Mark Byron

The McCain Mutiny, Redux

I was thumbing through some old posts of mine from 2005, just after the "Gang of 14" deal on judicial nominations went down, and noted this post on McCain. Here are two worthwhile excerpts-

However, I think the two core areas that upset conservative Republicans are that he's a moderate on taxes and that he's not a Republican loyalist. Correct me if I'm wrong.
...

If we have to fudge on any of the policy axes [economic, moral, foreign policy], it's the economic issues that I'd be most willing to fudge on; that makes me a sucker for Dubya's "Compassionate Conservatism." It's not only good politics, but seems to make policy sense. That also makes me less ticked at McCain when he votes with Democrats to scale back tax cuts.

McCain's not my first choice for 2008. Guys like George Allen, Sam Brownback and Tim Pawlenty would be further up the list than McCain. However, he's preferable to Rudy or Mitt Romney, who are too far to the left on the moral issues to be comfortable; I'd rather fudge on economics and party loyalty than on morals. If he were to get the nomination, I'd not be looking for a Constitution Party nominee to cast a protest vote for, for a President McCain would be much preferable to a President Hillary.

OK, that just about ends my anti-anti-McCain rant. He's moderate on economics and likes being a statesman too much, but is that the worst thing? Eileen likes that statesman side, his ability to work across the aisle. She's not as much of a political junkie than I am, but there a lot of conservative-leaning folks like her that might like someone who's not a rabid partisan. Keep that in mind as we head towards 2008.

Mitt's moved to the right on moral issues since I wrote that, but he's still a bit too much of an unknown variable to be comfortable with. As one comedy attack ad put it, "Catch this guy on the right day and he’s Che frickin' Guevara.” Or Tom Tancredo or the head of MITI. What would a President Mitt look like, assuming that the Soros Brigades don't grind him to a pulp with attack ads first? As they use to say on To Tell the Truth, "will the real Mitt Romney please stand up."

The real John McCain stands up on a regular basis. He may be more moderate than a good hunk of the Peanut Gallery would like, but we know where he's coming from.

On foreign policy, that 2005 piece stated that "He was a foreign policy neocon before being a neocon was cool[.]"  Since then, it's gone out of being cool then back in (at least within the GOP) yet again, yet he stuck to his guns and actually argued for a more aggressive line of operations in Iraq that worked. On the big-picture issues of national security, he gets it right; some folks on the right side of the Peanut Gallery will fault him on immigration, but his current package of fence first, then normalization of some of the illegals has a decent shot of getting passed both houses of Congress next year and would improve our security on balance.

On social issues, he has a centrist streak, but votes conservative most of the time. He'd be more likely to nominate a Roberts than a Anthony Kennedy, although the exact nominee might depend upon the dynamics in the Senate when the slot comes open.

Yes, he's not a supply sider, but his budget hawk side should allow as much of Bush's tax cuts to remain in place; he's more likely to be able to get the deficit in order than Romney, who'd likely be at loggerheads with a center-left Congress.

I was hoping for Huckabee, and we had a brief moment in December and early January when it looked like he might be able to pull off an electoral miracle. However, John McCain did his Calvin Borel imitation and charged through the pack in January for the win; even the Bible Belt buckles of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia are now in the McCain camp.

Thanks for playing, Huck, you can pick your conciliation prize up at the door; I'd expect a withdrawal for him this time next week after Super Tuesday. Whether that prize is a VP pick, a HHS or Education slot in a McCain cabinet, or a US Senate run is an open question.

This was a political month for the ages and was great political theater. Now, we can sit back and watch an interesting heavyweight brawl between Clinton and Obama on the other side of the aisle.

Begining of the End

John McCain won the Florida primary today, besting Mitt Romney 36-31%. Unlike New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, Florida was a closed primary where only registered Republicans were supposed to vote; one polling place didn't have independent ballots for folks to vote on a state property tax proposal only and had a de facto open primary in that precinct.

Rudy Giuliani came in a weak third, nudging past Mike Huckabee with 15%. Rumor has it that he'll drop out of the race tomorrow and endorse McCain. The polls elsewhere point in that direction; the Bicoastal campaign of winning Florida then California, New York and New Jersey among others fell flat, as Rudy's fighting Huckabee for 3rd in CA and trailing McCain in New York.

Huckabee isn't throwing in the towel yet. He has pockets of strength in the south and border states, leading in Georgia and in the hunt in Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri. If Romney manages to bring McCain down a peg, there is room for quite a few Huckabee wins next week and have him be a player in a brokered convention.

However, McCain is in good shape coming out of Florida. He leads in most of the big states for Super Tuesday and could well wrap things up next week.

There's some gnashing of teeth amongst conservatives, but they'll come around. Just don't let them near any sharp objects for the next day or two.

Edifier du Jour-Acts 13:1-3(NIV)

¹In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. ²While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." ³So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

I'm not sure if verse 2 hit me like it did here; the key words were "...the Holy Spirit said...".

Not "they were led the Holy Spirit to set them apart." Not "so-and-so had a word of knowledge that they should be set apart." This was the Holy Spirit Himself talking.

I'm not sure how He communicated, but I'm thinking of the voice from heaven after Jesus' baptism. That would get folks attention and not be mistaken for last night's burrito.

That doesn't happen much these days that I know of; I don't recall such audible voices from nowhere in the modern Pentecostal experience. Internal voices, yes, but not external ones.

We're always going to have an uphill fight recreating the first century church, since many of the happenings were one-offs unlikely to happen again. That's not a cessationist view, but one that realizes that you're (in all likelihood) not going to get all those bells and whistles into one church at one time and shouldn't go hunting for it.

 

Monday Musings

A couple of religious patriarchs passed on over the weekend; Greek Orthodox chief Archbishop Christodoulos and LDS president Gordon Hinckley.
 

Christodoulos died of liver problems at 69, while Hinkley passed on at the ripe old age of 97. Both churches will be picking new leaders, but the tradition is a bit more cut and dried with the Mormons;

By unfailing tradition, at a church president's death, the church's most senior apostle is ordained within days on a unanimous vote of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. The most long-serving apostle now is Thomas S. Monson, 80.

That's not that old, since Pope Benedict was 78 when he got the big chair.

