Taking responsibility?

Colleges and universities are taking a real beating these days about growing student loan debt, but it's the government itself that has fostered this mess. Government has made it so easy to borrow literally tens of thousands of dollars more than is necessary to pay for higher education.

The double irresponsibility of our government's idiotic policy, and students borrowing for things with student loans that are in no way related to education, plays a much larger role in this fiasco than the average bear understands, or the press publicizes.

Higher ed . . . the government's next bogeyman!

The introvert's power

Right up until sixth grade, I would have unequivocally called myself an introvert. I was an extremely soft spoken, play-quietly-in-my-room little boy. I neither had, nor needed friends, and at that time I can honestly say that the only real friend I remember was, Donald Newman, and probably Steve Slentz.

Then something happened. I can’t remember why, but I was sent somewhere into the bowels of Petroleum Elementary School. (No, I’m not kidding, and the little town of Petroleum still exists, if only as a mere wide spot in the road 10 minutes south of Bluffton, Indiana.) I came back to class, and once again I can’t remember why, with a Tonka truck, and I did something that was so out of character that to this day, I still can’t believe I did it. I put the truck on the floor, opened the door, and went roaring into the classroom. The class exploded with laughter . . . and I loved it!

From that day forward, I would have called myself an extrovert, because I learned that I loved an audience, and gladly “performed” for its entertainment . . . but from that moment until now there has been this dichotomy in my spirit. I loved, and still love the audience, but when the “show” is over, I want to just slip away and be alone and unwind.

While I certainly struggled with understanding it, and tried very hard to force myself into truly being “outgoing”, I never consciously thought a great deal about this dichotomy until Dr. Gideon King, an entrepreneurial physician, yet introvert friend of mine, introduced me to the book Quiet, by Susan Cain.

Now I understand. Read it. You will, too.

God....the ultimate economist!

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer that planted good seed in his field. But that night as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer’s servants came and told him, ‘Sir, the field where you planted the good seed is full of weeds!’ ‘An enemy has done it!’ the farmer exclaimed. ‘Shall we pull the weeds?’ they asked. He replied, ‘No, you’ll hurt the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds and burn them and put the wheat in the barn.’ ”
Matthew 13: 24-30, NLT

Whenever we think of an economy we typically think of a person’s or a nation’s wealth creating machine. The truth is that an economy is much more pervasive than merely “a system of producing, distributing, and consuming wealth.” (http://www.yourdictionary.com/economy, 4.a.) 

It’s “the restrained or efficient use of one’s materials, technique, etc.”

(http://www.yourdictionary.com/economy, 2.b.)

While the media culture has shaped our minds into thinking of economics merely as wealth production, distribution, and consumption, the truth is far more basic; it’s efficiency. God certainly understood, and understands, efficiency. A lot of people doubt that, asking themselves why a God of love would allow evil in the first place. If He is indeed all powerful, why not just destroy it? After all, that would be the most efficient answer, wouldn’t it? Or would it?

The truth is, that’s the knee jerk answer, but it isn’t the most efficient answer, nor is it the most compassionate. God’s love keeps the wheat from being torn up by allowing evil to run its course until the appropriate time. We find in economics that intervention into the normal flow of free markets usually does more harm than good, but God knew that long before we realized it.

God . . . the quintessential economist.