing our future in ways we cannot imagine. There are not just TWO rows (GW true or false). There are also rows of war (or not) over oil. Economic hardship (or not) depending on the price of oil. Some actions are beneficial regardless of GW, and they should be taken REGARDLESS of the column one picks. 

9) What if GW is false and we take very costly action to stop a LIE? We not only risk economic hardships, but we risk losing political and scientific integrity as well. That may sound insignificant, but it could lead people to choose alternatives like fascist governments, or not listening to scientists when they announce the NEXT big scare. The point is that there is HUGE risk either way we go. Don’t pretend there isn’t. 

10) The choice is NOT between taking action or not. The choice is between taking REASONABLE actions or unreasonable ones. Some actions, no matter how much they may help, are simply intolerable (killing half the world’s population for example). Taxing the world into poverty is also a clear non-starter. The solution is to find actions that are reasonable, and START with the actions that are clear “no-brainers”. 

What’s the point? Well, the chart shows us that we ONLY control which column we are in. But it doesn’t really help us decide WHICH column is best to pick. Worse, it pushes for an all or nothing approach, but there is simply NO REASON for an all or nothing approach. Far better to take a REASONABLE approach and find a MIDDLE column. Yes? 

What do you think?

Normally, we develop close friends with those we share things in common with. Unfortunately, even if we share a number of things in common, there usually are other areas where we can readily find disagreements. The very possibility of such disagreements can lead us to avoid making friends with otherwise decent people simply because we know they hold views that differ from ours. We may be friendly, but we won’t pursue a close friendship with such people.

But perhaps we should reconsider.

We all know the chapter on love in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13). It talks about being long-suffering and bearing all things. While such love is certainly good, long-suffering doesn’t sound exactly like the peaceful, restful or restoring type of relationship we seek with close friends. Being loving like this may need to be our behavior towards those who are difficult. But surely we don’t need to be taught how to love our dearest friends. 

Or do we? 

Consider verse seven, where it says that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”. 

The Greek word for “bear” in that verse means to “cover”, that is, to provide a cover of protection from something which threatens (and to endure in so doing). Interestingly, one type of cover that the Greek word can refer to is to “cover with silence”, as in to “hide or conceal the errors and faults of others”. 

In other words, we do not always need to “correct the heresies” or point out the faults of others. One essence of love is to protect the precious from the things that threaten it. And deep friendship is precious. 

But also consider what the Greek word for “believe” means in this verse. It means to think something is true. To be persuaded of it and to place your confidence in it. Love does not dwell on why something may fail. It does not despair of what may go wrong. Love holds out confidence. Even more, this word can mean to entrust something to someone. Confident belief enables entrusting what is precious. Even deep friendship. 

The Greek word for “hope” isn’t the English word that means we hope things will go well. The Greek word means we have full trust in something or someone. We have confidence because our hope (our trust) becomes the foundation we build on, a foundation we firmly rely on. Love like this doesn’t presume disappointment. It searches for what can be trusted in and builds on what it discovers. 

The Greek word for “endure” doesn’t just mean to endure ill treatments. Its primary meaning is to “remain”. That is, to not flee or run away, but to instead tarry with someone. Love sticks fast. It holds on. It stays. 

Love remains because there is something precious to remain for. Love trusts because there is something precious to put our hope in. Love is persuaded to believe because there is something precious that needs to be entrusted. Love protects because there is something very precious that needs covering from our faults that would otherwise ruin it. 

Love does not endure because it must. Love endures because of the joy it brings.

Think about it.

Dean

Lee Grady of Charisma magazine wrote a column (here) concerning evangelist Todd Bentley’s restoration from sin he now admits to. Rick Joyner, who is the lead pastor for the restoration process, responded with an email (here) that he didn’t expect would be published and sounds somewhat harsh. I have been following Rick’s video updates (here) but I have also read the plentiful comments on the Chrisma website regarding this issue. After some consideration, I finally wrote up my take on this issue… 

I appreciate Lee Grady’s heart to rebuke the sin in our midst, to grieve over the harm and confusion brought to the church, and his desire to see leaders truly embrace biblical standards of character and integrity. I hear the cry of his heart. And I think God does too. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Lee has felt the heart of God on the travesty of sin that has abounded in the church for far too long and shows pitifully little indication of ever abating. 

Indeed, where are the ones who mourn what has become the church? Where are the ones who rend their hearts in tears and wailing? Where are the leaders who will confront sin for what it is – a horrendous blemish on what is meant to be a pure and undefiled bride? 

And yet. 

And yet in this particular situation a process of restoration has only just begun. Why rush to make comment right now? Why not wait to see what happens? Why not talk to the people directly involved? 

If we truly ever want to root sin out of the church, is Lee’s approach of a column written early on, with few facts and done from afar the way to do it? 

Thankfully, the leaders involved in Todd Bentley’s situation are NOT treating this issue lightly. Nor are they seeking to simply “nurse his wounds”, “ignore people he wounded”, or extend “greasy grace” to him. Or at least that’s what they say. Given that, it seems reasonable to give this process some time before groaning and venting one’s frustration in a national column. 

