God's Law; The Only Political Solution

by Charlie Fuqua

I'm working on getting my book published God's Law; The Only Political Solution. In the meantime I'd like to share it with The Voice of Batesville readers.

Forward

As I have discussed the contents of this book with others and even shared chapters of the book with others, I have been amazed by how often the response has been something like, "you know, you cannot achieve salvation by keeping the law". I want to make clear that this book does not have a religious purpose. It has a secular purpose. The fact that no one can earn salvation through the keeping of the Ten Commandments does not mean that there is not great value to an individual, and a nation, in the keeping and enforcing of God's Law.

I acknowledge that I am a believer in the Christian faith. Notice that I did not say that I am a knower in the Christian truth. Religious faith is based on belief, not on absolute knowledge. That does not mean that faith is irrational or without evidence. There are many things that we cannot know for certain. However the accumulation of evidence can lead one to a belief in things that cannot be absolutely proved. It is not the intention of this work to offer all the evidence that supports a rational belief in the Christian faith. However the fact that the principles given in the Bible to govern society have been successful, is evidence of the truth of the Christian religion. The fact that the founding fathers of the United States were totally immersed in biblical teachings and principles, and that they employed them in the construction of their governmental and economic system, is evidence that the principles work. In reaching this conclusion I acknowledge that I accept the premise that the united States has been the most successful experiment in all of known history of these principles. I acknowledge the possibility that there may be no god and that the principles stated in the Bible are not divinely inspired. However history demonstrates that the principles work to promote the greatest justice, prosperity, and happiness for the majority of people in society.

The propose of this work is not to suggest that government should force anyone to accept any particular religion, or to accept religion at all. Although it is true that force has been used to require people to accept the Christian religion, the true practice of Christianity requires that people be given the free choice to accept or reject Christianity. To fully appreciate this truth we must understand the nature of God. God is love. Why did God create man and give him a free will? He did so because he wants man to love him by choice. Since a man is more powerful than a woman a man could force a woman to love him. At least he could force her to act like she loves him. If she refused to act like she loved him he could beat her into submission. Think of what a perverted relationship this would be. Could anyone in his right mind derive happiness from such a relationship? God is in his right mind, and he desires that we love him. He does not want us to love him for fear of punishment. He wants us to love him because we understand that he loves us. Keeping the law does not bring salvation. Law keeping is a means we can use to demonstrate our love of God, because keeping God's law always results in showing love for others, and God wants us to love each other. The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. That is true, because God has the power to do whatever he chooses to us. However the completion of wisdom is to love God in response to the love he has shown us.

Religions, other than Christianity, teach that the way to please God, or to gain god's forgiveness for our wrongs, is to sacrifice to him or, for him. Many religions have taught that you can please god by sacrificing the lives of our animals, children, neighbors, or enemies. Christianity teaches that you please God by showing love to others, including your enemies. God showed us the ultimate act of love and sacrifice by taking on human form, as Jesus Christ, and ding as a sacrifice for our sins. The central doctrine of the Christian religion is that every member of the human race is born with a sin nature. We are all born self centered, selfish, demanding, and believing that everyone around use has the obligation of satisfying our every desire. The reason this is the central doctrine of the Christian religion is that if we do not have a sin nature, then there is good in us that can redeem us from our sinful actions. If this is the case, then the death of Jesus on the cross was unnecessary. Political conservatives accept this central premise of the Christian faith and liberals reject it. In fact the difference between a conservative and a liberal is that a conservative is inherently wicked and totally depraved, and knows it. A liberal on the other hand is inherently wicked and totally depraved, but does not know it. People who do not believe that all people have this sin nature accept the premise that man is basically good. That is why liberals believe that government is the solution for everything. They believe that since man is basically good, that mankind working together, i.e. government can solve every problem. Any person who rejects this central premise of the Christian faith is not a Christian. Those who accept the doctrine of the sin nature of man fear the power of government because they know that men working together through the power of government, can, and have, done more harm than any other human institution. The central doctrine of the Christian faith is that since each one of us has this sin nature, none of us is capable of pleasing God by our behavior. However if we accept God's greatest act of love, his death for us on the cross, God accepts us. If we accept God's love for us by acknowledging that we do not deserve his love, our gratitude for what he has done for us will be seen in the way we treat others.

Liberals believe that it is the purpose of government to protect us from our own bad choices. Conservatives believe in freedom of choice, but believe that if we make poor choices that natural consequences will help correct us and prevent us from making more bad choices. It is natural that working hard brings prosperity and being lazy brings poverty. Government cannot change this. Freedom is the ability to do whatever we choose, as long as we choose to act responsibly. If government gives all of us security in our social status (social security) it takes away our ability to excel or fail. As more of us get economic security from our government, rather than our productivity, we become more insecure as a society. This is because more and more of us loose the motivation to work to avoid poverty.

