"One
way middle-class Americans oppress the poor through their
affluent lifestyles is in their methods of payment. When the
average man wants a new stereo, car, or refrigerator, what does
he do? Does he go out and pay for the item with the fruits of his
labor? Not on your MasterCard! He "buys" it on credit (i.e. debt).
This is covetousness, and covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). The economic result of this widespread practice is inflation, because the bank credit is made possible through the absolutely unbiblical practice of fractional reserve banking (the banks lend out many more times what they actually hold in reserves). With a blip of the computer, Poof! Brand-new money! As this newly created money is injected into the market, the supply and demand schedule receives false data, and prices begin to rise. These higher prices are uncomfortable, but affordable, to middle-class and upper-middle-class debtors. But those who are poor cannot buy at the inflated prices caused by their neighbor's covetousness.
We can blame the government's Federal Reserve System for allowing this ungodly practice, and also the banks for making money from what is essentially theft. But the government wouldn't allow it if we didn't want it....Thus we wallow amidst our financial luxuries, contentedly oblivious to the fact that we have stolen from our neighbors and crushed the poor."
This is covetousness, and covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). The economic result of this widespread practice is inflation, because the bank credit is made possible through the absolutely unbiblical practice of fractional reserve banking (the banks lend out many more times what they actually hold in reserves). With a blip of the computer, Poof! Brand-new money! As this newly created money is injected into the market, the supply and demand schedule receives false data, and prices begin to rise. These higher prices are uncomfortable, but affordable, to middle-class and upper-middle-class debtors. But those who are poor cannot buy at the inflated prices caused by their neighbor's covetousness.
We can blame the government's Federal Reserve System for allowing this ungodly practice, and also the banks for making money from what is essentially theft. But the government wouldn't allow it if we didn't want it....Thus we wallow amidst our financial luxuries, contentedly oblivious to the fact that we have stolen from our neighbors and crushed the poor."
--- David Chilton
An excerpt from Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators
No comments:
Post a Comment