Trickle Down?

For over 30 years the theory of trickle-down economics has held sway in some areas of US politics. It ends up with such statements as "We have to give the tax-breaks to the job creators so they create jobs." I keep thinking that there is more than a little BS in this idea.  A few of my reasons:

• One of the Great American Capitalists, Henry Ford would disagree. 
• Or at least his idea that he should pay his workers better so they could buy more products would say so.
• The gap between top and bottom income in the country might disagree.
• The gap has never been wider with a smaller "middle class" than has existed since the "middle class" became a reality. That means the ones at the top- the job creators- are not using their money to create jobs.
• The profit statements of many corporations could disagree.
• As profits keep going up for many big corporations, these profits are not being turned into new jobs. They are going other places, some of which are admittedly important. But the jobs are not being created.

The right-wing economists would come up with all kinds of reasoning why it hasn't happened yet.

• Regulations
• Uncertainty
• Democrats
• Obama

I would argue that if it hasn't happened yet, after 30 plus years, I see no reason why we should continue to believe that it will happen at some unforeseeable place in the uncertain future. 

And no, I am not joking. I fear that trickle-down economics is the joke.

A Few Quick Observations

Observation # 1:
For most of the first 10 months of 2014 economists, news reports, and "pundits" of all stripes in general, were less than enthusiastic about the US economy. "Yes," they would comment, "things are okay, but...." They would then enumerate why things were uncertain and you really shouldn't count on the economy rebounding. This in spite of Wall Street bouncing higher, lower gas prices and lower unemployment.

Then, with about 6 weeks left in the year every pundit, economist and report (other than perhaps on Fox News) began to change their tune. By this week you would think that a miracle had suddenly occurred. The economy was booming. "Happy days are here again!!"

Not much has really changed. Except the election was over and all the news that might have put a different spin on the economy is safe to report. Other than pointing this out, and knowing that correlation is not necessarily causation, I will let you think the implications through for yourself.

Observation #2:
Why is it always news in the first few days of the year that people are making resolutions they aren't going to keep? And why is it always news that this has to do with exercise and losing weight?

Observation #2b:
Why is it always a surprise on the news when it gets cold in Minnesota in January?

Is It Over?

Black Friday (and whatever you want to call Thursday other than Thanksgiving) are now past for another year. Time for the war on Christmas to begin.

(Removing tongue from cheek.)

What a load of baloney!

I think Pope Francis is on to something important about our culture. We are materialistic; our financial health is based on buying more than we did last year so profits go higher this year than they did last year. And if the sales don't increase, well, just raise the price before you discount it so the new, cheaper price is the same as last year's old regular price.

Make sense?

Yes, I agree that growth is important- stagnation of anything, including economies, can be harmful. But when the push for more and more overcomes common sense and the importance of saving and planning, perhaps it has gone too far.

Unrestricted growth, unplanned and unmanaged growth, is what happens in our bodies when cancer occurs.

I have a hunch there is a parallel there.

No, I am not Scrooge. I have this addiction to the newer and better, too. I am in many ways an early adopter. I keep reading the Best Buy ads for what I want next in computer tech, smart TVs and camera accessories. But then I think of all those "newest and best" that I have bought over the years that are now long gone into trash and landfills.

Sure they were worth it and with some exceptions (leisure suits, for example) are not regretted. I am simply thinking about a little restraint, not the rush to madness we see every year on Black Friday. Governmental management is not the answer, but somehow to get to a point where we as a nation are able to make sensible judgements about our finances and futures without making or materialistic addiction so visible.

To Over Consume

An economy built on needing people to over-consume. That was what I heard an economic observer say in describing our US economy. It is not the first time I have heard it and the current economic situation is not the only time it has been raised. But the situation since the Great Recession a few years ago has brought it more clearly into focus.

Evidence seems to point to a few pieces of the puzzle why the retail (consumer) economy hasn't picked up as quickly as hoped. One is, the observer said, people are making budgets- and sticking to them. They are also attempting to save more and not using all their discretionary money on, well, discretionary items. As a result the up-tick in car sales earlier in the year has kept money from going into that discretionary spending.

