Okay, this is ridiculous. (concerning economic politics)

I don't know why I'm on such a roll today. But I've got all these ideas bursting messily forth from my head.

I've thought a lot in the past about discipleship and finances. What happens when everyone starts making sense in relation to their finances? Our economy as we know it collapses. This, specifically, is the consumeristic laissez-faire capitalist economy. The American economy is laissez-faire in relation to individuals and classes of people, but it's not close to being laissez-faire relative to business. Two posts ago, I mention my ethics professor and his view of governmental involvement in Western European economies. He says there should be free markets with programs or protections for people. This has helped their economies be more robust, and has generally brought equality to the masses. On the other hand, America continues to widen the gap between the 1 percent that contribute to political campaigns and the masses. Also, the greed of the rich has brought disastrous consequences in our current housing crisis by duping poorer people into getting over their heads in unsound mortgages. Our advertising culture of dissatisfaction made those who took the bad mortgages believe that they deserved the best of everything through consumer credit and also the biggest (im)possible house through mortgage credit. Now our economy is in the dump. Thanks, guys.

If we discipled all Americans to be more frugal, these things would stop happening. The plutarchs would see their balance sheets start to tip toward the negative. Now, there are two kinds of frugality. One is personally oriented and the other is politically oriented. I used to be not frugal. When I got married, my wife helped me become that way, and I'm glad she did. This is personal frugality. My wife was frugal because she wanted her low income to be sufficient to provide her needs and keep her out of debt. But I've developed a political frugality in parallel with my personal frugality. This is where I say that the polis (city, society) needs to become frugal through personal frugality. If everyone started thinking this way, it would bring itself into the political sphere as it's defined today. We would begin electing people that would go the other way from what Alexis de Tocqueville said, in effect, "Democracy is doomed when people discover they can vote themselves the purse" (eg, earmarks, porkbarrelling, whatever). We need to flip-flop our economic priorities: hands-on with individuals through programs that teach them industry and frugality while we support their efforts to get out of debt and on their feet, and laissez-faire with business, where we let market forces actually determine what farmers do and what mortgage companies fail. If we keep propping up bad business practices (and war) with hundreds of billions of dollars, the country will spiral further into debt, and politicians will continue to say, "Sorry, there's no money to keep human beings from living like animals." But if we get our priorities straight, we can all live humanly, where no one, rich or poor has to idolize money. I know, I know. People who are filthy rich might lose money, and poor people might actually begin to become functioning members of society. Tragedy.