Last week the Wall Street Journal carried one of its
more or less cute human interest stories.
You know, the ones that appear on the front page and tell you more than
you really want to know about turtle ranching in Tasmania, the world’s champion
string collector, or the most prolific novelist in history — “Corin Tellado,” pen name of Maria del Socorro Tellado Lopez (1927-2009),
with more than 4,000 (not a typo) novels, and total sales of over 400
million. Most prolific living novelist?
Japanese-Brazilian Ryoki Inoue, with
more than 1,100 novels to his credit, having turned out as many as three in one
day.
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| Mariendonk Abbey Chapel |
Or, more to the
point, Germany’s Sister Lioba Zahn, O.S.B. (Benedictine, so the use of “nun” in
the article was accurate), who has become a stock trader to make up for the
historic Mariendonk Abbey’s fall in investment income when the European Central
Bank cut interest rates in an effort to stimulate economic growth. (That’s another posting.) With interest on their savings low, and the
roof leaking, the nuns had to figure out a way to increase income from
investments, as the market for their vestments (no, really), milk, and candles
was pretty much saturated (and they don’t sell too many sets of vestments in a
year, anyway).
Sister Lioba, Die Cellerarin — “Sister Cellarer,” a
Cellarer being a CFO for an institution, originally someone in charge of the
cellar and keeping it stocked with food and drink — took the bit between her
teeth and taught herself day trading.
Overall, the Abbey’s portfolio has averaged a 2.6% annual return since
she started, which is certainly much better than the negative interest, -0.4%,
the current rate the banks are giving.
So, what’s wrong
with that?
Well, do you mean
“wrong” as in “objectively evil,” or “subjectively evil”? If day trading is objectively evil,
everything. No one is permitted to do
anything objectively evil, not even to gain the greatest good. For example, the central event in
Christianity is the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, something that Christians
believe redeemed the entire human race from the slavery of sin and a bunch of
other really good things.
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| Caiaphas: Better one man suffer than he lose his status. |
Does that mean
that the ones who engineered the Crucifixion did a really good thing? Hardly.
Christians believe that the suggestion of the High Priest Caiaphas that
it was better one person should suffer than that they lose their privileged
position, sorry, that the nation perish not (John 11:49-50) ranks pretty high
up on the list of Worst Crimes in History, possibly making it into the top
three. Condemning or killing someone for
something he or she didn’t do to gain some advantage for yourself, no matter
how great, is “objectively evil.”
Is day trading
objectively evil?
No way. Making a profit is a good thing. Many people are amazed, for example, how
often Jesus Himself used commercial terms and examples in His parables and
other teachings. The people who listened
to Him would know instantly what He was talking about, since they did that kind
of thing every day.
People who made a
profit were even considered especially favored by God, and the bigger the
profit, the more favored you must be . . . with two exceptions. First (obviously), the profit had to be
honest profit. No cheating, lying,
double dealing, false weights and measures, altering contracts, etc.
No, deal honestly, and you will reap the profit: “Give, and it will be given to
you. A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the
measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38.)
Profit objectively evil? Don’t make us laugh.
The other exception? Don’t let material wealth get in the way of
what is really important. In fact, don’t let anything get in the way of what is really important, which in
Jesus’s teachings means getting to Heaven.
As He said (and try to be objective and realize just how graphic the
language is, e.g., gouge out your eye
rather than let it get in the way of getting to Heaven),
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| "And then he said, 'Chop it off, Koko, so. . ." |
Woe
to the world because of scandals. For it
must needs be that scandals come: but
nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. And if thy hand, or thy foot, scandalize
thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.
It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two
hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. Scandalize thee. . .That is, cause thee to
offend. And if thine eye scandalize
thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.
It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two
eyes to be cast into hell fire. (Matthew
18:7-9.)
And now you know
the meaning of that whole thing about a rich man getting into Heaven is like
trying to thread a camel through the eye of a needle. Was Jesus saying that the rich are inherently
evil or some such thing? No, because
that would imply that some human beings are made in the image and likeness of
God . . . but others are not . . . unless you want to say that God is both
all-good and all-evil, and see how far that gets you in a debate with anyone
with common sense.
No, Jesus’s point
was not that rich people are inherently evil, or that wealth or profit is bad,
or that He was talking about a gate into Jerusalem that is hard for a camel to
get through. That bit was an ex post facto legend that grew up as a
result of preachers not wanting to tick off the people who contributed lots of
money and paid their salaries.
Jesus was saying
that the rich have so many more temptations than the poor about letting the
good things of the earth get in the way of the good things of Heaven that,
without God’s grace, the rich can pretty much forget it . . . hence the shock
the Apostles expressed and their astonishment on hearing that the rich, who
were presumably assured of being first in line for God’s favor, were actually
first in line to lose that favor if they didn’t fling themselves on God’s mercy
and start living right.
So that means
Sister Lioba is doing okay, then . . . right?
Who is living righter than a nun in a convent? And in Germany? How much more Sound of Music can you get?
(Okay, that takes place in Austria, but let’s not quibble.)
Day trading must be A-Okay (oder “Alles ordnung” in die Muttersprache).
Wrong. And we’ll start looking into why tomorrow. If another, more interesting or critical subject doesn't pop up in the interim.
#30#