Hello C3 Family!

Weekly Rant - Vacation, Disney, The ER, & Education Reform...

The over 35 hours in the car with my beautiful family consisting of 4 children 5 years and under in age went as well as could be expected. My wife proved that she is a Saint and has the patience of Job and I learned that my patience leaves a lot to be desired. The trip was a true joy overall in getting to reconnect with friend and family and being the best man at a dear friend's wedding whose marriage I hope and pray will be a light in this world. 

And, yes while in FL I took my family to Disney. I believe Disney to be completely demonic, but hey we got free tickets for the whole family, and free parking and my three-year-old had the time of her life meeting Sully from Monsters, Inc. I do see the good in what Disney could be, namely a place for imagination and virtue to inspire youth, but I just can't ignore all the horrible stories and practices that have come to light over the last few years. I also, could not get over how many adults I saw going into the parks with no children. A huge percentage of the people attending the parks were doing so because they actually wanted to go themselves and they were not being forced by the dreams of their children. This completely baffles my mind!! It is like paying to stand in line at a colorful DMV with really pricey food vendors. I simply do not get it. But a family friend who got us the tickets and has worked security in Orlando for a long time tried to explain it to me. He simply stated that for these adults, Disney is their end all be all. Sadness is how I reacted to this statement. Disney is the idol, the church, the worship service. Star Wars, Princess Movies, Secret Park Passageways is what gives meaning to the lives of these Disney fanatics. I am sure many of them feel the same way about me and my worship of Jesus Christ. I will end this paragraph now, because I have not flushed out my thoughts on this further, but it was eye opening to me. I welcome anyone to respond to this who has thought about it a little bit more than I have.

Also, I know we all have hobbies and that is completely fine. What I saw at Disney was not a hobby it was a lifestyle and an obsession.

Best story from my time away is this great DailyWire Article about true education reform. I plan on writing about this article in the very near future but I encourage everyone to check it out!!! The ‘Private-Practice’ Professor, A Path To True Education Reform | The Daily Wire

Top Stories of the Year (or so we like to think!)

• The Fed hinted that rates may not come down as quickly as investors had hoped and this recently sent stocks on a downward plunge. Why so many people think fear based speculative assets are God's gift to humanity is becoming harder and harder to understand by the day for me.

• Google is laying off employees for the second January in a row. Google morale is low after so many rounds of layoffs in the last 13 months and the tech industry overall has laid off over 260K people in the last 12 months. Google could be showing signs of weakness in their monopoly with deep pocketed rival OpenAI becoming more popular by the day and looking to poach unhappy Google talent.

• Jumbo Jet producer Boeing has seen its stock plummet after midair blowout during an Alaska Airlines flight.

• EVs struggle in cold temps. Tesla drivers are complaining that freezing temps are making charges run out faster and causing charge times to nearly double. 

• The Supreme Court is about to decide what to do with an old 1984 pro-regulation law because some fishermen have made a case about a fee that has been required to haul conservation observers. This sounds meaningless but if the old 1984 law is overturned it would take away a LOT of power from regulating bodies. Think everything from Crypto to pharmaceuticals. Conservative Justices like Neil Gorsuch have said the law gave huge amounts of power to bureaucrats.

• Iran says it is not backing down and will continue to back groups that launch attacks as long as the Israel-Hamas war continues. So, what Iran is essentially saying is that it wants Israel to surrender and be wiped out or it will continue to fund Hamas.

• China's population has dropped for the second year in a row and the CCP is wondering how it can incentivize its people to have more babies. Maybe they should make Catholicism the national religion?! Just a thought...But seriously this is a major problem for the world's second largest economy. This is not a China specific problem. Much of the first world including the US and many European countries are losing numbers. More people dying and not enough babies being born.

• 28% of large homeowners in the US are empty nest boomers. Millennials with kids make up only 14% of that ownership statistic and Gen Z parents barely make a blip at 0.3%. The housing market has a lot of problems. Boomers are not incentivized to sell from a financial perspective and the younger generations could not afford the sticker prices anyway.
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• A $78 Billion bipartisan plan could help both big corporations and low-income families in future tax seasons if it is passed this January. The plan would use the, soon to be laid to rest, Employee Retention Credit to give $33 billion in corporate tax breaks related to costs for interest payments and research. The plan will also use the other $45 billion to help over 400,000 low-income children reach the needed thresholds for the child tax credits. I have very nuanced and critical opinions about bills like this, but it would be nice to see the republicans and democrats agree on something that is not totally diabolical.

• Bill H.R. 6918 titled the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act is to be considered today in the House of Representatives. This bill would prohibit the secretary of Health and Human Services from restricting funding for Pregnancy crisis centers. Please pray for its approval.