The Sand is Deep Today

I just watched CNBC for a bit. Apparently the world really IS coming to an end. Thought you might want to know.

The Dow went down over 700 points earlier today. At the moment, it’s down about 500. And suddenly that looks pretty good.

They’re saying the Fed is going to cut at least half a point off the prime rate. Will it matter? I don’t know.

I can’t help wondering if deflation is headed our way. The dollar is pummeling foreign currencies, and a lot of things are getting cheaper here, and because people are jittery, things that used to sell very freely are going to have to be marketed aggressively. We’re looking at cheap oil and cheap metals, except for gold. Real estate continues to drop in value. Unemployment is increasing, so presumably, people will be willing to work for less, and wages will drop. If wages drop, things just plain have to cost less, don’t they? I’m no economist, but it seems to me that consumers can’t spend money they don’t have. Okay, I suppose they can, but won’t that be harder to do as credit tightens up?

I suspect that Jim Cramer helped cause this. He went on TV and told people to sell stocks. He said that if there was any money they thought they might need during the next five years, it was time to pull it out. Over the last few years, this man has become extremely popular. He’s like Obama; a “rock star.” Fate raised him to a very lofty place, and this weekend, he dropped a very big rock on us from up there. Maybe he was right to say what he did, but I’m sure he scared millions of people to death.

The Pope says obsessing on money is vain. Here’s a Reuters quote:

The pontiff, using a biblical metaphor, said people who ignored the word of God to pursue wealth had effectively built their homes on sand instead of on a solid foundation of faith.

That is true. I have known a lot of prosperous people, and the impression I have formed is that things go badly for them unless God is in their lives. Their families fall apart. They get caught up in spirals of senseless self-destruction. Sometimes they lose everything. Sometimes they get richer, and it somehow leaves them even worse off.

Godless people with money remind me of socialists in places like China and the old USSR. A few things go right, and they become convinced it’s all coming together. If they just keep headed in the same direction. If you have money, you have power, and if you have power, you can fix your problems. Right? But the horizon keeps receding. They never catch up with the mirage.

I’m with the Pope on this one. I’m saying that publicly, because I’m sure he worries about my opinion. God really is up there, and if you turn toward Him sincerely and persistently, and if you submit, He’ll get you through your problems. Maybe He’ll fix them, and maybe He won’t, but you’ll come out on the other side in one piece, and you’ll be able to bear the journey.

I’m not suffering the way a lot of people are right now; the exposure isn’t there. But I feel very low anyway, knowing what hundreds of millions of people are going through. I’m so grateful that God woke me up and prepared me for this kind of thing.

Thursday is Yom Kippur. This is a great week to try to turn things around.