by Stephen Kovaka, CPA | March 24, 2009

Everywhere we turn we are confronted with news stories, articles, videos and TV programs presenting the economic opinions of various bankers, politicians, investors, celebrities and gurus.  In spite of this outpouring of dubious wisdom, the depression gathers momentum like an avalanche.  World leaders addicted to debt have yet to come clean and admit the causes of this disaster, if they even understand them.  Until they do, there is little chance of them doing anything constructive about it.  All their attempts to fight fire with large volumes of gasoline are a futile waste of time and resources.
As in "God on Money", I propose here to consult one Person who really did "see it coming", diagnosed the problem, and long ago prescribed how to  not only cure the disease, but prevent its reoccurrence.  His principles are simple and easily understood.  They are valid today.  But as usual, man thinks he knows better.
DIAGNOSIS
Our fundamental problem is sin, the tendency toward evil that exists in the heart of every human being.  Economically, sin appears in the desire to eat without working, to live at the expense of others, and to accumulate wealth without limit.  Left unchecked, these tendencies ultimately result in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few, and helplessness and poverty for the many.  In our time, this has taken the form of banking/government cartels promoting debt based currency and unlimited credit, elaborated globally into complex chains of promises to pay, few of which will ever be honestly fulfilled.  Descent into unpayable debt or even outright slavery has become the fate of far too many.  At the same time, ownership of the major sources of real wealth (land, buildings, farms, mines, factories) is being progressively concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority, a one-in-a-million Superclass. 
God's idea of a good and just society is more like what Isaiah prophesied:
They shall build houses and inhabit them;   they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit;   they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,   and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.         Isaiah 65:21-22
Unencumbered ownership of homes and productive property should be widespread, and most people should be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor without interference.
It is God's opinion that economic health requires two things above all: debt must be liquidated regularly, and the snowballing accumulation of wealth by the few must be limited.  When these two tendencies are unchecked, they eventually destroy the society in which they grow. 
To this end, God provided two types of system reset for Israel, one every seven years, the other every fifty years.  This is similar to the forestry practice of controlled burning of the accumulation of dead trees and brush in a forest, thereby preventing an eventual uncontrolled and deadly conflagration.
DEBT LIQUIDATION
1At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD's release has been proclaimed.    Deuteronomy 15:1-2
Debt simply cannot continue to increase without limit.  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.  Unchecked, it will eventually eat up all current income in debt service, allowing nothing left to live on.  Debt must be liquidated by payment or default.  This should be obvious to everyone.  Debt also has a deceptive tipping point.  We may start out borrowing with full intentions of repaying.  But as the amount owed grows larger, the intent to repay becomes less firm and is relegated to a more distant future.  Sooner or later, if we continue to borrow, the day comes when we have no reasonable prospect or intention of repaying our debts.  At this point, some external force (like a bankruptcy court) must force debt liquidation. 
But when we come to governments and national economies, all common sense is set aside.  Banks are encouraged to lend more to those who cannot repay, simply in order to keep from recognizing a bad debt – especially if they are assured that the taxpayers will make good their losses.  Government officials act as though they can somehow borrow indefinitely without ever repaying.  God's opinion of this practice is expressed in Psalm 37:21 – "The wicked borrows but does not pay back . . ."
In reality, these corrupt officials simply make the disreputable calculation that the money they borrow and spend during their term in office will not fall due until after they have retired from government, when the problem will become someone else's.  In the meantime, they try to persuade the foolish that further massive national debt is the road to economic recovery.  After all, if debt got us into this mess, it can get us out again!
God's wise plan was to limit the extent of debt at the outset.  This way debt could never grow to become a burden on the economy, and the rules are known to everyone in advance, so that no one would be cheated or deceived by changing rules.  Had we followed God's advice, we would never have come within miles of the awful trap we find ourselves in today.  Mortgage brokers and credit card companies would have had no incentive to lure people into unpayable debt, nor would investors have purchased long term debt derivatives to improve their investment yield, nor would insurance companies have sold credit default swaps to "insure" this debt.
Today, our massive personal, business and national debts MUST be, WILL be liquidated – one way or another.  They have grown too large to be paid back in the normal course of business.  Because we allowed them to grow so large and to distort our economic structure, it will be a very painful process for all.  And still, our politicians (with rare exceptions) do not acknowledge this basic fact, so distant are we still from even the approaches to recovery.  In fact, the political instinct is to hide the truth and lie to the people, so to protect the powerful and escape blame for the debacle.  Beyond this, there may even be a conscious intent to lead the people and the nation deeper into debt so as to create a worse crisis and consolidate control.
But God's principle is even more general than this: not just monetary debt, but EVERY form of servitude was to be released at regular intervals: 12If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress.       Deuteronomy 15:12-14
Today, we live in a world where slavery seems to be making a comeback.  This is another symptom of the sin of desiring to live at someone else's expense, which is a form of stealing.  When this desire becomes acceptable in society, as it is today, slavery cannot be far behind.  One organization estimates that, even though slavery is formally illegal in every country, there are 27 million slaves worldwide – including in the USA.   In middle class America it may not be too apparent to us, but hundreds of thousands of people around the world are kidnapped or enticed every year into some form of involuntary servitude.  God requires not merely release, but active assistance to help the servant acquire property and a way to earn a living.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE
The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.Proverbs 22:7
10And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. [This verse is even inscribed on our famous Liberty Bell.]13In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops.
