Roundtable Discussion

How can we fulfill MLK’s dream, economically?

This week we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s life as arguably the Nation’s greatest civil rights leader. Have a fresh read of his most famous words, apparently extemporaneously spoken from the heart, from an economic perspective. Why is there still such great economic inequality and disparity today? We even have all the more economic slavery of debt, greed, fear and poverty? What can we do about it? Why can’t our Federal Reserve banking system and financial markets ever hope to deliver on the Dream? MLK’s dream? The Almighty’s dream? (Read Deut 28).

Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.

Prov 22:16

One Nation Under God. Where all men are created equal. Where none live in poverty (impossible? read Deut 15:4 and Acts 4:34). Where there truly is liberty and justice for all.

“I Have a Dream”

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.

And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

Roundtable Discussion: Regional Digital Currencies

By way of background, you can view and listen to our previous discussion here: Alt Currency

Yesterday (1/11/22), Merrick Finn, Chris Adams and I went on a field trip to the Schumacher Center for a New Economics in Great Barrington, MA. E.F. Schumacher was a German statistician from the UK who published a series of economic essays in his seminal book “Small is Beautiful”, which was a counterpoint to globalization and import/export economies and is considered by many to have helped inspire the locally grown, sustainable economics, and Fair Trade movements.

We met with Rachel Moriarity the coordinator of BerkShares and Fennie Wang the founder of HumanityCash – they are together piloting the digital rollout of BerkShares next month. Here is a good article in The Berkshire Eagle that encapsulates their progress and plan: What’s in your (online) wallet? On their 15th Anniversary BerkShares Will Go Digital

Interestingly, Schumacher became a Christian in 1971. Here is an excerpt of where his economic journey crossed with his spiritual journey (from Wikipedia)

As a young man, Schumacher was a dedicated atheist, but his later rejection of materialist, capitalist, agnostic modernity was paralleled by a growing fascination with religion. He developed an interest in Buddhism, but beginning in the late-1950s, Catholicism heavily influenced his thinking. He noted the similarities between his own economic views and the teaching of papal encyclicals on socio-economic issues, from Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” to Pope John XXIII’s Mater et magistra, as well as with the distributism supported by the Catholic thinkers G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Vincent McNabb. Philosophically, he absorbed much of Thomism, which provided an objective system in contrast to what he saw as the self-centered subjectivism and relativism of modern philosophy and society. He also was greatly interested in the tradition of Christian mysticism and read deeply such writers as St. Teresa of Avila and Thomas Merton. These were all interests that he shared with his friend, the Catholic writer Christopher Derrick. In 1971, he converted to Catholicism.

We compare and contrast to the Storehouse Vision of local currencies, and take a look at some of the pros and cons of the BerkShare digital dollars implementation.

Roundtable Discussion: Inflation Signs

(Inflation Part 3)

Just today, the wholesale Producer Price Index rose by 9.6% on an annual basis. That’s the highest increase since the index began in 2010. This index can be a leading indicator for future Consumer Price Index increases, which itself went up to 6.8% last month, which was the highest in 39 years.

Yet, 10 year market assumed inflation (10Yr Bond – 10 year TIPS) remains more subdued at 2.37% as of today (but up considerably from 2 years ago). This is why the Fed isn’t panicking yet.

What is one of the biggest signs of long-term or “non-transitory” inflation? Housing. Shelter.Rents. November housing (Shelter) CPI was at 4% YOY and climbing. Why? Because the pandemic drove people – especially the next generation – to purchase homes. And many of those (over half) were Millennials purchasing homes with record sized mortgage debt at historically low interest rates. And the housing market went through the roof. But that in turn has driven up mortgage payments which has driven up rents.

Greed is a huge factor too, 2/3 of publicly traded companies are reporting fatter profit margins than pre-CV19 because they can get away with (people are willing to accept) once in a lifetime price increases. This is like eating ourselves for breakfast. It was also a big factor in the 70s. Once people are psychologically willing to accept and pay higher prices, it can become a downward spiral – one person raising prices because they paid more themselves. One’s perceived loss can be made up by charging someone else more. That too is greed.