But alas there are deeper issues here. 

One is Lee’s discomfort with things that went on at Lakeland even before Todd’s fallout. Thus, when Lee says that “we charismatics still seem to have a habit of elevating gifting above character”, he’s not just referring to Todd’s character in regards to infidelity. He’s also referring to all the other controversial issues that happened at Lakeland and on which he has previously written. 

I agree with Lee that the attitude that roughly says the “end justifies the means” is a “perversion of biblical integrity”. But I do not agree with Lee’s point that since God can anoint “any man or woman with the Holy Spirit’s Power”, that means that God is only really looking for “vessels of honor that can carry that anointing with dignity, humility and purity”. 

Yes of course God is looking for purity and integrity. But he is also looking for who will go for Him. And that requires faith. 

Does that mean that Todd is indispensible? No. But it does mean that he is rare. 

Either he is a talented con-man, deceiver and liar. Or, he is an immature and perhaps tragic figure who has an incredible level of faith and willingness to put his faith on the line in a way that very, very few in the church do. That Lee appears to have been jaded by so many charlatans in the church that he doesn’t perceive the significance of faith, is to me a significant shortcoming on his part. 

Does God prefer to use someone who has abundant flaws but the faith few do? Or does He rather use someone who has impeccable character, and yet is unable to be used in many ways due to limited faith? 

My read of the Bible makes the answer pretty clear – at least to me. I see a God who is thrilled by faith when He sees it. A God who has filled scriptures with heroes of the faith. One who honors them greatly. And at the same time, He is a God who bluntly exposes their sin. 

Are we to tolerate sin? May it never be! 

But maybe. Just maybe. We should be thrilled by what thrills God. At the same time we are grieved by what grieves Him. 

Think about it.

The Obama administration says that its plans to remove up to $1 trillion in toxic loans from banks’ books, called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility — or TALF, could be announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as early as Monday. AP reports that, “if banks are not burdened by the soured loans, then they would be in better shape to resume more normal lending”.

AP says that, “Geithner’s new plan is meant to attack what is widely viewed as the major failure of the bailout program so far: the inability to rid banks of a mountain of soured loans and troubled mortgage-backed securities”.

How will the plan work?

The plan is said to be composed of three major parts all of which rely on some form of partnership between the government and private investors. One form of partnership would involve the government “matching private investors dollar for dollar” in buying up toxic assets and then later “sharing any profits equally”. The other partnerships involve the government loaning private investors money to buy up the troubled assets.

But there’s a problem. AP continues:

Some industry officials said that participation by the private sector may be harmed because potential investors will now be worried that the government will change the terms of the deal or impose new restrictions because of the current political backlash against Wall Street.

Hedge funds and other big investors are likely to be more leery of accepting the government’s enticements to purchase these assets, fearing tighter government restraints in such areas as executive compensation.

So the plan that everybody has been waiting for. The plan that will address the “major failure” of the bailout program. The plan that our government is putting great hopes in getting us out of our current economic mess. It likely won’t be successful.

Why?  Because private investors are “leery” of getting into a partnership with a government they can’t trust and don’t know what to expect from next.

Think I am exaggerating? Here’s what Joe Nocera in the New York Times says:

How can you run a company when the rules keep changing, when you have to worry about being second-guessed by Congress? Who can do business under those circumstances?

Take, for instance, that new securitization program the government is trying to get off the ground, [the TALF]. Although it is backed by large government loans, it requires people in the marketplace — Wall Street bankers! — to participate.

This program could help revive the consumer credit market. But at this point, most Wall Street bankers would rather be attacked by wild dogs than take part. They fear that they’ll do something — make money perhaps? — that will arouse Congressional ire. Or that the rules will change. “The constant flip-flopping is terrible,” said Simon Johnson, a banking expert who teaches at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Business.

Andy McCarthy in the National Review puts it this way:

To have the slightest prayer of succeeding, Geithner’s program will require the close cooperation of private enterprise. But based on the last two months, what private business in its right mind would trust this government or willingly collaborate with it?  Even now, relatively healthy financial institutions that took the TARP money are desperate to return it and get out from under Big Brother’s thumb.

Nocera says that, “By week’s end, I was more depressed about the financial crisis than I’ve been since last September. Back then, the issue was the disintegration of the financial system, as the Lehman bankruptcy set off a terrible chain reaction. Now I’m worried that the political response is making the crisis worse.”

But it’s not just that Congress is destabilizing the banking industry. It’s also devaluing the very assets Congress has acquired using the hard-earned money of taxpayers. Nocera continues:

During his testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Liddy pointed out that much of the money the government turned over to A.I.G. was a loan, not a gift. The company’s goal, he kept saying, was to pay that money back. But how? Mr. Liddy’s plan is to sell off the healthy insurance units — or, failing that, give them to the government to sell when they can muster a good price.

In other words, it is in the taxpayers’ best interest to position A.I.G. as a company with many profitable units, worth potentially billions, and one bad unit that needs to be unwound. Which, by the way, is the truth. But as [banking consultant] Mr. Ely puts it, “the indiscriminate pounding that A.I.G. is taking is destroying the value of the company.” Potential buyers are wary. Customers are going elsewhere. Employees are looking to leave. Treating all of A.I.G. like Public Enemy No. 1 is a pretty dumb way for a majority shareholder to act when he hopes to sell the company for top dollar.

