CCXCIII – Joel Osteen and the BLA: A Study in Contrasts

This morning I went to Mass at a different parish than I usually attend, and was met during the homily by the same homily every mass at every parish around the diocese received today, and that is the Bishop’s Lenten Appeal (BLA). The last several weeks have been spent professing the virtues of the BLA but this week we received the step by step instructions on how to fill out the form and make a pledge.

I am a certified curmudgeon, and I have always been a little uncomfortable with how the Church executes this maneuver. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the BLA, but something about asking for money from the pulpit feels off. It is worth noting that the Bishop is well within his authority to do this, and that supporting the BLA is a good and noble thing, and the Bishop is not requiring participation but encouraging, so the duty of obedience only extends as far as tolerating the pitch during a few Masses out of the year. If I was master of all things, I would simply say that 5 Sundays of the year–ten percent of a 52 week year–the weekly collection goes straight to the Diocese. But maybe that tells you how little wisdom I have and how blessed we are that I am not master of all things. I simply prefer the Bishop would issue commands as commands, and this busking from the pulpit feels like an underutilization of the Bishop’s lawful authority.

To the credit of this parish I attended, the choir is one of the most beautiful I have heard around the diocese, perhaps even taking the first prize. The most beautiful piece of singing I have heard was a single organist singing and playing Schubert’s Ave Maria on All Souls Day three years ago, and it moved me to tears I am not ashamed to admit. It doesn’t take much to be beautiful, and sometimes simplicity does the trick.

After Mass I went straight to the Barber because I haven’t had a haircut since before Christmas and I was beginning to look like an abandoned sheep found in the wilderness. Blessedly, I arrived just as “Meet the Press” was ending and, unfortunately, I arrived just as Joel Osteen’s television ministry was beginning. Thanks to the diligent work of my barber, I could not hear anything that Joel Osteen was saying, but I did pay attention to what message he was sending visually.

Before I elaborate, I want to point out why this is important. Communication is more than just the things we say. Everything about how we present the message, when we present the message, and where we present the message is important. As it happens, this ties in well with todays readings at Mass. I don’t watch a lot of TV these days, but when I did I used to think sometimes about how I would evaluate an advertisement if I was the president of an ad agency. I think the first thing I would do is watch the ad with the volume muted, to see what message I get without hearing what is said. Communicating your message visually is half of the battle, especially in advertising.

I have a half remembered anecdote from my undergraduate education. There was a marketing conference–for some reason my memory says “it was in Spain” but that’s not really relevant. During the conference, an ad was shown highlighting a new product–a sweet beverage. The ad said a lot of things about it’s nutritional benefits and how it’s part of a complete breakfast or something like that. But the ad displayed a child drinking the product. Before the conference was over, orders for the product were being called in at a high volume–the ad didn’t say anything new, but what it showed was that the sweet beverage was a children’s product, and that was an innovation at the time. They had opened a new front in the brand wars–the child market for sweet beverages.

So Joel Osteen. I was watching (and not listening) his program while I was getting my hair cut and seeing what I could absorb. First thing I noticed: There was not a single Cross on display anywhere in the program. Not behind him, not on the Bible he held up, not anywhere in the football-stadium crowd of people when they panned over the audience. Not a single cross anywhere. The name Joel Osteen was visible on the TV Screen many times–every 5 seconds there would be a blurb on the bottom of the screen, “Buy this book! Pre-order that book! Subscribe to social media! Listen to the Podcast! Contribute now, call this number!”

The Joel Osteen program exists to serve Joel Osteen. I thought about–well, there is a football stadium full of Christians, can that be so bad? The answer is that I can’t say–not that I don’t have an opinion, but that it’s not for me to say. God may be working on the hearts of some people in that stadium–and certainly, a friend of Christ is a friend of mine. But do they understand properly? Isn’t protestantism heresy?

The contrast just stuck with me today. The BLA, while discomfiting to me, is at least executed in the context of worshiping and honoring God, and providing almsgiving to the Diocese so the Diocese can serve those in need. Joel Osteen, it is hard to say his program is even Christian–where is the Cross??? Why would that be missing? Was that an oversight? Was it not important? And it’s hard to say any contributions made goes to anyone other than Joel Osteen.

Let’s pray for those sheep following false shepherds, and let’s pray that we find in our hearts to give alms to those in our lives who are in need.

AMDG

CCLXXXIX – The Morality of Saving

My last article accidentally opened a window into a very confusing area of financial morality, and this area was rapidly and ably pounced upon by DavidtheBarbarian and Tenetur.

The thesis of that article is that the ideal money supply is such that an arbitrary population, after an arbitrary period of time, will have all their needs met and no money in reserve.

As David points out, there are very prudent reasons why one might want money in reserve–emergencies, insurance, long term future planning, and things like that. If we allow for that, then the money supply is not zero after some arbitrary period.