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Here's an interesting story; they are looking to build a 16-mile highway tunnel from Long Island to the NY state mainland, bypassing NYC. The kicker is that it is slated to be privately financed; a projected $25 toll would finance the $10 billion dollar project. It would be the longest automotive tunnel in the world; the English Channel tunnel is longer, but you have to put your car on a train to take it through.

___________

We've got a classic Emily Litella case here; the Thai military kicked out a right-populist PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, late in 2006, forced him into exile and banned his party, but when they held new elections late last year, a revamped version of Thaksin's party, the PPP got a plurality of seats. Coalition talks have been finalized, and new PM Samak Sundaravej will get to take charge

Mr Samak began his political career in the 1960s and has served as a cabinet minister several times - including a spell as interior minister in a 1970s military government.

A former Bangkok governor and a popular TV chef, the veteran lawmaker is regarded as combative but charismatic.

"He comes across as belligerent, aggressive and uncompromising," said Thitinan Pongsidhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "But many people find him affable. He's kind of like your uncle. He's folksy, and not afraid to be a bit profane," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Iron Lady, meet Iron Chef.

And the military said ...."Never mind."

Edifier du Jour-Matthew 9:9-13(NIV)

⁹As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

¹⁰While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

¹²On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

There's often a tendency in preaching to play up our sinful nature and to note the distance between the unrepentant sinner and God. However, the seeker in the pew generally knows that they're not up to speed with God. They're there to figure out how to remedy that situation.

So, the task for a good witness may not be to play up people's sin nature, but God's goodness and why He should be desired as opposed to the sinful stuff that we'd be putting behind us to follow Him. For me, that stuff had very little appeal, but it has an appeal to others who have more entrenched vices.

 

Communion

We had a full afternoon, going over to a church family's house for dinner and a birthday cake for Eileen (she has her birthday Tuesday), then a prospective-members meeting at church.

One thing that came out of the conversation at church this afternoon was that Pastor David mentioned that he didn't buy into the idea that you have to be properly baptized as a believer to receive communion; being a believer was enough.

That puts him at odds with Al Mohler, a leading candidate to be the next Southern Baptist president, who among others would restrict communion to people who have gone through a Baptist-style believer's baptism. Other believer-baptizing evangelicals would count, but non-immersion paedobaptizers like the Presbyterians and Lutherans would have the Communion Nazi go "No juice for you!" ;-).

Jeez, they even have a Mohler campaign logo up and running. Is this normal in SBC circles?

Back when I did my piece on the open-communion issue, I mentioned that "More than one pastor has said 'this is the Lord's table, not our church's table.'" David said that almost verbatim without prompting; I think it was "It's the Lord's table, not ours" that was the exact quote.

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Community has the same root as communion, and we have started to develop that here in town. Mark I (since I'm the newbie, I'm Mark II) and Lisa who lead our Sunday School class Life Group and Mark I's mom have all-but adopted us, having us over as regular visitors on Sundays like an extra son and daughter-in-law.

So we get to have a Southern-style home-cooked meal (or occasionally KFC with home-cooked sides), rowdy games of hand-and-food canasta (although we play with 11-card hands rather than 13) on most Sundays, and banter with the rest of Mark I's clan, including Mark I's niece and nephew.

To top that, our next-door neighbor, who (cue It's a Small World) happens to be originally from Lake Wales where both Eileen and I taught when we were in Florida, is treating Eileen to a birthday dinner and a movie while I teach Tuesday night. We're in a rare situation where we have two people in our apartment complex that we're close to; there's another gal on the first floor that Eileen used to do a lot of things with before the gal got a boyfriend.

Not bad for being here for just six months. That's more fellowship than we had in Florida, Indy and even Midland; we had friends in town, but not right next door.

Berluscromney

Two news items caught my eye at lunch just now. The first was the FCC OKing the purchase of Clear Channel, the big radio and TV station owner, "by private-equity companies Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners."

Bain Capital... Mitt Romney's Bain Capital? Yep. The deal had been announced back in November, but just got finalized today.

So, here you have a guy seriously in the hunt for the presidential nomination as a partner in buying the biggest network of radio stations in the country.

The other somewhat related news item was the fall of the current Italian government; PM Prodi lost a confidence vote in the Italian Senate. What does that have to do with Mitt Romney and Clear Channel? Well, the opposition leader, conservative former (and likely future) PM Silvio Berlusconi, is a media magnate. Here's a summary from his Wikipedia page-

Berlusconi is the founder and main shareholder of Fininvest, among the ten largest Italian privately-owned companies, operating in media and finance including three national TV channels. Together these account for nearly half the Italian TV market. He owns three (out of seven) national television channels as well as some of the country's most important newspapers. He is also well known for being, since 1986, the president of A.C. Milan, a prominent Italian football team.

The best analogy I can think of is to cross Ted Turner and Rudy Giuliani, giving him Turner's media holdings pre-sale-to-Time-Warner and Atlanta Braves teams with Rudy's politics, attitude and love life (he was having kids with the lady who would become wife #2 before divorcing wife #1). His party's name, Forza Italia, would loosely translate as "Let's Go, Italy;" it replaced the old Christian Democrats as the main party of the center-right.

He's been able to have political coverage slanted in Forza's direction, which gives the Italian left no little bit of consternation.

Would the Bain-held Clear Channel do that, slant their news coverage Romney's way? Probably not, but the question would be posed.

Any slanting might not be that blatant; it might be that the news-talk stations in their flock tend to keep the talkers in the Rush-Hannity universe that tends to stick to a conservative Republican line and away from various heterodox thoughts, be it various liberals or maverick conservatives.

That might make business sense as well as political since, since the primary motivation for the purchase is to make a buck. This isn't going to evolve into an Air America of the right, for the right doesn't need it; conservative talkers seem to do better in ratings than liberal talkers, and radio station's favorite color isn't red or blue, it's green.

I channel surfed into Rush on my way back from campus this afternoon, and he was pooh-poohing that other Sullivan's (other than my big bosses) piece stating that the race was McCain versus Rush. However, it seems to be boiling down to McCain versus the new owner of one of Rush's major patrons; quite a few Clear Channel stations carry El Rushbo.

4 Shopping Days Until Florida

I watched most of last night's Republican debate. It looks like it will be McCain's race to lose, unless conservative voters flood the zone for Romney.