Mark Steyn of the National Review puts it more bluntly when commenting on Nocera’s column: “The political class has done nothing this last week but destroy the wealth of this country”.

Once again I ask, who in Congress will stand up and lead responsibly??

Populist anger over Wall Street bonuses is driving Congress to act rashly and irresponsibly. Hopefully, the proposed 90% tax won’t actually make it into law, or if it does, perhaps we can count on the courts to strike it down. But in some ways it doesn’t matter. Harm has already been done to the sector that decidedly didn’t need any further destabilization at this time.

Consider these quotes from a Bloomberg news article on how the banks are reacting to Congress’ 90% tax proposal:

JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon held a conference call with about 200 executives, saying the firm is concerned about retention and is working with lawmakers.

“People are very anxious about this getting too widespread, this notion that no one on Wall Street or in banking deserves any money,” said Seamus McMahon, a consultant with Booz & Co. in New York, who works with financial firms.

Banks, worried that the proposals are distracting employees, are trying to reassure staff and keep them focused on clients.

[Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis] said the taxes could cause “unintended harm” and delay the recovery of the financial system. “I am very concerned about our ability to retain some of our most valuable associates,” Lewis wrote in his memo. “The very best performers on our team will always have offers from competitors.”

“The work we have all done to try to stabilize the financial system and to get this economy moving again would be significantly set back if we lose our talented people because Congress imposes a special tax on financial services employees,” [Citigroup’s CEO Vikram Pandit] said in a memo.

Jes Staley, head of JPMorgan’s asset-management unit, said [in an email to his employees] that the bank is “working hard on all of the challenges we are currently facing. Thank you sincerely for staying focused on our clients and our business.”

Please understand the significance of even the threat of this tax. Not only is it already causing problems with retention of the key employees needed to keep the banks functioning. The banks are having to scramble simply trying to keep their employees focused on their work!

If you’re wondering why Congress only made the tax 90% and didn’t go for all 100%, consider that these people will have to pay local taxes on their bonuses as well. In some localities, this will actually add up to over 100% of their bonus!

And consider that this is a retroactive tax. Because many of the people had no idea their bonuses would be taxed, they have already spent the money, putting them in the predicament of having to come up with money now to repay it — which in some cases will be hard if not impossible to do.

You may say, but these are the fat cats, the stinking rich. Who cares about their problems? But because this is based on household income, that means that an average professional who happens to be married to a well-paid lawyer, for example, will have ALL of their bonus taken away. Why stay in a profession if your income will be indefinitely capped this way?

In other words, firms that are subject to this tax will lose LOTS of talented people, not just the richest executives. Their loss is OUR loss because we have invested taxpayer money in the hopes that these firms will turn around and help our economy recover. Instead, we are striking another blow at an industry that hardly needs further destabilization at this time.

But it gets worse.

John Hinderaker of the PowerLine blog, who is a lawyer and fellow of the Claremont Institute, writes (here) how this law potentially poses a serious threat to our rights under the Constitution:

If the Pelosi bill is actually enacted into law (which I still think is doubtful) and upheld by the courts, there is no limit to the arbitrary power of Congress. In that event, we have no property rights and there is no Constitution–no equal protection clause, no due process clause, no impairment of contracts clause, no bill of attainder/ex post facto law clause. Instead, we are living in a majoritarian tyranny.

If Congress can appease a howling mob of demagogues by enacting discriminatory tax legislation against a group of people who are, for the moment, politically unpopular, even though the vast majority of them have nothing to do with the supposed problems that have given rise to popular outcry, then the idea that the Constitution affords us any sort of protection against arbitrary government power is an illusion.

This is exactly the ruin that is caused when a lynch mob atmosphere pushes Congress to foolishly pass laws with little or no thought to the ramifications of their actions. Who in Congress will stand up and lead responsibly??

Everybody from Washington to talk radio is up in arms over the AIG bonuses. How dare AIG give out bonuses when the American taxpayer is bailing them out! Congressmen are demanding names and declaring that if the money isn’t given back that they’ll pass a special tax to take the bonuses away. Americans are outraged!

Hmm.

Well, I thought I would wait a little to hear details on AIG’s bonus scandal before getting outraged myself. I’m glad I did. It turns out these were “retention” bonuses. That is, these bonuses were contracted to be given out solely for a person staying on with AIG to a given date. In other words, these were incentives designed to keep key people from bailing ship. If too many key people leave a company too quickly, the company won’t be able to function properly. 

Many companies do this. The U.S. government does this. The military does this. Companies do this especially when it is likely that key employees will leave – like when the company is going into hard times. 

Given that the U.S. government now owns the majority share in AIG, why would we want the company to lose key people whose loss could substantially hurt the company? Don’t we want the company to be healthy and able to pay us back? 

I was especially disappointed with one conservative talk radio host who said that these people aren’t worth giving bonuses to and most anybody could have done a better job than they did. This sounded very foolish to me.

