**Warning to reader**: These are boring, opinionated views from a sleepy mom. If you would like to read happy things (like how to make good cookies) please bypass this post.
In my efforts to stay in tune with some portion of the outside world, I usually will watch the first half hour or so of "Good Morning America" each day. I like to hear the biggest headlines and a little about the political race (although I find that I fast forward through much of that stuff...man I love DVR's)According to yesterday's news, our economy is only a few days away from a "total market meltdown". What does that mean exactly? I am not entirely sure, but it sure as heck does not sound good. It sounds like these senators (who have never seen things this bad in their entire careers) want to take drastic actions and bail out our US financial institutions by buying all of their "bad debt". What does this bad debt cost? Well, something to the tune of one Trillion dollars! How big is a trillion? Well, In the U.S., one trillion is written as the number "1" followed by 12 zeros (1,000,000,000,000). (12! That is more zeros than my mom has kids!) I do not pretend to know all of the complexities of our national economic system, but since when does investing in debt sound like a good idea? The hope (not promise) that comes at such a high cost is that there will be market stability (which of course is a desirable thing), but it is what we would probably have if politicians would leave the market alone.
Much of this market meltdown is caused by the horrible conditions of the housing market. It was politicians who made it possible for any Joe-shmo to be able to get a mortgage. I know when we sold our house in Newnan, it was to a person who was using some government program to be able to afford a down payment. Then all of the adjustable rate mortgages..don't get me started! ...Anyhow, I don't really want to get wrapped up in the details as I have more to say. (you can stop reading whenever you want)
Ok, so where is this one trillion dollars going to come from? Well, according to our very informative senators, this is going to come back to the taxpayers. (I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.) Now, I am not sure of any exact number, but I am pretty sure that Stan and I pay a decent percentage of our income in taxes. After state and federal income taxes, social security, medicaid, property taxes, sales tax, gas tax, ad valorem, and more that I don't even know...I would guess that we pay about 50% of income in taxes..(at least this is what Stan tells me, and it sounds about right to me). Now the government is going to have to raise taxes in order to pay for this "market stability". The thing is, is that they don't even know for sure if this is going to work. They claim that for the past year they have taken actions to help the economy and with each move comes the hope that it will be the one thing that finally helps this failing economy. With this major action still come that same question...will this be enough to do the trick?
Well, my thoughts this evening (umm, morning) are a mix of news from the media and the Book of Mormon. (First, a little insight here to my current state. I have been awake since 4:30am (when Kate woke up) thinking about all of this, and I could not get back to sleep. Thus, I blog. I don't know if this all makes sense. These are the thoughts that I have right now in the middle of the night. I may wake up tomorrow and read this and have no idea what I was thinking...that is if I can get back to sleep at some point.) Moving on. Recently, in the BOM, I have been reading in the book of Mosiah. It seems to me that there is a little bit of a link between how heavily the people are taxed and how righteous the leader/king and the people are.
(Mosiah 7:15)(talking about Limhi's people) "For behold, we are in bondage to the Lamanites, and are taxed with a tax which is grievous to be borne. And now, behold, our brethren will deliver us out of our bondage, or out of the hands of the Lamanites, and we will be their slaves; for it is better that we be slaves to the Nephites than to pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites." (vs. 22) "And behold, we at this time do pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites, to the amount of one half of our corn, and our barley, and even all our grain of every kind, and one half of the increase of our flocks and our herds; and even one half of all we have or possess the king of the Lamanites doth exact of us, or our lives."
One half? This sounds a little familiar. These people would rather be slaves. Granted, they were supporting their enemies. I think I would rather be a slave as well. Moving on.
Then in chapter 11, it talks about King Noah. Verse 3, "And he laid a tax of one fifth part of all they possessed, a fifth part of their gold and of their silver, and a fifth part of their bziff, and of their copper, and of their brass and their iron; and a fifth part of their fatlings; and also a fifth part of all their grain. (vs. 4) And all this did he take to asupport himself, and his wives and his concubines; and also his priests, and their wives and their concubines; thus he had changed the affairs of the kingdom. 6 Yea, and thus they were supported in their laziness, and in their idolatry, and in their whoredoms, by the taxes which king Noah had put upon his people; thus did the people labor exceedingly to support iniquity. (Part of vs. 2) And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord."
It is interesting to me that these verses make it sound as if paying 20% in taxes is a bad thing.
Then we have King Mosiah. "And king Mosiah did cause his people that they should till the earth. And he also, himself, did till the earth, that thereby he might not become burdensome to his people, that he might do according to that which his father had done in all things. And there was no contention among all his people for the space of three years. (Mosiah 6:7).