There are two approaches I can take to answer this. In the first, I could double down on the hard teaching, ignoring for a moment practical reality. In the second, I could refine my argument and try to determine what money supply is truly ideal.

The important question to both is this: How much should we worry about the future? The double-down response is “Not at all”; the refining response is “Some arbitrary amount”. We cannot go to the opposite extreme and say “Worrying about the future should be our sole focus” because then we fail to allow for any activity in the present.

The two possible responses seem to me to be mutually exclusive. I note in my previous article that the double-down approach should be undertaken prayerfully and under spiritual direction. But to a certain extent, so should the practice of saving. So should everything. If you are a parent with children, you could not neglect to plan for their future.

I think an error I made in the comments is to suppose that surplus ought to be given away instead of saved–as if that were the only alternative. Surplus ought to be committed to some purpose.

Imagine this: I chop down a tree. It gives me two cords of firewood–it was a big tree. If I am living for today, I will take the logs I need to keep my house warm tonight, and give the rest away to my neighbors. It is easy to imagine that I might need firewood for tomorrow too, and you can’t expect that I would chop down another tree only to take one part of the wood and give away the rest.

No, I would pick some arbitrary amount that would last me for some arbitrary period of time. I might be really concerned about how cold this winter will be, and keep all two cords. I might not be that concerned and keep only one cord. Lets say that it is February and I live in a temperate area and spring is right around the corner, so I make a prudential judgement that I need half a cord to last me to spring. I have 1.5 cords remaining. Ought I give that wood away? I could give some away–maybe my family lives close by, or close friends, I could take care of them. I could host a community bonfire, allow an opportunity for some fellowship. I could take that wood and go have a community bonfire in an area that doesn’t have much availability of wood. I could keep some of the wood and carve it into sculptures or plane it into planks and make furniture.

The point is: once my needs are met, now I can go about satisfying the needs of the community. The individualist utalitarians say that we should either keep all of it for ourselves or take just what we need for tonight. I think a way to reconcile this problem that would be good would be to say that all our resources must have a purpose, and once our needs are met we must see what we can do to satisfy the needs of others. This doesn’t have to be charity–it could be a creative, new use of the resource for which there is some demand. But the use must be towards some good.

Circling back to the question of, what is the ideal money supply. In a utalitarian world, the ideal money supply would be whatever amount results in needs being met and balances being zero after some arbitrary period of time. If we allow for future planning and provision of public goods to ourselves, our family, our friends, and neighbors–then there is no upper bound.

In fact–and this may be opening the door to a whole new line of thought–the money supply has two varieties, potential and kinetic money. Money that is being saved is potential, and has no limit. Money that is being used is kinetic, and must always be zero after some period of time. Money flows from the sovereign, is used actively until it ends up in someones savings. Money flows from Kinetic to potential, in other words.

In a Christian nation, a high level of money-wealth that has been built up means society gradually improves because it is implicitly being leveraged for the public good. In a selfish nation, a high level of money wealth that has been built up means social stratification occurs, because a few people are stockpiling sovereign money and so more sovereign money needs to be issued to meet the needs of the poor.

That is an interesting thought.

AMDG

CCXXIV – The Necessity of Meeting Demand

Here is a better way of talking about the concept I’ve been refining over the last few articles: Before a country can export internationally in a healthy way, it’s domestic demands must be met. I want to talk about reasons why this is good, and one reason why not doing this is bad.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a great reference for human necessities. I won’t vouch for it as a scientific framework but as a rule of thumb I’ve gone back to it multiple times. We can expand this model to apply to entire nations. For a nation to be stable, it must first be meeting the physiological needs of its people: A geographical region with no potable water will not sustain a people, for example. Water sources, food supply, a means of constructing shelter, some healthy family culture, these are basics for a given people to form a cultural bond, and for that people to live in a given geographical area. Next up the hierarchy is safety: A people must be able to defend themselves, and the geography must be suitable for the purpose too. One of the reasons Poland has had such a hard time historically is because it’s geography is not conducive to defense: It has mountains in the south and plains in the north and no obstructions between the superpowers that have occupied it’s east and west. Safety also implies security–economic security, employment, some mechanism for personal property, some means of exchange. Everything above this point has a lot to do with attitudes and at a macro-scale, cultural cohesion: Love and belonging implying a sense of patriotism, Esteem implying a sense of self respect, and finally Self Actualization implying a sense of fulfilled purpose.

For a developing country, physiological needs are obviously fundamental. We frequently hear stories of people in some countries traveling for miles to get clean water, or going days without a meal. We have already talked about means at our disposal to assist with this problem: We can lend a people money, if they have a profit motive to provide these necessities; we can give a people the necessities themselves and let them focus on their other needs; we can provide a safety net so a given people don’t have to worry about exigencies; or we can train them in skill sets conducive to satisfying the necessities in their community. There are ways each of these can work and each of these can fall short. I propose that the best mechanism is to find a way to assist a people to acquire the skills or tools required to exploit their own resources to satisfy their own needs.

