My Summary Notes for Radio Interview… 7 things to remember
I don’t know what the financial news is going to be several days after I write this article, but the last three days have been headline news.
Dow Jones Down 358, Down 531, Down 588.
This morning (August 24, 2015) I received a phone call from a radio station asking me to be a guest on their program to discuss the current economic news. Below you will find a summary of what I communicated:
Every day we see the condition of a nation that has turned away from God. I don’t need to list everything going on in our nation – you already know the list.
I would like to offer four exhortations:
1. Don’t let all the negative news consume your time and thinking. Yes, we absolutely need to be informed about what is going on in the world, but that can be done by watching a thirty-minute news cycle once a day or reading an informative book on a topic. Hours of negative news input is not good for your mind, heart and soul. And remember God’s Word teaches us that in the end we win.
Below you will find the introduction to PREPARE.
“The mother of all economic storms is headed our way, yet most Americans seem oblivious to the danger. Despite the gathering thunderclouds of annual federal budget deficits and a rapidly escalating national debt, most people are simply ignoring the news and information concerning the coming economic crisis.
There’s really nothing complicated about it. You only need one chart to illustrate our nation’s unsustainable course.
One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13 (along with Rudy, Braveheart, The Patriot, and Iron Will). Underdog heroes have always inspired me to never give up.
In Apollo 13, shortly after an apparent electrical short/explosion occurs in the rocket ship, all the warning lights and alarms begin flashing in the cockpit and at mission control. That’s when we hear the commander say, “Houston, we have a problem.”
There is a psychological term to explain why people want to reject or push away new data when it makes them feel uncomfortable — when the new data is interrupting their world. It’s call cognitive dissonance.
Mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. . . . When confronted with challenging new information, most people seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists
(Source: Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)
Your Prep Plan: How to combat cognitive dissonance.
What about you? How do you deal with cognitive dissonance?
Despite what you may have heard in the news, there is no political slant to the soaring federal debt:
Since the end of World War II, the budget shortfall has grown under six Republican and six Democratic presidents; it has grown when the Democrats have controlled Congress and when the Republicans have controlled Congress; and even the twelve years of budget surplus (1947–1949, 1951, 1956–1957, 1960, 1969, 1998–2001) are almost equally split between the parties’ control of the White House and Congress. (source) Bottom line, there’s no point in pointing fingers. We’re in this mess together and we need to work together to prepare the coming economic storm.
Our current economic problems are not the result of one piece of legislation, one president, or one session of Congress. Our current economic woes are the cumulative result of a long series of fiscal policy decisions over many, many years. Let’s take a brief survey of American history since the Franklin Roosevelt Administration as it relates to fiscal policy:
