God is a Capitalist

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Trump's tariffs will hurt the poor

 

Immediately after his inauguration, President Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1. He has repeated that he loves the word tariffs. "To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it’s my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm to help it."

Does the Bible say anything about tariffs? Not explicitly. But it has references from which we can extrapolate principles. Jacob imported wheat from Egypt during the famine in Genesis 42. Solomon imported cedar and cypress lumber and gold from Tyre for building the temple in Jerusalem in I Kings 5. He bought horses from Egypt in I Kings 22. And in I Kings 9, the wisest king ever built ships to conduct international trade, imports and exports. 

Friday, January 10, 2025

California fires show danger of government owned land


Americans are searching for a scapegoat for the most devastating fires in California history. Republicans blame Democrat politicians and bureaucrats and DEI. Democrats finger climate change. But the real problem is government owned land. Government owned land is the most polluted, burned and abused land in the country. 

Weyerhaeuser and other corporations that grow trees for paper and lumber own tens of thousands of acres across the U.S. without headlining the news because of fires ravaging their forests. The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group, privately owns over 100,000 acres in a dozen preserves that rarely have major fires. Almost all the horrific fires in the West take place in national forests and state parks.