Bill's Notes

Hey, let's spend $830 billion to "stimulate" the economy.

Instapundit linked to a book about surviving the coming hyperinflation. I haven't read it. But it immediately called to mind my Peace Corps - Africa experience, where I heard from volunteers who suffered through 1,000 percent inflation per month.

The key: sardines and soap. You get paid. You convert all your currency into sardines and soap. For the next two months (until your next mandat -- a postal money order), you sell your staple items in exchange for whatever the currency has inflated to that day for the things you need. Essentially, sardines becomes the currency, not the paper money.

Now in the U.S., you can hedge against inflation in a myriad of ways, but you need at least two kinds: (1) a hedge against long term inflation.(2) Something that acts as a substitute currency. Sardines worked in Zaire because food was scarce and people frequently needed them. Doubtful it'll work in the U.S.

What can be the substitute currency? Well, we live in an environment that's more organized and more dependent on cash than theirs. (Shopowners only answer to themselves over there, not a CFO in Dubuque.) I don't know ... sugar? Beer? Gold?

I write this because the Fed has dramatically expanded the money supply -- practically a hockey stick graph since November. The idea, nearest I can tell, is this: We have a credit crunch because various bubbles overinflated the value of many items in our economy, not just real estate but all sorts of things that invested in real estate (which was inflated by cheap money to make up for dot-com and stock market collapse around 2000).

Rather than take a severe economic contraction (think 20%), the Powers that Be have decided to inflate the currency to bring the actual values in line with the inflated values. Say I say a stamp is worth $20, but it's worth $15. I borrow $20 and can't pay it back right away, and my banker's getting nervous and ready to call my loan.

Eventually, I must face the music -- unless I own the Treasury. Then I can inflate the currency 25 percent. Voila! The stamp is now worth $20 -- though still $15 in real dollar terms. But my balance sheet works; my banker's off my back.

We've overinflated our $13 trillion economy by a trillion or two -- rather than face the economic dislocation caused by everyone adjusting to the market, we'll inflate the currency. Voila! We have a $13 trillion economy on paper. Of course, the inflation will hit everyone hard, as everyone just got a substantial pay cut.

Anyway, that's the nearest I can tell what's going on. Hope I'm wrong.

In a past entry, I described pagan undercurrents that never quite left the West. And in a couple of other entries, I spoke about a fundamental element of the cultural war as divided by attitudes toward sexuality.

At the time, Harry mentioned he thought the fundamental dividing line was about power and control ... something I thought about and revised in that third post linked. I felt he was onto something ...

Since then, I've thought a bit more on the cultural war issue. I thought perhaps the difference is between those willing to submit their wills (at least intellectually) to the God of Abraham, and those who don't, a/k/a, those who Mark Shea says believe in the Imperial Automonous Self.

And meanwhile, I've had this longstanding sense that the Devil is playing a game with us. Now, the Devil has several games, but the classic one is this: Adam blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent, the serpent cackles. The Republicans blame the Democrats, the Democrats blame the Republicans, and the serpent laughs. Note that Adam was correct, in a sense, and so was Eve: They each had a point that, if left alone, they wouldn't have disobeyed God. But at the end of the day, they each made their own decisions.

OK, what's got this all to do with the Cultural War, Life, the Universe and Everything? Well, I was reading this essay, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Essentially, the writer says the problem is most of us are pagans, and only have a veneer of Christianity. The problem is not that some of us are worshipping God and some are not (my own paradigm too often), but that some of us are worshipping money and power, and the rest are worshipping sex.

This revelation of the West's deep pagan values has been particularly evident in recent centuries. Once the West became powerful, in terms of technology, military prowess, economic capacity, and social and economic organization, it started on a rampage given over to two principal pagan deities, Mammon and Mars. By the early 20th century, the West had conquered and exploited most of the globe, North and South America, Africa, Australia, and most of Asia including China. By the latter half of the 20th century, another deity came to prominence, namely Venus, the goddess of love. These three, Mars, Mammon, and Venus, now dominate the West.

