The World Under God’s Law

Economics Under God’s Law

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Speech

Track: 04

Dictation Name: RR323B3

Location/Venue: ________

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Economics has to do simply with household management. So the heart of economic the government and the control of the families material resources. Now, as we come to economics today, we have first of all to deal with what economics has become - in order by contrast to see what economics is under God’s law. Someone referred this morning to the fact that what we have today is fiat money. Fiat money. Government-- [audio skips]

Now what does the Bible say about money? Well, there are a number of verses but we’ll take one in particular. Leviticus 19:35-36.

“35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.

36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

You’ll find a similar statement in Deuteronomy 25:13, 14, and 15 in particular; Proverbs 11:1, Proverbs 20:10 and 13--23. And other passages. Now, we don’t fully grasp the meaning of that passage unless we realize what it means when it says ‘just weights’. Well, when we think of just weights we think of scales, but that’s just measures in terms of scriptures. ‘Just weights’ meant just weights of money... Just weights of money. Because money, in Bible times, was by weight! A weight of gold or a weight of silver. A shekel originally was not a coin, but a slug of a given weight of gold or of silver. Money was by weight. So, when God’s law said just weights shall ye have he was declaring that they should have gold and silver as an honest measure.

It is an interesting fact that this standard was very important in this country. As a matter of fact, it was a Reformed preacher that was responsible for the constitutional provision that money is gold and silver coins. That was the Reverent John Witherspoon. Reverent John Witherspoon was the man who was responsible for that - one of the most influential men in the formation of this country and of the constitutional convention. The number of his students who were everything from presidents, vice presidents; senators, congressmen, cabinet members, and the like on down, is legion. It is significant also that in the early days our eagle and double eagle, our ten and twenty dollar gold pieces, did not say ten dollars or twenty dollars...they were just a weight of gold, so that the double eagle is an ounce in weight, 90% fine in gold, 10% alloy. An eagle is half an ounce, a quarter eagle (or a five dollar gold piece) is a quarter of an ounce. It was by weight, and this is one reason why our coinage had such a tremendous popularity all over the world and still does - the double eagle is still the number one coin all over the world!

Moreover, when we issued trade dollars for the far Eastern trade we not only issued a slug of silver (we called it a dollar), but we put the coin the exact number of grains of silver it contained. Because the Puritan impact on the formation of this country followed the Biblical standard of weights as being an honest measure of money. Now, we know God condemns an inflationary money because one of the things we encounter in Isaiah 1 is a statement of that. In Isaiah 1 we have an indictment, drawn up by God and delivered by Isaiah, a bill of indictment saying that God is charging the nation with sin. “Hear ye the word of the Lord ye rulers of sodom. Give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.” God obviously didn’t like them very much.

But he goes on to say in verses 21, 22, and 23. “21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness--”

Remember, the word ‘righteousness’ in the Bible can be translated equally well as justice.

“--righteousness, or justice, lodged in it; but now murderers.

22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.”

Very interesting bill of indictments. Because God says that they are guilty of a number of things, instead of being faithful they are harlots, they are adulterers; instead of having justice they have, not only injustice, but to all practical intents they are a crew of murderers destroying the life of the people. Instead of having an honest weight, pure silver shekels have given way to slugs, they’re lead just like our coins today. Their wine is mixed with water....their princes, the rulers, the judges, are rebellious against God and companions of thieves. Everyone loves gifts, they want payoffs. They follow after rewards, they’re anxious to be paid off. They judge not! Those that are an example, what God (sets?) of Godly concern, they care not for the fatherless and the cause of the widows.

So God here very definitely says that a country that is dishonest in its money is an apostate nation, and his judgement will fall upon it. So we have a clear cut damnation of inflation. Now inflation, historically has taken a number of directions. One of the common forms of inflation through the centuries has been in the early days, Old Testament times and until fairly recent times was to take and to substitute, for the weight or the coin of gold or silver, lead or copper. And to have a thin wash of gold or a thin wash of silver so it would look like it was the real thing. But of course, people would pick up very quickly, as they flipped it they feel a thud rather than the ring of a real coin. And very quickly the gold wash or silver wash would wear off. You know, that’s how Mark Antony lost to Augustus Ceasar, or Octavian. Mark Antony was a brilliant general, he commanded the better part of the empire. Octavian didn’t have a ghost of a chance against him in real battle. The battle of {?} was no real battle. But what happened? Mark Antony wanted to have deficit financing and very quickly it led him to replacing the gold and silver coins with slugs. Octavian stalled and stalled because he knew the character of Mark Antony. Octavian was a gold smiths nephew...he understood economics. He bided his time.

