What Would Jesus Do?
Friends, I must admit I’m in a state of confusion. It may be terminal!
All the news headlines, on television, in the print media, say we are in the middle of the worst financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. Various countries are described as being in recession or verging upon it. Some have even mentioned the unmentionable: a looming depression!
Our Prime Minster has just approved of a ten billion dollar package. He has just guaranteed all deposits in financial institutions. He is giving large cash payments to pensioners. He talks non-stop about a world crisis, about saving Australia, about keeping the faith and, above all, not to withdraw your funds. A run on the banks is not on his agenda!
However, last Friday, American time, the Dow tumbled. Yet, today our time, the Asian share markets rose, an unusual occurrence. Australia rose by nearly four percent, others around three percent. Europe is predicted to achieve gains tonight. UPDATE: 21/10. The Dow rose by 413 points on Monday! Wow! Asia will go crazy today.
Now, call me old-fashioned if you will, but how the bloody hell can we be in the middle of a total financial and economic disaster yet people are still investing millions in the share market? Are such people mad? Should they be certified? Are they willingly committing financial suicide? Or is something tricky going on that we, the sheeple, don’t understand?
In order to solve this problem, I asked myself: what would Jesus do? Given this situation, would He invest in the share market, snap up some cheap BHP stock, or would He still take a leather whip and drive the money-changers from the temple?
Now I know that some of you may be asking why DavidG is asking what Jesus would do when he (DavidG) claims to be an atheist. That’s a good question. But I don’t have any answers to the current fiasco so perhaps He might! Any port in a storm, I say!
Now, I know quite a bit about Jesus. It came from my religious days when I carried a copy of the New Testament around in my pocket in order that I might faithfully bear witness. He, it’s fair to say, wasn’t hot for greedy people. He talked about camels going through the eye of a needle which always intrigued me as a child. Were there giant needles or miniature camels, I wondered? However, I digress. In fact He urged folk to give up all their possessions and follow him, live a simple, sparse lifestyle, be caring and compassionate. But perhaps in the last 2008 years, He’s had a Road to Damascus conversion and now reckons, along with many of his followers, that all that frugal stuff is for the birds, that affluence is next to godliness!
If I had to bet though, He probably wouldn’t approve of the share market or Churches like the Catholic one or the Evangelicals, etc,. But of course they are not alone. Religion is a good racket, makes a handsome profit, as many have discovered over the centuries to their advantage…but please don’t waylay me because this is serious so let’s get back to the financial crisis, the one that it appears we’re having and not having depending on which day of the week it is!
The bottom line is: are we in the midst of Financial Armageddon or aren’t we? Is the whole Western Capitalist world collapsing into soup queues or have we, the suckers, just made a lot of bankers and Robber Barons even richer?
Look, perhaps you know Jesus better than I do. You may have special dispensations that I don’t, even a hotline or the inside running. Perhaps He whispers to you while you’re sleep.
All I want to know is: should I buy Rio Tinto stock NOW or just commit suicide?
P.S. Surely that’s not too much to ask! I’m not a bad man, not really.
Dear David, this is a redistribution of wealth only, you said it yourself so perfectly. We suckers made the barons reach. Not only were they compensated to inflate the bubble, burst the bubble, “clean up” the mess after the bubble.. They re now in a shopping spree.. and enjoy getting richer by the minute… People who have billions can afford to buy now relatively cheap BUT IT IS NOT CHEAP AT ALL.. stock brokers recomment P/E around 10 as being great already.. huh… duh… blah… and they can afford to average down their portofolio.. while small innocent retirees will never afford to do the same, as their survival depends on their shrunken pension funds. . .
don t forget, money are printed and markets will eventually continue to “grow”.. it s a stage show. And we suckers buy into it. MARKETS ARE behaving madly these days. People buy just because the decline was not as bad.. just -100 now looks like +200 to their irrational brains..
But… now.. the real reason.. can t you hear more and more often a “financial NEW ORDER” is needed now… …. . ah ha. Real Agenda.
