What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.
To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. My taxes help to support the public institutions which I have mentioned, and they cost enough. Those who are badly off must go there. Many can't go there, and many would rather die. If they would rather die, perhaps they had better do so and decrease the surplus population. Surely you don't mean that, sir.
With all my heart. Hi, I'm Rob West. That of course was Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Did you know there's a profound socioeconomic message hidden in that exchange? Jerry Boyer lets us in on the secret today, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, Jerry Boyer is our resident economist here at Faithfi and the president of Boyer Research. He's also the author of The Maker and the Takers, what Jesus really said about social justice and economics. Jerry, great to have you back.
Always a pleasure. Was that George C. Scott? Was that the George C. Scott version that you just played? It sure was. Absolutely. That's a good one.
It sure was. Well, I'm looking forward to this. A little different, Jerry. We're doing a movie review, and most of us have heard or read that exchange between Scrooge and the alms collectors many times, so I'm looking forward to hearing your insights.
Jerry, what have we been missing? Well, what we've been missing is the extreme importance of that phrase surplus population, because we don't happen to be in the mindset of the early-mid-1800s. So when we have conversations in our time, if we hear someone say zero population growth, we know what that means. If we hear people talking about reproductive rights, we know what that means. But if we hear someone talk about surplus population, we don't know what that means. But they did.
And it's not really very subtle at all. There was a very active debate that had started, I don't know, about 40 years before Dickens wrote the book A Christmas Carol by the Reverend economist Thomas Malthus. So I guess he's a Christian economist, but I don't think he was a very good one, because Malthus believed that because of the biblical commentary about the ground being cursed, that that meant that there were too many people in the world. That as we reproduced and created and brought into being, God creates us, but as we conceive and bring into the world more people, that the population grows faster than the food supply and the supply of goods and services. So that's called Malthusianism, big word for this Malthus.
He wrote a book called An Essay on Population that was very influential. And basically the idea was we need to stop the poor, especially, from having so many babies. You know, they're having too many children because they're producing what? Surplus population.
There is a population surplus, too many people, not enough food. So when Dickens put that language in the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge, he's making a very important point. Scrooge is now a stand-in for a certain philosophy, the philosophy of Thomas Malthus, the philosophy that now we would call zero population growth. Yeah, and not everyone agreed with Malthus, of course. So who opposed his theories?
John Baptiste Say, who was one of the founders of classical and supply-side economics, but I think a lot of – GK Chesterton was another, the Christian journalist. But I think his most important opponent was Charles Dickens, because once you understand that Dickens is writing about this, we now understand that The Christmas Carol was in fact a story written against Malthus, because by the end, Scrooge changes his mind. Scrooge is wrong, okay?
So if you put a philosophy in the mouth of your villain, you're basically saying you disagree with that philosophy. And the story really is the unfolding of why – first of all, why Scrooge got wrong in the first place. It has to do with his own childhood trauma of hunger and cold. When he goes back in time with the ghost of Christmas past – these aren't ghosts.
These are angels, right? That's I think obvious to most Christian readers. When he goes back in time, Dickens says that the school where he lived felt or smelt of not enough to eat and too much cold and too much darkness. So he was poor when he was young. By the way, an interesting kind of economic history side note here. If you treat Scrooge like a real historical character, he grew up before the free – he was a child before the free market revolution when things really were dire.
And then when he's an adult, you have a free market revolution and things really are abundant. Fascinating. I'm Jerry Boyer here today, much more on a Christmas carol just around the corner.
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They're distributed by Foresight Funds Distributors, LLC, which is not an advisory affiliate, a registered investment advisor, nor do they provide investment advice. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values? How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity, and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.
To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit Faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. Delighted to have you with us today here on Faith and Finance. With me today, Jerry Boyer, my good friend, our resident economist and president of Boyer Research. We're doing a movie review today.
That's right. It's the Christmas season, and we're talking about Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Perhaps from a vantage point you haven't considered previously, Jerry, just before the break, you were talking about Thomas Malthus and how he was really represented in the character of Scrooge, who was obviously the villain character in this tale that comes full circle at the end.
