Returning to Australia for my son’s wedding, it did not take long to be reminded of many of the issues that dropped out of sight while living in America.

At the top of the list is the Australian concept of socialism. Socialism is the idea that the government takes control of all resources within the nation and allocates them in some fashion. Frederick Hayek drew the distinction between communism and socialism when he observed that in communism, the government owns everything and allocates according to government plan. Under socialism, ownership remains in the hands of individuals, but the government determines the allocation of the privately-held resources. The Australian government pretends it is neither socialistic nor communistic. But as Ludwig von Mises argued so clearly, the middle-of-the-road policy is the road to full socialism. You cannot control part of the economy without controlling all of it.

The key issue here is one of ownership and the meaning of the idea of ownership. “Thou shalt not steal” establishes the right of private ownership, ownership being the right of dispossession. This is the key. If you cannot dispose the things you own in the manner in which you would like, you don’t own the thing. Whoever controls the dispossession is the real owner, even though there may be official papers giving title to the individual.

In the modern world, it is taxation, perhaps more than anything else, that determines the biblical framework of ownership. The government not only takes for itself the right to tax, but it also allocates to itself the right to determine how much tax it might be entitled to. This is important because it raises the question of property ownership in money. It doesn’t exist any more. But it did exist at one time, when the Bible provided the prevailing philosophy.

If the command “Thou shalt not steal” is to have any significance, ownership of all property needs to be reestablished. So too is a related problem: being the recipient of stolen goods. In a narrow sense, both these activities are held to be wrong for certain goods. But not for money. That needs to change.

Herein is the key component of a society committed to private ownership. It is the idea that stealing is taking whatever God says you are not entitled to.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s house.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s automobile.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s wife.

And if you are elected to public office, you are still not entitled to these things.

Neither, therefore, are you entitled to your neighbor’s money. It is his. If you have the power to tax, it is only as far as God says you may do it, and after that it is theft.

We are still waiting for Christians to determine, from the Bible, what taxes the county, state, or national governments might be entitled to. Once you go past that amount, it is stealing. And expecting a handout from that money makes you a receiver of stolen goods.

What caught my attention in Australia was not only that the nation is facing an election called to help the ruling Labor Power remain in office, but it is the pressure of the church to get access to other people’s money via the government taxing mechanism. A brochure encouraging Australians to vote for the party that will keep the taxpayers’ money flowing to Christian activities was put in my hands at church on a Sunday morning.

The Federal government in Australia has been funding Chaplaincy work in public schools. There’s little evidence that this chaplaincy work is expanding the number of Christians or making any change in the way people in Australia view property rights. But it is an activity “for Christ”. . . .

Until you ask the question: Is this Chaplaincy work funded by stolen money? If the answer is yes, then there is not a strong expectation that God will in any way bless the work for His kingdom. If He did, everyone would soon realize that breaking God’s law in some form is the way to expand His kingdom.

This is nuts!

Someone reminded me that they pay taxes, and getting “their” money back from the government was legitimate. I agree. But the problem is “their” money was spent a long time ago, and now they are asking the government to not give them “their” money, in the sense that the government is returning the money they took from this individual.

What this person is demanding is “equivalent value.” In other words, if the government has already spent “their” money, then the government can just take some money from someone else and give that money to this individual. The person did not get “his” money back; he got another person’s money.

Thus, in order to get “equivalent value” Christian schools in Australia take government funding. Even one Christian home school organization has given in to government funding. “It’s for a good cause.”

If the government, however, has taken money it is not entitled to – that is, it is stealing – just so you can get back the equivalent value of the money you had taken from you, doesn’t that make you the recipient of stolen money?

That’s a little complex. It requires the ability to think through a number of steps and determine in each case what the Scriptures would have you do.

But this kind of thinking in Australia has virtually disappeared among Christians in Australia. That’s why the country has a short term future under the rules of “socialism”, and no long term plan for living under the Torah of the Triune God of Scripture.

Why?

The economy is falling.

Why?

Because house prices have fallen.

So?

Bankruptcies are up.

So?

Doom is nigh.

That’s funny, I thought you just told me that house prices are falling? This means the purchasing power of my money in relation to homes has gone up. How is that a disaster?