Huckabee might win a few Southern states, but he's not quite ready for national prime time.
What I found problematic last night was where the moderators were trying to pin him to the wall with the quixotic fight of passing his Fair Tax. Russert and company managed to make the Fair Tax look weirder than being a devout Southern Baptist.

He'd be a great VP for McCain, who got a bit of a softball from him letting him defend the Fair Tax from the regressivity charge. The Huck question went to Romney's more centrist tendencies on gun control, whose answer would not have pleased me if I were an NRA guy.

I'm far from a Ron Paul fan, but I have to give him credit for being at the anti-Roe rally; most major politicians just send an audio clip.

Edifier du Jour-Genesis 50:4-11(NIV)

⁴ When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's court, "If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, ⁵ 'My father made me swear an oath and said, "I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan." Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.' "

⁶ Pharaoh said, "Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do."

⁷ So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh's officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt- ⁸ besides all the members of Joseph's household and his brothers and those belonging to his father's household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. ⁹ Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.

¹⁰ When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. ¹¹ When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning." That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.

The passage later on in this chapter about Joseph forgiving his brothers is the "money graf," but this passage was what hit me this morning; somehow, I never noticed this passage until today.

Not only did Joseph get a leave of absence to bury Jacob, but a who's who of Egypt went with him, so much so that the locals called the burial place Egyptian Mourning. That's something that shows the respect that the Egyptians had for Jacob.

To see how radical this is, I'm picturing the entire US cabinet picking up and heading to Kenya for a week for VP Barack Obama's dad's funeral. Yes, his dad's been six feet under for a while, but give me some poetic license; B.O.'s the highest-profile son of an immigrant in avenues of power right now. One could picture a few cabinet members (and maybe even the First Gentleman) going over for the funeral proper out of respect to the young vice president, but to have everyone set up shop in Africa for a week would be way much of a stretch to the modern mind.

That's the final note of Joseph finding favor with the Egyptians; his dad's funeral was nearly a state funeral. Cool.

 

Not Quite Voodoo

We've got an interesting back-and-forth between Joe Carter and Josh Claybourn on taxes; Joe is defending John McCain's deficit hawk side and systematically trashing supply-siders, while Josh ably picks up the gauntlet and throws the reality of the Laffer Curve back at him.

I think they both have some flaws in their arguments. First, to Joe, who seems to have slid over into the Bull Moose's camp now that Huckabee's campaign has (regrettably) jumped the shark.

Contrary to what some might claim to be a "real fiscal conservative" requires adherence to fiscal disciple and recognition of economic realties. Almost all conservatives pay lip service to the first, yet many today seem to ignore the latter. To my mind, there appear to be only three reasons not to tie tax cuts to spending reductions--and all appear to defy reality.

                                                                                                                 The first is the "starve the beast" strategy...The second reason is a modified version of the first: conservatives believe that we can take the tax cut now and force spending reductions in the future. While history has shown the "starve the beast" strategy to be nonsensical, the "Cut now, Spend less later" is plausible, though politically untenable.

While I agree with McCain's take that it would be an insult to say that Congress spends like a bunch of drunken sailors, since he never saw a sailor with that much creativity in blowing cash, there is a bit of truth to the second premise; liberals are somewhat constrained in new spending due to the fact that the deficit is rather large to begin with. They either have to trim elsewhere or raise taxes significantly in order to fund any major new project like a national health care plan.

Unfortunately, a lot of minor (and not so minor, like Medicare prescription coverage) new spending stuff has gone through over the last few years. Moderate Republicans, when unable to say no to a new extension of a current program, are also unable to say yes to a tax increase to pay for it, and wind up running up the deficit.

On that point, Joe is largely correct; the put-Leviathan-on-a-diet strategy doesn't work, since Levvie always seems to sneak a run into Cheezyburger on his way home from work.

However, he seems to go somewhat off the tracks on part three-

The third and most common reason people think tax cuts and spending reductions can be untethered is because they have a faulty understanding of supply-side theory. Rather than supply-side theory, some conservatives believe in supply-side magic: Cut taxes and you'll get more tax revenue than before! This, of course, is nonsense, as any supply-side economist will admit.

I'm not sure I qualify as a "supply-side economist," but I do play one on occasion in the classroom when I teach macroeconomics. My Ph.D. is in Finance, but my doctoral minor is in International Economics and have 27 graduate semester hours in economics. I am currently teaching Managerial Economics at Sullivan University, so I think I have enough credentials to call B.S. on that last sentence.

The key to his argument is how high the taxes are before getting cut. Josh's piece trots out the construct of the Laffer Curve, which is the now-classic idea that at some point, an increase in tax rates will actually decrease revenues. If the tax rate is high enough, people start getting more interested in tax avoidance or trading income for leisure, and taxable income falls faster than the tax rate rises, creating a drop in tax revenue. At such a point, a cut in the tax rate would increase tax revenues, since taxable income would rise more than the tax rate fell.

When the Laffer Curve was being first promulgated in the late 70s, the top marginal tax bracket was 70%; the Reagan tax cuts of the early 80s brought that down to 50% and later to 28% in 1986. In the early going, one could make the case that 70% was on the downslope of the Laffer Curve and the paradoxical idea that a tax-cut could raise revenue might actually have been legit.

That being said, I don't think we're on the right side of the Laffer Curve today; Joe should hold his fire for the folks who think we're still on the right side, for those would be the folks that would be in the supply-side-magic camp. Current tax cuts would be unlikely to be fully self-financing via growth, but they might be partly self-financing to the extent that the lower taxes will encourage more work and more investments.

This is where this passage from Joe's piece runs aground a bit-

According to supply-siders, the beneficial effect of lowering tax rates is that it expands the tax base. The more people paying taxes or more people moving up into a higher tax rate, the more the revenue lost from the tax cut will be offset. But rarely--if ever--does a tax cut pay for itself. That is why it is essential to reduce spending.

This should be obvious to anyone who gives it a moment's reflection. Consider an example on the microeconomic level: Imagine you make $100 a week and are in credit card debt. You decide that you can't live on such a measly salary and so continuously borrow $1 a week from your credit card. Are you better off financially? Maybe in the short run, since you have an extra dollar to spend or invest. Eventually, though, you have to pay back the dollar (plus interest) that you borrowed. You are penalizing your future self to improve your present condition.