Let me expand on that for a moment. If I bring food from outside a given country and deliver it inside a given country and feed people, this creates dependency. No one has developed skills of providing food, and when the external supply of food goes away the population reverts to it’s original foodless condition. Any food production resources available go unexploited when the skills or tools are not available to that population.

This same paradigm is true for every demand of a given society. If there is a demand somewhere that is not being met, that nations own resources must be used to satisfy it, so that the knowledge is retained by that nation, the tools are developed by that nation, the costs are borne by that nation and the rewards are retained by that nation. People can be trained to mine gold, but if people are starving in the streets then what good would that do? Demand for food is prior to demand for gold. When physiological economic demands are met within a nation, then the quality of life and standard of living have improved and the country can ascend Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Consistent effort along this line of thought, over time, ensures that all of a nations demands are met, and eventually that nation will begin producing a surplus. This surplus can be exported and used to meet demands in other countries. Again: If a country is mining gold and selling it internationally, what good is that if people are starving in the streets?

In previous articles the way I have said this is that value must be extracted, transformed, and retained by a nation first before it makes its way to secondary export markets. Value, by definition, is something that is demanded, something which is valuable to someone else. Gold is not valuable to people who don’t have food. So if value is being produced in a given nation, by definition demand is being met. The retention of value necessarily improves standard of living and quality of life. If value is exported first, then that is satisfying demand external to the nation in question, and so not helpful.

This is a good point to talk about why Corporate Imperialism and/or exporting resources first is a bad thing. In my graduate program, I took a class about international supply chains. I had to write a short paper about the textile industry and their operations in Bangladesh. The specific firm in question sends American cotton to a Bangladeshi factory to be turned into American shirts to be sold in America. The value exchange here is Bangladesh supplies cheap labor and money flows into Bangladesh from America. Bangladesh has no need for the shirts, does not get the benefit of the cotton, if they produce cotton in Bangladesh it is not one of their primary industries. Add on top of this the fact that race-to-the-bottom cost competition leads to enormous mills being created with slapdash safety standards, which lead to a national tragedy in 2013. So in other words, Bangladesh bears the risks of manufacture, while America gets all the benefits. American farmers sell the cotton, American consumers get the shirts, Bangladesh gets money. No value is being generated by Bangladesh for Bangladesh in this example.

There are some cases where the core resource is provided by the host country, which is worse still. If Bangladesh produced the cotton, for example, then that Cotton would be extracted and not used for the satisfaction of demand in Bangladesh, and so deplete the country of resources in exchange for mere dollars. This whole paradigm is a bit like asking your neighbors to paint your fence, but asking them to buy the paint and brush and also to build the fence. You get all the benefit, but your neighbors must bear the costs. The paradigm relies on your neighbors wanting your money more than you want the fence.

If there was a single concept which captures all scenarios I’m talking about here, it’s the idea of Custodial Majority. It is the responsibility of those in the majority or those with plenty to care for in a beneficent way those in the minority or those with scarcity. The developed world, as such, has a responsibility to care for and go to the aid of the developing world–not in a careless way, but in a way that seeks to raise up their neighbors. The only way to raise up ones neighbors is to find out what they need, the best way to get them what they need is to help them get it themselves.

AMDG

CCXXIII – The Problem of Money

We’ve got some new ideas to add to an old article that talks about economics and money. In the old article I used Rai Stones from the island of Yap as a metaphor for corporate equity. I described it in this way:

In the original scenario, Rai Stones are a tangible asset. Physical possession of the Rai Stones are desirable, and so people will pay some amount of money to go see them. The Rai Stones are worth what people are willing to pay for them, but what they are is different from what they are worth. In the beginning, people would pay [$1] to be able to see the stones, but eventually people would pay [$5] for the same privilege. The core thing that is desired has not changed: The stones are the same stones. But the value has changed based on the demand.

This is the important distinction I would like to explore: What makes a thing valuable is different from what it is worth. Said more precisely, using the definitions I set down previously: A resource has some value, and a resource has some worth, and those two concepts are not the same.

There is a lot of confusion because we don’t have a good way of talking about value in a different way than we talk about worth: we use money to measure everything. Economists have tried to create a unit known as utils to measure the utility of things but utility is different from value, too.