Silence.

Free market economists tell us that in an economy where the quantity of money is relatively stable, prices will tend to fall downwards. And this is good for the economy. It’s good for everyone.

Prices have been falling, the value of money is going up, and the free marketers are crying “doom is nigh.”

Why aren’t they saying, “Progress is here. Prices are falling. That’s what the economy needs. It is not doom that we are facing. It’s economic recovery.”

Falling prices are only a problem to some people. Those who have too much debt that is not backed by assets, such as a home. And the reason they have debt is because in an economy that is fueled by fractional reserve banking, they’re using debt in an attempt to get ahead. So those who borrowed to buy a house at $250k and now it’ll fetch only $188k, why are they complaining? The value of their money has gone up.

Now the borrowers themselves have contributed to the problem. Why do they now complain? They could have refused to play the fractional reserve game and refused to borrow. They didn’t. Prices went up. They borrowed hoping to get ahead. Now it’s come unstuck.

And the borrowers are the losers. At least, the borrowers who can’t find some cash to get their debt-to-equity ratio where the banks are comfortable.

This is not the way people are encouraged to look at things, however.

If I borrow your money, purchasing power has merely transferred from you to me. But when the current banking system gets involved in that process, on a 20% reserve, they can turn $100 into $500, $400 of which is “non-existent” money. It is credit, the ability to purchase without physical money. “Fiat” money it’s called — money created out of nothing.

To the extent that our economies are fueled by fractional reserves, to that extent debt is a problem.

In a fractional reserve economy, where prices are constantly driven up by the expanding money supply, the only people hurt by falling prices are those who have to sell at lower prices, generally because they cannot meet the mortgage payments or come up with some cash to cover the bank loan that now exceeds prudent lending rules.

Are people hurt in the current economy? Yes there are people who get hurt, and many of them who used to work in automotive plants that had low productivity from their workers and low quality vehicles. The buying public skipped elsewhere, even though the majority of those vehicles were still made in USA or Canada. I’m thinking of Toyota and Honda. Then there’s the Kia plant, the Hyundai or the Subaru plant, all located in the US. But some of the big players located in Michigan suffered. . . . Until they got their act together.

The workers in these plants got laid off, and could no longer meet mortgage and other debt payments. A domino effect started.

The very effect that Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises said was necessary for the boom cycle to come to end, and the economy to return to its “equilibrium” level: Falling prices.

It is, of course, noticeable, that those shouting the doom and gloom loudest are those with subscriptions to sell. “How to avoid disaster.” People buy for one of three reasons: Fear, pain and please.

And too many of the doomers and gloomers are selling fear, not sound economic analysis.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take lower prices any day. And if that’s doom and gloom, maybe we need more of this type of pessimism.

May God bless you as you serve Him.

You may be right. I don’t know much.

But I do know my Project Director Carol. She’s almost my age , and one of the hardest workers in the company. She works to support her husband and daughter. Why?

For one thing: health insurance.

You see, Carol had her own consulting business. Making decent money, her husband, 10 years older, was in real estate. They had been paying their health insurance for 19 years. On time, too.

Then it happened. She had a car accident. Her back was broken in two places. Three months later, her husband had the first of three heart attacks. She sued for the insurance money, got paid, but had to settle earlier than was possible in order to get money.

Her husband was in hospital, ready for an operation, when the news came. Your health insurance has been canceled.

For an American, those six words are some of the deadliest it is possible to hear. “Your health insurance is canceled.” Now what do you do?

You do what Carol had to do: find a company that would employ her, and want her bad enough they would put both her and her husband on the health insurance plan.

Now Carol’s a conservative who on most issues would probably vote towards the right. But not on health care. Not when it comes to her and her family. She’ll vote for Obama — every time. So will her husband.

Why? Because the party that mouths “free market, free market” doesn’t have a plan to resolve the problems Carol and her family had to face, and continue to face: expensive health care and no insurance.

Obama gave her health care insurance at affordable rates, so that if she gets laid off again, she’ll still have health care that can take care of her husband and herself.

Is it as good a health care system as the free market? Who cares? Neither Carol, nor her family. What they care about is affordable health care and one another, not the free market.