I have two issues with his scenario. The first is that the assumption that the extra cash from the borrowing will be spent; some of it could be invested. If it is invested at a rate higher than our interest rate, we'll be rewarding our future self. We will have to pay back the dollar with interest, but if we're earning 15% and only paying 5% in interest, we'll be ahead of the game.

Secondly, the federal government will borrow at a lot lower interest rate than the credit card.

Tax cuts will help draw more investment into the economy, which will help generate more taxable income in the future. True, deficit spending in the short term will create a "crowding out effect" that will raise interest rates and have government taking capital that could have been used for private-sector purposes, but the lower taxes will have a crowding-in effect of people looking to invest more, given that the take-home pay of investment will have increased.

Granted, the increase in revenues that Bush cites might be due to a sound economy growing rather than his tax cuts, but part of that economic growth was likely due to the tax cuts. How much is open to debate.

                           

Edifier du Jour-Psalm 22:27-31(NIV)

²⁷ All the ends of the earth
       will remember and turn to the LORD,
       and all the families of the nations
       will bow down before him,

²⁸ for dominion belongs to the LORD
       and he rules over the nations.

²⁹ All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
       all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
       those who cannot keep themselves alive.

³⁰ Posterity will serve him;
       future generations will be told about the Lord.

³¹ They will proclaim his righteousness
       to a people yet unborn—
       for he has done it.

Psalm 22 is an interesting passage, with a lot of messianic overtones. However, it's the tail in that struck me.

Sometimes people ask whether the US is mentioned in the Bible. I can't vouch for any eschatological stuff, but I can safely say that were among the "people yet unborn" to here of the Good News. Not the people yet unborn, mind you, but part of it.

 

Edifier du Jour-Matthew 5:21-22(NIV)

²¹"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' ²²But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

That's strong advice, especially in a political season where one of the weapons in a rhetorical arsenal is to questions a foe's intelligence; however, Jesus points out that puts the arse in rhetorical arsenal.

Raca roughly translates to "air-head" in modern parlance. That puts such language, or near equivalents, off limits to the believer.

However, before we look at what we can and can't say about our foes, look at the beginning of 22. If we're angry with our brother, we're in trouble.

I'm exempted from that since I only have a sister, right? Not so fast, it also applies, as I see it, to our brothers (and sisters) in Christ.

I'm seeing a lot of anger come to the surface in this political year, and I'm trying not to respond in kind. That's one reason that my blogging has been a bit light, that I'm struggling to do so in an redeeming manner.

Tuesday Musings

Some sobering news out of basketball; Nene, Denver's Brazilian one-name power forward, has testicular cancer, and had one of his testicles removed. 12-year-olds of all ages will have a field day with that, but men of all ages will say "there but the grace of God go I." Prayers for the big guy are an order.

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Some more sobering news out of show biz; Heath Ledger died earlier today, apparently of a sleeping pill OD.

"Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he was one of the borough’s most famous residents." Somehow, "live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" comes to mind, for he had the pretty-boy looks that had the teeny-boppers' interest in A Knight's Tale, but became a more well-rounded actor, bagging an Oscar for his AC-DC cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. Interestingly, he wound up having a child with the actress who played his wife in the movie.

He was on his way to being a Gen Y Tom Cruise without the Scientology baggage, but wound up, if the drug OD story holds up, being a Gen Y John Belushi instead.

_________

I don't comment much on the Democratic race, since I don't have any dogs in that fight. However, it is interesting that Clinton and Obama are now getting personal and more than a bit nasty. However, the two are evenly matched and neither are going to go quietly.

We could well have two brokered conventions if the conservative machine keeps McCain from getting a clean win on Super Tuesday and Edwards gets enough delegates to keep either Clinton or Obama from claiming victory early.

The Benefits of a Deficit Hawk

I just got done with my International Finance class this evening, and I gave them the following question to kick around-

Group question 4: Deficit hawk John McCain does well on Super Tuesday February 5th; world financial markets think that he’ll do a better job at reigning in the US deficit than his more supply-side inclined GOP foes.

How should the dollar react to that electoral news?

All else being equal, and assuming that the statement above is true (and I think that it is a fair statement), the dollar would tend to rise, since markets would be expecting that we'd have a better chance of reigning in the budget deficit. That would mean that we'd need to raise less funds overseas, driving down the supply of dollars in the foreign exchange markets and raising the value of the greenback.

We could use the help, since about that time, those drunken sailors of the Potomac Navy (as McCain might put it) will be passing some sort of stimulus package. While such deficit spending may help the economy if spent (the consensus in my class tonight was that it will be either saved or used to pay bills), deficits will require more debt, which means more borrowing, some of which will be by foreigners, which will drive the value of the dollar down.

The postive McCain effect would be expectational, while the stimulus effect would be real; the irony would be the markets would be seeing the expectation of future deficit decreases along with the reality of mad spenders inside the Beltway. One can only hope that they cancel each other out and the dollar doesn't continue down the crapper.

Talk of tax cuts on the Republican side of the aisle may be good long-term economics, but it isn't good short term geopolitics, especially in the currency markets. So as the right side of the Peanut Gallery trashes the Bull Moose, note that he might make gas a tad bit cheaper if he does well next month.

Freddie's Dead

At least his campaign is... Fred Thompson ended his presidential campaign today. He needed to have done better than a 16% third place in South Carolina and was trailing Ron Paul most other places.

He may have helped spell the demise of Mike Huckabee, draining social conservative votes and depriving him of a win in South Carolina. However, even with a SC win, Huck would have had an uphill fight winning on a national stage; his free-media low-budget strategy works when you have one state going at a time, but is hard to pull off when 20 states are voting at once. So, I wouldn't be too quick to write Thompson off as a Huck-spoiler.

The next question is where to the Fred Heads go next? If they're social conservatives, they might go to either Romney or Huckabee. If their foreign policy hawks, they might look at McCain, who Thompson backed in 2000, or Rudy. Each of the four remaining lead-pack candidates could pick up votes.

A week to go until Florida; the rest of the pack needs to see if the conservative media can whack McCain down to size in a week; he has a 3% lead at present on average, and any of the top four could squeak out a 24% plurality if the ball bounces their way.

