The Power Of The Politics of Wealth

National elections entail so much financial burden to political parties. Different strategies and means of fund raising are employed by campaign managers just in order to be able to gather as much financial support for their respective political parties as possible.

In some countries, especially the poor ones, enough outside financial support are hardly even available. So in order to finance election expenses, some incumbent political parties (whichever is in authority at the time of election, and depending on the conscience of its leadership) simply entitle themselves and avail of a special government loan of which nature has the following generous terms: no interest, no ceiling, no collateral, and without any term of payment. Also stipulated is a very stringent condition: by all means, no one else must know except the borrowers and the lenders.

When it comes to style and strategy of campaigning, especially presidential election, America, the leading propagator of western-style democracy, is not so much different from the rest of the democratic world. There are few things that can be observed though.

First, while Americans may not be wasting money as in other countries where some corrupt incumbent officials illegally use public funds to finance election expenses, they have an excessively long presidential election period (due to the primary election) and no wonder, that in such a political process alone, they wastefully spend huge sums of money election after election – money that mostly benefits election creatures.

Second, because of the tremendous financial requirements needed to support their enormous system of campaigning, their political parties have developed fund raising mechanisms such that election after election their methods have become more efficient locally and have gain wider leverage internationally in fishing for enormous amounts of money – money merely used in the feeding of the hungry noisy mouths of the various election creatures, and in the filling of these creatures’ big insatiable appetites so that they may roar continuously and aggressively even louder throughout the entire election period.

Notwithstanding being lavishly contested to record levels in terms of expenses (on paid lies, character assassinations, campaign propagandas, among others) that abusively bought management-consented biases of disgusting unethical proportions from supposedly fair and balance leading international media organizations, the November 2008 U.S. presidential election is ever closely being monitored and eagerly anticipated not just by the Americans but by the rest of the world in some ways like no other U.S. presidential elections in recent history.

Why is this particular election drawing such an unprecedented attention and focus worldwide?

In this world, wealth is an absolute power and when it succeeds in also buying the world’s politics, the power of the politics of wealth rules the world.

Redefining The Family

The Rise of 'By Choice' Single Mothers
By Albert Mohler
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Social change is a constant in civilization. New technologies, human migrations, climate changes, and any number of demographic and worldview shifts prompt changes in the way humans live and maintain civilization's patterns and structures. For the most part, these changes unfold slowly. Now, however, we are witnessing social change unwind at warp speed.

Just consider the disappearance of marriage as the expectation for many young adults and the disappearance of the father from many families.

The Guardian [London] reports on the phenomenon of "choice mothers" who have opted for what some observers call "single motherhood by choice." The number of unmarried women who want to have a child by artificial insemination is growing at an unprecedented rate, even as the age of women seeking to conceive a child without a father is dropping.

As the paper reports:

A survey of attitudes towards contraception out this week appears to confirm this as a trend. Both men and women said they had serious concerns about whether they would meet the right partner in time to conceive naturally; and 56% of the women asked said they would consider asking a male friend to father their child if they failed to find a partner by a certain age. And it was younger women - those aged between 28 and 31 - who were the most likely to go it alone if the right man did not turn up in time.

Seeking artificial insemination in your 20s or 30s is not unusual among lesbians (who have no reason to delay), but heterosexual women typically wait to see if they can find a partner first. Using a sperm donor has always been a last resort. Now the process is becoming a first resort. Say that you are in your early 30s and you are convinced your life will not be complete without a child. Why wait? Many women have financial independence earlier in life than in the past and few see being a single mother as a situation that carries a stigma. Many single mothers by choice argue that they see couples struggling with the difficult issues that shared parenting raises. Women in this category who know that they definitely want a baby are less concerned about raising a child alone than they are about waiting for the "right man" for so long that they miss their fertility window.

There is so much to unpack in this report. At one level, this points to the natural desire of women for children -- a desire that is, in itself, both understandable and admirable. Indeed, Christians will rightly believe that this is a desire given to a woman by the Creator. At another level, even this newspaper recognizes that there is something sad about so many young women giving up on another natural desire -- the desire for a husband (though the paper uses the politically-correct term, partner"). Christians would see this, too, as evidence of God's intention.

The result of this is the redefinition of the family before our eyes, with so many young women choosing to have children even as they have no plans for any present or future marriage. These children will know no father and the entire social fabric is unraveled that much further.