So, what else can we take away from this character that gives us some insight into Malthus and what he was advocating at the time? Well, I think one of the things that's really interesting is the ghost of Christmas present when Scrooge first sees him. The Christmas present says, have you never met my like behind or any of my brothers before or any of my brothers? And Scrooge says, how many brothers have you had? Well, more than 1,800. In other words, there have been more than 1,800 Christmases.
And what's Scrooge's reaction? What a large family to provide for. See, there's that scarcity mindset. I mean, a lot of people think having a lot of brothers and sisters is a good thing. I do. My kids, my kids do.
They like having brothers and sisters. But we believe God is abundant and generous, but Scrooge didn't, if he believed in him at all. And when Scrooge says that, what a large family to provide for, Christmas present rises in anger. He disapproves of Scrooge's Malthusian ideas. Later on when they go to see Tiny Tim, Scrooge talks about Tiny Tim and how he cares for them, and the ghost kind of throws it back in his face.
You called him the surplus population, you know, forgo that cant, man. And then he makes an analogy that Scrooge is like a bug on a leaf looking down at the bugs in the dirt, saying that there are too many. To him, we're all kind of bugs, but, you know, Scrooge is a little richer than Tim, so he thinks there's too many people. And then the ghost kind of raises the question, maybe you're the surplus population.
Maybe you're the one that doesn't deserve to live. So he's pretty tough on Scrooge, but in the end, it works well. And then later, the ghost Christmas present takes him to the marketplace and there's all this food and he emphasizes the food from different parts of the world, oranges and things like that, which you can't grow in Britain. So the international trade and the economic takeoff that you and I have talked about in that presentation that I do on 2000 years of economic history, where you see the bubbles rising and falling. When you see the United Kingdom bubble rising, it's back down low in Malthusian equilibrium when Scrooge is a baby and it's kind of popping out during Scrooge's lifetime. The great takeoff is actually occurring.
Obviously, he's a fictional character, but you can kind of treat him where he was. That great takeoff is just taking place during his lifetime. Malthus was wrong at exactly the worst time. He makes his predictions before the greatest increase in human flourishing ever known to mankind. Hmm.
Wow. Well, now, of course, these Malthusian ideas haven't gone away, Jerry. So who's advocating them in modern times? Planned Parenthood is the Malthusian philosophy in industrial, profitized form, even though technically it's a nonprofit.
The abortion revolution is largely a result of a belief that their surplus population — we go back to Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood — too many of the wrong people, the swarthy people, the people of color, the poor people. So it's interesting that these people who believe that there are too many people, it's never their kind of people that there are too many of. Yeah. Ivy League professors who think there are too many people don't think, well, there's too many of my folks, you know?
Right. They think there's too many of other kind of folks, usually immigrants, usually people who are working class, usually people — I mean, this is why the Scopes trial takes place in the South. Southerners are thought of as too many people because they're thought of as backwards. Black people, Italian people, Jewish people, you know, outsiders, they're the surplus population. And whether it's the contraceptive revolution or whether especially I'm going to focus on — to the degree that it's grounded in a zero population growth ideology, that it's bad to have babies. And that shows up in the abortion industry. That shows up in a lot of like the Davos world and the United Nations sustainability. It shows up in a lot of corporate engagement that in order to be sustainable, we have to have fewer people. History shows in order to be sustainable, we have to have more people. The most sustainable thing that we can do economically is to fulfill God's commandment to fill the earth and subdue it. Yes.
There are no surplus people. And I think it's interesting. I think this story is called A Christmas Carol because Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, would very easily have been classified as surplus population in a Malthusian worldview.
Mm. Now, the poor in workhouses in England weren't fictional, of course. So how did the economic system there and elsewhere get so confused? Well, I, by the way, note that they're government entities. So Scrooge is in some ways a welfare state person. In other words, men are going door to door saying, we want to do private charity. He doesn't want to do private charity.
He wants to do it through taxes where it's impersonal. The workhouses and the prisons, they were they in essence, they would keep people alive, but it would be a terrible existence. So the idea is to punish them for being poor.