The 0.7% Solution

Well, it was actually 0.75%, but it didn't make as as good of a headline. That was the amount of the cut in the Fed Funds rates announced earlier today. That is bigger than it sounds to the non-finance person, since the Fed generally moves in quarter-percent increments; a half-percent change is a radical move, so a three-quarters percent move is all but hitting the eject button.

The financial markets think that there is a problem, but I'm not sure how big of a problem we really have.  On the macro level, the economy is moving along nicely, having gone up at a 4.9% clip in the third quarter of 2007. Yet one AP report printed in the Herald Leader is talking recession. The traditional definition of recession is two quarters of declining GDP, and we've yet to have even one confirmed, although I wouldn't be surprised if we were in the hole for the fourth quarter.

Increased oil prices, the larger-than-normal number of mortgage defaults and the resulting write-downs at banks and a nasty trade deficit has left financial markets nervous. Monday was a big meltdown day in financial markets, where European stocks were down around 5%. In Asia and Australia, where they had their Tuesday trading in our overnight hours, they were down by 6-7%. The Fed action calmed British markets, which went from down 3% to up 3% on the news.

I hope that that will soothe the market's jitters and get conversation away from a stimulus package. I wouldn't mind a $1600 check, but it would merely pay down the credit card tab for the engine work in Sparkle (Eileen's car) from November, not get us to go out and buy a new big-screen TV or some other big-ticket economically-stimulating item.

From a long-term perspective, the most stimulating thing Washington can do is sit on their tookus for a few months (or let themselves do gridlock) and let the Fed do its thing.  Do we really want to have another 1% of GDP hit to the national debt when we're merely going through a rough patch? Not that I couldn't use the money, but I don't like the precedent. What happens when we have a real recession and we want to goose things?

Red Zones

Preface-I plan on voting for the Republican nominee this fall. All of the lead pack on the GOP side (Rudy, Romney, McCain and Huckabee) are closer to my vision of where the country should go than the Democratic alternatives.

That being said, it's not been a particularly edifying primary season, and I'm not the happiest camper. There's been quite a bit of nastiness that has me more than a bit soured on the Republican brand.

Now that the conservative apparat has fended off Mike Huckabee, they're now training their sights at John McCain. This Red State post was interesting, bouncing off a George Will piece suggesting that he might be a better fit as a Democrat. However, what interested me was the initial comment on the Red State piece-

The Kosaffaction of the right has now officially started. McCain has 82% lifetime record from the ACU, nearly 90% in it comes to pro-life issues, and by the way is one of the most strident defenders of the GWOT, yet because he strays off the ranch a few times he is a Democrat.

To be honest, it's been more than a few time that he's been off the ranch; there's a reason that he's earned the nickname Maverick, and not just, like the namesake Tom Cruise Top Gun character, that he was a Navy pilot back in the day.

However, the commenter was accurate in that we're beginning to see activist conservatives demanding near-100% subservience to the party line.  They don't give ACU scores for governors that I know of, but Huckabee would have likely scored in the mid 80s were he Senator Huckabee for a decade. That's not enough for the conservative apparat. If they aren't in the 90s and consistently pining for ever smaller government,  they are liberals and RINOs.

Just in case a few of my readers don't get "Kosaffaction," that's referencing the hard-core liberals activists in the Democratic party, led by the Daily Kos web site, running off undoctrinaire lefties, like Joe Lieberman, who had a 80% ADA rating in 2005 yet was excommunicated for being in favor of the Iraq war. It was the Kossacks who got behind his anti-war primary foe and forced Lieberman to run as a third-party candidate to keep his Senate seat.

Thus, you don't see much deviation from the Kosian norm in the leading candidates. If the ideological spectrum were like a football field, the Democratic field was clustered down around the liberal 10 yard line, with no one daring to leave their own "red zone" (a.k.a between the goal line and 20 yard line, for the non-US football fans in the Peanut Gallery).

The problem that lurks is that the Republicans are verging on having the same thing happen to them. There is more diversity of opinion in the Republican field, with folks like McCain, Huckabee and Guiliani making it out to the 25 or even 30 yard line, getting closer to the bulk of voters than the Democrats, who have pinned themselves into their own coffin corner.

However, as the mavericks stray outside of the Republican red zone, the conservative apparat lays down fire at any that would prove to be a threat to win the nomination. If they succeed in trashing McCain and getting Romney nominated, they may be painting themselves into their own coffin corner.

That leaves a lot of vacated field.

Back in 2006, I looked at the voting records of Congress- "Wingers are outnumbering the centrists 3-1 on the left and almost 4-1 on the right. I don't think the population of the country is that polarized."

I later added that-

our primary system lends itself to having Democrats nominate someone well left of center and Republicans nominating someone well right of center, since Democrats tend to be on the left third (or so) and Republicans on the right third (or so) of the spectrum.

There would seem to be room at first blush for a centrist party, since the average voter seems ill-served by that distribution. Forming such a party is the trick.

It seems that those left and right thirds are more like sixths these days. That leaves a lot of room for a potential alternative to the two major parties.

However, it isn't going to happen in 2008. Michael Bloomberg is itching to try, but he could run on the Democratic platform and not blink; his stock portfolio gives him the ability to be independent, but he's still well left of center. Ron Paul might try to capitalize the l in libertarian once again, but that's a 10% proposition at best, even if you like such stuff.

I have some not-so-modest proposals in mind for 2012, however, depending on how 2008 goes. More to follow, as Drudge would say.

Very Stimulating... But Stoopid

My apologies to Artie Johnson.

Here's why you don't do stimulus packages; all kinds of pork flies into the pot. Witness Mitt Romney's foray into the stimulus biz-

The big-ticket item is a proposal to allow any business to write off 100 percent of new equipment purchases for the next two years, retroactive to Jan. 1. It carries an estimated price tag of $81 billion in 2008.

In addition, the tax rate on businesses would be cut from 35 percent to 20 percent over two years, with the first 10-percent cut this year costing $51 billion.

That's a paean to big business, since smaller businesses already have that. Under Section 179 of the tax code, you can write off $108,000 a year in new equipment purchases right away rather than depreciating them over a number of years.

Also, a cut in corporate tax rates won't help folks who don't pay corporate taxes, including the folks who file income taxes using a S-corp, where the corporation's taxable income is passed onto stockholder's 1040 and not taxed at the corporate level.

