And he Himself, gave some to be Apostles

This is my 5^th worship service in 3 days!  The Lord has filled me with so much joy I feel like I’m ascending to heaven right now.  God is so Good!  As some of you know we were at ladies conference the last few days and we had such a great time!  I was telling Pastor Shaw how when we came out of that church we were so filled with joy in the spirit… Julie stood over the car to bless it!  So Pastor Shaw says was that a Chrysler?  I said It’s a dodge.  He says well she had to pray over the car… those cars have problems you know.   My jaw dropped… you know you could lose your crown for that!  Don’t you know my car has Hemi!

Lisa, I am honored that you would ask me to speak here today.  It shows how welcome I am and how much you want me here and that you trust me to speak not only from my heart but that you also believe my heart is in the right place to do so. I love you so much!  I love mom too!  Today we are celebrating our Pastor’s to show them how much we appreciate them.  I thought on this quite a bit, what gift could I give the Shaw’s to show how much I appreciate them?   

Last year I spoke of this being the church of my dreams.  I talked of how broken I was when I walked through the door and how ready you were to help me.  Today I’d like to talk to you about the things that led me through the door.  As I do I’d like you to remember what the Lord said “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

So about a year before I came here, I was at a place in my life where I had accomplished all of my goals and no longer had a direction to go.  A few choices were in front of me but I didn’t know which way to go as I had no strong desire for any of them.  My heart wanted one thing while my mind wanted another.  So being divided only my soul could tell me what to do.   So I said Soul…I’ve never asked you before… please give me your opinion.  I’ll wait for it… but please let it be known to me.  I fell asleep and dreamed and I was given a prophecy of what would happen along that path if I chose to take it.  At the end of the dream in the most authoritative voice I could hear, the Lord said “It will be as it is written” I was in total shock and awe and fear that God has spoken to me.  I wanted to find something to hide under I was so scared.  But I did nothing.  Two months later my brother died and I was broken.  I didn’t care anymore about anything.  There was no amount of money or possession or friends that had a word to say that I cared about.  Nothing mattered except that my brother was dead.  I called out to the Lord…. I don’t know why you would let this happen, but I need you to lift me up and help me get through this because my parents and my family need me to give them strength to bear this.   I had another dream.  Again, I saw many things.  This time the Lord asked me to do something.  I turned to him and said No not me….. I do not have that kind of faith….you need to get a priest or at least a holy person….I don’t have enough faith to do that.  And he said then what will you do?  Will you just stand by and watch and let this happen?  You are the only one that is here and even your small faith will work.

So when I woke up I knew to do what the Lord had asked I needed to increase my faith.  I realized I had to find a church and learn.  My heart was shattered at losing my brother and I needed help.  I knew the only place to get that help was in church.  So I researched.  I had already spent many years looking at various religions and denominations and I had been mainly inspired by the Pentecostal.  So I looked for the closest one and found Lifepoint on the internet.  I wasn’t sure so I read the entire site.  I was a little perplexed on a few things but then I found the sermons and I listened.    Adam was preaching, tears streamed down my face, not in sorrow from my brother’s death but in joy.  I felt the presence of God in that room with me.  I felt that he was speaking straight to me through Adam’s voice. Funny enough,  Adam was the first to greet me when I walked through the door.  Pastor Shaw was the second.  Guess I was here too early that day for the greeters.  I was a bit eager to get here. 

 The anointing the Lord has placed on Adam is a blessing to all of us.  I am grateful the Lord has given him to us that we receive his teaching.  It was that voice that led me to the door.  You would think that would be it then.  All glory and blessings from there on out.  Ya, I thought so! 

You don’t need to be here long to see that the Pastor’s vision is to grow this church. His vision has put systems in place ready to receive visitors from all walks and circumstances.  When I came through that door you were all ready.  Some of you helped me learn to pray and taught me the bible. When I came through that door and received healing I thought that would be it.  It would be smooth sailing but I was about to go through more.  I would lose more of the closest people I had in my life.  I have been tested at every turn.  I have had as much pulling me in as I’ve had trying to pull me out.  The devil has thrown people in my path that ask me questions, complete strangers grill me on the meaning of this and that in the bible.  At times I’ve gone through day after day of these examinations.  

I am the queen of detours!   Sister Claudia and Julie will tell you I am the queen of detours.  Sister Julie said to me today “yes you are!  But they aren’t all your fault!”  Thoughts have come into my head that I’m going crazy, none of this is real, I don’t need to live this life, my old life wasn’t all that bad.  Even some of you have rejected me rather than helped me. I have nearly determined myself three times to not ever come back here.  Thankfully, there have more of you that help hold me here and have helped pick me up from every stumbling block that has been thrown in my path. 

Everytime I’ve stood up and said I believe I’ve taken another blow. I’m standing on the sidelines watching as my mother and my son lose all hope, all joy because they don’t have the spirit and the devil is giving them a beating.  In fact last Wednesday night as I’m rushing myself out the door my son says to me he wants to commit suicide.  So the devil is not just trying to destroy the ones I love but he’s trying to stop me with everything he’s got to keep me from going to the Lord.  Well enough already.  There comes a time when you say it doesn’t matter.  Knock me down, beat me with a strap, throw whatever you want at me.  I’m going to worship the Lord and I’m going to praise his name no matter what the devil wants to do about it.  I am for Jesus!

30 years ago Mike Shaw made that decision for himself.  And thanks to that decision how many have been saved?  How many has he inspired to become pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets, evangelists, men of God?  Does that sound like someone you know? 

¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies,

The man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God, carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances.
..................................... Meister Eckhart

A year ago I spoke here about this being the church of my dreams.  Here is what I said

The church of the warm heart, of the open mind, of the adventurous spirit.

The church that cares, that heals hurt lives, that comforts old people, that challenges youth.

That knows no divisions of culture or class, no frontiers, geographical or social.

The church that inquires as well as answers, that looks forward as well as backward.

The church of the Master

The church of the People

High as the ideals of Jesus, low as the humblest human

A working church, a worshipping church a winsome church

A church that interprets the truth in terms of truth

That inspires courage for this life and hope for the life to come.

A church of courage, a church of all good men.  A church of the living God.

When we take our last breath, we will join those who have gone before us in Christ.  Eternity will be spent with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  The relationships we have with each other are important.  Do we not normally welcome new members to our family?  Are we not overjoyed for each one that is born?  So is the Lord when we are born in Christ, even the angels sing.  Lets rejoice with him, welcome them and have relationship with them.  We are to be made into his image.   So when they walk through that door let it be Jesus that they see in you. Not just Julie, not just Claudia, not just me, Let them see that The lord has sent them to us because we are his church.

See that its not just Pastor Shaw’s vision we are standing behind.  It is the vision of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Love of God overflow.  Permeate all my soul.

"say it aint so Joe"

A famous question asked by a small boy to Shoeless Joe Jackson about the accusations of baseballs Chicago white sox throwing a world series.

In this case we need another small boy to ask “say it is so Lance” its time for Lance Armstrong to come out and admit what we have all known for a long time that he doped.

I have been a cycling fan since I was a kid watching the Tour de France on ITVs World of Sport programme (for non UK readers it was a Saturday afternoon sports programme that run for 20 years, covering lots of different sports).

Getting into the 1990s much more sport was shown on mainstream channels as they expanded the numbers from the 3 or 4 to hundreds so instead of those highlights we got to see live action in all its wonderful glory, the stunning scenery (unsurprisingly one of the biggest sponsors is the French tourist board) the drama and sheer romance of the worlds greatest race.

Cycling ever since its early days had a drugs problem with the riders taking all sorts of concoctions.  This was bought sharply into focus in the 1960s with the death of the British rider Tom Simpson[1] which at the autopsy they found traces of amphetamines.

A great BBC documentary “death on a mountain” on what happened can be found on YouTube here 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tGJsxGFhxg

These drugs and concoctions were really rather minor to what come along later but what they did do was to make it kind of acceptable with the later consequences that a sort of blind eye was in effect not realising the advance in drug technologies. This almost killed the sport.

Moving into the 80s and 90s much more effective performance enhancing drugs were starting to be used Steroids, Testosterone, Human growth hormone (HGH) and then into the 1990s come along what can only be described as manna from heaven for the drugs cheats in endurance sports like cycling, cross country skiing etc.  The name of that drug was Erythropoietin[2] more generally known as EPO. What this drug does was to produce more red blood cells turning the blood stream thicker and making it a super highway for oxygen. The drug itself only had a few legitimate uses (red blood cell replacement in chemotherapy for instance) sales were expected to be low but by one stage late in the 1990s it was the 4^th best selling drug in Europe  

At the time it was undetectable so the authorities used a test called the Hemocrit test which checked the count of red cells, the normal person would be expected to be in the mid 30 to low 40 range so what they did was set a limit of 50 and if anyone found over that were stood down for further tests as it was possible at times for normal reasons the number goes above, and also could be a sign of a serious illness.

EPO gave an increase in performance of around 15% which is absolutely enormous at the elite level of sport so along with testosterone and HGH the performance was truly extraordinary but there was a cost that a risk of a heart attack was a serious danger. In those years there was a high amount of young fit athletes from across the spectrum of sports dying mysteriously in their sleep from heart attacks. There had been stories flying around of people sleeping with heart monitors on which woke them up so they could be found on their bikes on rollers to keep the thickened blood circulating.

After the Festina scandal of 1998 when a team car was found with a huge amount of drugs being carried including EPO, steroids etc that it was certain that some teams were def using.

With this huge increase in performance anyone that wanted to be competitive at the top level would have had to dope.

Lance Armstrong then wins 7 tours from the late 90s until 2005 which in those years and against other caught and admitted dopers is just inconceivable that he didn’t.

Take this YouTube video from 2003 of Lances assent to Luz Ardiden which is a sky resort in the Pyrenees where he is almost sprinting up it, this is not a little ramp. Of the group chasing him just about all of them have been caught, banned or admitted they used EPO. If you watch them cycling up it now it’s much slower and then compare to those days you can see plainly how ludicrous it is trying to claim that it wasn’t drug fuelled. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEqQW1-casM&feature=related

Finally from about 2006/2007 the sports authorities finally got a handle on the situation with better testing and targeting of riders and since then its become a much cleaner sport, I can say with great confidence that the last couple of winners in Cadel Evans and Brad Wiggins that they are winning clean cant of course say for definite as to prove a negative is not possible.

In defence of cycling I would say now that its one of the cleaner sports around as they have tried to do something about it, some sports even now just pays lip service at most.

Cycling and all sport will never be completely clean as there always be some that will cheat at whatever they do in life but hopefully will be a minimum.

So come on Lance say it is so and we can then move on from those years.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Simpson

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin

Where is the socialism of which you speak?

Every few days I seem to end up with an argument where I comment [1] on economics & politics about socialism and what it’s done to the world over the last 30 years.

