PETALING JAYA (Sept 29, 2010): A businessman from Selangor has won a RM47.82 million Sports Toto jackpot – the biggest jackpot ever won in Malaysia.
The businessman won it through the Supreme Toto 6/58 jackpot game on Tuesday.
The prize money is more than double the previous highest jackpot record of RM20.9 million which was also created by Sports Toto through the Mega Toto 6/52 game in December 2008.
The winner, in his 50s, learnt of his win from the Sports Toto website on Tuesday night which was the draw evening itself.
Disbelievingly, he got his wife to repeatedly verify that he actually had the winning numbers before they were satisfied beyond doubt.
The overjoyed couple said they didn’t sleep a wink on Tueday night, in anticipation of claiming the prize money from Sports Toto’s head office today.
The winner said he has been an ardent follower of Supreme Toto 6/58 ever since its launch on March 20 this year.
He regularly puts in RM20 bet on the game which gives him 10 chances of striking the jackpot.
Although he did come up with his own set of numbers, his winning set of numbers 8, 11, 19, 22, 54 and 55 were actually derived from Lucky Pick, Sports Toto’s computerised random numbers selection system.
The couple said they will be channelling part of the jackpot to charity as they can’t use all the money on their own.
They said the money would definitely benefit many people around them, especially their siblings who are not financially stable.
They have also decided to help other people who are "in desperate need of financial assistance".
Supreme Toto 6/58 comes with a guaranteed minimum upfront jackpot of RM8,888,888 and commands a huge following of those who want to try their luck on the multi-million ringgit jackpot.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Do you have faith?
Do you have faith?
September 30, 2010
And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes."
—Mark 9:23
Today's verse is one of the greatest verses in the Bible. But what does it mean?
First, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that God's going to give you anything you believe. You can't just believe that God's going to give you a brand new Rolls Royce. That's not what he's saying.
Here's what Jesus is teaching. Don't miss this! If you believe, then God can do anything in your life! If you believe. you see, God is able to do all things, and he does them according to his plan and according to his purpose and according to his will.
The way that God is released... the way his power is released in your life and mine... is through faith! If you believe God can do anything.
So let me ask you, "How much faith do you have? Do you believe?" Whether you know it or not, you need faith. You need faith just to believe in God every day.
Now, perhaps you think you've got it all together. You may think you're strong enough and powerful enough and good enough to make it on your own. But you're not.
You need faith! It's through faith in Jesus Christ that you're enabled to accomplish things you never dreamed possible! If you can believe, all things are possible!
YOU NEED FAITH JUST TO BELIEVE IN GOD EVERY DAY.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
September 30, 2010
And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes."
—Mark 9:23
Today's verse is one of the greatest verses in the Bible. But what does it mean?
First, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that God's going to give you anything you believe. You can't just believe that God's going to give you a brand new Rolls Royce. That's not what he's saying.
Here's what Jesus is teaching. Don't miss this! If you believe, then God can do anything in your life! If you believe. you see, God is able to do all things, and he does them according to his plan and according to his purpose and according to his will.
The way that God is released... the way his power is released in your life and mine... is through faith! If you believe God can do anything.
So let me ask you, "How much faith do you have? Do you believe?" Whether you know it or not, you need faith. You need faith just to believe in God every day.
Now, perhaps you think you've got it all together. You may think you're strong enough and powerful enough and good enough to make it on your own. But you're not.
You need faith! It's through faith in Jesus Christ that you're enabled to accomplish things you never dreamed possible! If you can believe, all things are possible!
YOU NEED FAITH JUST TO BELIEVE IN GOD EVERY DAY.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
When your faith gets real
When your faith gets real
September 28, 2010
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind....
—Romans 12:2
One of the great challenges of faith is to let it touch and transform our everyday lives.
You might think that goal would be obvious, but I'm not so sure.
There are some interesting correlations between patterns in the natural world and the spiritual. Just think about this. As you know, I'm a big fan of the Olympics and every couple of years we watch triumphant champions stand on platforms to receive their medals.
But have you ever noticed what happens to some of these champions after basking in the glory of that moment? For some it's the beginning of a life of success. But unfortunately, some athletes are unable to translate the discipline of their athletic careers into a daily way of life.
The same could be said of some professional baseball and football players, and of even one of America's great astronauts who walked on the moon. This man scaled the heights of human glory but was never able to translate what he knew to a daily way of life.
So let me ask you a question. Are you taking what you know about faith in Christ Jesus and letting it transform how you live every day? You must!
Let Jesus help you get real regarding your faith. Take it from the mountaintop of worship and apply it to the challenges of life around you.
ARE YOU CONNECTING WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR FAITH
IN CHRIST TO HOW YOU LIVE EVERY DAY?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
September 28, 2010
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind....
—Romans 12:2
One of the great challenges of faith is to let it touch and transform our everyday lives.
You might think that goal would be obvious, but I'm not so sure.
There are some interesting correlations between patterns in the natural world and the spiritual. Just think about this. As you know, I'm a big fan of the Olympics and every couple of years we watch triumphant champions stand on platforms to receive their medals.
But have you ever noticed what happens to some of these champions after basking in the glory of that moment? For some it's the beginning of a life of success. But unfortunately, some athletes are unable to translate the discipline of their athletic careers into a daily way of life.
The same could be said of some professional baseball and football players, and of even one of America's great astronauts who walked on the moon. This man scaled the heights of human glory but was never able to translate what he knew to a daily way of life.
So let me ask you a question. Are you taking what you know about faith in Christ Jesus and letting it transform how you live every day? You must!
Let Jesus help you get real regarding your faith. Take it from the mountaintop of worship and apply it to the challenges of life around you.
ARE YOU CONNECTING WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR FAITH
IN CHRIST TO HOW YOU LIVE EVERY DAY?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Team Up
by Max Lucado
In 1976 tremors devastated the highland of Guatemala. Thousands of people were killed, and tens of thousands were left homeless. A philanthropist offered to sponsor a relief team from our college. This flyer was posted in our dormitory: "Needed: students willing to use their spring break to build cinder block homes in Quetzaltenango." I applied, was accepted, and began attending the orientation sessions.
There were twelve of us in all. Mostly ministry students. All of us, it seemed, loved to discuss theology. We were young enough in our faith to believe we knew all the answers. This made for lively discussions. We bantered about a covey of controversies. I can't remember the list. It likely included the usual suspects of charismatic gifts, end times, worship styles, and church strategy. By the time we reached Guatemala, we'd covered the controversies and revealed our true colors. I'd discerned the faithful from the infidels, the healthy from the heretics. I knew who was in and who was out.
But all of that was soon forgotten. The destruction from the earthquake dwarfed our differences. Entire villages had been leveled. Children were wandering through the rubble. Long lines of wounded people awaited medical attention. Our opinions seemed suddenly petty. The disaster demanded teamwork. The challenge created a team.
The task turned rivals into partners. I remember one fellow in particular. He and I had distinctly different opinions regarding the styles of worship music. I—the open minded, relevant thinker—favored contemporary, upbeat music. He—the stodgy, close-minded caveman—preferred hymns and hymnals. Yet when stacking bricks for houses, guess who worked shoulder to shoulder? As we did, we began to sing together. We sang old songs and new, slow and fast. Only later did the irony of it dawn on me. Our common concern gave us a common song.
What if the missing ingredient for changing the world is teamwork? "When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there" (Matt. 18:19-20 MSG).
This is an astounding promise. When believers agree, Jesus takes notice, shows up, and hears our prayers.
And when believers disagree? Can we return to my Guatemalan memory for a moment?
Suppose our group had clustered according to opinions. Divided according to doctrines. If we had made unanimity a prerequisite for partnership, can you imagine the consequences? We wouldn't have accomplished anything. When worker divide, it is the suffering who suffer most.
They've suffered enough, don't you think? The Jerusalem church found a way to work together. They found common ground in the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. Because they did, lives were changed.
And as you and I do, the same will happen.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NIV)
O Lord, whenever I address you as "ourFather," cause me to remember that I have been called to be part of a holy community. You did not call me to remain in isolation but placed me in the body of Christ, along with every other believer in Jesus throughout the world in every age. Please give me the grace to act on the truth that you created us to grow as a team, to work as a team, to worship as a team, and to weep and laugh and live as a team. Grant me the wisdom and the strength to partner with you and with my brothers and sisters in Christ to meet the needs you place before us. For Jesus' sake and in his name I pray, amen.
From Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2010) Max Lucado
In 1976 tremors devastated the highland of Guatemala. Thousands of people were killed, and tens of thousands were left homeless. A philanthropist offered to sponsor a relief team from our college. This flyer was posted in our dormitory: "Needed: students willing to use their spring break to build cinder block homes in Quetzaltenango." I applied, was accepted, and began attending the orientation sessions.
There were twelve of us in all. Mostly ministry students. All of us, it seemed, loved to discuss theology. We were young enough in our faith to believe we knew all the answers. This made for lively discussions. We bantered about a covey of controversies. I can't remember the list. It likely included the usual suspects of charismatic gifts, end times, worship styles, and church strategy. By the time we reached Guatemala, we'd covered the controversies and revealed our true colors. I'd discerned the faithful from the infidels, the healthy from the heretics. I knew who was in and who was out.
But all of that was soon forgotten. The destruction from the earthquake dwarfed our differences. Entire villages had been leveled. Children were wandering through the rubble. Long lines of wounded people awaited medical attention. Our opinions seemed suddenly petty. The disaster demanded teamwork. The challenge created a team.
The task turned rivals into partners. I remember one fellow in particular. He and I had distinctly different opinions regarding the styles of worship music. I—the open minded, relevant thinker—favored contemporary, upbeat music. He—the stodgy, close-minded caveman—preferred hymns and hymnals. Yet when stacking bricks for houses, guess who worked shoulder to shoulder? As we did, we began to sing together. We sang old songs and new, slow and fast. Only later did the irony of it dawn on me. Our common concern gave us a common song.
What if the missing ingredient for changing the world is teamwork? "When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there" (Matt. 18:19-20 MSG).
This is an astounding promise. When believers agree, Jesus takes notice, shows up, and hears our prayers.
And when believers disagree? Can we return to my Guatemalan memory for a moment?
Suppose our group had clustered according to opinions. Divided according to doctrines. If we had made unanimity a prerequisite for partnership, can you imagine the consequences? We wouldn't have accomplished anything. When worker divide, it is the suffering who suffer most.
They've suffered enough, don't you think? The Jerusalem church found a way to work together. They found common ground in the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. Because they did, lives were changed.
And as you and I do, the same will happen.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NIV)
O Lord, whenever I address you as "ourFather," cause me to remember that I have been called to be part of a holy community. You did not call me to remain in isolation but placed me in the body of Christ, along with every other believer in Jesus throughout the world in every age. Please give me the grace to act on the truth that you created us to grow as a team, to work as a team, to worship as a team, and to weep and laugh and live as a team. Grant me the wisdom and the strength to partner with you and with my brothers and sisters in Christ to meet the needs you place before us. For Jesus' sake and in his name I pray, amen.
From Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2010) Max Lucado
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Believer's Valley Experiences
Psalm 23
Where there are mountains, there must also be valleys—it's a simple fact of the created world. The same is true in our spiritual life. To reach the place where God is leading us, we must sometimes traverse "the valley of the shadow of death" (Ps. 23:4).
Spiritual mountaintops are wonderful spots to rest awhile. At such times, we feel close to God and sure of His love. But we get to those high places by toiling through the valley, where we discover His character, the truth of His promises, and our own weakness. There are aspects of the Lord that we see only as we journey though shadow.
God is a jealous shepherd—He wants His followers relying entirely upon Him. He draws us through valleys in order to remove every habit, thought pattern, or external crutch that we use instead of trusting Him. In the low places, those suddenly seem inadequate. We discover whether our faith, courage, and wisdom are self-created or from the Lord.
While walking in valleys is an inevitable part of life, believers aren't left comfortless. Verse 5 is about having needs met, including the desire to be soothed. Here is the image of a tender shepherd rubbing oil onto an animal's scraped skin. God promises assurance, healing, and safety, even in hardship.
Believers can shout, "I trust God," from the mountain because they have learned to live by faith in the valley. Walking in the shadow of evil is difficult and frightening work. But when we surrender to whatever the Lord has to teach us in this dark place, our spirit is quieted and our faith is strengthened.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
Where there are mountains, there must also be valleys—it's a simple fact of the created world. The same is true in our spiritual life. To reach the place where God is leading us, we must sometimes traverse "the valley of the shadow of death" (Ps. 23:4).
Spiritual mountaintops are wonderful spots to rest awhile. At such times, we feel close to God and sure of His love. But we get to those high places by toiling through the valley, where we discover His character, the truth of His promises, and our own weakness. There are aspects of the Lord that we see only as we journey though shadow.
God is a jealous shepherd—He wants His followers relying entirely upon Him. He draws us through valleys in order to remove every habit, thought pattern, or external crutch that we use instead of trusting Him. In the low places, those suddenly seem inadequate. We discover whether our faith, courage, and wisdom are self-created or from the Lord.
While walking in valleys is an inevitable part of life, believers aren't left comfortless. Verse 5 is about having needs met, including the desire to be soothed. Here is the image of a tender shepherd rubbing oil onto an animal's scraped skin. God promises assurance, healing, and safety, even in hardship.
Believers can shout, "I trust God," from the mountain because they have learned to live by faith in the valley. Walking in the shadow of evil is difficult and frightening work. But when we surrender to whatever the Lord has to teach us in this dark place, our spirit is quieted and our faith is strengthened.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Pour out your heart to God
September 21, 2010
Why are you cast down, o my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God!
--Psalm 42:11
Did you know it's okay to ask God questions? It is! Some people think that if you ask God questions, you are doubting him, but that's not so.
Just look at Christ Jesus in agony on the cross. He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
And David, a man after God's own heart, dared to cry out to God in fear and anxiety and deep emotional pain. In Psalm 42:9 David said, "I say to God, my rock: Why have you forgotten me?" Because David was so honest before God, you and I can turn to Psalms today to find solace, serenity, and strength.
You see, you can be honest with God about your hurts, struggles, and suffering. You can pour your heart out to him. We all face uncertainties and imponderables that burst in our hearts for answers... for his comfort.
God can handle the hard, honest questions of your heart! He welcomes you into his presence. Yes, cry out to God when you hurt, but then steady yourself with his promises as David did in Psalm 42:11 and hope in the salvation of God!
Stir up your faith and remind yourself of his love and grace and power. He is your refuge and your strength!
GOD CAN HANDLE THE HARD, HONEST QUESTIONS OF YOUR HEART!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Why are you cast down, o my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God!
--Psalm 42:11
Did you know it's okay to ask God questions? It is! Some people think that if you ask God questions, you are doubting him, but that's not so.
Just look at Christ Jesus in agony on the cross. He cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
And David, a man after God's own heart, dared to cry out to God in fear and anxiety and deep emotional pain. In Psalm 42:9 David said, "I say to God, my rock: Why have you forgotten me?" Because David was so honest before God, you and I can turn to Psalms today to find solace, serenity, and strength.
You see, you can be honest with God about your hurts, struggles, and suffering. You can pour your heart out to him. We all face uncertainties and imponderables that burst in our hearts for answers... for his comfort.
God can handle the hard, honest questions of your heart! He welcomes you into his presence. Yes, cry out to God when you hurt, but then steady yourself with his promises as David did in Psalm 42:11 and hope in the salvation of God!
Stir up your faith and remind yourself of his love and grace and power. He is your refuge and your strength!
GOD CAN HANDLE THE HARD, HONEST QUESTIONS OF YOUR HEART!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Life's biggest question
September 20, 2010
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
--John 16:33
The question "Why, God?" isn't just one of life's big questions... it is the question.
During life's most painful moments, many of us have asked God questions such as, "Why is this happening?" or "Why did my loved one die?" These are natural questions and it's not wrong to ask them. In fact, in Scripture we find Mary and Martha asking this very question of Jesus when their brother Lazarus died.
Jesus loved Lazarus and his two sisters and often spent time in their home. But Jesus wasn't present when Lazarus grew ill. Lazarus was dead four days before Jesus showed up. So Martha confronted Jesus saying to him, "Why weren't you here? Why didn't you do something?"
You see, a close personal relationship with Jesus didn't prevent sickness and sorrow and suffering from attacking their family. And the same is true for us. Knowing Jesus does not give us immunity to hardship.
Perhaps you've said or thought something similar in a time of crisis. "Lord, where were you when my parents divorced?" "Where were you when I was diagnosed?" "Jesus, where were you when I lost my job, savings, and house?"
We're each subject to the raw realities of a fallen world. But here is our hope: We don't go through tribulation alone! Take heart! Jesus has given us his peace. He has overcome the world!
KNOWING JESUS DOES NOT GIVE US IMMUNITY TO HARDSHIP.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
--John 16:33
The question "Why, God?" isn't just one of life's big questions... it is the question.
