Australia

Bill Muehlenberg: Homosexuals Against Homosexual Marriage

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Bill Muehlenberg writes:

Homosexuals Against Homosexual Marriage

Aug 23, 2017

Yesterday I penned a piece quoting from a number of Australian homosexuals who have voiced their opposition to homosexual marriage. Why write such an article? It is pretty obvious: this is the sort of information the mainstream media and the pro-homosexual lobby does NOT want to get out into the public arena.

They want you to believe that not only every homosexual just can’t wait to have homosexual marriage legalised, but that everyone plus their dog wants it too. This is all part of the narrative of the activists: lie through your teeth loud enough and often enough, and eventually folks will start to believe you.

Since the other side plays fast and loose with the truth, I and others will proffer some facts and some truth here, even if it results in even more hate, derision and censorship. Just as plenty of debate about homosexual marriage has taken place among Australian homosexuals, so too elsewhere.

In North America for example, many homosexuals have expressed their disinterest in marriage. In fact, there are many homosexual organisations which are fiercely opposed to the concept of same-sex marriage. As one example, consider the US-based group, Against Equality. They are quite explicit in their aims:

“Against Equality is an online archive, publishing, and arts collective focused on critiquing mainstream gay and lesbian politics. As queer thinkers, writers and artists, we are committed to dislodging the centrality of equality rhetoric and challenging the demand for inclusion in the institution of marriage.”

Also, when Ontario legalised same-sex marriage in 2003, there was not exactly a huge rush of Canadian homosexual couples to the altar. Indeed, the New York Times was so intrigued with this fact that it did a major story on it. Here is one excerpt from that article:

When David Andrew, a forty-one-year-old federal government employee, heard that the highest Ontario court had extended marriage rights to same-sex couples … he broke into a sweat. “I was dreading the conversation,” he said, fearing that his partner would feel jilted when he told him that he did not believe in the institution. “Personally, I saw marriage as a dumbing down of gay relationships. My dread is that soon you will have a complacent bloc of gay and lesbian soccer moms.”

The article also cites Rinaldo Walcott, a sociologist at the University of Toronto, who shared his worries about getting on board the heterosexual marriage bandwagon: “I can already hear folks saying things like: `Why are bathhouses needed? Straights don’t have them’. Will queers now have to live with the heterosexual forms of guilt associated with something called cheating?”

Another telling comment comes from a Toronto homosexual magazine editor who said, “Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage. I’d be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of ‘till death do us part’ and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play.”

In an editorial in an American homosexual magazine, Jim Rinnert says of SSM: “I’m against it”. He writes, in part:

Gay marriage strikes me as, first and foremost, just another way to show the straights that we’re the same as them, that we’re as “normal” as the heterosexuals with whom we share the planet and thereby are worthy of acceptance into their clubs. Well, without getting into a discourse on the social function of homosexuality in cultures ancient and modern, let me just assert that, guess what—we’re not the same. We’re different. Rather than try to paint heterosexual stripes on our pelts, let’s examine, explore and celebrate our different coloration.

Noted Irish political commentator and homosexual, Richard Waghorne, has also weighed into the debate, arguing that homosexuals should leave marriage alone. He said, “Actually, gay people should defend the traditional understanding of marriage as strongly as everyone else. Given that it is being undermined in the name of gay people, with consequences for future generations, it is all the more important that gay people who are opposed to gay marriage speak up.”

He especially made his case on the well-being of children, and how they deserve a mother and a father, something which same-sex marriage can obviously never provide them. Thus he says homosexual marriage “is not only unnecessary, but verges on selfishness”.

All these stories – and more – are found in my book Strained Relations with full documentation. Indeed, with over 700 footnotes, it is one of those books the other side has been doing its best to pretend does not exist. But there are plenty more examples of homosexuals telling us to say ‘no’ to homosexual marriage. Here are some others.

