Don't Flush, our Economy is in there!

DON'T FLUSH, OUR ECONOMY IS IN THERE!!!

<economy>
Been getting emails from my representatives this week, followups for the ones I sent last week saying "Say No to Bailout!" They explain why, golly, I wasn't for it at first -- voted "no" in fact -- but now I'm for it because we need it and you and your money are safe and protected. My reply: I'm 545ing you! (Thanks Bill). Just say "no" to incumbents. Of the four things I can do, I'm voting them out and readying myself for the inevitable run for office as soon as my kids are a little older.

<politics>
The weird thing about the 545 is that right now Congress has about an 18% approval rating yet only about 40 members of the House, who must be re-elected every two years, are thought to be in danger of losing their seat. So, geniuses that we all are, we don't like Congress, but it's the "other guy" -- not my guy (or gal). Yeah, it's your guy. He's one of them. We can completely replace the entire House of Representatives NEXT MONTH if we want to. But, probably 400+ will return to DC. <sigh> We will definitely be replacing the president. We can do the senators up to 33 at a time. I don't even care what party anymore, I just want them out, all of them. It's a mess and they lose. When they lose, we win.
</politics>

</economy>
<oops>

<brandon>
Oops.
</brandon>

<wife>
Oops.
</wife>

</oops>

<preachy_section>

Okay, I fully realize how crazy the following sounds: But maybe God is trying to get our attention in this financial mess. By way of illustration: I have a friend who made a series of bad decisions. He was given a lot of money on a business-related deal and turned what had seemed like a lot of debt -- a house, two cars and about $42,000 in credit card debt -- into hundreds of thousands in debt, repoed cars and an unfinished house. His liver is shot, he suffers from depression, has Hep-C, smokes and just moved out of his in-laws. But, he just found God. Personally -- and I've told this to my friend (and he seemed to agree) -- I think God was just trying to get his attention. We talked about God a lot and he took a pretty casual view of The Plan. God wanted his attention and upped the ante until God got it. Now my friend is going to a good church, is reading the Bible (and freaking out a little... he's worried about a few things in it and how he may have irrevocably messed it up) but his marriage is stronger and he's talking about living within his means for the first time.

For this friend, God wanted his attention (I believe), because my friend will be a Very Powerful Force for God. My friend is full on or out of gas. He has energy, ability and a shear F***-it attitude. You really have to know him to know how many people he can influence; he's been a bad influence for years. Maybe he'll be a good influence now? I think so.

That brings us back to you. And to me. God is trying to get our attention (I believe). We're worshiping money -- and worse, credit, money we don't even have! -- and I believe God will up the ante until we finally pay attention. The idea that we can alleviate our problems with over-extended credit by extending more credit is purely preposterous (news flash: quit smoking by smoking more cigarettes!). I think our economy will come back down to earth when we get off the credit I.V. but that will be when we've all lost just about all of our savings, IRA, etc. I for one am willing to part with it because I think our entire country will be stronger when we do, and we'll all recover soon enough, and hopefully put the "me/now" era behind us. Gonna be tough times, though; you notice no one is talking about Social Security and the aging Boomer population? They will be and eventually God will have our attention.


The good news? When we finally pay attention, God will again have Americans being Americans and leading the world with our ideas, faith and credibility. Hopefully it won't take 40 years of wandering.

</preachy_section>