Inflation

I have a very clear understanding of inflation. Yesterday, after buying gas, I went back inside to get a receipt and saw a cooler of small Coca-Colas in glass bottles and I picked one up. It cost $1.06. The irony of that moment was my immediate memory of buying my first Coca-cola from a drink machine at my elementary school back in Wilcox County, GA in 1960. The cost was one nickel and one penny, in that order, or the machine would not take it. Out came a small bottle of Coke. In the 48 years since, the cost has risen to more than 17 times the cost of that similar bottle of soft drink, and now they use corn syrup instead of sugar as sweetener, a less expensive substitute.
When I was 16, and buying gas for an automobile in 1970, the cost was .30 a gallon. Today that price has escalated more than 10 times and instead of 98 octane it is 87. At least now it is unleaded.
The fact of “inflation” has economists climbing the walls. The Feds who hold the purse strings on funds for banks have been playing hardball with the interest rates of late, trying to relieve the pressure on the banking industry that is faced with the fallout of too many mortgages extended on too many properties at too high an appraisal rate on too variable an interest basis. The result…a lot of people are over their heads in house payments. The downside -- prices are plummeting, making it look like better to default than hang on to overvalued real estate, leaving foreclosures in excess everywhere. The results leave banks holding real estate rather than loans. A situation they do not like at all. What good is an empty house, much a less a street full of empty houses, or a neighborhood full of empty houses…it’s a mess waiting to get worse. So our president offers everyone a quick payday, sometime in May in hopes people will go out and buy stuff to kick he economy into big spender mode once more so it can grow. What nobody is willing to recognize is that there are too many people without jobs sitting around waiting for a better day. Likewise, there is too much expenditure going out the back door for a war that has no end in sight. Added to that scenario are the results of unbridled spending that doesn’t show a lot of benefit for the investment in many places where it has been spent. Too bad accountability is a bad word in congress. The facts of rising prices will not dissipate with the rest of the world having economic growth while ours flounders.
The bible refers to “the work of our hands” in many places. That’s just another description of “labor” in all forms. Labor is something we had better start doing, in the ways we know to do it if we expect there to be progress worth having. Easy street without labors has always had its days numbered. We would do well to get to work.
In terms of the American workplace…that means catching sight of what makes sense to invest in. We need better roads, safer bridges, lines painted down the middle of most of the highways I drive on. We need good teachers and good doctors and good preachers and good scientists and good engineers and good carpenters and good plumbers and good electricians and good accountants and good cooks and good nurses…you get the idea.
We need people with a passion for excellence in the context of love and service and commitment that don’t falter on hard days and that take the challenge of every day and move forward. We need to pray for the Lord to “prosper the work of our hands” and to know that He is our strength for getting the work done well.