Imagine an airplane company like Boeing going through a similar crisis. Would we want Boeing to lose its key people? Could they be replaced by just anybody? I think not.

Now maybe you’re thinking Boeing couldn’t do something as stupid as AIG did. 

But what if somebody came up with a new fangled material to build airlines out of? And what if the entire industry switched over to using this new material because it had a lot of wonderful properties and made everybody lots of money? Maybe a few people noticed certain problems with this new material, but when the entire industry switches over to it, those voices just aren’t heard. And so when it eventually comes out that the material has a terrible flaw, the entire industry is in deep trouble. 

But does that mean we throw everybody out and start with people who know nothing about building airlines? I would hope not! 

No, it is vital to retain key people. And it is quite accepted that one way you retain such people is through retention bonuses — given at the very time the company is at greatest risk of losing those people. But I guess that is just too hard to explain to the American public, so now these key people have to be publicly humiliated (and maybe even drawn and quartered).

Which in my eyes will only do long term damage to the relationship between business and government. But apparently nobody cares about that. That will simply be another unintended consequence in the hunt for scapegoats instead of soberly assessing where the real blame for this mess lies. 

But that’s just how I’m seeing this. How about you?

A friend said he wondered, “how much of ‘Christianity’ in the US is primarily cultural rather coming from a heart-devotion to Jesus?”

I was intrigued by this thought. For me, much of life is culturally determined. Not just in the U.S., but in most places and in most times. Even church has its own culture. We get used to how things are done and we just follow along because that’s the easy thing to do. 

It seems it is the rare person who stops and says, wait a moment, there must be more.

I am of the mind that the Bible is largely about those who weren’t contained by their culture and what it expects, but believed in more. It is about people of faith. Faith that is real. And real because they believed that God is really real.

Culture says “do this” because that’s what we expect. And we do it to fit in and avoid the scorn of people. Even in church.

Faith, on the other hand, says I’ll do this because I love Him, and because I trust in Him more than in my culture – even when that culture is based on all that is good. 

To me, it comes down to which is more real. We live out our lives in our culture. It pervades our lives and thinking in ways we don’t even realize. It is the epitome of what we know to be real. 

And yet there is something more real. Or, I should say, there is someone that is more real than our culture. It’s when He becomes real in our lives that things truly change. We have someone real to live for. 

But it’s so easy to live for our culture instead. 

If there’s anything we need to do, it is to wake up each morning and refocus on who we are living our lives for.

Who (or what) do you live for?

Everyone wants to opine on, or simply discover who’s to blame for our current financial crisis. But how about looking at this from the point of view of what really changed here.

Haven’t people always been ignorant or greedy, for example willing to sign for a loan they had no way of ever repaying? Not much change there.

Haven’t there always been unethical companies willing to exploit people, for example by convincing people that they could afford the loan they were signing? Not much change there.

Haven’t there always been pandering politicians who bend rules trying to help their constituents, for example by urging banks to approve sub-prime loans so that more people could own homes? Not much change there.

Hasn’t Wall Street’s greed always pushed them to find clever new ways to make more money, and isn’t that what we call “capitalism”? Definitely not much change there.

And haven’t investors always looked for “safe” investments that pay higher returns than average? Not much change there either. 

So what changed that led to this mess? 

What changed was that Wall Street discovered a really clever way to pass off incredibly bad investments as the highest rated triple-A investments. Their trick fooled the entire world. Without that trick, all the greed, corruption, pandering and ignorance would not have gone near as far as this bubble did. 

Wall Street’s new financial tool, the CDO, was the gas that made this fire roar. 

The irony is that the CDO wasn’t created as a way to scam investors. It was created to solve complicated financing problems, to spread out risk, and other legitimate business reasons. But once it was created, it enabled the greed and corruption that is inherently in the system to get way out of hand. 

Normally, bubbles can only get so big because only so many investors can be fooled to take on the risk involved. But the CDO’s enabled Wall Street to hide the risk from a world of investors, allowing this bubble to get huge and effecting the lives of people literally in every corner of the globe – whether they be greedy, corrupt, ignorant or simply hopelessly naïve.

What do you think?

NBC’s business channel CNBC is running a program called, “House of Cards” that explains in better detail than I’ve seen anywhere else what events led to the creation of the housing bubble. It’s easy for conservatives to blame liberals like Barney Frank who pushed for a lessening of mortgage standards (with the well-intentioned but misguided motive of seeking increased home ownership), as what caused this bubble, but there is much more to this house of cards than that. In fact, if you take this CNBC program at face value, it would seem Congress only played a minor role in what took place. 

As in any perfect storm, several things had to come together for a bubble of this size to materialize. The first thing was 911. Wanting to keep our economy from collapsing and in order to keep liquidity in the market, Alan Greenspan cut interest rates dramatically. He knew this would cause a bubble in consumer spending spurred by increased credit from refinanced mortgages, but that wasn’t his primary motive. His primary motive was simply to keep our financial markets liquid and functioning. 

