The Housing Market and Federal Interest Rates

The housing market is in trouble, and it does threaten to seriously hurt the rest of our economy. Listening to National Public Radio today I heard that people's spending habits are affected by the value of their home. In other words, if you have a house worth $300,000 and you only make $55,000 a year you tend to spend outside of your salary range. Now, this is disturbing all by itself, but the fact is that home appraisals are falling and freezing. Home sales are slowing dramatically, and it has become a buyers market. When it is a sellers market home values rise and people make lots of money on the sale of their homes. Not only are home sales going to continue to go down, but they are going to go down even more because home construction has almost stopped. The natural slowing down rate is going to get worse as the new homes that were going to be on the market do not go on the market because they were never built in the first place.

This is going to have an immediate effect on all industries that make the raw materials for homes. Lumber, electrical, stoneware, ceramics, chemicals. Tens of thousands of immigrant workers are going to seek work elsewhere, fewer jobs are going to be available for ALL people living in this country, and people are going to stop spending as much as economic conditions restrict and businesses respond by getting rid of or reducing bonuses. Management is going to get laid off.

The only thing that can make this housing market turn around is the Federal Reserve Bank lowering interest rates (actually they should have never raised them in the first place, and certainly not as high as they are). The unfortunate thing is that the Fed is a private bank, a company. They have no accountability to the public, to which they have so much control over. How then can they be made to stop the deterioration of the housing market?

Maybe the best way would be to return the control of our currency and its value to the U.S. Congress - as it is stated in the Constitution.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

Does anyone want to write a letter to your Senators and Congresperson? What should we say in a letter? I would recommend a letter because having experieince with this, and working in a Florida State senator's office I know that letters are given more wieght than emails.

Thirsty for Leadership

Are you thirsty for leadership? Over the past few months I have been learning and being reminded of things about my own generation, and the generations that are following mine. We are thirsty for leadership, the kind that sticks around and does what is right and good.

When I went to the Florida Annual Conference in June I heard from someone my age portray the general attitudes and beliefs of my generation. The one thing that struck me was that he mentioned how broken this generation is by its experience with leadership. This generation knows all too well the deterioration of institutions. We have seen American presidents lie, cheat, steal, and kill, all in the name of "upholding the Constitution of the United States." We have seen our parents divorce, we have gone through broken public schools, we have very little assurance of Social Security, even less assurance of a good career and the American dream.

You can argue against Social Security, say that the American dream comes at the expense of slave labor and sweat shops, politicians lie, and all sorts of things can be said. But the fact still remains that the things were were told were good, and reliable have been yanked away or left us standing alone in the proverbial shopping mall too many times to be forgotten and forgiven. Many in our generation are embittered, cynical, lost, and hopeless.

I refuse. I will not, can not live in a world where the hope of Jesus Christ's work on this earth is ignored and forgotten. He came to start the new creation. We are in the in-between times right before the New Heaven and New Earth are going to come and take away the evils and corruption of this world. I have that hope, but it overflows into this world as well. Christians are already in that world, but we live here. We have a house in New Jerusalem but we pay homestead taxes on our residence here.

So the question is how do we begin to make things better? Do we envision a world where one day life will be cherished and sacred? How do we start down that road? How do you teach society how to honor life?

I hear people talk about what is the right thing to do, how something should be done. I hear commercials on the radio say that their organization is dedicated to a just and more equitable society. The truth is, everyone wants a world where its safe to leave your door unlocked, where people are polite and friendly at the grocery store, where neighbors care about you, your family, and your property. Police and authorites would probably prefer corporations to be honest book keepers if it meant more Americans had secure jobs, which might lead to less people commiting crimes out of despiration. Waitresses might appreciate more Social Security if it means old ladies would leave a better tip so they could afford to put more food on the table at home. And teachers would appreciate it if parents would realize that public education is not a substitute for parenting and can never replace the impact of a parent reading to their child, helping with homework, and heaven forbid actualy assigning their own homework to add to and supplement their education at school.

This is sort of what I am talking about. Ways of thinking about society and how the actions or inactions of people affects the whole society on an individual basis. One person's greed in a corporation leads to the laying off of thousands or the fact that they no longer have retirement benefits. How are things like this fought, and how do we start making it better?