Funny.. Even the most beloved environmental subject.. will become as Grace predicted a mean to destroy the poor.. as correctly she said it.. you ll have to pay for it.. while the big businesses buy carbon credits..
what a hypocrisy..
So my dear friend, do not buy rio tinto, and stay alive and well please, for all your afficionados readers..
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David, to use that old cliche that Andrew Peacock loves so much “As sure as night follows day” the economy is slowly sinking into the abyss.
But the real kicker is, Rudd knows it, and Turnbull knows it.The difference being, Turnbull is trying to secure his position to be P.M. because what ever he says or does, it’s “man the life boats”
Everything you read now, and the main stream media is following on, (and I am not going to supply links,) knows the shell game is over.
By the time they do sort something out,a lot of what’s happening is going to end in tears.
Slightly off topic but I believe relevant,I see Powell has come out and endorsed Obama.Now as much as I despise this man,(The U.N. fairy story)he is no idiot.He would be more aware than most people the game is up.
For mine, I truly do believe he is dis associating himself from an experiment that(and I am not holding my breath) could be later tested in a court of law.
Denial is not a river in Egypt so they say.
Jesus would have taken a whip to the lot of them.For mine Bush would escape the punishment, hiding under a table.
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Jesus commanded, “Love your neighbor.” When asked to define “neighbor,” Jesus expanded the traditional meaning of the word–defining our neighbor as anyone who is in need, including social outcasts: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” (Luke 14:13)
I cannot even imagine that Catholic Cardinal who was so cozy to McCain following the above words.
They are liars and hypocrites in Godly clothing. I am positive Jesus would have thrown a man like that out with the money changers in the Temple.
Peace on Earth.
g
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Adina, thanks for your advice. Shares would be the very last thing I would buy. I prefer tangible things not bits of paper which could end up being worthless.
Phill, I hear the ominous warnings but I can’t see overwhelming evidence yet. Perhaps we, the sheep, are being frightened for nefarious reasons?
Grace, I share your view completely. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Cheers.
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I can see the logic of this being a good time to buy shares because they have plunged and so will probably eventually go back up to the previous lofty heights therefore netting a profit for the shareholder. Gamble is, if the company you buy your shares in collapses, you lose the lot.
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Lucy, I guess the bottom line is that greed (and the sharemarket is one of its major pillars) is destroying both our physical world and our potential as humans.
People, en masse, have become rapacious buck-chasers and social climbers and will allow nothing to stand in their way, not even their own children (who, more and more, get pushed into child-minding centres).
The architects of the greed economy are the ones who reap the large financial rewards. The buck-chasers keep chasing until they realize that the system is rigged and that money doesn’t bring happiness at all.
Cheers.
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David,
I don’t think Jesus cares about money, or anything else we humans invented – stock market, insurance, real estate, etc.
Sticking to my Christian beliefs and feeble scriptural knowledge I would say Jesus cares about love, hope, and faith. Jesus is worried more about the ill, poor, and weak than the healthy, rich, and powerful (Jesus is always for the underdog – except Satan). However, by ill, poor, and weak Jesus means spiritually, not physically. A person with a lot of physical wealth could be spiritually bankrupt.
On the other hand, I don’t think Jesus holds wealth as a strike against someone if they use it to help others for the sake of helping – agape.
I’m not well educated from a Christian point of view since I was unproclaimed atheist for 14 years, then a procclaimed atheist for 31 years, before choosing to be a Christian 7 years ago.
Q
PS – I work in the financial services industry for a really big company, Fortune 500. We have a lot of interaction with other economists in the industry. We knew that there were a lot of problems building – none of us knew that the investment banks were lying about their risk…
Few people understood the extent of interdependence (including the people that were forecasting the worst). It is a very complex system to predict. But, I haven’t heard any credible economist say this is the end of civilization as we know it.
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Thanks for the term, buckchasers, David G. So appropriate a name. Sad, sad, sad!
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