The institution of marriage is the Creator's gift -- an institution that constitutes the only natural, holy, and wholesome context in which all of these desires are fulfilled. But marriage has been subverted by divorce, cohabitation, contraceptive and reproductive technologies, and a host of ideological and cultural influences.

Our cultural obsession with a false ideal of personal autonomy promises us all that we can have whatever we want, and on our own terms. This sad report serves to remind us that, left to our own, we will try to create our own reality and have what we want without accepting what we really need.

Fathers are missing from this picture, but so is something even more fundamental -- God's gift of marriage and the glory of God evident in the perfection of His gifts.

How Wall Street Works

Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy dog balls for $10 a pair.

The villagers, seeing that there were many stray dogs around, went out to the neighborhoods and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 a pair.

And, as supply of stray dogs diminished, the villagers stopped their effort. But the man further announced that he would now buy dog balls at $20 for a pair.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and so this time they started castrating their own pet dogs. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The man increased his offer to $25 each pair, but this time their were almost no supply of dog balls available. Since almost all the male dogs in their villages have no more balls, the dog population dwindled.

The man was very persistent and now he announced that he would buy a pair of dog balls at $50! However, since he had to go to the City on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these dog balls in these big containers that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 a pair, and when the man returns from the City, you can sell them to him for $50 each pair." The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the dog balls.

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only dog balls and gelded male dogs everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how Wall Street works!

----------
The next time you transact in Wall Street, be careful, you might loose your own balls in the deceptive process. :-)

Rise and fall of stock prices and values can easily be manipulated by large investors with very huge amount of reserves. Like gambling, it is always the ordinary gamblers who loose and not the casino.

When this stock market downturn is over, guess who will be holding most of the really valuable stocks? And guess what the ordinary/common investors will be left with? Their own castrated balls!

America Would Have Been Short of A Good Senator

In 1960 Dunham's parents moved to Hawaii to pursue further business opportunities in the new state. She soon enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she studied anthropology. She met Barack Obama Sr., a student from Kenya and the school's first African student, in a Russian language class at the University. When they became engaged, both sets of parents opposed the marriage, with Obama's father in particular objecting. Nevertheless, the couple married on February 2, 1961 in Maui, Hawaii, after discovering she was pregnant.

On August 4, 1961, at age 18, she gave birth to her first child in Honolulu, named Barack Obama II.

------------
Had his mother chose to abort him after discovering she was pregnant at 18 (because both sets of parents opposed the marriage), America would have been short of a good senator.

The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.

Oil Drops To $64 Despite OPEC Output Cut

Cartel's Emergency Meeting in Vienna Fails to Halt Steep Slide
Associated Press, MSNBC

Crude tumbled Friday and the price for a gallon of gasoline fell below year-ago levels for the first time in 2008, even as OPEC announced a huge production cut in an attempt to halt the declines.

In an emergency meeting Friday, OPEC said that it will slash oil production by 1.5 million barrels to stem the "dramatic collapse" of oil prices, but crude prices plunged anyway as financial markets spiraled downward across the globe.

Demand for crude has evaporated and the supply levers held by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries appear to have little influence in the current economic climate.

Crude prices have now fallen 56 percent from the highs reached in July, and more than $41 per barrel in just the last 30 days.

Iran and Venezuela pushed for a cut of 2 million barrels a day, but there were concerns among other OPEC members that a more severe production cut would exacerbate a deteriorating economic crisis and further destroy demand.

OPEC officials, however, signaled they were prepared to slice deeper quickly if crude continues its freefall.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell $3.69 to settle at $64.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had fallen as low as $62.85 earlier in the day.

The failure of a big production cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to stem the slide in crude prices only cemented sentiments on the oil market.

“All OPEC confirmed for the market is how weak demand is,” oil trader and analyst Stephen Schork said.

Supporting that view was a report released Friday by the U.S. Department of Transportation that showed the largest monthly decline in miles driven in 66 years.

Americans drove 5.6 percent less, or 15 billion fewer miles, in August 2008 compared with August 2007 — the biggest single monthly decline since the data was first collected regularly in 1942.

Americans have drastically altered driving habits, if they are driving at all, amid a severe economic downturn.

From November through August, Americans drove 78.1 billion fewer miles than they did over the same 10-month period a year earlier. The decline is most evident in rural interstate travel where travel is down more than 4 percent compared with a 2 percent decline in urban miles traveled, according to the agency.

The latest weekly report from the U.S. Department of Energy shows that demand has fallen in 38 of the past 42 weeks. U.S. demand is down nearly 10 percent during the past four weeks year on year. The U.S. still consumes one out of every four barrels of oil produced.

