- 00:05
- All right, all right, well, let's begin. Let's start another week. I think it's going to be a good week, guys.
- 00:10
- I'm not sure. Last week was actually a pretty rough week for me business wise. I don't know,
- 00:15
- I was just getting, I was just getting rejection left and right, but it's another week. It's time to move forward and learn from our mistakes and all these kinds of things.
- 00:24
- I hope you had a great weekend. I definitely did. Got to go to church.
- 00:30
- I love worshiping God with the brethren at church. Had lunch with my pastor and his family afterwards.
- 00:37
- We also had some friends over on Saturday and that was awesome. Great fellowship there as well.
- 00:43
- It was just a great time altogether and I just, I'm very blessed in those ways. I've got good people around me and I'm very grateful for all of that kind of stuff.
- 00:52
- And so I just wanted to start the week though with a, I don't know, maybe a bit of a warning, maybe a bit of a, a just, you know, encouragement.
- 01:01
- I'm not really sure exactly how you'll take this, but I think that as Christians we need to really recognize that the nation is rebelling against God in almost every conceivable way.
- 01:16
- They're trying to, to pretend like reality isn't the way it is. We see this very obviously with the
- 01:23
- Equality Act stuff, right? And it's like, you know, you can decree from your chambers and your temples of democracy, you can decree whatever you think you want to, but it doesn't change reality.
- 01:37
- Like you can't change the fact that boys have penises and girls have vaginas.
- 01:43
- Like that, you can't change that fact, no matter how many decrees or executive orders or legislation that you do, you can pretend and you can play pretend in a very official way, but it's not going to actually change reality.
- 01:57
- And so as Christians, we need to take advantage of that because people have lost their minds, right?
- 02:03
- People have lost their ever -loving minds and they're not making rational decisions in many areas of their life.
- 02:09
- And we can take advantage of that, right? We can take advantage of that, continue, refuse to operate in the fantasy and instead operate in reality.
- 02:18
- And I think that there's profit there. And I think that there's dividends that that'll pay in our future generations as well.
- 02:26
- But we are not 100 % shielded from the insanity that's going on.
- 02:32
- So with the Equality Act, just because you don't engage in fantasy land, the
- 02:38
- Equality Act could still affect you. And so you need to operate knowing that the people around you aren't necessarily operating in reality.
- 02:45
- You need to maybe change your behaviors a little bit, prepare differently, plan differently, strategize differently, engage in commerce differently.
- 02:55
- Like, I'm not saying that you're untouchable because you operate in reality, but you should take that advantage that you're operating according to the way the world really is.
- 03:06
- And maybe, I'm not saying compromise yourself, but I'm saying plan and prepare differently than you would if everyone was operating in reality.
- 03:16
- And there's another place where I think this is coming down the pike as well. I don't know about you, but I've seen a ton of talk about universal basic income.
- 03:26
- And even if it's not officially under the title universal basic income, let's just face it,
- 03:32
- Donald Trump helped usher that in with his direct payments to the American people.
- 03:37
- We've got another one coming up in a month or two from the Biden administration. I think it's gonna be $1 ,400 per person that they're gonna give you and stuff like that.
- 03:48
- And that too is not operating in reality. That's a fantasy world where somehow giving people money for nothing, they haven't done anything, they haven't produced anything, just giving them money, universal basic income qualifies under that, welfare qualifies under that.
- 04:06
- And these direct payments also qualify under that. That doesn't actually improve the economy.
- 04:14
- It actually is just consumption. And what it does is it actually damages the economy for the future.
- 04:21
- And I wanna talk about that. But this is a principle from the Bible that God talks about.
- 04:27
- And this is in regards to the church and how the church should organize their charity, right?
- 04:32
- So when Jesus says, this is something you should definitely do. If you have food, share it with somebody who doesn't, right?
- 04:40
- If you have food, share it with somebody who doesn't. If you have a clothing, share it with somebody who doesn't.
- 04:45
- So these are commands from Christ, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We ought to obey those commands, but we have to do it according to his standards, right?
- 04:54
- And we have a lot of principles from the Old Testament that we can follow regarding charity and how we do that.
- 05:00
- And we also have principles from the New Testament. Here's one that gets brought up a lot that we must follow.
- 05:06
- And I think we must follow this because this is how God created the world, right? Here's what he says. He says, the scripture says, even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
- 05:21
- If he doesn't work, he's not willing to work, he should not eat, right?
- 05:27
- And so this verse on the surface, it's against this any idea of welfare for people who don't work, if they're able to work.
- 05:36
- I'm not talking about invalids or people like that. Bible talks about helping widows who are really widows, people who actually don't have families, don't have the abilities that a lot of other people do and stuff like that.