1945 until early 1970s

After the Second World War we had an informal agreement between capital and labour of what was the called the post war consensus which was really a social democratic system, yes tax rates for the richest were very high around 90% and above in some countries but it worked we had good growth and an acceptable wealth gap.

Company directors etc worked with a reasonable 6-12 times general workers salary.

Keynesian lite policies were used and the western nations become very prosperous and generally fair places to live unlike the communist east at the time. Full employment was the accepted norm although has to be said that was for men but this was a different time.

 It would be unfair to say that it wasn’t without problems but what system is perfect?

Early 1970s onwards

The oil shock of the early 70s caused some severe push/cost inflation, with full employment at the time this then caused demand/pull inflation with a wage price spiral leading to the famous stagflation [2] of those years. Keynesian lite policies didn’t seem to provide an answer to these problems.

The rise of the right

Into this mix come along Milton Friedman and the Chicago school [3] of free markets and dislike of the state who stepped up a campaign to get their policies adopted. They were lucky enough to find Ronald Reagan for the republicans and Margaret Thatcher (already a big admirer of the free market economist Freidrick Van Hayek) for the conservatives who would listen to their ideas and put them into practice. This gave rise to the movement of Neoliberalism[4] (also known as Neocon in the US)

Into the 90s

The Neoliberals took over more and more as we moved into the 90s and even into the late 90s when Clinton for the Democrats and Tony Blair for “new” Labour come to power there really wasn’t much difference, you really couldn’t if you looked at the policies closely actually find much difference between the parties. They may have been a bit fairer but that was really it. The deregulation started by Reagan and Thatcher was carried on with even less particularly in the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) sector after all the Neoliberal mantra that markets are self regulating and tend towards equilibrium, globalisation and movement of capital across borders, jobs off shoring for higher profits. At no point was there a socialist government who said stop lets have a look at what’s going on.

A completely free market & free capital movement is total anathema to a socialist so I am always very confused at the accusations or is something more sinister at work?

More on that next time.

Andy

---

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Eurozone falling apart

Dumb idea to start with without having fiscal & political union was never going to work

A couple of articles or three that attracted my attention including one from Germany/


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/29/spain-riot-police/

 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/28/greek-police-send-crime-victims-to-neo-nazi-protectors/

 http://www.theblaze.com/stories/thousands-protest-across-germany-for-higher-taxes-on-the-wealthy/


Going to be keeping a watch over the next few weeks as it looks to me like we are at a crucial juncture.

Austerity is it a new thing?

Sabrina reminded me of something and its sparked something intresting to me with modern economics.

I was christened into the Anglican faith, although my parents had moved from Devon to London before I
was born so summers when i was a kid were spent in the lovely devon countryside. Every sunday we were
required to go to church but even as a youngster I felt there was something wrong (and this may be the
connection with my later athiesm) it was depressing something almost puritanical about it.

As ive got older and had part of our group of friends who were Catholics after the pub on christmas eve
we would invariably end up at midnight mass which seem to be much more joyful.  Later visiting cathedrals
and churches as i love the architecture it struck much how much more intresting Catholic churches in
general were (the Vatican museum is an absolutely stunning group of buildings) Sabrina linked me
to some of her pentecostal sermons and reminds me of the Baptists as well of the feeling of the sermons
much more joyous.

Going back in time it appears that the anglican faith was related to the first Lutherian churches of
Northern central europe and puritanical in way that hard work and a simple life is the only  way to God.

Lets step forward into the Industrial revolution and into free market economics. The driver of course
in the Industrial revolution were the British especially what became known to the Germans as "manchesterism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_capitalism

This form of capitalism was pre eminent in the Industrial revolution and was directly descended from
the protestant form of religion and hard work that the puritans had admired. Classical economics and
later Neoclassical economics are to come from this and spread right across the Northern European
countries that were and are mostly lutherian type protestants but for a long time they were sidelined
as a type of Keynesian Economics which was a synthesis of Keynes and Neoclassical economics, what us
Post Keynsesian types refer to (Coined by Joan Robinson, a Professor of Economics at Cambridge) as
bastard Keynesians.  Although was a mix it wasnt actually too bad at the time but had some major
flaws in trying to synthesise the 2 schools and when the oil crisis of the 1970s come along it failed
to predict or have any effect on it causing stagflation.
Waiting in the wings were the hardcore right wing of neoclassical economics, Milton Freidman, Friedrich
Hayek etc who were heavily influenced by Manchester capitalism and the free market economics of that
period. Although in the USA they were from northern european stock and therefore influenced in some
way by the puritanism of the forefathers?

Move forward into the early 1980s and along come 2 uber free market types in Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagen amongst the backdrop of the ongoing cold war. It can be no surprise to learn that Thatcher
in particular was influenced by Hayek.  Straight away workers rights were eroded, the free market was
let loose to the final damage we are now seeing.   This become known to a lot as Anglo Saxon economics
but again driven by the Northern Europeans& the USA but including Germany & The Netherlands. To us
on the left its Neoliberalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Forward again to the Eurozone, it can be no surprise that the so called sinner states are Catholic
or in the case of Greece Orthidox that dont have the puritan anglo saxon work and austere thinking.
Being in the Euro these periphery states have no choice but to have this "austerity" enforced on them,
The UK conservative government doing the same thing, calls from the US right to do the same thing but
which makes no economic sense.   France dont be fooled is Catholic of course and will be next in line
to be shot at by the bond vigilantes and seems to be just be going along with the protestant countries
for now.

It seems to me that all this talk of austerity being the way out is some hold over from the differences
between the original protestent break from the Catholic church. Is the old split between northern and
southern Europe alive and kicking?