I am going to coin the unit yap to differentiate value from worth. I am not going to define a conversion rate because then it will turn units yap into dollars and then be the same as money. That’s not what this is. Units yap represents the object economically desired, and is not standard per thing but is standard per desirer. In other words, if I see a canoe, and I am in the market for a canoe, then it would be valuable for me to buy that canoe. The canoe has a value of 5 yap to me, which is only meaningful in comparison to you: You hate water and canoes but could probably use that canoe as a decorative feature in your garden, so it has a value of 1 yap to you. This tells you that the canoe is more valuable (5 times more valuable, even) to me than it is to you. The price of the canoe is $100. Because the canoe is more valuable to me, I might be willing to pay more money for it than you would. The difference in value has a correlation with difference in willingness to pay. Economists over simplify this by saying that if you pay $100 for a canoe, the canoe is valued at $100 and is worth the $100 you paid for it. That loses some nuance, even if it is logically correct.

What something is worth is different still, but can be expressed in terms of money without losing nuance. The canoe is valued at 5 yap to me, but priced at $100. I will buy it if I believe it is worth more than $100. If something is more valuable to me than the money it requires to get it, then I will buy it–this is because Money has value too, it’s just negligible. $100 maybe has a value of 2 yap to me because of my financial situation and general attitude towards money. The canoe is priced at $100, my money has a face value of $100, but I am exchanging 2 yap for 5 yap. Because I view myself as acquiring value, even if I have made a fair exchange in price, I will make the exchange. Worth can be expressed as the list price at which the yap value of the money (or means of exchange) equals the yap value of the item being purchased. If, for me, $100 has a value of 2 yap, we can extrapolate that maybe $250 has a value of 5 yap. This means the canoe is worth $250 to me, but I can get it at $100. If it was priced at $300, but it is only worth $250 to me, it would not be worth the price, because the canoe is only 5 yap valuable to me.

So you can see that yap is only useful as a means of comparison between items or a means of comparison between attitudes, but is not itself an objective measure of anything.

Because we do not use yap to talk about value, we substitute considerations of money and refer to value in terms of dollars. This makes us think of price, and puts us in a frame of mind to talk about transactions. My discussions of economic development involve the idea that we want to maximize yap contained within developing countries, and not maximize money. By maximizing yap, the economic situation of a country will slowly make use of that value, and compound the benefits of that value. Money itself has negligible value because it cannot be used for anything other than as a means of exchange. Maximizing money merely maximizes potential for exchange. Maximizing value provides an actual benefit from that value.

AMDG

CCXXII – You Can’t Live In A Pile Of Cash

The hypothesis that I have arrived at over the course of this latest economics series is that for a given country to prosper it’s resources must be extracted, transformed, and exchanged domestically, before any consideration of export. I gave a simplistic example but now let’s add some dimensions to that example.

Lets talk about a fictional country, lets call it Scootland. Scootland is known for it’s abundance of gold mines. Joes Raw Material Co purchased the rights to one such mine, and is currently engaged in mining the Gold. A rival mine on the opposite end of the country called Bob’s Gold Shack has also purchased the rights to a mine, and is mining the gold.

Joes Raw Material Co has to date extracted one-thousand ounces of Gold, and has warehoused it to sell. Jimothy’s Jewelers has contracted with JRMC to purchase all one-thousand ounces at the current market price of $1,500 per ounce. JRMC receives $1.5 million from Jimothy’s Jewelers, which JRMC uses to cover costs of operations, such as miner salaries, equipment costs, and other overhead. At the end of the day, JRMC makes a profit of 10%, so $150,000.

Jimothy’s Jewelers specializes in processing raw gold and turning it into jewelry. The one-thousand ounces they purchased they plan to refine into 0.5oz gold rings and sell for $800 apiece. Jimothy’s Jewelers successfully sells all 2,000 rings and makes $1.6 million. After costs, overhead, etc, Jimothy’s Jewelers makes a profit of 10%, so $10,000.

Tim the Plumber wanted to buy a fancy gift for his sweetheart, so he bought one of the 0.5oz rings. She loves the gift and keeps it, and they plan to pass it on to their kids.

In this example, internal to Scootland, the country has seen raw gold turned into gold rings, has added profit of $150,000 to JRMC, $10,000 to JJ, and a bunch of gold rings kept in jewelry boxes around the country. Scootland has seen the benefit of this mining activity kept within Scootland. If Scootland has a 1% tax on profits, then Scootland as a country has earned $1,600 for this activity.

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Lets look at the rival, Bob’s Gold Shack. Bob has to date extracted one-thousand ounces of gold, and warehoused it to sell. International Gold Conglomerate has contracted with BGS to purchase all one-thousand ounces at the current market price of $1,500 per ounce. BGS receives $1.5 million from International Gold Conglomerate, which Bob’s Gold Shack uses to cover costs of operations, such as miner salaries, equipment costs, and other overhead. At the end of the day, BGS makes a profit of 10%, so $150,000

International Gold Conglomerate is a global firm headquartered in Hambonia. IGC is in the business of making 0.5oz gold rings which it sells for $800 apiece. International Gold Conglomerate sells these rings all over the world, makes $1.6 million for the effort. After costs, IGC makes a profit of 10%, or $10,000.