So, here we have a righteous leader who is willing to work with his own hands to support himself in order to not be a burden on the people. I don't think I could fathom....
These scriptures lead me to believe a few things about societies.
1) A tax of 50% is "very grevious to be borne".
2) That 20% in taxes is more than enough; in King Noah's case it sounds like it is a bit much. (I think everyone has heard the saying that 10% should be good enough for the government if it is good enough for the Lord). I hesitate putting that line in here because it is so cliche, but I believe there is some truth to it...so there it is.
3)The leader/king has much influence over the people morally. King Noah caused his people to commit sin, while Mosiah had no contention among his people.
Why is it in our government, that taxes must be raised in order solve problems? Why is it the belief that if you throw money at something that the problems will disappear? I recently watched a show about a social study that was done. A homeless man was given $100,000 to spend as he wished. In the end, he was back to being homeless in a short amount of time. We also see many times how lottery winners have to go back to work after they have foolishly spent their winnings. I would hope that the people in our government are wiser and would be more financially minded when it came to spending our tax dollars. But when is enough enough? It seems to me that if we lived in a communist society and gave all that we had to the government that it still would not be enough. I know for sure that there would still be a ton of social issues (probably more, if you ask me).
Why does it seem that our government is unable to take what is has and to reallocate in order to address the big issue here? I love the old addage, "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." But now it sounds like I will be paying more money so that our government can pay 1 trillion dollars, in a bipartisan act, to buy debt and try to solve problems that they helped cause. If they want to buy debt, then I have some for sale!
Ok, I'm done.
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4 comments:
I agree with many of your points, but don't be pessimistic. We know things will be very ugly sooner or later. It is a reminder to dwell in your circle of influence while being aware of what is going on in your circle of concern. Also, I think we've been brought to the brink, but we haven't gone over the edge. Again ~ how many reminders do we all need (or voices of warning)? The up side is that we do have a government that is capable of a bail-out (however sad it is that one is needed). On your point that 10% is good enough for tithing... that really isn't an apples to oranges comparison. While there is massive mismanagement in government, they are charged with a great deal. The extent to which the government should be involved is debatable, of course, but I do feel that we are still very blessed to have the govt that we do. Markets in other countries have crumbled under what we have survived. Perhaps it will serve to shape a better market in the future... while as conservatives we may not be initially for more regulation, we see that there is a need for more oversight as well as reformation of such massive conglomeragates that become too large to be allowed to fail. You can also stop reading at any time. Nevermind. I am done :). Be of good cheer.
As to the point about 10% being enough, I agree that it is not apples to oranges. I don't think that our government could function on 10%. I hesitated even putting it in there. The thing that I was implying more in that statement is that I think that our government could function with considerably less. As far as being pessimistic...this is seriously what watching the news does to me. It scares me half to death. They were seriously saying that our finacial markets were on the brink of failing. In the past they have talked about how the price of food is going up and it makes me want to invest $10,000 in food storage. My thoughts were just the result events that day. It was not anything that I had been dwelling on and really thought through too much. It was just what was filling my mind in the middles of the night. Some of what I say in this post is very oversimplified and debatable. I understand that many of these businesses are too big to fail, it is just a little scary to me. I just don't know if this is the absolute solution. I think it will help with the current crisis, but I don't know if it will prevent the economy from declining still. I am fascinated by economics and it is the part of the news that I always want to hear about. I guess because my exposure to these topics is so limited (since most of the time we are watching playhouse Disney) that this little clip of news is all I have to go off of. I will probably just delete this post. I just spent a lot of time typing it, so if people want to read it I will keep it there for a day or two.
Don't delete the post! I think that we all feel a little freaked out right now. Kelly gets after me when I listen to talk radio and the news too much because then I become the paranoid freak that I am listening to. Tonight, after talking about the assinine gas shortage and the fools who made it happen, I have decided that I'm going to the Curley's when this all hits the fan, they know how to hunt and cook all kinds of stuff and they have a generator. Really though, I just have to remember not to watch too much news, keep plugging along and it will all work out, for me and the my peeps at least. I think the government is a mess and my voting will not influence anything because all parties are so turned around and have forgotten to use common sense. I am tired this evening too. I don't mean to take up all of your comment space, lets do lunch and talk this over.
Laura, as always you fascinate me. One thing I have learned about you-when you are passionate about something-look out. Good for you. At the same time, I am also feeling really stupid-I'm pretty much ignorant to all that stuff you talked about. Reading it was educational and entertaining-you are hilarious. You should sent that in to the paper or something.
Love ya,
Amber
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