Doug Mainwaring is one homosexual leader who has demonstrated some hard-headed honesty. His article, “I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage,” is well worth quoting from:

The notion of same-sex marriage is implausible, yet political correctness has made stating the obvious a risky business. Genderless marriage is not marriage at all. It is something else entirely. Opposition to same-sex marriage is characterized in the media, at best, as clinging to ‘old-fashioned’ religious beliefs and traditions, and at worst, as homophobia and hatred.
I’ve always been careful to avoid using religion or appeals to tradition as I’ve approached this topic. And with good reason: Neither religion nor tradition has played a significant role in forming my stance. But reason and experience certainly have….
There are perhaps a hundred different things, small and large, that are negotiated between parents and kids every week. Moms and dads interact differently with their children. To give kids two moms or two dads is to withhold from them someone whom they desperately need and deserve in order to be whole and happy. It is to permanently etch ‘deprivation’ on their hearts.

He continues,

Here’s a very sad fact of life that never gets portrayed on Glee or Modern Family: I find that men I know who have left their wives as they’ve come out of the closet often lead diminished, and in some cases nearly bankrupt, lives—socially, familially, emotionally, and intellectually.
They adjust their entire view of the world and their role within it in order to accommodate what has become the dominant aspect of their lives: their homosexuality. In doing so, they trade rich lives for one-dimensional lives. Yet this is what our post-modern world has taught us to do. I went along with it for a long while, but slowly turned back when I witnessed my life shrinking and not growing.

His conclusion needs to be shouted from the rooftops: “Marriage is not an elastic term. It is immutable. It offers the very best for children and society. We should not adulterate nor mutilate its definition, thereby denying its riches to current and future generations.”

Consider also two Irish homosexuals, Keith Mills and Paddy Manning. They have a very important 4-minute video on why they are against homosexual marriage. Please watch it and share it widely: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6HD8KLQBvA&feature=youtu.be

They remind us about this fundamental truth: “Marriage is, at its heart, about children and providing those children with their biological parents. Recognising difference is not discrimination.” Yet I have folks attack me for even daring to promote this short clip. One even said, “This video is stupid, bigoted, hateful and hurtful.” Good grief!

Another fellow, a 30-year-old gay man, has penned a piece also opposing homosexual marriage. He begins:

I can’t seem to bring myself to celebrate the triumph of same-sex marriage. Deep down, I know that every American, gay or straight, has suffered a great loss because of this.
I’m not alone in thinking this. The big secret in the LGBT community is that there are a significant number of gays and lesbians who oppose same-sex marriage, and an even larger number who are ambivalent. You don’t hear us speak out because gay rights activists (most of whom are straight) have a history of viciously stamping out any trace of individualism within the gay community. I asked to publish this article under a pseudonym, not because I fear harassment from Christian conservatives, but because I know this article will make me a target of the Gaystapo.

He continues:

The wheels of my Pride Parade float came off the moment I realized that the argument in support of gay marriage is predicated on one audaciously bald-faced lie: the lie that same-sex relationships are inherently equal to heterosexual relationships. It only takes a moment of objective thought to realize that the union of two men or two women is a drastically different arrangement than the union of a man and a woman. It’s about time we realize this very basic truth and stop pretending that all relationships are created equal.
This inherent inequality is often overlooked by same-sex marriage advocates because they lack a fundamental understanding of what marriage actually is. It seems as though most people view marriage as little more than a love contract. Two people fall in love, agree to stick together (for a while, at least), then sign on the dotted line. If marriage is just a love contract, then surely same-sex couples should be allowed to participate in this institution. After all, two men or two women are capable of loving each other just as well as a man and a woman.
But this vapid understanding of marriage leaves many questions unanswered. If marriage is little more than a love contract, why do we need government to get involved? Why was government invited to regulate marriages but not other interpersonal relationships, like friendships? Why does every religion hold marriage to be a sacred and divine institution? Surely marriage must be more than just a love contract….
Marriage is often correctly viewed as an institution deeply rooted in religious tradition. But people sometimes forget that marriage is also based in science. When a heterosexual couple has sex, a biological reaction can occur that results in a new human life.
Government got into the marriage business to ensure that these new lives are created in a responsible manner. This capacity for creating new life is what makes marriage special. No matter how much we try, same-sex couples will never be able to create a new life. If you find that level of inequality offensive, take it up with Mother Nature. Redefining marriage to include same-sex couples relegates this once noble institution to nothing more than a lousy love contract. This harms all of society by turning marriage, the bedrock of society, into a meaningless anachronism.