In July 2020, recall we discussed the Inflation Prophecies where several modern day prophets have given prophecies of inflation, including John Paul Jackson and Bob Jones. Then in March 2021, as part of the National Debt discussion, we delved into the “what if” the US lost its place as the reserve and settlement currency of the world? And how that could lead to hyper-inflation. In May, we discussed Inflation again, and how the Storehouse Vision was designed to address the issue of inflation using “Break-Away Bridges”…

Yes, we need to come out of Babylon. We will further explore and brainstorm together how the Storehouse and local asset-backed currencies can potentially mitigate future inflation in tomorrow’s discussion. Land, food, water are all part of the potential solution. 

Roundtable Discussion

Just this evening (12/7/21), Saule Omarova’s nomination for the Comptroller of the Currency (head regulator of the OCC – regulates majority of US commercial banks) was withdrawn by the Biden administration.

Our friend Christopher Lucey brought to our attention (rightly sounding the alarm) to Omarova’s “People’s Ledger” proposal to completely revamp the banking system and Federal Reserve in the process of moving to Digital Dollars by essentially nationalizing/socializing it (“democratization” is code for government take over). The rationale? That the current system favors the rich and disregards the poor. And unfortunately, she’s right.

We need to Repent for our Financial System’s treatment of the Poor

The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of His people
And His princes: “For you have eaten up the vineyard; The plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing My people. And grinding the faces of the poor?” Says the Lord God of hosts.

Isaiah 3:14-15

We cannot look the other way on this.

You may think: well, what’s the big deal with our banking system? I can get a reasonably priced mortgage. It’s relatively safe to keep my money on deposit there. We’ve got to put our money somewhere, right? You might argue, hey it’s not perfect, but it works and has worked well for over 100 years now.

But did you know this is only true for the wealthiest 60-80% of Americans with good credit scores? For those in the bottom 20-40%, the system is broken. The working poor turn to Payday and Hard Money lenders for short-term financial needs. The poor, illiterate and/or uneducated use cash and don’t have access to credit. They go to check-cashing stores and pay considerable fees. If you have a mortgage and can’t pay it, you might lose your largest asset – your house – and worse, risk homelessness. If you have a bad credit score, you may never be able to repair it. If you have a bank account with a small balance you might pay $40 overdraft fees, receive no interest and pay $20 in monthly fees on top of that.

You may not like the New Yorker’s politics, but I encourage you to read this insightful article: The High Cost for the Poor to Use Banking

Judgment Starts in the House of God

Do we really want God to turn us over to the reprobate wisdom of man through Socialism? Marxism? Or do we want to respond to God, repent, be his hands and feet, and help bank the poor?

I will give children to be their princes,
And babes shall rule over them.
The people will be oppressed,
Every one by another and every one by his neighbor;
The child will be insolent toward the elder,
And the base toward the honorable.

Isaiah 3:4-5

In other words friends, it’s far easier to point out and criticize the failings of socialism and how government control and government mandates stymies freedom (how dare they!), than to take the plank out of our own eyes, humble ourselves and repent of our own greed, fears, complacency, acceptance of exploitation of the poor through our nation’s financial markets and banking systems.

What? We have to repent of our free-market poor-exploiting practices of capitalism? Yes. Yes we do. And repentance means we have to come out of partnership with these practices.

If we don’t, God will judge us. How? By giving us bad government, and bad leadership (see above scripture). Hmmm. If the shoe fits, wear it.

Wait, so you are essentially saying: more effective than fighting against socialism, we must first repent of the sins of capitalism? Yes. This is the hidden truth of releasing God’s power to fight for righteousness, liberty, equality, freedom, and justice for all – One Nation Under God.

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Isaiah 58: 6-9

If we don’t want the “People’s Ledger”, we have to repent and reform (come out of Babylon):

This is the vision of the Storehouse.

This is the inspiration for the New England Center for the Abolition of Poverty

This is why God is saying: “I care about Banking for the Working Poor“

Roundtable Discussion:
The Great Resignation

Is it starting to happen?

