Flash Crash - 4/28

     In 2010, a London broker crashed the American stock market, causing the industry to crash by 1000 points. It caused a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars. With electronic banking and economics, it can be hard to know who you're dealing with. For example, this man "in his underwear" was able to crash the stock market from his bedroom. With that ability for anyone who is knowledgeable about electronics, it can make it hard to trust anyone on the internet (especially if you are on the deep web!) With all of these eBay or Craigslist scams, how can you trust anyone?

     As Al Mohler said, "That goes back to Adam Smith with just those two individuals; those two individuals cannot have a thriving economic relationship if they do not trust one another. And back in the day when most economic transactions were face-to-face, we can pretty much judge whether or not the individual with whom we presume to do business was going to be trustworthy or not. We are now living in a global economy and that trust is now extended not only to billions of people far flung across the planet, that trust is now also extended to digital technology that evidently has massive vulnerabilities."

     So, the world today just isn’t what it used to be. “Old” people are known for saying “Back in my day…” and then a whole bunch of nonsense about how things used to be. Adam Smith is saying that things used to be much simpler: Transactions used to be one on one, from small business to consumer. But now, there is so much more in the way, and there’s so much that can go wrong because of that. However, that’s to be expected with anything nowadays! With the internet, the deep web, and all of these hackers, anything can be changed. Hopefully new technology has been developed to stop these hackers from infiltrating things so key to our economy like the stock market. However, if there isn’t, maybe things just ought to be simpler, like they used to be in the good old days.

Cheating - 4/10

            Stanford University recently looked into some allegations that their students were cheating. They found that during the 2013-2014 school year, 83 students violated the honor code by cheating, including copying from another's examination paper or allowing another to copy from one's own paper, plagiarism, or representing as one's own work the work of another. The punishment for any of these actions was to receive no credit for the unit, suspension for 1 quarter, and 40 hours of community service. However, these 83 students of their roughly 16,000 population student body are likely not the only cheaters. A spokeswoman for Stanford admitted that even they didn’t know how many students had violated their honor code over the years.  Cheating is easier today than ever with smartphones and new technology, so it is not a stretch to believe that more students were cheating than were caught cheating.

            Students today feel pressure to cheat because everyone is seemingly doing it, getting good grades, and getting away with it. If Sally has to cheat to get an A, then other students will feel the need to cheat just to stay relevant in the class. The more students cheat, the more the overall academic structure of a school will fail to work. If everyone cheats, then no one learns and the school isn’t doing its job: to educate the future of America. Cheating while in school just leads to developing bad habits for later in life. Maybe they want to become politicians! If people don’t stop cheating, education will just keep getting worse and worse, and then everyone will be cheaters by the end; no student will learn anything. Luckily for some of these students, however, you can’t cheat at flipping a burger for McDonald's.

ISIS - 2/20

            ISIS is an ever-growing force of evil in our world today. They are an extremist terrorist group that was originally a sector of al Qaeda but then split off from al Qaeda when what is now known as ISIS had a falling out with the new leader of al Qaeda. As of last October, ISIS has been responsible for the deaths of at least 9300 civilians and 1500 Iraqi soldiers, and that number is certainly even greater today. To deny their existence and threat is seemingly impossible, but that’s just what some people in the western world are doing today.

            Two weeks ago, Barack Obama told a television interviewer that 99.9% of Muslims around the world are not at war with the West. However, the truth is that millions of Muslims, including ISIS, are ready to be at war with the West. When Obama says this, he is telling us that ISIS aren’t fighting for anything, and that we shouldn’t be worried, but that is not necessarily the case. The “true believers” of the Islam faith are at war with the West, at least mentally. Bernard Haykel is one of leading experts on the Islam today, and he says that the “99.9%” that Obama identified are neglecting “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Furthermore, ISIS really does believe in their faith. A spokesperson for ISIS said, “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.” The United States, and other nations, has been denying this, and there’s no excuse! Since day one, ISIS has said what they’re going to do, but apparently words aren’t enough of a threat for the USA. Whoever said "The pen is mightier than the sword" clearly didn’t see ISIS coming.

Mawwiage 2 - 2/13

            Less and less people are getting married nowadays. The current marriage rate is at about 50%, as opposed to the 72 percent rate in the 1960’s. There are also more babies being born out of wedlock, divorce rates are higher, etc. Keen observers will also realize that the economy in general isn’t thriving as prosperously now as it was in the 1960’s, but correlation does not imply causation. Christians might tend to think “Well of course the economy is failing; society is failing to do what God instructs!” But, there is another way to look at this societally, and it’s simple: People are getting paid to have children out of marriage, get divorced, and just not get married at all.

            The American economy was never set up for all of these marriage problems. Now you might say “You’re crazy; divorce is expensive!”, but that’s exactly it! Lawyers get paid hefty sums to split up a couple. After divorce is through, one of the parents will have to pay child support, even worsening the hole in their wallet. Many people might look at marriage and think “Oh man, it’ll just end in divorce, what ever shall I do? Oh that’s right! I’ll just have a baby and the government will pay for it!” And thus, it begins. They’ll be out one day with their brand new baby and someone will ask where they got it for such a great deal. They’ll say “Oh the government got it for me! How kind! We aren’t even married and they’re already getting me gifts!” So, it seems that everyone except for traditionally married couples is getting some kind of win out of this situation. The average person sees that they can have a better financial life by not getting married, and that is not a good thing. 