In this example, Scootland exported 1,000 oz of gold, which was refined and spread all around the world. This brought a profit of $150,000 to Bob’s Gold Shack. The $10,000 profit went to Hambonia, who are also the primary customers of International Gold Conglomerate. The net result is 1,000 oz of Gold leaving Scootland, 1,000 oz of processed gold arriving in Hambonia, and $10,000 flowing into Hambonia.

The key here is that raw materials are departing and in exchange they are getting Cash. “Hard” assets have been converted into liquid assets, which do not have the same value. In the first example, there is no net loss of raw material and there is a net profit of $160,000 generated from the transactions. In the second example, there is a net loss of raw material and there is a net profit of $150,000. If we factor in the market value of the raw material, there is a definite outflow to Scootland as a nation.

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There are two natural questions from this: Why is it important that the raw materials stay in the country if the gold rings don’t help anyone once they are sold to customers; and how does keeping the finished goods actually help a country?

Keeping the raw materials in the country ensures that the economy can support the activity in the first place. If there is no demand for gold rings, effort should not be spent on making gold rings. Finding the best utilization of the raw gold–satisfying the biggest demand–is what is important, because then an economic niche is satisfied. Local mines should sell to local manufacturers, local manufacturers should sell to local buyers. If a local mine is selling to an international manufacturer to meet international demand, then some domestic demand remains unmet. An efficient economy meets all domestic demands, a prosperous economy exceeds domestic demands. If there are unmet demands in the economy, every effort should be made to satisfy them first.

As for the finished goods, they help a country by storing value. The more stored value that exists in a nation, the more “hidden value” that population has, and so the higher the potential economic activity. You can live in a house, but you can’t live in a pile of cash: the house is useful to you and stores value over time, the pile of cash is not useful the same way a house is useful, and is only worth what it says its worth. If someone sells a big house to downsize into a small house, they extract a portion of their equity and turn it into cash and thereby increase their economic power. So that means “hidden value” or “potential value” represents future economic activity. The more future economic activity that is stored, the stronger an economy can be.

So, in order to most help a developing nation achieve economic strength and prosperity, the priority must be on converting raw materials into assets which store value over a long period of time, and for which there is a definite unmet demand.

AMDG

CCXXI – Almsgiving For Dummies (and Economists)

All this high-minded talk about the economics of improving the standard of living and quality of life in developing nations is well and good, but what can I, Scoot, do to make a difference?

To think about this I want to talk about some different models for service in the developing world.

Example 1 – Lending

Lending to the poor is often called “Microfinance”. The idea is that those in poverty can leverage an entrepreneurial spirit to turn some influx of cash into more cash by pursuing some transformation activity for profit. This model does not work without that entrepreneurial element–the recipients of loans need some means of turning this money into more money. Charging profitable interest on loans to the poor is fraught with moral peril. Lending was originally conceived as charity, with the interest (if any) serving as a de minimis compensation to the lender when the recipient is financially rehabilitated. “Hi, thanks for helping me get on my feet, here is your money back, plus a little for the trouble.”

Many micro-lenders think only about the short term liquidity component, or income smoothing. Income smoothing can indeed be helpful, but if poverty is about more than money, then giving the poor money won’t help structurally change their circumstances. A society needs the ability to transform resources, and individuals need some means of participating in that transformation for circumstances to really begin to change.

Income smoothing and micro-lending can work but it requires deliberate effort on the part of the lender to make sure it is being put to good use.

Example 2 – Almsgiving

Ok, so lending adds complexity, lets remove the complexity and stick with the basics: Lets just give money or food or other material support to the poor. The different species of giving have different effects. Money doesn’t do anything substantial, other than provide liquidity. This is effectively the same result as income smoothing. How the money is used can have a big impact on how helpful it is: buying food will have more impact than, say, buying a chair.

The Romans had a good model for supporting a population of poor. The way I heard it described is that “for most of human history, most people spent most of their money on food”. Their solution for this was the Grain Dole–a program of subsidizing grain and giving it to the poorest citizens (who registered for the privilege). By removing their largest expense, it helped increase class mobility. The video linked above describes a problem where wealthy citizens who a generation prior had been poor still had their names on the Grain Dole and so still received subsidized grain, which they should not have–this speaks to the effectiveness of the program, and the difficulty in controlling it. Giving food can have the same impact, but it requires consistency and predictability. Just making food available may help some, but providing regular, predictable support helps the poor structure their lives and focus on other important concerns. Food has the added benefit of only being able to be used for food.

This tells us that certain varieties of Almsgiving can be effective but again requires deliberate effort to provide the best variety of alms and to provide it in a predictable way.