A second factor was major scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Previously, because these two institutions were the primary buyers of mortgages, they set the rules for who could qualify for what. But once their reputation was tarnished, their standards were no longer considered golden and other, far less scrupulous companies starting pushing their own considerably less strict rules. It was only later that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac joined the train that had already left the station, and lessened their rules as well. 

But these lessened standards would have gone nowhere had there not been buyers for these sub-prime mortgages. So here we have a third factor. Wall Street had come up with a new way for dealing with risk. They simply cut up things like mortgages into many pieces and then spread out the risk to many investors using new instruments called CDO’s – or Collateralized Debt Obligations. 

But this also would have gone nowhere if the ratings agencies hadn’t rated these new CDO’s as triple-A rated securities. And why did they do that? Well, for one, they didn’t really understand these new CDO’s. Almost nobody did. Even Alan Greenspan who had hundreds of Ph.D.’s at his disposal said he didn’t understand some of them. 

Which means that Wall Street had come up with a fancy way to pass off bad debt without anybody realizing what they were actually buying. 

But it gets worse. 

A second problem with the ratings agencies (and the Wall Street banks) was that they had a lot of young people working on these issues who had never experienced a severe financial downturn. The ratings agencies actually started to believe that housing prices would NEVER go down! They built this assumption directly into their computer models and the models told them these debts were safe. After all, home prices were surging and virtually no borrowers were defaulting. What could go wrong? 

And this led to another problem. The ratings agencies competed with each other for the business of Wall Street, but if you rated a investment product poorly, and your competitor didn’t, then Wall Street would simply go back to the rating agency that gave them the ratings they wanting to see. Thus, the ratings agency had a direct incentive to NOT question their models and to turn a blind eye to any dissenting opinions. 

But it gets worse. 

The feds could have stopped this bubble but they didn’t. Why? Well first they weren’t even aware of how large this bubble had become. Alan Greenspan said he couldn’t believe numbers a staffer showed him and told the staffer the numbers just had to be wrong. Sub-prime mortgages simply couldn’t be that large of a percentage of all mortgages! 

Second, the feds presumed the banks would manage their risks appropriately. They couldn’t imagine that banks would allow the risk to get that out of hand. 

Third, the economic boom was great for everybody. Given that the only way to stop a bubble is to burst it, and given that so much good was coming out of the economy, and with so many more people than ever owning homes, then why do you want to stop it? Moreover, even if you do think it should be stopped, the feds knew Congress would be VERY unhappy to see a downturn in the economy caused by bursting the bubble, so you tell yourself you just can’t do anything about it. 

But it gets worse. 

Once the “food-chain” was created that was enriching so many people, it was impossible to stop it.  Wall Street was making tons of money off of repackaging these loans so they wanted more. If one Wall Street firm tightened up its rules for the kinds of mortgages they wanted, then the other firms would snap up the mortgages you didn’t want and you would lose the money. The mortgage originators were finding new ways to make loans to ANYBODY, no matter how unlikely it was that the loan could be repaid, and Wall Street was rewarding them by buying up those loans, so any originator who didn’t follow suit was quickly left out of the stream of cash that was flowing to everybody. 

Everybody was making money. Homeowners who refinanced. Mortgage originators who gave mortgages to anybody. Wall Street who chopped up the mortgages and resold them in the CDO’s. Ratings agencies who were paid to rate all these CDO’s. Local governments who profited from the inflated home values. State governments who profited from increased spending. Feds who profited politically from increased homeownership. 

The whole world made money. The world became richer. Millions upon millions were literally lifted out of poverty because of this bubble. And someone was supposed to stop this? 

Not very likely. 

So who’s to blame for this mess? 

Alan Greenspan says it’s the nature of human greed. Humans will always do this, and this kind of a mess will certainly happen again. While that’s likely true, the thing that is most to blame in my view for this present mess is Wall Street’s creation of these CDO’s. The ratings agencies should never have rating many of these CDO’s as triple-A securities. Their models were clearly in error and they have the wrong incentive structure. But it was the complexity of these CDO’s that made it inevitable that the true risk would not be understood or appreciated. It was because of the complexity that investors world-wide had no idea what they were really investing in and forced them to trust the rating agencies. And it was in large part the complexity that allowed the rating agencies to fool themselves. 

Which isn’t to say that the CDO’s weren’t masterful creations by brilliant and well-intentioned math geniuses. But their creations clearly got way out of hand. 

CNBC’s program will replay a few more times including Monday night (Feb 16^th), so check it out yourself.

What do you think?

I’m a conservative who is not altogether thrilled that Obama is our new president. However, it is apparent to me that many on the conservative side simply don’t understand just how ambitious president Obama is or where he is trying to take us.

This became obvious on reading a recent column (see here) on Obama’s inaugural address by Dennis Prager. Now I’ve listened to Dennis for years, but recently I’ve tired of listening to him partly because he can’t seem to put himself in the Left-wing person’s perspective to see why they would say the things they do. I’m afraid Left of center people reading his column would simply think that Dennis just doesn’t get it. Thus his arguments, even if correct, largely miss the mark. 

