Here is a phrase that you don’t hear much but will soon dominate the news: quantitative easing. What does that mean? In layman’s terms, one might say, “I’ll rob Peter to pay Paul” or “I’ll pay off one credit card by putting it on another one.” When you say it that way, it sounds like an unwise, short term solution, not a sustainable plan.
America has bad credit. Terrible credit. We are over 15 trillion dollars in debt and we are continuing to spend more than we make. How are we able to do that? Most American citizens do it with the use of credit cards and lines of credit. The same is true for governments. The U.S. borrows money from other nations. However, when someone is a good credit risk – meaning they make good financial decisions and have a good chance of paying the bill in an agreed-upon time frame – they are offered a lower credit rate by the bank. When a person has bad credit or is making continual, habitual, bad decisions, the bank wants a higher interest rate to compensate them for the riskier loan.
China is our bank. America is a bad credit risk. China is not impressed with our credit score and current trajectory, so they are refusing to keep lending to us unless we clean up our financial house. They also want us to raise the interest rate we give them for enabling our bad behavior. The U.S. Treasury doesn’t want to do either. So what does a government do who can’t find a new credit card, won’t stop spending, and refuses to compensate the lender for taking a risk?
Quantitative Easing. What? Yes. This is the solution. The government loans money to… itself?! The U.S. becomes its own credit card. Instead of borrowing from its citizens like we did in World War 2 and paying them back later, the government just borrows from itself. How does that work? In short, it doesn’t. That’s why gold surged again recently to historic levels. The only way to borrow from yourself is to print money off the government printing press. Why is this a problem? It causes inflation which leads to rising prices. Look at gold. Look at the price of oil. Look at the rising costs in your grocery store bills.
By borrowing from itself, the government is playing monopoly against itself. Do you remember the last time you played monopoly with one of your kids or friends? At some point one of them ran out of money, but wanted to keep playing. You first let them give you an IOU in hopes that one more time around the board might lead to some revenue. When that didn’t work, they sold you their property. Pretty soon, they didn’t have any property left for others to land on -so there was no hope of ever paying you back. Imagine your son is in that situation, but offers a solution, “Mom, it’s okay, I’ll write you another IOU for my IOU?” Huh? Your son continues, “My left hand is going to give a loan to my right hand. So even though my right hand has no money, my left hand is good for it.” You ponder this ingenious childish thinking and ask, “Does your left hand have any money?” He protests, “No, but I feel really good about the chances that it will soon.”
That is quantitative easing. It is nonsense. It stands in opposition to God’s commands. The irony is that the excessive printing is done to provide beneficial programs to help the poor and needy. The unintended consequences are ironic. The more you print and spend; the more you’ll need to print and spend. As the printing press saw blade spins, the prices for supplies go up. The more prices go up, the more you need to print more money. The cycle continues. This is a way of stealing from the public, like John Keynes told us, without the public ever seeing how it was done. The government is able to steal the citizens’ prosperity right under their noses.
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. ~ John Keynes
This is why God said that dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord. A just weight or standardized weight in our monetary system is a consistent value. That consistent sound money is God’s delight. God cares about money. Sound money is about helping not only the poor, but everyone. It’s about honest and impartial transactions. God has a lot to say about it:
Leviticus 19:35-36 You shall do no injustice in judgment in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah… I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 25:13 -16 13 You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light. 14 You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small, You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God.
If our government doesn’t stop playing monopoly with our money, it’s the middle class that will see their savings and wallets turned into funny money. The government will then blame businesses for raising prices rather than looking in the mirror.
For a free 30-minute session of Godonomics, visit: http://www.godonomics.com/watch-session-1
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