Mark Antony was a very popular general - in no time at all he had troops both in his infantry and in his cavalry as well as the navy who were rebellious! Very unhappy. They were being paid off in worthless slugs, and they were cursing Mark Antony behind his back. When the battle started - Octavian had sent agents throughout the field and in the troops, to say ‘look, what are you working for Mark Antony for? You’re paid in slugs! Octavian will pay you in good gold.’ So what did they do when the battle began? They went over to the other side! And what was there left for Mark Antony and Cleopatra but suicide.

We know, much much later that one of the things that led to serious trouble for Henry the eighth was that all the wealth his very frugal, even stingy, father had built up - a tremendous treasury for England - he spent, and very quickly had to resort to inflation. Slugs. And of course, these coins are gold washed.

But because the coins were imprinted, the nose in his image on the coins kinda stood out a little bit, and the gold wore off there first so the copper showed. So his nickname throughout the kingdom became old copper nose.

Now that was the popular form of inflation used through the centuries. Another was to take the coins and clip them. This was to take a fine tool and shave off a slight amount around it. So slight it would not be at first detectable. But in due time as that coin circulated of course, people would become aware that it was shaved. But the government would be the one that would do it! It would shave the coins every time they were paid in as taxes, and then it would pay them out in wages and for services and for pay for men, and they were shaved! Of course, finally, the mint makers got around that shaving. They didn’t like it when the people did it, but it was all right when the government did it. But the people caught on, and they were doing it! So finally they had to resort to what you have today; the milled edge. You see, and once they instituted the milled edge, if you cut that milled edge and shaved it off it was obvious that you had a defaced coin.

That was a popular form of inflation. Of course, the Chinese developed something even more refined, and they still do it, so if you should go to Hong Kong don’t buy any gold coins there. Because someone went there once and bought a twenty dollar gold piece and thought they were getting a sensational buy, but what some of these fine Chinese artisans had done was to go into it from the milled edge with a drill the thickness of a hair and hollow out the entire inside and get all the gold so that you have a shell, which was then filled with lead. Of course that kind of thing now has been replaced. Because what took its place?

Well, governments began then, or states, to inflate by means of issuing paper money. Ostensively redeemable in gold or silver, but issuing more paper money than there was gold. So that, what they were doing was to issue really bad cheques. Because paper money is chequebook money issued by the civil government. Now when the civil government issues bad cheques it creates an inflation - there’s more purchasing power. And so that purchasing power quickly sops up goods and materials, because people suddenly have - or basically, first of all, the state has more money. So the state enhances it’s power, the state begins to take over one realm after another because the state has the tremendous purchasing power. And then it begins to flow to the people.

Now let me stop here and say that basic to inflation is larceny. Inflation is larceny. If you have money in the bank, or if you have a pension coming, you’re being robbed! Because right now, this year, you’re going to lose in terms of government figures (which I think are not altogether honest, I think they’re understated) about ten percent of your income in terms of {?}. So if you’re living on a fixed income, you’re being badly hurt! Inflation doesn’t work until the people also get larceny in their hearts. This is why Roosevelt, inflating very heavily was not able to create a read inflation, because the people by and large would not buy it. They insisted on living relatively debt free - they had been badly burned by the depression, they weren’t going to go into it again.

The fact is that before World War I, debts were short term debts. Five or six years, in term sof scripture. Even then, after the federal reserve came in they were seven to ten year debts at most! It wasn’t until the federal government under Roosevelt began such things as FHA that debts began to go to fifteen years, then twenty years, then twenty-five, and now thirty year debts! Which, of course, in terms of scripture is illegitimate. We saw in World War I and World War II what happens with a monetary inflation - a paper money inflation of a dramatic sort.

Because, very clearly, in Germany for example after World War I as the gold disappeared behind the paper, inflation increased so dramatically that people were being paid by the day and their wives were waiting for them to rush out and shop, and then they were being paid twice a day was there with a bushel basket or a wheelbarrow to get all that inflated paper money and go out. It took millions to buy a sandwich and finally billions of marks actually to mail a letter across town. And yet the mark, before all of this began, was worth fifty cents. That was fifty cents in terms of the hard dollar when you could buy a house for three hundred dollars here in this country. A good house.

