Liberal Arrogance

There is a guy I work with that sends out an occasional political e-mail to a group of us. He and I are in the minority in the fact that we are politically conservative. (For some reason, there are a lot of liberal software developers out there.) Recently he sent out a link to an article entitled House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks. Much argument ensued over the fact that it was mere contemplation. Here was my response:

The problem is not the contemplating. The real problem is the disturbing belief system and arrogant attitude that has prompted the contemplating. For example:

• “I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”
  This is really disturbing. She regards money that we earn that is not taxed as a subsidy. So does she regard charitable contributions that are deducted as the government subsidizing my church? Does she regard the mortgage interest deduction as the government subsidizing my debt? This comes from a scary and arrogant attitude that I did not earn the money I worked for but that it belongs to the Nanny State...and maybe they'll let me keep some of it.
• “I want to spend our nation’s dollar for retirement security better."
  This is the problem. Why does congress get to decide this (and on what Constitutional grounds)? Shouldn't the person that worked hard for the money in the first place decide how to save his or her money for retirement?
• "Everybody would now be covered” if the plan were adopted, Ghilarducci said.
  I hope she doesn't mean that. Should those who don't work get retirement at the expense of those who do? I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she doesn't really mean "everyone" since it says "workers" earlier.
  

Behind all the contemplating is the arrogant attitude that congress and bureaucrats know better how to take care of your needs than you do. The scary part is that many of them either actually believe it or they are being deliberately dishonest to give themselves more power.

Fantasy Football

This is my second year to play Fantasy Football. I had avoided playing for several years because the only leagues I knew of were pay leagues, which were a form of gambling, and because I thought it would take too much time, a resource of which I don't have an abundant supply. Last year I joined a free league at work and found that it didn't take that much time at all. Since MNF is on right now and the game is one-sided, I figured this is a good time to talk about how Fantasy Football works. It is important to note that the rules are different for every league. This is how our leagure works.

The Players

The rules for every league are different. It first starts with the draft, which is probably the most critical aspect of the season. If you don't draft well you typically won't do well. You draft for the following positions:

• 1 Quarterback
• 2 Running Backs
• 2 Receivers
• 1 Tight End
• 1 Running Back or Receiver
• 1 Kicker
• 1 Defense
• 6 Bench Positions - These can be any of the above.
  

Every team in the NFL has a bye week so it is important to draft backups for your key positions. Since you don't have enough bench positions to back up everyone, you will end up dropping and adding players through the year. Because players get injured, you often have to replace them. Its important to draft well because the players remaining, the free agents, are typically not as good, but there often are surprises. Sometimes these surprises are rookies. Sometimes they are backups for an injured player.

The Scoring

Scoring is relatively simple and is based on how each player on your team does in real life that week. Every player gets 6 points for touchdowns. Outside of that, here are the other scoring rules:

• A player gets 1 point for every 20 yards of passing.
  
• A player gets 1 point for every 10 yards of rushing.
  
• A plap gets 1 point for every 10 yards of receiving.
• A kicker gets 1 point for every extra points, and 3, 4, or 5 points for a field goal, depending on the distance.
• A defense gets 15 points at the start of the game. This is reduced based on how much the offense playing against them scores. A defense also gets 2 points for each sack, fumble recovery, or interception.
• A player loses 2 points for throwing an interception.
• A player loses 2 points for fumbling.
  

The Time Investment

The biggest time investment is the draft, which lasts a little over an hour, if I remember correctly. We do it online at Yahoo! Everyone has 90 seconds to make a draft pick and there are 15 rounds, as you would expect. Then every week, I had to spend about 30 minutes--sometimes more but often less--making sure that I'm happy with my lineup of starters and making any trades.

Fantasy football used to take a lot of time because participants had to keep score themselves. Now the fantasy football providers such as Yahoo! or NFL.com, keep score online for you.

How I'm Doing

I haven't done so well the last couple of weeks. I'm now 3 - 4 and in fifth place out of 10 teams. My star player is Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, who is right now leading the league in passing. Last week he scored me 39 points but most of my other players scored in the single digits. This week Drew Brees scored only 9 points. My leading receiver, Anquan Boldin of the Arizona Cardinals, has been out the last few weeks. I made a big mistake in dropping the Pittsburgh defense on their bye week instead of holding on to them. They were picked up by someone else pretty quickly. I won't make the mistake of letting go of a good defense again.

Last year, my first year, I started out 1-7 but managed to finish 2nd. You never know how its really going to go. You try to draft wisely, pick up promising free agents before someone else does, and hope that your players play consistently.

Why I Play

Here is why I play:

• Strategy - Despite the fact that players have bad games and you have no control over that, there is still a lot of strategy involved. You choose who to play based on how a player is playing and what team he is playing against. For example, I might play one running back one week and replace him with another running back from the bench because the defense the second player is playing against defends poorly against the run. I enjoy finding that new rookie who ends up doing well also.
  
• Fun - I happen to love football and am going to watch some NFL games anyway. Having players that are on your fantasy team playing adds another fun element to the game.
  