He concludes:

At its core, the institution of marriage is all about creating and sustaining families. Over thousands of years of human civilization, the brightest minds have been unable to come up with a successful alternative. Yet in our hubris we assume we know better. Americans need to realize that same-sex relationships will never be equal to traditional marriages. You know what? I’m okay with that.

It is always refreshing and encouraging to find homosexuals who will show a bit of honesty here. They are willing to say what needs to be said, despite all the hatred and abuse that inevitably follows. And they know the fundamental truth about marriage: it is all about the children.

But for daring to share these basic truths, these homosexuals have been on the receiving end of plenty from the ‘love and tolerance’ brigade. As I asked in my companion piece to this one: If a homosexual opposes homosexual marriage, does that make him a hateful, bigoted homophobe?

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9432/
thefederalist.com/2015/04/28/im-gay-and-i-oppose-same-sex-marriage/

You Can’t Do Heavy Industry On Renewables

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Maybe the Green-Left Collective is starting to wake up to the fact that even in a post-truth age, you can’t just pretend that wind and solar can replace thermal power without affecting the whole economy.

 

Jo Nova writes:

Matt Howell, the CEO of Tomago Aluminium Smelter, told a few home truths on ABC radio Monday.

To paraphrase in my own words:

1. Aluminium Smelters gobble electrons for breakfast. His smelter uses 10% of  the entire electricity supply of the most populous state in Australia (NSW).

2. If power goes out without warning for more than three hours, the smelter pot lines freeze, permanently. The company goes to the wall.

3. The largest battery in the world would keep their smelter going for all of 8 minutes. There is a good reason there are no solar or wind powered aluminium smelters anywhere in the world.

4. The government can ‘t let the market solve anything whilst it is simultaneously destroying the free market by propping up the market failures at the same time.

5. Electricity pricing has suddenly gotveryugly. Their electricity bill may now be subject to price spikes where it could cost them $4 million just to keep one pot line running during that spike. It is as if suddenly gas stations only sold $400 per Litre petrol. (Which would be$1800/per gallon).  What he doesn’t say, but which logically follows from that, is thatheavy industry in most of Australia can no longer get reliable electricity at an affordable price, even with forward contracts. Cry, scream, run with your factory.

6. In Australia, if we achieve “zero coal” we will also achieve “zero heavy manufacturing”.

7. If we want heavy industry, we need a HELE Coal plant. There are hundreds being built around the world, and we are selling our coal to them. How crazy are we?

Howell makes some great points. It’s good to see an ABC presenter willing to let the evil capitalists speak. Well done Matt Wordsworth. I found something worth listening to on the ABC this year.

 

Read the rest of the article, including the link to the interview here

THE DOMINO EFFECT: FIRST MARRIAGE, THEN GENDER AND SEX WILL ALL FALL

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Repeat after me: “There is no slippery slope”

Marriage-Alliance-Australia-Marriage-Gender-Sex.jpg

From The Marriage Alliance comes this warning.

 

THE DOMINO EFFECT: FIRST MARRIAGE, THEN GENDER AND SEX WILL ALL FALL

 

In an extraordinary admission, the UK’s “Government Equalities Office” confirmed that the changing of gender legally at whim, with the mere filing of a form, builds on the “progress” made with the redefinition of marriage.

