The Archives

• 10.14.08
  These are Historic Times
  News (2)

  Last night I watched Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos in amazement as I saw republicans, democrats, former Treasury Secretaries, stock traders, and political commentators all agree that government ownership of financial institutions was the only option to get us out of the current financial crisis.  This would usually go against conservative principle, but they say there is no other alternative. We learned later that, indeed, the federal government will begin purchasing ownership in banks.  One commentator announced, "We're All Socialists Now." Yesterday, the Dow gained 936 points (11%) on the news.  Who knows what will happen today. Is this what it feels ...
  
  
• 10.13.08
  Is the Financial Crisis the Church’s Fault?
  Christianity, Ecclesiology, News (0)

  Tony Jones makes the comment that without a wide swath of our culture subscribing to Calvinism and the "protestant work ethic" free market economies are a thing of the past. Are free markets incompatible with secularism?  Is the only hope for the free markets a Third Great Awakening?  Or maybe the first Global Great Awakening? Or, to put it another way, is the current financial crisis the church's fault? Update: David Fitch has a great post asking good questions about how this financial crisis might affect the church.
  
  
• 10.10.08
  The Market is Reaching the Bottom
  News (0)

  I'm no economist, but I think it's a fun game to play.  So, I'm going to make a prediction: we are likely within 1,000 points of the market's (Dow Jones Industrial Average) bottom.  Now, the recent financial roller coaster isn't anything to sneeze at: The Dow has fallen 39% in the past year The S&P 500 has fallen 42% in the past year In the last six trading days, the Dow fell 20.8%. The definition of a bear market is when markets fall 20%.  And we lost that amount in just six days. Six days, sheesh. There's general panic all around. Newspapers, TV shows, ...
  
  
• 09.26.08
  More on the Economy: Home Prices
  News (0)

  I'm fascinated by the current news happening in the financial markets right now.  For some reason it's all very interesting to me. One of the most telling article's I've read in recent days is this article from the Wall Street Journal that shows the ratio of median home prices to median incomes.  From 1981-2000, the ratio held fairly constant around 2.66.  So, a family with an income of 37,600 would have owned a $100,000 house. Starting in 2001 that ratio started to skyrocket until it peaked at around 4.10 in October 2005.  That same family making 37,600 would have owned a $154,000 ...