Is COVID shifting people out of corporate slavery and into small business with the freedom to glorify God?

Is God answering our prayers of revival and reformation through the crisis of CV19?

Great Resignation

or Big Quit [ greyt rez-ig-ney-shuhn ]

WHAT IS THE GREAT RESIGNATION?

The Great Resignation is an informal name for the widespread trend of a significant number of workers leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s sometimes also called the Big Quit. 

The Great Resignation is typically discussed in relation to the US workforce but the phenomenon is international. It is thought to be the result of many different factors, notably workers’ dissatisfaction with current working conditions and personal reassessments of career and lifestyle due to the changes and hardships of the pandemic.

dictionary.com

Workers Quit Jobs in Droves to Become Their Own Bosses

Seeking flexibility or escape from corporate bureaucracy, employees discover their inner entrepreneur

Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-quit-jobs-in-droves-to-become-their-own-bosses-11638199199?st=lyv29pi6rsgyirb&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Recall our topic on Market Disruptions as part of the CV19 crisis: https://newbreed.co/2020/04/29/market-disruptions/

And the concentration of US GDP more and more into large publicly traded (no-place-for-God) business structures…

As contrasted with small/family businesses (with the freedom to worship God and expand His Kingdom) being on the decline?

But now, because of vaccine mandates. Because of lockdown policies. Because of facing the prospect of death. Because tech dictatorship and cancel culture have been exposed. People are starting to say “Enough is Enough”. And Christians are starting their journey to “come out of Babylon” as they leave career slavery, financial security and enter into entrepreneurial endevors – having to trust God. And while that in itself isn’t necessarily fully coming out of Babylon, it can start the journey for many into freedom and out of slavery.

Round Table Discussion:

Opportunity Knocks

• Is CV19 an opportunity in disguise for the body of Christ?
• Is God shifting the Church into a new wineskin and a new way of thinking?
• Are these the business opportunities God has prepared the New Breed for?

Unconstitutional or Inconvenient?

Grant Berry brought to my attention yesterday morning that the Roundtable Doctors Discussion video we posted here was just deleted by YouTube for reasons of “violating community guidelines”. Of course, our reaction might be: “how dare they, they are violating our constitutionally protected free speech!”

However, there is a hole in that Constitutional argument, which is this: YouTube is a private platform where all users sign a user agreement. Therefore, Alphabet (the publicly traded parent of Google and YouTube), can just say hey – it’s our business, and therefore our decision as to what our own rules are. It’s a free country. You don’t like it? Use someone else’s platform.

So, technically, they are actually exercising their free-choice to create a business and run it freely. Just like creating a club and inviting in whoever the other club members allow.

So, that’s not really the problem.

The problem is actually our own convenience, complacency and complicity!

We think it’s great that YouTube is free, works well and has the most content.

But we – the people – created these platforms with our investment capital, our usage, our propensity to respond to ads and buy those goods and services. In other words, the irony of the situation we find ourselves in, is WE CREATED THE PROBLEM. And we continue the lemming march in doing so. Does not the bible teach us that we should judge ourselves before we are judged by God (1 Cor 11:31), and further that we reap what we sow (Gal 6:7)?

Opportunity Knocks

But, the solution is to see this as an opportunity: To create new platforms (social media, collaborative community, video, etc.) with our capital, starting with our users from our community – THE CHURCH.

What if we gave away a social platform without ads, for free? For example… 

Citymatters.info is an example of just that. It’s a growing platform. Click the link, and signup for the New Breed Group!

So, what are some of the other emerging opportunities? We discuss…

• Local goods and services
• Greenhouses
• Clean water
• Electricity generation
• Wholesome entertainment
• Objective news media

And what are the differentiators between what God is calling the New Breed to do as a form of ministry vs. just an alternative copy-cat business that slaps a Christian label on things, runs it like Babylon (the way the world creates things for fame and fortune), and produces B grade products and services?

There has got to be more….we have got to do better…

We also will examine the need to not only come out of our comfort zones / convenience, but also to have the courage to try new approaches, that require trusting God more, having courage, creativity, boldness, being entrepreneurial, experimental, not just relying on money to solve things….

