Boosting the Economy

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Boosting the Economy

Friday, February 8, 2008

By Naftali Silberberg

Boosting the Economy

So, the economy is sliding. The housing market is in the doldrums, citizens are having a tough time making ends meet, and the national debt is dangerously climbing.

Well, we are a superpower; we shouldn't have a problem dealing with such trivial issues. Two options that come immediately to mind: a) Nationalize all the Fortune 500 companies. b) Give Australia an ultimatum: Hand over all your diamond mines or be nuked.

Yet, our government chose an altogether different route.

CNN: The House on Thursday quickly passed a Senate-approved economic stimulus package and sent the bill to the president's desk for his signature . . . The deal, passed in the Senate on a 81-16 vote, includes rebate check amounts of $300 to $600 for people who have an income between $3,000 and $75,000, plus $300 per child...

Yup, facing difficult times themselves, the solution the government came up with is to give out money. Pretty amazing, inconceivable a century ago, and goes to show how our world is becoming a better and more humane place.

Yes, the politicians continue to wrangle and rant. How much should the rebates be? Who should be receiving them? And, as many of the analysts are pointing out, the politicians' primary motivation is victory in next year's election. But at the end of the day the bill was passed. Once again the horses have led the wagon to the desired destination.

What is the spiritual spin on boosting the economy? Check back next week...

Have a Good Shabbos all,

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Topics: Current Events (863), Economy, The (29), Government (40)

Reader Comments
Latest Comments:

Posted: Apr 16, 2008

Poverty and the Jewish People

Much as I agree with the idea of giving to charity being a mitzva that helps the poor, in my heart I know that it is not the long-term solution to eliminating the existance and cause of poverty. Of course the place to look into this is the Tanach and in Leviticus chapter 25 is the idea of the means to livelyhood namely the land being uniformly distributed to all of the new families that were due to settle in the Land of Cana'an. Thus the present situation why there are so many poor and why the gap between them and the rich is growing is due to our present unjust means of treating the use and availability of the land. Land values vary greatly so it is not sites but work-opportunities to use them that must be fairly shared. By taxing the land value instead of the produce from the land (including that of commerse earned in the center of town where the land is very expensive) and not taxing what is earned by the swet of our noses (literal translation) can we reduce poverty to nothing,

Posted By David Chester, Petach Tikva, Israel

Posted: Feb 11, 2008

Bosh

i think the horses are taking us to the stable.
the driver is drunk and there is no-one to guide them.
the passengers are wearing blinders instead of the horses.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." (animal farm)

Posted By gershon m

Posted: Feb 10, 2008

You do have a good point, BUT

Hallo, my name is Mahmud and I'm studying Economy @ U of Virginia. I grew up in Uganda and M now learning in the US. I do not know Jewish pepole that much but my Prof. is Jewish. So i happen to come to this website.

I want to tell you Rabbi (this is how I should call you?) that you have a good point. In Uganda we grew up very poor and now I'm leaving here and can afford buying myself diet coke and cigar. So your point is very valid.
Thank you!

Posted By Mahmud Mutibitlly, U of V, VA
via chabad.edu

Posted: Feb 10, 2008

Deficit spending

In the days when our ancestors first received Torah, we had shekels and we had the barter system, and overall we had a much objective view of money: It represented the value of exchanged merchandise much more closely then it did now. Since then money has taken on subjective values; and starting with the giving of Torah, one of these was the mitzvah of tzedekah. Another, which man gave to money on his own apart from G-d, was to artificially stimulate the economy:

Sort of like one Pharaoh dreaming of seven fat cows, while another Pharaoh watches his magicians fail before Moshe and Aharon.

The problem, then and now, isn't tzedekah to people who may need it. That remains a mitzvah; but there are consequences to these stimulus plans for our economy; and by studying the errors of the Pharaohs as described in Torah we may yet still derive guidance in a divine sense.

Posted By Thomas Karp, New Haven, Ct.

Posted: Feb 10, 2008

a good thing?

America needs a stimulus package like an Alcoholic needs another shot!

We need to curb OUR spending and Credit Card usage!

Posted By Richard

Posted: Feb 10, 2008

this one isn't true

While you think that giving money to the public is a good thing to do, you should be aware that it only make the poor people poorer, and the rich people richer. What you want to do is to make people want to work, not to sit at home and do nothing.

Posted By Margaret Granut, Upper MI, MI

Posted: Feb 8, 2008

Won't work

Your plan won't work.

1) All the Fortune 500 companies are already owned by Bill Gate, who has signed a Collective Defense treaty with Australia (see #2 below).

2) Australia, in anticipation of just such a development, has over the last 26 year been clandestinely developing a strong nuclear deterrent. It currently has 5,628 ITC missiles armed with nuclear warheads and a state-of-art early warning system.

Posted By S. Munk

By Naftali Silberberg More by this authors... |

Rabbi Naftali Silberberg resides in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife Chaya Mushka and their three children.

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