Now, I am not a good example of a frugal, budget-conscious person. I know how to budget but have a very difficult time keeping to it. So I have been as guilty as the next person in lack of savings, etc. But there is much truth in the need for budgeting on individual levels as well as the governmental. It appears that people are working hard at doing that- and therefore the economy isn't growing like it could. Somehow or another that seems like a very unhealthy model on which to base any economy. It is a buy more, spend more mindset. The economy is not satisfied with last year's profit levels- the profits have to be more and more and more.

There has to be a balance here, I believe. I personally am working on that. As I look to retirement and Social Security income I know I will have to be more conscious of what and how I am spending. I wish now I had learned more about how to do that earlier in life. But it is also true that if I had, I might not have been doing my part as a "good" American consumer.

Surprise?

I caught this headline a little earlier today...

Stocks rally as job growth surprises Wall Street

Whether such a "rally" holds is still to be seen, but in reinforced something I've noticed and posted about before. The gnomes of the business world are no more aware of what is going on than anyone else. One day stocks will jump because of a bit of news. The next day they drop because another bit of news. Sometimes they are "surprised" by better than expected news or by worse than expected news or simply by news that they figured would happen. if it's good- up goes the Dow. If it's bad- sorry- you lose money.

Yet, from my simple position watching headlines from the economic sector (Fortune 500 profits, etc.) I am not surprised. The problem seems to me to be that the news media- and the Opposition Party- have an investment in keeping the news "bad" or "poor" in order to keep our attention. Every time I hear a positive economic report, the reporter/anchor will add- "Yes, but things are still bad."

Even in bad economies, someone will continue to make money.

It's just usually not the average person on the street.

The "Wisdom" of the Market

I am not an economist or financier. Whenever I have tried my hand at investing, the stock has almost invariably lost money. My father-in-law had an incredibly uncanny ability to pick the right stocks and seemed to be able to make money on the market when no one else seemed to. He died three years ago next week and I often wonder how he would have done in the recent recessionary market. Somehow or other he managed to figure out the ups and downs - ins and outs - of the market. He always said it was a gamble and you had to be willing to lose money from time to time. He said more than three years ago that the market would fall again.

Well in the past year we have seen one incredible roller coaster. It still isn't over. Even though the market is well up from its way down level, it still tends to move up and down in ways that make no sense. Which is just the opposite of what was supposed to happen a number of years ago when they began taking some of the controls off.

You see, as I have heard it explained, the "free-market" left to its own would always make generally wise decisions. It was controls that caused the problem. The "Market," when left to pure "Market" forces would work out.

What they didn't plan on was that

• there is no such thing as a pure market force
• political situations have more of an impact than thought
• greed is a huge negative force and most importantly of all
• the market is made up of humans who react to situations with a panic.

In short, the "wisdom" of the "market" isn't. It is more reactionary than it is able to have leadership. It depends on others and forces beyond its control to move. But that problem with the market then leads to other forces working against the progress which then upsets the market...

So one day there is good economic news and the market goes up.

The next day the news is mixed so the market goes down.

Next week the news looks really good and the market soars

Then comes the end of the quarter and people want to take a profit and the market drops.

And on and on and on it goes.

As I said I am not an economist but I ask, is this any way to run an economy?

But since I have no answers I will have to let others work on that. But what if, somehow or another, the market decided today that they were going to believe for the next three months that the economy is basically sound and will recover? They would then make cautious investments, but with an eye to a sane and acceptable profit and growth margin.

I know it is too much to hope for, but then maybe I would believe that the "Market" may be able to take care of itself- and the economy.

PS: On Wednesday, after I had written the above, I came across an item on Live Science that reported:

WASHINGTON -- A recent analysis of the 2007 financial markets of 48 countries has revealed that the world's finances are in the hands of just a few mutual funds, banks, and corporations. This is the first clear picture of the global concentration of financial power, and point out the worldwide financial system's vulnerability as it stood on the brink of the current economic crisis.