Andy

From right to left a journey

Sabrina put up a nice post about her journey, I think its worthwhile to bring up my own.
I am completely surprised at where I am now.

Up to the middle of 2008 I had always considered myself to the right of centre, conservative
with fiscal policies etc although to be really honest about it I had no real interest in
either politics or economics. I would suggest I did care about what happened to other people
so there was an element about my make up that wouldnt make me like a Randian style of world.


September 2008 the Great Financial Crisis come upon us and although it didnt have an effect
on me as such I was very curious about what happened as we had supposed to have learnt from
the Great Depression of the 1930s.

At first gravitated to blogs that where to my political leanings lay which were blaming competiveness, the
welfare states, national debt being a problem frankly the whole of right wing thinking economics
wise.
One day a question was asked by a blogger

It was "why do governments borrow except for in wartime? its madness"

Now the question was rhetorical really as he then went on to make a whole argument why they
shouldnt. But I was intrigued why indeed do they borrow? I knew the usual answer that it was
the difference between taxing and spending and that they borrow to make up the difference but
a quick check showed me something odd in that for most of the last 300 years the UK had borrowed
just about every year as by that standard we should have been broke as a country a long time
ago.
I decided to look a bit further as it didnt really make sense so I searched until a few searches
in a website was suggested

http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/

Rodger was explaining something he called monetary sovereignty which was an understanding
of how a FIAT money system works and claimed that deficits were not only desirable but
actually necessary. In that kind of system it is the government that create money that is
used by the private sector and that a growing economy required an expanding quantity of money.
That government borrowing was actually an illusion, that taxes dont fund the government and
bonds dont play a financing role in todays system.
The government own the printing press and nothing backs that money ie gold, silver etc.
This was mind blowing to me and straight away knew without doubt that he was quite correct
and that it had to be that way. This was a few months after the general election in the UK
that had the prime minister to be saying "the country has overspent on its credit card" and
now ive found out thats a misleading slogan at best a complete lie being the worst. My whole
political beliefs were based on a non truth.

Reading more of Rodger (who is a lovely man I should add)it couldnt be this simple
but I kept coming across a reference to something called MMT which I found stood for
something called Modern Monetary Theory that Rodger said was related and a lot of the
comments on his pages were by people calling themselves MMTers.
A quick google and I found this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism

Where I found it was a school of economics that used the nickname MMT. On further investigation
I found it was part of what is called Post Keynesian Economics, now I knew a little bit
about John Maynard Keynes but what I didnt know that the Keynesian economics that the press
and the right like to believe is a school called NeoKeynesian economics who one of the
people that profess to be that are Paul Krugman. Further that the Post Keynesians claim to
be the real descendants of Keynesian theory and that the Neo Keynesians are part of the mainstream
current dominant school of Neo Classical economics.

Back to my story so I started reading some of the MMT sites (links to a few on my profile)
This was much more sophisticated than Roger and showed a truth to the system that I realised
we were not being told and it seem to be something certainly the right wing parties were seeking
to obscure.

My base for how the system works has then been changed, what else could be wrong?
It seems pretty much all the right wing ideology is based on Neoliberal/Neocon beliefs in the free
market and the equilibrium which then ensues is completely and damagingly wrong, its exactly why we
are in mess we have.

Next time you hear a politician say we have run out of money, stop think and ask yourself is this really
true?

Andy

Walking with God

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Amos 3:3

There was a time when I loved the world more than God.  I wanted the desires of my own heart and my own will.  I loved the world.  The things of the world and worldly things were my desire and refuge.

The Lord saw the world under his curse, and I loved its favour and its blessing--seeking  to enjoy that which God had denounced.  The Lord saw that the world was full of evil, whilst I saw it full of good. Therefore we could not agree.

In order to be agreed with God, we must have God's thoughts in our heart, God's ways in our soul, and God's love in our affections.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:8

We must strive for them to become one.  When God's thoughts become our thoughts and God's ways our ways, when we have the mind of Christ and see with the eyes of God, then God and we become agreed, and being agreed, we can walk together.

What is it to walk together?  It is to enjoy union, communion, fellowship, and friendship.   A few weeks ago I was on a roadtrip with Jesus.  I was listening to some old CD’s – non christian.  As I was listening the songs meanings changed in my mind as they were being sung.  In some songs I was singing to Jesus, in other songs he was singing to me and in others we sang together.  The Eagles song “Take it Easy” , lyrics “just find a place to lie your head and take it easy”  Jesus was saying just go where your feet take you and trust in me.  You have no need to worry, I’m right here with you.  Song after song this went on… for hours!  I was so excited I was dancing in my seat.  Jesus was with me!

As we are brought to agree with God, we walk with God.  Do we need to walk with God?

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with Confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

As the eyes are enlightened to see the truth of God; as the heart is touched to feel the power of God; and as  affections are drawn forth to love the things of God, we meet at the mercy-seat.

It is sprinkled with blood; it contains and hides from view the broken tables of the law. There God meets man in gracious friendship, and enables us to pour out our soul before him and to tell him our troubles, trials, and temptations. Every now and then he sweetly relieves us by dropping in a gracious promise, applying some portion of his sacred truth, encouraging us to believe, and still to hope in his mercy.

"And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation." Psalm 107:7

"He led them forth." Forth out of the world--forth out of sin--forth out of a profession--forth out of a name to live--forth out of everything hateful to his holy and pure eyes. "To go to a city of habitation." They had no city to dwell in here below; but they were journeying to a city of habitation above, whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise; where there are eternal realities to be enjoyed by the soul; where there is something stable and eternal; something to satisfy all the wants of a capacious and immortal spirit, and give it that rest which it never could find while wandering here below. If we have a city here, we want no city above; and if we have a city above, we want no city here.