What they care about is access to quality health care. That is more important to them than free market.

How many other Americans think the same way? Many, many of them.

There are no free market alternatives available to Carol. The free market has spoken: “Uninsurable: Not Wanted Here.” If there are affordable alternatives, neither Carol nor many other Americans know of their existence.

So you can guess who will get her vote next election. Whoever offers Obamacare.

It’s here to stay. Get used to the idea.

God bless you this week.

Economic categories are no longer what they were. It is now common to hear government officials say that the revenue they did not receive was a “cost” to the government.

Imagine going to the company accounting system and entering an amount in the costs of the company for revenue that was not obtained. “Let me see, we should have had another $10 million this year. Let’s put that in as a cost to the business. Better still, make it $10 billion.”

And you think corporate fiscal accountability is bad. Yet it is government allowing the new definitions

Now, if Bernie Madoff or the executives of WorldCom only knew this, their outcome could have been more favorable for investors.

The same confusion, unfortunately, exists concerning assets and liabilities. Debt, many say, is an asset. Let’s have more debt. The fact that you might enter it into the liabilities section of your Balance Sheet is irrelevant. For debt is the way to wealth in the minds of many. And if you only had more debt then you could turn this economy around — and then some.

So thinks the average American citizen. So think many average citizens around the world. For this reliance on debt as the way to wealth is not restricted to America. It has its counterpart in many, many countries today.
This abuse of language comes from an abuse of logic. By what stretch of the imagination can you call revenue you did not get a cost just because you think you’re entitled to it? By the same imagination it is argued that debt is the way to wealth.

This is nuts . . .

It is also a problem of faulty definitions. At one time, not too long ago, creating spending power by either increases in the money supply or credit, was called inflation. Now it’s called saving the world — or something else. I’m an Australian and we have some unprintable words that describe this kind of silly reasoning.

But the definition — and the understanding that went with it — had to go so these new ideas could replace them.

Debt is a mechanism that brings future production into the present. If you buy now you don’t have to buy later. No waiting. And if you need a 25-year mortgage this year to finance your future purchases in the present, why not take a 45-year mortgage and bring even more purchases into the here and now. Maybe the Japanese had it right after all, when mortgages reached 100 years. But why stop there? Why not just create an obligation for the next 10 generations, about 700 years. Now we could really spend ourselves rich in this generation.

Right thinking is in short supply. So said John Knox to Queen Mary. And you know what happened to that crusty old Scotsman as a result of his audacity, telling the leading political figure of the day, who claimed conscience was her guide: “Conscience needs to governed by right reason. And right reason I see you have none.”

Perhaps you’ve been blinded by a host of bad predictions. The great depression that was to happen in the 1980s did not appear, nor did the promised meltdown of the 1990s. What is to happen in the twenty-first century?

The truth is, you don’t know. You are in unchartered waters. Governments have cut themselves off the reality of the market to put themselves into the position of expanding money and credit as they wish. And they wish a great deal at the moment, for this is the mechanism that will prevent all economic disasters. Or so they hope. Right reason is in short supply in the Congresses and Parliaments of this world. Things haven’t changed much in nearly 500 years.

The situation is clearly screwed up when you get advisers warning us against debt on the one hand, then suggesting you need to get into debt to buy a house, a business or anything else. It’s other people’s debt that’s the problem, never your own. Consumer debt might be out, but at the end of the debt discussions there is still debt. And who really cares whether the debt is for a house or a business vehicle. You need both now – not later.

Can this headlong rush to bring the future into the present continue, and if so, for how long? The pundits got it wrong in the ’80s, the ’90s, now they tell you to trust them a third time. But by now no one is listening. Pity.

It seems the only reliable guide you have is employment – or lack of it. Or more specifically, the number of $100 an hour jobs that are going to India or China where the pay is $20 or less an hour. And if you realize that this difference was caused, in part, by price increases at home, you might just begin to realize what debt has really done to everyone. It has made many people unemployable at $100 an hour. It has caused buyers to look for cheaper prices, and the buyers of labor have looked and found bargain prices.

