Financial Warfare

In a previous blog I talked about success more on the biblical side. This post will dive into the worldly view of success and the driving forces.

The world is obsessed with opportunity and growth. Idols can be made from just about any object, goal, or idea. While any one thing that replaces God in our lives is considered an idol, the intensity, passion, or obsession it creates in our hearts becomes the real deeper issue. These deep rooted heart concepts have the capacity to change the world misdirecting hearts and souls through misguided idols of worship. We can be in the world but not of the world. Daniel was a good example of this. Golden statues of Nebuchadnezzar and worshipping injunctions to King Darius put Daniel and his friends in fiery furnaces and a den of lions.

These obsessions to be worshipped, immortalized, and idolized have become ways of the world. Standard operating procedures to protect and make the world better. One such example is the idol of perpetual growth. This idea or idol takes many shapes and forms. It is the key driver in almost every  business decision when it comes to marketing, budgeting, and planning. Individuals are a by-product of it, continually looking for the newest competitive edge. Existence has become the bottom line.

The world is one big competition and everything is a commodity. Every person, place, and thing has a number and a value and there is always a person or group looking to exploit and make money off of that number or value. Two world class athletes, let's say track sprinters, either from the same period or different periods are equal in physical strength and speed. How does one all of a sudden get faster and records smashed? New technology. Better shoes, clothing, and enhancements legal or illegal. The world is continually looking to outdo what has already been done. But why?

Investors, budgets, debt service. Where improvement can be shown, money can be made. Money satisfies peoples need for a return on investment, growing retirements, balanced budgets, and paying debt. Constant improvements such laws, regulations, and codes as are needed because the world is in a perpetual state of entropy, among other reasons such as people's need for power, control, and greed.

Entropy is defined as a lack of order or predictability: a gradual decline into disorder. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that as energy is transferred or transformed, the less and less it becomes productive, thus increasing the total entropy of a system. A fully charged cell phone will lose its power more quickly as we open new Google pages, applications, text, Youtube, etc. Until it either shuts off from lack of power or we recharge it. The formula for entropy is actually one that is way over my head, but the basic idea is this: the more configurations added to an isolated environment the quicker the environment goes into disarray or disorder. The configurations in this example are people. The rate of disorder is determined by the number of configurations multiplied by a natural logarithm and Boltzmann's constant. The speed of entropy has the capability to multiply exponential through various external and internal factors and increased population.

So, getting back to perpetual growth. Tomas Sedlacek, a Christian Czech economist and Chief Macroeconomic Strategist at CSOB (a Czech national bank) and author of "Economics of Good and Evil," said the following during an interview with David McAlvany: mcalvanyweeklycommentary.com/tomsedlacek/.
 
"So today we could see in the way of the end of history, economics has become the growth model. We don’t really criticize capitalism, we criticize growth capitalism. These are two completely different systems, although many people don’t distinguish between the two. Nevertheless, this growth capitalism has become the most ecumenical religion of the whole globe. Everybody believes in it, despite the culture, or religion, or anything else. And, of course, the guardians of this ideology are partly central bankers. These are the priests, the highly educated, the highly acclaimed members of our society, you know, priests who are guiding the world. I would even say, much more important in strength than our presidents are central bankers, who have equal, or perhaps even slightly larger influence than the economists."

The first question is, can you recognize growth capitalism in the world around us? Do you understand it's underlying roots on societies behaviors? Do you see it as financial warfare?