Someone gave me a nice compliment today

 

Someone gave me a really nice compliment today.

They said I would have really "deep-thinking children" that "won't take things at face value."

That's the plan man.

And that's why marrying the right woman is so important. The woman I choose has to be down with it. She cannot retard progress or be lazy. I screen for this in the dating process.

I don't want to raise humans with malformed minds. I do not trust private school or public school with my children's minds. We're going to educate them ourselves.

I estimate that I have around 1,000-2,000 books in my library. I've only read about 25-27 books this year. I'm really behind with my goal of 52 books in 2021 but more important things interrupted me. But I'm curating a list of books I want my family and friends to read -- books that should be read a least twice and internalized.

I want my children to be beneficiaries of my personal teaching and guidance and inherit my ever-growing library. 

She doesn't have to have my extraordinary reading goals. But one of the things she has to be about is educating our kids.

Book Recommendations**

1. Biblical Theology: How the Church Faithfully Teaches the Gospel by Nick Roark & Robert Cline
2. The Household and the War for The Cosmos by C.R. Wiley
3. Sermon on the Mount by Scot McKnight
4. The Case for Patriarchy by Timothy J. Gordon
5. Living in a Godly Marriage by Joel R. Beeke
6. Manifested in the Flesh by Joel McDurmon
7. Sinful Speech by John Flavel
8. Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus by J. Mack Stiles
9. A Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament by J. Alec Moyter
10. The Nomadic Wealth Formula: A Blueprint for Generating Predictable and Sustainable Income from Anywhere on Earth by Jason Stapleton
11. Man of the House by C.R. Wiley
12. Thoughts on Family Worship by James Waddel Alexander
13. How Should Men Lead Their Families by Joel R. Beeke
14. The Case of the Hopeless Marriage: A Nouthetic Counseling Case from Beginning to End by Jay E. Adams
15. Reforming Marriage by Douglas Wilson
16. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
17. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism by Robert P. Murphy
18. Meltdown: A Free Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods
19. End the Fed by Ron Paul

**This list is in progress and mostly reflects my 2021 reading. The last four books I read in previous years.

Here's another list of 10 economics books to help understand "how we got here" in terms of the growth of government and central banking in the United States.

10 Free Books for Understanding the Economy Today

If you want to learn how we have gotten to where we are today, then you've landed at the right spot. 

These books were some of the first books I ever read on economics. 

They were preceded only by "The Alpha Strategy" (My Most Visited Post! Free Download! A great book for today in these inflationary times), the Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, The Gold Wars (free download), Economics in One Lesson (free download), Meltdown, End the Fed, and Crash Proof 1.0.

I gotta be honest. I read all the way up to Modern Money Mechanics and didn't finish the rest of the list. But even half the books below and the books above will give you a working economic knowledge for life. 

Any citizen will be an economically literate citizen even if he or she reads only half of these books.

These economics books are free for downloading. Read them in this order.

Gary North, Inherit the Earth

Gary North, Honest Money

Murray Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money?

Gary North, Mises on Money

Murray Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed

Murray Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Modern Money Mechanics

Gene Callahan, Economics for Real People

Robert P. Murphy, Lessons for the Young Economist

Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State; Robert P. Murphy, Study Guide for Man, Economy, and State

Source: Ten Free Economics Books for Understanding What Is Going On Today | Specific Answers 

I hope you enjoy the books! 

Next up will be books that will help you become a functional Christian.

Video in Link: America's Counter Revolution: The Constitution Revisited

Watch it. It's on Sheldon Richman's new book. Click the link below.

Free Association: Jeff Tucker Interviews Me about "America's Counter...

Bam! This is how you start a book

Jeffrey Burton Russell begins Exposing Myths About Christianity with the following:

"Fashionably elite people are supposed to be atheists. As a result, Christianity is uncool in much of contemporary Western society. Human beings are egocentric, and if God exists, one's own ego is not the center of the universe."

I could end there, but I like what he has to say immediately after that:

"In many circles--the field of psychology, as one example--someone who takes Christianity seriously can provoke mockery or even anger from others in the circle. Humans are very tribal, and religious belief is a good way to get oneself kicked out of certain tribes."

The prose doesn't stay this good after the second or third page, but boy does it catch your attention.

As I wrote in my Goodreads update, "[w]hile Russell writes like a bored reporter, or an academic, which he is, the information is interesting. There are tons of footnotes, which you should expect from an academic. Someone must have really given him help on his opening paragraph, because it is really good and draws you in" -- which, I might add, a good lead is supposed to do.

Rami Shapiro should stick to talking about prophets -- not panentheism

Sometimes I feel that I am still living off of the intellectual capital of my undergraduate education; that is, I'm still living off of the inspiration I once received by taking a "Prophets of Israel" course. This book reminds me of where my sense of justice and love of the rule of law all started.

