social justice in the book of amos

Lately myself and Joel have been talking a bit (here and here) through the issues of economic justice, and whether good economic policies are more socialist or capitalist.  Needless to say, I fall more on the capitalistic end of the spectrum, while Joel is more socialistic in his views.  In order to give the Bible a chance to speak for itself on relations between the rich and poor and economic policy, I give you some relevant selections on the book of Amos.  Judge for yourselves whether Amos is concerned about social justice, and judge for yourselves just what social justice means for Amos. Read More »

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global debt crisis, fiat currency, trade deficits

I write a lot on economic problems of debt.  And, because some of you might be tired of hearing me talk about it, here a link to someone else talking about it.

And on the related subjects of trade deficits and their relationship to the soundness or unsoundness of money, Robert Murphy explains some facts about trade deficits that tend to get ignored.

And if I have somehow managed to point you toward Mises posts and you want to read them in the español, it turns out the Mises blog gets translated into Spanish here.

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communism, the free market, and the early church

In a conversation between myself and the legendary Joel Watts, we were discussing socialism versus free market economics.  And brother Joel said the following:

And what exactly are ’socialist motives’? You mean live feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and having all things common in a community so that everyone is equal?

Now, Joel did not say this directly, but what he is implying in this statement is that socialism or communism is the practice of the early Church Read More »

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job posting

Job is an awkward book to have in the Bible, but I’m glad it’s there.  It provokes a great quantity of worthwhile discussion, including this post.

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on drudge and mainstream media

NBC journalist Chuck Todd has lately been blasting “Drudge-Driven Journalism“.  Why?  Some might say it’s because Drudge’s right-wing leanings.  But I have to suspect that intermixed into the frustration might be something to do with the fact that people are increasingly turning away from traditional forms of media and getting their information from web-based sources.  And why are they doing this?  Read More »

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on speculators

(story)

Since Adam, people have enjoyed blaming other people for their problems.  Read More »

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wow. thanks, google.

And all along I’d thought the reason traffic keeps going up monthly for this site was that I was writing great stuff.  I guess not.  It turns out that for some reason Google loves me.  Read More »

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on what is said and what is implied

I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth.  You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them.  For I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God . . . Read More »

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new estimates on budget deficit released

(story)

A bipartisan committee in Congress has released projections for the next ten years.  They estimate that over the upcoming decade, there will be a total of 9.8 trillion in deficits, bringing our debt up to 20.28 trillion.  For those who, like me, simply feel numbness at that figure, that’s almost 1 1/2 times the 14.2 trillion our country produces each year, and over 9 1/2 times the amount of taxes we take in per year.  Read More »

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an example of socialist medical practices

. . . is the leaving of a 22-year-old man to die of thirst in a leading teaching hospital while he repeatedly asks nurses and police for water.  Of course, I’m sure the nurses didn’t do this out of socialist motives or anything, but incidents of this sort are the logical extension of what must neccessarily happen to medical care when it is offered for free.  Free medical care will lead to a massive increase in demand, which will then lead to severe shortages of people able to provide quality medical care, which will lead to tragedies.  Cause and effect.

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