In a joint media release, the Equalities Office and the Minister for Equalities declared that: 

Since Parliament voted for the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, there has been significant progress on LGBT equality. In 2013 the law was changed to allow same-sex couples to marry. Earlier this year, Turing’s Law was passed, posthumously pardoning men who had sex with men for these now abolished offences. And the recent election saw the highest number of openly lesbian, gay and bisexual MPs voted into Parliament. Today’s announcement looks to build on this progress.

In a near-Orwellian development, enabling individuals to change their gender on their birth certificate at a snap of their fingers is being considered as “progress”: 

Proposals to streamline and de-medicalise the process for changing gender will be part of a broad consultation of the legal system that underpins gender transition, the Gender Recognition Act.

… 

The consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, to be published in the Autumn, will look to improve the recognition process and reduce the stigma faced by the trans community. Proposals will include:

  • Removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria before being able to apply for gender recognition. The current need to be assessed and diagnosed by clinicians is seen as an intrusive requirement by the trans community; and
  • Proposing options for reducing the length and intrusiveness of the gender recognition system. 

It really is incredible: the UK is digging itself a politically-correct hole so deep, that they have reached a point where “facts” and “medical precautions” are now considered “offensive” – even though Britain was one of the spearheads in the whole transgender movement:

Britain became one of the first countries to legally recognise people who wanted to change gender without surgery in 2004 with the Gender Recognition Act. However in the years that have followed a series of barriers to changing gender have frustrated those who want to make the switch. One is the need to prove they have been in transition for at least two years before they can legally apply to become the other sex.

The other is the medical checks needed. Currently people need to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria before being allowed to make legally change sex.  Campaigners said the tests – which involve seeing a panel of doctors – is embarrassing and intrusive, noting it should be a decision for the individuals.

As stated above, changing one’s registered gender has been possible in the UK for several years. Apparently though, it is not enough to be possible – it has to be super easy, otherwise, LGBTI individuals won’t have ‘sufficient rights’:

Up to now, it was already possible to change your sex in government records, but it was a laborious process. A doctor had to diagnose gender dysphoria and the person had to be living in the chosen gender for two years. Under the new legislation all that will be needed, it seems, will be a rubber stamp. No hormones; no surgery; just an uncomfortable feeling inside that things are not quite right. 

Instead of requiring individuals to seek medical expertise to determine if they truly have gender dysphoria, all they need to do is sign a form.  

Minister for Women and Equalities, Justine Greening, had no qualms voicing her support for the measure: 

This government is committed to building an inclusive society that works for everyone, no matter what their gender or sexuality and today we’re taking the next step forward.

We will build on the significant progress we have made over the past 50 years, tackling some of the historic prejudices that still persist in our laws and giving LGBT people a real say on the issues affecting them.

However, Ms Greening’s own words show that she is either blatantly ignoring, or entirely ignorant regarding the importance of gender with regards to the LGBTI community.

“What we want to try to do is streamline the process, make it easier, demedicalise it and make it less intrusive,” says Ms Greening.  A study with her proposals will be published later in the years. She recently told the media that society needed “to “stop treating people changing their gender as if it’s some medical problem that needs fixing. Actually this is a choice that people are making and we need to try and make that choice more straightforward than it already is.”

For years – nay, decades – the transgender lobby has been telling us that ‘gender dysphoria’ is an innate condition, not a choice. Now they are backtracking from, not progressing their own statements.

Redefining gender is part and parcel of redefining marriage.  Neither further the progress of anyone’s rights – it creates utter chaos. Think about it: enabling people to change their gender renders biological sex meaningless. Without gender, there is no need for “same-sex” in same-sex marriage – because apparently, a person can switch between either genders without undergoing any type of alterations.

Going further, changing “sex” to something based entirely on preferences (e.g. what gender do I want to list on my birth certificate?) abolishes any “special” status or traits of the LGBTI community. Without preconceived, concrete definitions of biological gender, there is no basis for distinguishing amongst lesbian, gay men, heterosexuals, or heck, even transgender!