But am I really living off the same capital of my undergraduate education? Or are new deposits of intellectual capital in formation? I think it's the latter.

Panentheism aside, this is a good book, specifically because it reminds us what it means to be a Hebrew, or biblical, prophet. If you started reading from the background chapter on the prophets, you would have no clue it's a panentheist book, at least in the early parts of the book.

Rami Shapiro's "The Hebrew Prophets" is very good when it sticks to talking about the Prophets. Where he talks about panentheism, the fall, it is confusing.

Here is a gem from page 2:

"The prophet is often reluctant to speak, knowing that the message will bring the messenger much pain. But in the end the prophet has no choice, and is compelled to speak by a blazing sense of God's presence and urgency. This is what it is to be a prophet: to risk a life of derision and torment because your love of God and humanity is so great that you cannot but do otherwise."

The 27 Books I read in 2014

The Challenge of a Changing World

"God's Word does not change.  God's world, however, changes in every generation. These changes, in addition to new findings by scholars and a new variety of challenges to the gospel message, call for the church in each generation to interpret and apply God's Word for God's people." The Editors of The New American Commentary: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs

Similar things are said in N.T. Wright's foreword to "The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited." 

Wright says that "[p]art of the genius of genuine Christianity is that each generation has to think it through afresh. Precisely because (so Christians believe) God wants every single Christian to grow up in understanding as well as trust, the Christian faith has never been something that one generation can sort out in such a way as to leave their successors with no work to do."

He continued: "Like a young man inheriting a vast fortune, such a legacy could just make you lazy. All you'd have to do would be to look up things in the book, or to remember how it was when your favourite pastor used to do it, and that would be it. No room for character. No room for full human maturity--never mind full Christian maturity."

Michael Jordan is a Reformed Calvinist

I typed that headline jokingly. I don't know what he believes in. But he is quoted as saying the following in "How To Be Like Mike" by Pat Williams:

""I don't believe in 'if,'" Jordan said. "I think there has always been a plan for my life and that I don't have any control over it. Everything that happens was determined in advance.

...I read the Bible a lot. I see that whatever happens, happens for a reason."

How I beat Amazon and bought nine books for $6.00 at the Library

Libraries can be a great resource for finding books at dirt cheap prices.

I went to the library this past Saturday with no intention on buying books. In fact, it didn't even cross my mind that I could buy books there. I haven't bought a book from a library since 2010 -- and that was in South Carolina, not a Maryland library (I did buy some used books from my university in Pennsylvania  that year and they did have to collect money via cashier. I discuss the drop box vs. cashier factor below.). All I wanted was a place to conduct quiet study, but then I noticed there was a book store within the library.

The books I picked up were written by some of the best authors of all time (of course, with time, all "all-time greatests" lists keep growing with the number of books that come out.)

My local library had a 3 paperbacks for $1.00 sale. And sold each paperback for $0.50. Each hardcover book was a dollar each.

Here is what I picked up:

$1.00 each

-Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes

-Selected Poetry and Prose by Percy Bysshe Shelley

-Collected Poems: 1909-1935 by T.S. Eliot

-Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

3 Paperbacks for $1.00

-Eight Tales of Terror by Edgar Allen Poe

-The Last Battle (Book #7 of the Chronicles of Narnia Series) by C.S. Lewis

-Foundation (from the Foundation Series) by Isaac Asimov

$0.50

-Perelandra (Book #2 in the Space Trilogy) by C.S. Lewis

-The Nature of Greek Myths by G.S. Kirk

The total amount spent was $6.00.

One of the benefits of spending an extra 10 minutes perusing through the used book shelves was that I found a book that I always wanted to read that was at a much higher price when it first came out or at was least closer to the original publication date. That book was Trillion Dollar War.

There are three ways this sale beat Amazon. 

First, there was no shipping and handling. Even though there is a copy of Trillion Dollar War for $0.01 in the used book section on Amazon.com right now, the $3.99 shipping and handling would have pushed up the total amount spent.

Second, I can preview the inside of a used book. If I didn't like it, if it had too many markings that would have distracted me from my personal study and note-taking process, then I could have put it down. You can not do this with Amazon purchases. Rather, you are left to put faith in the description of the product. For example, the penny book mentioned above, which would have no longer been a penny once shipping and handling kicked in, has the following description on Amazon: "Used may contain ex-library marking, notes or highlighting, may no longer have it a dust jacket." (I didn't correct the grammar.) In other words, you wouldn't know what condition it came in. I've never tried it, although I have thought about it, but perhaps you can ask an Amazon dealer what exactly is in the book. Again, I never tried that route. But that could potentially take forever.