- 05:49
- We're not talking about that. We're talking about people that are able -bodied, that are able to work. If they don't work, they don't get anything.
- 05:56
- See, in God's system, the minimum wage is zero. You don't work, you don't eat.
- 06:02
- It's just that simple. Now, why would that be the case? Why does the world work that way?
- 06:07
- Why is that important? Well, think about this. So when you're working, right? When you're earning an income, you're earning money, right?
- 06:15
- How do you earn that money? Well, you earn that money by helping produce goods and services, right?
- 06:21
- So whether you're working at McDonald's or whether you're working somewhere else, when you're working, you're actually adding value to the world, right?
- 06:31
- So you're producing... Maybe you work in a manufacturing plant and you're helping produce items, goods. You're working at McDonald's as a service.
- 06:37
- You're providing a service to people, you know, food service and all that kind of stuff. However, you're earning money.
- 06:43
- You're actually doing something that increases the amount of goods and services that are out there.
- 06:49
- And so that's a very good thing because as you're earning money, you're increasing your purchasing power.
- 06:56
- You're also increasing the amount of goods and services out there. And so prices can stay relatively stable, right?
- 07:03
- So you can go out and you can pay for what you need to pay for, whether it's your food, your housing, whatever it is.
- 07:09
- Your money goes further, you know, because there's an increase in the amount of goods that are out there.
- 07:16
- So healthy economies have a lot of people working because healthy economies produce lots of goods and services.
- 07:23
- And that's the idea. So if you're not working, you're actually not helping produce goods and services.
- 07:30
- So you're not actually adding anything to the economy. If you're not working, you're just sitting at home, you know, playing video games or something like that.
- 07:38
- You're not actually building anything. You're not actually producing any goods. You're not actually providing any services.
- 07:44
- And so you're not actually adding anything to the economy. Now, let's say you're sitting at home playing video games and the government sent you a universal basic income.
- 07:54
- Right, they sent you $15 an hour or whatever it is. I don't know what they're suggesting, but they sent you money so that you can go ahead and consume goods even though you're not actually doing anything to earn that money.
- 08:06
- In other words, you're not actually doing anything to increase the amounts of goods and services that are out there. What happens then?
- 08:13
- So there's more money out there because the government's just sending you checks even though there's not more goods out there.
- 08:21
- And so an increase in the amount of money is chasing a stable amount of goods.
- 08:27
- What's going to happen to those goods? Well, the price is going to go up because there's not enough goods to meet the demand of all the money that's out there because people aren't working, but they're still getting an income as if they were.
- 08:41
- So they're not adding goods and services to the economy, but they have money and then they can consume the goods and services that do exist.
- 08:48
- And so what's going to happen? The prices are going to go up. And so universal basic income, of course, is going to increase prices almost across the board.
- 08:56
- It's going to make life a lot harder to live. The standard of living is going to go down because it costs more to get the things that you need to live.
- 09:05
- You see, standard of living typically goes up when prices go down because you can get more stuff.
- 09:10
- You can get more things that you need for the same dollar. But when you have people working, I'm sorry, when you have people getting cash and checks, even as they aren't working, that's going to create a situation that's going to actually lead to more suffering because poor people, they're the ones on the margins that can barely afford life as it is.
- 09:30
- They're going to need even more money to pay for the things that they need, food, shelter, cars, whatever it is.
- 09:37
- As prices go up, they're the ones that are going to suffer the most. And so it's a really big problem to have a situation where people are not working, but they are eating.
- 09:48
- They are getting an income. They're still getting that stuff. They're not adding value, but they're still getting checks from the government, free checks.
- 09:55
- And see, that's what Jesus, I think, wanted to avoid with the church, right? But a situation where people aren't adding anything, any value, anything to the economy, but they are consuming and there's a ton of people doing that, eventually that's a system that's going to destroy itself and it's going to hurt the poor more than it hurts the rich.
- 10:15
- So if prices go up, I'll be in a better situation than people poorer than me because though I won't like it that I have to go to the store and pay more, pay double for a thing of rice or whatever it is, though I might not like that because I have less disposable income,
- 10:31
- I'll be able to absorb the extra costs more than a person who makes less than me. That's a big problem for someone who cares about the poor and every
- 10:39
- Christian ought to care about the poor. And so no, we shouldn't have a situation where people are getting paid even as they're not working because they're getting paid, they're getting cash and they're going to consume, but they're not adding anything to the amount of stuff to consume.
- 10:55
- And so I understand, like a lot of you people, you had your businesses closed by the government this year. That wasn't your fault.
- 11:01
- The government closed your business. I get that. But the problem is when they give you cash, as even as you weren't adding anything to the economy, it wasn't your fault, but you weren't, that's going to actually make life harder for the poorest among us.