All of this has been clearly pointed out by articulate critics of this newest UK kowtow to radical gender reform:

Critics warned that allowing people to effectively “self-identify” as a member of the opposite sex, while maintaining the anatomy of their birth gender, would unleash a firestorm of legal cases over access to women-only hospital wards, prisons, lavatories, changing rooms and competitive sports.

Gender and sex both depend on the definition of marriage. Wherever marriage is redefined without its one man, one woman definition, we clearly see societies abandoning their definition of gender, making sex entirely based on preferences. It is not freedom – it is utter chaos. 

The outright insanity plaguing the UK may seem thousands of miles away, but this is an illusion: any country considering redefining marriage placing themselves in jeopardy of falling to the same chaotic level. 

There is no beating about the bush: redefining marriage brings a torrent of consequences. The traditional definition of marriage is essential to societal perception – and treatment – of gender and sex. If a country is truly considering messing with this foundational institution, then it must be a decision made by ALL citizens. 

Inclusiveness Seems To Run Only One Way

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From Andrew Bolt, a disturbing development in Queensland schools.

The Left’s hatred of Christianity is suicidal and deeply intolerant.

So is its hatred of free speech:

Talking about Jesus, exchanging Christmas cards and encouraging Christianity have been targeted under an unofficial policy from education bureaucrats that takes aim at junior evangelists in Queensland primary school yards.

Christian groups and free-speech advocates have expressed alarm at the recent edict from the Queensland Department of Education and Training contained within its latest review into religious instruction materials and warning that principals were expected to take action against students caught evangelising to their peers.

“While not explicitly prohibited by the (legislation), nor referenced in the Religious Instruction (RI) policy, the department expects schools to take appropriate action if aware that students participating in RI are evangelising to students who do not,” says the department’s ­report into the GodSpace ­religious instruction materials, released earlier this year.

“This could adversely affect the school’s ability to provide a safe, supportive and inclusive ­environment.”

Departmental policy defines “evangelising” as “preaching or advocating a cause or religion with the object of making converts to Christianity”.

Examples of evangelising cited in the review, as well as two earlier reviews into religious ­instruction providers, include sharing Christmas cards that refer to Jesus’s birth, creating Christmas tree decorations to give away and making beaded bracelets to give to friends “as a way of sharing the good news about Jesus”.

How can Leftist bureaucrats claim to want a “safe, supportive and inclusive ­environment” when they ban, discriminate and persecute?

Is there a similar schoolyard ban on students discussing green ethics, global warming evangelism, animal rights, Buddhism, Islam or the new tribalism – all of them far more troubling ethically than Christianity?

This is not just an attack on the free speech of students. It is also an attack on a faith that is life-affirming and preaches a system of ethics that actually underpin this “safe, supportive and inclusive” culture of ours.

These Leftist educationalists are in fact waging a suicidal war on the faith that best guarantees the freedoms and values these hypocrites claim to uphold.

Andrew Bolt: ABC’s Source Says ABC Was Not Fair

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abc-smear

Andrew Bolt has been doing a fantastic job of defending the church from the ABC’s lies and misrepresentations about Domestic Violence. Now one of Julia Baird’s main sources for her report claiming that evangelical christians have the highest rates of Domestic Violence has spoken up.

ABC’S SOURCE: ABC WAS NOT FAIR IN SMEARING CHRISTIANITY

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun

an hour ago

The ABC falsely claimed our worst wife beaters were evangelical Christians who went to church sporadically.

The academic whose work the ABC cherry-picked, Professor Bradford Wilcox, says the ABC anti-Christian series of reports that relied on that central – and false – claim “fails the basic journalistic test of fairness“:

On the one hand, the church is charged with “both enabling and concealing (domestic violence)”…

But it also states: “Research shows that the men most likely to abuse their wives are evangelical Christians who attend church sporadically.” Here, they are draw­ing on my research on religion and American marriages (they neither contacted me nor mentioned me in the story, even though they relied heavily on my empirical findings). They speculate that it’s the kind of men “who are often on the periphery (of church life), in other words, who sometimes float between par­ishes or sit in the back pews”, who are most likely to abuse. That’s not the full story, if they are basing this claim on my research. In my study of the nominal evangelical husbands who were most abusive, I found that it was evangelical Protestant men who infrequently or never attended church who were most violent.

