REBATES

Most businesses realize that it is not easy to get customers to purchase their products without some type of incentive. Because of competition, businesses must dangle a carrot in front of prospective customers. Some offer lower prices on products such as Walmart. There are other discounters that have been able to find a niche in the market. Some offer extra services with their sales. Some offer free samples.

This shows that the market place is a place of service, not coercion. Those who best serve the customer are going to be in business in the long run. One of the items that auditors look at when auditing a company’s financial records is does the business have a future? Is this business a going concern? Businesses must keep up or else they will be left behind and be out of business because someone else is serving the customer better.

Customers are looking out for their own best interests. So are businesses. This means that the both are seeking what is best for themselves. At some point, both of these interests are brought together into one and a sale occurs. Nothing occurs until a sale is made. A business can have all the products in the world and yet if they have no demand for their products, they will be forced out of business. There must be a demand for a businesses’ products.

Customers are relentless. Demand is never ceasing. Supplying this demand requires exertion and the removal of obstacles. The customer has it easy. He is waited upon by others. The business must put forth the effort to meet the customer’s needs and to the customer’s satisfaction, if the businessman desires to have repeat business which is a business’ lifeblood. Having an established clientele helps to ensure that a business will keep its doors open.

An incentive used by many businesses is a rebate. A rebate is an abatement in the price of a product. Rebates have to be applied for by the customer. Rebates are not given at the time of purchase. Some effort is required by the customer to receive a rebate. It would be interesting to know how many people actually take advantage of rebate offers. My guess is that it is a small percentage because effort is required to get it.

Those who are frugal will take advantage of a rebate offer. They will go through the effort of applying for the rebate. Recently, I purchased contact lens for my daughter. Her contacts came with a $40 rebate offer. To get the rebate, I had to enclose the required information and mail it off before a set deadline. It will take four to six weeks to get the rebate. To some people this is just too much effort. To me it is easy money. For the time and effort, I was being paid more than any job I work. Take advantage of rebate offers because that is what they are there for.

GOVERNMENT'S FREE LUNCH

When it comes to violating all economic laws, the government will find a way. Some corporations believe that they can violate economic laws with impunity because of their size. This goes on for awhile, but eventually it will all come crashing down because absolutes exist and can not be violated without there being repercussions. Eventually, judgment day comes. Instead of learning from the failures of the past, the government and some corporations continue to implement disastrous policies.

One economic law is that more will be demanded at a lower price. This is why businesses have sales. Businessmen know that more people will buy more of a product if the price is lowered. This law works for two reasons. One is that the lower the price makes it affordable for more people. Every time the price increases on a product, more buyers are excluded. The market for a particular product decreases with price increases. In other words, more people are being priced out of the market. The other reason is that the frugal are looking for ways to save money, so they will stock up on sale items.

Most people have heard the statement that there is no free lunch. Lunch may be free if you are not paying for it, but someone must pay. Free lunches do not exist. Only God can do things for free because only He possesses the ability to create something out of nothing. We lack this ability. We can only take what exists and make something out of it. We must get paid for our efforts in order to provide for our physical existence.

Government attempts to play God when trying to provide free lunches. Governments believe that they can create something out of nothing and their attempts always end up in failure. A recent example is in the State of Hawaii where the government is ending universal children’s health care. One of the reasons that the program is being ended is because of budget constraints. The program is being cancelled after only seven months.

Another reason cited is that people who had health care coverage for children dropped it so that they could get in on this government welfare (handout) program. Why pay for something if the government is going to give it away for free? When the government offers free lunches such as universal child health care, what always happens is that demand will exceed supply every time and everywhere it is tried. As Gary North has said repeatedly, "God is not mocked at zero price."

When demand exceeds supply, what happens is that prices begin to rise. This means that the government will require more tax money to pay for medical services or the government will pay only so much for medical services rendered by medical professionals. One of the causes of high medical costs is government money increasing demand for limited medical services. This has an opposite effect from what governments intended.

The Hawaiian failure should be a beacon to every government to avoid the rocky shore of free lunches. It is apparent that legislators have not been trained in economic law. For them there are no absolutes. This will always be the problem with these types of legislation, these laws are passed without regard to absolutes. Unfortunately, these lessons are never learned. If it is not a free lunch for children’s health care, it will be something else. This process never ends because governments are determined to play God and unfortunately, the people want it this way.

ECONOMIC IGNORANCE

What is needed and is lacking in our day and time is knowledge of the way that economics works. It is amazing that many people down through the ages have known what works and what does not work and yet, this wisdom has not penetrated through to the majority of people. Instead, what has happened is that people have been trained in is short term economics without considering the consequences of their actions.

This of course leads to economic crisis. John Maynard Keynes formulated the economics that governments follow today. His policies consist of inflation and deficit spending. These are short sighted policies because they work in the very short run, but long term, they are disastrous. These economic policies lead to financial instability. These policies are really a formulation of Darwinian evolution carried over into the financial arena.