The reason that a free competitive market works better then a government controlled market is that a free market system is based on the basic premise that man is greedy and always wants more. As long as no one is granted a monopoly by government, a free competitive market always provides more of what the people need then does a government controlled market. This is because filling a need produces a profit. The greatest disruption of the free market is caused by labor unions. Men, because of their sinful greedy nature, ban together and remove the ability of employer and employee to freely bargain and reward productivity. When human labor is not a commodity freely traded just like every other commodity, endless inequities result. Mandatory union membership is incompatible with freedom, and will result in the destruction of any nation that tolerates it.

Well intentioned government action that limits the free market often harms the very people it was intended to help. Just to give an example of this, I served on a board of a nonprofit organization that helped people with saver mental disabilities. Generous people in the community would offer jobs at low wages to some of our clients. These jobs gave them a little spending money and a tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment. Then the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed. Never again would any of our clients get a job. Now the employers know that if they hire a person with a sever disability, they will be stuck with a liability that they cannot afford. The greatest harm was done to the very people government was trying to help. The free market provided greater opportunity then a government mandate.

Another example of how government involvement has disastrous effects on a free market is Fanny May and Freddy Mack. These government lending institutions made money available to people that otherwise could not afford to buy a home. This artificially inflated the prices of homes nationwide, which actually made homes harder to afford. Then when the borrowers could not repay the money borrowed the entire home market came crashing down and brought the entire stock market and economy with it. this would never have happened if the free market was allowed to function.

Perhaps the most damaging of all government involvement in the economy is the graduated income tax. Take from the rich and give to the poor. This destroys the motivation and productivity of both groups. When the government takes form one group and gives to another, government becomes and instrument of theft. For several years I have served as an attorney in child maltreatment and neglect cases. In almost every case no one in the household works. The household usually has income in excess of that of many working families, in the form of free food, housing, healthcare, and government checks, but they have nothing to show for it. The reason is that most of what they get goes to buy illegal drugs. The result is that the government programs designed to help families with children actually harm the children because the parents are provided with a means to buy illegal drugs, and under the influence of those drugs they abuse and neglect the children more than if they were sober. The government welfare programs also destroy the parents because it takes away their pride as productive members of society, and robs them of the satisfaction of providing for their families. Robed of this they can only turn to drugs to escape reality.

Government programs that take away from those who are productive and give to those who are not productive do not result in economic growth. Allowing those who are productive to keep what they have earned, not only promotes honesty, it also leads to economic growth. When government steals by taking form the producer and giving to the non-producer, it plants in the non-producer the notion that he is entitled to the property of the more productive members of society and therefore plants the seeds of theft at all levels as a legitimate means of getting what is desired. The central purpose of this book is to show that the honesty in the laws of the Bible will bring the greatest prosperity to any nation that follows them.

Really Simple Market Research Tools for Small Business

Over the years my business consultant and I have met lots of folks looking to start their own business. Generally after offering them a cup of coffee and asking what type of business they are planning to launch, my next question is, “so, what have you done up to this point to estimate the market demand?”. Typical responses usually go something like these:




· “My gut tells me it can’t miss!”
· “my mom said she would come to my store”
· “Everyone at church thinks it is a really good idea… we need one of those in town”


“Besides, I am here to get help putting a loan package together, what’s market research got to do with my loan request?” Of course that nasty habit bankers have of asking how you plan to pay the loan back could be a hint. But usually when you talk about market research their eyes roll back into their heads. They think market research takes lots of money, lots of surveys, and statistics, certainly way above what a small business person could afford or understand.



The truth is, market research is absolutely critical to small businesses, regardless of the type of product or service and thanks to the internet, the data is easily available at reasonable costs, you just have to know what type of information you need. Market research tells my small business owner:

How many potential customers are in the trade zone
How much they will spend on a product or service
Where they are located
What demographic, socio-graphic or other factors influence buying decisions and how to break the market into homogenous sub groups to target
Who competitors are, where they are, and what their weaknesses are.

Whether the client is in retail or wholesale, manufacturing or service, transportation or health care, businesses (B2B) or to consumers (B2C) knowing the answers to the questions above is vital to long-term success. Part of the problem of course is the amount of information out there especially on the internet. A “googled” market research resulted in 23,900,000 hits and free market research narrowed the field to only 38,900 possible sites. What to use? What is best? What is a scam? Easy to see why entrepreneurs throw up their hands and just “go on their gut.”

At the Small Business and Technology Development Center we use Hill Search, the James J. Hill on Line Reference Library for a lot of our clients initial market research needs. As a quick example, let’s assume a client in Batesville, Arkansas (Independence County) came in to the office and wanted help finding market research information to determine feasibility of starting a retail jewelry store in that county. For this article we will keep it simple, a primary trade Zone of Independence County only and strictly a brick and mortar business (we will discuss e-commerce market research in another article).

Using the Hill Search Library in 45 minutes I was able to provide the entrepreneur with a good thumb nail sketch of the market potential for an additional jewelry store in that county and an initial market segmentation outline.

