Cirrus
2yr ago
The idea that something at the beginning of time was unaffected by the rules of cause and effect is still plausible to me, but is there any reason left to assume it was sapient?
Sure, just read Genesis 1:27…
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And Hebrews 13:8…
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
And of course, there’s John 1:1-5…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
If you hold the authority of the Bible to be true, which it is, then there’s ample evidence to believe in a living God that exists apart from time and is the creator of everything. His existence is beyond our comprehension, which takes a reasonable man with humility to appreciate. You want there to be a God. Of course! That’s because God has written himself into your/our hearts. From Romans 2:14-15…
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them…
So why be depressed? Take joy in the fact that God exists, despite what one internet blogger claims in his own foolishness.
Cirrus
2yr ago
COVID policies were enacted at the state level, where (to hazard a guess) the governors were younger and more responsive to the threat than our elderly Congress. The only federal legislative response I can think of was the CARES Act in 2020. I would have preferred decisive action early in 2020 by Congress—even if wrongheaded—then to pivot quickly once we knew more about COVID. Instead, we got a lumbering, indecisive Congress afraid to take strong actions in an election year. Maybe Congress was too old to risk bold policy in the face of uncertainty. More cynically, maybe this was the point given the Democrat-controlled Congress and a Republican President.
I don’t know enough about the Korean War to comment about that, sorry.
Cirrus
2yr ago
The average age of a member of Congress is 59 years old, the oldest in modern history. The United States used to criticize the ‘gerontocracy’ of the Soviet Union of the 1970s-1980s, as Glen Greenwald points out here.
We have constitutional age minimums for elected office, so why not age maximums? I don’t trust our geriatric leadership to respond effectively to a real threat to the country. If we have to rely on their handlers instead, just now representative are our elected leaders? We need a ruling class that is virile, strong, responsive, and bold.
Cirrus
2yr ago
I disagree. You don’t have to be raised believing in gods and the supernatural (or such a culture). Even so, I don’t think anyone is truly an atheist, as David Foster Wallace said, “In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. Everybody worships.” We just call old gods by new, modern names that don’t sound supernatural.
Also, this assertion downplays the power of Jesus Christ to reach into someone’s life and soften their heart. To know Jesus is to know that He still performs miracles, today. Why can’t He quicken someone’s spirit and raise them from the (spiritual) grave if He wants?
Ezekiel 36:26-27 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Cirrus
2yr ago
First off, setting his bond calculation math aside… this is a FASB accounting rule, not a regulation per se. Also, most banks don’t designate their bonds as HTM. Regulatory capital rules allow most banks (except for the very largest) to exclude unrealized gains or losses from capital calculations. Marking them to market would produce significantly more volatility in capital levels. Shoring up capital is well and good, except that most banks don’t have easy access to capital markets. They can’t just raise more capital on a moment’s whim, even if these are paper changes in value. If a bank chooses to hold onto a low-yielding bond that drags against their net interest margin, then you’ll see that reflected in poor earnings performance. This information is reported to the public each quarter by all banks, so it’s not a question of transparency.
The accounting designation rules for securities is not the main problem here, it’s that interest rates stayed too low for too long, and the bond market had its worst year in 40+ years in 2022. The Fed’s recent announcement to keep interest rates elevated was a nail in the coffin.
Cirrus
2yr ago
That’s right. SVB announced that it lost $1.8 billion on sales of low-yielding securities to meet the bank’s liquidity needs. The bank’s deposits had declined each of the latter three quarters in 2022.
Also, Gary Tan of Y Combinator as well as Peter Thiel were advising their portfolio companies to pull out funds from SVB. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/peter-thiel-fund-advises-companies-to-exit-silicon-valley-bank/amp-11678456061549.html
Could be she’s angling for a possible Vice President nomination. Correct-thinking Latina governor in a border state? You may recall when Susana Martinez, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, was a serious VP contender for Mitt Romney, and she spoke at one of the RNC national conventions one year.
As far as the state being ‘left wing’, it really isn’t. Not in the Vermont/Bernie Sanders/Portlandia way. New Mexico has for some time been a majority-minority state. American Indians make up 11 percent of the state’s population, the third highest in the United States after Alaska and Oklahoma. The median household income in 2021 was on the level with Alabama, making it 45th out of 50 in the United States. To put it bluntly, the modal New Mexican citizen is a poor, lowly educated Hispano-Indian who correctly perceives the Democratic Party as the party of handouts. The state is about as far away from the Gray Tribe, Bay Area rationalists and the Sanders socialists as can be!
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