Individuals, meanwhile, would benefit from a proposal to reduce the lowest income tax rate from 10 percent to 7.5 percent, which would cost an estimated $28 billion.

The plan also calls for instituting that rate for 2007 earnings, meaning those earning less than $97,500 — the cutoff point for contributing to the Social Security tax fund — would receive a rebate of about $400 when they file tax returns this winter.

That change would cost $22 billion in 2008, and be coupled with an elimination of Social Security payroll taxes for workers over 65 that would cost $20 billion and equally benefit businesses and individuals.

Let's see, the next primary on the docket is.... anyone... Bueller... anyone... Yes, it's Florida. That giant sucking sound you here is Mitt Romney's kisser on the AARP's backside, just in time for a key primary in the grayest state in the country. For every Brownback who gave the race a try, you have a Brownnose.

Try Key West, Mitt. They could use a few extra flop-flops this time of year.

What Happens in Nevada, Stays in Nevada

I figured that was a more uplifting headline than my first choice, hearkening back to a Curtis Mayfield oldie from the 70s, Freddie's Dead.

Out in Nevada, Mitt Romney had an impressive win, getting 51% of the vote. Ron Paul actually came in second with 14%, which may well be the highlight of his campaign; there's no truth to the rumor that ZZ Top's LaGrange is the new campaign theme song after he won the vote of young professionals in Nevada ;-).

Hillary won the most votes (51%-45%) , but B.O. got the most delegates (13-12). First past the post per voting unit is the rule in caucuses, not raw vote.

South Carolina may have seen John McCain make a big step towards getting the nomination, nudging Mike Huckabee 33-30. Fred Thompson managed to nudge past Mitt Romney for third, but a 16% third-place showing in arguably the most conservative state in the country isn't going to be a springboard to the nomination. The long knives are out at Redstate even before the results are final.

Now, we'll have a week and a half before Florida, and a four-way dogfight between Rudy, Mitt, Mike and "Johnny Mac." Does Romney change gears and start laying down some surface-to-air fire on Maverick in the Sunshine State? Does Thompson's vote float someplace else, and if so, to where?

I would have liked to see Huckabee win tonight, but a 30% showing is solid, better than could have been expected a few months ago. Had McCain not caught fire at just the right time, a 30% figure would have been a plurality, and he'd be making the victory speech.

Between the two of them, they bagged just short of two-thirds of a very conservative state. I think that McCain-Huckabee may well be the ticket, as much as such a prospect will send certain conservatives reaching for the Maalox or the barf bag.

Edifier du Jour-Matthew 5:17-20(NIV)

¹⁷"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is a rather hard passage to apply, especially verses 18 and 19. Did Calvary accomplish everything? If so, then the Old Testament is old news.

Even then, I don't see a time constraint on verse 19; trashing the OT will still get you labeled least in the kingdom of heaven. You do still qualify as a resident of the kingdom, but will be the low man on the totem pole. Run that by the "Jesus never said anything about X" crowd.

However, the key take-away verse from this passage is the last one; the rule-based religion of the Pharisees doesn't hunt in Jesus' spiritual economy. His kingdom is one of faith and truth, not of man-made rules.

Pro-Life Libertarians

I don't listen to Rush much these days; it wasn't until a few days ago that I figured out what his Lexington outlet was. However, he got channel surfed into while running errands this afternoon, when this exchange came across the airwaves about not wanting to redefine conservatism

When I say redefine conservatism, I don't want to have somebody who is pro-choice called a conservative.  I don't want to have somebody who is for tax increases, income tax increases, or opposes, more importantly, tax cuts, called a conservative.  I don't want to have anybody who stands in the way of individuals prospering on their own, triumphing on their own, called conservative.

Let's see. John McCain's heading up the Republican field at present, with just a smidge under 30% in the RCP national polls summation. He's opposed his share of tax cuts on fiscal conservative grounds; so that means he's not a Rushian Conservative.

In second place is Mike Huckabee with a smidge over 20%. He's overseen some tax increases at the state level, even though he has anti-tax-increase rhetoric in his platform. He's not meeting Rush's specs, either.

In fourth place is Rudy Giuliani with 12.6%. Pro-choicer. Nuf' said.

That's 62% of the Republican electorate that's at odds with Rush's definition of conservative, or at least are backing candidates that are seemingly at odds with the establishment conservative view of what makes a good conservative these days. The two unhyphenated conservatives, Romney and Thompson, make up only 23.5% of the national vote; you can get to 27.5% if you include Ron Paul's 4%, since he would seem to meet the specs above.

A majority of Republican voters are willing to vote for folks with a moderate streak on some issues; for McCain and Huckabee, it's economics and immigration, with some social issue centrism thrown in with MCain. For Rudy, it's social policy that has him off the conservative reservation.

That's not to say that all of that 62% are a bunch of RINOs. There are plenty of folks with solid conservative credentials backing each of those candidates. However, each of those three candidates leaves professional political conservatives cold, because they don't gulp down the "movement conservative" Kool-aid.

There is a more temperate version of conservatism outside of the chattering classes, one that appreciates well-run government as well as a free market and is a bit more pragmatic about taxes and spending. If Huckabee can be dismissed by the Chattering Class Conservatives as a pro-life liberal, the CCCs can be equally dissed as pro-life libertarians, for their worship of the free market and of individual liberty are more radical than they are conservative.

One of my critiques of Bob Dole when he headed up the ticket in 1996 was that he was too conservative in his conservatism; he was a status-quoian, not a radical change agent like Newt was in that era. There are quite a few folks who are generally conservative, but don't want to radically overhaul a country that works fairly well, thank you very much.

If you read both the McCain and Huckabee camp out of the party, you don't have much of a party left. As Leon Wolf mentions over at Red State, "good luck cracking 30% in the next few elections," and he was just talking about the evangelical Huckabee voters.

So, be nice to the non-movement conservatives, unless you want to run as Ron Paul's VP on the Libertarian ticket.

Edifier du Jour: Matthew 5:13(NIV)

¹³"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

This was part of our morning reading, even though I'm waiting until nearly midnight to get to it.

Salt's a preservative as well as a seasoning; it kills off germs that don't like salty stuff. It can also be painful to apply to some things, hence the phrase "rubbing salt on a wound."

That's going to lead to the Gospel being unwelcome in some quarters where favored vices are being challenged. However, that only works if the salt is pure enough to do its job; if it gets mixed in with other elements, it loses its punch.