I often hear Dennis say, as he does once in his column on Obama’s address, that he’ll read something several times and still not understand what the writer was referring to.  Now in some cases, maybe a given line is meaningless. But in a speech like Obama’s inaugural address, there are reasons each line exist, as the speech has been reworked and edited countless times. And while it may be the fault of the writer for not making his point clear, it still tells us something when we don’t understand what the point is. It should tell us that there is a larger context or perspective that we are missing, and by missing that larger context we are missing what is really being said by the speech. 

For me, the larger context in this case is that Obama truly wants to transform America, and ultimately the world. He has a Left-wing utopian view of how America could be and his speech is laying the groundwork for that. 

Thus, when he says, “we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.” What he is saying is that we will never get to that utopia as long as we keep playing politics as usual. When you are planning the transformation of our country, many of the things that block the way begin to look “petty” and “worn out”. We simply don’t have time for grievances that are small when viewed from the perspective of how they are blocking our progress. We simply don’t have time for dogmas that indicate you aren’t willing to think of how to make this utopia work, nor do we have time for promises that everything will be better when things remain hard for so many. 

You got to understand what Obama is trying to do here. In my view, Obama is the first “utopian realist”. He’s not just starry-eyed assuming that if we do a few Left-wing things, utopia will be upon us. No, he sees how difficult this will be, but he has the “audacity of hope” to believe we can figure it out and make it happen. 

While certainly scary, because I well know how naïve Left-wing people are in these matters, it is also amazing to see this rarely rivaled level of ambition. He is attempting something few people in history have attempted. And the striking thing is how calm he is in doing this. 

Look, we were all surprised at how moderate some of Obama’s cabinet choices were. But why is he moderate in some respects? Why did his speech contain a number of lines that even conservatives could applaud? Is it because he is trying to build a broad coalition to better help him push through his agenda? Is it because he is saving his political capital for the really Left-wing things he wants? Or is it because he is a Left-wing “realist” who isn’t as naïve about the world as we’ve long assume Left-wing people are? 

Anyway, here’s how I took what Obama was saying – which is not at all to say that I agree with it (transcript of address is here)… 

“We will restore science to its rightful place.” He is saying that Bush allowed politics to trump science, particularly when it came to global warming but also with embryonic stem cell research. I’m sure Obama would say that ethics need to trump science, but “morals” are more connected with religion and religion, at least for a person on the left, need to be kept separate. 

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” This is where Obama is attempting to transcend the old left/right divide. Conservatives always want smaller government. Liberals always want larger government. Obama wants something more. He wants whatever will work. This means cutting things that don’t work and creating things that do. This means working with whoever has the ideas to make things work. This means leaving behind the old dogmas and left/right stereotypical positions that keep us from discovering what will work. 

“(The market’s) power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and that a  nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.” The left-wing perspective on the market is that it was not regulated enough. Lax regulations favor the prosperous, but eventually things spin out of control causing the entire nation to be harmed. Thus, while free markets do great good, we need a “watchful eye” that will reign them in and prevent them from harming us. 

“We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” When we strip prisoners of basic human rights, when we torture them, rendition them to secretive prisons, and hold them indefinitely; when we invade the privacy of citizens, engage in warrantless searches, and so on, we have diminished the ideals of our society and forfeited our moral standing in the world. But realism tells us that we do indeed live in a dangerous world where safety cannot be assumed. So once again, we simply have to transcend the way things have been done in the past and find solutions that will keep us safe while at the same time maintaining our moral standards.  We reject the choice put before us because we have the audacity to hope for better. 

“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.” America is a microcosm and our diversity dispels the notion that a divided world cannot live and prosper together. We have proven that hatreds can be overcome and we show how diversity can strengthen us. We are strengthened because we learn from each other, solve our common problems together and overcome our bigotries as we see how we are all humans together attempting to create a better place to live. 

“We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.” Martin Luther King had a dream – a dream that is being lived out today as I (Obama) take office. The old hatreds do pass and we can believe that more will pass as we see each other not as distinct tribes, categories and classes of people, but as fellow humans who dream not so unlike we do. The world we envision may be a dream, but we have the audacity to dream it and not to grow faint in working for it to come to pass. We cannot help but believe. 

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.” We are setting out to transform America. The world will see what we can do when we put our minds to the task and work together. They will see the ideals we live by and the decency by which we carry out our goals. And as people see what can be accomplished, they will begin to wonder why their leaders don’t do likewise. So, while you leaders can blame and destroy and sow conflict, consider how much better it will be to be hailed for transforming your country and building a great future for your people. 

“Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” Free people living in free countries do not readily go to war. And yet people will not long for freedom if the example we show them is one of neglect for the poor, a tarnishing of our ideals, or of failing to prevent the prosperous from harming the economy. Our real security then is when people see that we are decent, just, humble and restrained. They will see that we are building and not destroying. They will see something to aspire to. They will see that we are creating a society that they would want. And little by little, people around the world will join our cause and work with us to transform this planet. By being just and fair, no one will ultimately have anything to quibble about and the ruthless will be marginalized. Which is not to say that force is not needed at times. We must be realistic. We do live in a dangerous world. But what must change is our arrogance to think we can do as we want, whenever we want, no matter how much it tarnishes our ideals, just because we tell ourselves our security demands it. No. Real security comes when we are true to our ideals. Real security comes when we are humble and restrained in exercising our power. Real security comes when we set an example of justness, not an example of arrogance and unrestraint. 

