Trump backs off Greenland threats. When protesters invade your worship service. And capping credit card interest rates.
Trump Backs Off Greenland Threats
President Trump took back his threats to seize Greenland by military force and to slap tariffs on countries that have criticized his Greenland ambitions. The world breathed a sign of relief–all except Russia and China, which had hoped that NATO would implode over the issue and that the USA would join their axis of military aggression against free nations.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said to the assembled world leaders: “I don’t have to use force.” “I don’t want to use force.” “I won’t use force.” He also posted on Truth Postal that he would hold off on imposing tariffs of an additional 10%, turning to 25% in June, on countries that oppose his acquisition of Greenland, pending negotiations at Davos.
Those negotiations, he said later, produced a “framework of a future deal” that led him to call off the tariffs completely. The details of that framework were not announced, but teh president’s Press Secretary told reporters, ““If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever.”
Reportedly, the United States will be able to build military bases and facilities for the proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system on Greenland. The U.S. already has that right by a previous treaty. The U.S. will likely be given “first refusal” on plans to develop Greenland’s mineral resources, including rare earth metals, thus keeping out Russian and Chinese initiatives.
When Protesters Invade Your Worship Service
On Sunday, January 18, Cities Church, a large Baptist congregation in St. Paul, Minnesota, held its regular 10:30 service.
After the confession of sins and the singing, the pastor mounted the pulpit to begin his sermon. Just then some 40 protesters, demonstrating against the I.C.E. crackdown on illegal immigrants, barged into the sanctuary. They blew whistles, shouted, and chanted, “ICE out!” and “Justice for Renee Good”!
The mob moved to the front of the sanctuary, all the way to the pulpit. Children in the pews were scared and some started crying. Their moms took them and slipped out. The lead pastor told the demonstrators to leave. Congregational members also confronted them. In the chaos, the pastor dismissed the congregation. By the time the police finally arrived, after about 25 minutes, most of the demonstrators had left.
The protesters, who have had been demonstrating since January 18, had heard that one of the eight pastors in the congregation’s leadership team did some moonlighting as an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was not present at this particular service.
The Department of Justice is charging the demonstrators under the the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act), which is often used to prosecute pro-lifers demonstrating against abortion clinics, but which also has provisions protecting the right to worship without intimidation.
The title of the sermon that the church invaders did not allow the pastor to preach? “Expecting and Enduring Opposition” (Acts 4:1-31).
[Bonus subtopic: After searching through multiple sources without getting a good, detailed account of this church invasion, I gave up and asked AI, a technology that I’m generally critical of. Google AI pulled together details from a huge number of sources, including a Facebook post from one of the pastors. So the source for this post is here, the transcript of my AI research.
This, to me, is an example of a good use of AI. And yet, this transcript also shows why you nevertheless have to check what AI says against its sources. Getting through the liberal-leaning contexts the AI gives, at the end it gives the too-good-to-be-true title of the sermon that the pastor was not allowed to give: “Expecting and Enduring Opposition” (Acts 4:1-31). But that was for “City Church,” an online ministry, not the “Cities Church” of St. Paul, MN. The actual sermon for that day, given in the early service, was Love One Another.]
Capping Credit Card Rates
On January 9, President Trump said that he would cap credit card interest rates at 10%. In a social media post, he said, “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30 percent.” He gave lenders until January 20 to make this change.
On January 11, President Trump told reporters that if banks and other issuers of credit cards missed that deadline, “then they’re in violation of the law.”
Now January 20 has come and gone and no credit card companies seem to have complied. It turns out the president has no authority to tell companies what they are allowed to charge for their services. Now the White House is saying that while President Trump expects and demands the change, compliance is voluntary.
Capping credit card interest rates would take an act of Congress. Progressive senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have been pushing for this, as has the Trump-supporting populist Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Currently, credit cards charge from 17%-27%, with an average of 19.7%. Those numbers do seem astronomical, to the level of what Luther would consider usury. (See Luther’s treatise on Trade and Usury, and this commentary upon it.)
Because a cap on APRs would eat into bank profits, card issuers would be likely to cut off the most vulnerable borrowers from credit, banks and bank lobbyists say.
Two-thirds of credit card users carrying a balance would be likely to see their credit lines reduced or canceled entirely, according to a Jan. 12 analysis from America’s Credit Unions, an industry group representing credit unions. Almost all 47 million Americans with a subprime credit score would lose access to credit, the group found.
By contrast, financial pros predicted the 10% cap would have little effect on higher-income bank customers. . . .
“Specifically, people will lose access to credit, like on a very, very extensive and broad basis, especially the people who need it the most, ironically,” [JPMorgan Chase chief financial officer Jeremy Barnum] said. “And so, that’s a pretty severely negative consequence for consumers, and frankly, probably also a negative consequence for the economy as a whole right now.”
One of the reasons given for high interest rates on credit cards is that there are so many defaults. This leads to bankruptcies and balance write-offs. Thus, banks have to charge the rest of us higher interests in order to make up for that loss. In other words, people who pay their bills must subsidize those who don’t, or can’t.
From the other perspective, lower income folks are charged even higher rates than those with higher incomes. Those with credit risks have to pay the 27%, while the more affluent get better rates. This keeps those with lower incomes in a hole they just cannot dig out of. Leading to defaults, bankruptcies, and write-offs.
Wouldn’t it be better for low income folks not to get a credit card, so that they would not get sucked into the trap of never-ending debt?
Both experts and experience agree that the best strategy for both rich and poor is to pay off your credit card balance every month. That is to say, pay as you go, avoiding falling into debt. As was done through most of human history, through the invention of cash.
To be sure, we have a very different economic system today than people did in the time of Luther. The issue isn’t just free market capitalism. Rather, our economy is increasingly built on debt–national debt, corporate debt, and individual debt. Today, cash itself has fallen out of favor. Some retailers only accept credit cards. So if individuals who have lower incomes and are bigger credit risks can no longer get credit cards, due to mandated low interest rates, they would be severely handicapped.
Maybe part of the answer would be for everyone to use debit cards, attached to universal bank accounts, in which income would be digitally deposited and from which we could digitally pay all our expenses. We are close to that now. A little flex could be built in, allowing accounts to be overdrawn for a flat fee for everyone. Say, 10%.
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