This then must be our state and case; either to be pilgrims, journeying onwards, through troubles, to things above, or taking up our abode below; seeking heaven here, or heaven hereafter; resting upon the world, or resting upon the Lord; panting after the things of time, or panting after the things of eternity; satisfied in self, or satisfied only in Christ. One of the two must be our state and case. The Lord reveals it clearly in the hearts of his people that they are on his side; and give us to know and feel that our very restlessness and inability to find food and shelter in the things of time and sense, are leading us more earnestly and believingly to seek after the things that have reality in them; that finding no city to dwell in here below, we may press forward to  being citizens of that city which is above, "which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God!"

Doubt

Judges 6:39, 40  "And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only and there was dew on all the ground."      

Many Christians live with doubts and fears.  Questions and suspicions as to the reality of the work of grace upon their hearts. Whether their convictions were not merely convictions of natural conscience, and whether their joys have been anything else but the joys of a fool. "O," they say, "what would I give to have a divine testimony that the God was leading me in the right path!" It is through these very doubts that the evidence is obtained. Doubts lead to cries and groans lead after to a divine testimony; and in answer to these cries the heavenly witness is given. A man without doubts is without testimonies. Doubts are to testimonies what the ring is to the finger, the lock to the key, the enigma to the solution.

1 Samuel 12” Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer,^[b]saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

Testimonies are Ebenezers, "stones of help" but the stone must have a hole dug for it to stand in, and that hole is doubt. Doubts of salvation are to manifestations of salvation what hunger is to food, nakedness to clothing, a thunderstorm to a shelter, a gallows to a reprieve, and death to a resurrection. The one of these things precedes, prepares, and opens a way for the other. The first is nothing without the last, nor the last without the first. Thus, next to testimonies, the best thing is spiritual doubts. To know we are right is the best thing; to fear we are wrong is the second best. To enjoy the witness of the Spirit is the most blessed thing this side of the grave; to pant after that enjoyment is the next greatest blessing

Psalm 84:5-7 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”

The path through the valley of Baca is "from strength to strength," that is, according to the eastern mode of travelling, from one halting-place to another, where wells are dug, and "the rain fills the pools"   We do not learn either God or ourselves, sin or salvation, in a day. The question is not so much whether you have much faith, but whether you have any. It is not quantity, but quality; not whether you have a very great religion, but whether you have any at all. A grain of true faith will save the soul; and I have known many, many times when I should have been glad to feel certain that I had the thousandth part of a grain. A grain of mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds; and even faith as small as that can move mountains. Happy is he that has one divine testimony to his eternal interest in the electing love of the Father, in the atoning blood and justifying righteousness of the Son, and in the divine teachings of the Holy Spirit.

Central Banks

What are they good good for?

Have been watching online tonight mostly shrill comments on what Bernanke has been doing today and chuckling about some of the comments ive seen.
MMT sites have not of course been that bothered (see my QE primer.. even now its still just as asset swap, just changing differennt assets compared to earlier QEs,)

What seems to be the problem here is an understanding of the function of a central bank and what they can and cant do.

I would suggest a central bank isnt anything more than a backstop to the system.  If you look back through history what it shows you is that CBs come about through the instability of the system, private banks used to issue their own currencies so imagine that today its not just when you go abroad you need to know an exchange rate you actually would need that in your own country.  Think about using a different banks ATMs now you would have to shop around to see which is the better rate.

So bring a central bank into the equation, a central banks main task is to keep the payment system between the private banks stable thats their absolute main priority its the reason we have this system.

Ok so what are we asking them to do now after all the Feds mandates are to keep the system in order and to have full employment.    How they are supposed to do both nowadays beats me.All they can do is stop the system falling apart which to give them credit I have to admit they have done the last few years. Government have completely sidestepped their responsibilties on this regard and asking the central banks to do more.    But they cant do more all they can do is keep the system stable. QE has stopped some countries going into a debt deflation spiral but thats it thats all they can do.  To ask cbs to engineer growth isnt possible yes they can mess around with interest rates.asset swaps and affect the housing market (the main mechanism that monetatry policies work) but little else they can do.

They have no more power to engineer growth than I have.

Bernanke was diplomatic as the only tool they have in the real economy is to get people to think there will be inflation, and even then that is hope not fact.    Look through the BoEs website and find the QE article all they ever mention is "expectations" thats it thats all the have.

As ive explained all Central Banks can do is keep the system from imploding so lets stop looking to them for growth when its just not possible.

Governments now you have to do your job and not use departments that are not designed for the purpose.


Andy

Conspiracy Theories

What is it that captures the imagination of people with these things?

One very popular site is http://www.abovetopsecret.com which I find very entertaining but look through the articles and threads you will notice that all of their evidence is circumstantial, based on hearsay at best and even completely wrong but sounds really convincing.

For instance last night on facebook a friend was talking about the 9/11 attacks and when one of the aircraft disappeared off radar that it wasn’t passed over to the defence department and then fighters getting launched to intercept which of course is true but instead of looking at what actually happened its immediately confirmed their preconceived notion that this was a false flag attack.

Looking at what happened shows something different. Whenever looking at the 9/11 attacks we should always remember that nothing like it has ever happened before but plenty of crashes, technical problems so probably first thoughts were a problem with the aircraft and then maybe a hijacking.