Darwinian evolution says that there are no standards. Everything is based on chance and therefore everything is unstable because of continuous change. This leaves the world in a constant state of flux. We are now seeing the financial policies of Keynes coming home to roost with a vengeance. The supposed experts have proven to be incompetent, especially the government officials. The elite have made their millions and have gone off into retirement or were let go from their companies, leaving a disaster for others to piece together.

Just like the idea of instituting God’s law as the universal law, the gold standard is an anathema to the majority of people. Because people have as R. J. Rushdoony has said "larceny in their heart," they want to keep a system of inflation going. This is because it gives them higher wages. They are given wage increases based upon inflation rather than upon productivity. This is because most people want something for nothing. They are not ambitious and have no drive.

Until inflation is eliminated, we will continue to go from crisis to crisis. It will be a constant process. This is because our money is unstable. Instability begets instability. The best way to eliminate inflation is to be on a gold standard and to the market issuing money, not the government. Governments want control of the money supply so that they can cheat and cheat they will. Governments have a very poor record when it comes to inflation.

Darwinian evolution has conquered every area of thought, but Darwinian evolution is really anti thought. It is doltish to say the least and only dolts accept it. We do not live in a world without standards. Standards are built into the fabric of creation. Standards give us stability and measuring points. Standards give us feedback as to performance. Most of all standards are to be like God, immutable. Immutability is what gives stability.

LEARNING A LESSON AFTER THE FACT

It is an astounding fact that most people learn their lessons after something happens and never before. We call this the school of hard knocks. Is it possible to avoid this school? It is only possible when someone accepts that there are absolutes and that these absolutes never deviate. The frugal realize that they possess wisdom which gives them foresight. They can foresee danger and avoid it. The spendthrift does not believe in absolutes and therefore repeats the same failed behavior over and over again.

Wisdom is the most valuable resource that any of us can possess and yet it is so rarely employed. Few seek wisdom. The majority of people would rather be foolish because it requires no thought. They prefer acting on the immediate moment. They make no plans, so they plan to fail and when they fail, they want someone to bail them out. The fool never understands cause and effect because if he did, then he would look for the cause of his misery and adjust his behavior accordingly. This is why he is a fool. Fools never learn to be wise.

The Harrisburg N.Y. Patriot News ran an editorial with the following quote, "But while highly intricate and playing out on a level that even financial experts sometimes struggle to grasp, the mess on Wall Street is in many way indicative of what has happened on Main Street and in Washington: Living beyond one’s means by racking up huge debts." This is what fools do. They have no comprehension of the way that finance works and yet they rush in and take out loans or run up credit card debt without the ability to pay.

This is because these people think only in the immediate moment. They have no foresight. They cannot and do not think ahead, if they will be able to repay what they owe. They only live in one dimension, now. They have not learned from their past mistakes and the future means nothing to them. They only want what they want and they want it now, no matter the consequences. This is the epitome of foolishness.

The frugal know that the only way to save money is to spend less than you earn. This absolute never changes. The only way that you can accomplish spending less than you earn is to know how much income you have and how much expenses you have on a monthly basis. This requires keeping records of income and expenses. By taking a look at your monthly expenses, you can find things that need to be cut out. One thing that needs to be done by a lot of people is reducing their monthly debt service. The less that you pay out, the more you have for yourself.

The frugal have been preaching for people not to live beyond their means for years and no one has had ears to hear. Then when this latest financial crisis hits everyone gets a hard lesson. This latest financial crisis could have been avoided, if wisdom was the prevailing attitude of our nation. It is apparent that foolishness is the intellectual norm. This is because people have been taught by our education system, there are no absolutes. The only problem is that absolutes keep appearing and prove these people to be foolish.

Living within your means takes something that the foolish lack, self-control. They are unable to control their spending and thus, they are in foreclosure or they resort to embezzling money from their employer. A spendthrift is the same as a drunkard. They are both given to excess. They have not learned how to restrain themselves. For all the talk about this present financial crisis that we are in and how people are being taught a hard lesson, unless someone learns to govern themselves, they will not change their behavior.

Budgeting is like going on a financial diet and most diets never work because people lack self discipline. Most people do not want to learn how a budget works and most importantly stick with it. This is because they know that they cannot restrain themselves. The lesson that is going to come out of this present financial crisis is that people will not have learned anything. They may adjust their behavior for a little while but like a drunkard, they will be off the wagon and back with credit card in hand saying, Charge it!

Proverbs 26:11 is appropriate in this situation, "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." While this editorial newspaper article contains the wisdom that one cannot live beyond one’s means and live on debt, it will not be universally heeded for too long. It is easy to predict that there will be another financial crisis because people will overextend themselves again. What is missing here is the fact is that self discipline is spiritual and most people are not spiritual. This is why they repeat the same foolish behavior over and over again. They may be taught the lesson, but they never learn.