And that that obviously is not the solution. So if you want to be the opposite of Scrooge, you're going to be pro baby and you're going to be pro private charity. You're going to be pro generosity. And by the end, that's exactly what Scrooge is. He's pro generosity. By the way, another little side story when he visits his nephew, Fred, you know, when Fred visits him, Fred implies that Scrooge was upset because Fred married. Why did you marry? Scrooge didn't want his nephew to marry because of surplus population.
You marry and you have children. See, it comes up again and again and again. Scrooge's whole existence was there's too many people, God, if he exists at all is stingy. By the end, though, what is he? He's generous and he's especially generous to children. By the way, I don't know if people know this, but Dickens wrote a novel version of the Gospels. He read the Gospels and then wrote a novel, I think it's called The Life of Our Lord, and it has similar themes. So Dickens was thinking a lot about Jesus, wrote a novel about him, and also about he was one of those people who might have been considered the forgotten class, but he treated everyone with love and dignity, which made Jesus unusual. That's something Dickens really focuses on on the novel. Wow. Yeah, well said.
Jerry, we're getting short on time. So when folks watch A Christmas Carol this season and perhaps look at it through this new lens, this filter that you've just shared, what would you hope above all else they take away from the story? That God is generous, not stingy, that Scrooge is damaged because he grew up in poverty.
It's real. There's trauma. And so we should be patient with him and help move him away, but that we should help move our entire Scrooge ruling class philosophy away from Scrooge at the beginning towards Scrooge at the end, where everybody's welcome. We aren't bugs in the dust. It's interesting that the founder of the zero population growth movement, Paul Ehrlich, was a bug biologist. We're not bugs. Bugs just eat. Now, that's God.
God gave him that job. They don't produce. But human beings aren't bugs. We produce, and we produce more than we consume. And over time, that has given us miraculous prosperity and flourishing, which Dickens was just seeing the beginning of. So I think we should watch it with gratitude and also understanding that there's real philosophy going on here and theology going on here.
It's not just a fun story. And then we should bring Dickens' philosophy into our own lives. The child in the womb who's unwanted is the tiny Tim of our generation. Wow. Well said.
What an opportunity to share this with our kids, too, as we watch this and help them interpret what they're seeing. Jerry, always thankful for you, my friend. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. God bless us, everyone. That's exactly right. And a great place to end today. That's Jerry Boyer, our resident economist.
We've been talking about Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. All right. Your calls are next. The number? 800-525-7000.
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We're back. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance. It's the time of year that we're thinking about gifts, and I just want to say how grateful I am for the many generous supporters in our listening audience. You enable us to share the good news of God's wisdom on finances. Won't you consider sending a year-end financial gift to help us continue sharing about what God has to say about money? Simply go to faithfi.com and give your gift today. And again, thank you for your partnership. None of this would be possible without you. Let's head to the phones to Lafayette, Indiana. Jordan, you'll be our first caller.
Go ahead. I'm 23. I just closed on my house. I have about $70,000 in proceeds, and I want to know what I can do with that money to make it grow for me.
Yeah. So, are you planning to redeploy this into another home purchase, or do you have anything else in mind in terms of how you might use it? So, I'm utilizing the VA home loan. I thought about maybe using some of the proceeds just to bring the mortgage down so I could have a more manageable mortgage. But for the most part, I'm going to be keeping it just in a savings account until I figure out what to do with it. Yeah. What's the interest rate going to be on that mortgage you're getting?
I think I'm looking at around seven and a quarter. Yeah. Okay. And do you have what I call an emergency fund, Jordan, separate from this $70,000 of roughly three to six months expenses? Yes.
Yes, I do. Okay. You know, I guess I would just challenge that idea of why hang on to it. You know, if this was equity you built in a previous home, especially in light of where interest rates are right now, if your goal is to ultimately own that home free and clear, I love the idea of you getting that mortgage as low as possible, ultimately paying it off, keeping that manageable, and then trying to save and invest through company-sponsored retirement plan or at the very minimum, a Roth IRA. I mean, I know you're young, you're 23, so you might think, well, I could let this compound for a long, long time, and I get that, but I'd love for that compounding to happen inside a tax-deferred environment, if possible, and I'd love for you to also really prioritize owning your home outright at some point, just because of the flexibility and peace of mind that comes with that.
