The so called "stimulus" package that was signed into law is a hoax! Yes we will get money, but most of us are going to use it to pay debt.
Now think about this a moment.
What has just happened to banks? They have gone through a time of massive foreclosures and loan defaults. The congress will not bail them out so close to an election, well at least not forthrightly. So what do they do? They form a stimulus package where the majority will not be spent, but will be used to pay off some debt that is owed on credit cards, to, YOU GUESSED IT, banks. Two big losers in the sub prime mortgage were Citibank and Household Bank Corp. Two of the largest holders of credit card debt.
The Stimulus Package is NOT going to help the economy but THIS would!
Congress needs to place a limit on the interest rate a bank can charge for unsecured or revolving credit. The highest should be no more than 12%, which is still substantially higher than what was thought to be exorbitant just 50 years ago. This would immediately and permanently increase the fungible funds available to every family in the US who has credit card debt. This increase in funds would be not just for a month but for a lifetime. This would have a positive effect on the economy as there would be more funds to spend. It would also help people, not banks.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
We Will Be Better!
Soon we will be seeing what a GREAT company looks like. I can't wait! We will not be a company that promotes individuals who have chosen to be degraded for money like the company we chose to leave did. (go here)
I am glad we have people of principle who are interested in lifting up wholesome, God centered, and honest business practices. That we will have a company that we will not be afraid to speak the name of in someones home.
It has been quite a vacation, but we will soon return to the business of not only changing peoples hearts, but changing their financial lives as well.
BTW, in my next blog, I will give you a stimulus package that will work not for a couple of days, it would work for a lifetime.
In Christ,
firstjohn
I am glad we have people of principle who are interested in lifting up wholesome, God centered, and honest business practices. That we will have a company that we will not be afraid to speak the name of in someones home.
It has been quite a vacation, but we will soon return to the business of not only changing peoples hearts, but changing their financial lives as well.
BTW, in my next blog, I will give you a stimulus package that will work not for a couple of days, it would work for a lifetime.
In Christ,
firstjohn
Saturday, February 9, 2008
A leader in helping Rwandan's
A little history:
Rwanda went through a civil war and genocide beginning in 1994. Hutu extremists took over media, killed Hutu moderates, and slaughtered the Tutsi tribe. After 100 days of slaughter more than a million Tutsi tribespeople were dead. This left thousands of orphans, so many in fact that most of those living in Rwanda today are under the age of 30. There are still many orphans living in the streets of Kigali (Rwanda's capital city) today.
Into this situation came Joie Pirkey. God had given her a verse for the Bible, which she did not quite understand for some time. This was:
Dan_9:1,
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;
While at a conference (I was there, and can confirm this) Bernard Blessing was speaking and stated he would be speaking to Darius Twagirayesu a friend of his. It was at that moment she realized that the God was speaking to her about Darius.
Darius was born in Rwanda, during the Genocide his family was slaughtered by the Hutu, he even suffered a large gash on the head and was left for dead. Through this experience Darius felt God had spared him for a reason. He now works to bring to light what happened there.
Through her contact with Darius, Joie found that God wanted her to build an orphanage in Rwanda. She has followed that calling. Today she and her family continue to go to Rwanda to help the orphans. She continues to lead an effort to bring light to a dark situation. And she continues to follow Johns edict:
Jam_1:27,
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
She is leading a great and wonderful effort, and through her effort and that of others concerned with Rwanda, a Revival has come to the people of the people there. They are even sending missionaries here!
Thank you Joie for your effort and leadership in an area of such need.
Links:
Shouts of Joy Ministries Rwanda
Darius Twagirayesu and International Hope for Rwanda
Rwanda went through a civil war and genocide beginning in 1994. Hutu extremists took over media, killed Hutu moderates, and slaughtered the Tutsi tribe. After 100 days of slaughter more than a million Tutsi tribespeople were dead. This left thousands of orphans, so many in fact that most of those living in Rwanda today are under the age of 30. There are still many orphans living in the streets of Kigali (Rwanda's capital city) today.
Into this situation came Joie Pirkey. God had given her a verse for the Bible, which she did not quite understand for some time. This was:
Dan_9:1,
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;
While at a conference (I was there, and can confirm this) Bernard Blessing was speaking and stated he would be speaking to Darius Twagirayesu a friend of his. It was at that moment she realized that the God was speaking to her about Darius.
Darius was born in Rwanda, during the Genocide his family was slaughtered by the Hutu, he even suffered a large gash on the head and was left for dead. Through this experience Darius felt God had spared him for a reason. He now works to bring to light what happened there.
