Letters to the Editor

Money system in perilous condition, getting worse

Money is the most important thing in the world for good reason. Before money, if you had a cow and needed a pot, there was no way to make an equitable trade.

With money you could sell your cow and use the money for different things. You could get a good deal on a copper pot, and also buy new shoes, seeds to plant next year, a plow, and all kinds of neat things. Maybe even a pretty fancy new ribbon for your wife's hair! Money enabled commerce, trade and specialization. Without money, civilization isn't possible.

Today we have a very complex monetary system. But every system has limits. They have a point beyond which improvement is impossible and they fail. It is reality and our banking and financial systems are no different.

Mathematically, limits can be proved using calculus. Our monetary system is very complicated, so the question is exactly, what is the breaking point? Are there geniuses out there who have figured it out? Maybe. President Donald Trump may have given it away when he mentioned the figure $24 trillion in remarks he made recently. Was it a slip?

It is obvious to anyone with a scrap of common sense that our growing national debt is dangerous, especially for future generations. Are we riding a train headed for a bottomless chasm where the bridge is out? Can we stop the train in time or is it just a matter of time?

We are at $20 trillion. That $24 trillion is just a few years away. If you have money, you might think about using it soon. Beans and bullets will be the new currency if we don't get busy and put some brakes on this train.

Jeff Cook

Springdale

What does liberty, in biblical terms, really mean?

Man's greatest fear is losing his life. Losing life includes facing God's judgment with guilt and shame. Literally natural man is a slave of Satan, fear and death.

Men need to be liberated. Liberate is a verb that means doing something. The Holy Bible and that alone speaks of this liberation. "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death -- that is, the devil -- and free (liberate) those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." -- Hebrews 2:14-15.

When the Holy Spirit moves men to believe this liberation, they become free and have freedom. This freedom sets mankind on a new path replacing peace for worry, courage for fear, hope for fatalism. Men, living in the presence of such great and divine acts of love, respond in responsibility, creativity and thankfulness.

These same new facets of life are what has established our nation, based primarily on Christianity, into such prosperity, patriotism and populism. Of course, our nation is not and never has been perfect.

There have always been and still are cultural distractions from human thinking contrary to biblical testimony. This merely means that the stolid silent minority needs to do as its Savior directed: "Let your light shine before men." Speak up for the truth and righteousness. Freedom is not inherited through the blood stream. It is maintained one generation at a time, mouth to ear from parent to children by word and deed.

The Rev. Robert Miskimen Sr.

Bella Vista

Editorial on 09/20/2017

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