It seems the lessons of economics remain to be learned. You cannot call missed revenue a cost any more than you can call debt an asset and therefore the way to wealth. You cannot bring future expenditure into the present without causing an increase in present prices, a mis-allocation of resources, and destroy the entrepreneur’s ability to forecast the future. Nor can you call a lie the truth and get it away with it forever.
Kiyosaki is right. If you’re serious about unemployment and the state of your country, you need to be serious about money and debts and make sure you understand the difference between assets and liabilities as well as revenue and costs. Your economic health — and those around you, family relative, friends neighbors and strangers — will depend on it.

There are some, however, who argue that this passage is not referring to financial debt. Commentators are divided on the matter, and when the scholars disagree it is often difficult for the layman to form an opinion. Their position, however, is usually presented as a statement without supporting evidence. Mostly, it comes down to the fact that the commentator thinks it is not referring to financial debt, but rarely offers evidence to show why this is so. Commentators, however helpful, are not our ultimate guide to life. Only God and the Bible can hold that position in our lives. Therefore, we need to turn to the biblical text, and not the commentators, for guidance.

In order for us to understand the text, there are several things we should note about this verse to make sure the words are not taken out of their context and misused.

First, commencing from verse one in the chapter, we have God’s instructions on the nature of the civil authorities. They are God’s servants or deacons (Greek: diakonos). In verse seven, St. Paul argues that it is precisely because they are the servants of God that we should pay taxes to them. We are to “render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor” (Rom. 13:7). According to this, we are under obligation to pay whatever is due to another person. Notice that we are not told how much we are to pay at this point: that question is answered elsewhere in Scripture. We are simply instructed to pay what is due. Since the Bible never countenances theft, the amount due here is only that which is legitimately owing. The point being made here for the purposes of our analysis, however, is that this passage is very definitely talking about money matters.

Second, it is clear from verse seven that the things being talked about are far wider than mere money. Note that this verse obliges us to render things such as fear and honor to those to whom it is due. While money is mentioned as one obligation we are to pay, we cannot confine this passage to monetary concerns only. Money cannot be excluded from this portion of Scripture.

Third, that the context includes money and other things is abundantly clear in verse eight. We are to owe no man anything. This is an all-encompassing term that must, at the very least, include the items mentioned in verse seven: taxes, custom, fear and honor. It seems that the great apostle is covering his tracks. He has mentioned four items in verse seven: taxes, fear, honor, and custom. In verse eight St. Paul is making it very clear that what he is saying here cannot be confined only to these four issues. We are to owe no man anything — including money!

Fourth, the Holy Spirit includes an exception in the latter half of verse eight. Debt as a concept cannot be avoided, since there are some things that are obligatory at all times. What is this obligation? We are to owe no man anything “except to love one another.” Debt in some form, we might say, is something that is inescapable, since we have a genuine obligation to love one another. The point here is not whether we are to have any debts at all, but whether we may have financial debts. It is apparent here that the Scriptures are saying we are to have no debts, including financial debts, with this exception: we have an ongoing debt to love one another.

The language of Scripture here is useful. In the modern world, we do not usually regard the idea of loving our fellow man as a debt. God is saying that we have an ongoing obligation to love one another. When we go into financial debt by borrowing money we have an ongoing obligation to meet the repayment schedule. So, too, we have an ongoing obligation to love one another. It is not an option: it is mandatory. It is a debt we owe one another.

Fifth, the Bible here even tells us how we are to fulfil this ongoing debt that we have to one another. In verse nine several of the Ten Commandments are quoted and summarized under the concept of love. Love is, as the Scripture reminds us elsewhere, obeying God. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (I John 5:3). I love my neighbor when I don’t murder him or members of his family, when I don’t steal from him or commit adultery with his spouse. I obey this commandment to love my neighbor when I don’t tell lies about him or covet anything that he owns. This is the debt that each of us has, an ongoing obligation to love our neighbor by keeping the commandments as they relate to both God and our neighbor.

For these reasons, there seems no valid case to exclude money matters from this passage in Romans 13:8. The context of the passage itself is very clear that it not only includes money (e.g. taxes), but incorporates everything, since nothing is excluded from the mind of the writer of these words. We are truly to owe no one anything — except love.