A gallon of regular gas fell another 4 cents overnight to a new national average of $2.78, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. That’s nearly a dollar less than what was paid last month and 4 cents below a year ago and the first time this year there was a decline compared with 2007 prices.

Still, gas prices are off from their peak by about a third compared with the price of crude.

But gasoline prices are all but certain to fall further.

The world's biggest crude consumer immediately blasted OPEC.

"It has always been our view that the value of commodities, including oil, should be determined in open, competitive markets, and not by these kinds of anti-market production decisions," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday. "The high oil prices from the past year contributed to the slowdown in demand and the subsequent downturn in the economy, and we would ask that everyone keep that in mind going forward."

Click here to read full text.

----------
As the economic gains continue to decline in the months ahead, so also will be the gains of the wells which draw the earth's black blood.

(This had been hinted in this old blog entry.)

The Enormity Of The Whole Scenario

No whatsoever economic plan that any of the competitors are boasting in their campaign to solve the current financial crisis will ever work. Not even the plans of many brilliant economists of the world combined have so far effectively solved the problem. World leaders may exhaust all possible remedies they could ever think of but the situation will not change significantly -- not until the last of the fruits of the trees shall have touched the ground.

The fruits being referred to are not the various failing financial institutions -- they are just part of the trees. The trees are the world's economic system that is now ever increasingly polluted with corruption and dishonesty. The fruits are the economic gains which are now increasingly tainted with dishonesty and contaminated with so much greed such that their seeds have breed more inequality and poverty throughout the world, and have accelerated ever more the destruction of life and the rest of the natural order. If all the world leaders' primary solution is to pour out more and more liquid into the roots of the trees, eventually they will run out of liquids before the season is over.

With the enormity of the whole scenario, will any collective worldwide economic solution be enough to solve the problem? In the first place, will it ever be solvable by human genius alone?

To the perpetual pilgrims, the crisis is just like the very thick fog in a season that causes them to slow down and be cautious. They can do nothing about it except wait until it is over. How long until this season is over? No one knows exactly. But thanks be to God, for He shall cause it end at the right time without completely destroying all of the system. It would then be a new season and it will be ushered with a sign.

Who Is Benefiting?

While the competitors are tightly engaged in the contest and busy attacking each other with careless revelations and self-defeating expositions, they seem to forget that their real enemies are at the sidelines intently watching and seriously analyzing every bit of carelessly released information for any hint of possible weakness or vulnerability that might be exploitable.

If the people of the competitors would only know who their enemies earnestly wish would loose in the contest and why, they might be able to see their nation's possible vulnerability that their enemies may be seeing.

When enemies prefer a particular competitor, cleverly and indirectly they tend to express some positive comments about him before the world. But what the people of the competitors should not forget is that their enemies are of course picking the one who is less stronger (or more weak) so that when the time of real fighting comes, they may have some possibility of defeating him.

Reagan's Worst Fear Was Realized

[...] His instinct was to veto the bill and the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles urged him to follow that course. But he signed it into law. Reagan was disturbed by his decision, however, and continued to think long and hard about abortion. The bill, according to Lou Cannon in Governor Reagan, "permitted more legal abortions in California than occurred in any other state before the advent of Roe v. Wade." Reagan's worst fear was realized.

By 1980, Reagan had changed his mind and become a firm opponent of abortion. He insisted on a pro-life plank in the Republican platform for the first time. In 1983, he published a passionate pro-life essay, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. It turned out that signing the abortion bill in 1967 was the only political mistake that Reagan ever admitted. [...]

Click here to read full text.

----------
It is not always late to do the right thing -- only that sometimes, the opportunity to wright the wrong is not always at all times.

There are times when the door can sometimes unintentionally get locked while you are outside the room but the keys are inside.

Where you strategically placed the duplicate key inside the room matters greatly in such a situation.

Are We Also Investing on the Betterment of the Poor?

White House Adviser Says Parts of U.S. in Recession
ABS-CBN News

Parts of the United States, struggling with high jobless rates, seem to be in recession, but the government's plan to support credit markets will help, President George W. Bush's top economic adviser said on Sunday.

"We are seeing what anyone would characterize as a recession in some parts of the country," Edward Lazear, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, told CNN.

Unemployment in some areas is running "much higher" than the 6.1 percent national level, he said.

Lazear said the administration "has taken the right steps" to thaw out credit markets and get loans flowing to businesses and consumers.