Those inflations in Europe, runaway paper inflations, wiped out everybody! Finally, the money collapsed and no one would take paper. It was the inflation of the twenties that paved the way for Hitler, because it wiped out the middle class. The middle class is the thrifty hardworking class - when their assets are destroyed by inflation, a country is destroyed. And the middle classes are now in this country hard hit.

As a matter of fact, it’s very interesting to note that if the middle class in America today were dependant on the husbands income most of them would sink to the lower class. It’s the middle class woman who is the working one. Without her, most middle class families in this country would quickly fall to the lower class level economically! So the middle class is working extra hard, it’s the one class where there is this tremendous activity today, both husband and wife working to maintain themselves against the face of this killing inflation.

But in recent years they of course have taken a different path, a very subtle one. It’s no longer printing press money...the federal government is not in the business of printing massive amounts of money. What it is doing is to create a credit inflation. Now, the FAJ started this, but now it’s being done through the banks and through savings and loans and so on. The amount of monetary reserve that a bank needs to have becomes less and less and the federal government virtually orders the banks to lend more and more money, people are encouraged to go more and more into debt, so that we’re as very few middle people.

When I was a boy and when I was in highschool they never had instalment buying for anything but their home and that was short term - a few years, one fourth at least downpayment. Now, most of the middle class are head over heels in debt! Very deeply in debt, and therefore very vulnerable - as are all classes. Everyone today, from the Rockefellers on up or down, wherever you want to place them, is living in terms of debt and are easily subject to being wiped out. Now, the one winner in all of this is the federal government because it creates a situation whereby the people are indebted and real wealth is confiscated and power flows into the hands of the state! Because there is no real wealth left.

It is all a paper wealth, and everyone heavily in debt. More and more dependant as they are in debt on what the federal government does in Washington. Tomorrow, if the federal government tells the banks that they are to change their requirements for loans on construction, the construction industry is flat on its back. It has been, several times in the last five years! Just because of a change in federal policies. If the federal government says that a particular type of industry is to be encouraged, that booms. And when the federal government poses up with credit on it it begins to collapse.

Moreover, the more inflation proceeds the more the danger is of a runaway inflation. Of so rapid a growth of the rate of inflation that people are wiped out, prices advanced too rapidly. Now this is done because the federal government is the biggest debtor of all. It indulges in deficit spending on a massive scale and it encourages the people in the same course. It’s a course of suicide, ultimately, for all of them. The federal budget is astronomical...it’s deficit spending. And the federal government, as a result, turns around and blames the rest of us for the inflation! The workers, demanding too much in wages. The manufacturers demanding too much in the way of a price for his goods. But they’re having to increase their demands simply because the federal government by its inflationary activity is creating so much deficit spending and inflating the economy so that there is nothing but more inflation as a response to that.

And if you get wages and price controls, which we will get one of these days, it will only free the federal government for more deficit spending by compelling us, whether we are working men or business men, to cut down our standard of living. So after a particular point inflation begins to destroy the people. Consider Britain - which has had inflation since World War II. It’s a shock, when Britisher’s come here and realize that you can still eat butter. Sometime that was natural to them when they were young is now a rarity, and only a handful of people can afford it. Life is gone downhill so steadily that they forgot now how it was to live before this started, and that actually, they ate better during the war with all the shortages then they do now because of what controls and inflation has done to them.

Now, we haven’t gone that far yet, but we will very soon. Now, what do we do in order to cope with inflation, as individuals? First of all, Paul says in Romans 13:8, “owe no man anything save to love one another”, and the bible says that for very important things we can go into debt. Leviticus makes this clear on a limited basis - six years and no longer. Now, what does that mean practically? From a religious point of view? It means that we must live as Paul says in Philippians 4:11-12, “a life of godly contentment”. To be content with such things as we have. We go into debt because we’re covetous! We go into debt because we want to live on a better plain.

And we thereby sin against the Lord, because we are his property and we are required by God to be stewards of all that we have and to be content. To be content. And when we live with Godly contentment, and when we avoid long term debt - which makes us slaves - then we can live more freely under God, and more happily as his stewards. Because we are not then in bondage to somebody else but we are in bondage to God, to whom to serve is perfect liberty. We are God’s property. The Bible says the earth is the Lord’s, and therefore, we of the earth must be governed by his word. To be discontented is to rage, really, against God.