This triumvirate, along with the whole of the pagan pantheon, can take two forms, the hard and the soft. The Episcopal Church is an example of soft paganism, a pansexual, environmentally friendly, politically left, bleeding heart liberal paganism that descends into self-indulgence. Against this paganism is the hard paganism, seen in the Bush administration, which gave itself over to unilateral pursuit of economic gain and war, fervently supported by the Religious Right, who, all rhetoric aside, love Mammon and Mars. Aside from political right and left, there is the great middle who spend much of their time pursuing the pagan, American dream, the house, the car, the bank account, the pension, insurance, financial security, intellectual success, status, a good sex life, the right friends, and so much more.

As this process unfolded, the terms "secularization," or "secularism," or "secular humanism" (popularized by Francis Schaeffer) emerged as terms used by religious people to describe the recent historical process. The terms, however, function to disguise the true religion of most believers. Religious people go to church, believe in God, say prayers, and some of them struggle with sin. As a result, they do not think of themselves as secular. They think of themselves as religious. When they hear terms such as "secularization" or "secularism," and hear lectures describing how secularism is destroying society, it leads them to see the evil as something external to themselves. Then, once the external evil is identified, they can carry out a campaign over against or in concert with other campaigns.

For those on the left, the campaign is such things as gay rights, economic justice, and the end to the war (for powerful, pagan states, there is always a war). On the right, it is a campaign against abortion, homosexuality, and the lack of prayer in schools. As these campaigns are waged, the "warriors" are always in the right, fighting against the evils of secular humanism or right-wing fundamentalism.

If, however, the primary religion is paganism, and paganism is allegiance to the idols of money, sex, and power, then the fundamental human problem is not outside ourselves, but ourselves in sin before God. That is the real war, a war within ourselves, and although that war has been won for believers in Jesus Christ, it can only be won through repentance. Until that is clearly seen, and it was not brought out in the conference, the West will not repent.

From the viewpoint of the right, I saw cultural war as about sex. From my friends on the left, they saw the cultural war as about power and greed. As usual, in our accusations, we're both right. And the serpent laughs.

When it comes to the criticisms of the Left against the Right, one of my arguments has been that there is no legitimate criticism of the Right that hasn't already come within a faction of the Right. For example, plenty of conservatives have criticized deficit spending, the Fed's serial bubble blowing, militarization, torture, globalization, structural corruption in Washington (including campaign finance and the revolving political appointee/lobbyist door), corporatism, and a need for greater even-handedness in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Whereas there is little to any criticism on the Left of its own sins -- namely, abortion (rooted in a desire for sex without consequences, no matter how many get killed) identity politics and welfare/general statism.

Recently, I read an entry over on the Chicago Boys Website talking about "the tipping point." That's when the benefits of government largesse reach a point where tax consumers can outvote taxpayers -- and then we're no longer on the Road to Serfdom, but taxpayers become, essentially, economic serfs to pay the salaries and retirements of state employees. One person mentioned that something similar happens on the Right to corporations -- who can use their political connections to generate military and other government contracts, and use the money to continue to influence lawmakers. The Left has criticized this, too, but we haven't heard enough of this to the Right.

I'm beginning to think Ron Paul was right: The answer is to actually follow the Constitution. No military state, no welfare state, no corporate state, no identity politics ... just stay within the limits of the Constitution. No more wars without a Congressional Declaration of War (I was devastated post-9/11 when we didn't do that -- I just thought it was astonishing.) No more looking for trouble.

I dunno. I'm not saying I'm there yet ... I was too conservative to actually support Congressman Paul (that is, it could be imprudent to start dismantling a system that seemed to be working).

Still thinking about all this ... and what my own reaction will be. I know that I've been trying to be a Christian for a long time, and sometimes I really doubt if I am. Sure, I believe. Yes, I know lots of stuff. But actually applying Christianity, loving not only my friends but my enemies, not relying on my own power but God's, trusting God as the author of history, and most important, actually taking up my cross and following Christ. Usually, I make it about as far down the road to Calvary as the second jeer before I put it down. Still, there's hope.

So that's what I'm thinking about. See what happens when there's no football on TV to distract me? :)

Cheers. Peace out.