But then comes the price factor: the library book would still be cheaper and you would have it immediately. Literally, at this library in Maryland and the library in South Carolina there were money drop boxes next to the used books shelves. You would virtually walk away from the book shelf with your book. And please, don't steal (Exodus 20:15). In both of my experiences there were no receipts, cash registers, or cashiers involved.

Third, there is no shipping and handling for all books combined. This is important because Amazon (or the dealer through Amazon) charges $3.99 per book, even if the books are coming from the same seller. I could be mistaken, but I have yet to see an exception to this. So nine books at $0.01 each would still be $35.91 in shipping alone through Amazon. When you add the nine pennies (the price of the books combined) that's $36.00.

In other words, I paid $6.00 in the library for what could have costed me $36.00 online.

Just a side note: I recently attempted to purchase a "New" or Used but "Like New" book on Amazon from a dealer and it never came after 20 days. I purchased it July 15. Amazon told me it would arrive on August 5. I waited and complained maybe a day or two later. I didn't even get a shipping notice there entire time. The dealer was new. I canceled and they never deposited my money anyway. Amazon was very fast investigating my claim.

Other benefits of buying from the library include being able to find books from famous authors that you never heard of before. Everyone has heard of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (I think), but I had never heard of Martin Chuzzlewit (perhaps I'm showing my -- lack of -- Dickens knowledge here). Granted, that seems to be the oldest book from above stack. It certainly smells old. But that's the price I paid. All of the other books were in great shape. All but one of the books had markings in them (and the mind chap had the courtesy to write in pencil). And all except one of them had that "old book" smell. But even after I opened it up a few times, the smell went away. 

I now have books from some of the greatest authors ever, for cheap.

The Books I Used To Write the Second-Longest Paper I Ever Wrote

When I was a senior in college, I wrote the second-longest essay of my life -- and it wasn't for a class. It was for a cash prize of $5,000.

In December 2009, I heard about the Atlas Sound Money Project Essay and, broke as the economy, I jumped for the cash prize. I did not win the first prize. A kid from Dartmouth did, if my memory serves me correctly. I also did not win the one of the two second prizes ($1,000), or one of the three third prizes ($500).

I had to choose between the following topics:

Essay Topics:

- “Money and the Free Society: Can Money Exist Outside of the State?”
- “The Ethical Implications of Monetary Manipulation”
- “Monetary Policy and the Rule of Law in the United States”

I choose the last one.

But cleaning up my desk this evening (how it surfaced to my desk 4 years later, I have no idea), I decided to discard the paper I had notes on and preserve the memory through this blog post.

Here are the books I used to write the 20-page essay, which was supposed to be "accessible to the educated laymen, but rigorous enough as to be used in college and university courses." That had my writing style written all over it.

Economics Reading List for Sound Money Essay 

-The Alpha Strategy

-How the Fed Works (50 pages)

-Essentials of Economics

-Gold Wars

-Honest Money (Esp. Biblical Monetary System)

-Housing Boom and Bust

These aren't the only sources I used. I also completed Robert P. Murphy's "Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism," some excerpts from some newsletters I was receiving at the time, and more. Besides the Murphy book, only other books I read in their entirety for this essay was "The Alpha Strategy" (which I have offered free of charge since November 2009), "Gold Wars," "Honest Money." I skimmed through the Sowell Book. I probably didn't cite the Faustino Ballve book nor the How the Fed Works book.

I also have some handwritten notes on this paper, such as "banks are good - fractional reserve isn't," "sell back gold to the public," "FDIC out of commission," "FED = Insurance Agency," "prevent recessions," "prices of goods will fall," "gov = tax in gold," " = pay in gold," and "no government mandate for gold-only. Gold is standard, but other metals are usuable (sic)." Corresponding page numbers were in parentheses next to these notes.

The Atlas Foundation's original blog post announcing the competition was published on December 2, 2009. The deadline to submit the essay was January 15, 2010.  You can read the blog description here.

I'll publish the essay on a later date. 

Book Recommendations (Part One)

A friend recommends these:

Stauffer's Christ and the Caesars (Economics)
Cochrane's Christianity and Classical Culture (Philosophy and Ethics)
Anything Rodney Stark (Early Church)

Free Download: Food Shock

Preparing for the worst is exactly what this 33-page book is about. The book is not shy to say so. On page four we read the following:

At some point in the very near future, home gardening may no longer be just a hobby; for millions of Americans, it could become a necessity.

Excerpts:

Darfur for the Simple, China for the Prepared

“Hunger today is not people starving in the streets, but it’s people choosing between food and rent. It’s parents going without food to feed their children. If safety net programs are further eviscerated, we are going to see Depression style hunger, Darfur style hunger, Calcutta style hunger happening here in New York.”