So I guess that might be the only thing I would ask you, you know, just to consider further, but give me your thoughts on that. Well, so I don't plan on staying in this next home for an extended period of time, probably the max five years, so I'll be selling again, so I don't think I would be able to pay it off entirely for the time that I'd be living there. Yeah, so I think from that standpoint, listen, if you say, hey, Rob, I've got my emergency fund and I'm putting plenty of money in my retirement account, so I'm growing that on a compounded basis, but I'm going to take this and roll it into the next house. I know it's not going to ultimately result in me paying it off, but it will continue to build equity that I'll roll into the next property and the property after that, and it's kind of a no-brainer for me for you to do that, put it all into this next property, but just because where interest rates are right now, you know that you're not going to get that kind of return.
I mean, we're anticipating based on market valuations and what's going on with our economy and some of the headwinds that we're probably entering into a five year, perhaps even a 10 year period where market returns are going to be positive over the 10 years likely, but not anything exciting. And so if you can get a guaranteed seven and a half percent by paying it toward the mortgage, that would be my preference. And then what I would do is while you're waiting to find that house, I'd put that in an FDIC insured high yield savings account at one of the online banks where you can get four or four and a half percent while you're waiting and then just roll that into the next property. That would be my best advice. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
All right, Jordan. Hey, God bless you, my friend. Thanks for being on the program today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call.
We're taking your financial questions today, helping you apply a biblical worldview to what you're considering in your financial life today. Again, lines open 800-525-7000. To Chicago, Alina, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Thank you.
First time caller here. Awesome. My husband has small about 25k pension from previous employer and also 401k debt we kept with the previous employer. Pension has a guaranteed lower rate while 401k could have a great rate of, you know, in 2020 grade returns and then some losses other years as well. So my question is, would it be wise to transfer that pension to 401k or possibly to like a Roth IRA? What would be the tax implications of what will be your recommendation?
Yeah. So a pension is going to be pre-tax money. It's money that you put in before paying tax on it. So your options would be either to roll it to an individual IRA, a traditional IRA, not a Roth, but a traditional, or if your 401k provider would allow potentially into the 401k, although they may not allow you to do that.
But in either case, whether you roll it into the 401k or you roll it to a traditional IRA, that's not a taxable event because you're going from a pre-tax environment to a pre-tax environment. The difference is that, you know, you get an unlimited number of investment options inside the IRA, Alina. So you could pick any mutual fund and with a smaller amount, you know, in there. That's what I would recommend so you get good diversification. But you could, you know, select a really quality mutual fund that has, you know, a good manager with a great track record, perhaps even it's even values aligned. Maybe use one of the faith-based investing providers.
But then it's growing for the future, just like your 401k. That would probably be my preferred option. Okay. Sounds great. You're up. Thanks for taking my call.
Absolutely, Alina. Thanks for being on the program today. We appreciate it. Thank you. Let me mention, you know, earlier this week we were talking about wealth transfer, this last stewardship decision you'll make.
Remember Ron Blue says, three questions every Christian needs to answer. Who owns it? How much is enough? And is the next steward chosen and prepared? You know, alongside that chosen and prepared question is really the decision on who is going to be the next steward. And when we're considering that, I think we've got to factor in, first of all, when it comes to heirs, if we give X amount to X person, what's the worst thing that can happen? How serious is that?
And how likely is that to occur? I mean, that's an important prayerful consideration we need to make. But alongside that, there's a couple of principles to apply. One is what Ron Blue in Splitting Heirs calls the treasure principle. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. So it's this powerful idea that what I do on earth can actually accumulate treasures in heaven that will last forever. So how much do I want to send along into God's economy? And the second is the unity principle. Your spouse completes you.
They don't compete with you. So we need to prayerfully consider these questions around the next steward and consider the potential spiritual implications of an inheritance. But as husband and wife, we need to be on the same page.
I hope that's helpful. Well, we're out of time once again, but we'll come back and do it all again next time. Thanks to our amazing production team and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.