Now we may not agree with Obama and we may rightfully fear where his agenda will take us, but we should at least be clear where he is coming from, where he is trying to take us and why he believes this is a good thing. Our arguments need to be more to the point, taking in to account his larger context and perspective, and then identifying where his thinking goes wrong. In my view, Prager’s column is so far off the mark that it helps neither the Right nor the Left. It doesn’t help the Right because he never catches the full breadth and audacity of what Obama is saying. In my view, Prager misses way too much. This is unhelpful because the Right is left to assume these were the worst things Prager could find with the speech. But it’s also unhelpful to the Left because he ends up making so many “strawman” arguments. As long as Prager doesn’t get what Obama is saying, his points will never carry weight with the Left. 

The funny thing is, I don’t think many on the Left understand yet how ambitious Obama is either. Amazing. 

Now I did like Charles Krauthammer’s column on Obama’s address (see here). Obama’s speech was “fascinating”, and Obama is “astonishingly self-contained”. It is striking just how calm he can be before millions. It belies an inner knowing in Obama that everything has aligned for such a time as this, and reveals the strength of his audacious belief that we can transform America. Amazing. 

I suspect we are in for some very unexpected times. No one knows where this is going. We have boarded a train that is heading into unexplored territory – and no one knows what we will see. 

What do you think?

Dean

Just before Christmas, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column entitled, Bleeding Heart TightWads, where he cited research showing that while “liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest…, yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates”. Kristof berated his fellow liberals saying, “come on liberals, redeem yourselves, and put your wallets where your hearts are”. 

Not surprisingly, this generated a veritable barrage of comments (see here), mostly from liberals, taking umbrage at Kristof’s notion that they are somehow less generous than conservatives. They offered numerous explanations for why the studies might be wrong, saying for instance that they have less money to give in general because they are more likely to live in urban areas where the cost of living is higher. 

But what surprised me was how many comments took a different approach saying in effect that charities aren’t worth giving to (while being taxed to provide for the poor is). Here are some of the things liberals said along this line (summarized from the first 66 comments): 

• Liberals believe that it is the “role of the state to support the needy”, a role which individuals and charities simply are incapable of replacing.
• It is the role of the state because the state is “more efficient and less discriminatory” in helping the poor.
• Support for charity “contributes to the notion that government intervention is not needed”.
• Charity cannot be relied on. For instance, some communities don’t have charities.
• Charities cannot ensure that the “collective wealth” of all is “distributed equitably”.
• Charities have “no public accountability” in how they distribute their resources.
• The more that is given to charities, the more “excuses” conservatives have to cut social programs.
• Charities pay their workers “far less” than government agencies which makes matters worse.
• Charities have limited resources, only the government is capable of providing a true safety net.
• Government can provide things charities never provide, like health insurance.
• Government can enforce things charities can’t, like enforcing decent pay, affordable child chair, affordable education.
• Government “can fund to a much greater degree than our measly individual donations”.
• Liberals believe deeply in equality and thus believe that we all need to contribute equally. Charities can’t enforce this.
• Liberals resent giving to charity, as that enables other people to give less which means that the “communal duty” will not be shouldered equally.
• Charities are ultimately controlled by the wealthy who can give the most, and that leads to an unfair system of deciding who gets aid and who does not.
• The government is better able to determine who’s needs are “legitimate”.
• If the government provides a strong safety net, then one doesn’t have to worry about people going bankrupt or doing without medical care.
• Giving to charity is simply a way to get public recognition and have your name put on things.
• Charities can’t be trusted to provide a realistic safety net, the government has to do it.
• Too many big charities have “high overhead” and “pay huge salaries to their executive directors”.
• Charity is too random. Why should the charity who just happens to ring your doorbell get your donation? It is much better to “rely on government to handle wealth redistribution”.
• Charities simply allow the “haves” to make sure the “have-nots” will “remain mired in their subservient positions”.
• Charities actually expect recipients to be “grateful”, which simply reinforces the elevated status of the “haves”.
• Charities don’t have the resources to provide long-term support and training that the government can.
• Charity is simply “not an appropriate way to deal with fundamental human rights”. Why should the poor suffer access to food, education and health care just because there is a downturn in the economy?
• Providing help to millions of people is “non-trivial and should be placed into the hands of experts”, not charities.
• Charities are “fundamentally ill-conceived and flawed”. For instance, charities have too much overhead with mass-mailings, just trying to stay in touch with potential donors.
• Charities in America don’t actually help the poor. A university study found that “only 31% of all charitable giving benefits poor people”. The rest is given to institutions that benefit the middle class and rich, like museums.
• Charity needs to be viewed as a “responsibility shared by all”, not an “act of altruism” by an individual. How else can a proper safety net be built?
• Charities can’t be trusted, as so little actually gets down to the people in need.
• A government safety net enables people to “live decently”, sheltering them from the “indignity” and shame of receiving a handout from charity.
• Charities aren’t accountable and tend to benefit the people or who are in their group, leaving others out.
• Money given to “fulfill an agenda” can be “toxic charity, as in funding churches that practice bigotry”.
• Giving to charity is simply a form of “buying indulgences”.
• Liberals prefer a strong safety net and no charity over no safety net and only charity.
• Americans in trouble “deserve better than charity”. They deserve a safety net similar to what people in “civilized nations receive from their governments”.
• The whole idea of charity is a “conservative creation”. People who need help are not “down on their luck” but the “victims of structural inequality”. 