How do you blame Australian churches for a big domestic violence problem if it is men who ­infrequently or never attend church who have the highest likelihood of being violent? How would bad Christian preaching, teaching or counselling be a major factor in spousal abuse if the worst abusers are rarely or never in the pews? It doesn’t follow.

Indeed, what may be happening in the real world is that churches and religious institutions actually reduce the odds that husbands or wives abuse one ­another. On average, messages about love, forgiveness and fidelity may actually make for better husbands and wives, especially when they are reinforced by a community of believers that is struggling to live out values and virtues generally supportive of strong marriages.

Indeed, in the US, the evidence suggests relig­ious attendance ­reduces the odds of domestic violence. Work by University of Texas sociologist Christopher ­Ellison shows that husbands and wives are less likely to report they are abusive if they attend weekly; they are also less likely to report they have been abused if they are part of a church community. My research indicates couples report significantly higher quality relation­ships if they attend church together.

The point is not to suggest that abuse is not present in the church in Australia, or that lay and clerical leaders have not made big mistakes in addressing abuse. Abuse, and failures to adequately address it, can be found throughout the nation — including the church.

But it is to suggest that the ABC story completely ignores the possibility that churches and ­religious institutions may be having some positive role in ­reducing the prevalence of domestic violence among their active adherents. Instead, the story fails the basic journalistic test of fairness by presenting an almost completely negative picture of Christian approaches to domestic abuse, one that does not square with the evidence that church­going couples, in America at least, appear to be less likely to suffer domestic violence and more likely to enjoy happy marriages.

The ABC reports that this article was based on a year-long investigation. So they had a year to get this right.

But the truth conflicted with the agenda, you see, and once again the agenda won. Christianity must be portrayed as malevolent.

Amazing: Plants Adapting to Increased CO2

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The CSIRO has found that plants around the world are absorbing more CO2 and doing it more efficiently than ever before. As the concentration of CO2 rises in the atmosphere all kinds of plants are growing faster, but using relatively less water to do so.

This confirms the satellite images showing that the world is greening.

Rising carbon dioxide is making the world’s plants more water-wise

By Pep Canadell, Francis Chiew, Lei Cheng, Lu Zhang, Yingping Wang 25TH JULY 2017

Land plants are absorbing 17% more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now than 30 years ago, our research published today shows. Equally extraordinarily, our study also shows that the vegetation is hardly using any extra water to do it, suggesting that global change is causing the world’s plants to grow in a more water-efficient way.

Water is the most precious resource needed for plants to grow, and our research suggests that vegetation is becoming much better at using it in a world in which CO₂ levels continue to rise.

The ratio of carbon uptake to water loss by ecosystems is what we call “water use efficiency”, and it is one of the most important variables when studying these ecosystems.

Our confirmation of a global trend of increasing water use efficiency is a rare piece of good news when it comes to the consequences of global environmental change. It will strengthen plants’ vital role as global carbon sinks, improve food production, and might boost water availability for the well-being of society and the natural world.

Read the full article here

The Gospel Heals Families

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afamily2977

The ABC has been making misleading reports about how evangelical men are the most likely to abuse their wives. It’s simply not true. The report actually said that men who occasionally attend an evangelical church are more likely to engage in violence than men who don’t attend church- that’s a whole different bunch of information. But the ABC  never lets the facts stand in the way of a good opportunity to bash christians.

Here is a different view from movemenets.net

Recently the (Australian) ABC reported that the men most likely to beat their wives were evangelicals. It’s not true, they made it up. There is no evidence. What evidence exists points to the transforming power of the gospel.

In the US, Conservative Protestant men who attend church regularly are found to be the least likely group to engage in domestic violence.