Through her contact with Darius, Joie found that God wanted her to build an orphanage in Rwanda. She has followed that calling. Today she and her family continue to go to Rwanda to help the orphans. She continues to lead an effort to bring light to a dark situation. And she continues to follow Johns edict:
Jam_1:27,
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
She is leading a great and wonderful effort, and through her effort and that of others concerned with Rwanda, a Revival has come to the people of the people there. They are even sending missionaries here!
Thank you Joie for your effort and leadership in an area of such need.
Links:
Shouts of Joy Ministries Rwanda
Darius Twagirayesu and International Hope for Rwanda
Monday, January 28, 2008
A Post I Tried to Make to Frank @ Orrin's BLOG
Frank,
As Orrin quotes Einstein:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
We are in the political and moral quagmire due to TWO parties. Both the Republican and Democrat.
We all know the lack of moral leadership in the Democrat party. But here is the problem with the Republican party.
a) Their big business at the expense of the working person agenda, the common man has no voice. The Republican vote goes to the highest bidder.
b) The Republican party is suppose to be for free enterprise, free market and free competition, however they have made it possible for just a few companies to dominate markets. Without competition prices go up. Look at gas prices for example. I know the common answer they only make a few cents per gallon of gas pumped, while this may be true for completed refined product, it is only one small part of their profit stream. The end products of gasoline, diesel fuel, and home heating oil has no bearing on the core of their profits: They OWN the fields, wells, the oil, the transportation companies, the refineries, and the trucking companies. They BENEFIT when oil prices are higher because they do not use 100% of their crude for themselves, they sell it to plastics industries such as carpeting and pharmaceuticals. They benefit from the same principles as Sam Walton did, only for them the product has very little effect on their high margin profits.
c) The Republican claim to be conservative in several areas:
1) In finance, however we have the largest NON Constitutional spending ever while they controlled both legislative branches and the White House.
2) Overturning abortion on demand and partial birth abortion: They controlled both houses and yet did nothing to curb abortion.
3) Bankruptcy: They made it harder for the common man to file for bankruptcy yet left it open for big business to carry on business as usual in order to claim bankruptcy. This hurt the common man through businesses like Enron.
They also sat around and let banks and financial institution make questionable loans that has ended in the debacle we have before us right now. They also allow banks to issue historically high interest revolving credit cards. High interest USE to be 7% however most credit cards "quietly" go from 6 or 7% introductory rates to exhorbotant rates of 15% or higher. This is another reason our economy is busting, with less fungible cash there is less spending on goods and services, thus less economic growth.
One problem with Ron Paul is his desire to take funding away from Israel. God has promised to curse those nations that curse Israel. President Bush (whom I voted for twice and have an autographed picture of) through the Rice doctrine has hamstrung Israel, has made Israel give up it's land for a very tenuous "peace" deal that Hamas could care less about (note they are still sending missiles into Israel while "negotiating" peace). All the Islamic countries have pledged to push them into the sea. With Paul will come a total turning of God's providence on our country.
There is only ONE party that fits the bill of what we need, and until we stop being house slaves to the Republican establishment with the "YOUR VOTE IS A VOTE FOR HILLARY" or whatever Demoncrat is running against the "still go down the tubes at a slower rate" Republican party (I personally don't want to go down the tubes), we will still move towards destruction.
Again there is only one party that can avert this, it is the Constitution Party that is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and a literal original intent reading of the Constitution.
As Orrin quotes Einstein:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
We are in the political and moral quagmire due to TWO parties. Both the Republican and Democrat.
We all know the lack of moral leadership in the Democrat party. But here is the problem with the Republican party.
a) Their big business at the expense of the working person agenda, the common man has no voice. The Republican vote goes to the highest bidder.
b) The Republican party is suppose to be for free enterprise, free market and free competition, however they have made it possible for just a few companies to dominate markets. Without competition prices go up. Look at gas prices for example. I know the common answer they only make a few cents per gallon of gas pumped, while this may be true for completed refined product, it is only one small part of their profit stream. The end products of gasoline, diesel fuel, and home heating oil has no bearing on the core of their profits: They OWN the fields, wells, the oil, the transportation companies, the refineries, and the trucking companies. They BENEFIT when oil prices are higher because they do not use 100% of their crude for themselves, they sell it to plastics industries such as carpeting and pharmaceuticals. They benefit from the same principles as Sam Walton did, only for them the product has very little effect on their high margin profits.
c) The Republican claim to be conservative in several areas:
1) In finance, however we have the largest NON Constitutional spending ever while they controlled both legislative branches and the White House.
2) Overturning abortion on demand and partial birth abortion: They controlled both houses and yet did nothing to curb abortion.
3) Bankruptcy: They made it harder for the common man to file for bankruptcy yet left it open for big business to carry on business as usual in order to claim bankruptcy. This hurt the common man through businesses like Enron.
