Yes...but!

September 29 2008

Home > Columns >Yes...But! Year 8-47

We do live in interesting times, but times deeply troubling for poor and rich alike. Optimism has been the successful message Norman Vincent Peale sold to the American people in his book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” the claim that “You will get what you want by sincerely wishing for it.”

It’s exactly that wishful thinking that led to adjustable-rate mortgages and the assumption that, when higher payments became due, more valuable real estate and thus more disposable money would bring salvation.

This situation is now being played out in a curious confrontation between two creeds: that of the Apostle Paul and that of the Apostle Paulson.

The word ‘apostle’ means ‘a man with a mission.’ Both eminent men are apostles in the true sense of the word. Apostle Paul’s mission is to rescue the world through ‘grace.’ Grace is grace precisely because money cannot buy it. Grace is God’s salvation without cost.

Apostle Paulson’s mission is to rescue money from melting away: Money, and lots of it, will save us. It did him: he is a money man, worth $800 million. His last paycheque was $40 million.

Money has a very peculiar feature. We don’t use it: money uses us. Money makes us do the craziest things. We subject ourselves to its whims and wiles, because basically money rules us.

Apostle Paulson sees Money as The Savior, even if it has been the Villain. Behind all the political wrangling in Washington this past week, lies the conviction that if a solution to the money question is found, all other problems are magically solved as well. Our faith in the saving power of money obscures the reality that money is nothing without our approval. Money is a god of our own making. By some curious twist of universal assent, we attribute value to something which in itself has no value of use or of exchange: today money is basically a magic number on a computer screen. The faith in money is blind confidence, a faith that’s derived from its Spiritual Power.

Ultimately the conflict between the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Paulson is a conflict of love, a decision to love either God and his Creation or Money and its destructive power. Apostle Paul in his well-known poem, recorded in 1 Corinthian 13, sums up his belief: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

The contrast between the two apostles cannot be greater. Jesus was right on the money when he said that ‘We cannot love two masters, God and Money (Matthew 6:24).’

Apostle Paulson wants to save the American money economy from collapsing by borrowing untold more billions. In his original proposal to Congress, he wanted sole, exclusive, dictatorial powers. He stated, “Decisions by the Secretary – He, Himself – pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

In other words, Apostle Paulson wanted god-like powers, to be above the law. In order to get his proposed $700 billion package passed he cheerfully claimed that the Treasury, by buying these diseased mortgages, would make a profit on them. It’s exactly such upbeat, optimistic, brimming with confidence gospel that is bringing the USA to its economic nemesis. He fails to realize what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:10: ”The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” It has led to our perilous predicament.

We live in a new economic age. The September 29 issue of Fortune contains not only a long article entitled, “Paulson to the Rescue,” giving a sympathetic insight into this man’s life, but also an in-depth interview with Matt Simmons, the man who is banker to the Oil Industry. That article has as heading, “The Prophet of $500 oil.”

If Mr. Simmons is correct in his analysis, then there will not be ‘ever’ a return to stable conditions. The housing market, whose decline is at the root of this problem, will never go up again. There will be price increases in selected, mainly downtown areas, but the bulk of the overall real estate scene will see a steady decline in values as oil continues its unrelenting climb. There is an inverse relationship between suburbia and exurbia and oil prices. Once the oil hits $200 or $300 those residential dwellings will be virtually worthless.

Since the crisis is concentrated precisely in that segment of real estate, those $700 billion Apostle Paulson demands will become a total write-off, on top of the other hundreds of billions already expended.

My Calvinistic roots have taught me that wealth could only come through hard work and savings, and that, when we are blessed monetarily, we ourselves must become a blessing through giving. Now more than ever before we have to return to the source of true value.