Firstly the radar used in civil aviation doesn’t work like they think.  Modern aircraft use a transponder and it’s this that the radar tracks not the aircraft itself. Of course they have communications with ground as well but there could be all sorts of reasons that there was a delay in passing the info onto the defence department while they were trying to figure out what was going on.  Has the plane crashed? Is it just the transponder out? Etc

Now Boston to New York is only around 190 miles so in flying time that’s not very long certainly a lot less than an hour so I think then that I am not sure they could believe what was going to happen (wouldn’t have myself I suspect) that certainly would have taken plenty of time.

Secondly, scrambling fighters to intercept.  I think someone has been watching too many Second World War movies where they run out of dispersal and jump into their spitfires and off they go.   A modern fast jet fighter such as an F15 is a much more complex machine it needs time to get going.  Even if arguably they had been alerted straight away it would still have taken too long.

What’s forgotten is that the US wasn’t in cold war mode with alert birds and crew ready to go with a moments notice fully armed. Since then of course they would have alert birds all ready but even so arguable they would get there in time even now (during the London Olympics they moved a squadron of  RAF Typhoons down to RAF Northolt in West London from their base further north, you just do not normally base military aircraft in the middle of a city).

Now I have a very poor opinion of those in charge but a deliberate attack on their own citizens so they can invade another country I just cannot buy since when did they need an excuse like that before?  Can always make out it’s a hunt for WMDs.

The moon landing hoax.  

I am really staggered on this one.

Not one NASA staff member on the project has ever come out and said that it was a hoax and in fact are very indignant should it be suggested. We are talking about 1000s of people here.

The craft themselves were tracked by different stations at all times.  There is a wonderful Aussie movie called The Dish which is the true story of the Aussie radio telescope that tracked Apollo 13 and the TV signal of Neil Armstrong taking that famous first step actually come through that radio telescope (of course they have dramatised it and made it the very quirky type humour that the Aussies do well) but in truth these Scientists at those tracking stations would have noticed if the signal was coming from elsewhere. These radio telescopes are really precise and are listening into stars across the universe, a spacecraft a few thousand miles isn’t that difficult.

From what I can see of these moon hoax believers is that the reason they are not convinced is that the photos are too good and the flag looks like its waving in wind (it was actually designed to look like that and the when it was touched the lack of friction would keep it moving for quite a long time in a near vacuum) and other bizarre claims.

RIP Neil Armstrong your name will be remembered as long as the Human race exists I hope.

Area 51

Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Groom Lake all names for this “top secret” air force base that the  whole world has heard of.   But aliens? Come on it’s simply a secure research base for the US Air force which funnily enough they don’t like people approaching or knowing what they are up to there as it’s supposed to be like that, it’s a testing centre for advanced aircraft and weapons.

More info and interesting speculation on the projects there now and in the past and generally what else is going on at Edwards AFB at http://dreamlandresort.com and its UFO free.

No doubt there are conspiracies out there in the world and always have been when a few people meet up and discuss things in private.

It would be naïve to think that cover ups do not happen and as I am writing this the truth about the Hillsborough disaster has been revealed that the police covered up their ineptitude by trying to blame the fans (no surprise to us who had stood on the Leppings lane terrace a few times, it was an accident waiting to happen) and note that its taken time but the truth has come out.

The scale of these so called theories are huge though, it’s just not possible without someone blabbing and having incontrovertible proof of what they say which never seems to turn up.

Is it more interesting to believe a sensational multi person conspiracy or the truth that tends to be pretty mundane or has there been a change in that traditional religion for a lot has taken a back seat so they feel need to substitute their beliefs with “something” as the feel they are missing something without knowing what?  

 Andy

Gina again

Dont really know what to say about this its almost beyond comment

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/05/worlds-richest-woman-suggests-2-a-day-wages-for-australian-miners/


Shes starting to make Ayn Rand look compassionate.

National Debt or is it?

For these purposes im mostly using the USA and the USD for example, The USA is an Autonomous Currency Issuer in a floating exchange rate system as is the UK, Canada in fact every currency sovereign country it is the same apart from and this is important the Eurozone does NOT apply.


Im sure any internet user that has any interest in economics or politics has been subjected to this
sooner rather than later.

http://www.usdebtclock.org

Certainly is a big scary number and spinning upwards making you dizzy.

Lets look a bit closer at that big number and actually what constitutes it.

National debt is actually the outstanding amount of Government bonds, its the difference
between its outgoings and its incomings so a deficit adds to this year on year which is the national debt.

Compar it to your household and the famous quote by the Charles Dickens character in
David Copperfield Mr Micawber comes straight to mind
"My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber,
you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six,
result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds
ought and six, result misery"

Its all straight forward you spend more than you earn year after year you are going to be
bankrupt sooner rather than later so its sensible advice by Micawber.

Only there is a problem here with the analogy when it comes to the USA, in all its history
it has only once payed off its national debt and that was back in 1835*. I cant think of a household
that could continually run up a debt up over 235 years.

Whats occuring here with this seeming contradiction?  a person cant run up a debt for long but a
government always can.

Simply the government owns a printing press you and I do not. This matters and why they do not
have any solvency constraint, they can always pay any bill of any size thats denomonated in its own currency.

Even so its a debt we all have to pay?  well no actually, you may very well find you own a lot
of it yourself through a pension or even just invest in bonds its not unusual at all. So think of
that in that you own the debt and then pay it off?  that makes no sense you want to be credited for
owning it.You would own a bond for only 1 reason and thats to save and get some interest back on your investment.