Victims - 2/6

            Everybody has told a “little white lie” at one point or another. A little white lie is when you fudge the truth just a little bit, but it doesn’t hurt anyone… or does it? According to a series of recent studies published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, both conservatives and liberals found many immoral acts to have victims. The acts stretched from those little white lies to things as horrid as bestiality. Everyone has a different moral scale, of course. The people who found the smaller issues to be problematic had an escalated sense of unease at the more dastardly offenses and showed more physical signs of distress.

          The link between judgments of immorality and perceptions of harm is called “dyadic completion.” Some acts have a complete dyad, like murder or thievery. The complete dyad means that they are completely wrong, and it is easy to see why they are wrong. But some of the tests revealed incomplete dyads in some more controversial acts such as the use of drugs, prostitution, and homosexuality. The incomplete dyad means that it’s not easy to see the result or outcome on a victim from these wrongs, but that doesn’t necessarily make them right.

It seems from this that you can get away with some of these minor things without anyone knowing, but the question that is then brought up is as follows: Can you be a homosexual/druggie/whatever without hurting those around you? The first conclusion one might come to is “Sure, if you’re just doing it to you then why not? It’s your body, do what you want!” But, let’s consult the Bible. Matthew 5:28 says “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” From this, we can gather that even thinking about a sin is just as bad as committing the act of sin itself. So, no, there is no victimless act. It might just seem like a little thing at the time, but remember that there is a victim to everything, and sometimes, you’re that victim.

Charlie - 1/16

On January 7^th, the French satire newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamic extremists/terrorists, killing 11 people. The newspaper was attacked because of a (potentially) offensive rendition of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The extremists “justified” their attacks by yelling out phrases like "Allahu Akbar", meaning “God is the greatest”. Not only was the shooting a massive impact on France, but on the whole world as well. Supporters everywhere found a common phrase: Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie). Social networks everywhere quickly blew up with the hashtag #jesuischarlie, and the posts and tweets are still rolling in, nearly 3 weeks later. Charlie Hebdo responded with a caricature of Muhammad holding a sign that said “Je suis Charlie” on the front page of their print.

American newspaper publishers have been faced with a challenge of sorts: To republish the “Je suis Charlie” message, or to ignore what happened. The opportunity cost here is to either support Charlie Hebdo and express free speech, or be barred by terrorism; you can’t have both.

In parallel, Sony suppressed the release of their satirical/offensive movie The Interview after threats and hack-attacks on their company and the United States by North Korea. The premise of The Interview is simple: assassinate Kim Jong-un, the standing leader of North Korea. North Korea was not happy about that, at all. Sony initially completely recalled the movie, and it seemed dead, but they eventually released it in a few select theaters, and on YouTube’s streaming service.

Both of these attacks threatened freedom and expression. By choosing not to release either the newspaper or the movie, terrorism wins. By choosing to release them, freedom wins, but there is still a threat from the opposing forces. President Obama spoke out after Sony pulled The Interview, saying “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States... we can’t start changing our patterns or behavior.” Even Obama realizes what will happen if this becomes a societal norm! If you let the terrorists win, then freedom loses, and that’s what America is built upon.

Marijuana - 1/23

            Stoners and investors everywhere are raving on and on about marijuana! (Some intelligibly and some not-so-intelligibly.) But what’s the big deal? Well, first of all, the selling and consumption of marijuana was legalized in Washington and Colorado recently. Vendors sprung up on every street corner now that it was “okay” to do drugs. Consumers were finally over the “opportunity cost” of get high and go to jail or don’t! Investors also sprung up at the opportunity, buying into marijuana producers and sellers, foreseeing the new market that would become available. And profitable it was! Nearly $600,000,000 worth of recreational marijuana was sold in the first year alone. Sales are projected to at least quadruple by 2018! If I were an investor and there was even a slight hint of a quadruple return on my investments, I’d sell my house! Who needs a house when you have drug money?

            This brings up an even bigger question than the normal “Is pot okay”: Is it possible to invest in marijuana and still hold your moral standards? Most people against marijuana would say no, because you’re supporting the growth of the problem, and I believe that’s true. The next point I’m about to make might be a little long-winded, but stick with me!

 Referring back to an old post I made, I talked about abortion and companies who supported abortion. I made the point that a company is a company, and they should be treated as such. But then I was brought the question of “What if a company supported ISIS?” That’s a whole ‘nother animal, but, by law, treason is described in Article. III. Section. 3. of our Constitution. “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” So, treason is the support of our enemies. Therefore, if you support a company that is against your own beliefs, you are committing moral treason against yourself. So, no, I do not believe it is possible to invest in marijuana and still hold your moral standards. Only time will tell what actually happens with the marijuana industry… and our souls :).