During life's most painful moments, many of us have asked God questions such as, "Why is this happening?" or "Why did my loved one die?" These are natural questions and it's not wrong to ask them. In fact, in Scripture we find Mary and Martha asking this very question of Jesus when their brother Lazarus died.
Jesus loved Lazarus and his two sisters and often spent time in their home. But Jesus wasn't present when Lazarus grew ill. Lazarus was dead four days before Jesus showed up. So Martha confronted Jesus saying to him, "Why weren't you here? Why didn't you do something?"
You see, a close personal relationship with Jesus didn't prevent sickness and sorrow and suffering from attacking their family. And the same is true for us. Knowing Jesus does not give us immunity to hardship.
Perhaps you've said or thought something similar in a time of crisis. "Lord, where were you when my parents divorced?" "Where were you when I was diagnosed?" "Jesus, where were you when I lost my job, savings, and house?"
We're each subject to the raw realities of a fallen world. But here is our hope: We don't go through tribulation alone! Take heart! Jesus has given us his peace. He has overcome the world!
KNOWING JESUS DOES NOT GIVE US IMMUNITY TO HARDSHIP.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Forex, Stocks, Commodities Trading Preview
Forex preview. 2nd & 3rd Oct. 7pm.
Pls register at www.ecnpreview.com
Unit 301, Level 3, Block A, Sunway Mentari Business Centre, Jln PJS 8/5, 46150 P.J., Selangor.
Pls register at www.ecnpreview.com
Unit 301, Level 3, Block A, Sunway Mentari Business Centre, Jln PJS 8/5, 46150 P.J., Selangor.
Monday, September 20, 2010
How to Pray for the Soul
John Piper
For thoughtful people, how they pray for the soul is governed by how they believe God acts. So, for example, if they believe God changes people's souls so that they make new and right choices, then they will ask God to make those soul-changes through evangelism and nurture. But not everybody is thoughtful about the way they pray. They don't think about what view of God is behind their praying.
So what I suggest is that we learn first to pray for the soul from the way the Bible prays for the soul. If we do that, then our prayers will probably be good prayers, and in the process we will also learn about how God acts. Here is the way I pray for my soul. I use these prayers over and over again-for myself and my children and wife and for the staff and the elders and for all the church. This is the meat and potatoes of my prayer life.
The first thing my soul needs is an inclination to God and his word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his word and draw near to him. Where does that "want to" come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, "Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to gain."
Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened, so that when my inclination leads me to the word I see what is really there and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law."
Then I need for my heart to be enlightened with these "wonders." I need to perceive glory in them and not just interesting facts. Who enlightens the heart? God does. So Ephesians 1:18 teaches us to pray "That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened."
Then I am concerned that my heart is fragmented and that parts of it might remain in the dark while other parts are enlightened. So I long for my heart to be united for God. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? From God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, "O Lord, I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name."
What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is that my heart will be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, "O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days."
But I don't just want to be happy in my own little private world with God. I want my happiness to be as full as possible for spreading and expanding for others. I want to be strong in joy. This will make me durable in the face of threats or adversity. Where does that strength and durability come from? It comes from God. So Ephesians 3:16 teaches us to pray, "That God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man."
Finally, I want my strength in Christ to produce good deeds for others so that the glory of God will be seen in my life. Who produces these good deeds? God does. So Colossians 1:10 teaches us to pray, "That [we] will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord... bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."
All this I pray "in Jesus' name," because God gives these things to my soul only because Jesus died for me and removed the wrath of God so that the Father might "freely give me all things" (Romans 8:32).
To remember some of these prayers, I use an acronym - IOUS - almost every day in praying for those I love, asking God to give us an inclination to his Word and not to money or fame or power (Psalm 119:36), and to open our eyes to see wonderful things when we read his Word (Psalm 119:18), and to have hearts united in the fear of God rather than fragmented over a dozen concerns (Psalm 86:11), and to be satisfied in his steadfast love (Psalm 90:14).
Learning to pray and learning how God acts,
Pastor John
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.
For thoughtful people, how they pray for the soul is governed by how they believe God acts. So, for example, if they believe God changes people's souls so that they make new and right choices, then they will ask God to make those soul-changes through evangelism and nurture. But not everybody is thoughtful about the way they pray. They don't think about what view of God is behind their praying.
So what I suggest is that we learn first to pray for the soul from the way the Bible prays for the soul. If we do that, then our prayers will probably be good prayers, and in the process we will also learn about how God acts. Here is the way I pray for my soul. I use these prayers over and over again-for myself and my children and wife and for the staff and the elders and for all the church. This is the meat and potatoes of my prayer life.
The first thing my soul needs is an inclination to God and his word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his word and draw near to him. Where does that "want to" come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, "Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to gain."
Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened, so that when my inclination leads me to the word I see what is really there and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law."
Then I need for my heart to be enlightened with these "wonders." I need to perceive glory in them and not just interesting facts. Who enlightens the heart? God does. So Ephesians 1:18 teaches us to pray "That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened."
Then I am concerned that my heart is fragmented and that parts of it might remain in the dark while other parts are enlightened. So I long for my heart to be united for God. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? From God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, "O Lord, I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name."
What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is that my heart will be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, "O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days."
But I don't just want to be happy in my own little private world with God. I want my happiness to be as full as possible for spreading and expanding for others. I want to be strong in joy. This will make me durable in the face of threats or adversity. Where does that strength and durability come from? It comes from God. So Ephesians 3:16 teaches us to pray, "That God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man."
Finally, I want my strength in Christ to produce good deeds for others so that the glory of God will be seen in my life. Who produces these good deeds? God does. So Colossians 1:10 teaches us to pray, "That [we] will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord... bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."
All this I pray "in Jesus' name," because God gives these things to my soul only because Jesus died for me and removed the wrath of God so that the Father might "freely give me all things" (Romans 8:32).
To remember some of these prayers, I use an acronym - IOUS - almost every day in praying for those I love, asking God to give us an inclination to his Word and not to money or fame or power (Psalm 119:36), and to open our eyes to see wonderful things when we read his Word (Psalm 119:18), and to have hearts united in the fear of God rather than fragmented over a dozen concerns (Psalm 86:11), and to be satisfied in his steadfast love (Psalm 90:14).
Learning to pray and learning how God acts,
Pastor John
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Water Torture for the Bears: Stealth Rally in Stocks, Big Swings Elsewhere
by Aaron Task in Investing, Commodities
After some early gyrations, stocks settled into a tight range Friday morning, continuing a recent trend of relatively tame action. But the recent trend has been toward higher prices -- in small increments.
It was back Aug. 26 when the Dow last fell below 10,000 for the umpteenth time since first crossing that hallowed mark in October 2008. With the economic data uniformly negative at that time, many traders bet big that the market would suffer another one of its historic September and October woes.
Since then, the economic data has included some upside surprises, including an uptick in retail sales, and major averages have rallied steadily, which is proving to be like water torture for the bears.
The low volatility rally is also frustrating the day traders, momentum investors and high frequency algorithm shops that have come to dominate the market in recent years.
It's way premature to declare the end of the computer-driven market, but it would be classic irony if CNBC's excellent "Man vs. Machine" series marked some kind of bottom for old-fashioned stock picking and (gasp) buy and hold investing. By the same token, I'm reading an advance copy of Never Buy Another Stock Again by former WSJ MarketBeat blogger David Gaffen. Hmm...
You Want Action? We Got Action
In the meantime, while retail investors have largely turned their back on the stock market and professionals are frustrated with the lack of movement, there's tons of action and big swings in other markets, including:
Oil, which hit a one-month high above $77 Monday after the Enbridge pipeline leak but was below $74 in recent trading following the weak U.S. consumer confidence report.
Currencies, which were roiled this week by the BOJ's intervention to weaken the yen and Tim Geithner's "tough talk" about China's currency regime.
Agricultural commodities, the new "hot spot' for hedge funds and a great bet on both emerging market growth (more demand for food) and peak oil-style Armageddon (transportation systems break down so locally grown food will be the only option.)
Sovereign debt: Treasury yields rose sharply last week then fell hard early Friday amid reports, since denied, that Ireland was "perilously close" to calling for a bailout from the IMF and EU.
Gold: The metal hit a series of new highs this week amid reports of central bank buying, general fear of market instability and the persuit of 'beggar thy neighbor' policies by many major economies.
After some early gyrations, stocks settled into a tight range Friday morning, continuing a recent trend of relatively tame action. But the recent trend has been toward higher prices -- in small increments.
It was back Aug. 26 when the Dow last fell below 10,000 for the umpteenth time since first crossing that hallowed mark in October 2008. With the economic data uniformly negative at that time, many traders bet big that the market would suffer another one of its historic September and October woes.
Since then, the economic data has included some upside surprises, including an uptick in retail sales, and major averages have rallied steadily, which is proving to be like water torture for the bears.
The low volatility rally is also frustrating the day traders, momentum investors and high frequency algorithm shops that have come to dominate the market in recent years.
It's way premature to declare the end of the computer-driven market, but it would be classic irony if CNBC's excellent "Man vs. Machine" series marked some kind of bottom for old-fashioned stock picking and (gasp) buy and hold investing. By the same token, I'm reading an advance copy of Never Buy Another Stock Again by former WSJ MarketBeat blogger David Gaffen. Hmm...
You Want Action? We Got Action
In the meantime, while retail investors have largely turned their back on the stock market and professionals are frustrated with the lack of movement, there's tons of action and big swings in other markets, including:
Oil, which hit a one-month high above $77 Monday after the Enbridge pipeline leak but was below $74 in recent trading following the weak U.S. consumer confidence report.
Currencies, which were roiled this week by the BOJ's intervention to weaken the yen and Tim Geithner's "tough talk" about China's currency regime.
Agricultural commodities, the new "hot spot' for hedge funds and a great bet on both emerging market growth (more demand for food) and peak oil-style Armageddon (transportation systems break down so locally grown food will be the only option.)
Sovereign debt: Treasury yields rose sharply last week then fell hard early Friday amid reports, since denied, that Ireland was "perilously close" to calling for a bailout from the IMF and EU.
Gold: The metal hit a series of new highs this week amid reports of central bank buying, general fear of market instability and the persuit of 'beggar thy neighbor' policies by many major economies.
Tale of Two Americas: 44M Living in Poverty While the Rich Get Richer
by Peter Gorenstein
The “Great Recession” is taking a heavy toll. One in seven Americans were living in poverty last year, according to the 2009 Census report, released Thursday.
Here are the facts:
• The poverty rate jumped to 14.3% in 2009, the highest rate since 1994 and up from 13.2% in 2008.
• 43.6 million Americans are struggling to eat every day – that’s the most since 1959.
• A record 50.7 million, were not covered by health-care insurance in 2009.
Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. The number of U.S. millionaires jumped 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.
As Aaron and Henry discuss in this clip, the growing discrepancy between the rich and the poor didn't happen overnight, or even with this latest recession. It's the result of three-plus decades of stagnant wages for average workers amid a dwindling manufacturing base, plus a trend toward regressive tax policies since the early 1980s.
Whatever the reason, the "wealth gap" is not a healthy sign for this country.
Washington is currently debating extending the Bush tax cuts as a means to lessen the load on struggling Americans. No one wants to pay more taxes, but Aaron and Henry say this a short-term solution that isn’t likely to create the millions of jobs needed to get Americans back on their feet.
The “Great Recession” is taking a heavy toll. One in seven Americans were living in poverty last year, according to the 2009 Census report, released Thursday.
Here are the facts:
• The poverty rate jumped to 14.3% in 2009, the highest rate since 1994 and up from 13.2% in 2008.
• 43.6 million Americans are struggling to eat every day – that’s the most since 1959.
• A record 50.7 million, were not covered by health-care insurance in 2009.
Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. The number of U.S. millionaires jumped 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.
As Aaron and Henry discuss in this clip, the growing discrepancy between the rich and the poor didn't happen overnight, or even with this latest recession. It's the result of three-plus decades of stagnant wages for average workers amid a dwindling manufacturing base, plus a trend toward regressive tax policies since the early 1980s.
Whatever the reason, the "wealth gap" is not a healthy sign for this country.
Washington is currently debating extending the Bush tax cuts as a means to lessen the load on struggling Americans. No one wants to pay more taxes, but Aaron and Henry say this a short-term solution that isn’t likely to create the millions of jobs needed to get Americans back on their feet.
Regulators close 6 banks in Ga, NJ, Ohio, Wis
Regulators shut down 3 Georgia banks, 1 each in NJ, Ohio, Wis; makes 125 US failures this year
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut down three Georgia banks and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, boosting to 125 the number of U.S. bank failures this year amid the tough economic climate and growing loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the Georgia banks: Bank of Ellijay, in Ellijay, with $168.8 million in assets; First Commerce Community Bank of Douglasville, with $248.2 million in assets; and Peoples Bank, based in Winder, with $447.2 million in assets.
The FDIC also seized ISN Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., with $81.6 million in assets; Bramble Savings Bank of Milford, Ohio, with $47.5 million in assets; and Maritime Savings Bank, based in West Allis, Wis., with assets of $350.5 million.
Community & Southern Bank, based in Carrollton, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Bank of Ellijay, First Commerce Community Bank and Peoples Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Community & Southern Bank agreed to share losses on $602.5 million of the three failed banks' loans and other assets.
Georgia, where the meltdown in the real estate market brought an avalanche of soured mortgage loans, has been one of the hardest hit states for bank collapses. The failures of the three banks Friday brought to 14 the number of Georgia banks that have fallen this year. Also high on the list of failure-heavy states are California, Florida and Illinois.
New Century Bank, based in Phoenixville, Pa., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of ISN Bank. New Century Bank does business as Customers Bank. The FDIC and New Century agreed to share losses on $64.8 million of ISN Bank's loans and other assets.
Foundation Bank, based in Cincinnati, is assuming the assets and deposits of Bramble Savings Bank.
And North Shore Bank, based in Brookfield, Wis., agreed to acquire all the deposits of Maritime Savings Bank and $177.6 million of its assets.
The failure of Bank of Ellijay is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $55.2 million; that of First Commerce Community Bank, $71.4 million; that of Peoples Bank, $98.9 million; ISN Bank, $23.9 million; Bramble Savings Bank, $14.6 million; and Maritime Savings Bank, $83.6 million.
With 125 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures exceeds that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 94 banks.
The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. Many companies have shut down in the recession, vacating shopping malls and office buildings financed by the loans. That has brought delinquent loan payments and defaults by commercial developers.
The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three succumbed in 2007.
The growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of June 30.
The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list jumped to 829 in the second quarter from 775 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter since 2007, making $21.6 billion in net income. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets -- only 1.3 percent of the industry -- accounted for $19.9 billion of the total earnings.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $60 billion from 2010 through 2014.
The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.
Depositors' money -- insured up to $250,000 per account -- is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted in July.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut down three Georgia banks and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, boosting to 125 the number of U.S. bank failures this year amid the tough economic climate and growing loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the Georgia banks: Bank of Ellijay, in Ellijay, with $168.8 million in assets; First Commerce Community Bank of Douglasville, with $248.2 million in assets; and Peoples Bank, based in Winder, with $447.2 million in assets.
The FDIC also seized ISN Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., with $81.6 million in assets; Bramble Savings Bank of Milford, Ohio, with $47.5 million in assets; and Maritime Savings Bank, based in West Allis, Wis., with assets of $350.5 million.
Community & Southern Bank, based in Carrollton, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Bank of Ellijay, First Commerce Community Bank and Peoples Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Community & Southern Bank agreed to share losses on $602.5 million of the three failed banks' loans and other assets.
Georgia, where the meltdown in the real estate market brought an avalanche of soured mortgage loans, has been one of the hardest hit states for bank collapses. The failures of the three banks Friday brought to 14 the number of Georgia banks that have fallen this year. Also high on the list of failure-heavy states are California, Florida and Illinois.
New Century Bank, based in Phoenixville, Pa., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of ISN Bank. New Century Bank does business as Customers Bank. The FDIC and New Century agreed to share losses on $64.8 million of ISN Bank's loans and other assets.
Foundation Bank, based in Cincinnati, is assuming the assets and deposits of Bramble Savings Bank.
And North Shore Bank, based in Brookfield, Wis., agreed to acquire all the deposits of Maritime Savings Bank and $177.6 million of its assets.
The failure of Bank of Ellijay is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $55.2 million; that of First Commerce Community Bank, $71.4 million; that of Peoples Bank, $98.9 million; ISN Bank, $23.9 million; Bramble Savings Bank, $14.6 million; and Maritime Savings Bank, $83.6 million.
With 125 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures exceeds that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 94 banks.
The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. Many companies have shut down in the recession, vacating shopping malls and office buildings financed by the loans. That has brought delinquent loan payments and defaults by commercial developers.
