Yes, I know the authors collected a lot of valuable economic history but unless you get excited over lots of charts, it is a very dry read.

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
by Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff

As a fan of the Dave Ramsey show the audio books was an enjoyable review of much of the same stuff you hear over the radio.

The Original Argument audiobook is an interesting Glenn Beck project. Glenn Beck and others have translated many of the original Federalist Papers from the 18^th century English into an easier to understand 21^st century English. The objective was to make the Federalist Papers more accessible to the average person and I think he achieved that. In this book we find Alexander Hamilton and James Madison making persuasive arguments for a more powerful federal government primarily because they felt a federal effort would be more efficient and cost less than independent state efforts. From their viewpoint it was a win-win decision for the country. Although I agree with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison about the benefits of a strong federal government, I think they would be shocked to see how the balance of power has shifted from the states to the federal government. Most of the safeguards for the state that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison described have been dismantled over the years. Not only are senators directly elected by the people but the states are increasing dependent on the federal government for their revenue as shown below.  The culmination of this dismantling effort can be seen in the lawsuits over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. This year lawyers will make many of same federal versus state rights arguments before the Supreme Court that was argued originally in the Federalist Papers. I doubt any of lawyers will attempt to make the argument that the Affordable Care Act is more efficient substitute or enhancement of existing state programs. The fact that the federal government can pay for the expansion via deficit spending is a bad reason to expand Medicaid. I would be more in favor of a practice that encourages responsible governing practices.

See this Cato essay on federal subsidies to the states for more on why it is critical to reverse this trend.

A few days ago I was surprised when Henry Blodget wrote an article advocating more government spending in the article, Well, It Sure Seems Like Keynes Was Right, and based it partly on Reinhart and Rogoff’s analysis of prior financial crises. I was surprised since the authors did not comment directly about stimulus spending in the chapters I read but here is what Henry wrote:

And I’ve also looked back at history–namely, Reinhart and Rogoff’s analysis of prior financial crises, the Great Depression, Japan, Germany after Weimar, and so forth.

So I skipped to the end of the book and read the last two chapters. The closest I came to a comment on Keynesian stimulus spending is:

Debt sustainability exercises must be based on plausible scenarios for economic performance, because the evidence offers little support for the view that countries simply “grow out” of their debts. This observation may limit the options for governments that have inherited high levels of debt. Simply put, they must factor in the possibility of “sudden stops” in capital flow, for these are a recurrent phenomenon for all but the very largest economies in the world.

and

Our extensive coverage of banking crises, however, says little about the much debated issue of the efficacy of stimulus packages as a way of shortening the duration of the crisis and cushioning the downside of the economy as a banking crisis unfolds.

So although the authors are concerned about plausible debt sustainability scenarios since it may lead to “sudden stops” in capital inflow in smaller economies, their data has shown that large economies like the United States have been immune from these “sudden stops”. This leaves open the question of what would happen to capital inflows if the United States undertook another stimulus like Henry Blodgett is recommending.   At what level of debt does the rest of the world decide that the United States debt is not sustainable and they should invest their capital elsewhere. If that scenario occurs we can safely say this time is different.

As a back-handed complement I would like to thank Henry for making the “This Time is Different” book much more interesting than it would be otherwise.

1. Part one
2. Part two
3. Part three
4. Part four
5. Part five
6. Part six
7. Part seven
8. Part eight
9. Part nine
10. Part ten

• Honor
• Purity and how to talk to women
• How on being a warrior
• Courage

In hindsight this retreat was about a man’s heart and his relationship to sex. These boys are going into high school. In this sex saturated society they were going to be severely challenged if they wanted to avoid the pitfall of meaningless sex. Meaningless sex may seem exciting and forbidden for high school students but it wounds the heart in a way that it is difficult to repair. Instead of building and supporting the intimacy that is essential for a good marriage, they develop a fake intimacy. They rely on movies and television to provide them with the role model of their attempts at intimacy. Like the movie characters they remember, they try to play the part. Unlike the movies they do not have a script for their movie. Ultimately a sense of failure and fraud sets in. They do not feel like the man they envisioned when they embarked on this journey. This fake intimacy colors all future relationships with women. It is repairable but it takes time.

I mention this because something amazing happened at the retreat. The boys had just finished a rousing game of tackle football in the arena. Demonstrating great common sense I avoided participating in tackle football. Sorry! Been there! Done that! The results are always bad for a man my age. While they were playing I lit the bonfire and moved some logs around the fire to sit on. We were probably thirty minutes into the talk about purity and how to talk to a woman when it started to rain. Everyone went inside except my son. So I sat down next to him. He told me he had a girlfriend. I was shocked! Like many boys his age he seems entirely preoccupied with video games and sports. When he is around girls his age he seems wonderfully clumsy. I thought he had a great chance about being labeled a jerk for the next five years. Boy, was I wrong! He told me that there was a girl at school he liked and she liked him. He said they were very comfortable being around each other and talking about things. So we sat in the rain and he went on to explain what he liked about her. I sat and listened. When he finished we got up and joined the group inside. This was quite an amazing experience for a father. My son was invited to participate in the retreat because he lives here. He is just a 7^th grader. It is possible that he will make the same mistake as others before him and succumb to the pitfall of meaningless sex. Then again maybe God has armed him with the armor to protect his heart and the desire to seek out a deeper relationship with God and women.

It feels somewhat strange that God has used me to help my son start the journey in search of his heart. Like many parents I am pretty comfortable with God using the retreat leaders in this manner but I forgot that my participation is not only necessary but required. I should know better. I just finished reading John Eldredge’s great book, Wild at Heart, just before the retreat. There is a lot of wisdom about God and the masculine heart in that book. I find myself going back to reread sections several times as I continue to try and understand my heart and others I care about. I thought I had a lot of time before I needed to apply what I had learned on my son. Boy, was I wrong! The path to understanding your heart and your son’s heart is out there. The difficulty lies in the fact that God’s plan is not the same as your plan.