They also sat around and let banks and financial institution make questionable loans that has ended in the debacle we have before us right now. They also allow banks to issue historically high interest revolving credit cards. High interest USE to be 7% however most credit cards "quietly" go from 6 or 7% introductory rates to exhorbotant rates of 15% or higher. This is another reason our economy is busting, with less fungible cash there is less spending on goods and services, thus less economic growth.
One problem with Ron Paul is his desire to take funding away from Israel. God has promised to curse those nations that curse Israel. President Bush (whom I voted for twice and have an autographed picture of) through the Rice doctrine has hamstrung Israel, has made Israel give up it's land for a very tenuous "peace" deal that Hamas could care less about (note they are still sending missiles into Israel while "negotiating" peace). All the Islamic countries have pledged to push them into the sea. With Paul will come a total turning of God's providence on our country.
There is only ONE party that fits the bill of what we need, and until we stop being house slaves to the Republican establishment with the "YOUR VOTE IS A VOTE FOR HILLARY" or whatever Demoncrat is running against the "still go down the tubes at a slower rate" Republican party (I personally don't want to go down the tubes), we will still move towards destruction.
Again there is only one party that can avert this, it is the Constitution Party that is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and a literal original intent reading of the Constitution.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Why Hasn't the FTC Acted on the Pyramid?
I believe there is a reason. A very large contributor to the Republican Party and a candidate for Governor in Michigan. They do not want to dry up a cash cow. Think about it.
Anyway this brings me to the reason for this post.
We have had the same two parties in power since at least the 1860's. But that is history. I am going to address the last 40 years.
What has happened? We have had a steady drift to the left. The last few years have seen that drift increase at a vastly higher pace. I got rid of network television about three years ago. There was not much in the way of homosexual inclusion at that time. I think ER had one, but I don't remember many more than that. I understand that this is no longer the case. A show called Ugly Betty is glorifying that "deathstyle" (all one must do is read about the longevity of homosexual men to find out what I mean by that). It also pushed our children to become sexually active at younger and younger ages.
Our society needs LEADERS to lead us out of this. We are a training organization that can do just that. But with that said I would like to ask you a question. Would you be interested in a NEW political party? One that has the following founding principles, and stand of Jesus and the original intent of the Constitution?
Anyway this brings me to the reason for this post.
We have had the same two parties in power since at least the 1860's. But that is history. I am going to address the last 40 years.
What has happened? We have had a steady drift to the left. The last few years have seen that drift increase at a vastly higher pace. I got rid of network television about three years ago. There was not much in the way of homosexual inclusion at that time. I think ER had one, but I don't remember many more than that. I understand that this is no longer the case. A show called Ugly Betty is glorifying that "deathstyle" (all one must do is read about the longevity of homosexual men to find out what I mean by that). It also pushed our children to become sexually active at younger and younger ages.
Our society needs LEADERS to lead us out of this. We are a training organization that can do just that. But with that said I would like to ask you a question. Would you be interested in a NEW political party? One that has the following founding principles, and stand of Jesus and the original intent of the Constitution?
Seven Principles of the Constitution Party are:
1. Life: For all human beings, from conception to natural death;
2. Liberty: Freedom of conscience and actions for the self-governed individual;
3. Family: One husband and one wife with their children as divinely instituted;
4. Property: Each individual's right to own and steward personal property without government burden;
5. Constitution: and Bill of Rights interpreted according to the actual intent of the Founding Fathers;
6. States' Rights: Everything not specifically delegated by the Constitution to the federal government is reserved for the state and local jurisdictions;
7. American Sovereignty: American government committed to the protection of the borders, trade, and common defense of Americans, and not entangled in foreign alliances.
If these look good to you, I will give you some information. It is the third largest political party in the US with registrations. It is growing faster than ever before as Republican Party has drifted further and further away from its fiscal responsibility and conservative ideals.
It is the Constitution Party. If you like what you read go to their website.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
It Is Time
Today is the day.
My friend James died almost 5 months ago. Today I am doing something I have dreaded for a while. It is a simple thing, something that we do often and don't think about. What I am talking about is deleting his number and name from my cell phone. It has been hard, I have thought about it often, but I see his name and I think about how I use to call him and most of the time I would get his recording. By now someone else probably owns that number anyway.
The question that has went through my mind every time I thought about deleting his number is will I think about him as often?
One thing that I do know is, I WILL see him again. He knew Christ as his savior. So even when James is not crossing my mind he will always be on Jesus'!
What James knew was this life is transitory, we only walk around in these bodies for a certain amount of days. Jame's were numbered in years, 41. I am not sad, I just miss talking with him. One day we will talk again though, which makes me happy.
