Marriage is the Domain of the Church and God –

Marriage is the Domain of the Church and God –

Market Risk is the Domain of Individuals and Business –

Neither is the Domain of the Federal Government.

This morning I heard Glenn Beck talking briefly about gay marriage, civil unions and the possibility that triad couples (between more than 2 people) could soon start demanding the same rights. After I finished rolling my eyes, I began thinking about the issue and quickly came to the same opinion that I hold concerning gay marriages and marriage in general.  Marriage is an issue for the church, consenting adults, and God.  If there are some churches that recognize gay marriages, fine (as long they are between freely consenting adults).  If there are some churches that recognize marriage between more than two people or communal families, fine (as long as they are between freely consenting adults).  I’m not in the religion or morality business as long as actions don’t hurt others or infringe upon their rights.

Why in the world is the government, any government, state or federal, in the business of sanctifying or recognizing any marriage?  It has always been clear to me that when government makes it possible for people who are “married” to have benefits and rights (social security or medical decision making) different from “non-married” people, it is a violation of both the equal protection clause (14^th Amendment to the Constitution) and the prohibition respecting the establishment of religion (1^st Amendment to the Constitution).

Social Security benefits accruing to surviving spouses are probably the main reason people are upset about the federal government not recognizing gay marriage in general.  I agree completely that gay and single couples both have a legitimate right to be upset.  Where does the idea and definition of marriage come from?  It comes from the church. (Particularly churches of the Judea/Christian tradition.)

In this country, the Christian church’s biblical interpretation that marriage is only between one man and one woman is engrained in literature and history as the rule.  However today, there are churches that recognize and perform marriages between couples of the same sex, transgender persons, and even between a man and a woman.  So, when official government process bestows benefits to those individuals who are in “traditional marriages”, the definition of which was establish by the Judea/Christian beliefs, there is clearly a preference being made for one religion’s or church’s definition of marriage over those found in other religions or churches.

When government goes down the “we benefit you, but not you” path; it sure seems like government is either involved in establishing  a particular religion or government is not providing equal protection and opportunity for “single” individuals who wish to consolidate and share their resources as “partners” or “significant others” the same as “traditionally married” people.  Government should either benefit people equally or don’t benefit anyone.

If Joe and Mary, or Joe and Sam, or Joe, Mary, & Jane said to the government that we want to pool our social security contributions from this date forward, then every participant’s individual social security contributions would be pooled and the sum would be divided by the number of people involved and that amount would be credited to each person’s individual social security earnings account.

This would allow the stay-at-home mom or dad to make contributions to their individual social security account as if they were “working” (half of the family’s income would be credited to each person in the relationship).  It would work the same way for gay couples or communal families.  Each person in such an arrangement would have some measure of protection vis-à-vis social security.  There would be no surviving spouse benefit because they would have their own social security. Primary income earners or those with a bigger income could direct part of their social security contributions to another’s account because they are committed to the other person (or people) and/or recognize the value of another person(s) non-monetary contributions such as raising children, gardening or taking care of the house.

I would think that most people would not have a problem with such a restructuring of Social Security because the government would be recognizing the limits of its power by saying we are not going to involve ourselves with the definition of the term marriage.  Marriage is within the domain of the church, the consenting individual(s), and their God.

It amazes me that the government doesn’t try harder to stay out of the business of limiting the rights of individuals more.  It seems like politicians want division so they can play each side off the other and maintain their grip on power.  Every time the government and politicians get involved in anything they create fear and uncertainty; and then use that uncertainty to their own advantage.  One only needs to look at the current financial mess that the economy is in.

Obama likes to say that he inherited the mess and he is only doing what has to be done.  However, the truth is that he and many Democrats in Congress share a great deal of the blame for the economic mess and Obama is using this crisis to get his political objectives accomplished.  The entire mess can be traced back to when government (mostly Democrats, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd) decided it wanted to get into the business of setting up regulations that created opportunities for groups like ACORN to pressure banks into lending to people who were not able to afford mortgages. This led to many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems; which coupled with packaging these sub-prime assets into financial bundles and selling them round the world; it caused the global house of cards to collapse.

