Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer

Sorry to address the economy on this blog, but Jeffrey A. Miron from CNN summed this up very well:

Congress has balked at the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the “troubled assets” of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.

This bailout was a terrible idea. Here’s why.

The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.

Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.

This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.

Read full article at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview.

Back in Town

We just got back in town from a discipleship counseling conference, led by Deeper Walk International. More on that soon!

Grandma's House

In my last post, entitled "It's raining, it's pouring", I showed a bunch of photos of the flooding in my neighborhood. I talked about having to evacuate my grandma from Munster, here are some photos of her house as of this morning:


A guy walking through it was up to his knees in water, so that's probably about how much is in the house.


Please keep my grandma in your prayers.

It's raining, it's pouring...

Wow! We got hit with some rain. It took me almost an hour to get home the other day, and I was within a mile of my subdivision! Why? Because two of the only ways to get in were flooded, so I had to take Route 30 to get in a back way. The only problem is that Route 30 was backed up and hardly moving.

Later last night I got a call from my grandma in Munster, saying she got an evacuation order because the river was cresting. So I (somehow) managed to get to her house via back roads without turning my little Honda Accord into a glorified canoe. We then proceeded to load all of her prized possessions into my car, my mom's van, and my brother's truck. Wow. Imagining having to pack up everything you value in less than an hour because you know the water is about to ruin everything else. We tried to raise the furniture onto bricks and take everything off of the ground as well. My grandma, along with her neighbors, mostly elderly, were beside themselves. One of her neighbors is in her late 80's and can't walk. Very sad. By the time we finished loading up my grandma's stuff, the city made us leave.

I posted several photos at NWI Connect, and here are a few more (different ones):


Notice the fence line in comparison to the water level in our backyard.


It took us awhile to figure out how to get out of our neighborhood. Stalled cars were everywhere.


Do I need a boat to navigate in my neighborhood?


It's not so bad in this picture, earlier cars were stalled out everywhere in this puddle. I had a friend who hydro-locked her car.


Maybe shopping at Meijer's wasn't such a good idea.

Share your stories!

Look out 'Guitar Hero,' here comes 'Guitar Praise'

For all of you Guitar Hero fans and parents of fans who perhaps wish the game had a cleaner selection of music, look for Guitar Praise to hit the shelves later this month.

Like "Guitar Hero," “Guitar Praise” requires players to hit the correct notes on their guitar controller as each song plays. Notably absent, however, will be scantily clad cartoon female guitarists and songs like “Cheat on the Church, “Cowboys from Hell,” or “The Number of the Beast.”

Instead, players will be jamming to tunes from Christian artists including Flyleaf, Skillet, Stellar Kart, tobyMac, Newsboys, Petra, 12 Stones, Spoken, Whitecross, Thousand Foot Krutch, Paul Baloche, David Crowder, Red, and many others.

“Guitar Praise” supports both Windows and Mac personal computers and includes one wireless guitar controller, a USB wireless adapter, plus the game CD-ROM.

Unlike “Guitar Hero,” “Guitar Praise” is not available on Xbox, Wii, nor PlayStation. “Guitar Praise” carries an MSRP of $99.95 (USD).

Too bad the Christian gaming company didn't think to create it on a platform kids will actually use.... Oh well, it's a good attempt.

Luther... on Baptism

Recently the pastor of a friend of mine told her she needed to be re-baptized since she has "rededicated" her life to the Lord. She asked what I thought. I explained how I believe that one baptism is sufficient ("one Lord, one faith, one baptism," Ephesians 4:5), because God is the active agent in Baptism, not us. It is not a mere "act of obedience," but rather a powerful means of grace wherein God graciously and miraculously washes away our sins by applying the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection to us, gives us a new birth, clothes us in Christ’s righteousness, gives us the Holy Spirit, saves us, buries us, and through faith raises us up with Christ as new creatures, making us holy before God and integrating us into the body of Christ. None of this comes about due to anything magical in the water, but by the Word of God in and with the water conjoined with our faith in that Word. I've said this a million times and I'll say it again.

I decided to dig up my big home anthology of Luther and reprint some of his profound thoughts on Baptism here. I feel that these quotes are relevant to our discussion here:

Faith saves without Baptism but NOT Baptism without faith. A person can believe although he is not baptized; for Baptism is no more than an external sign to remind us of the divine promise. One should not refuse Baptism if it is offered but if it is not it will not damn him. Jesus teaches in Mark 16:16 that “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Notice, He does not say that he who is not baptized will be condemned, for baptism is useless without faith.

Baptism is valid even though not believed. No matter what my relation to faith may be, whether faith comes to me or endures, my faith or lack of faith never contributes anything to Baptism nor detracts anything from it. In fact, even if I were never to believe, Baptism would still be right and complete. For it does not depend on my belief or unbelief but on the ordinance and institution of Christ. If a man were to come to us to deceive us into thinking he was a believer, and he would be baptized upon his request, then he would still be truly baptized – even if he thinks nothing of it in his heart and thus would publicly mock and blaspheme the sacrament. “Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar” (Romans 3:3-4). A child is not to be baptized again, but he is to be instructed in the faith; for Baptism, once administered, is of itself valid and is permanently valid Baptism.

Faith and unbelief do affect personal benefit of Baptism. When I say: Honor father and mother, and you go and do the opposite, God’s command and injunction remains intact. Just so Baptism is right and remains true even though it were proved that a little child or an old person who had been baptized does not believe. FOR BAPTISM IS NO WORK OF OURS. Whether I believe or not, Baptism remains right and good by itself. However, this is also true: If I believe, Baptism is a benefit to me; on the other hand, I do not believe, Baptism is forever no benefit to me.

Validity of Baptism is unaffected by the character of the administrant. Do not consider what he is who administers Baptism. To be sure, he ought to be personally virtuous and holy; but he adds nothing to Baptism by his holiness nor takes anything from it if he lacks it. Do not consider the person of him who stands there and baptizes but rather what he does and what is going on there.

Baptism is valid forever to the believer – and to doubt this is to doubt God. Baptism is an eternal covenant which should remind us of God’s grace and mercy. To be baptized again is unnecessary. Indeed, it is a grievous sin. For to allow oneself to be baptized again amounts to charging God that He does not want to keep what He had once promised us. . . .

Luther, M. (1986). What Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.

Well said, Luther.