Example 3 – Necessity Support

Necessity Support is the provision of services rather than tangible goods. Removing added costs of unforeseen events, like medical care or housing after a disaster, this provides stability and can help return a person in poverty back to some level of normalcy faster than otherwise. Adding medical costs to an already thin income can be ruinous, likewise if a home is destroyed by a storm or a fire. These services provide a safety net, but do not provide a proactive measure of relief. This is important but cannot be a primary means of reducing poverty.

Example 4 – Skills Training

Skills training involves giving those in poverty new skills which they can use to improve or supplement their income. Skills necessarily involves learning how to provide some kind of productive transformation. Skills training accomplishes two things in this way: It encourages the transformation of potential value into actual value in an individuals community, and gives them access to income. The skills learned must be relevant and applicable. This is a variety of assistance that is very difficult to provide and very effective once provisioned.

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These are ways of helping the poor, but now we must return to the original question: what can I, Scoot, do? Actually, I can do any of these things: what should I do? The most effective giving requires understanding what community needs some variety of assistance, what challenges are facing specific individuals, and devising a mechanism for providing assistance which targets those challenges effectively. The best thing is to go hyper-personal and find something that helps one specific person, and expand from there if it is effective. Service must be specifically targeted to be most effective.

Food for thought!

AMDG

CCXIX – Developing Economic Resources

There’s a point I arrived at in my previous article which I would like to expand upon. This is the comparative utility of money and resources.

In that article, I talked about how the corporate exfiltration of resources from developing countries in exchange for money was not an equal exchange: The party that receives money is the worse for it. There’s a few aspects to this idea so lets take them bit by bit.

The first aspect we need to make sure we understand is the nature of money and the nature of resources. Money is the means of exchange–we know it intuitively as the cash in our wallets, even if writing a formal definition is not very simple. Resources are raw materials which can be transformed by work into goods which can be brought to market. We understand this concept intuitively as well, even if the formal definition is wide ranging.

Money is useful as a medium for transferring value. If I own a house, I cannot carry that house with me and exchange pieces of it for goods. We use Money as this proxy. Money once was used in exactly this way when we had a Gold Standard–money represented actual, tangible portions of Gold and at any time could be exchanged for the equivalent quantity. Fiat currency is more complicated than I have the time or patience to get into here, but in short let us just say that a fiat dollar is money which is backed by a government rather than by a resource.

Resources are useful as a medium for storing value. I can store a house or I can store a pile of cash for thirty years. The pile of cash will not change in value, the house might appreciate in value based on the market. Raw materials are resources which store potential value. A gold deposit isn’t useful to anyone, but can be made into something useful for someone, and it is that potentiality that gives it value. A golden ring has actual value–the raw gold has been transformed into something that people want and are willing to exchange value for. Both the golden ring and the gold deposit will still be valuable in thirty years, but the cash–the money–will only ever be worth it’s face value. No one exchanges value for money, but people do exchange money for value.

This is an important preface to this next aspect. The developed world uses money to measure everything. This is because money is constantly being transferred, value is constantly being created, and the developed world interacts with itself on roughly equal footing. You can compare two developed nations by comparing their Gross Domestic Product (GDP)–a measure of the total money that changed hands within their borders. Gross Domestic Product doesn’t say anything about the value that is being transferred, but it does say how much money is being transferred. A “Rich” nation has lots of money. A “rich” person may not even have any resources or assets–just vast sums of money. This is all well and good, but a complete picture of financial health should capture some view of resources.

The developing world does not have much in the way of money. They are generally abundant in resources, either actual or potential, but want for money. Because the developed world measures everything by money, they see these nations and think them to be “poor” and so begin as best as they can the flow of money from the developed to the developing world. This is all well and good–but money is useful for transferring value, not for storing it. When money changes hands, value is transferring one way or another. Typically, money will be used to secure access to the potential value stored in the untransformed resources of developing nation. Then typically a company will transform those resources, and transfer them through their supply chain around the world, where they will transfer that value for more money than it required to make the transformation. The end result is a net flow of stored value out of developing nations, and a net increase in money for a company.

Why is this bad? The goal is that we want developing nations to become developed nations, through improvements to the standard of living and quality of life of the citizens of those nations. For a developing nation to really fuel their economic dynamo, they need the ability, technology, and cultural will to extract resources and transform potential value into actual value. The process of doing that will result in concrete improvements to the quality of life and standard of living.

A logical next question would be–well, why haven’t they done that? When the first movers went global, they gained the ability to negotiate with developing nations as if money was the most valuable resource, and made deals based on that. On paper such deals look fine: everyone is exchanging goods or services for money at an agreed upon price, everyone is happy! But when foreign actors enter a developing nation, secure the rights to their resources, and perform the transformation, they are denying the domestic actors the ability of acquiring that skill and expertise. The cultural will to develop their own competencies is muted and the technology is brought in and utilized by external parties, so the ability is not developed. Developing nations must be able to Extract, transform, and transfer value on their own to improve their economic welfare. Third parties can help with this process, but the process must be effectuated domestically.