The government was trying to manipulate business RISK principles and it backfired.  Banks wound up being in the position of making risky loans that could be sold to the government (or guaranteed) and the bank’s RISK of losing its own money was greatly diminished.  It’s a lot easier to play fast and loose with other people’s money.

Market Risk is the Domain of Individuals and Business.

Now, people are getting excited that the stock market appears to be signaling the end of the crisis.  Think again.  The news of the past few days paints a much bleaker picture.  Consider the following:

With passage of Obama’s budget, the government will have to borrow almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

The Federal deficit will be greater than 1.8 trillion dollars this year.

Social Security and Medicare financial projections have been revised to reflect that they are going broke sooner than expected.  Medicare is already losing money by the truckloads and Social Security will be sending out payments faster than money coming in by 2016. That’s only 7 years away! Congress is not only spending money like drunken sailors but they are also so afraid of risking the votes of senior citizens that they are unwilling to effectively address the Social Security/Medicare problem.  (That’s the problem with creating dependency for voter loyalty, the bill always comes due. Then it comes down to who can be blamed.  With the American media’s proclivity for supporting Democrats, blame usually finds it way to Republicans regardless of facts to the contrary.)

Last week, the Treasury auction went poorly and Treasury yields soared.  This means that the government has to pay much more interest on the amounts they are borrowing.

This week, the government was buying their own securities to bring the yields back down some.  Where are the funds coming from to for the Fed to do all this buying? They have the printing presses running overtime.  This will, in the not too distant future, damage severely the value of the dollar and cause a substantial rise in inflation.  The price of everything will go up and foreign countries will be reluctant to purchase our debt to keep the charade going.

China, who holds a great deal of our debt, will be looking for treasuries paying higher interest in order to entice them to purchase more debt.

The more the government prints money out of thin air, the more the dollar’s value will be affected.  There will more money available to buy the same number of goods – causing inflationary pressure. Demand will likely take a downturn once consumers figure out they need to be protecting bank balances.  However, with a decline in dollar’s value, it means that many goods will cost more to produce because the materials required for production will cost more. Therefore producers will either need to raise prices, lower profit margins, lower labor costs (lower wages and/or cut jobs), and/or relocate to areas where the costs of production (taxes etc.) are lower.  However, even with these actions, consumers may not buy at higher prices (or even current prices) and businesses will go under.

So why are stock going up? I believe that many people are being led to think the crisis is ending by Obama and the media and they want to be in on the bull market.  I also believe that many people are moving out of U.S. Securities because the yields are relatively low right now, some stocks price/earnings ratios look attractive comparatively and some investors are starting to believe that Treasuries are too risky and could collapse in the future.  I think people are buying stocks because they feel like they are buying something tangible like buildings, machinery, etc. I bet buyers are looking at companies that don’t have high debt to equity ratios.  Stocks just look better than most of the other choices right now.  Now is the operative word because once interest rates on government securities are forced to rise to 6 or 7%, a lot of investors will shift back trying to stay ahead of the calamity that’s nearly certain to come.  This amount of debt and planned taxation is not sustainable.

This crisis can only be overcome by returning to sound economic principles now. Congress and Obama must stop trying to spend and tax our way out of this. The media needs to be telling the story of how to work toward healthy long term economic fundamentals and not just promoting Obama’s plan.  Obama’s massive stimulus is a short-term feel good illusion; but like social security, the bill will come due.

The media should encouraging Tea Parties instead of attacking them.  The media needs to tell the truth about Obama and his real objectives.  The media needs to investigate & report factually about Obama’s eligibility issue, Rezko, Ayers, Larry Sinclair’s allegations, Obama’s associations with ACORN, and the numerous other issues and scandals from Obama’s past. Before America can come together, these questions must be addressed fully. The media generated Obama “fairy tale” must stop because America’s future is at stake. The media needs to tell the truth and report the news.

We need to support companies like Ford who are not feeding off tax payers and taking direction from self-serving politicians.  Boycott companies like GM, Chrysler, Citigroup and others who undermine ingenuity and lead America to mediocrity.

Neither marriage nor market risk should be within the domain of the Federal Government.