You know, one of the most profound things that Bill GOthard has ever said is that most psychological problems, and most rebelliousness, and most discontent that people have revolves around three or four things, such as the home, or the family we were born into...’why wasn’t I born into a rich family’. Or the economic circumstances of our family background, or our aptitudes; ‘I wish I had this and that type talents.’ Or looks! None of which four things we can change. And yet, those are the four things that create most of the rebelliousness and the problems. To rage against them is to rage against God, which is exactly what it amounts to. Paul put it thus when he was dealing with predestination, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that argues against God and says, Why hast thou made me thus?”

Now that’s at the heart of inflation, it’s at the heart of all sin. Why hast thou made me thus? As though we should have been our own creator. As though we should have been given the looks, and born into the family, to satisfy our royal tastes. That we should be able to live off a scale that we imagine is right for us. You see, today we too often imagine call plain sinful covetousness a ‘healthy ambition’ when it’s sin. And today, of course, we are therefore because we are rebellious against God and we are not content, prize suckers for inflation. Which is sin.

We look at advertising and television and think, ‘I should be living like that!’ Or, ‘I should be able to do over my living room, or my bedroom, or my bathroom, in terms of this beautiful picture. Why, I’m as good as anybody else, why can’t I live like that?

And so we go into debt. But Paul says, be content with such things as you have. And Paul tells us, we’re called to serve God and to magnify him! Not ourselves. But in an inflationary economy, men are magnifying themselves. But we are the Lords. We are his stewards, stewards of God’s earth and the blessings God gives us to use for the Lord, and for his work, and for our families in the Lord.

Now this calls upon us therefore to live; First, in Godly contentment - debt free, or limited debt for no more than six years, or whatever we can pay off in that time. You can go to the bank and get a six year note. They wouldn’t know what to do with you, they aren’t used to that kind of language anymore...although it was once ordinary - routine. Don’t buy until you can afford it, and pay it off on that time.

My wife and I didn’t buy what we needed for years and years, and we didn’t go about buying a house, we dreamed of something for years. Well, we were in our late fifties when we finally got what we wanted. The Lord providentially opened up something so it’s about five or ten times what we ever thought we could have afforded, but through a series of providential circumstances we got it. We paid off more than fifty percent of it, and we know we can pay the balance within the six year time.

And there’s another means whereby we can protect ourselves in a time of inflation. The Bible says that just weights and just measures shall ye have. One of the safest things to do in a time of inflation is to put your savings, little by little as you save it, into gold. What does gold do? Why, gold appreciates as paper depreciates.

Let me illustrate. This is an illustration I’ve often used, and I’ve used it with some of you. If in nineteen thirty you had six hundred dollars which then could be exchangeable into gold - you could get thirty twenty dollar gold pieces, or double eagles, for it at the bank - you could have gone and bought a new Ford Plymouth or Chevy and got some change. So you and your wife could have gone out and celebrated. But if now, you had in nineteen seventy-eight six hundred dollars in paper...you couldn’t buy much of a car. But if you had it in those twenty dollar gold pieces? They’re now worth about three hundred (give or take two or three dollars as it goes up and down every few days). They’d be worth about three hundred dollars apiece! You could buy much better than a Ford Chevy or a Plymouth.

I don’t think we have seen anything like the rise that is coming. Those gold pieces, those twenty dollar gold pieces, the (cougarans?), or whatever the coin may be have just begun their real appreciation. I expect them, in the next couple of years perhaps, to double! Now that’s one way of saving your assets! You see, since 1930, cars have maintained a relatively constant price value. Paper has depreciated, gold has appreciated. You have a duty under God to preserve what you have, and real assets are a means.

Another thing is in the tools of your trade, because that’s something you can use and appreciate. So, depending on what your area of work is, if you can put it into the tools of your trade or into the place for your particular type of work, then you’re improving your assets or maintaining them. Because, if it is in paper it’s going to be eaten up almost certainly. If it is in paper it is going to be eaten up almost certainly.

Inflation will only increase.

