Singular Saints

This last weekend the Sunday School Lesson covered the material in 3rd Nephi 9 about the events that happened in the Western Hemisphere at the time of the crucifixion.  While reading the descriptions of the changes to the land, the thought came to me that it sounded like a massive earthquake.  I wondered if there might be any geologic evidence for any large earthquakes on the North American continent, so I did a Google search and came up with some interesting information, which I’ve blended here:

The most widely felt earthquakes in the recorded history of North America occurred in 1811-1812 near New Madrid, Missouri. (About 400 miles south of Independence.) A great earthquake,  estimated at magnitude 8, occurred on the morning of December 16, 1811. Another occurred on January 23, 1812, and a third, the strongest, on February 7, 1812.

The quakes were felt across two-thirds of the United States and in Canada. They changed the elevation of land by as much as 20 feet.  Large areas sank into the earth, fissures opened, lakes permanently drained, new lakes were formed and forests were destroyed over an area of 150,000 acres (600 km²). Many houses at New Madrid were thrown down. “Houses, gardens, and fields were swallowed up”.  This temblors caused permanent changes in the course of the Mississippi River, giving the illusion that it was flowing backward. The crew of the New Orleans (the first steamboat on the Mississippi, which was on her maiden voyage) reported mooring to an island only to awake in the morning to find that the island had disappeared.  Along the Tennessee/Arkansas state line, geological features are still present almost 200 years after the events, showing the former course of the river.

Survivors reported that the earthquakes caused cracks to open in the earth’s surface, the ground to roll in visible waves, and large areas of land to sink or rise.  Damage was reported as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C.  In Bootheel Mo, the land was so damaged that it was even unfit for farming for many years. It was the largest burst of seismic energy east of the Rocky Mountains in the history of the United States and was several times larger than the San Francisco quake of 1906.

Several lines of research suggest that the catastrophic quakes happen in the New Madrid region every 500-600 years.  A 7.5 or greater quake, happens every 200- 300 years.

Obviously, these facts are not conclusive evidence that an earthquake did occur around Jackson County 1975 years ago, but to my way of thinking they increase the possibility, as seismologists believe the area has been seismically active (and in the same place) for 750 million years.

-df

I noticed this morning that Apple Computer has come out againt Proposition 8 on it’s web page, stating: “…we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”

This raised a question for me; Exactly what are our “fundamental rights”? The Wikipedia article on Fundamental Rights states:

In American Constitutional Law, fundamental rights have special significance under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Via the due process and equal protection clauses of that amendment, the Supreme Court has held that some rights are so fundamental, that any law restricting such a right must both serve a compelling state purpose, and be narrowly tailored to that compelling purpose.  It states further: “…the Supreme Court has legally recognized some fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, including:

• the right to privacy
• the right to marriage
• the right to procreation
• the right to interstate travel

Any restrictions on these rights on the basis of race or religion are evaluated with strict scrutiny. If they are denied to everyone, it is an issue of substantive due process. If they are denied to some individuals but not others, it is also an issue of equal protection.”

So, under the U.S. Constitution, marriage is considered a fundamental right, and a person cannot be denied marriage on the basis of race or religion and all are due equal protection of that right.

When this was last argued before the California Supreme Court, the key points came down to the definition of marriage and family.  Justice Carlos R. Moreno identified the central question when he asked;  “Doesn’t this just boil down to the use of the m-word — marriage?”

Folks; Marriage already has a meaning.

No, I’m not talking about the latest swing of the Dow, I’m talking about the cover of the October 2008 issue of Scientific American which declares:  Forget the Big Bang: Now It’s the Big Bounce.  Quantum gravity theory predicts the universe will never die.  The article goes on to explain how time may extend back before the “bang”, which was proceeded by a big crunch, and so on and so forth, from eternity to eternity, worlds and universes without end.

I love it whenever science catches up with religion.

For those of you who may be in a major panic over the stock market situation it might be helpful to take a look at the historic performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is made up of  30 stocks that are a reasonable snapshot of American businesses.

Prior to this week the largest drop on the Dow was on October 19, 1987, when it fell 22% from 2600 to 1800. Two days later it rose 10%. It was back to 2600 two years later. The next big one day drop (14%) happened on September 17th, 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Looking at some longer term moves, the Dow dropped 35% from 11,500 in January of 2000 to 7500 in October of 2002. From there, it rose to 86% to 14,000 last October.

