The Year of the Jubilee

When Moses received the Law, part of it included both environmental and economic sanctions placed by God upon his people. The environmental part was called the Sabbatical year. That law stated the Israelites were to let the land lay fallow (unplowed) every seven years so that it could renew itself. Back in the 1960s I lived in southern Illinois. While there I was given the chance to learn how to farm. A godly man, one of the elders in the church where I preached, took the time to train me how to farm. I learned how to harvest, plow, and cultivate. For some reason Frank Shepard never let me plant. That part he always handled. 

Farmers in that era practiced crop rotation. Part of the rotation was to leave a section of the land fallow every seven years. They would plant alfalfa on it and the next fall plow the alfalfa under. They were using artificial fertilizers by that time, but they still practiced crop rotation.  I'm not sure if this practice is observed anymore. 

The next part of the Law of Moses we want to consider is the year of Jubilee. This law stated that every 50 years all debts were to be forgiven and the land was to be restored to its original owners. This meant ever person had the opportunity to start over with a clean slate every fifty years. Certainly such a practice would not be popular with bankers, but it was the law of God. 

It is my own unhumble opinion that the Israelites never observed the year of Jubilee and it is possible that they were also careless about the sabbatical year as well. 

But, Praise the Lord, we are observing the year of Jubilee in 2008. Billions of dollars are being given to bankers and automobile manufacturers who are going broke. This is all being done on the premise that the little guy about to lose his home will be able to save it. So far I have yet to hear of one little guy getting so much as a nickel of the $700 billion. But the bankers and industrialists are all standing in line for their handout. It is almost a comedy to watch the auto makers pleading with Congress for billions. 

Here is my concern. I have debts--mortgage on my house, a credit card or two, an automobile.  Is there some way that I could get a small portion of that $700 billion? Now if I were making $22 million a year or more I would have a better chance. But my income is a bit less than that. I have friends that deserve a portion of that money since it is the year of Jubilee, but I doubt that they will get any either. I work for a non-profit institution that could use a bit of this bailout money and we work across from a major university that needs a minimum of $56 million to simply do the maintenance needed that has been delayed for years. Let me know if I am wrong, but I bet neither we nor the university will see a red cent from the big bailout. We have done nothing dishonest nor have we taken advantage of the foolishness of people. But that's not the way the bailout will work. Those who made financial fools of others will receive the reward. 

I'm sure that Moses would see this as an odd way to observe the Jubilee. 

Shame on the bailers!

The Super Bailout

The legislature is moving toward a 700 billion dollar bailout of the mortgage business. Part of the fable attached to it is that eventually we will get the money back. I would question this project even if I thought the purest of motives was behind it. But I have a greater concern. It is simple. Every time there is money involved, we also find a host of people who are more than willing to help themselves to it.

For example, benefit concerts were held for those who had lost loved ones in the 9/11 disaster. Much of that money simply disappeared. Very little of it made it to the people who were supposed to be helped. Entrepreneurs quickly saw an opportunity to make a quick buck and did so.

Every week we get calls from veterans organizations that call upon us to help veterans. It is a known fact that these telemarketing programs allow very little of the money they take in to get to the people for whom it is intended.

A young college girl in a skimpy outfit showed up at my door on Saturday wanting to tell me about how she was going to win a trip to Ireland and $5000.00 to go to school on. It all depended on collecting the necessary points. In a sultry voice, she said to me, "Would you like to know how I make points?" I told her I wasn't interested and she looked like I had just broken her heart. But I am familiar with this scam as well. Young people are conned into believing that they will raise big bucks and take great trips based upon the number of magazines they sell. But no one ever wins. Eventually this girl along with many others are going to be broken hearted because they were taken in.

In the September 10, 2008 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle an article discussing the waste by FEMA in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina reported:

"A report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, is the latest to detail mismanagement in the multibillion-dollar Katrina hurricane recovery effort, which investigators have said wasted at least $1 billion.

The review examined temporary housing contracts awarded without competition to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Group Inc., CH2M Hill Companies Ltd. and Fluor Corp. in the days immediately before and after the August 2005 storm that smashed into the U.S. Gulf Coast.

It found that FEMA wasted at least $45.9 million on the four contracts that together were initially worth $400 million. FEMA subsequently raised the total amounts for the four contracts twice, both times without competition, to $2 billion and then $3 billion."

Again, there were people more than willing to steal from the U. S. Government and most likely will go totally unpunished for the theft. These were people who took advantage of a disaster and pocketed the profits while the people who needed help were left low and wet (in contrast to "high and dry").

Now the government wants to come up with $700,000,000,000 to bail out the mortgage companies who foolishly issued mortgages for inflated loans that the recipients had little or no hope of repaying. For a while I was receiving from reputable lenders offers of $250,000-500,000 loans. If I paid my entire salary on such loans I could not keep up with the payments. Why would any business in its right mind (or left one for that matter) make such outrageous offers to people? Now they want the government to bail them out.

Seven hundred billion dollars offers unbelievable sums to those who are willing to steal under any circumstances. My humble prognosis is that if that money is made available at least one-half of it will be lost to corrupt politicians and bankers. Congress will call for hearings. There will be the traditional browbeating, but when the day comes to an end, a lot of people are going to be a great deal richer at the expense of my children and grand children.

This is a project to help the rich and famous, not the poor, the down and out, and the people who are going to lose their homes this year.