Although it will take a few months for a significant impact from the Treasury's $700 billion credit market rescue plan, the first signs of response are already apparent, Lazear said.

"Banks are now willing to lend to one another. That's a huge plus for the economy because the big problem has been that banks have been unwilling to trust one another," he said. As lending picks up, the flow of money through the economy will be "amplified immediately."

Certain benchmark credit spreads have shrunk over the past week as new liquidity measures by global central banks and governments have started to kick in.

Those spreads have been at unusually high levels, a reflection of risk aversion among banks.

"If you look at the numbers that we've seen this week ... it looks it is working. All the numbers have been going in the right direction."

Lazear said the U.S. budget deficit would grow because of the cost of the bailout plan, but declined to say how high.

"The deficit is important (but) the main focus is turning the economy around," he said.

----------
When the rich are significantly affected, the world begins to panic. But when the poor are dying, the world pretends to be as is.

Most of the world won't change until they themselves would experience for a considerable period of time a significant proportion of what the rest of the world are fully experiencing for a lifetime.

So much wealth can not just be concentrated in an already rich place and not cause a treasure overload that leads to a breakdown.

The day will come when economic geniuses will fully understand the cycle of all the water systems of the earth. Waste dry lands don't merely occur by themselves -- they were once upon a time green, forested, and naturally watered.

They Need Our Prayers And The Lord's Guidance

The Dominant Campaign Question
By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

What issue(s) dominated the presidential campaign two months ago—foreign policy, taxes, health care? That seems like ancient history now. The one question that everyone wants Barack Obama and John McCain to answer now is: What will you do to fix the economy? This question is certainly understandable, but breathtakingly preposterous and pathetic.

Naturally, America’s attention is focused on the economic crisis. It is clear that something—actually, a lot of things—have gone terribly wrong. Our financial system is in tatters, the housing market continues to deteriorate, and even once-mighty GM appears terminal. We worry about our banks being safe, our jobs being secure, and our retirement plans surviving the ongoing economic earthquake. We are uncertain, scared and/or stunned. More than anything else, American voters want the candidates to reassure them that everything will be okay and that a President Obama or President McCain will restore normalcy.

As natural and understandable as everyone’s concern is, the glib question posed by journalists and pollsters—“What would you do to fix the economy?”—is preposterous. Do you really think that the presidential toolbox contains instruments to determine the “right” price for each of the millions of houses; the “right” interest rate for each of the millions of mortgages; the ability to unwind trillions of dollars of leverage in the financial system; the wisdom to manage banks, insurance companies, pension funds, etc.—and to attempt such undertakings without causing painful economic disruptions? Forget the Constitution here (the political class already has). Even if you give the president unlimited powers, he and his team—no matter how bright they are and how hard they try—cannot possibly “fix” our enormous and complex economic mess.

It is pathetic to see Americans holding out blind hope that a mere president has some sort of magic wand that can make these problems go away so that we can live happily every after. The very question—“What can you do to fix the economy?”—is shockingly ignorant. It presumes that the President of the United States either has supernatural powers (see “President, Savior, or Santa Claus”) or that he has or should have the political power to construct a “great society” with a vibrant economy through central planning. Such a question is more appropriate for a communist country than for a free (formerly free?) society.

Neither candidate is speaking economic truth. There is no clear explanation of how government policies caused this mess. Neither candidate understands that if markets are allowed to adjust prices to reflect actual values, then the economy will return to solid footing faster than if government continues to nationalize businesses, inflate credit, and engage in the hubris of central planning.

Instead, economic nonsense emanates from both camps. [...]

Click here to read full text.

----------
In their respective times they will serve the purposes of the Lord. So that one of them will be able to completely carry out the tasks the Lord had assigned to him, the other one will rule first so that things will be set in place because just like kings David & Solomon, they have different tasks assigned to each of them. David was not allowed to build the Lord's temple because he was a warrior, the defender of their nation. Solomon in his time was not allowed to fight because he was the builder of the Lord's temple.

It shall be in like manner also with these servants. They are both geared up for their respective assignments. In their respective times, the Lord will will stir and guide their hearts so that they will be able to accomplish their tasks.

This recent global financial crisis is just like the fog in a season which causes pilgrims to slow down and be cautious in their journey. When this financial crisis is over, there is a bigger task that lies ahead -- and one servant's strength fits that burden. When that season is fulfilled, the other servant will then follow to serve.

(You may be interested to read also this old blog entry of mine.)