THE BIBLE AND ECONOMICS

The Bible And Economics

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. — 2 Thessalonians 3:10 Do you dread going to work or tending house, viewing labor as a curse on your life because of the Fall? Well, it isn’t. Before sin ever touched this earth, God commanded Adam to tend the garden. God created us to have meaningful employment and to earn our keep. And He created a context in which we could live and prosper. God reveals that context in His Word. While the Bible isn’t an economics textbook, it does say a great deal about how we can thrive. The Bible says that if a person does not work, that person shall not eat. (Of course, this principle doesn’t refer to a person unable to work.) The Eighth Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” makes it clear that we can own property, ruling out certain economic systems such as communism. In fact, I believe free enterprise is a biblical principle. Most people didn’t understand this until 1776, when Adam Smith wrote his famous book on economics, The Wealth of Nations. This book sparked the worldwide spread of capitalism. Before that time, most people lived a hand-to-mouth existence, spending about ninety percent of their income on food. But between 1800 and 1850, wages quadrupled as people pursued scriptural economic principles, and from 1850 to 1900, wages quadrupled again. This was especially true in America, where free enterprise had its freest reign. But in this century, we’ve turned from some of those biblical principles. A misapplication of the concepts of justice and charity have created in our nation “social justice” (in other words, welfare). Public welfare is neither just nor charitable, because it forcibly takes money from one person and gives it to another. Public welfare also tempts people to take advantage of public money and to fight for as much of it as they can get. It destroys private charity and creates vice and laziness. I challenge you to apply biblical principles of economics in your life and to cultivate a responsible work ethic. Resolve today that whatever task comes your way, you’ll work for God’s honor and glory. As you do, He will bless you for your obedience. America will last until the populace discovers it can vote for itself largess [gifts or handouts] out of the public treasury. — ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE courtesy:  djameskennedy.org

5 truths you cannot disagree with

CHI HA PORTATO IL PD AL CROLLO

DA IL GIORNALE del 11 marzo 2018, ottima lettera:
CHI HA PORTATO IL PD AL CROLLO.
La sinistra ha perso le elezioni perche' ha vinto nel centro storico di milano.Il PD e' il partito piu' votato da quelli che ..... prima il Parini poi la Bocconi, quelli che ..... la bicicletta e' bello, quelli che maledetti inglesi per la Brexit, quelli che ....... d'inverno le Maldive e d'estate la Cambogia, quelli che ....... Papa Francesco e' bravo ma noi in chiesa mai, quelli che ...... nero e' bello sopratutto se sta in periferia, quelli che ....... Trump e' un tamarro, quelli che .... fanno i girotondi, che hanno la tessera dell'Anteo, che i libri da Feltrinelli, che c'e' il pericolo fascista e stanno a lugano per non pagare le tasse, che marijuana e' bello, che festeggiano i 50 anni dal '68, che leggono il Corriere e La Repubblica, che i necrologi li fanno da Saint Moritz, che la CNN e' la bibbia in terra, che sono alternativi a 70 anni,che hanno i figli nei centri sociali, che tengono all'Inter perche' si chiama internazionale, che tengono al Milan e sputano su Berlusconi, che vivono nella finanza, che la Lega e' razzista, che amano i film di Guadagnino, che l'Olocausto e' una tragedia ma Israele va boicottato, che sono preti e degli italiani se ne fregano. Insomma tutti quelli che sono l'opposto di me.Grazie a Dio ! Francesco Panico, Milano

4 Marzo 2018, elezioni nazionali italiane

Io il 4 marzo 2018, alle elezioni nazionali italiane , voto FRATELLI DI ITALIA di Giorgia Meloni.

TRAGEDY AND HOPE by Carrol Quigley

I like, very very very very much :"The evolution of civilizations.Tragedy and hope: A history of the world in our time" by Carroll Quigley , 1966 (_Tragedy and hope_ is one of the most important history book ever written and published).

THE GREATEST GIFT FOR ALL

HERE BELOW A VERY GOOD ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (published on december 21 , 2017):

The Greatest Gift For All

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.

This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.

Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.

The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity Politics,” “political correctness” and “the war on terror.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.

Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.

Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been murdered and millions displaced in order to extend Washington’s hegemony.

Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

As we enter into 2018, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?

The unemployement rate and the euro in Europe

Yesterday morning, at 8.08, I have called the TV program "Aria pulita" on the private TELECITY television to speak about the link between the EURO and the unemployement rate in Europe.

The unemployement rate in Europe is (source :Eurostat , February 2017):

Greece      23%

Spain        18%

Italy          11,5%

France       10%

Ireland       6,6%

Germany   3,9%

The first thing you can extrapolate from the data above is that Ireland and Italy, both with the euro , have a very different unemployement rate:so the problem is not the euro about unemployement.

During the calling I have said that not all the things coming from the EU are good as the euro, remembering the MIFID.

About the MIFID just read the letter, in the Financial Times, October 13, 2017, "commission has created a monster in MIFID II" by Ira Sohn.