How did James come about this understanding? He knew it was not about how good he was, or how perfect, or how many good things he accomplished. It was not a thing that is balanced on a scale. It was all about what Jesus did. He was the perfect one, He was the one that "worked the works of his Father". Jesus paid it all, fulfilled it all, and he accomplished all the things that Father requires of us. James accepted that fact, the fact that he would NEVER be able to live up to God's standard, all he could do was to ask for the mercy of the Judge, and the Judge threw his guilt on Christ.
So, although it is time for me to let go of this one last vestige of James' life on this earth, it does not mean that it is the last vestige of James.
My friend James died almost 5 months ago. Today I am doing something I have dreaded for a while. It is a simple thing, something that we do often and don't think about. What I am talking about is deleting his number and name from my cell phone. It has been hard, I have thought about it often, but I see his name and I think about how I use to call him and most of the time I would get his recording. By now someone else probably owns that number anyway.
The question that has went through my mind every time I thought about deleting his number is will I think about him as often?
One thing that I do know is, I WILL see him again. He knew Christ as his savior. So even when James is not crossing my mind he will always be on Jesus'!
What James knew was this life is transitory, we only walk around in these bodies for a certain amount of days. Jame's were numbered in years, 41. I am not sad, I just miss talking with him. One day we will talk again though, which makes me happy.
How did James come about this understanding? He knew it was not about how good he was, or how perfect, or how many good things he accomplished. It was not a thing that is balanced on a scale. It was all about what Jesus did. He was the perfect one, He was the one that "worked the works of his Father". Jesus paid it all, fulfilled it all, and he accomplished all the things that Father requires of us. James accepted that fact, the fact that he would NEVER be able to live up to God's standard, all he could do was to ask for the mercy of the Judge, and the Judge threw his guilt on Christ.
So, although it is time for me to let go of this one last vestige of James' life on this earth, it does not mean that it is the last vestige of James.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
It's Christmas, How Are You Doing?
Hoping this meets you and you are rejoicing! It is great to praise God for His greatest gift to us, that is, His only BEGOTTEN Son Jesus. The One who came to make us free from the effects of our sin. Have YOU accepted this greatest of gifts?
If you are not rejoicing, I pray that you will find some peace to your situation. I care for you. I know it seems the whole world is going by and no one notices your pain. Your heart SCREAMS out to be understood and heard. I care for you!!! If you would like me to pray for you, I will. Just leave a message. Since I have enabled "moderation" of comments, no one will know. God loves you, even though He seems far away, He is right by your side, He will carry you if you ask. I know, I have been there and found that it was me that distanced myself from him.
I am SO thankful for all that God has done this year. I am so thankful that we are soon to walk into the promised land. The days of no straw for making bricks are over. The days of Pharaoh falsely accusing us is over, better, brighter days are upon us. Isn't that GREAT?!.
Truly we are blessed far above those in other ages!!!!
I want to give you some good books to read this year if you are able.
First of course is the Bible. It has answers to all our questions, on life, how to live, how to treat others, how to treat ourselves.
How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson
This book gives us detailed accounts of what we are facing in the culture war we are in, with great answers to what that war is pushing on us.
Spiritual Leadership by Henry Blackaby
This is a book not on the Spiritual leadership you are thinking of, it is on LEADERSHIP in general. I gives us an understanding that true Servant Leadership has a spiritual component to it.
Waking the Dead by John Eldredge
Shows our reality is really only about .05% of what is real. The spiritual is much more powerful and real. Think about it, most of what we assume will happen never does.
These are a few. Please list your favorites!
If you are not rejoicing, I pray that you will find some peace to your situation. I care for you. I know it seems the whole world is going by and no one notices your pain. Your heart SCREAMS out to be understood and heard. I care for you!!! If you would like me to pray for you, I will. Just leave a message. Since I have enabled "moderation" of comments, no one will know. God loves you, even though He seems far away, He is right by your side, He will carry you if you ask. I know, I have been there and found that it was me that distanced myself from him.
I am SO thankful for all that God has done this year. I am so thankful that we are soon to walk into the promised land. The days of no straw for making bricks are over. The days of Pharaoh falsely accusing us is over, better, brighter days are upon us. Isn't that GREAT?!.
Truly we are blessed far above those in other ages!!!!
I want to give you some good books to read this year if you are able.
First of course is the Bible. It has answers to all our questions, on life, how to live, how to treat others, how to treat ourselves.
How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson
This book gives us detailed accounts of what we are facing in the culture war we are in, with great answers to what that war is pushing on us.
Spiritual Leadership by Henry Blackaby
This is a book not on the Spiritual leadership you are thinking of, it is on LEADERSHIP in general. I gives us an understanding that true Servant Leadership has a spiritual component to it.
Waking the Dead by John Eldredge
Shows our reality is really only about .05% of what is real. The spiritual is much more powerful and real. Think about it, most of what we assume will happen never does.
These are a few. Please list your favorites!
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