If we take the really long term view, the Dow has averaged about 5% over the past 100 years.  A 5% annual rate of interest will double your money every 14 years. There’s a handy compound interest calculator which you can use to figure out how fast your money can grow at different rates. (Plug in $40.94 - the starting value on May 26, 1896 - and 111 years at 5.3% and you’ll get $12,638.54, which is right where the Dow was on May 30th of this year.

Don’t let the big numbers scare you. In fact, this could be a great opportunity to pick up a few shares of a company like GE, Delta Airlines or Apple Computer, all of whom have been dragged down but offer good products.

With all the rants and raves about just how much of an impact on the economy the “bailout” will have it might be a good idea to compare it to some other figures:

The 2007 Gross Domestic Product of the United States was $13,807,500,000,000. (13.8 Trillion) dollars. In 2006, the market capitalization (total value of US businesses) was about $20 Trillion.  The portion of the bailout is (700/13,807) or roughly 5%  of our GDP.  For comparison, the government spent $662 billion on National Defence in 2007.  For a closer look, go to the Bureau of Economic Analysis Web site. At the same time, our National Debt has just topped Ten Trillion Dollars.

Consider this in the light of your own personal financial condition; According to MSN Money the average American carries $8000 in credit card debt.  The national median home price is about $220,000 and the median income is $50,000.  The average American owes another $70,000 in mortgage. According to MSN Money; “The average U.S. household with a mortgage, two college graduates who borrowed money for school and more than one credit card, owes about $112,000.” That’s an income to debt ratio of 44%.  The U.S. has a ratio of 50%.  What’s going on?  The US and rest of the world is waking up from a “bad credit” dream.

The current cost of the “bailout” works out to about $6000 per household.  I’m not sure that we haven’t already paid for that in the “loss” in the values of our homes and retirement accounts.  I was looking at mine and it was very distressing to see a 30% drop in its value over the past three years, but there’s something else going on that’s illustrated by what happened to my home “value” over the last four years.

When I bought my house the market had been pretty flat, it been for sale for about a year with no takers.  I was happy with the price and the seller was glad to get it.  About six months ago I had a realtor run some comps on other houses in the area and was amazed at the prices.  It appeared that the value of my house had gone up 66%. All I had done was put put up a bigger garage and redone some plumbing, which cost about 6% of my purchase price.

At this point alarm bells should have been going off in my head. How does one get a 66% gain from a 6% investment over four years?  Luck? I submit that there is really only one answer to that; greed/covertness.  If I had sold then, somebody else would have gotten a very bad deal.

The answer to the question; “Do you have any money?”  has been and should always be; “We have sufficient for our needs.”  There comes a point where enough is enough.  Now that the Fed has dropped interest rates to 1.5%, maybe we’ll all get another chance to finally get out of debt - or pretty close to it.  But more importantly, it’s time to stop blaming someone else for the problem, take a cold hard look in the mirror and get back to work.  All that money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere will always be people working, or as it’s put in another place; “Be fruitful and multiply.”

-df

P.S. Due to over 5000 spam comments to this posting I’m turning off the ability to comment.

Brigham Young said something that may be relevant considering how close we are to voting;

“We want men to rule the nation who care more for and love better the nation’s welfare than gold and silver, fame or popularity.”

I watched the Vice Presidentail candidate’s debate and wasn’t too impressed.

Can you imagine President Monson as President, President Eyring as VP and Dieter Uchdorf as Secretary of Defense?

How would you fill out the presidency and cabinet with General Authorities?

One of the drawbacks of our modern economic system is that it insulates us from our actual financial condition. We go online and look at squiggles on a screen or get reports in the mail which tell us how much “money” we have, rather than having cash or goods at hand.

While searching for Brigham Young’s comment about not being able to eat gold, I came across an article by David Andrews called “You Can’t Eat Gold” which was pretty interesting.  It reminded me that the only thing that really has any potential value is time and what we do with it - work.  Every day we get 24 hours to do things.  If we create more value than we consume, we end up with a “gain” on the day (”be fruitful…”).  If we produce less value than we consume, we have a loss. If I were a farmer or craftsman I’d have actual goods as a result of my efforts. Expertise - knowing how to do something well - is the most “marketable” skill.

When I came home yesterday my house looked the same as it did when I left for work.  My car had an additional couple of dozen miles on the odometer.  My investment portfolio’s value had changed.  While I wasn’t looking, other people decided that the future value of other people’s efforts wasn’t worth as much.  In order for that to happen, credit and risk had to creep into the value equation.  Once we buy into the idea that we have to borrow money, rather than working and saving for something until we can can pay cash, the rest follows naturally.

In this case, it looks like we’re all going to get to contribute about $6000 per household to make up the difference.