If everyone is doing the same thing in the non government sector then its just people and institutions wanting to save (any foreign investors become part of our currency area by doing this, dont be confused by national boundries at this point)

Lets go back to the debt clock and just change its name to usassetclock (an owner of a debt would show the debt as an asset)and see how much the non government sector has saved...  thats a lot of savings. I wonder whos sitting on all that cash?   Not quite so scary when you put it that way is it?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/9150406/Budget-2012-UK-companies-are-sitting-on-billions-of-pounds-so-why-arent-they-spending-it.html
(ok thats UK same story in the US though)

What we really find from this is that National Debt isnt a debt instrument at all its quite the
opposite and is a credit instrument ultimately based on the governments power to tax...   a tax credit.

A quote from Chris Cook a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College London.
"This was always the case for some 500 years until the Bank of England came along and privatised sovereign credit, since when the reality of public credit issuance has been airbrushed from economic history as an Inconvenient Truth"

*note that year 1835 and paying off national debt, coincidence that the US went into depression less than 2 years later?. One for the future.


Next time
Spend and tax or Tax and Spend? A chicken and egg question but with an answer.

Quantative Easing a guide.

Some time ago in a discussion with a colleague at the office I ended up writing a paper for him (not sure he ever read it though!) he was worrried that QE was inflationary, currency disbasement yadda yadda so thought as I will be going off down the monetary system rabbit hole it was worth doing again as it has some basic concepts.


Money

Base money,outside money,central bank money, bank reserve cash,High Powered Money HPM.....money banks use to settle between themselves.   This money doesnt pay interest or has a duration. (im ignoring Interest on Reserves at the moment as that doesnt play a part in what we are discussing)

Broad money (inside money)  bank commercial credit... the money we use.(this also includes the notes and coins we use, the government sell this to the banks and profits on the difference between minting/printing which is called seniorage. but only makes up around 3% of broad money)

Gilts (or bonds) im putting this here as itself is a form of money,  it has a duration and pays interest (the Yield)


What the Bank of England actually did.

The BoE uses the buying and selling of gilts in its monetary policy through open market operations to hit its target interest rate.   When we started approaching zero (or zirp) they needed some other way to influence monetary policy, they were seeking a way of driving investors away from owning gilts and to push them into other assets or so they said, either this was an outright lie or a misunderstanding of banking so you can make your own mind up there with the results.    So what they did in buying gilts and swapping for cash was actually alter the composition of private sector assets  swapping government liabilities.  What they didnt do was actually add any extra net financial assets to the system so in essence it was an asset swap.

Now that was done through the commercial banks which added bank reserve cash to the system.   Now thats great if you assume via Fractional Reserve Banking that they then go on to loan through having these extra reserves above what the reserve requirment is  (note for Sabrina Canadian Banks dont have a reserve requirement which is kinda curious in a so called FRB system as that would assume they could create an infinate amount of credit)
Now the central banks know without a shadow of a doubt banks do not work like that as it implies that a money multiplier is at work but its a myth (as any Post Keynesian or MMT economist will tell you) even the fed themselves admit this in a recent paper. 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2010/201041/201041pap.pdf

“Changes in reserves are unrelated to changes in lending, and open market operations do not have a direct impact on lending. We conclude that the textbook treatment of money in the transmission mechanism can be rejected.”⁹

Banks loan on what their capital position is  which is basically its equity (shareholder value,retained earnings that sort of thing)  and then seek reserves if they need to after to satisfy any reserve requirement is (as above)

You can see by this that means that you can add as many reserves to the system as you want and it will make no difference on how much banks loan.  When a loan is made that adds to the amount of commercial bank credit and also creates a deposit through double entry bookeeping.    This shows you that its loans that drive reserves not vice versa.

Ok so what happened to those gilts and interest payments on them, well in the UKs case the BoE then put them into something called the Asset Purchase Facility (APF) where they are sitting and the interest being put there as well which is somewhere around 30 billion GBP.   Think about it they are basically paying themselves interest but its sitting there doing nothing.   Thats a lot of money sitting there that has effectively been taken out of the economy.

From this we can deduce that it isnt inflationary and  by adding reserves to the system they have stabilized the payment system saving the banks and holding asset prices up (banks havent had to foreclose and have firesale prices)   Just because its stopped deflation for the moment it doesnt mean its inflationary.... in fact in the end it will be deflationary as money as in the interest payments has been lost to the non government sector.

Views across the Ocean: Technology and abundance - Response

Views across the Ocean: Technology and abundance:

Some interesting jabber this time.... likely true except for Genesis Chapter 3 as mentioned in previous response.  Here I'll fill you in quickly:


Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
¹⁹ In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.

So we will never run out of work... its impossible.  All that may happen is the type of work we do and the methods of remuneration for such may change.  In the west and many other countries once our "boomers" start to return in droves there will most certainly be work for our youth.  In fact we may have an abundance of jobs if researchers are correct.  In such circumstances it is beneficial for the automation we have developed to be necessary.  Even if you think of all the technology we have gained to date compared to just 100 years ago, we are still no less busy.  100 years ago it took a woman a week to do the laundry we now do in an afternoon.  How could woman possibly have the time for a full time job if the technology had not improved?

It is encouraging though to think that due to the changes in technology we have our time for such conversations as these.  A chance to share the gospel and teach the truth.  That through this the Lord may magnify and glorify his holy name.

Views across the Ocean: Attack on the poor - Response

Views across the Ocean: Attack on the poor:  Response

Right so.... lets start at the beginning.

For us Christians it is not man (or woman) we should be listening to when it comes to the direction of our lives.  It is God's will we should seek first.  Therefore, what Gina Rinehart says or doesn't say is irrelevant.  Read 1 Samuel 8.