Maybe the "Wisdom" of the Market is to be found in the decisions of a few who are simply out to make more money.

From Steel to Slots and Other Changes

pmPilgrim Photo, July 2004

A headline over last weekend...

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Gamblers tried their luck Friday at Pennsylvania's newest casino, a $743 million slots parlor built on the site of a historic mill where tens of thousands of workers once made steel for warships and beams for countless skyscrapers and bridges.

As Paul Harvey used to say, there is a lot more to the story than just a new casino.

We're talking Bethlehem Steel (1857-2003). An icon. A treasured name in American industrial history:

Bethlehem Steel, based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel. After a decline in the U.S. steel industry and management problems leading to the company's 2001 bankruptcy, the company was dissolved and the remaining assets sold to International Steel Group in 2003. In 2005, ISG merged with Mittal Steel, ending U.S. ownership of the assets of Bethlehem Steel.


pmPilgrim Photo, 7/2004

Bethlehem Steel was also one of the largest shipbuilding companies in the world and one of the most powerful symbols of American industrial manufacturing leadership. Bethlehem Steel's demise is often cited as one of the most prominent examples of the U.S. economy's shift away from industrial manufacturing and its inability to compete with cheap foreign labor.
--Wikipedia

pmPilgrim Photo, 7/2004

We're talking Bethlehem Steel!

If you are not from the east coast or eastern Pennsylvania, let me put it this way- we're talking the same thing as General Motors and Chrysler. (Lee Iacocca is from Allentown, PA, the other side of the Lehigh Valley, and went to school at Lehigh U. just up the hill from Bethlehem Steel.)

We're talking the paradigm of American industrial strength. Sure US Steel was bigger, but Bethlehem was Bethlehem right there in the same Valley as Mack Truck, and well, you know, when something is built like a Mack Truck, it lasts. (Mack Truck, another US icon has been a subsidiary of Renault since 1990 and of Volvo since 2001. Oh, and they are moving headquarters from Allentown, PA to North Carolina.)

This wasn't originally meant to be a second part like the lost trains post on Sunday, but it is beginning to look like it, isn't it? Just the sight of the article on the casino opening in Bethlehem was enough to get me thinking, reminiscing, and well, getting sad.

We can probably discuss, argue, dissect and disagree for hours over the changes in American industrial and manufacturing from the long painful death of Bethlehem Steel to the current automotive industry reshuffle or even the banking crisis. Some of it is business models based on a world that no longer exists. Some of it is greed. (All executives wanting corner offices so you build a building with twice the number of corners. See Good to Great by Jim Collins.) Some of it is grandiosity (What's good for GM is good for the country.)

The Pulitzer-Prize winning late editor of the Bethlehem Globe-Times, John Strohmeyer in his book Crisis in Bethlehem (1984) gives a good deal of the history which is as relevant to today's situation as it was 25 years ago. Here's the end of the 1994 preface:

Late in January 1994, Bethlehem suffered the ultimate indignity. The steel company announced that despite union concessions it has been forced to close down the hot metal steelmaking operations in Bethlehem. Those roaring blast furnaces which gave Bethlehem Steel it's life and its name in 1904 will be silenced forever...The steelmaking skills passed down by generations of Bethlehem families will be useless.

The city reacted with shock. The stock market was delighted... The saga of Bethlehem becomes a case study of the tumultuous, often insensitive, profit-driven changes in this nation's once impregnable industries.
--Google book search

pmPilgrim Photo, 7/2004

And now it's a casino, among other things. As we watch GM and Chrysler struggle as the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads struggled may we not "mourn" so much as learn. May we see that much of what is happening is a problem with more than one villain, few, if any, heroes, and lots and lots of victims. It does not have to mean the end of American industry. Not if we are willing to make some hard choices. Not if all involved, including those looking for "golden parachutes" are willing to make sacrifices.