For the initial review I used three separate Hill Library resources:

· their DemographicsNow database that provides extensive demographic information about households and basic consumer expenditure data on trade zones (by zip code, town, county, MSA, state or region) that told me everything I wanted to know about demographic makeup of households in Independence County as well as overall consumer expenditure information on apparel and jewelry spending.

· From there hopped over to the Hill Library New Strategist Demographic eBooks, over 30 on-line books with specific information about how much consumers spend on a wide variety of products and services broken out by demographic sub categories. I used their “Who is Buying Apparel” and “Best Customers: Demographics of Consumer Demand” eBooks to get detailed expenditure information on jewelry by a variety of demographic sub categories including income, age, education, and more. This information combined with the county household demographics will determine not only overall county demand for jewelry but also help segment the households to find out who the best potential customers may be.

· Finally stopped in at the Hill Library Special Issues database, searched for “jewelry” and found 8 industry reports outlining the State of the Jewelry industry for 2008, forecasts for the coming year and much more. All in about 45 minutes of searching.

So what did I have to report to my “client”? From the DemographicNow section I found:
There are 13,888 households in the county as of 2008, up from 13,467 in the 2000 census and projected to grow to 14,148 households by 2013. With average household income of $48,236 in 2008 and projected to grow to $53,821 by 2013.

The average household in Independence County spent $121.00 per year on jewelry (not including watches or repair) So overall market potential for the county to purchase jewelry was just over $1.68 million and is projected to grow to $132.00 per household by 2013 or a overall market potential growth in next 4 years to just under $1.8 million.

At the present time there are only 2 existing jewelry retail stores in town. There were three, but a regional chain was forced to close in the fall. Of course Walmart and J C Penney have jewelry counters with sales, and jewelry is sold at various pawn shops in the area, even the gum ball machine outside Krogers. But only 2 retail jewelers. And total retail sales of jewelry in the county was less than $485,700.00 which meant that many consumers were buying their jewelry outside of the county so a leakage existed that might be exploited.

From the eBooks on Consumer Expenditure I found out who buys the most jewelry by demographic features. As a summary:

Households earning under $20,000 will spend an average of $30 a year on jewelry while households earning $70-80,000 per year will spend 171.32 per household and those earning over $100,000 will spend $353 per household on jewelry. Obviously there are far more households earning under $20,000 than over $100,000.00 but does quantity matter or does quality? High income households spend three times the average on jewelry and account for 40% of the total market. The 3,315 households earning under $20,000 will spend $30 a year or a market potential for that segment of only $99,450. But the 1,093 households earning over $100,000 will spend $353 per year or $385,829. Households earning over $100,000 make up only 7.8% of all households but will buy 23% of all the jewelry. See how segmentation works?

Households where head of household is a high school graduate will spend average of $75 per year on jewelry, while those with a Masters or doctoral degree will spend $227.9 on average.

Married couples without children at home (empty nesters) spend 37% more than average.
Two age groups own most of the market 25-34 year olds (many buying engagement rings) and 55 to 64 year olds (many buying anniversary gifts).

Now, we can go back to DemographicsNow to find the actual number of households by the different income, age, even educational levels and apply that information to see how much my best customers will spend. Finally the industry information from the Jewelry Retail Association Trade magazines will provide information on issues impacting stores in the coming year.
A complete copy of all of the information is available for anyone who would like to see an example of what the data looks like and the format. I will be happy to send it to you if you leave a comment requesting it or shoot me an e-mail.

So, if a small business or entrepreneur wanted to purchase this data what would it cost? Demographic data on Independence County and summary jewelry expenditure data from a source called Demographics Now published by SRC, LLC. You can find a wide variety of consumer expenditure data, demographic data on a variety of groupings by zip, city, county, and state, MSA for all over the country for only $60 dollars per month or $550.00 per year. Specific demographic expenditure by categories and best customer eBooks lists from New Strategist Publishing which you can access for $60 to $80 per e-book. Or you can access all of this information along with a lot more data from the James J Hill On-Line Research Library for $1,295 per year subscription. Industry specific information is available from the Jewelry Retail Trade Association for a fee as well.

However, the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center network offices are all paid members of the Hill Search Library which means that their clients have access to all of this data through the center at no charge. Plus the ASBTDC staff provides free assistance in analyzing the data and helping the client make decisions based on the information. There is no charge to be a client, nor for any assistance through the centers.

Finding good, reliable market research data is possible. It is just a matter of knowing where to look. The Hill Library is an excellent tool, or using the free services of the ASBTDC to help develop initial market research. Next week, drilling down to find customers in your trade zone.I will expand on types of market research in future articles that will look at other tools and information available to small business owners in Arkansas. Let me know if this is useful. If you would like a copy of the demographic, consumer expenditure or industry information to see what the data look like, let me know. Post a comment or send me an e-mail and I will be happy to send you this example.

Next week we will discuss how to drill down market research information to target specific customers you want to target for your marketing plans.