This is why we see isolationist or high tariff policies working extremely well to incubate industries. This method was deployed by Japan and Korea in the technology industry, and by preventing foreign parties from interfering, developed their own competencies and are now highly skilled in that industry.

GDP is only effective at comparing like nations. Germany and the United States can be compared on industrial power and consumerism using money as a proxy. Developing nations can be compared using money, but it would be most useful if there was some measure of the amount of value transformations which are taking place. If we compare disparate nations by a measure that is not well suited to them, we will misdiagnose the problem and so prescribe an incorrect remedy. If the problem is relieving poverty, raising the standard of living, improving the quality of life around the entire world, it first involves understanding how value can be transformed and retained within developing nations.

AMDG

LXXIX – The Only Ecumenical Council that Matters

Here is an excellent article by Fr. Z. Read it, close your browser for a moment and stew on it, then come back here.

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It’s Not About You

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. You should be familiar with those words already.

• One – there is only one church.
• Holy – the church is Sacred.
• Apostolic – From greek apo (off, away) + stellein (to send), via Latin meaning messenger, from thence referring to the apostles and conceptually referring to apostolic succession via the laying of hands.

But it is the word Catholic I would like to muse on, here. Catholicism is unlike other religions in that it is named for a trait, not for a person or founder. Christian means “of Christ”, but after the protestants protested, it wasn’t so clear what kind of Christian you were. So we call ourselves Catholic, from the creed. Catholic is derived from Greek kata (about) + holos (whole) or katholikos (on the whole, in general), via Latin catholicus meaning Universal, General.

Looking out at the spiritual landscape right now, would you believe we are unified?

Here are the divisions that I see from my privileged perch here in the Diocese of Arlington and from my small view into the blogosphere.

• Charismatics
• Traditional-Latin-Mass goers
• “JP2 Catholics”
• The Susans Militant
• The Barnhardt Benedictines
• The Society of St. Pius X
• The V2 Invalidists
• African Traditionalism

And that’s just limiting myself to what is in my view. I am sure this list could grow tremendously if I were to make it exhaustive. Everyone can agree that the existence of these factions is not helping the Church. She is wounded! A Unity movement has a lot of potential.

Some Caution

This is not advocacy for a middle way. This is clearly defining our enemy, the enemy of all Catholics. I won’t define it here because that would just be my view. I think we all could name at least a few existential threats to the Church. We are all Catholic, so the enemy to one is enemy to us all. The whole point of this “Unite the Clans” concept is to tighten our ranks to fight–or at least, resist–this common enemy. We will need to work on our internal consistency, it’s true.

We need to approach each other with love and charity but also determination against our common enemy. This is where Fr. Z highlights two points:

• Clarify our Objectives
• Examine our Consciences

Both of these are Examens of different scale. Each group must examine what it’s defining mission is, and what battles are not worth fighting at the cost of wounding the Church? Then the individual examens: What is our role in the greater picture? Are we doing everything we can to stave off that common enemy to us all, the evil one? Are we growing in holiness, deepening our prayer? Are we asking God to guide our choices, or making choices based on “political” loyalty?

I’ve witnessed in other settings “calls for unity”. They become a ‘middle way’. The middle way is doomed to fail, every time, because it involves abandoning your core values in the name of compromise. Catholics can unify without abandoning any values, because Catholics have the Nicene Creed to rally behind. Everything else is bonus, when compared to the content of the Creed.

Our faith requires us to be transformed, and this movement has the potential to be transformative. That is to say, uncomfortable. But Christ shows us that our suffering can have meaning. JMSmith from Orthosphere commented eloquently on my post about formation, and so I will leave you with his thoughts:

It’s a tricky word, to be sure. I think we should recognize two very different meanings. There is the ordinary meaning to reshape, as when I form bread dough into a ball, and the Platonic meaning to impart an essence. I can form and reform a wad of play dough without any change to its essence. I can form a block of wood into a sculpture, and yet it remains wood. If I burn the wood, however, I effect a more fundamental transformation, and the wood with all its characteristic properties is no more.

Faith formation should obviously be of the second sort. It should not be just a haircut. As one of our hymns puts it, we acquire a “new heart.” And heart here means soul. The new heart we acquire is not just one replacement part in our system, but a new control that transforms every part in the system. If we liken [ourselves] to that block of wood, we are not being carved. We are being burned.

XII – Invictus

One of the virtues I lean on heavily is Charity; especially in the context of loving ones neighbor. This can be a good thing or a bad thing at times; some might say I give too much leeway to bad people, others might say I don’t give them enough. Context and proportionality is everything, which is the grand struggle. But second only to loving God is loving our neighbor as ourselves, so it is important that we try, in any case.