• Relationship - It gives me something besides work to talk about with those I work with.
  

Meeting Neighbors

One of the things that has bothered me since I moved back at the end of May is that we hadn't met any of our neighbors. In the neighborhood I used to live we all knew each other. In fact when we moved in to my former neighborhood, there were several families we hung out with in our cul-de-sac. Our kids would play together, we had Memorial Day and Christmas parties together, the ladies would go out together once a month, and the guys even did a Bible study together. The funny thing is that even after everyone has moved away, we still have had a Christmas party together for the last few years. (We were last of the original group to move away.) I've missed that.

Things began to change last Saturday. John had to sell popcorn for the Cub Scouts so now he and I had to go around and meet neighbors. Overall it was a good experience. I met some nice people, one of whom invited John to come play with her boys whenever they were out. I also met a couple that we first walked by because we didn't want to interrupt them when they were fixing their car. On the way back to our house, they were done so we stopped by. She and her husband were working on their car to save the big expense of repairing it. She also looked at the prices of the popcorn and knew she couldn't buy any. Somewhere in the conversation, God was prompting me to ask her about her situation and if I could pray for her. She told me about her situation and I told her I would pray for her, which she seemed to genuinely appreciate. Pray that God can direct me and Laura in other ways we may can be used by God to help them.

Christianomics

This post is about something I've been thinking about for a while and may be longer than usual, so hang in there as I ramble. With the economy the way it is and the election looming, it seems appropriate to talk about economics from a Christian perspective.

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand

Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations described capitalism as an "invisible hand", through which the selfish behavior of men benefited the society as a whole.

As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

Contrast a restaurant that you've been to that has really good food and good service with a restaurant that has poor service, poor quality food, or both. Which one do you visit the most? The good quality restaurant will typically be in business for longer, have more customers, and make more money than the poor quality restaurant. For the selfish reason of making more money, there is an incentive to provide something that benefits others.

Now think of a socialist, or perhaps, communist economic system. Imagine the extreme that the government owned all restaurants, hired cooks to run them, taxed the citizenry to pay for them, and then "gave" the food away for free. Is there now incentive to provide good quality and good service?

A Christian Perspective

Inherent in the example above and in Adam Smith's quote is the Biblical truth that man is sinful.

As the Scriptures say,

"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one." ^[1]

I believe that the best economic system to promote good when man is sinful is capitalism. Socialism and Capitalism both deny the truth of man's sinfulness. The reason they don't work very well is because of this truth.

Some of the principles promoted by capitalism are indeed Biblical. For example, 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.'" (Note that it says "will not work", not "cannot work". More on that below.)

Rising Above Capitalism

The standards for a Christian are higher than any economic system, however. For a Christian, doing good is something we do to bring glory to God rather than to benefit ourselves. While in business, we work to provide for our families and we should do that work to the glory of God and for the benefit of others. However, we are also called to give out of love for Christ, to help those who truly need.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. ^[2]

The Church or the Government

Our economic system is the best there is at, as one friend of mine said, "exploiting" the sinful human nature for the good of society. It benefits others buy both providing quality goods and services that others need, but the jobs that are required to produce these when success comes to the producers. As someone once said, a "rising tide lifts all boats".

However, this is never sufficient to truly lift all boats. As Jesus said in Matthew 26:11, "The poor you will always have with you". This means that people need help. I believe the church (i.e., Christians, the body of Christ) can better provide help where it is really needed than the government. Also, this is the most compassionate answer to the problem of need. Which requires more compassion, to give from your own resources (which are really God's anyway) or to lobby that the government give from the resources collected from someone else?

The government has to treat all needs the same, whether real or perceived. The church on the other hand, can discern real needs from perceived, and meet people where the real needs are. The man who has lost all his money due to his gambling addiction may get a welfare check from the government. From the church he may get a bag of groceries, accountability, and spiritual help to overcome his addiction. Which is more effective?

One last question: If the government didn't attempt to help by giving money from the public coffers to both real and perceived needs, would there be less needs or more? I'd like to hear your thoughts. You may can guess mine.

^[1] Romans 3:10-12 (New International Version)
^[2] Matthew 5:42 (New International Version)

Another Important Reason to Switch to OpenDNS

Back in June of this year, I wrote a post called Filtering the Right Way Using OpenDNS. Now there is another important reason for switching to OpenDNS, protection against a big security hole in the internet. If you don't know what I'm talking about please read my original post.

What Every Wide Receiver Wants

I just watched the Cincinnati-Marshall game. Marshall has a wide receiver named Passmore. No kidding.

What Caused Our Economic Crisis?

Today the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was signed into law by President Bush. Despite whatever you might think of the new law, commonly referred to as the bailout, you have to be asking yourself what caused this to begin with? My Dad sent me to a link to the following video, which I believe explains this complicated issue very well. I don't agree with 100% of this--it plays to class warfare somewhat--but it seems to be an accurate picture of the facts surrounding this issue.



Also, here is a New York Times article from 1999 that was a foreshadowing of things to come.