As a result, we need to be wise stewards of what is given us and recognize that inflation is leading to judgement. A judgement upon a covetous and larcenous age, when people have wanted something for nothing. When people believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch. When people have believed that man is lord, and therefore man can by his fiat word create law, create wealth, create anything he wants.

Well, you know, if that were true we ought to ask Congress to pass a law against death and outlaw all crimes forever, and all sickness, and we would have everything solved. But the government is not god. God alone is the Lord, and there is a judgement for sin. Because inflation is larceny, it is theft, it is sin...there is a judgement coming. Be sure that you’re not included in that judgement.

Any questions now? Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. One of the interesting things is that all this inflation is come about by politicians who couldn’t manage their own affairs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so totally incompetent (as was his wife, Eleanor) that his mother had to take over and run their family finances, and even take over care and disciplining of the children. Neither husband or wife were at all competent. Shortly before Roosevelt himself died, his mother, still alive, handled his finances; so that he was given pocket money and whatever else he needed, because he couldn’t control anything.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Harry Truman, again, had one little quarry into business and the rest of his life he worked for the state or the federal government. Eisenhower, his whole life was in the army and he was honest enough to admit he didn’t know how to handle things. And that very humility led him to try to balance the budget. Kennedy, a total incompetent in managing his own economics. Johnson, the same thing. Nixon, not much better. Ford, not much better. And Carter...well, he peanuts are the most heavily subsidized area of agriculture in the United States.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Oh yes! Without the subsidies, Carter would be a poor dirt farmer. (If he could be that.)

Yes, Paul, I think you were next?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

I think the Christian school movement and the growing revival of the Reformed faith is creating weapons for victory. I know there are groups moving into politics - Christian groups and I’m in close touch with them - and into very considerable positions of importance and power. I know because I have spoken to them, in Washington and elsewhere. In fact, one of my very close friends who works closely with me, and in his organization two of my young men have positions of power. They’re so afraid of him that a hitman was actually hired to kill him. The way it was discovered was that a con who had violated parole (excon) was picked up and he bargained for his freedom by saying there’s a prominent politician that is to be hit, and I know the man who has the contract on him, and if you’ll let me off I’ll tell you.

Well, they didn’t know who it was and perhaps they were sorry after they bought the bargain, but that’s how he was saved! And this was in the L.A. Times, as well as knowing it from the man. So you see, there are men like that who are moving into the positions of power and authority and who are beginning to work towards a Christian solution. So, while I know there is a very great possibility of radical disaster, I do not feel that it is inevitable. I feel that we need to work! That we can, perhaps, salvage a great deal. Although there is no question in my mind that we are going to go through some very rough things ahead.

One of the most amusing things, let me say, is that my son-in-law and his associate Gary North were invited to speak to a group of California group Senators and there was only one there who could be called conservative and genuinely--Well, there were two that were Christian, he was one of them. And we spoke about money, and the situation with regard to money; inflation. It was a very specific and detailed presentation by Gary North and myself.

The thing that shocked me was, I thought, here are all these liberal and left wing men, they’re going to be very critical about what I have to say. But they weren’t! Their only question was, when is the disaster going to hit? And the thing that staggered me afterwards, because their questions and of course when Gary answered that question (this was about five or six years ago...I think it was four years ago) he said it could be in two or three years, more likely ten, or it could be as far as twenty years away. It’s not predictable because it depends on political decisions and on the people and what develops. So there’s no way to predict it with a certainty. Of course they relaxed when they heard it wasn’t going to be during their present term of office. But afterwards, as we were standing around, the thing that left me staggered - and I wondered, I know who these men are. Some of these men are some of the very far out liberals...but they talk like (birchers?) because they said I’ve got a cabin up in the mountains, and I’ve got food stored there, and I’ve got some guns...and I thought, where am I?! They sound like a lot of rightwing extremists. They were terrified! Terrified of what they have done, and uh-- [audio cuts]

--told me, he said, ‘Rush, these men up here are not the true blue liberals and radicals they were a few years ago (with one or two exceptions.) They’ve all got battle diarrhea now. They’re scared to death. And I found that is true in several cases where I’ve had similar contacts. So there is that fear. They would like to reverse directions, but they feel the voters pushing them more that way. Well, maybe that can be changed. Certainly proposition thirteen was a welcome surprise. Maybe if we Christians act in this-- [audio cuts]