It is all very complex. But it is not unheard of nor unusual. Perhaps in the American mythology it is, but there have been a lot of industrial names we thought we would never lose. Let's do what we Americans can do so well- apply our ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness and figure out where we need to go and not where we have been or wish we were.

Here's an Answer

Came across this headline last week in Christian/Church-related news:

Churches Adjust to Challenging Times; Do More Good

At first since it was April 1 I thought it might be an April Fool's story. But the story was real. It quoted reports that churches are getting a lot more requests for aid and support and many are trying to find ways to help.

But it struck me that isn't this what it's always about? I understand the reason for the story and headline, but will we someday read, when the current economic crisis is over that the churches can go back to doing less good?

Golden Parachutes

Short Rant Warning.
Read the following if you don't mind my ranting for a few paragraphs......

Last evening on the news I heard that AIG, the insurance giant that has received many dollars in Federal funds, is paying executives who ran the company into financial trouble bonuses and other financial incentives. They are contractually required to do so, they said.

Here's the head and lead from the NYT site:

A.I.G. Planning $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and PETER BAKER
Published: March 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

No one will do that for you or me. No one will do that for the retirees who are struggling with decreased investments that they expected to live on. No one will do that for those of us nearing retirement with not enough time for the stock market to regain enough to go back to what we actually put in.

If someone suggested that you or I get those bonuses and incentives for our support they would be shouted down as socialists.

If this is completely free market forces at work, why do we get the short end of the staff? Why do we pay for the losses through our taxes but don't get the benefits when things are going well. Only these executives get support either way.

I could be wrong, but it is not the way Jesus would want to see it happen. Where are the rising voices of moral outrage in the religious right? Where are those who will stand up and be heard that being a Christian is far more than the happy by-and-by. It is doing what is right. Here. Now.

End of Rant.

For now.

Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish had an excellent post yesterday that summed up a great deal of how many felt with Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer on Thursday. Here for me are some of the money quotes from Sullivan:

Did you expect that? I expected a jolly and ultimately congenial discussion, after some banter. What Cramer walked into was an ambush of anger. He crumbled from the beginning...

Stewart - that little comic with the Droopy voice for Lieberman - is actually becoming an accidental activist. ... what Stewart has done is rip off that little band-aid of faux solidarity for a modicum of ethical and moral accountability...

It's not enough any more, guys, to make fantastic errors and then to carry on authoritatively as if nothing just happened. You will be called on it. ... [A]n insistent and vulgar demand for some responsibility, some moral and ethical accountability for previous decisions and pronouncements.

Braver, please. And louder.

Reading blog posts yesterday in response to the great CNBC/Daily Show debate was interesting. I agree wholeheartedly with Sullivan. The issue isn't conservative -vs - liberal or news - vs - comedy. If you are liberal you watch MSNBC. If you are conservative you watch Fox. If you want news maybe you watch the Evening News shows or CNN from time to time. CNBC and similar networks are promising information and news but have been giving us something else. Which is what Stewart called Cramer on.

Stewart was clearly angry, and as my wife commented, he was saying all the things that many of us want to say to people like Cramer. He never let Cramer off the hook until the very end when he accepted a sort-of promise from Cramer to do better. He kept saying over and over that this wasn't personally about Jim Cramer. It was about the promises of the network knowing the behind the scenes shenanigans and turning away.

We have found over these past 35 post-Watergate years that from time to time we are no longer giving that kind of a pass to presidents and other politicians as often as we used to. Now may be another turning point in calling those we thought we could trust with information on their crap as well.

The Sky Is Not Falling

The Best Article Every Day web site posted the chart to the left last week. It shows the times of expansion and recession over the past 49 years.

Several things jumped out at me immediately.

1. There's more green than red on the chart. In fact the average shows that red is 11 months and green is 71 months. Let me translate that. Recessions last around a year. Expansions around six years.

2. The issue of recession is obviously somewhat cyclical. That does not mean there aren't extenuating circumstances for them that could have been avoided.