How do we avoid getting unsalty? By not mingling with those other elements too much. Easier said than done without getting a hyper-separatist attitude.

Edifier du Jour:Psalm 15:1-5(NIV)

¹ LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
       Who may live on your holy hill?

² He whose walk is blameless
       and who does what is righteous,
       who speaks the truth from his heart

³ and has no slander on his tongue,
       who does his neighbor no wrong
       and casts no slur on his fellowman,

⁴ who despises a vile man
       but honors those who fear the LORD,
       who keeps his oath
       even when it hurts,

⁵ who lends his money without usury
       and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
       He who does these things
       will never be shaken.

This is a hard list of things to do, although someone who is striving to follow God will be doing those.

"Speaking the truth from the heart" is sometimes the hardest, for our tendency is to spin the truth in various ways. Some people have developed the art of the "white lie", the falsehood that avoids ruffled feathers; a honest answer of "Aunt Susie's embroidered sweater is a design disaster" is best left unsaid, to be replaced with something like "It's an interesting pattern."

Also, doing what is righteous isn't easy; there are a lot of sins of omission in my life, and probably yours. I can pat myself on the back for giving a sick student an extension on her homework that's due tonight, but I can't pat myself on the back for playing computer Canasta when I should have been grading homework, prepping for next week's classes or getting this Edifier done a lot sooner.

The blood of Christ washes away those sins of omission and commission, but we still need to be striving for the kind of life that David calls for.

 

Michigan by the Numbers

Here's a breakdown of the congressional district vote from yesterday's Michigan election per the morning postings at the Secretary of State's office.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

District	Description	McCain	Romney	Huckabee	Paul	Thompson	Rudy
1	Upper Peninsula	35.13%	33.42%	16.32%	5.76%	4.18%
2	Muskegon, Cadillac	32.89%	33.74%	21.32%	4.17%	3.53%
3	Grand Rapids	31.26%	37.02%	18.27%	4.54%	4.27%
4	Midland, Traverse City	33.75%	35.86%	17.30%	4.69%	3.69%
5	Flint, Saginaw, Bay City	27.17%	35.49%	20.07%	8.85%	3.40%
6	Kalamazoo, SW Mich	37.13%	28.60%	19.08%	5.25%	4.15%
7	Ann Arbor, Jackson	30.71%	35.33%	17.38%	7.90%	4.22%
8	NW Suburbs	27.49%	40.36%	16.29%	6.69%	4.04%
9	N Suburbs-Oakland Cty	27.01%	48.14%	9.68%	5.51%	2.71%	4.44%
10	Outer NE Suburbs-Macomb	25.15%	42.45%	14.75%	8.54%	3.49%
11	Western Suburbs	25.48%	45.82%	13.04%	6.45%	3.46%
12	Inner NE Suburbs	26.33%	42.86%	13.51%	7.53%	3.30%	3.83%
13	Detroit	27.13%	45.38%	10.91%	6.42%	3.01%	4.13%
14	Dearborn, Inner W Suburbs	77.30%	13.11%	4.26%	1.97%	1.11%	1.18%
15	"Downriver" Suburbs	30.09%	38.68%	14.84%	7.66%	3.59%	2.94%

Here, I only included Rudy when he came in fifth, which was only when we got towards metro Detroit; he was a non-factor outstate.

Thompson couldn't crack 5% anywhere and couldn't nudge past Paul for fourth anywhere. Not a good showing.

Huckabee did better in the more rural parts of the state, but had one of his best showings in the Rust Belt 5th district in the I-75 corridor factory towns of Flint and Saginaw. Still, that was only a 20% showing, as he finished third in every district.

With the exception of a freakish result in the Dearborn area, McCain did best in the more rural areas of the state, while Romney did better in the urban and suburban areas of the state. McCain won only three districts.

Romney did well in urban areas, as I just mentioned. He may becoming the new cosmopolitan candidate, fitting Rudy's niche.

Edifier du Jour-Matthew 5:1-3(NIV)

¹Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ²and he began to teach them saying:

³"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We've been reading through Matthew in our morning devotionals, and I've been trying to revisit some of the well-trod parts of the Gospels (at least for a veteran believer with a couple of decades of sermons, Sunday School classes and Bible studies behind him) with a fresh eye.

For instance, it's the meek and the peacemakers who get the press out of the Beatitudes, but you don't see too many people dwelling upon the poor in spirit. First of all, it forces us to do a spiritual budget check and figure out if we're running a Holy Spirit deficit.

Unlike the budget crunch that newly-minted Gov. Beshear has to deal with in his State of the Commonwealth (that takes getting used to for this Bluegrass newbie; I'm used to State of the State) speech last night, it's not something that can be fixed by budget cuts, tax increases or fees from new casinos.  That spiritual deficit can only be dealt with on our knees (at least figuratively), looking for God to fill that gap in our spirits.

It's not sub-prime mortgages that is our biggest problem, it's sub-prime spiritual lives. Often, it's the suburbians who are comfortable and are wondering at which restaurant they'll eat their next meal at rather than whether they'll have a next meal that are spiritually in the red.

Asking that question is going to lead to some awkward altar calls, for people don't want to fess up to being behind the curve in their "walk." It requires admitting that we might not have our acts together as much as the facade we put up would indicate.

However, if we do admit our weaknesses, God is willing to cover that deficit. He's on a different economy than ours, where there isn't any shortages or rationing. He can, and stands ready to, fill that hole, if we let Him.

It's the people who admit they're in the hole who won't stay there; the people who don't want to admit it will stay in the hole. Paradoxically, it is the poor in spirit who won't stay that way for long, while the spiritual middle class too prideful to note their poverty of spirit will stay in a spiritual economy of shortage and scarcity.

Spiritual populism? Yep; Jesus isn't campaigning to the spiritual middle class, but the poor in spirit.

 

Michiday

They'll be voting later today in Michigan; I don't think my old home turf has any equivalents of Dixville Notch who do a midnight madness thing to be the first to vote. I'm winding down after an on-line tutoring shift, so I'm up at a bit past 1AM.

I'm still rooting for Huckabee, but a Romney win will be good for Huckabee. A McCain win may well start a McCain Train that might not be stopped by a barrage of commentary from the right.