Nevertheless, lets review what they say she said:  "Gina Rinehart, a mining magnate worth an estimated £19 billion, has advised those jealous of the wealthy to "spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working" in order to be successful."

Well, no matter what you do you will always have work to do.  Whether you are rich or poor we must all work. It is the curse placed on man from the garden.  Read Genesis Chapter 3:17-19.  As for drinking - Proverbs Chapter 23:21 - For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.  In other words too much drinking and relaxation with bring you to poverty.  Hmmmm maybe she's onto something.

Now as to whether or not she knows anything based on whether or not she is self made is again irrelevant.  Nobody is self made.  We are all created by God and our successes are by his grace alone not by our own strengths. If we make the wrong choices he rewards us with disciplines, if we make the right choices he rewards us with blessings.  We'll talk about this later.

Without God we are all nothing.  But then of course the atheist wants you to believe we are nothing as we came from nothing didn't we?

Technology and abundance

In 1931 John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay entitled Economic possibilities for our Grandchildren where he suggested the following

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion”  

(have read that some people thought he meant religion is a problem and anti Christian, its not meant like that at all, he meant problem as in quiz, something to understand)

What he envisaged was a future where work would take a back seat and most of our time would be leisure as automation will free us from these at times mundane tasks working just 1 or 2 days a week.

Far Fetched? Well not so.

There has been a lot of talk around the blogosphere and even mainstream newspapers recently on this subject, it seems the late great JMK was remarkably prescient about this.

Izabella Kaminsky at the Financial Times wrote a wonderful series of articles here

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/series/beyond-scarcity/

The point of those articles was that the world has now huge overproduction for the needs of people and how much “stuff” we really need.   We can see this in the price of a lot of goods over the last decade or so which actually has had a deflationary effect (covered up by inflation in asset prices and a credit boom) mostly of course these goods were manufactured by low cost labour in the far east but even without that it probably would have happened anyway if manufacturing had been kept in the west as to keep costs down more would have automated which is now happening in China (already quite advanced and accelerating in Japan & Germany) factories are becoming a few person operation with just some technicians to keep on eye on the machines.   Did you notice Walmart (Asda is the UK division) have been trialling holographic greeters? http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/companies/supermarkets/asda/asda-to-follow-up-on-virtual-assistant-holograms-trial/228861.article

so its actually across most sectors of the economy not just manufacturing.

For those of us in Freight Forwarding (you know who you are) how much lower have freight rates been driven over the last 20 years? we are making more on the other services that we provide.

Marx  certainly  had some things to say about a capitalist system which are part of this story as in the “Tendency of the rate of profit fall” 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall

What is this going to do to the jobs market? When I have spoken to people about this the first thing they always say is that someone has to build the robots but the latest advance is now that robots are actually building robots so no you only need to build 1 and then that replicates. Of course you will still need a certain amount of designers, programmers etc but even for them once that job is done it can pretty much run without them.

Labour is simply not required anymore in the same quantities and where you can really see this problem is in youth unemployment across the west, the figures are quite horrifying in most countries and the amount of short time working that’s happening everywhere although at the moment due to a lack of demand it wont change anytime soon and will find more and more jobs going that way.

Unlike in the past where technology actually created more jobs its now inverted and destroying more jobs.

Unfortunately our governments (of whatever persuasion) are completely in denial of this effect so solutions from 40 years ago are simply not applicable.

Is this future horrible?  Actually no I think this could be a really exciting time in the development of humanity if we grab the opportunity given and embrace it, there are other options than just letting 50% of the population starve and live off the scraps without descending into a 1984 type totalitarian communist or fascist state which I believe is likely if not recognised, we only have to look at 1916 to 1940 for that.

We can and will find other things to do, more for communities, learning, arts the list is endless so it’s going to be “work” as we understand it changing.

Attack on the poor

Assault on normal working people of the week award goes to Gina Rinehart who is the richest women in
Australia

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9510025/Gina-Rinehart-attacks-je



Now apparently "poor" people are jealous and shouldnt be drinking, socialising & smoking then
they too might be billionaires.
Now if she was self made I might consider that she knows what she is talking about but when you
are left GBP 13 billion by your mining magnate father Lang Hancock what would she know about
being "poor" Its far more efficient to inherit wealth.
Apparently its the "billionaires and millionaires are doing more than anyone to help the poor by investing their money and creating jobs”

Lets look at the drinking first of all as she is accusing the average worker of, handily the
Australians had a department research this (h/t Bill Mitchell)

http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=6442474884
Its conclusion
"When personal income by alcohol drinking status was analysed, the data show that as personal income increases, so does the prevalence and frequency of drinking … For example, the prevalence of any alcohol consumption is 95% among the highest income group, compared with around 80% among the lowest income group, and there is a fairly constant gradient across these groups. This applies for both sexes."

So it seems the better your income the more likely you are to drink.

Socialising
What does she mean by socialising, humans are social creatures, whether its chatting with friends,
a night out down the pub, playing some sport, even going to church is a social activity, spending
time with family etc.
No friends Gina is that it? dont spend time with your family? actually we know the answer to that last
question as her kids bought legal action against her over trust funds.

Finally the billionaires & millionaires do more to helping the poor myth.
Now certainly some do Bill Gates of course comes to mind.   But what churches,charities and other organisations dont
help the poor then? 
Or does she mean by creating jobs?  well missing something there im afraid the wealth creators
are you,me and everyone else spending without customers businesses are nothing.