While I always try to understand others, this level of disdain for charities, and this level of confidence in government, was quite an eye-opener for me. It appears that many liberals actually want charities to go away. They simply wouldn’t be needed if the state provided a proper safety net. 

But the safety net they apparently envision would require a significant amount of (involuntary) “wealth redistribution”, and that’s something that has not worked very well wherever it has been tried. It’s amazing to me that liberals want to give it another try. 

What has raised more people out of poverty than any other single event in modern times? It’s China’s move away from socialism and embrace of capitalism and private ownership. In just a few short years, literally hundreds of millions have been lifted out of the most dire levels of extreme poverty. Humans are remarkably productive when they get to control the fruits of their labors. Productivity creates wealth. Redistribution not only doesn’t create wealth, it inhibits productivity lessening how much wealth there is to redistribute in the first place. 

Humans can also be remarkably giving when they know others are depending on them – and not the government – to see them through. Maybe that’s why the working poor, who have more direct exposure to the real need out there, “somehow manage to be more generous as a percentage of income than the middle class”. On the other hand, perhaps they simply aren’t sophisticated enough to know that helping the poor is the “role of the state”, and not theirs. 

What do you think? 

Dean

I happened to hear a few minutes of a discussion on NPR last weekend where they were asking what wisdom is, and how does it differ from simply being smart. I’ve long liked this topic as it is one of those things that is quite difficult to define well. 

Our experience tells us that there are plenty of smart people who somehow lack wisdom, as well there are wise people who don’t seem particularly bright. What’s the deal? How can smart people fail so readily when it comes to the area of wisdom, and what do wise people have going for them that seems so elusive to the bright ones among us? And why is it so easy for us to confuse smart people for wise people? 

One confusion has to do with knowledge. Smart people tend to be very knowledgeable on many more subjects than the rest of us, and this can be very intimidating – not only because knowledgeable people seem to have more answers but because our lack of knowledge makes us unsure and less confident. When we don’t know the facts of a given matter we tend to defer to those who do know the facts. 

But it gets worse than simply not having as many facts as the smart people have. They appear to be able to handle those facts with a deftness and shear ability that makes us want to stay quiet for fear of exposing our rank ignorance and mental dullness. 

To put it bluntly, smart people hold on to more facts than we can, they process the facts quicker than we can, they make less mistakes when analyzing them, and they even arrive at a deeper understanding of what the facts mean than we typically do. So who indeed can compete with truly bright people? How can the bright ones not help but be wiser than we will ever be? 

Thankfully, wisdom is where smart people often come up short. But why? 

The answer lies in what foundations people have built their knowledge upon. Some of the brightest scientists of the world have spent decades of their lives arguing for theories which they eventually had to throw out once it was shown that their theories simply weren’t true. In many cases, the problems had to be traced back to very fundamental levels where they had mistakenly diverged from what was really true. The problem is that no matter how smart you are, if you go off on a wrong tangent at a fundamental level, you will never arrive at a conclusion that is based on truth. A mistake at an early stage will hopelessly color all later results, no matter how brilliant your analysis is. 

To compound matters, smart people tend to think they perceive things more clearly than others and thus they assume their foundations simply have to be more accurate. 

But foundations are rarely built on actual verifiable facts, for we simply don’t know enough of fundamental matters to do so. Instead, the most fundamental issues tend to be ones that we instinctively believe one way or the other. They are frequently matters of faith, not science. In other words, real wisdom is ultimately rooted in faith and fundamental beliefs of what is actually true and what isn’t. 

To make matters worse, smart people are good at recognizing patterns, but this recognition often leads to jumping to conclusions, conclusions for which there is often no possible verification or proof. In other words, smart people tend towards arrogance, while wisdom requires humility, and specifically the humility to know that what we think we see may not be the full truth and may not even be true at all. 

Finally, while smart people may be quite adept with knowledge and facts, they frequently are not nearly as adept with human relations. Certainly it is the case that some people may have a high IQ, while others have high emotional intelligence. And while part of that may be hard wired and built in to our genes, another part of it may simply have to do with what matters to each individual. In other words, if all you care about is knowledge and facts then that is likely all you are going to be good at. Wisdom requires caring about something more than knowledge. It requires caring about truth. 

So, while smart people may be intimidating and appear to have more knowledge, understanding and even wisdom than we do, in fact their understanding may be lacking in vital areas and their wisdom may actually be quite erroneous. It is more likely that you will attain wisdom, not by being smart, but by caring about what is really true, by seeking truth humbly, by developing faith to believe what is really true, and by building a foundation based solely on the truth. 

Think about it. There’s no rush with wisdom. 

God bless,

Dean