The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three succumbed in 2007.
The growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of June 30.
The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list jumped to 829 in the second quarter from 775 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter since 2007, making $21.6 billion in net income. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets -- only 1.3 percent of the industry -- accounted for $19.9 billion of the total earnings.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $60 billion from 2010 through 2014.
The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.
Depositors' money -- insured up to $250,000 per account -- is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted in July.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Americans struggle to regain their shrunken wealth
Americans' wealth drops for first time since early 2009, brought down by lower stock prices
.
In this Aug. 31, 2010 photograph, a home with a sold sign is shown in Palo Alto, Calif. Americans' wealth shrank in the spring for the first time since early 2009 as financial turmoil eroded stock portfolios.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer, On Friday September 17, 2010, 7:20 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans' long journey to regain the wealth they lost in the recession is stalled.
Households failed even to run in place during the April-June quarter as sinking stock prices eroded wealth. Stocks have since recovered about two-thirds of those losses. But based on last quarter's data, household net worth would have to surge 23 percent to reach its pre-recession peak.
Net worth -- the value of assets like homes and investments, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards -- fell 2.7 percent last quarter, or $1.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Friday. It now stands at $53.5 trillion.
That's above the bottom hit during the recession, $48.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2009. But it's far below the pre-recession peak in wealth of $65.8 trillion.
The drop from April to June was the first quarterly decline in Americans' wealth since early 2009. Before then, net worth had risen slowly for four straight quarters.
Economists generally think household wealth has ticked up in the July-to-September quarter so far, because of higher stock prices. Yet given last quarter's setback and expectations of scant gains ahead, some economists have pushed back their forecast for when Americans will regain all their lost wealth: Not until the middle of this decade.
Their stagnant wealth will likely keep Americans from spending freely -- and the struggling economy from picking up strength. Consumers tend to spend according to how wealthy they feel. And their spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. In the meantime, people are saving more and paring debt, Friday's data showed.
The decline in net worth from April to June amounted to an average drop of $12,941 per household. Average household wealth now amounts to $455,173. That's up from $415,185 during the recession. But it's down from a peak of $563,438 in 2007.
One reason why economists foresee only slight gains in wealth is they expect real-estate values to stay weak. Residential real-estate accounts for 32 percent of net worth; individual stocks make up 13 percent. The balance includes retirement accounts, taxable mutual funds, bank accounts, bonds and possessions such as cars and jewelry.
During the recession, sinking home equity and stock prices made shoppers skittish. More than a year after the recession is thought to have ended, the housing and stock markets remain fragile. That's why most Americans aren't spending as much as they typically do after recessions.
Consumer spending grew at an annual rate of just 2 percent last quarter, about the same pace as in the first three months of this year. Most economists think Americans will spend at about the same pace, or only slightly better, in the current quarter.
By contrast, after the 1981-82 recession, consumer spending averaged a robust 6.5 percent pace during 1983.
"Consumer spending is going to show only stunted growth this year because the wherewithal to spend -- jobs, income, wealth -- are only inching higher," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
Another reason shoppers are unlikely to ramp up their spending: Their faith in the economy is sagging. Consumer confidence dropped in September, according to the University of Michigan/Reuters' consumer sentiment index fell released Friday.
Carla Fehribach, a retired airport ticket agent in St. Louis, said the stock market's failure to generate any real growth this year has made her more cautious about spending. "I'll feel a little more comfortable about spending more if the stock market and the economy turn around," said Fehribach, 67.
She and others are instead saving more. Americans saved 6.1 percent of their disposable income from April to June, the highest quarterly total in a year.
And they are slowly trimming their debt.
Overall household debt dipped to $13.45 trillion from April to June. That's a 3.2 percent decline from a peak in early 2008. People, on average, are carrying around $43,000 in debt -- from mortgages and credit cards to auto loans and home equity lines.
People who defaulted on mortgages and other loans accounted for some of the decline in debt. But many other households have been paying down debts and are reluctant to take on new loans, analysts said.
The decline in net worth underscores how much household wealth depends on stock values. About a fifth of household financial assets are in stock-market holdings. And the value of those holdings fell 12 percent in the April-June period compared with the first three months of the year.
Americans' home equity isn't making up for the loss in their stock values. Last quarter, U.S. real estate values ticked up a scant 0.3 percent compared with the January-March period.
And many economists expect the home market to weaken further, especially since a federal home buyer tax credit has expired. Most expect home prices to decline, on average, 5 percent to 10 percent by the middle of next year.
Some optimism about stocks has been sparked by the gains they've made since June 30. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, a broad gauge of the market, has recovered about two-thirds of its losses from the April-June period. That translates into modest advances in household wealth since June 30. Still, for the year, stocks are up just under 1 percent.
Though the S&P 500 remains 28 percent below its October 2007 peak, employees who have stayed invested in 401(k) plans and continued to contribute have fared better. About 78 percent of them now have more money in those accounts than before the market top three years ago, according to estimates by Jack VanDerhei of the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Still, so many people have seen their overall wealth diminish since the recession that they lack confidence to spend much.
Scott Nieberg, a St. Louis veterinarian, for example, says his retirement account is worth about what it was a decade ago. Nieberg, 53, says he's all but given up hope his nest egg will grow significantly any time soon.
His business would have to improve significantly for him to feel comfortable enough to take a vacation, he said.
"In a down economy, you just work hard," Nieberg said. "We used to take vacations. Now, we take weekends."
AP Business Writers Dave Carpenter in Chicago, Alan Zibel and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington and Christopher Leonard in St. Louis contributed to this report.
.
In this Aug. 31, 2010 photograph, a home with a sold sign is shown in Palo Alto, Calif. Americans' wealth shrank in the spring for the first time since early 2009 as financial turmoil eroded stock portfolios.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer, On Friday September 17, 2010, 7:20 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans' long journey to regain the wealth they lost in the recession is stalled.
Households failed even to run in place during the April-June quarter as sinking stock prices eroded wealth. Stocks have since recovered about two-thirds of those losses. But based on last quarter's data, household net worth would have to surge 23 percent to reach its pre-recession peak.
Net worth -- the value of assets like homes and investments, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards -- fell 2.7 percent last quarter, or $1.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Friday. It now stands at $53.5 trillion.
That's above the bottom hit during the recession, $48.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2009. But it's far below the pre-recession peak in wealth of $65.8 trillion.
The drop from April to June was the first quarterly decline in Americans' wealth since early 2009. Before then, net worth had risen slowly for four straight quarters.
Economists generally think household wealth has ticked up in the July-to-September quarter so far, because of higher stock prices. Yet given last quarter's setback and expectations of scant gains ahead, some economists have pushed back their forecast for when Americans will regain all their lost wealth: Not until the middle of this decade.
Their stagnant wealth will likely keep Americans from spending freely -- and the struggling economy from picking up strength. Consumers tend to spend according to how wealthy they feel. And their spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. In the meantime, people are saving more and paring debt, Friday's data showed.
The decline in net worth from April to June amounted to an average drop of $12,941 per household. Average household wealth now amounts to $455,173. That's up from $415,185 during the recession. But it's down from a peak of $563,438 in 2007.
One reason why economists foresee only slight gains in wealth is they expect real-estate values to stay weak. Residential real-estate accounts for 32 percent of net worth; individual stocks make up 13 percent. The balance includes retirement accounts, taxable mutual funds, bank accounts, bonds and possessions such as cars and jewelry.
During the recession, sinking home equity and stock prices made shoppers skittish. More than a year after the recession is thought to have ended, the housing and stock markets remain fragile. That's why most Americans aren't spending as much as they typically do after recessions.
Consumer spending grew at an annual rate of just 2 percent last quarter, about the same pace as in the first three months of this year. Most economists think Americans will spend at about the same pace, or only slightly better, in the current quarter.
By contrast, after the 1981-82 recession, consumer spending averaged a robust 6.5 percent pace during 1983.
"Consumer spending is going to show only stunted growth this year because the wherewithal to spend -- jobs, income, wealth -- are only inching higher," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
Another reason shoppers are unlikely to ramp up their spending: Their faith in the economy is sagging. Consumer confidence dropped in September, according to the University of Michigan/Reuters' consumer sentiment index fell released Friday.
Carla Fehribach, a retired airport ticket agent in St. Louis, said the stock market's failure to generate any real growth this year has made her more cautious about spending. "I'll feel a little more comfortable about spending more if the stock market and the economy turn around," said Fehribach, 67.
She and others are instead saving more. Americans saved 6.1 percent of their disposable income from April to June, the highest quarterly total in a year.
And they are slowly trimming their debt.
Overall household debt dipped to $13.45 trillion from April to June. That's a 3.2 percent decline from a peak in early 2008. People, on average, are carrying around $43,000 in debt -- from mortgages and credit cards to auto loans and home equity lines.
People who defaulted on mortgages and other loans accounted for some of the decline in debt. But many other households have been paying down debts and are reluctant to take on new loans, analysts said.
The decline in net worth underscores how much household wealth depends on stock values. About a fifth of household financial assets are in stock-market holdings. And the value of those holdings fell 12 percent in the April-June period compared with the first three months of the year.
Americans' home equity isn't making up for the loss in their stock values. Last quarter, U.S. real estate values ticked up a scant 0.3 percent compared with the January-March period.
And many economists expect the home market to weaken further, especially since a federal home buyer tax credit has expired. Most expect home prices to decline, on average, 5 percent to 10 percent by the middle of next year.
Some optimism about stocks has been sparked by the gains they've made since June 30. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, a broad gauge of the market, has recovered about two-thirds of its losses from the April-June period. That translates into modest advances in household wealth since June 30. Still, for the year, stocks are up just under 1 percent.
Though the S&P 500 remains 28 percent below its October 2007 peak, employees who have stayed invested in 401(k) plans and continued to contribute have fared better. About 78 percent of them now have more money in those accounts than before the market top three years ago, according to estimates by Jack VanDerhei of the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Still, so many people have seen their overall wealth diminish since the recession that they lack confidence to spend much.
Scott Nieberg, a St. Louis veterinarian, for example, says his retirement account is worth about what it was a decade ago. Nieberg, 53, says he's all but given up hope his nest egg will grow significantly any time soon.
His business would have to improve significantly for him to feel comfortable enough to take a vacation, he said.
"In a down economy, you just work hard," Nieberg said. "We used to take vacations. Now, we take weekends."
AP Business Writers Dave Carpenter in Chicago, Alan Zibel and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington and Christopher Leonard in St. Louis contributed to this report.
Friday, September 17, 2010
The providence of God
September 16, 2010
... But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
--Isaiah 40:31
Have you ever felt like God had you in "wait" training? Well, God puts a premium on patience and perseverance where you and I are concerned.
We can't rush God's providential choices, but we can trust the One who sees all of history... the days leading up to our lives as well as those that follow after us. John the Beloved understood this principle well.
Perhaps you remember that John was the apostle of Jesus who was sentenced to live out his life on a veritable devil's island, a place called Patmos. But while he was there, God gave him a vision of the future... a powerful message of encouragement and hope for the church. That message became known as the book of Revelation!
How could John write such a powerful message on such a wretched island amidst personal suffering and loneliness? It's because John looked beyond his suffering and embraced the future that God showed him, the promise of heaven. God's light shines brightest in the darkest of times!
When you find yourself alone in pain and suffering, don't hasten God's providential timeline, but trust the One who makes all things work together for your good and his glory. He will renew your strength!
GOD'S LIGHT SHINES BRIGHTEST IN THE DARKEST OF TIMES!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
... But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
--Isaiah 40:31
Have you ever felt like God had you in "wait" training? Well, God puts a premium on patience and perseverance where you and I are concerned.
We can't rush God's providential choices, but we can trust the One who sees all of history... the days leading up to our lives as well as those that follow after us. John the Beloved understood this principle well.
Perhaps you remember that John was the apostle of Jesus who was sentenced to live out his life on a veritable devil's island, a place called Patmos. But while he was there, God gave him a vision of the future... a powerful message of encouragement and hope for the church. That message became known as the book of Revelation!
How could John write such a powerful message on such a wretched island amidst personal suffering and loneliness? It's because John looked beyond his suffering and embraced the future that God showed him, the promise of heaven. God's light shines brightest in the darkest of times!
When you find yourself alone in pain and suffering, don't hasten God's providential timeline, but trust the One who makes all things work together for your good and his glory. He will renew your strength!
GOD'S LIGHT SHINES BRIGHTEST IN THE DARKEST OF TIMES!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
IHT and NYT Interview Lee Kuan Yew
Monday, September 13, 2010
I was engrossed reading the following article. We all have our opinions on the man. I think he is an outstanding pragmatic statesman. Singapore would not be where it is without his vision, strategies and execution ability ~ though we may not fully agree with all the things he did, overall, it has been top notch. You don't gain many things without sacrificing some. The interview below did more than shed some fresh light on Mr. Lee ... how he faces adversity, death and the humanity of it all were illuminating and gives him a more down to earth persona.
--------------------------------------------
The following is the transcript of the interview Seth Mydans had with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. The interview was held on 1 September 2010.
Mr Lee: “Thank you. When you are coming to 87, you are not very happy..”
Q: “Not. Well you should be glad that you’ve gotten way past where most of us will get.”
Mr Lee: “That is my trouble. So, when is the last leaf falling?”
Q: “Do you feel like that, do you feel like the leaves are coming off?”
Mr Lee: “Well, yes. I mean I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality and I mean generally every year when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that is life.”
Q: “My mother used to say never get old.”
Mr Lee: “Well, there you will try never to think yourself old. I mean I keep fit, I swim, I cycle.”
Q: “And yoga, is that right? Meditation?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Tell me about meditation?”
Mr Lee: “Well, I started it about two, three years ago when Ng Kok Song, the Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, I knew he was doing meditation. His wife had died but he was completely serene. So, I said, how do you achieve this? He said I meditate everyday and so did my wife and when she was dying of cancer, she was totally serene because she meditated everyday and he gave me a video of her in her last few weeks completely composed completely relaxed and she and him had been meditating for years. Well, I said to him, you teach me. He is a devout Christian. He was taught by a man called Laurence Freeman, a Catholic. His guru was John Main a devout Catholic. When I was in London, Ng Kok Song introduced me to Laurence Freeman. In fact, he is coming on Saturday to visit Singapore, and we will do a meditation session. The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts. It is most difficult to stay focused on the mantra. The discipline is to have a mantra which you keep repeating in your innermost heart, no need to voice it over and over again throughout the whole period of meditation. The mantra they recommended was a religious one. Ma Ra Na Ta, four syllables. Come To Me Oh Lord Jesus. So I said Okay, I am not a Catholic but I will try. He said you can take any other mantra, Buddhist Om Mi Tuo Fo, and keep repeating it. To me Ma Ran Na Ta is more soothing. So I used Ma Ra Na Ta. You must be disciplined. I find it helps me go to sleep after that. A certain tranquility settles over you. The day’s pressures and worries are pushed out. Then there’s less problem sleeping. I miss it sometimes when I am tired, or have gone out to a dinner and had wine. Then I cannot concentrate. Otherwise I stick to it.”
Q: “So…”
Mr Lee: “.. for a good meditator will do it for half-an-hour. I do it for 20 minutes.”
Q: “So, would you say like your friend who taught you, would you say you are serene?”
Mr Lee: “Well, not as serene as he is. He has done it for many years and he is a devout Catholic. That makes a difference. He believes in Jesus. He believes in the teachings of the Bible. He has lost his wife, a great calamity. But the wife was serene. He gave me this video to show how meditation helped her in her last few months. I do not think I can achieve his level of serenity. But I do achieve some composure.”
Q: “And do you find that at this time in your life you do find yourself getting closer to religion of one sort or another?”
Mr Lee: “I am an agnostic. I was brought up in a traditional Chinese family with ancestor worship. I would go to my grandfather’s grave on All Soul’s Day which is called “Qingming”. My father would bring me along, lay out food and candles and burn some paper money and kowtow three times over his tombstone. At home on specific days outside the kitchen he would put up two candles with my grandfather’s picture. But as I grew up, I questioned this because I think this is superstition. You are gone, you burn paper money, how can he collect the paper money where he is? After my father died, I dropped the practice. My youngest brother baptised my father as a Christian. He did not have the right to. He was a doctor and for the last weeks before my father’s life, he took my father to his house because he was a doctor and was able to keep my father comforted. I do not know if my father was fully aware when he was converted into Christianity.”
Q: “Converted your father?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Well this happens when you get close to the end.”
Mr Lee: “Well, but I do not know whether my father agreed. At that time he may have been beyond making a rational decision. My brother assumed that he agreed and converted him.”
Q: “But…”
Mr Lee: “I am not converted.”
Q: “But when you reach that stage, you may wonder more than ever what is next?”
Mr Lee: “Well, what is next, I do not know. Nobody has ever come back. The Muslims say that there are seventy houris, beautiful women up there. But nobody has come back to confirm this.”
Q: “And you haven’t converted to Islam, knowing that?”
Mr Lee: “Most unlikely. The Buddhist believes in transmigration of the soul. If you live a good life, the reward is in your next migration, you will be a good being, not an ugly animal. It is a comforting thought, but my wife and I do not believe in it. She has been for two years bed-ridden, unable to speak after a series of strokes. I am not going to convert her. I am not going to allow anybody to convert her because I know it will be against what she believed in all her life. How do I comfort myself? Well, I say life is just like that. You can’t choose how you go unless you are going to take an overdose of sleeping pills, like sodium amytal. For just over two years, she has been inert in bed, but still cognitive. She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night. She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favourite poems.”
Q: ‘And what kind of books do you read to her?”
Mr Lee: “So much of my time is reading things online. The latest book which I want to read or re-read is Kim. It is a beautiful of description of India as it was in Kipling’s time. And he had an insight into the Indian mind and it is still basically that same society that I find when I visit India. “
Q: “When you spoke to Time Magazine a couple of years ago, you said Don Quixote was your favourite?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I was just given the book, Don Quixote, a new translation.”
Q: “But people might find that ironic because he was fantasist who did not realistically choose his projects and you are sort of the opposite?”
Mr Lee: “No, no, you must have something fanciful and a flight of fancy. I had a colleague Rajaratnam who read Sci-Fi for his leisure.”’
Q: “And you?”:
Mr Lee: “No, I do not believe in Sci-Fi.”
Q: “But you must have something to fantasise.”
Mr Lee: “Well, at the moment, as I said, I would like to read Kim again. Why I thought of Kim was because I have just been through a list of audio books to choose for my wife. Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, books she has on her book shelf. So, I ticked off the ones I think she would find interesting. The one that caught my eye was Kim. She was into literature, from Alice in Wonderland, to Adventures with a Looking Glass, to Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen was her favourite writer because she wrote elegant and leisurely English prose of the 19th century. The prose flowed beautifully, described the human condition in a graceful way, and rolls off the tongue and in the mind. She enjoyed it. Also Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She was an English Literature major.”
Q: “You are naming books on the list, not necessarily books you have already read, yes?”
Mr Lee: “I would have read some of them.”
Q: “Like a Jane Austen book, or Canterbury Tales?”
Mr Lee: “No, Canterbury Tales, I had to do it for my second year English Literature course in Raffles College. For a person in the 15th Century, he wrote very modern stuff. I didn’t find his English all that archaic. I find those Scottish poets difficult to read. Sometimes I don’t make sense of their Scottish brogue. My wife makes sense of them. Then Shakespeare’s sonnets.”
Q: “You read those?”
Mr Lee: “I read those sonnets when I did English literature in my freshman’s year. She read them.”
Q: “When you say she reads them now, you’re the one who reads them, yes?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I read them to her.”
Q: “But you go to her.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I read from an Anthology of Poems which she has, and several other anthologies. So I know her favourite poems. She had flagged them. I read them to her.”
Q: “She’s in the hospital? You go to the hospital?”
Mr Lee: “No, no, she’s at home. We’ve got a hospital bed and nurses attending to her. We used to share the same room. Now I’m staying in the next room. I have to get used to her groans and grunts when she’s uncomfortable from a dry throat and they pump in a spray moisture called “Biothene” which soothes her throat, and they suck out phlegm. Because she can’t get up, she can’t breathe fully. The phlegm accumulates in the chest but you can’t suck it out from the chest, you’ve got to wait until she coughs and it goes out to her throat. They suck it out, and she’s relieved. They sit her up and tap her back. It’s very distressing, but that’s life.”
Q: “Yes, your daughter on Sunday wrote a moving column, movingly about the situation referring to you.”
Mr Lee: “How did you come to read it?”
Q: “Somebody said you’ve got to read that column, so I read it.”
Mr Lee: “You don’t get the Straits Times.”
Q: “I get it online actually. I certainly do, I follow Singapore online and she wrote that the whole family suffers of course from this and she wrote the one who’s been hurting the most and is yet carrying on stoically is my father.”
Mr Lee: “What to do? What else can I do? I can’t break down. Life has got to go on. I try to busy myself, but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together.”
Q: “When you go to visit her, is that the time when your mind goes back?”
Mr Lee: “No, not then. My daughter’s fished out many old photographs for this piece she wrote and picked out a dozen or two dozen photographs from the digital copies which somebody had kept at the Singapore Press Holdings. When I look at them, I thought how lucky I was. I had 61 years of happiness. We’ve got to go sometime, so I’m not sure who’s going first, whether she or me. So I told her, I’ve been looking at the marriage vows of the Christians. The best I read was,” To love, to hold and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part.” I told her I would try and keep you company for as long as I can. She understood.”
Q: “Yes, it’s been really.”
Mr Lee: “What to do? What can you do in this situation? I can say get rid of the nurses. Then the maids won’t know how to turn her over and then she gets pneumonia. That ends the suffering. But human beings being what we are, I do the best for her and the best is to give her a competent nurse who moves her, massages her, turns her over, so no bed sores. I’ve got a hospital bed with air cushions so no bed sores. Well, that’s life. Make her comfortable.”
Q: “And for yourself, you feel the weight of age more than you have in the past?”
Mr Lee: “I’m not sure. I marginally must have. It’s stress. However, I look at it, I mean, it’s stress. That’s life. But it’s a different kind of stress from the kind of stress I faced, political stresses. Dire situations for Singapore, dire situations for myself when we broke off from Malaysia, the Malays in Singapore could have rioted and gone for me and they suddenly found themselves back as a minority because the Tunku kicked us out. That’s different, that’s intense stress and it’s over but this is stress which goes on. One doctor told me, you may think that when she’s gone you’re relieved but you’ll be sad when she’s gone because there’s still the human being here, there’s still somebody you talk to and she knows what you’re saying and you’ll miss that. Well, I don’t know, I haven’t come to that but I think I’ll probably will because it’s now two years, May, June, July, August, September, two years and four months. It’s become a part of my life.”
Q: “She’s how old now?”
Mr Lee: “She’s two-and-a-half years older than me, so she’s coming on to 90.”
Q: “But you did make a reference in an interview with Time magazine to something that goes beyond reason as you put it. You referred to the real enemy by Pierre D’Harcourt who talked about people surviving the Nazi, it’s better that they have something to believe in.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.”
Q: “And you said that the Communists and the deeply religious fought on and survived. There are some things in the human spirit that are beyond reason.”
Mr Lee: “I believe that to be true. Look, I saw my friend and cabinet colleague who’s a deeply religious Catholic. He was Finance Minister, a fine man. In 1983, he had a heart attack. He was in hospital, in ICU, he improved and was taken out of ICU. Then he had a second heart attack and I knew it was bad. I went to see him and the priest was giving him the last rites as a Catholic. Absolutely fearless, he showed no distress, no fear, the family was around him, his wife and daughters, he had four daughters. With priest delivering the last rites, he knew he was reaching the end. But his mind was clear but absolutely calm.”
Q: “Well, I am more like you. We don’t have something to cling to.”
Mr Lee: “That’s our problem.”
Q: “But also the way people see you is supremely reasonable person, reason is the ultimate.”
Mr Lee: “Well, that’s the way I’ve been working.”
Q: “Well, you did mention to Tom Plate, they think they know me but they only know the public me?”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, the private view is you have emotions for your close members of your family. We are a close family, not just my sons and my wife and my parents but my brothers and my sister. So my youngest brother, a doctor as I told you, he just sent me an email that my second brother was dying of a bleeding colon, diverticulitis. And later the third brother now has got prostate cancer and has spread into his lymph nodes. So I asked what’re the chances of survival. It’s not gotten to the bones yet, so they’re doing chemotherapy and if you can prevent it from going into the bones, he’ll be okay for a few more years. If it does get to the bones, then that’s the end. I don’t think my brother knows. But I’ll probably go and see him.”
Q: “But you yourself have been fit. You have a stent, you had heart problem late last year but besides that do you have ailments?”
Mr Lee: “Well, aches and pains of a geriatric person, joints, muscles but all non-terminal. I go in for a physiotherapy, maintenance once a week, they give me a rub over because when I cycle, my thighs get sore, knees get a little painful, and so the hips.”
Q: “These are the signs of age.”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, of course.”
Q: “I’m 64. I’m beginning to feel that and I don’t like it and I don’t want to admit to myself.”
Mr Lee: “But if you stop exercising, you make it worse. That’s what my doctors tell me, just carry on. When you have these aches and pains, we’ll give you physiotherapy. I’ve learnt to use heat pads at home. So after the physiotherapy, once a week, if I feel my thighs are sore, I just have a heat pad there. You put in the microwave oven and you tie it around your thighs or your ankles or your calves. It relieves the pain.”
Q: “So you continue to cycle.”
Mr Lee: “Oh yeah.”
Q: “Treadmill?
Mr Lee: “No, I don’t do the treadmill. I walk but not always. When I’ve cycled enough I don’t walk.”
Q: “That’s your primary exercise, swimming?”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, I swim everyday, it’s relaxing.”
Q: “What other secrets, I see you drink hot water?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Tell me about it.”
Mr Lee: “Well, I used to drink tea but tea is a diuretic, but I didn’t know that. I used to drink litres of it. In the 1980s, I was having a conference with Zhou Ziyang who was then Secretary-General of the Communist Party in the Great Hall of the People. The Chinese came in and poured more tea and hot water. I was scoffing it down because it kept my throat moistened, my BP was up because more liquid was in me. Halfway through, I said please stop. I’m dashing off. I had to relief myself. Then my doctors said don’t you know that tea is a diuretic? I don’t like coffee, it gives me a sour stomach, so okay, let’s switch to water.”
Q: “You know you had the hot water when I met you a couple of years ago and after I told my wife about that, she switched to hot water. She’s not sure why except that you drink hot water, so she’s decided to.”
Mr Lee: “Well, cold water, this was from my ENT man. If you drink cold water, you reduce the temperature of your nasal passages and throat and reduce your resistance to coughs and colds. So I take warm water, body temperature. I don’t scald myself with boiling hot water. I avoid that. But my daughter puts blocks of ice into her coffee and drinks it up. She’s all right, she’s only 50-plus.
Q: “Let me ask a question about the outside world a little bit. Singapore is a great success story even though people criticize this and that. When you look back, you can be proud of what you’ve done and I assume you are. Are there things that you regret, things that you wished you could achieve that you couldn’t?”
Mr Lee: “Well, first I regret having been turfed out of Malaysia. I think if the Tunku had kept us together, what we did in Singapore, had Malaysia accepted a multiracial base for their society, much of what we’ve achieved in Singapore would be achieved in Malaysia. But not as much because it’s a much broader base. We would have improved inter-racial relations and an improved holistic situation. Now we have a very polarized Malaysia, Malays, Chinese and Indians in separate schools, living separate lives and not really getting on with one another. You read them. That’s bad for us as close neighbours.”
Q: “So at that time, you found yourself with Singapore and you have transformed it. And my question would be how do you assess your own satisfaction with what you’ve achieved? What didn’t work?”
Mr Lee: “Well, the greatest satisfaction I had was my colleagues and I, were of that generation who were turfed out of Malaysia suffered two years under a racial policy decided that we will go the other way. We will not as a majority squeeze the minority because once we’re by ourselves, the Chinese become the majority. We made quite sure whatever your race, language or religion, you are an equal citizen and we’ll drum that into the people and I think our Chinese understand and today we have an integrated society. Our Malays are English-educated, they’re no longer like the Malays in Malaysia and you can see there are some still wearing headscarves but very modern looking.”
Q: “That doesn’t sound like a regret to me.”
Mr Lee: “No, no, but the regret is there’s such a narrow base to build this enormous edifice, so I’ve got to tell the next generation, please do not take for granted what’s been built. If you forget that this is a small island which we are built upon and reach a 100 storeys high tower block and may go up to 150 if you are wise. But if you believe that it’s permanent, it will come tumbling down and you will never get a second chance.”
Q: “I wonder if that is a concern of yours about the next generation. I saw your discussion with a group of young people before the last election and they were saying what they want is a lot of these values from the West, an open political marketplace and even playing field in all of these things and you said well, if that’s the way you feel, I’m very sad.”
Mr Lee: “Because you play it that way, if you have dissension, if you chose the easy way to Muslim votes and switch to racial politics, this society is finished. The easiest way to get majority vote is vote for me, we’re Chinese, they’re Indians, they’re Malays. Our society will be ripped apart. If you do not have a cohesive society, you cannot make progress.”
Q: “But is that a concern that the younger generation doesn’t realize as much as it should?”
Mr Lee: “I believe they have come to believe that this is a natural state of affairs, and they can take liberties with it. They think you can put it on auto-pilot. I know that is never so. We have crafted a set of very intricate rules, no housing blocks shall have more than a percentage of so many Chinese, so many percent Malays, Indians. All are thoroughly mixed. Willy-nilly, your neighbours are Indians, Malays, you go to the same shopping malls, you go to the same schools, the same playing fields, you go up and down the same lifts. We cannot allow segregation.”
Q: “There are people who think that Singapore may lighten up a little bit when you go, that the rules will become a little looser and if that happens, that might be something that’s a concern to you.”
Mr Lee: “No, you can go looser where it’s not race, language and religion because those are deeply gut issues and it will surface the moment you start playing on them. It’s inevitable, but on other areas, policies, right or wrong, disparity of opportunities, rich and poor, well go ahead. But don’t play race, language, religion. We’ve got here, we’ve become cohesive, keep it that way. We’ve not used Chinese as a majority language because it will split the population. We have English as our working language, it’s equal for everybody, and it’s given us the progress because we’re connected to the world. If you want to keep your Malay, or your Chinese, or your Tamil, Urdu or whatever, do that as a second language, not equal to your first language. It’s up to you, how high a standard you want to achieve.”
Q: “The public view of you is as a very strict, cerebral, unsentimental. Catherine Lim, “an authoritarian, no-nonsense manner that has little use for sentiment”.”
Mr Lee: “She’s a novelist, therefore, she simplifies a person’s character, make graphic caricature of me. But is anybody that simple or simplistic?”
Q: “Sentiment though, you don’t show that very much in public.”
Mr Lee: “Well, that’s a Chinese ideal. A gentleman in Chinese ideal, the junzi (君子) is someone who is always composed and possessed of himself and doesn’t lose his temper and doesn’t lose his tongue. That’s what I try to do, except when I got turfed out from Malaysia. Then, I just couldn’t help it.”
Q: “One aspect of the way you’ve constructed Singapore is a certain level of fear perhaps in the population. You described yourself as a street fighter, knuckle duster and so forth.”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “And that produces among some people a level of fear and I want to tell you what a taxi driver said when I said I was going to interview you. He said, safer not to ask him anything. If you ask him, somebody will follow you. We’re not in politics so just let him do the politics.”
Mr Lee: “How old is he?’
Q: “I’m sorry, middle aged, I don’t know.”
Mr Lee: “I go out. I’m no longer the Prime Minister. I don’t have to do the difficult things. Everybody wants to shake my hands, everybody wants me to autograph something. Everybody wants to get around me to take a photo. So it’s a problem.
Q: “Yes but…”
Mr Lee: “Because I’m no longer in charge, I don’t have to do the hard things. I’ve laid the foundation and they know that because of that foundation, they’re enjoying this life.’
Q: “So when you were the one directly in-charge, you had to be tough, you had to be a fighter.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course. I had to fight left-wingers, Communists, pro-Communist groups who had killer squads. If I didn’t have the guts and the gumption to take them on, there wouldn’t be the Singapore. They would have taken over and it would have collapsed. I also had to fight the Malay Ultras when we were in Malaysia for two years.”
Q: “Well, you don’t have a lot of dissidents in prison but you’re known for your libel suits which keeps a lot of people at bay.”
Mr Lee: “We are non-corrupt. We lead modest lives, so it’s difficult to malign us. What’s the easy way to get a leader down? He’s a hypocrite, he is corrupt, he pretends to be this when in fact he’s that. That’s what they’re trying to do to me. Well, prove it, if what you say is right, then I don’t deserve this reputation. Why must you say these things without foundation? I’m taking you to court, you’ve made these allegations, I’m open to your cross-examination.”
Q: “But that may produce what I was talking about, about a level of fear.”
Mr Lee: “No, you’re fearful of a libel suit? Then don’t issue these defamatory statements or make them where you have no basis. The Western correspondent, especially those who hop in and hop out got to find something to show that they are impartial, that they’re not just taken in by the Singapore growth story. They say we keep down the opposition, how? Libel suits. Absolute rubbish. We have opponents in Parliament who have attacked us on policy, no libel suits against them and even in Parliament they are privileged to make defamatory allegation and cannot be sued. But they don’t. They know it is not true.”