--and if you get six percent you’re going to be taxed for that interest and you’re still losing four or, say, five percent that way. So that isn’t a good deal. To have more than you need for emergency purposes in the bank is not a good deal. You’re sure to robbed, in other words, by inflation. Now, if you have it in your home you’ll probably be robbed, there is a good possibility, but I’d rather be robbed by a thief than by the federal government! And I think I stand a better chance with a thief than by the federal government, and I think I’ve got a better chance with a thief if I take reasonable precautions! [audience member claps] [audience laughs]

What’s that?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

What is the value of pure raw gold as it comes out of the ground? If it’s pure, if it’s refined gold dust, it’s worth just a shade under the market price when you take it in.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Well, of course.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

No. Because where you’re dealing with bullion or dust you have to deal with government approved agencies, assay offices and the like. But the coins are anonymous, it’s not controlled. If I have a bullion bar and I sell it I have to sell it through approved sources. In fact, as it goes there will be a record of transfer, so if I own it and I sell it to you, my name is on it, your name, and the next owners name...I don’t like that. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Yes. If you’re buying it in shops. I thought he meant when you yourself are panning it. In my area, which is the heart of the old motherload gold country, a lot of people pan for gold or have sluice box and a washer and put some aside, because there is a lot more gold there than has been dug out of the ground yet. A lot of people have coke bottles and the like full of gold dust.

The old widow across the road from us who sold out and moved away was a real...she was a real character. Quite a brilliant woman. She used to wash the gravel in her driveway regularly and she had quite a bit of gold dust she’d gotten! Sometimes she’d get nothing, other times she would get a fair amount. She had a necklace of nuggets that she’s gotten.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

So, yes!

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

[audience laughs]

No, this is out in the country there. Now our property was a fabulous goldmine, one of the greatest! It’s still on the U.S. geological survey maps. Some people say there is a lot of gold there, and one man, mining engineer came by and said he wanted to work it and he’d give us ten percent (which is the standard thing). I don’t know whether I want the place torn up. If I feel I need it sometime in the future I may go along with it, but I have enough to live on now and that’s fine by me. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Well, a loan from one Christian to another if it is a business loan is legitimate. But the scriptures forbid loans where they are charitable. Where they’re intended to help someone out as a charitable thing. You are not to confuse charity in business. So, when you help a brother out you do not take interest. Now, with regard to annuities, I think of theft. Because in a time of inflation they’re never going to get their money back in any comparable purchasing power. So I think it’s very dangerous for churches to get involved in debt. I think it’s a poor time for anyone to get involved in debt and any organization that is living in terms of gifts from people. An economy that is so variable is playing with fire if they go into debt.

Our organization, Chalcedon, as of this summer we will have four full time men on the staff plus a secretary and four who are part time. That takes a lot of money, but it has been our fixed principle and will continue to be our fixed principle that we do not go into debt, and I feel that we have been blessed because of that. It makes it difficult at times, we pass up opportunities and bargains that - from our human point of view - seem to be a shame to pass up! But we find that our Lord gives us the advantage in the long run.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

If you borrow from someone in the form of annuities, fifty thousand now, the likelihood is that in four or five years they’re only going to get back twenty-five thousand with interest. That is in terms of comparable purchasing power. Because inflation is likely in that time to eat up fifty percent of it.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

The bible says of course that long term debt is permissible to the ungodly, because they’re slaves anyways. They’re going to live in terms of a slave mentality, but we are not to be so. So, if there is an ungodly person who wants to borrow money the bank is free to lend him that. There is no prohibition for either a Christian or a financial institution to do it. Just as the Bible says that people who, in terms of their religious standards find that eating an animal which has dropped dead is not forbidden, in fact, in some cultures they prefer it. Sell them such meat, as long as you tell them what it is, but we are not to touch it. You see.

So, in the financial area the sinner is going to be a sinner. He’s going to be a slave, but we are not to be so.

I saw about three years ago one night... I was waiting for my wife, I forget where she was...with some friends for some party or birthday celebration or shower. So I was waiting for her to come home and I was through studying, so I turned on the television and watched a late, late movie. It was a real oldie, it was one of the first Cary Grant pictures. In it there was this shot of these women talking about how rich, unbelievably rich, Cary Grant was. Why, do you know he makes five thousand dollars a year?