Marxist feminist Elizabeth Brusco set out to study the impact of evangelical conversion on family life in Columbia. Here’s what she discovered by careful research:

The asceticism required of evangelicals brings about change in the behavior of male converts, particularly in relation to the machismo complex in Latin America. Drinking, smoking, and extramarital sexual relations are forbidden. By redirecting into the household the resources spent on these things, such changes have the effect of raising the standard of living of women and children who are in varying degrees dependent on the income of these men.

My data on Colombian evangelical households support the conclusion reached by virtually every other analyst of Latin American Pentecostalism, that is, that conversion of both a woman and her husband improves the material circumstances of the household. Quite simply, no longer is 20 to 40 percent of the household budget consumed by the husband in the form of alcohol. Ascetic codes block many of the other extra-household forms of consumption that characterize masculine behavior in Colombia: in addition to drinking, smoking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes are no longer permitted.

Furthermore, an emphasis on male as well as female fidelity within marriage prohibits a man from keeping a woman other than his wife, and so a man’s limited resources are no longer split among two or more households dependent on his wage.

In re-forming male values to be more consistent with female ones (i.e., oriented toward the family rather than toward individualistic consumption) the movement provides a “strategic” challenge to the prevailing form of sexual subordination in Colombia. [pp 5-6]

Bruscho concludes:

The tangible changes and improvement in the standard of living of women and children in dependent households is only a symptom or an indicator of something much more remarkable that is happening.

With conversion, machismo is replaced by evangelical belief as the main determinant of husband-wife relations. The machismo role and the male role defined by evangelicalism are almost diametrical opposites . Aggression, violence, pride, self-indulgence, and an individualistic orientation in the public sphere are replaced by peace seeking, humility, self-restraint, and a collective orientation and identity with the church and the home. [p 139]

Read the article here

Economics 101

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money

Maybe I’m turning into that Grumpy Old Man that nobody likes, but I am so frustrated by so-called experts who spout absolute nonsense in the media, and nobody even bats an eyelid much less call them to account.

This morning on “AM” there was a piece about unemployment remaining stubbornly high and people taking cuts to wages. Those who do have work (full time or casual) are feeling insecure about their work situation.

The obvious problem affecting employment is that the cost of employing people is higher than the extra returns businesses get by employing more people. If it costs more to employ someone that you get in return, you will either employ fewer people or reduce their wages. That is why cutting penalty rates for weekend work is a good idea and may actually lead to more people getting weekend work and in the longer term wages going up.

The reverse situation is that if you can see that employing an extra person will generate more profit than the cost of employing them, of course you will put on more workers.

So what did the “expert” give as the solution? Get out and spend! If you feel worried about your job security get out there and boost the economy.

To see how stupid that idea is, just consider that if that were an anxious employee a thing you could do would be to support your employer. If you spend all your pay at your boss’s shop that should help him to pay you more, right? Well not exactly. The wages the employer pays come out of the profit margin not out of the total price. I spend $100 in the shop the employer might only have $20 extra to put back into employing someone, or into paying me more.  The other $80 goes into buying the products, electricity, insurance, taxes, rent etc.

The correct answer to increasing employment is that we all need to save more, not spend more. Put the money in the bank, invest in shares, whatever. When you do that it provides money for the most efficient enterprises to invest in their business and make employees more productive and allow them to employ more people.

Running an economy on the sugar hit of consumption spending just gives it a bit of a sugar hit but makes it slow and flabby in the long run. Increasing savings is like the high fibre diet that we know will make us healthier in the long term, but seems no fun at the beginning.

Oh and the other good thing the government could do for the economy is cut its spending way back so that it  no longer runs at a loss every year, then cut taxes so that people are free to spend or save the way they see fit. Yes there would be an increase in unemployment in the short term, but business would quickly take up the slack and increase productivity and employment.

It’s not going to happen any time soon. Not as long as people think you spend your way to prosperity.