Its not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord

Zechariah 4:6

We need to enter into agreement with God’s heart for what to do and how to do it – a spirit of wisdom according to Isiah 11 and 1 Cor 12.

A rebuilding of the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called, the Repairer of the breach. The restorer of the streets in which to dwell

Isaiah 58:12

In a sense, we must shift to MacGyvering things out (euphemism for out of the box thinking, solving problems with whatever’s available – be it toothpicks and duct tape). Frontier style living. Like the pilgrims, the rugged but wholesome life. Jesus said…

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. … Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt 6:34

You think you’ve got a thing figured out, but you don’t. You are going to have to “faith it out”

Bob Jones, God is Going to Shake the Devil Out of the Church 2012 Word

(for a good word watch below)

Finally, we also discussed that to endeavor to pursue these new opportunities, we can do them in parallel with continuing to interact with existing products and services where it does not cross over into partnership with them, which Paul warned us about:

Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?

2 Corinthians 6:15-16

Joel Travis brought up the “Break Away” bridges strategy concept to illustrate this point. Some will pioneer, others will follow, but Christ is ultimately calling us completely out of Babylon, which is scheduled for destruction (Revelation 18:4) and into the Kingdom Coming ala The Promise Land.

Joel has tried to create an alternative video platform independently hosted as an experiment along these lines, and its NOT EASY to replicate YouTube’s ease of use, reliability and efficiency from an engineering standpoint. So, like we are using YouTube here, and we could also use Rumble, and we could also create our own platform. That’s the beauty of this opportunity – we still have the freedom to do both simultaneously, but then we are prepared for the coming flood, having EXERCISED our faith muscles.

While we are doing this, we also are learning how to come out of Babylon, which is to no longer trust in or depend on systems of this world which are not Christ centered. The key first step in this is to exit partnerships (co-ownership in the Babylonian system) or debt slavery (owing debt to the Babylonian system). This is why the New Breed of Business is encouraging believers to:

1. Get out of investing in publicly traded companies embracing Babylonian practices (stock ownership is partnership with a company’s business practices)
2. Move resources into investing in people and private businesses that have returned to practicing Judeo-Christian principals (i.e., returning to all scriptural truth, not just picking and choosing by the traditions of men), which is the “New Breed of Business”
3. Move out being employed by corporations that are becoming more and more Anti-Christ (career and income slavery)
4. Moving into being self-employed or employed by those Judeo-Christian run companies embracing the scriptural truth ala the “New Breed of Business”
5. Getting out of institutional debt, either by paying it down, paying it off through the sale of other assets, or trusting God for a miracle of debt forgiveness, or
6. Replacing that institutional debt with borrowing from fellow believers willing to lend in the biblical way, which is the way of the “New Breed of Investor”

Round Table Discussion:

Vaccine Mandates

The last two sessions, we touched on vaccine mandates – how they affect the supply chain, the economy and inflation.

We discuss the controversial topic of CV19 vaccines among the body of Christ. Some are for, some are against. Should we let this issue divide the Church?

Gary Crawford recommended a good video of a panel of doctors and scientists who discuss openly the various approaches to addressing the COVID virus and disease, including prevention, therapeutics, role of vaccines, the influences of government and the largest pharmaceutical companies.

If this gets censored, here is another copy of the video…

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=459542808747231&_rdr

Government Overreach?

And what about governmental mandates and executive orders? Is it executive overreach?

Vaccine passports? Is it a violation of the Constitution? Should people lose their jobs over this? Is this bad economic policy? Is this a sign of further governmental tyranny to come?

Public Good Argument

Or on the other side, as Rick Warren says, is getting the vaccine a form of loving our neighbor? Is it good economic policy because it will expedite returning things more quickly to “normal”? And what about the argument of the public good outweighing individual freedoms?

Did you know the US Supreme Court upheld smallpox vaccine mandates in 1905 by a vote of 7-2? Read Jacobson vs. Massachusetts.

What is God saying in all this?