3. We have survived all of the recessionary (contraction) periods and have actually done quite well afterward. Even the recession that was in progress at 9/11 did not continue past November of that year. There seems to be a resilience to the American economy. I remember a number of times when in our church we had to take some serious look at our budget in light of the economy. We adjusted, worked, and went ahead.

4. That is not to downplay either the depth or extent of this recession we are in. I do not know some of the issues of previous recessions any more. This one has some clear causes in greed, lack of oversight, and some of the basic difficulties with capitalism. Add to that the ongoing shift of world power and production and you have some serious things happening.

5. This contraction/recession will give us some opportunities to adjust and grow in new ideas and directions. One is health care. Another is the opportunity to do some work on the infrastructure. This is both a stimulus and a support system we sorely need. (More on another day.)

6. But looking at this chart gives me reason to hope- and to want to tell the news media and politicians on all sides to get their heads on straight and see that there is probably already a light at the end of the tunnel. We might be on a slow train heading that direction, but I have no doubt we are going that way.

Go Jon, Go

Wow.

Jon Stewart really put it together tonight with Jim Cramer on the Daily Show.

It is amazing that a "comedy" show takes The Business Network to task for its shortcomings because it is also entertainment. Jon is amazingly intelligent in spite of his self-deprecation.

Cramer did well, but I doubt there will be any change in his or any of CNBC's methods. But this whole situation may bring about a change for them, too. Maybe they will do what Jon is asking them to do- give us the whole story and what is going on behind the scenes doing real investigative reporting.

What is interesting is that Stewart has truly taken "comedy" to some of its roots- the fool who calls out the king or political humor of the level of Will Rogers. It has been interesting.

A Gas Conundrum

Here's how it goes....

The price of gas went way up, so people stopped driving as much. Even as the gas prices tanked (sorry, couldn't avoid it) we didn't go back to our previous habits.

That's good. Many were worried that the price drop would send us back out on the roads and reverse the hopeful trend that we will learn better oil-use habits.

But it turns out that this is bad- for taxes. As we have driven less there are fewer gallons of gas sold. That means fewer tax dollars are collected.

So they want to raise gas taxes or there won't be enough money available to fix roads and bridges.

Which will raise the price of gas again. Which, according to the law of supply and demand or something or other, will mean that we will drive less.

Which is good. Except that tax receipts will decrease.....

You got the message. Which, as many understand it, will in reality be a very good thing for the long term decline in our oil needs. Maybe, finally, we will once and for all cut our gas usage and perhaps push Detroit to have better fuel efficiency. It may be painful in the transition, but our grandchildren may thank us.

Beyond Belief

On and on it goes; around and around we all go.

• Big finance bailout.
• See what you can get for a Senate seat.
• Bernie Madoff collapses under the greatest pyramid scheme in history.
• The Fed drops the interest rate to almost nothing hoping to get more people to spend.

It's more than a simple lay person's mind can grasp. Numbers going off the charts into the realms of the ludicrous far beyond all my earnings in 40 years.

Until that word comes back-

greed.

"You cannot serve God and money," said Jesus. But we sure would like to try. Or at least look like we are trying. The result is the worst economic mess since the Depression. Back in the days when people had to learn the hard way how to scrimp and save.

Maybe, just maybe we can re-learn that lesson for a new generation (or two or three) that have never had to do that before.

Huh?

Yesterday morning the cost of gas at the local gas station was:

$1.47. Wow!

Yesterday evening it was (are you ready?)

$1.75.

Wha'?

Could it be that someone with dyslexia was at work?

Nope.

As I went by this morning on my way to work it was clearly $1.75 on both sides of the sign. Maybe they are expecting problems if the Big 3 go belly up.

Or maybe the oil company just wanted to give itself a nice holiday present.

Somehow This Doesn't Feel Right

Buy!

Buy!

Buy!

At any cost!

I did not go shopping yesterday. Black Friday does not entice me. In fact every year it becomes less of an enticement. Then I turn on the news and get downright turned off.