Q: “Let me ask a last question. Again back to Tom Plate, “I’m not serious all the time. Everyone needs to have a good laugh now and then to see the funny side of things and to laugh at himself”.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.”
Q: “How about that?”
Mr Lee: “You have to be that.”
Q: “So what makes you laugh?”
Mr Lee: “Many things, the absurdity of it, many things in life. Sometimes, I meet witty people, have conversations, they make sharp remarks, I laugh.
Q: “And when you laugh at yourself as you said?”
Mr Lee: “That’s very frequent. Yeah, I’m reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure and it’s an effort and is it worth the effort? I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It’s become my habit. I just carry on.”
Q: “So it’s the whole broad picture of things that you find funny?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, life as a whole has many abnormalities, of course.”
Q: “Your public life together with your private life, what you’ve done over things people write about you and Singapore, that overall is something that you can find funny?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.
Q: “You made one of the few people who laugh at Singapore.”
Mr Lee: “Let me give you a Chinese proverb “do not judge a man until you’ve closed his coffin. Do not judge a man.” Close the coffin, then decide. Then you assess him. I may still do something foolish before the lid is closed on me.”
Q: “So you’re waiting for the final verdict?”
Mr Lee: “No, the final verdict will not be in the obituaries. The final verdict will be when the PhD students dig out the archives, read my old papers, assess what my enemies have said, sift the evidence and seek the truth? I’m not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose. I had to do some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial.”
Q: “For the greater good?
Mr Lee: “Well, yes, because otherwise they are running around and causing havoc playing on Chinese language and culture, and accusing me of destroying Chinese education. You’ve not been here when the Communists were running around. They do not believe in the democratic process. They don’t believe in one man, one vote. They believe in one bullet, one vote. They had killer squads. But they at the same time had a united front exploiting the democratic game. It gave them cover. But my business, my job was to make sure that they did not succeed. Sometimes you just got to lock the leaders up. They are confusing the people. The reality is that if you allow these people to work up animosity against the government because it’s keeping down the Chinese language, because we’ve promoted English, keeping down Chinese culture because you have allowed English literature, and we suppress our Chinese values and the Chinese language, the Chinese press, well, you will break up the society. They harp on these things when they know they are not true. They know that if you actually do in Chinese language and culture, the Chinese will riot and the society must break up.”
Q: “So leadership is a constant battle?”
Mr Lee: “In a multiracial situation like this, it is. Malaysia took the different line; Malaysians saw it as a Malay country, all others are lodgers, “orang tumpangan”, and they the Bumiputras, sons of the soil, run the show. So the Sultans, the Chief Justice and judges, generals, police commissioner, the whole hierarchy is Malay. All the big contracts for Malays. Malay is the language of the schools although it does not get them into modern knowledge. So the Chinese build and find their own independent schools to teach Chinese, the Tamils create their own Tamil schools, which do not get them jobs. It’s a most unhappy situation.”
Mdm Yeong: “I thought that was the last question.”
Q: “This is the last part of the last question. So your career has been a struggle to keep things going in the right way and you’ve also said that the best way to keep your health is to keep on working. Are you tired of it by this point? Do you feel like you want to rest?”
Mr Lee: “No, I don’t. I know if I rest I’ll slide downhill fast. No, my whole being has been stimulated by the daily challenge. If I suddenly drop it all, play golf, stroll around, watch the sunset, read novels, that’s downhill. It is the daily challenge, social contacts, meeting people, people like you, you press me, I answer, when I don’t…. what have I got tomorrow?”
Mdm Yeong: “You have two more events coming up. One is the Radin Mas Community.”
Mr Lee: “Oh yeah. I got it.”
Mdm Yeong: “And then you have other call, courtesy call on the 3rd.”
Mr Lee: “We are social animals. Without that interaction with people, you are isolated. The worst punishment you can give a person is the isolation ward. You get hallucinations. Four walls, no books, no nothing. By way of example, Henry Kissinger wants to speak to me. So I said okay, we’ll speak on Sunday. What about? We are meeting in Sao Paolo at a J P Morgan International Advisory Board. He wants to talk to me to check certain facts on China. My mind is kept alive, I go to China once a year at least. I meet Chinese leaders. So it’s a constant stimulus as I keep up to date. Supposing I sit back, I don’t think about China, just watch videos. I am off to Moscow, Kiev and Paris on the 15th of September. Three days Moscow, three days Kiev, four days Paris. Moscow I am involved in the Skolkovo Business School which President Medvedev, when he wasn’t President started. I promised to go if he did not fix it in the winter. So they fix it for September. I look at the fires, I said wow this is no good.”
Q: “It’s not going to be freezing if there are fires.”
Mr Lee: “No but our embassy says the skies have cleared. Kiev because the President has invited me specially and will fly me from Moscow to Kiev and then fly me on to Paris. Paris I am on the TOTAL Advisory Board together with Joe Nye and a few others. They want a presentation on what are China’s strengths and weaknesses. That keeps me alive. It’s just not my impressionistic views of China but one that has to be backed by facts and figures. So my team works out the facts and figures, and I check to see if they tally with my impressions. But it’s a constant stimulus to keep alive, and up-to-date. If I stop it, it’s downhill.”
Q: “Well, I hope you continue. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed this interview.”
I was engrossed reading the following article. We all have our opinions on the man. I think he is an outstanding pragmatic statesman. Singapore would not be where it is without his vision, strategies and execution ability ~ though we may not fully agree with all the things he did, overall, it has been top notch. You don't gain many things without sacrificing some. The interview below did more than shed some fresh light on Mr. Lee ... how he faces adversity, death and the humanity of it all were illuminating and gives him a more down to earth persona.
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The following is the transcript of the interview Seth Mydans had with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. The interview was held on 1 September 2010.
Mr Lee: “Thank you. When you are coming to 87, you are not very happy..”
Q: “Not. Well you should be glad that you’ve gotten way past where most of us will get.”
Mr Lee: “That is my trouble. So, when is the last leaf falling?”
Q: “Do you feel like that, do you feel like the leaves are coming off?”
Mr Lee: “Well, yes. I mean I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality and I mean generally every year when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that is life.”
Q: “My mother used to say never get old.”
Mr Lee: “Well, there you will try never to think yourself old. I mean I keep fit, I swim, I cycle.”
Q: “And yoga, is that right? Meditation?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Tell me about meditation?”
Mr Lee: “Well, I started it about two, three years ago when Ng Kok Song, the Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, I knew he was doing meditation. His wife had died but he was completely serene. So, I said, how do you achieve this? He said I meditate everyday and so did my wife and when she was dying of cancer, she was totally serene because she meditated everyday and he gave me a video of her in her last few weeks completely composed completely relaxed and she and him had been meditating for years. Well, I said to him, you teach me. He is a devout Christian. He was taught by a man called Laurence Freeman, a Catholic. His guru was John Main a devout Catholic. When I was in London, Ng Kok Song introduced me to Laurence Freeman. In fact, he is coming on Saturday to visit Singapore, and we will do a meditation session. The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts. It is most difficult to stay focused on the mantra. The discipline is to have a mantra which you keep repeating in your innermost heart, no need to voice it over and over again throughout the whole period of meditation. The mantra they recommended was a religious one. Ma Ra Na Ta, four syllables. Come To Me Oh Lord Jesus. So I said Okay, I am not a Catholic but I will try. He said you can take any other mantra, Buddhist Om Mi Tuo Fo, and keep repeating it. To me Ma Ran Na Ta is more soothing. So I used Ma Ra Na Ta. You must be disciplined. I find it helps me go to sleep after that. A certain tranquility settles over you. The day’s pressures and worries are pushed out. Then there’s less problem sleeping. I miss it sometimes when I am tired, or have gone out to a dinner and had wine. Then I cannot concentrate. Otherwise I stick to it.”
Q: “So…”
Mr Lee: “.. for a good meditator will do it for half-an-hour. I do it for 20 minutes.”
Q: “So, would you say like your friend who taught you, would you say you are serene?”
Mr Lee: “Well, not as serene as he is. He has done it for many years and he is a devout Catholic. That makes a difference. He believes in Jesus. He believes in the teachings of the Bible. He has lost his wife, a great calamity. But the wife was serene. He gave me this video to show how meditation helped her in her last few months. I do not think I can achieve his level of serenity. But I do achieve some composure.”
Q: “And do you find that at this time in your life you do find yourself getting closer to religion of one sort or another?”
Mr Lee: “I am an agnostic. I was brought up in a traditional Chinese family with ancestor worship. I would go to my grandfather’s grave on All Soul’s Day which is called “Qingming”. My father would bring me along, lay out food and candles and burn some paper money and kowtow three times over his tombstone. At home on specific days outside the kitchen he would put up two candles with my grandfather’s picture. But as I grew up, I questioned this because I think this is superstition. You are gone, you burn paper money, how can he collect the paper money where he is? After my father died, I dropped the practice. My youngest brother baptised my father as a Christian. He did not have the right to. He was a doctor and for the last weeks before my father’s life, he took my father to his house because he was a doctor and was able to keep my father comforted. I do not know if my father was fully aware when he was converted into Christianity.”
Q: “Converted your father?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Well this happens when you get close to the end.”
Mr Lee: “Well, but I do not know whether my father agreed. At that time he may have been beyond making a rational decision. My brother assumed that he agreed and converted him.”
Q: “But…”
Mr Lee: “I am not converted.”
Q: “But when you reach that stage, you may wonder more than ever what is next?”
Mr Lee: “Well, what is next, I do not know. Nobody has ever come back. The Muslims say that there are seventy houris, beautiful women up there. But nobody has come back to confirm this.”
Q: “And you haven’t converted to Islam, knowing that?”
Mr Lee: “Most unlikely. The Buddhist believes in transmigration of the soul. If you live a good life, the reward is in your next migration, you will be a good being, not an ugly animal. It is a comforting thought, but my wife and I do not believe in it. She has been for two years bed-ridden, unable to speak after a series of strokes. I am not going to convert her. I am not going to allow anybody to convert her because I know it will be against what she believed in all her life. How do I comfort myself? Well, I say life is just like that. You can’t choose how you go unless you are going to take an overdose of sleeping pills, like sodium amytal. For just over two years, she has been inert in bed, but still cognitive. She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night. She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favourite poems.”
Q: ‘And what kind of books do you read to her?”
Mr Lee: “So much of my time is reading things online. The latest book which I want to read or re-read is Kim. It is a beautiful of description of India as it was in Kipling’s time. And he had an insight into the Indian mind and it is still basically that same society that I find when I visit India. “
Q: “When you spoke to Time Magazine a couple of years ago, you said Don Quixote was your favourite?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I was just given the book, Don Quixote, a new translation.”
Q: “But people might find that ironic because he was fantasist who did not realistically choose his projects and you are sort of the opposite?”
Mr Lee: “No, no, you must have something fanciful and a flight of fancy. I had a colleague Rajaratnam who read Sci-Fi for his leisure.”’
Q: “And you?”:
Mr Lee: “No, I do not believe in Sci-Fi.”
Q: “But you must have something to fantasise.”
Mr Lee: “Well, at the moment, as I said, I would like to read Kim again. Why I thought of Kim was because I have just been through a list of audio books to choose for my wife. Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, books she has on her book shelf. So, I ticked off the ones I think she would find interesting. The one that caught my eye was Kim. She was into literature, from Alice in Wonderland, to Adventures with a Looking Glass, to Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen was her favourite writer because she wrote elegant and leisurely English prose of the 19th century. The prose flowed beautifully, described the human condition in a graceful way, and rolls off the tongue and in the mind. She enjoyed it. Also Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She was an English Literature major.”
Q: “You are naming books on the list, not necessarily books you have already read, yes?”
Mr Lee: “I would have read some of them.”
Q: “Like a Jane Austen book, or Canterbury Tales?”
Mr Lee: “No, Canterbury Tales, I had to do it for my second year English Literature course in Raffles College. For a person in the 15th Century, he wrote very modern stuff. I didn’t find his English all that archaic. I find those Scottish poets difficult to read. Sometimes I don’t make sense of their Scottish brogue. My wife makes sense of them. Then Shakespeare’s sonnets.”
Q: “You read those?”
Mr Lee: “I read those sonnets when I did English literature in my freshman’s year. She read them.”
Q: “When you say she reads them now, you’re the one who reads them, yes?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I read them to her.”
Q: “But you go to her.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, I read from an Anthology of Poems which she has, and several other anthologies. So I know her favourite poems. She had flagged them. I read them to her.”
Q: “She’s in the hospital? You go to the hospital?”
Mr Lee: “No, no, she’s at home. We’ve got a hospital bed and nurses attending to her. We used to share the same room. Now I’m staying in the next room. I have to get used to her groans and grunts when she’s uncomfortable from a dry throat and they pump in a spray moisture called “Biothene” which soothes her throat, and they suck out phlegm. Because she can’t get up, she can’t breathe fully. The phlegm accumulates in the chest but you can’t suck it out from the chest, you’ve got to wait until she coughs and it goes out to her throat. They suck it out, and she’s relieved. They sit her up and tap her back. It’s very distressing, but that’s life.”
Q: “Yes, your daughter on Sunday wrote a moving column, movingly about the situation referring to you.”
Mr Lee: “How did you come to read it?”
Q: “Somebody said you’ve got to read that column, so I read it.”
Mr Lee: “You don’t get the Straits Times.”
Q: “I get it online actually. I certainly do, I follow Singapore online and she wrote that the whole family suffers of course from this and she wrote the one who’s been hurting the most and is yet carrying on stoically is my father.”
Mr Lee: “What to do? What else can I do? I can’t break down. Life has got to go on. I try to busy myself, but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together.”
Q: “When you go to visit her, is that the time when your mind goes back?”
Mr Lee: “No, not then. My daughter’s fished out many old photographs for this piece she wrote and picked out a dozen or two dozen photographs from the digital copies which somebody had kept at the Singapore Press Holdings. When I look at them, I thought how lucky I was. I had 61 years of happiness. We’ve got to go sometime, so I’m not sure who’s going first, whether she or me. So I told her, I’ve been looking at the marriage vows of the Christians. The best I read was,” To love, to hold and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part.” I told her I would try and keep you company for as long as I can. She understood.”
Q: “Yes, it’s been really.”
Mr Lee: “What to do? What can you do in this situation? I can say get rid of the nurses. Then the maids won’t know how to turn her over and then she gets pneumonia. That ends the suffering. But human beings being what we are, I do the best for her and the best is to give her a competent nurse who moves her, massages her, turns her over, so no bed sores. I’ve got a hospital bed with air cushions so no bed sores. Well, that’s life. Make her comfortable.”
Q: “And for yourself, you feel the weight of age more than you have in the past?”
Mr Lee: “I’m not sure. I marginally must have. It’s stress. However, I look at it, I mean, it’s stress. That’s life. But it’s a different kind of stress from the kind of stress I faced, political stresses. Dire situations for Singapore, dire situations for myself when we broke off from Malaysia, the Malays in Singapore could have rioted and gone for me and they suddenly found themselves back as a minority because the Tunku kicked us out. That’s different, that’s intense stress and it’s over but this is stress which goes on. One doctor told me, you may think that when she’s gone you’re relieved but you’ll be sad when she’s gone because there’s still the human being here, there’s still somebody you talk to and she knows what you’re saying and you’ll miss that. Well, I don’t know, I haven’t come to that but I think I’ll probably will because it’s now two years, May, June, July, August, September, two years and four months. It’s become a part of my life.”
Q: “She’s how old now?”
Mr Lee: “She’s two-and-a-half years older than me, so she’s coming on to 90.”
Q: “But you did make a reference in an interview with Time magazine to something that goes beyond reason as you put it. You referred to the real enemy by Pierre D’Harcourt who talked about people surviving the Nazi, it’s better that they have something to believe in.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.”
Q: “And you said that the Communists and the deeply religious fought on and survived. There are some things in the human spirit that are beyond reason.”
Mr Lee: “I believe that to be true. Look, I saw my friend and cabinet colleague who’s a deeply religious Catholic. He was Finance Minister, a fine man. In 1983, he had a heart attack. He was in hospital, in ICU, he improved and was taken out of ICU. Then he had a second heart attack and I knew it was bad. I went to see him and the priest was giving him the last rites as a Catholic. Absolutely fearless, he showed no distress, no fear, the family was around him, his wife and daughters, he had four daughters. With priest delivering the last rites, he knew he was reaching the end. But his mind was clear but absolutely calm.”
Q: “Well, I am more like you. We don’t have something to cling to.”
Mr Lee: “That’s our problem.”
Q: “But also the way people see you is supremely reasonable person, reason is the ultimate.”
Mr Lee: “Well, that’s the way I’ve been working.”