Not that McCain would be a bad choice; he's currently my #2 choice behind Huckabee. However, I'd like to see him more battle tested before he gets to take on the Democrats in the fall, more than a quick coronation by Feb 5th will do.

[Update 1:45 AM-and so would the Democrats-

Well, there are two circular firing squads going; why should Democrats have all the fun?]

This is an interesting piece in the Detroit Free Press on Huckabee's stumping in Lansing.

John P. Torres, 27, of Lansing liked what he heard nonetheless.

“I like the idea of energy independence. Gas prices are terrible,” Torres said. “He said a lot of things that people want to hear…like no taxes; everybody likes that.”

Torres said he had “never heard of” Huckabee before he and his fellow employees were notified they were going to get a mid-morning break to hear him. And he said he has yet to vote in any election. But Tuesday may be a first, Torres said, if he can figure out whether he is registered and where his polling place is.

Not exactly the sharpest pencil in the drawer, but they don't allocate votes on political IQ. He's definitely not someone who would show up in polling as a "likely voter." However, if there are more folks like him, we could be in for some interesting results tonight.

Blue Surge Suit

For now, like a retro fashion that the kids have rediscovered, John McCain is the flavor of the week, having shot well ahead in national polls after his New Hampshire win.

It's not that last week's flavor, Mike Huckabee, has gone out of style. He's still polling at around 20% nationwide. However, it seems like Rudy is melting down and a lot of the security voters are gravitating to McCain.

Will the conservative pundits let this latest move stand? Most of the chattering classes of the right have been all over Huckabee for the last month, once it became clear that he was a threat to conservative orthodoxy with a social-conservative, economic-centrist package. On one hand, it's been a classic case of letting the foes define you first.

However, Huckabee hasn't gone down in the polls; he seems to have a solid 20% or so of the vote. In a six way race, 20% can win; it doesn't win a three or four man race, or a two-man race with McCain.

The next step will be to see if the punditry turns its fire on McCain as he becomes the front-runner. Many of them have a history of disliking him, for his non-supply-side econ and his support of campaign finance reform, as well as having a moderate bipartisan streak a mile long. Will they let it loose on McCain as they have on Huckabee?

Maybe, maybe not. A blue serge suit lets you pee your pants and not have anyone notice, but a blue surge suit, now that McCain's Iraq policy is bearing fruit, might let your conservative critics pee in theirs.

A Baptist Public Intellectual

One of the interesting news items of the week, both via Bene and via the Lexington Herald Leader, is the candidacy of Al Mohler to be head of the Southern Baptists. He's currently president of their flagship seminary in Louisville, so the jump to being head of the denomination wouldn't be that huge of one.

The interesting thing about Mohler is that he's a blogger; many of the contentious items that were featured in the Herald Leader piece, like a thought experiment about genetically modifying a child in utereo that had genetic tendencies that would lean it towards being homosexual, flowed from blog entries where he (as the Herald Leader puts it) comments "on moral, cultural and theological issues."

That kind of fits the description of the old-school public intellectual; no, a Baptist public intellectual isn't an oxymoron. It doesn't fit the description of the megachurch (or near-megachurch; if you have one service on Sunday, you're not going to be in the hunt) pastor that normally gets the gig of running a denomination, nor does it sound like your stereotypical tight-sphinctered seminary chief.

It's rare to see a Southern Baptist leader who people outside of Southern Baptist circles might have heard of prior to his becoming leader (or prior to the week of the national convention where the leading candidates start getting mentioned in the general media); Joe Sixpack might not have heard of Mohler, but Joe Evangelical Blog Reader will have. Even if Mohler wasn't in your bookmarks (and he wasn't in mine until now), he was in the bookmarks of one of your regular reads.

If elected, he'll be an interesting president.

Friday Musings

A prophet has no honor in his home town; McCain is only 3 points back of Rudy in Nuevo York.

_________

Here's an interesting bit of news from the financial industry; Bank of America has bought Countrywide, the big mortgage lender burned by defaulting loans. BoA is an interesting critter; NationsBank was the parent company, a big Charlotte-based superregional, who bought the west coast powerhouse and took on its name. Since then, it gobbled up New England banking biggie Fleet and credit card-centric MBNA; now, they have the biggest mortgage writer in the country under their banner.

Even if Countrywide's loan portfolio is iffy, it's connections aren't.

_________

Here's an interesting shot across the financial bow from bond rating kingpin Moodys; treasury bonds and bills might not be risk free anymore if we don't get our acts together.

"These two programs are the largest threats to the long-term financial health of the United States and to the government's Aaa rating," Moody's analyst Steven Hess said in the agency's annual report on the United States.

That much is true. Is it bad enough to raise the real specter of a US government default that a bond downgrade would entail? Not yet, but I could see where it might.

Edifier du Jour-Philippians 3:4b-9(NIV)

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

⁷But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Randy McRoberts had a repost on this passage yesterday, focusing on the "I consider them rubbish" part in verse 8.

Trying to impress God doesn’t work. You try to produce diamonds and you end up producing dung. I could use a stronger word; Paul did — skubala. If you think you can impress God, you are full of skubala.

It is interesting that most of the modern translations (including the more word-for-word NASB and ESV) go with rubbish here when the King James actually comes closer to the original with "dung." This Greek concordance has the word anglicized as skybalon with a definition of "any refuse, as the excrement of animals, offscourings, rubbish, dregs."

In this case, dung, or any cruder synonyms for "the excrement of animals," would be the first meaning of the word here. This is one case where The Message actually is more literal than the NASB, going with "dog dung." Cattle dung, or BS, would fit rather nicely here.

OK, enough with letting my inner 12-year-old out on things.

Paul notes that all the academic creds he had as a Jewish scholar is but one big steaming pile compared to knowing God. That levels the playing field in the spiritual realm, where the high-school-drop-out janitor can know God far more than the MBA-packing CEO; our credentials don't mean  skubala before God.

Isaiah didn't say that the folks with an M.Div. shall renew their strength; he said that those who wait upon the Lord will do so. There was no beatitude on the Sermon on the Mount blessing those who know what a hermeneutic is.  It's humility, perseverance and patience that is rewarded in God's economy.

That's not to say that serious theological scholarship isn't good, but it needs to be secondary to a serious relationship with God, in prayer and in mediation on the Word.