Genesis 47: 13 – 27
Meanwhile, the famine became so severe that all the food was used up, and people were starving throughout the lands of Egypt and Canaan. By selling grain to the people, Joseph eventually collected all the money in Egypt and Canaan, and he put all the money in Pharaoh’s treasury. When the people of Egypt and Canaan ran out of money, all the Egyptians came to Joseph. “Our money is gone!” they cried. “But please give us food, or we will die before your very eyes!”
Joseph replied, “Since your money is gone, bring me your livestock. I will give you food in exchange for your livestock.” So they brought their livestock to Joseph in exchange for food. In exchange for their horses, flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and donkeys, Joseph provided them with food for another year.
But that year ended, and the next year they came again and said, “We cannot hide the truth from you, my lord. Our money is gone, and all our livestock and cattle are yours. We have nothing left to give but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your very eyes? Buy us and our land in exchange for food; we offer our land and ourselves as slaves for Pharaoh. Just give us grain so we may live and not die, and so the land does not become empty and desolate.”
Commentary: Be wary of giving the government your means to be self supportive. Excessive taxation is the equivalent of slavery. When the government comes with its programs and grand plans, while slowly taking away freedoms and liberties, we slowly become enslaved. When more and more people are supported by government (employed or just “assisted”) it costs those people and others freedom and liberty.
Government is best that governs least on behalf of its hard working, producing people. When a majority are supported by government programs, we all work for the state. It is backwards and has never worked anywhere. If government is your provider, it is also your master.
-Sean Morgan
Here is some more biblical food for thought. The ancient Israelites didnt listen to Gods warning and were cast out from Israel, is America doing the same since 9/11?
Isaiah 9:10 – “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”
These words were first uttered by leaders in Israel and in response to a limited strike by Assyria on the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali an attack the prophet makes clear is actually part of a limited judgment by God against apostasy. It wasn’t meant to destroy the nation, but to awaken it, according to most commentaries.
What I have learned in a few short months since I began studying the Isaiah 9:10 effect has changed my entire perception of 9/11 and the future of America. It has been a wake-up call that I believe the entire nation needs to hear. I hope and pray you will help me spread the word. – Joseph Farah
Full article here:
http://partneringwitheagles.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/isaiah-910-america-under-judgment-2/
Sean very well done my friend!
So instead of giving to those in need, Joseph capitalized on the grain. Joseph’s Capitalism led to massive suffering. So, Capitalism is a good thing?
Taxation is at its lowest point in sixty years. Excessive taxation is bad, yes. However, in the US, we do not have excessive taxation. Any simpleton can see that if we are going to fight two wars, it is going to cost money. Like those whiny Occutards, the Far Right wants things like Defense without paying for it. The old want their medicines without paying for them. If you want “Free” medicines and nation-building, you have to pay for it!
“A prisoner will find fault in every one of his jailors except the jailor who throws him an extra scrap of food now and then. That jailor will become the lesser evil, and thus become the favored jailor. ”
Joseph wasn’t practicing capitalism within a free republic under the rule of law as we enjoy…but nice try.
A good capitalist in a free country knows that it is stupid to destroy his customers ability to purchase and invest. A stupid capitalist will come to no good end…all in Gods time.
The unscrupulous, selfish, and greedy exist in every segment of society; these are human traits, not traits of capitalism. why do you imply that capitalism is the source of this suffering?
The people were doing what people so often do…they were putting their faith in a man instead of God and relying on his (hoped for) benevolence instead of their own God given talents and skills. Instead of acting out of faith they were indulging in the easy path.
Observer you seem to enjoy preaching but you haven’t offered your own favored method or system for our consideration. Also, how to achieve it…care to share?
Q or O whoever… Once again you miss the point…deliberately?
The moral of that story had less to do with Joseph’s capitalism, and more about people surrendering their means to live free and trusting in one man, but I think you are smart enough to know that. I think you were just indirectly trying to strike a blow against the “evil rich,” as would be Joseph in this case.
Next… Nobody in their right mind has any illusions that those last two wars cost us a lot money! We should know we’re the one’s paying for it, so are our children and grandchildren and its an obscene amount of money!!!!
We also understand that at the moment we are not generating the tax revenues to pay down that massive debt our blunders have caused us. We get it. Yes, a tax increase looks like it should inevitable, it looks right!!!! But, is it?
There’s more to this story than merely not wanting to cough up the tax money. This is about not triggering inflation while we are still struggling in recession. That could lead us into a depression – we fear that, maybe you disagree, but we think we have a legitimate reason to be concerned that could happen. This is about hoping we can avoid those future tax hikes long enough to get the economy back on track and start creating real jobs, good paying private sector jobs so that people are not vastly under-employed. But, the government seems to be getting in the way.