23"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land. Leviticus 25: 10-25
Just as debt has a natural tendency to compound and increase without limit, so does the accumulation of wealth.  In both cases, a just and humane society requires that this tendency must be recognized and limited.  Society does not function well as debt and wealth concentration increase too far.  Think of it as a game of Monopoly: before too long, the wealth is concentrated in the hands of one or two players and everyone else is out of the game.  The game must end, and the wealth be redistributed to all the players so that the game can begin again.
In the Hebrew agrarian society, farm land was the necessary source of most wealth.  Farm land gave a man the means to provide for himself without any form of servitude.  Therefore, every 50 years, the farmland was to be restored to its original owners or their descendants.  But as with debt, this was known in advance so that people could deal fairly with each other on the basis of this requirement.
How would this apply in America today?  It might take many forms, but we would have to start by agreeing on the principle.  Perhaps the major factor in wealth concentration today has been the rise of the business corporation.  The larger the corporation, the more income it has with which to buy up other companies.  In recent decades, wealth around the world has been steadily concentrated in fewer and more powerful hands.  There are fewer owners, and more employees; fewer people making all the rules, and more just following orders. 
As the concentration of wealth and power proceeds, society becomes more polarized.  The gap between the "have lots" and the "have nots" continues to increase, while the middle class progressively disappears.  This is often justified in terms of free enterprise, or efficiency and economy of scale.  But are these really the most important values in life?  God help us if people believe that they are!  Isaiah warned against this unchecked tendency:
8Woe to those who join house to house,   who add field to field,until there is no more room,   and you are made to dwell alone   in the midst of the land.       Isaiah 5:8
Come to think of it, isn't this a pretty good description of the ongoing consolidation in the corporate world?
NO SOUL TO DAMN, NO BODY TO KICK 
Business corporations, like the Federal Reserve Corporation, are usually considered to be such fundamental features of our economic world that life would be impractical without them - yet neither one existed 200 years ago.  Maybe we should say that life would be very different without them – and maybe much better.  The modern business corporation came to power in America at the time of the Civil War, and by 1886 corporations began to be considered as legal persons with all the rights and privileges of natural human beings.  It is bitterly ironic that the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, written to protect the rights of freed slaves, was ultimately used to protect corporations from control by the governments that created them. 
Given the dominating presence of corporations, I doubt whether our current economic arrangement can any longer be called a free market economy.  When most of the productive wealth of the world is controlled by governments and a shrinking list of multinational corporations, markets are clearly controlled behind the scenes by a small oligarchy.  Industry after industry has been "rationalized", consolidated, and the small players driven out.  Barriers to entry in many industries prevent small businesses from even getting into the game.
Today large multinational corporations have grown far beyond the bounds of the states of their origin, and many exceed in size and power all but a few of the nations of the earth.  Yet, any natural individual who starts a business must compete on equal legal terms with these behemoths, following all the same burdensome rules, regulations and procedures, while the corporation is accorded all the legal protections designed for individual humans.  It is adding outrageous insult to injury when their very size results in them being deemed "too big to fail", so that individuals are then taxed to save them from their own colossal blunders.
Perhaps worst of all, with "no soul to damn and no body to kick", corporations are largely immune to human moral influence.  All PR aside, they exist essentially to grow in wealth, and to reward their rulers.  Corporations never die, never get ill, never go to jail, can grow to unlimited size and give birth to unlimited progeny.  It would require fundamental legal changes to limit the size and power of these corporations which now dwarf the mere humans who created them, and confer almost superhuman power on those who sit atop them.  But this will surely be necessary to prevent the ultimate consolidation of ownership of all productive wealth in the hands of the few.
CONCLUSION
So, does God have a plan to fix the economy?  Today we have little patience with explanation and diagnosis.  We want the bottom line, the prescription.  "Don't annoy us by telling us what we did wrong; just tell us how to make the pain stop!"  But God is not a politician, and has no such plan to sell.  Being a loving Father, he instead has "consequences" for his children when they stray from the path, so that we may learn to do good and avoid evil. Those economic consequences will be painful, and they may not be avoided by any miracle cure.  As Joni Mitchell once sang, "They're not going to fix it up too easy."  And those who hope to hit a lucky number in the market casino are more likely to learn the truth of this proverb:
Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,        for they will surely sprout wings        and fly off to the sky like an eagle.Proverbs 23:5
But there is hope.  God has been where we are.  The economy was not too good when He walked the hills of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem.  People were poor and sick and hungry and oppressed by their rulers, just like today.  Here's what he told them: "It's not really about 'The economy, stupid'.  It's about the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness.  Which is more important, your retirement, or your place in eternity?  First things first!  And don't be so anxious about your wealth, or what you're going to eat or where you're going to live.  Remember, it was God who made all these things, and He can provide for you if you trust Him.  Worrying about things won't add an hour to your life, or even a single hair to your head.  Just do the right thing today, and trust God take care of tomorrow."
 

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