- 11:15
- That's actually going to hurt the poor. And so God, because he commands that we love the poor, has said we should not have a situation that's going to hurt the poor.
- 11:24
- And so if you're giving people cash, even as they are not working and not adding anything to the economy, that's a situation that is going to hurt the poor.
- 11:34
- That's not what the politicians will tell you. God will tell you, but the politicians won't.
- 11:39
- They'll say it's actually helping the poor to increase their minimum wage or to give them a universal basic income.
- 11:45
- Because on paper, if you don't think about it too long, it actually looks like it does. Well, they didn't have money. Now they have money.
- 11:51
- Yeah, but if that money doesn't buy anything, then it's not going to help them in any way, right?
- 11:56
- That's the problem. So you need to be adding goods and services to the economy, as well as money to consume those goods and services.
- 12:04
- Otherwise, you're going to be in an inflation situation that is going to hurt the poorest among us more than anybody else.
- 12:10
- Now, here's what I want to say. That's coming, by the way. Inflation is coming. I'm not one of these guys that's saying we're going to go into hyperinflation like Germany in the 20s or 30s.
- 12:20
- What I am saying, though, is that inflation is definitely coming. And so I would suggest that you hedge for inflation.
- 12:30
- Now, that's going to look differently depending on your income status, right? If you're on the margins right now, barely scraping by, you're going to get checks from Joe Biden, and you're going to have to do certain things.
- 12:42
- Maybe that's going to be buy extra food than you normally would. I don't know what that's going to look like. I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you the kinds of things that I do.
- 12:50
- I'm not on the margins like on the poverty line myself. Thank God for that.
- 12:57
- But I do want to hedge myself as well. And so I'm purchasing things that I'm not going to regret having when the economy starts shrinking.
- 13:08
- Let's just say that. Because it's definitely going to. You can't have a situation where you're giving cash to people, but they're not actually adding goods and services to the economy.
- 13:16
- That's not a recipe for strength, obviously. I see a lot of people talking about how strong the economy is right now because of the stock market.
- 13:24
- That's not how you judge how strong an economy is. It's just that simple. But anyway, my point is
- 13:30
- I bought a Berkey water filter this weekend, right? And so I thought to myself, well,
- 13:36
- I'm going to buy this. I've been thinking about buying a water filter for a bit. And I'm not going to regret having the water filter if the economy shrinks or something like that.
- 13:46
- And so I went ahead and purchased it. I would recommend probably not buying things that you might regret if the economy doesn't go well in 2021 or 2022.
- 13:55
- Like, you know, if you're thinking about buying a brand new Mustang and you don't really need it, it's just like a kind of a luxury item.
- 14:01
- And you're like, you know, middle class, kind of on the margins. That's something that you might regret.
- 14:06
- I would say you probably would regret if the economy turns around and all of a sudden you're more on the margin than you used to be.
- 14:12
- Like, my suggestion, I'm not going to tell, I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not going to give you tips like on stocks or stuff like that.
- 14:21
- What I will say, though, is consider the purchases that you're making in going into the future, right?
- 14:27
- You should buy things that if you're going to, if the economy doesn't go gangbusters like it's been going for the last 10 years, if there's a change, because I think that there probably is going to be, spiritually speaking and just looking at the numbers, buy things that are going to be assets if things don't go great in the next few years.
- 14:48
- Buy things that you won't regret, that you won't have to put on, that won't put you into the poorhouse, so to speak, right?
- 14:55
- You should hedge for the future. So when you get these Biden bucks, spend them on things that make sense to spend them on, assuming that the economy, you know, might not be as great as it's always been, at least for the last 10 years.
- 15:10
- Biden sending you a $1 ,400 check is probably a sign enough that things aren't going that well right now.
- 15:16
- You know what I mean? They're not going all that well right now, even as the stock market soars, even as Bitcoin prices soar.
- 15:23
- We need to understand that the fact that Biden's even sending you a direct check for no work, so you're not providing any goods and services to the economy, but he's sending you money anyway, just free money.
- 15:37
- That's a sign that things aren't going that well. And there's only so much that the government can do.
- 15:43
- I mean, they can kind of breathe life support into the economy for only so long before it just doesn't work anymore.
- 15:49
- And so I would suggest, again, I'm not going to tell you what to buy, depends on your situation. If you're on the bubble, you're on the margins, it's going to look a lot different than for someone in the middle class.
- 15:59
- It's going to look a lot different for someone that's more wealthy, what you do with the money that you get. But you should hedge.
- 16:07
- You can't just assume that things are always going to go as well as they have gone. Especially when we've got a culture in a country that is rebelling against Christ in almost every conceivable way.
- 16:18
- God will not be mocked. He will not sit on his hands. And economic and financial sanctions and curses are definitely on the menu when it comes to the future of the