Q: “Well, you did mention to Tom Plate, they think they know me but they only know the public me?”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, the private view is you have emotions for your close members of your family. We are a close family, not just my sons and my wife and my parents but my brothers and my sister. So my youngest brother, a doctor as I told you, he just sent me an email that my second brother was dying of a bleeding colon, diverticulitis. And later the third brother now has got prostate cancer and has spread into his lymph nodes. So I asked what’re the chances of survival. It’s not gotten to the bones yet, so they’re doing chemotherapy and if you can prevent it from going into the bones, he’ll be okay for a few more years. If it does get to the bones, then that’s the end. I don’t think my brother knows. But I’ll probably go and see him.”
Q: “But you yourself have been fit. You have a stent, you had heart problem late last year but besides that do you have ailments?”
Mr Lee: “Well, aches and pains of a geriatric person, joints, muscles but all non-terminal. I go in for a physiotherapy, maintenance once a week, they give me a rub over because when I cycle, my thighs get sore, knees get a little painful, and so the hips.”
Q: “These are the signs of age.”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, of course.”
Q: “I’m 64. I’m beginning to feel that and I don’t like it and I don’t want to admit to myself.”
Mr Lee: “But if you stop exercising, you make it worse. That’s what my doctors tell me, just carry on. When you have these aches and pains, we’ll give you physiotherapy. I’ve learnt to use heat pads at home. So after the physiotherapy, once a week, if I feel my thighs are sore, I just have a heat pad there. You put in the microwave oven and you tie it around your thighs or your ankles or your calves. It relieves the pain.”
Q: “So you continue to cycle.”
Mr Lee: “Oh yeah.”
Q: “Treadmill?
Mr Lee: “No, I don’t do the treadmill. I walk but not always. When I’ve cycled enough I don’t walk.”
Q: “That’s your primary exercise, swimming?”
Mr Lee: “Yeah, I swim everyday, it’s relaxing.”
Q: “What other secrets, I see you drink hot water?”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “Tell me about it.”
Mr Lee: “Well, I used to drink tea but tea is a diuretic, but I didn’t know that. I used to drink litres of it. In the 1980s, I was having a conference with Zhou Ziyang who was then Secretary-General of the Communist Party in the Great Hall of the People. The Chinese came in and poured more tea and hot water. I was scoffing it down because it kept my throat moistened, my BP was up because more liquid was in me. Halfway through, I said please stop. I’m dashing off. I had to relief myself. Then my doctors said don’t you know that tea is a diuretic? I don’t like coffee, it gives me a sour stomach, so okay, let’s switch to water.”
Q: “You know you had the hot water when I met you a couple of years ago and after I told my wife about that, she switched to hot water. She’s not sure why except that you drink hot water, so she’s decided to.”
Mr Lee: “Well, cold water, this was from my ENT man. If you drink cold water, you reduce the temperature of your nasal passages and throat and reduce your resistance to coughs and colds. So I take warm water, body temperature. I don’t scald myself with boiling hot water. I avoid that. But my daughter puts blocks of ice into her coffee and drinks it up. She’s all right, she’s only 50-plus.
Q: “Let me ask a question about the outside world a little bit. Singapore is a great success story even though people criticize this and that. When you look back, you can be proud of what you’ve done and I assume you are. Are there things that you regret, things that you wished you could achieve that you couldn’t?”
Mr Lee: “Well, first I regret having been turfed out of Malaysia. I think if the Tunku had kept us together, what we did in Singapore, had Malaysia accepted a multiracial base for their society, much of what we’ve achieved in Singapore would be achieved in Malaysia. But not as much because it’s a much broader base. We would have improved inter-racial relations and an improved holistic situation. Now we have a very polarized Malaysia, Malays, Chinese and Indians in separate schools, living separate lives and not really getting on with one another. You read them. That’s bad for us as close neighbours.”
Q: “So at that time, you found yourself with Singapore and you have transformed it. And my question would be how do you assess your own satisfaction with what you’ve achieved? What didn’t work?”
Mr Lee: “Well, the greatest satisfaction I had was my colleagues and I, were of that generation who were turfed out of Malaysia suffered two years under a racial policy decided that we will go the other way. We will not as a majority squeeze the minority because once we’re by ourselves, the Chinese become the majority. We made quite sure whatever your race, language or religion, you are an equal citizen and we’ll drum that into the people and I think our Chinese understand and today we have an integrated society. Our Malays are English-educated, they’re no longer like the Malays in Malaysia and you can see there are some still wearing headscarves but very modern looking.”
Q: “That doesn’t sound like a regret to me.”
Mr Lee: “No, no, but the regret is there’s such a narrow base to build this enormous edifice, so I’ve got to tell the next generation, please do not take for granted what’s been built. If you forget that this is a small island which we are built upon and reach a 100 storeys high tower block and may go up to 150 if you are wise. But if you believe that it’s permanent, it will come tumbling down and you will never get a second chance.”
Q: “I wonder if that is a concern of yours about the next generation. I saw your discussion with a group of young people before the last election and they were saying what they want is a lot of these values from the West, an open political marketplace and even playing field in all of these things and you said well, if that’s the way you feel, I’m very sad.”
Mr Lee: “Because you play it that way, if you have dissension, if you chose the easy way to Muslim votes and switch to racial politics, this society is finished. The easiest way to get majority vote is vote for me, we’re Chinese, they’re Indians, they’re Malays. Our society will be ripped apart. If you do not have a cohesive society, you cannot make progress.”
Q: “But is that a concern that the younger generation doesn’t realize as much as it should?”
Mr Lee: “I believe they have come to believe that this is a natural state of affairs, and they can take liberties with it. They think you can put it on auto-pilot. I know that is never so. We have crafted a set of very intricate rules, no housing blocks shall have more than a percentage of so many Chinese, so many percent Malays, Indians. All are thoroughly mixed. Willy-nilly, your neighbours are Indians, Malays, you go to the same shopping malls, you go to the same schools, the same playing fields, you go up and down the same lifts. We cannot allow segregation.”
Q: “There are people who think that Singapore may lighten up a little bit when you go, that the rules will become a little looser and if that happens, that might be something that’s a concern to you.”
Mr Lee: “No, you can go looser where it’s not race, language and religion because those are deeply gut issues and it will surface the moment you start playing on them. It’s inevitable, but on other areas, policies, right or wrong, disparity of opportunities, rich and poor, well go ahead. But don’t play race, language, religion. We’ve got here, we’ve become cohesive, keep it that way. We’ve not used Chinese as a majority language because it will split the population. We have English as our working language, it’s equal for everybody, and it’s given us the progress because we’re connected to the world. If you want to keep your Malay, or your Chinese, or your Tamil, Urdu or whatever, do that as a second language, not equal to your first language. It’s up to you, how high a standard you want to achieve.”
Q: “The public view of you is as a very strict, cerebral, unsentimental. Catherine Lim, “an authoritarian, no-nonsense manner that has little use for sentiment”.”
Mr Lee: “She’s a novelist, therefore, she simplifies a person’s character, make graphic caricature of me. But is anybody that simple or simplistic?”
Q: “Sentiment though, you don’t show that very much in public.”
Mr Lee: “Well, that’s a Chinese ideal. A gentleman in Chinese ideal, the junzi (君子) is someone who is always composed and possessed of himself and doesn’t lose his temper and doesn’t lose his tongue. That’s what I try to do, except when I got turfed out from Malaysia. Then, I just couldn’t help it.”
Q: “One aspect of the way you’ve constructed Singapore is a certain level of fear perhaps in the population. You described yourself as a street fighter, knuckle duster and so forth.”
Mr Lee: “Yes.”
Q: “And that produces among some people a level of fear and I want to tell you what a taxi driver said when I said I was going to interview you. He said, safer not to ask him anything. If you ask him, somebody will follow you. We’re not in politics so just let him do the politics.”
Mr Lee: “How old is he?’
Q: “I’m sorry, middle aged, I don’t know.”
Mr Lee: “I go out. I’m no longer the Prime Minister. I don’t have to do the difficult things. Everybody wants to shake my hands, everybody wants me to autograph something. Everybody wants to get around me to take a photo. So it’s a problem.
Q: “Yes but…”
Mr Lee: “Because I’m no longer in charge, I don’t have to do the hard things. I’ve laid the foundation and they know that because of that foundation, they’re enjoying this life.’
Q: “So when you were the one directly in-charge, you had to be tough, you had to be a fighter.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course. I had to fight left-wingers, Communists, pro-Communist groups who had killer squads. If I didn’t have the guts and the gumption to take them on, there wouldn’t be the Singapore. They would have taken over and it would have collapsed. I also had to fight the Malay Ultras when we were in Malaysia for two years.”
Q: “Well, you don’t have a lot of dissidents in prison but you’re known for your libel suits which keeps a lot of people at bay.”
Mr Lee: “We are non-corrupt. We lead modest lives, so it’s difficult to malign us. What’s the easy way to get a leader down? He’s a hypocrite, he is corrupt, he pretends to be this when in fact he’s that. That’s what they’re trying to do to me. Well, prove it, if what you say is right, then I don’t deserve this reputation. Why must you say these things without foundation? I’m taking you to court, you’ve made these allegations, I’m open to your cross-examination.”
Q: “But that may produce what I was talking about, about a level of fear.”
Mr Lee: “No, you’re fearful of a libel suit? Then don’t issue these defamatory statements or make them where you have no basis. The Western correspondent, especially those who hop in and hop out got to find something to show that they are impartial, that they’re not just taken in by the Singapore growth story. They say we keep down the opposition, how? Libel suits. Absolute rubbish. We have opponents in Parliament who have attacked us on policy, no libel suits against them and even in Parliament they are privileged to make defamatory allegation and cannot be sued. But they don’t. They know it is not true.”
Q: “Let me ask a last question. Again back to Tom Plate, “I’m not serious all the time. Everyone needs to have a good laugh now and then to see the funny side of things and to laugh at himself”.”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.”
Q: “How about that?”
Mr Lee: “You have to be that.”
Q: “So what makes you laugh?”
Mr Lee: “Many things, the absurdity of it, many things in life. Sometimes, I meet witty people, have conversations, they make sharp remarks, I laugh.
Q: “And when you laugh at yourself as you said?”
Mr Lee: “That’s very frequent. Yeah, I’m reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure and it’s an effort and is it worth the effort? I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It’s become my habit. I just carry on.”
Q: “So it’s the whole broad picture of things that you find funny?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, life as a whole has many abnormalities, of course.”
Q: “Your public life together with your private life, what you’ve done over things people write about you and Singapore, that overall is something that you can find funny?”
Mr Lee: “Yes, of course.
Q: “You made one of the few people who laugh at Singapore.”
Mr Lee: “Let me give you a Chinese proverb “do not judge a man until you’ve closed his coffin. Do not judge a man.” Close the coffin, then decide. Then you assess him. I may still do something foolish before the lid is closed on me.”
Q: “So you’re waiting for the final verdict?”
Mr Lee: “No, the final verdict will not be in the obituaries. The final verdict will be when the PhD students dig out the archives, read my old papers, assess what my enemies have said, sift the evidence and seek the truth? I’m not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose. I had to do some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial.”
Q: “For the greater good?
Mr Lee: “Well, yes, because otherwise they are running around and causing havoc playing on Chinese language and culture, and accusing me of destroying Chinese education. You’ve not been here when the Communists were running around. They do not believe in the democratic process. They don’t believe in one man, one vote. They believe in one bullet, one vote. They had killer squads. But they at the same time had a united front exploiting the democratic game. It gave them cover. But my business, my job was to make sure that they did not succeed. Sometimes you just got to lock the leaders up. They are confusing the people. The reality is that if you allow these people to work up animosity against the government because it’s keeping down the Chinese language, because we’ve promoted English, keeping down Chinese culture because you have allowed English literature, and we suppress our Chinese values and the Chinese language, the Chinese press, well, you will break up the society. They harp on these things when they know they are not true. They know that if you actually do in Chinese language and culture, the Chinese will riot and the society must break up.”
Q: “So leadership is a constant battle?”
Mr Lee: “In a multiracial situation like this, it is. Malaysia took the different line; Malaysians saw it as a Malay country, all others are lodgers, “orang tumpangan”, and they the Bumiputras, sons of the soil, run the show. So the Sultans, the Chief Justice and judges, generals, police commissioner, the whole hierarchy is Malay. All the big contracts for Malays. Malay is the language of the schools although it does not get them into modern knowledge. So the Chinese build and find their own independent schools to teach Chinese, the Tamils create their own Tamil schools, which do not get them jobs. It’s a most unhappy situation.”
Mdm Yeong: “I thought that was the last question.”
Q: “This is the last part of the last question. So your career has been a struggle to keep things going in the right way and you’ve also said that the best way to keep your health is to keep on working. Are you tired of it by this point? Do you feel like you want to rest?”
Mr Lee: “No, I don’t. I know if I rest I’ll slide downhill fast. No, my whole being has been stimulated by the daily challenge. If I suddenly drop it all, play golf, stroll around, watch the sunset, read novels, that’s downhill. It is the daily challenge, social contacts, meeting people, people like you, you press me, I answer, when I don’t…. what have I got tomorrow?”
Mdm Yeong: “You have two more events coming up. One is the Radin Mas Community.”
Mr Lee: “Oh yeah. I got it.”
Mdm Yeong: “And then you have other call, courtesy call on the 3rd.”
Mr Lee: “We are social animals. Without that interaction with people, you are isolated. The worst punishment you can give a person is the isolation ward. You get hallucinations. Four walls, no books, no nothing. By way of example, Henry Kissinger wants to speak to me. So I said okay, we’ll speak on Sunday. What about? We are meeting in Sao Paolo at a J P Morgan International Advisory Board. He wants to talk to me to check certain facts on China. My mind is kept alive, I go to China once a year at least. I meet Chinese leaders. So it’s a constant stimulus as I keep up to date. Supposing I sit back, I don’t think about China, just watch videos. I am off to Moscow, Kiev and Paris on the 15th of September. Three days Moscow, three days Kiev, four days Paris. Moscow I am involved in the Skolkovo Business School which President Medvedev, when he wasn’t President started. I promised to go if he did not fix it in the winter. So they fix it for September. I look at the fires, I said wow this is no good.”
Q: “It’s not going to be freezing if there are fires.”
Mr Lee: “No but our embassy says the skies have cleared. Kiev because the President has invited me specially and will fly me from Moscow to Kiev and then fly me on to Paris. Paris I am on the TOTAL Advisory Board together with Joe Nye and a few others. They want a presentation on what are China’s strengths and weaknesses. That keeps me alive. It’s just not my impressionistic views of China but one that has to be backed by facts and figures. So my team works out the facts and figures, and I check to see if they tally with my impressions. But it’s a constant stimulus to keep alive, and up-to-date. If I stop it, it’s downhill.”
Q: “Well, I hope you continue. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed this interview.”
How to Get Lucky
By Richard Wiseman
Scientific proof that you make your own breaks.
For centuries, people have recognized the power of luck and have done whatever they could to try seizing it. Take knocking on wood, thought to date back to pagan rituals aimed at eliciting help from powerful tree gods. We still do it today, though few, if any, of us worship tree gods. So why do we pass this and other superstitions down from generation to generation? The answer lies in the power of luck.
Live a Charmed Life
To investigate scientifically why some people are consistently lucky and others aren't, I advertised in national periodicals for volunteers of both varieties. Four hundred men and women from all walks of life -- ages 18 to 84 -- responded.
Over a ten-year period, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, personality questionnaires and IQ tests, and invited them to my laboratory for experiments. Lucky people, I found, get that way via some basic principles -- seizing chance opportunities; creating self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations; and adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck around.
PLUS: 8 Old Wives' Tales: Which Should You Believe
Open Your Mind
Consider chance opportunities: Lucky people regularly have them; unlucky people don't. To determine why, I gave lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to tell me how many photos were inside. On average, unlucky people spent about two minutes on this exercise; lucky people spent seconds. Why? Because on the paper's second page -- in big type -- was the message "Stop counting: There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." Lucky people tended to spot the message. Unlucky ones didn't. I put a second one halfway through the paper: "Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." Again, the unlucky people missed it.
The lesson: Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they're too busy looking for something else. Lucky people see what is there rather than just what they're looking for.
This is only part of the story. Many of my lucky participants tried hard to add variety to their lives. Before making important decisions, one altered his route to work. Another described a way of meeting people. He noticed that at parties he usually talked to the same type of person. To change this, he thought of a color and then spoke only to guests wearing that color -- women in red, say, or men in black.
Does this technique work? Well, imagine living in the center of an apple orchard. Each day you must collect a basket of apples. At first, it won't matter where you look. The entire orchard will have apples. Gradually, it becomes harder to find apples in places you've visited before. If you go to new parts of the orchard each time, the odds of finding apples will increase dramatically. It is exactly the same with luck.