While I may never know the whole story, it can't be pretty. Not when a worker at a Wal-Mart in suburban New York City gets trampled to death just opening the doors for the crazed mob. Nothing in a Wal-Mart is worth anyone's life. Nothing in a Wal-Mart is worth that kind of crazed pushing, shoving, and unkind behavior. In fact I have a hunch that there is nothing in a Target or Macy's or Niemann-Marcus that would be worth that.

One person, according to news reports, said that the crowd was acting like "savages." When told they had to close the store shoppers got angry because they had been in line so long- and then they kept on shopping.

They kept on shopping.

(Sarcasm alert!) After all they were only doing their patriotic duty to get the economy moving again. They were spending money. Someone hurt? Someone killed? But they were in line for hours! You can't stop them from spending their money like that!

I get more and more worried that this economic crisis will produce more of this kind of insanity. And I don't just mean the rampaging, material-addicted crowd. I also mean the stores who have to get bigger and bigger profits at the expense of civility. I know that an economy needs people to buy things. Of course it does.But it gets out of hand.

Especially at the holiday season.

I hate to use the word "Christmas" to describe it. Because this is not Christmas. This is holiday frenzy. Celebrating the "son of man" who had nowhere to lay his head.

I repeat-

Somehow this just doesn't feel right.

Going Up?

The last time I posted about the gas prices they were at $1.72. I asked "How low can they go?" Well, I think I have the answer for the time being. Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, the price was $1.67.

Yesterday it was $1.72.

Have we hit bottom? Will that mean the economy is bottoming out?

Or was it just because demand ticked up for the holiday? Time will tell. We stay on the economic roller coaster.

Black Friday Debunked- Sort Of

The news media frequently refer to Black Friday as the busiest retail shopping day of the year, but this is not always accurate. While it has been one of the busiest days in terms of customer traffic, in terms of actual sales volume, from 1993 through 2001 Black Friday was usually the fifth to tenth busiest day. In 2002 and 2004, however, Black Friday ranked second place, and in 2003 and 2005, Black Friday actually did reach first place. The busiest retail shopping day of the year in the United States (in terms of both sales and customer traffic) usually has been the Saturday before Christmas.
--Wikipedia

Expensive!!

Cory Doctorow posted the following bit of information yesterday:

Barry Ritholtz sez,

In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

I know both sides of the argument. We have all been bombarded by the debate and its historicity. Regardless of whether some, all, or none of it was needed, it is expensive. Very Expensive! I don't even want to think what will happen if it doesn't work. Life as we have come to know it will certainly be different no matter what.

When Things Are Going Down

An odd feeling became apparent the other day. I have not wanted to go to the movies. All the movies I would want to see have tended to be the depressing kind. The Changeling and Appaloosa being two of them. But they tend to be too serious, usually the kind I like, but not for these bad news days.

I didn't realize this until the other day. I thought about going to see The Changeling since I am a big Clint Eastwood fan. "Nah," came my response. "I don't want to see a depressing, challenging movie." I then kind of did a mental jump to the thoughts of the economic news for the past months that even the two-week upper from the election could overcome. I have stopped looking at my retirement savings. I try not to think about five years from now when I turn 65 even though I don't plan on retiring then.

I remember thinking way back in August that the news media was helping make the economic news worse. I don’t know if things wouldn’t have sunk so low if the media had not over-hyped the BAD NEWS that kept coming day after day. I have a hunch that underneath the hype was a true bit of BAD NEWS that no one is talking about to this day- the sad shape that greed has gotten us to. (But that’s for another day.)

All I know is that today things are not pretty. Which is when I realized that the popular movies of the Depression were often the glittery musicals or the feel-good stories. Maybe I will need to do a couple of things, at least until I decompress from all this.
1) Back off on checking the news and the Dow Jones average.
2) Stop watching even the Daily Show or Colbert for underneath the humor is the truth of what is happening.

Oh yes, and I have also re-activated the Christmas music on my iPod. It is good to be reminded on a regular basis that the world is still the creation of a loving Creator and that He once came to be with us in a time that may have been more like today than we can imagine.