Now that was wealth! I can remember when it was! Well when that was wealth, they were selling annuities to people and they were to be able to retire on them and live a life of luxury...pictures of them on a Mediterranean cruise I remember that vividly. They were to retire on a hundred dollars a month, and travel, and see the world. They didn’t. Inflation hit very soon and those people couldn’t live! They had to work, or the wife had to go to work if the husband were not well enough. It was a tragic situation.

But this is what we do if we sell annuities to Christian people. We sentence them to that. So I don’t believe in it. I believe in living within one’s means. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Historically land and gold and silver have been the great hedges against inflation in the past. Today you have the tax situation. The tax situation. So that properties are taxed, sometimes to an appalling degree, and it becomes very difficult to hold on to property. I’m thinking of one place in Los Angeles that was built for ten thousand, inflation right now has raised it (and it’s not an old house, it’s a fairly new one) to a hundred and twenty-nine thousand. The taxes on it are somewhere between thirty-seven hundred and four thousand.

Now, proposition thirteen will knock it down but it was going to go if proposition thirteen hadn’t passed, to double that! What was happening up and down that neighborhood, was that people who had bought those houses when they were built were having to move out! They could afford it there. The saying in Los Angeles was, if you want to live in a better neighborhood, just stay where you are cause it’s going to appreciate so dramatically. [audience chuckles]

To give you an idea of what’s happening: the estimate has been that within three years, or four or five at the latest, (but some would put it by 1981 or 1982 at the latest) the worst slum house in Los Angeles will sell for a hundred thousand. Now you see, this is not only happening there it’s happening all over the country! So if your property is in a county where there is a high welfare cost and a high education cost, your state schools, you can be wiped out if you own the property through taxes! Now, maybe, proposition thirteen will catch on will catch on all over the country and you’ll have limitations and property will become more economical to own.

In the Bible, incidentally, there is no property tax. It’s forbidden. And in colonial America there wasn’t any property tax, and one of the saddest, the most ironic facts is that when the first continental congress met in 1774 they sent a statement up to Canada and asked Canada to join them in the war of independence, and one of the reasons they gave (and I’m putting it in very popular language, they had it in very formal language): look, if you fellows don’t join us those crazy people in London will end up taxing property!

It’s ironic, isn’t it?

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Very good. The market does zig zig, it goes up and down like this, but as your chart indicates it’s basically upwards because inflation is such. The various countries are all busy trying to knock down the price of gold, they’re at war against gold because if you have a gold standard you cannot have socialism.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

France has been the one that really wants it, Russia doesn’t really.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes, but the South Africa is a socialist country. It forbids its people to buy the gold coins it’s shipping to sell us.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes, except that the uh...that’s true. The krugerrands will be eight percent above the current gold bullion price. So they’re about the cheapest gold you can get. Also the Mexican fifty peso and the a hundred corner of Austria. However, when you come to reselling those you don’t do as well! The thing that appreciates the most, although you pay the most for it, is the double eagle. So today you could get for about a hundred and ninety-five dollars a krugerrand, but you would pay three hundred approximately for a double eagle. But when it comes to selling, you can sell the double eagle just in a minute when you go to a dealer - much more rapid than the others, the highest demand for them, that’s why the price is up. So it’s not that I’m saying the krugerrand isn’t a good coin to have, but I still prefer the double eagle.

Over the years I’ve gotten every one of those and I’ve done best with that. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

The silver coins are. The silver dollar was a terrific buy, and I got quite a few of those just by holding them out of circulation in the fifties. I have an interesting story to tell you about that. We’re not on tape now, are we?

[audience member speaks] Yes, we are.

Oh...well... [audience members laugh] [audio cuts]

You tithe on what you actually have in hand in the way of income. Yes.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Before. Yes. God has priority over Uncle Sam any day of the week. Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Alright, the question is about life insurance as against putting the money into gold. Life insurance is a must for every young couple because if something happens to the husband the wife has to be protected.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

No, it isn’t the savings. Life insurance, any kind of such insurance is not a sound investment. In an age of inflation the value is eaten up. It is simply insurance, a protective device, and no more.

Now, I was telling some of you earlier today the Bible has the dowry system, and while it doesn’t specify it in Bible times we know from a variety of sources that a young man was required to accumulate the equivalent of three years income of whatever was his line of work, and give that to the bride’s father to give to the bride before he could marry. [audio ends]