PLUS: The Beginner's Guide to Being Cheap
Relish the Upside
Another important principle revolved around the way in which lucky and unlucky people deal with misfortune. Imagine representing your country in the Olympics. You compete, do well, and win a bronze medal. Now imagine a second Olympics. This time you do even better and win a silver medal. How happy do you think you'd feel? Most of us think we'd be happier after winning the silver medal.
But research suggests athletes who win bronze medals are actually happier. This is because silver medalists think that if they'd performed slightly better, they might have won a gold medal. In contrast, bronze medalists focus on how if they'd performed slightly worse, they wouldn't have won anything. Psychologists call this ability to imagine what might have happened, rather than what actually happened, "counter-factual" thinking.
To find out if lucky people use counter-factual thinking to ease the impact of misfortune, I asked my subjects to imagine being in a bank. Suddenly, an armed robber enters and fires a shot that hits them in the arms. Unlucky people tended to say this would be their bad luck to be in the bank during the robbery. Lucky people said it could have been worse: "You could have been shot in the head." This kind of thinking makes people feel better about themselves, keeps expectations high, and increases the likelihood of continuing to live a lucky life.
PLUS: 7 Tips to Raise Financially Savvy Kids
Learn to Be Lucky
Finally, I created a series of experiments examining whether thought and behavior can enhance good fortune.
First came one-on-one meetings, during which participants completed questionnaires that measured their luck and their satisfaction with six key areas of their lives. I then outlined the main principles of luck, and described techniques designed to help participants react like lucky people. For instance, they were taught how to be more open to opportunities around them, how to break routines, and how to deal with bad luck by imagining things being worse. They were asked to carry out specific exercises for a month and then report back to me.
The results were dramatic: 80 percent were happier and more satisfied with their lives -- and luckier. One unlucky subject said that after adjusting her attitude -- expecting good fortune, not dwelling on the negative -- her bad luck had vanished. One day, she went shopping and found a dress she liked. But she didn't buy it, and when she returned to the store in a week, it was gone. Instead of slinking away disappointed, she looked around and found a better dress -- for less. Events like this made her a much happier person.
Her experience shows how thoughts and behavior affect the good and bad fortune we encounter. It proves that the most elusive of holy grails -- an effective way of taking advantage of the power of luck -- is available to us all.
Scientific proof that you make your own breaks.
For centuries, people have recognized the power of luck and have done whatever they could to try seizing it. Take knocking on wood, thought to date back to pagan rituals aimed at eliciting help from powerful tree gods. We still do it today, though few, if any, of us worship tree gods. So why do we pass this and other superstitions down from generation to generation? The answer lies in the power of luck.
Live a Charmed Life
To investigate scientifically why some people are consistently lucky and others aren't, I advertised in national periodicals for volunteers of both varieties. Four hundred men and women from all walks of life -- ages 18 to 84 -- responded.
Over a ten-year period, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, personality questionnaires and IQ tests, and invited them to my laboratory for experiments. Lucky people, I found, get that way via some basic principles -- seizing chance opportunities; creating self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations; and adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck around.
PLUS: 8 Old Wives' Tales: Which Should You Believe
Open Your Mind
Consider chance opportunities: Lucky people regularly have them; unlucky people don't. To determine why, I gave lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to tell me how many photos were inside. On average, unlucky people spent about two minutes on this exercise; lucky people spent seconds. Why? Because on the paper's second page -- in big type -- was the message "Stop counting: There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." Lucky people tended to spot the message. Unlucky ones didn't. I put a second one halfway through the paper: "Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." Again, the unlucky people missed it.
The lesson: Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they're too busy looking for something else. Lucky people see what is there rather than just what they're looking for.
This is only part of the story. Many of my lucky participants tried hard to add variety to their lives. Before making important decisions, one altered his route to work. Another described a way of meeting people. He noticed that at parties he usually talked to the same type of person. To change this, he thought of a color and then spoke only to guests wearing that color -- women in red, say, or men in black.
Does this technique work? Well, imagine living in the center of an apple orchard. Each day you must collect a basket of apples. At first, it won't matter where you look. The entire orchard will have apples. Gradually, it becomes harder to find apples in places you've visited before. If you go to new parts of the orchard each time, the odds of finding apples will increase dramatically. It is exactly the same with luck.
PLUS: The Beginner's Guide to Being Cheap
Relish the Upside
Another important principle revolved around the way in which lucky and unlucky people deal with misfortune. Imagine representing your country in the Olympics. You compete, do well, and win a bronze medal. Now imagine a second Olympics. This time you do even better and win a silver medal. How happy do you think you'd feel? Most of us think we'd be happier after winning the silver medal.
But research suggests athletes who win bronze medals are actually happier. This is because silver medalists think that if they'd performed slightly better, they might have won a gold medal. In contrast, bronze medalists focus on how if they'd performed slightly worse, they wouldn't have won anything. Psychologists call this ability to imagine what might have happened, rather than what actually happened, "counter-factual" thinking.
To find out if lucky people use counter-factual thinking to ease the impact of misfortune, I asked my subjects to imagine being in a bank. Suddenly, an armed robber enters and fires a shot that hits them in the arms. Unlucky people tended to say this would be their bad luck to be in the bank during the robbery. Lucky people said it could have been worse: "You could have been shot in the head." This kind of thinking makes people feel better about themselves, keeps expectations high, and increases the likelihood of continuing to live a lucky life.
PLUS: 7 Tips to Raise Financially Savvy Kids
Learn to Be Lucky
Finally, I created a series of experiments examining whether thought and behavior can enhance good fortune.
First came one-on-one meetings, during which participants completed questionnaires that measured their luck and their satisfaction with six key areas of their lives. I then outlined the main principles of luck, and described techniques designed to help participants react like lucky people. For instance, they were taught how to be more open to opportunities around them, how to break routines, and how to deal with bad luck by imagining things being worse. They were asked to carry out specific exercises for a month and then report back to me.
The results were dramatic: 80 percent were happier and more satisfied with their lives -- and luckier. One unlucky subject said that after adjusting her attitude -- expecting good fortune, not dwelling on the negative -- her bad luck had vanished. One day, she went shopping and found a dress she liked. But she didn't buy it, and when she returned to the store in a week, it was gone. Instead of slinking away disappointed, she looked around and found a better dress -- for less. Events like this made her a much happier person.
Her experience shows how thoughts and behavior affect the good and bad fortune we encounter. It proves that the most elusive of holy grails -- an effective way of taking advantage of the power of luck -- is available to us all.
Census: 1 in 7 Americans lives in poverty
Number of Americans in poverty jumps to 43.6M; working-age poor at highest level since 1960s
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A man who did not wish to be identified, who lost his job two months ago after being hurt on the job, works to collect money for his family on a Miami street corner Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010. He said he collects unemployment but added it does not cover the cost of living. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer, On Thursday September 16, 2010, 8:02 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ranks of the working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.
The poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.
The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent -- or 50.7 million people -- mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address the rising numbers of uninsured people, but its main provisions will not take effect until 2014.
In a statement, President Barack Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.
"Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families -- and especially those most in need -- millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year," Obama said.
The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power in the House and Senate or turn to Republicans.
The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. It was lower than predicted by many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year's skyrocketing unemployment. Many had expected a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 23.1 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and Georgia. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 7.8 percent.
Analysts said the full blow of lost incomes was cushioned somewhat by increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.
David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau's household economics division, estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 3.3 million people out of poverty last year.
He said demographic changes, too, were a factor as many families "doubled up" in single homes and young adults ages 25 to 34 moved back in with their parents to save money in the economic downturn.
The 2009 poverty level was set at $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps.
An additional 7.8 million people would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were included as income, Johnson said.
Last year saw the biggest single-year increase in Americans without health insurance, lifting the total number to the highest since the government began tracking the figures in 1987. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans declined from 176.3 million to 169.7 million, although those losses were partially offset by gains in government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said additional increases in the uninsured are probable in the short run.
In 2014, under the new health law, Medicaid will be expanded to pick up millions more low-income people, and the government will offer tax credits for many middle-income households to use to buy coverage through new online insurance markets in each state.
By 2019, the government has estimated that nearly 93 percent of the U.S. population will have health insurance, roughly a 10 percentage point increase from today's level.
Other census findings:
--Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 64, poverty rose from 11.7 percent to 12.9 percent. That puts it at the highest since the 1960s, when the government launched a war on poverty that expanded the federal role in social welfare programs from education to health care.
--Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but stood at higher levels for blacks and Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent; for blacks it increased from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent.
--Child poverty rose from 19 percent to 20.7 percent.
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
Online:
AP look at state-by-state poverty levels:
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A man who did not wish to be identified, who lost his job two months ago after being hurt on the job, works to collect money for his family on a Miami street corner Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010. He said he collects unemployment but added it does not cover the cost of living. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer, On Thursday September 16, 2010, 8:02 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ranks of the working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year, leaving one in seven Americans in poverty.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama's first year in office.
The poverty rate increased from 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.
The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent -- or 50.7 million people -- mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address the rising numbers of uninsured people, but its main provisions will not take effect until 2014.
In a statement, President Barack Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.
"Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families -- and especially those most in need -- millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year," Obama said.
The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power in the House and Senate or turn to Republicans.
The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. It was lower than predicted by many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year's skyrocketing unemployment. Many had expected a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 23.1 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and Georgia. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 7.8 percent.
Analysts said the full blow of lost incomes was cushioned somewhat by increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.
David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau's household economics division, estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 3.3 million people out of poverty last year.
He said demographic changes, too, were a factor as many families "doubled up" in single homes and young adults ages 25 to 34 moved back in with their parents to save money in the economic downturn.
The 2009 poverty level was set at $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps.
An additional 7.8 million people would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were included as income, Johnson said.
Last year saw the biggest single-year increase in Americans without health insurance, lifting the total number to the highest since the government began tracking the figures in 1987. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans declined from 176.3 million to 169.7 million, although those losses were partially offset by gains in government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said additional increases in the uninsured are probable in the short run.
In 2014, under the new health law, Medicaid will be expanded to pick up millions more low-income people, and the government will offer tax credits for many middle-income households to use to buy coverage through new online insurance markets in each state.
By 2019, the government has estimated that nearly 93 percent of the U.S. population will have health insurance, roughly a 10 percentage point increase from today's level.
Other census findings:
--Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 64, poverty rose from 11.7 percent to 12.9 percent. That puts it at the highest since the 1960s, when the government launched a war on poverty that expanded the federal role in social welfare programs from education to health care.
--Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but stood at higher levels for blacks and Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent; for blacks it increased from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent.
--Child poverty rose from 19 percent to 20.7 percent.
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
Online:
AP look at state-by-state poverty levels:
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Abiding Life
John 15:1-5
Yesterday I shared with you about the time when God reminded me, "You are not the vine, Charles. I am the vine." For years I tried to accomplish by myself what Jesus Christ wanted to achieve through me—in other words, I attempted to produce fruit by doing good works. My desire was to impress God and earn His approval. His goal, on the other hand, was for me to act like the branch that I am and just abide.
The Holy Spirit's job is to live the life of Christ through us. This process is known by a variety of names, including the exchanged life, the Spirit-filled life, and the abiding life. All of these monikers describe the joyful existence Paul spoke of in Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God." The apostle meant those words literally.
Seen from the outside, a branch does not appear to be doing anything. But don't get the idea that the abiding life is passive. Jesus was the perfect example of a Spirit-filled life, and He certainly didn't sit around! He worked hard out of a reservoir of divine energy (John 8:28). All of Christ's wisdom, knowledge, and courage was drawn from God through the Holy Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit does not pop out of believers through effort; Christians bear fruit through surrender. We "take root" in the Lord by meditating on His Word, praying, and serving. We reserve nothing for ourselves to control but fully rely upon Him. That's not passive living; it's an abiding life.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
Yesterday I shared with you about the time when God reminded me, "You are not the vine, Charles. I am the vine." For years I tried to accomplish by myself what Jesus Christ wanted to achieve through me—in other words, I attempted to produce fruit by doing good works. My desire was to impress God and earn His approval. His goal, on the other hand, was for me to act like the branch that I am and just abide.
The Holy Spirit's job is to live the life of Christ through us. This process is known by a variety of names, including the exchanged life, the Spirit-filled life, and the abiding life. All of these monikers describe the joyful existence Paul spoke of in Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God." The apostle meant those words literally.
Seen from the outside, a branch does not appear to be doing anything. But don't get the idea that the abiding life is passive. Jesus was the perfect example of a Spirit-filled life, and He certainly didn't sit around! He worked hard out of a reservoir of divine energy (John 8:28). All of Christ's wisdom, knowledge, and courage was drawn from God through the Holy Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit does not pop out of believers through effort; Christians bear fruit through surrender. We "take root" in the Lord by meditating on His Word, praying, and serving. We reserve nothing for ourselves to control but fully rely upon Him. That's not passive living; it's an abiding life.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
Man Vs. Machine: Seven Major Players in High-Frequency Trading
High-frequency trading has grabbed headlines in the past year, but little is known about the top players in the business.
These speed-focused hotshots aren't household names such as George Soros or Warren Buffett. That's partly because of the the secretive nature of the industry, which has largely shunned the limelight, at least until recently.
Here's seven forces in the business.
David Whitcomb and Steven Swanson
In all likelihood, the first true high-frequency trading operation got its start in the unlikely place of Mount Pleasant, S.C. What came to be known as Automated Trading Desk, or ATD, was launched in the late 1980s by a small group of finance and computer whizzes, including David Whitcomb and Steven Swanson.
Whitcomb, a finance professor at Rutgers University, had been alarmed by the failure of market makers during the crash of Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, when the stock market took its steepest ever one-day dive.Convinced that computers could automate the function of market makers, who buy and sell stocks on behalf of clients, Whitcomb got in touch with James Hawkes, a former student who was teaching statistics at the College of Charleson in South Carolina. They eventually brought on a team of computer and math experts-including Swanson -and set up shop in Hawkes' house.
Originally called Mount Pleasant, ATD tracked dozens of factors that impact stocks and rapidly calculated which direction those stocks would move. Swanson, who eventually ran the firm, came to believe that ATD's computer-driven strategies could operate far more efficiently than a human trader. In 2007, Citigroup (NYSE:C - News) purchased ATD for $700 million and Swanson became co-head of Citi's global electronic trading group. He recently left the bank and is rumored to be starting up a new trading firm.
Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler
In the mid-1990s Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler, co-founders of high-frequency market making giant Getco, were floor traders banging elbows in Chicago's futures and options pits. But as they witnessed the rise of electronic trading platforms all around them, they realized that they could soon be dinasaurs. In October 1999, on a Friday afternoon, they founded Getco-short for Global Electronic Trading Co.-over a handshake. They set up shop in a tiny Chicago Mercantile Exchange office lined with computers and started trading futures contracts tied to the S&P 500.
They rapidly pushed into more securities, including Treasuries, ETFs and currencies. Today, Getco is one of the most active trading operations in the world.
Dave Cummings
Dave Cummings is known within the high-speed community as one of the smartest market-structure minds in the world. And yet he has never worked in either New York or Chicago-the two hubs of electronic markets. Instead, Cummings runs his world-class high-frequency trading outfit, Tradebot Systems, out of a small nondescript office in Kansas City.
Cummings got his start a pit trader swapping wheat futures at the Kansas City Board of Trade in the mid-1990s. But the cererbral Cummings, who'd earned degrees in computer programming and electrical engineering from Purdue University, quickly realized that the actions of pit traders could be replicated by a computer. In short order he designed a program and started trading with it in the late 1990s.
His timing was fortuitous, as a new generation of fast-moving electronic communications networks, or ECNs, had been popping up, competing with giants such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Cummings started trading stocks and ETFs on networks such as Island ECN, Archipelago and Brut. To Cummings' dismay, however, in the early 2000s, the NYSE and Nasdaq OME (NASDAQ: ndaq) , rather than create their own electronic platforms, started to scoop up their rivals-NYSE Euronext (NYSE: nyx) merged with Archipelago; Nasdaq purchased Brut and then Island (which had merged with another elecronic market, Instinet). To create more competition, Cummings launched his own ECN-Better Alternative Trading System, or BATS. Today, BATS controls about 10% of U.S. stock market volume.
Manoj Narang
Perhaps the most vocal advocate for high-frequency trading in the past year has been Manoj Narang, founder of Red Bank, N.J., trading shop Tradeworx Inc. The subject of a page-one New York Times article about the role of high-speed trading in the May 6 flash crash, Narang has forcefully argued that the trading style provides multiple benefits to everyday investors.
A math and computer expert, Narang worked at Wall Street firms such as Citibank and Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. He founded Tradeworx in 1999, initially selling trading software to retail investors. He later launched a hedge fund and in late 2008 started an ultrafast trading operation juggling S&P 500 ETFs such as "Spiders," and about 300 stocks, at rapid speeds. Narang estimates that trading in Tradeworx's HFT system, which has about $10 million in capital, accounts for about 3 percent of daily volume in Spiders.