Many of us sincerely believe the best way to recover from recession is do not impose more taxes because it could be counter-productive to all these shared goals of ours and yours! We firmly believe that if we taxed all the wealthy 100% we still would not raise enough capital to put even a small dent in the deficit.
Taxing the rich may sound great to the masses, but in truth it’s only a grand diversion away from a much greater problem. That problem is the robber barons who are in charge in high office and their monumental waste, fraud and abuse of power. They are squandering our wealth and if we could ever get a handled on that waste and thievery we would have no need for more taxes. You would be happy – we would be happy.
Surely we can agree there’s almost no place you can look where the taxpayers are not being grossly overcharged or we are being restrained from progressing by some sort of stupidity imposed on us by government? That’s the problem, thats what OWS and the Tea Party and everybody with a brain needs to confront and change. Then we can get this country back on its tracks!
The easy way to fix our fiscal problems is to just take more from the people. The rich are a particularly easy target because, “they can afford it” and “they don’t need that much money”. Makes sense on an emotional level…who could possibly disagree?
I disagree. The American people can’t afford to take a hostile attitude to those who invest in America’s business because American business is what drives the entire engine of the country. American business puts people to work and in doing so makes the tax base larger. When American businesses thrive the economy becomes dynamic and further investment in growth, innovation, and government becomes possible.
According to this website:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
54% of the budget goes toward social and welfare programs with another fifth going to support a variety of public services like education, research, etc.
A major goal that would make sense, and would both lower the need for social services and increase the tax base, should be a larger percentage of the people willing and able to provide for themselves. Another should be to reform SS: 1. Create personal retirement accounts for younger people, and 2. Use means testing so that wealthy older people would recieve a lesser percentage of their benefits. Consolidation of social services programs and better oversight so that there is less fraud and abuse and benefits get to those who truly need them would also help to move us toward a more productive society. Education reform that would put dollars in the classroom and teachers that are rewarded on merit and subject to performance requirements would also have an impact on producing more productive private sector.
I don’t mind paying taxes if I believe my tax doillars are being used to great effect, whether for the military or for other things. I hate the waste and I hate policies and programs that make people dependent or are redundant or ineffective. I hate that so much is spent on a huge bureaucracy. I also hate that the private sector must spend, in addition to taxes, a ridiculous amount of money to comply with confusing and often conflicting regulation and taxation filing.
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jhammerton/the-hidden-cost-of-regulation
I wish I had a giant eraser.
Blaming the cost of wars for our economic problems is to ignore all of the above dysfunction and waste both in terms of money and human potential.
The defense budget is about 20% of the budget according to the referenced site on the budget above (cbpp). In today’s world I don’t think that is terribly excessive. I do think we need to be smarter about how we spend the taxpayers money, including defense dollars. It’s time to find a way to make government lean, mean and accountable!
Why do we need to reform Social Security? If the money had not been stolen to pay for wars, there would be no SS deficit! We don’t need to reform SS, we need to stop stealing from it.
I don’t ignore the waste! The Republicans did when they went to war without taking care of the waste first. Remember, government’s job is to serve and protect the citizenry–not to waste treasure building nations in the Middle East!
The budget for making war is no longer added into the defense budget–it is a separate line item.
Actually, working Americans have paid so much in Social Security payroll taxes during the past three decades that they have built up a $2.6 trillion surplus in the account. That money should make the system strong enough to cover the current level of benefits for the next 26 years. In the interim, a prudent government could restructure the program for the rest of the century, perhaps by means-testing benefits and rejiggering contributions. You don’t hear politicians telling us that do you? No, we have to pry these facts out of Washington.
In 1983, Congress and the Reagan administration adjusted Social Security taxes and benefits to put the program on an even keel that began to build up a huge surplus for investment. But Congress decided to borrow the surplus instead of investing. Theyve been using it to help pay for things that have nothing to do with Social Security, things the political establishment and tax-averse Americans wanted but didnt want to pay for: invasions, education, highway repairs and so on. And, without giving any thought to paying the surplus money back, the federal government has been trading it for special Treasury bonds that politicians used to assure us were safe in a lockbox. Ha!
It would be nice if we could drag the past five presidents and all members of Congress since 1983 into court and squeeze the $2.6 trillion out of them. But we cant. We elected them, and they did all the borrowing for us. Given the lack of attention we self-governing Americans paid over all those years, we would be wise not to get too huffy about the situation. According to a recent poll conducted for Investors Business Daily, only 40 percent of us realize that the Social Security trust fund is composed of IOUs.
Ironically Ronald Reagan was the first president to start borrowing from SS in order to avoid national bankruptcy. Every president since then has done the same damn thing!
Isn’t that a rotten shame?