Just How Narrow Is The Path?

I was thinking about this recently for multiple reasons. In response to a blog post by someone I admire, and in response to some goings-on in my personal life. The premise is essentially this: I refuse to condemn anyone. I believe scripture will support me on this, without my looking right now^[1]. Figuring out who goes to Heaven and who goes to hell is a task reserved for God alone, and that is not a responsibility I could even conceive of usurping.

Charity is hoping for Gods mercy, but praying just in case. Charity is fearing hell, and trying to save yourself and others. It is not charitable to spend time trying to identify who will populate that infernal place.

But do not mistake my meaning: there IS a hell and people DO go there. “Narrow is the path and Straight the gate that leads to Life, and few there are that find it!”^[2] That is not a very optimistic teaching, if you look at the whole of human existence. But there is optimism in that there is a path! And we have been told how to find it! But fearing that wide path is an important part of charity, in a kind of counter-intuitive way. We want to find the path for ourselves, first. Then we are OBLIGED, since hell is a real place and we are all at risk of ending up there, to find as many people as possible and help them get on the right path.

So I pray for Gods mercy and righteous judgement, always. But to rely on his mercy alone is the sin of presumption. God opened the gate, we need to walk the path.

The Game of Life

As we play the great game of life, Charity plays another important role. Loving thy neighbor includes this radical but important concept of loving thy enemy. This accomplishes the tricky and unique feat–I might even dare to call it a Miraculous feat–of ending a cycle of radicalization and violence inherent in human nature. In ideological pursuits, there is this tendency to compete unto violence. Loving our enemies ends that because our sole pursuit is to love God and join him in perfect unity in Heaven. When our aims are spiritual, no temporal ideology can or should trouble us. Let their anger break on us like waves on the shore! Loving our enemy means we want them to get to Heaven too, even if they don’t want it or realize it right now.

In a sense, that makes loving our neighbor the hardest of those two important commandments, because it isn’t abstract. We can’t think our way into loving our neighbor. We have to do it. Every day, every time, all the time.

Practical Context in Two Examples

I was thinking about putting this in a separate post but, heck, lets dig in, shall we?

There are a lot of strong opinions about Barnhardt. She has a way of speaking her mind that is uncomfortable to a lot of people who, like me, don’t really like to think about the practical reality that there are people who will go to hell.

Barnhardt could afford to be more charitable, and critics could afford to be more charitable to her. I have two examples.

Islam Delenda Est^[3]

Barnhardt ends her essays and emails with the permanent inscription: Furthermore I believe that Islam should be destroyed. This is derived from the Roman senator who ended his speeches to the senate with ‘Furthermore I believe that Carthage should be destroyed’, Carthago Delenda Est. At the time, they were (or were about to be^[1]) at war with Carthage, and wage a total war such that the nation would be extinguished from the Earth.

I temper my opinion of Islam somewhat. The religion should be destroyed, sure. The people should be converted. And after 15 years (more than that, to be sure) of America faffing about in the middle east, that charitable concept gets lost. The people should not be destroyed. Their misguided faith, and their ideology should. Think of that as you will, whether it be likely or not. But converting their people should be foremost in our minds, not destroying them. We want to maximize getting people to Heaven, and they can’t do it through Islam unless, in God’s righteous judgement, he shows mercy on those who are infallibly ignorant or otherwise worthy of his mercy. This is where Barnhardt could afford to be a little more charitable.

St. Athanasius, Pray for us

The other item is regarding the ever controversial status of Pope Francis. Barnhardt recently wrote an essay which underscores the importance of figuring out what is going on with Pope Francis. Similarly to her position on Islam, she draws a firm line in the sand, which I think she could afford to soften with charity. But she makes a valid point, that the Pope is the head of the Church on Earth. Critics (both traditionalists opposed to Francis and modernists who support him) should be more charitable to Barnhardt. Our biases prevent us from reacting to the argument, and cause us to react to the person. The Church is not in our hands, individually. It is in the hands of God. There is something we all can learn from Pope Francis, even if it is to learn what we value in our Faith and how to fight for it. At the same time, we need to evaluate the ideas and not the person: in my opinion, the ideas are jarring but valid. I don’t draw the same conclusions, and that is my prerogative to do so.

My conclusion is to do the same thing we’ve always done when the Church was under apparent siege: Hunker down, hold the line, stand firm in my faith. Like St. Athanasius before us, when all the world seemed against him, by the grace of God he won. The Church was saved by the singular persistence and steadfastness of Athanasius in his faith. The church will be saved by us doing the same. To accomplish this will require a whole lot of loving our enemies.

AMDG

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^{[1] Sometimes I just need to get ideas out of my head.}

^{[2]Matthew 7:14}

^{[3]See her sentiments echoed in a more refined way here.}