Vincent "Vinnie" Viola
Brooklyn-born Vincent Viola, known to friends as Vinnie, has long been a major player on Wall Street. A graduate of West Point, Viola earned his chops on Wall Street in the 1980s as a trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In 1987 he started a commodities trading firm called Pioneer Futures.
By the mid-1990s, he was vice chairman of the Nymex. In the 2000s, he ascended to the role of chairman and helped bring the exchange through 9/11 and the collapse of Enron. Viola stepped down in 2004 and spent his time running Pioneer and several other electronic trading operations.
In late 2008, Viola founded the International Derivatives Clearing Group, a clearing platform for interest-rate swaps. Early the next year, he started Virtu Financial, a high-frequency trading operation, in New York.
Viola also has interests outside trading. In 2004, he joined New York property mogul Bruce Ratner, among others, in the purchase of the New Jersey Nets basketball franchise.
Mark Gorton
Tower Research Capital, the high-speed giant founded by Mark Gorton, sits amid a sprawl of art houses, Chinese bodegas and exotic fashion stores just south of Canal Street in Manhattan. A serial entrepreneur, Gorton is known as something of a creative genius who just happens to run one of the most sophisticated trading outfits in the U.S.
He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 1988, then earned a masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University before taking a job with a defense contractor working on computerized speech recognition systems. After earning a degree from Harvard Business School, he took a job trading bonds for about five years at Credit Suisse First Boston.
Gorton and CSFB colleague Alistair Brown founded Tower in February 1998, using their own money and cash from friends and family. The firm looked for small anomalies in relationships between securities. Gorton's hunger for speed was so great that he decided to form his own brokerage to execute his trades, founding Lime Brokerage in 2000. It soon began to cater to other high-speed funds and today is known as one of the most sophisticated brokerages on Wall Street.
Richard Gorelick
Like Manoj Narang, Richard Gorelick, chief executive of Austin, Texas-based high-frequency firm RGM Advisors, has been one of the more vocal defenders of the controversial trading practice.
Gorelick, who sports a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, helped found RGM in 2001 along with two computer software developers Robbie Robinette (a physics expert) and Mark Melton (electrical engineering and artificial intelligence).
RGM started trading US stocks but has expanded into multiple markets. The firm is known for its use of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that crunches terabytes of data at high speeds in order to predict what will happen next.
These speed-focused hotshots aren't household names such as George Soros or Warren Buffett. That's partly because of the the secretive nature of the industry, which has largely shunned the limelight, at least until recently.
Here's seven forces in the business.
David Whitcomb and Steven Swanson
In all likelihood, the first true high-frequency trading operation got its start in the unlikely place of Mount Pleasant, S.C. What came to be known as Automated Trading Desk, or ATD, was launched in the late 1980s by a small group of finance and computer whizzes, including David Whitcomb and Steven Swanson.
Whitcomb, a finance professor at Rutgers University, had been alarmed by the failure of market makers during the crash of Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, when the stock market took its steepest ever one-day dive.Convinced that computers could automate the function of market makers, who buy and sell stocks on behalf of clients, Whitcomb got in touch with James Hawkes, a former student who was teaching statistics at the College of Charleson in South Carolina. They eventually brought on a team of computer and math experts-including Swanson -and set up shop in Hawkes' house.
Originally called Mount Pleasant, ATD tracked dozens of factors that impact stocks and rapidly calculated which direction those stocks would move. Swanson, who eventually ran the firm, came to believe that ATD's computer-driven strategies could operate far more efficiently than a human trader. In 2007, Citigroup (NYSE:C - News) purchased ATD for $700 million and Swanson became co-head of Citi's global electronic trading group. He recently left the bank and is rumored to be starting up a new trading firm.
Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler
In the mid-1990s Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler, co-founders of high-frequency market making giant Getco, were floor traders banging elbows in Chicago's futures and options pits. But as they witnessed the rise of electronic trading platforms all around them, they realized that they could soon be dinasaurs. In October 1999, on a Friday afternoon, they founded Getco-short for Global Electronic Trading Co.-over a handshake. They set up shop in a tiny Chicago Mercantile Exchange office lined with computers and started trading futures contracts tied to the S&P 500.
They rapidly pushed into more securities, including Treasuries, ETFs and currencies. Today, Getco is one of the most active trading operations in the world.
Dave Cummings
Dave Cummings is known within the high-speed community as one of the smartest market-structure minds in the world. And yet he has never worked in either New York or Chicago-the two hubs of electronic markets. Instead, Cummings runs his world-class high-frequency trading outfit, Tradebot Systems, out of a small nondescript office in Kansas City.
Cummings got his start a pit trader swapping wheat futures at the Kansas City Board of Trade in the mid-1990s. But the cererbral Cummings, who'd earned degrees in computer programming and electrical engineering from Purdue University, quickly realized that the actions of pit traders could be replicated by a computer. In short order he designed a program and started trading with it in the late 1990s.
His timing was fortuitous, as a new generation of fast-moving electronic communications networks, or ECNs, had been popping up, competing with giants such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Cummings started trading stocks and ETFs on networks such as Island ECN, Archipelago and Brut. To Cummings' dismay, however, in the early 2000s, the NYSE and Nasdaq OME (NASDAQ: ndaq) , rather than create their own electronic platforms, started to scoop up their rivals-NYSE Euronext (NYSE: nyx) merged with Archipelago; Nasdaq purchased Brut and then Island (which had merged with another elecronic market, Instinet). To create more competition, Cummings launched his own ECN-Better Alternative Trading System, or BATS. Today, BATS controls about 10% of U.S. stock market volume.
Manoj Narang
Perhaps the most vocal advocate for high-frequency trading in the past year has been Manoj Narang, founder of Red Bank, N.J., trading shop Tradeworx Inc. The subject of a page-one New York Times article about the role of high-speed trading in the May 6 flash crash, Narang has forcefully argued that the trading style provides multiple benefits to everyday investors.
A math and computer expert, Narang worked at Wall Street firms such as Citibank and Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. He founded Tradeworx in 1999, initially selling trading software to retail investors. He later launched a hedge fund and in late 2008 started an ultrafast trading operation juggling S&P 500 ETFs such as "Spiders," and about 300 stocks, at rapid speeds. Narang estimates that trading in Tradeworx's HFT system, which has about $10 million in capital, accounts for about 3 percent of daily volume in Spiders.
Vincent "Vinnie" Viola
Brooklyn-born Vincent Viola, known to friends as Vinnie, has long been a major player on Wall Street. A graduate of West Point, Viola earned his chops on Wall Street in the 1980s as a trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In 1987 he started a commodities trading firm called Pioneer Futures.
By the mid-1990s, he was vice chairman of the Nymex. In the 2000s, he ascended to the role of chairman and helped bring the exchange through 9/11 and the collapse of Enron. Viola stepped down in 2004 and spent his time running Pioneer and several other electronic trading operations.
In late 2008, Viola founded the International Derivatives Clearing Group, a clearing platform for interest-rate swaps. Early the next year, he started Virtu Financial, a high-frequency trading operation, in New York.
Viola also has interests outside trading. In 2004, he joined New York property mogul Bruce Ratner, among others, in the purchase of the New Jersey Nets basketball franchise.
Mark Gorton
Tower Research Capital, the high-speed giant founded by Mark Gorton, sits amid a sprawl of art houses, Chinese bodegas and exotic fashion stores just south of Canal Street in Manhattan. A serial entrepreneur, Gorton is known as something of a creative genius who just happens to run one of the most sophisticated trading outfits in the U.S.
He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 1988, then earned a masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University before taking a job with a defense contractor working on computerized speech recognition systems. After earning a degree from Harvard Business School, he took a job trading bonds for about five years at Credit Suisse First Boston.
Gorton and CSFB colleague Alistair Brown founded Tower in February 1998, using their own money and cash from friends and family. The firm looked for small anomalies in relationships between securities. Gorton's hunger for speed was so great that he decided to form his own brokerage to execute his trades, founding Lime Brokerage in 2000. It soon began to cater to other high-speed funds and today is known as one of the most sophisticated brokerages on Wall Street.
Richard Gorelick
Like Manoj Narang, Richard Gorelick, chief executive of Austin, Texas-based high-frequency firm RGM Advisors, has been one of the more vocal defenders of the controversial trading practice.
Gorelick, who sports a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, helped found RGM in 2001 along with two computer software developers Robbie Robinette (a physics expert) and Mark Melton (electrical engineering and artificial intelligence).
RGM started trading US stocks but has expanded into multiple markets. The firm is known for its use of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that crunches terabytes of data at high speeds in order to predict what will happen next.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The possibilities of adversity
September 15, 2010
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel....
--Philippians 1:12
Have you ever faced adversity, pain, or a terrible situation that you couldn't understand and from which there seemed to be no escape? Maybe you've had trials, tests, and tribulations? Of course you have; it's called life!
I know people who are disappointed with the Christian life because they thought faith promised an easy road or that it would exempt them from life's hardships. But faith promises you and me no such thing.
What faith does, however, is help us handle our problems and adversities. Often we can't change our circumstances, but we can change the way we respond to them. In fact, if we live in obedience to God, he'll use adversity to move us forward. God uses adversity to accomplish his will through us!
You see, adversity produces possibilities that we may not see at the time. But God is behind the scenes working creatively and constructively in our lives for his ultimate purposes.
For instance, why would God allow the apostle Paul, who was traveling the world spreading the gospel, to go to prison? While in prison, Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament! And concerning his prison experience Paul said, "What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel...."
Don't despise adversity when it comes, but consider how God is at work. Your suffering today may advance the Kingdom tomorrow!
GOD USES ADVERSITY TO ACCOMPLISH HIS WILL THROUGH US!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel....
--Philippians 1:12
Have you ever faced adversity, pain, or a terrible situation that you couldn't understand and from which there seemed to be no escape? Maybe you've had trials, tests, and tribulations? Of course you have; it's called life!
I know people who are disappointed with the Christian life because they thought faith promised an easy road or that it would exempt them from life's hardships. But faith promises you and me no such thing.
What faith does, however, is help us handle our problems and adversities. Often we can't change our circumstances, but we can change the way we respond to them. In fact, if we live in obedience to God, he'll use adversity to move us forward. God uses adversity to accomplish his will through us!
You see, adversity produces possibilities that we may not see at the time. But God is behind the scenes working creatively and constructively in our lives for his ultimate purposes.
For instance, why would God allow the apostle Paul, who was traveling the world spreading the gospel, to go to prison? While in prison, Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament! And concerning his prison experience Paul said, "What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel...."
Don't despise adversity when it comes, but consider how God is at work. Your suffering today may advance the Kingdom tomorrow!
GOD USES ADVERSITY TO ACCOMPLISH HIS WILL THROUGH US!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more from PowerPoint Ministries and Dr. Jack Graham, please visit www.jackgraham.org
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Rejoice with Trembling
John Piper
A Meditation on Psalm 2:11-12
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
"Serve the Lord with fear . . .
This command does not cancel out Psalm 100:2: "Serve the Lord with gladness." Serving the Lord with fear and serving the Lord with gladness do not contradict each other. The next phrase will make that plain ("rejoice with trembling"). There is real fear and real joy. The reason there is real fear is that there is real danger. Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). Yes, the elect are safe in Christ. But examine yourself, Paul says, "to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-unless, of course, you fail the test?" (2 Cor. 13:5). "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). Confidence in Christ is not careless. Our security is rooted in God's daily keeping, not our past decisions. " is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory" (Jude 1:24). Part of how he keeps us is by awakening the vigilance to rest daily in Christ and not in ourselves.
. . . and rejoice with trembling.
Fear does not rob us of our joy for two reasons. One is that it drives us to Christ where there is safety. The other is that even when we get there the part of fear that Christ relieves is the hope-destroying part. But he leaves another part-the part we want to feel forever. There is an awe or wonder or trembling in the presence of grandeur that we want to feel as long as we are sure it will not destroy us. This trembling does not compete with joy; it is part of joy. People go to terrifying movies because they know the monster cannot get into the theater. They want to be scared as long as they are safe. For some reason it feels good. This is an echo of the truth that they were made for God. There is something profoundly satisfying about being "frightened" when we cannot be hurt. It is the best when the trembling comes from the grandeur of holiness.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way . . .
God is jealous for his Son. "You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14). His anger is kindled when the affection designed for him is given to another. Of course there is a Judas kiss. That is not what he has in mind here. The kiss here is the kiss of adoration and submission-perhaps a kiss on the feet as we bow before him. There is no playing games with God. If we love another more, we will perish. He will be our highest treasure, or he will be our enemy. The safest place in the universe is at the feet of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. If we choose to turn from him for another treasure, his wrath will be against us.
. . . for his wrath is quickly kindled.
The word quickly may not be the best here. The word can mean quickly in the sense of suddenly. Repeatedly in the Bible God is said to be "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). Not "quick to anger" but "slow to anger". Therefore I am inclined to think Psalm 2:12 means "His wrath can break out suddenly." In other words don't trifle with him in his patience because suddenly it may run out and you be overtaken in wrath. If you go on kissing his creation and not his Son, suddenly you will find the fangs of a serpent in your lip. Don't presume upon the patience of God.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
The only safe place from the wrath of God is in God. Everywhere outside of his care is dangerous. He is the only hiding place from his own wrath. If you see him as frightening and try to run away and hide, you will not find a place to hide. There is none. Outside of God's care there is only wrath. But there is a refuge from the wrath of God, namely, God. The safest place from the wrath of God-the only safe place-is God. Come to God. Take refuge in God. Hide in the shadow of his wings. This is where we live and serve with joyful trembling. It is terrible and it is wonderful. It is like the eye of a hurricane-terror all around, and totally beautiful and calm. Here there is sweet fellowship. Here is quiet, loving communion. Here we speak to him as to a friend. Here he ministers to our deepest needs. I invite you to come.
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.
A Meditation on Psalm 2:11-12
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
"Serve the Lord with fear . . .
This command does not cancel out Psalm 100:2: "Serve the Lord with gladness." Serving the Lord with fear and serving the Lord with gladness do not contradict each other. The next phrase will make that plain ("rejoice with trembling"). There is real fear and real joy. The reason there is real fear is that there is real danger. Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). Yes, the elect are safe in Christ. But examine yourself, Paul says, "to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-unless, of course, you fail the test?" (2 Cor. 13:5). "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). Confidence in Christ is not careless. Our security is rooted in God's daily keeping, not our past decisions. " is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory" (Jude 1:24). Part of how he keeps us is by awakening the vigilance to rest daily in Christ and not in ourselves.
. . . and rejoice with trembling.
Fear does not rob us of our joy for two reasons. One is that it drives us to Christ where there is safety. The other is that even when we get there the part of fear that Christ relieves is the hope-destroying part. But he leaves another part-the part we want to feel forever. There is an awe or wonder or trembling in the presence of grandeur that we want to feel as long as we are sure it will not destroy us. This trembling does not compete with joy; it is part of joy. People go to terrifying movies because they know the monster cannot get into the theater. They want to be scared as long as they are safe. For some reason it feels good. This is an echo of the truth that they were made for God. There is something profoundly satisfying about being "frightened" when we cannot be hurt. It is the best when the trembling comes from the grandeur of holiness.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way . . .
God is jealous for his Son. "You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14). His anger is kindled when the affection designed for him is given to another. Of course there is a Judas kiss. That is not what he has in mind here. The kiss here is the kiss of adoration and submission-perhaps a kiss on the feet as we bow before him. There is no playing games with God. If we love another more, we will perish. He will be our highest treasure, or he will be our enemy. The safest place in the universe is at the feet of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. If we choose to turn from him for another treasure, his wrath will be against us.
. . . for his wrath is quickly kindled.
The word quickly may not be the best here. The word can mean quickly in the sense of suddenly. Repeatedly in the Bible God is said to be "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). Not "quick to anger" but "slow to anger". Therefore I am inclined to think Psalm 2:12 means "His wrath can break out suddenly." In other words don't trifle with him in his patience because suddenly it may run out and you be overtaken in wrath. If you go on kissing his creation and not his Son, suddenly you will find the fangs of a serpent in your lip. Don't presume upon the patience of God.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
The only safe place from the wrath of God is in God. Everywhere outside of his care is dangerous. He is the only hiding place from his own wrath. If you see him as frightening and try to run away and hide, you will not find a place to hide. There is none. Outside of God's care there is only wrath. But there is a refuge from the wrath of God, namely, God. The safest place from the wrath of God-the only safe place-is God. Come to God. Take refuge in God. Hide in the shadow of his wings. This is where we live and serve with joyful trembling. It is terrible and it is wonderful. It is like the eye of a hurricane-terror all around, and totally beautiful and calm. Here there is sweet fellowship. Here is quiet, loving communion. Here we speak to him as to a friend. Here he ministers to our deepest needs. I invite you to come.
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.
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