Hello C3 Family!

Weekly Rant - Why not be a hermit?!

The stock market is a plague on the economic and spiritual life, Gold as a currency can't work in our Globalized society, Fiat currency is enforced by Governments with guns and is subject to more corruption than we can fathom, Bitcoin is a volatile abstraction that is centralized in the hands of the already rich, and predatory inflation is a pillar of our society. This all paints a bleak financial picture, yet we must remain in the world without becoming of the world. 

I believe that the Stock market is actually intrinsically evil, and we should, if able, detangle ourselves from it. However, the other issues of predatory lending and no currency being a good moral fit for our society are things we ought to work through and somewhat live with. I have a great hesitation when thinking to positively about any economic tool or system as being a solution to the problems. This hesitation mostly comes from a fear of idol worship. We are constantly looking to fix things and systems, but it is far better to look inward and fix ourselves. Because no matter what we produce in this world, it will be significantly flawed.

The answer to the economic problems of the world will not be found in BTC, Gold, the USD, the stock market or and new version of a financial system. The answer as I have said time and time again is Sainthood and Sainthood takes perseverance. We cannot go live as hermits because we must be in the world and answer the call to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This may require us to take out a loan from a lender so we can buy a home for our family. This may require us to use the USD or BTC to buy food for our families. At every step we must prayerfully discern our next move and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us whether we are just Christians living IN a corrupt world, or becoming OF the world. A difficult discernment indeed!!

I know that I have touched on all this before, but I wanted to reiterate given the short series I wrote a few weeks ago on Currency replacement. Also, I am not against hermitages in any way, but I highly doubt God is calling ALL of us to live a life of solitude in the mountains. I mean after all, only about 31% of the world is Christian. There is certainly a lot more evangelization to be done! 

Editing and Finishing this book is becoming more expensive than I thought!! If you have the ability and conviction, please consider donating. 

Top Stories

• An 8-day win streak for the Dow from last week is now off the rails because consumer sentiment fell to a 6-month low due to inflation worries. Today is a big day for all things US finance since the consumer-inflation report is going to be released (3.4% is the expected number we will see from the Consumer Price index).

• The FTX debacle continues. The former golden child of the crypto world imploded back in November of 2022 and is just now able to payback its customers. This is a good-bad news for customers since the amount they will be paid will be what their crypto was worth at the time of bankruptcy for FTX. When FTX imploded BTC was only worth $20K. Now BTC is worth about $60K. To make matters worse, many sold off their potential paybacks from FTX, thinking that their money was lost. Now the debt-hedge funds who bought the claims are in position to make millions.

• Apple reported declining iPhone sales, so it issued a $110B buyback of its stock to gives its share price a boost. Analysts expect this year to be the year of buybacks. The prediction is that there will be $925B worth of buybacks this year. Anyone interested in debating the idea that stock price is not based on production of goods and services?!?!

• Tesla plans on firing 10% of its workforce and EV demand overall has led to a drop in car deliveries for Tesla of about 8.5%.

• Walmart is becoming even more dominant in the grocery space as people making between $100K-$150K are bargain shopping the Walmart brand. E-commerce brought in over $100B for Walmart last year.

• Keeping up with the Jones' is a real problem. 36% of people making $200K/yr live paycheck to paycheck.

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes had no competitors at the box office this weekend with its strong showing of $56.5M.