Archive for January, 2007

Guess what I got for Christmas?

Yup, that’s right: a 30GB iPod G5. It’s great—I’ve loaded all my podcasts onto it, finally consolidated my home and office iTunes libraries, dumped in Address Book contacts and played around with the photo gallery. I can now listen to sermons (or American Radio) while I walk during my lunch break, and with the iTrip add-on I picked up, I now have my own truly conservative talk radio to listen to in the car.

The Downside: This means I’m now one of them.

I take it back—my WordPress template, that is. I’m gonna make myself content with that oh-so-nice K2.

Moreover, those who disagree can all make equally strong cases for their own points of view. On matters of morality there is no absolute knowledge; there is only opinion. Whereas the Stoics had argued that on certain matters the test for truth was the “irresistible perception,” the Skeptics responded by saying that the sad fact is that however strongly an opinion is held, it is, after all, still only an opinion, and one can with as much evidence support an opposite opinion.

—Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy

Yes, that’s the closest non-comic book to where I sit. (It’s an old textbook from Nicole’s college days, and I keep meaning to read it. This is about the most I’ve ever read of it, though.) Don’t exactly agree with the sentiment, but there you have it.

So what is this “Nearest Book Meme,” you ask? Well, it goes a li’l sumptin’-sumptin’ like this:

1. Grab the book nearest you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fourth sentence.
3. Post the text of the following 3 sentences.
4. Name the author and book title.
5. Tag three people to do the same!

Therefore, having been bound to the sacred memetic code, I now pass along a tag to the following three (3) people:

1. Rae Whitlock
2. Aaron and/or Keba Greene
3. Jeff and/or Jodi McMullen

I think our family may have been in the car more between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day than we were for the two months prior! Times like that tend to make me a homebody, and I wind up being more interested in vegging than writing. The good news is that there’s now much more “blog post material” running through my brain! It’s something that was sorely lacking during that period between last year’s 24-hour Blogathon and subsequent hiatus, and it hit an all-time low just after my “return.”

One thing which you’re likely to see more of around here is talk about money. I don’t have high hopes for American in ‘07 — at least, not its economy. I’ll probably touch on that to some extent over the coming months; in doing so, I want to focus specifically on how Christian generosity (both to those within and without the Church) ought to look in light of the “impending doom” of an economic recession or depression. (Hint: if you want to cheat, read Acts 11:27-30 and 2 Corinthians 8:13-14.) As I work on those and some other posts I’ve got in the hopper, here’s a few financial articles to keep you busy:

January 1

• Can the United States weather a housing recession?
  Five years ago, the U.S. economy went through a recession that did virtually no damage to the housing market. In 2007, the question is whether the economy can emerge unscathed from a housing recession.

January 2

• 2007 economic forecast: Dollar decline, recession
  Analysts cite increasing foreign aversion to U.S. currency, see continue gold rise
• Major Media Ignore the Obvious: Dollar Decline and Recession
  The stated reason for a pre-emptive strike on Ahmadinejad’s regime, if it happens this year, will be Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of the UN Security Council. The real reason will be Ahmadinejad’s decision to do business in euros instead of dollars.

January 8

• If the bulls are wrong about 2007, your portfolio is in trouble
  Folks, there are too many bulls and too few bears among America’s economists. Brave bulls? More like sheep, playing it safe, herding together around long-term averages. Their loyalty is to the big companies and banks who sign their paychecks. They have to be bullish. Reality scares customers away. And yet, any respectable contrarian will tell you that too many bulls is always a bearish signal. And we sure had a ton of bulls ringing in the New Year.

January 9

• World economic growth will slow in 2007
  “When the United States sneezes the rest of the world gets a cold,” says Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, “a U.S. recession is already hitting - the odds that the U.S. will slide into recession have risen from 50 percent to 70 percent, the world will indeed catch a cold.”
• New job regression: Growth slower under Bush than under Clinton, Reagan
  Baby boomers - a huge block of workers - poured into the work force in the 1980s and were rising through the ranks in the 1990s. That’s not the case now as boomers face retirement, and there are fewer young people to take their places.
• Knowing Which Way the Wind Blows
  What continues to bug me is that we Christians aren’t doing anything to prepare for the economic bottom falling out of America. From what the car rags say, Ford and GM (who were smarting for certain last December even with their employee pricing ruse) sold a grand total of three cars between the two companies this December. And China’s set to introduce its first car line in America. If China starts dumping cheap cars here, you can bet that it won’t only kick Ford and GM in the shins, it will force every car company in the world to ramp up building plants in China in order to compete. That means they won’t be building more here. Few of us understand how much of our shaky economy depends on car manufacturers. The Church sure doesn’t.

BTW, much of my thinking in this area has been spurred on by Dan Edelen. If you want to know where I’m coming from, read his blog. (Shoot, read his blog regardless!)