Estrangement from the land

“Never before in history have so many people been divorced from the production of their own food. Our estrangement from the land could prove to be our undoing … unless we take action now and reclaim that relationship.”

Plugging our ears when we hear "personal responsibility"

“Most people don’t want to hear about taking greater personal responsibility, or becoming more self-reliant. It’s no secret that many Americans, in general, have a sense of entitlement. A huge segment of the population expects that somehow, the government will come to the rescue.”

Hundreds, Thousands Earned on Food

A home garden can save at least $600 in food costs. Many gardeners save much more.

Housing Taking Away Farm Land

We lose, on average, one acre of U.S. farmland every minute. Most of this loss is due to the conversion of farms to industrial and residential uses. Between 2002 and 2007, 4,080,300 acres of farmland were converted for development. This is roughly the area of Massachusetts. This is just part of a long-term trend.

Prepare for the Worst; Download this Book

“In our just-in-time economy, we aren’t used to planning ahead. We think food will always be available, 24/7, whenever we need it. In most parts of the world, that’s simply not the case. Someday soon, that could be the case here in America as well.
Gardening isn’t hard, but it takes time … and timing.”

The book is available for download here and here.

If you don't want to go the Food Shock route (like me), or can't, then you can go the Alpha Strategy way. For those who just want to stock up, and learn how to do so effectively, download the Alpha Strategy here.

Ok, I want this Propaganda book, too!

I just have this deep interest in analyzing propaganda when I see it.

I want this book on Chinese Propaganda

I think its time to head to my local library to do some research on propaganda.

Video: Ben Witherington on Jesus and Money

Obama is not Martin Luther King

“Obama could admire King, but he could never be him. He was not a leader of a movement; he was a politician, a commander-in-chief.” David Remnick, quoted in Reviewing the Obama Presidency

Books I've read.

Since I eventually want to run for office once day (I do not know what office I would want to run for, I just know I want to run, locally) I thought it would be helpful for potential voters to know what I have actually read and what has influenced me.

This list is by no means comprehensive but does cover the most influential works.

So I guess I should say that if I read the entire Communist Manifesto I wouldn't put that up on here, because that would suggest, according to the intents of this blog post, that it influenced me in some way.

(By the way, even if I did post that I read the Communist Manifesto it would influence me so far as to not implement Communist ideas into our laws. They would compel me to get whatever resembles Communist thought or legislation in our current system abolished)

Here is the list:

Economics
1. The Alpha Strategy
2. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism
3. Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse
4. An Introduction to Economic Reasoning
5. Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, The Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts will make things worse
6. End the Fed
7. Inherit the Earth
8. Honest Money
9. Mises on Money
10. Economics in One Lesson

Religion
1. Is Jesus Coming Soon?
2. Cambridge Companion to St. Paul
3. Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling
4. Logical Defense of the Faith (Booklet)
5. Paul the Jewish Theologian
6. Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel: A Message for Christians
7. 101 Questions & Answers on The Prophets of Israel
8. Introduction to the Prophets
9. The Case for Christ

Chapters from Books
1. The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin, The Jewish-Christian Traditions
2. Pagan Christianity
3. Applied Economics, The Economics of Medical Care
4. Liberal Fascism, Liberal Racism: The Eugenic Ghost in the Fascist Machine
5.Puritan Economic Experiments
6. The Housing Boom and Bust
7. Jesus The Pharisee
8. Lessons for the Young Economist

Influential Articles
1. Imagine an Occupied America - Ron Paul
2. The Austrians Were Right - Ron Paul
3. What Do Our Tax Dollars Pay For?
4. Iran's Fist is Clenched for a Reason
5. The Mindset That Got Us Into War Is Alive and Well
6. The Antiwar Republican
7. 100 Years of Medical Fascism
8. A Strategy for the Right

This post was updated on 12/12/11.

The Alpha Strategy (Free Book)

January 12, 2012 Update: The old link no longer works. The old link is still below but the new leak is right below the old link. Thanks to the person that commented.

This book is probably the most informative book on inflation (and how to prepare for it) than any other book available. It is written with the layman in mind. It is only 99 pages long and available in PDF form.

The book was written by John A. Pugsley in 1980. In 1981, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for about nine weeks. It contains some of the same material covered by Peter Schiff in his 2007 and 2009 "Crash Proof" series.

Peter Schiff is a great financial commentator, and I'd trust him as an economic adviser, but Pugsley's book is a steal. Why get a book for $15+ when you can get the same information for free.

Well, maybe it isn't completely the same.

The Alpha Strategy talks more about the history of inflation, its causes, and how to prepare for it.

Crash Proof seems to be tailored toward those who are already investors and includes more recent information on the housing bubble, the stock market crash, and the underlying causes of the recent financial meltdown.

If you could care less about the history of inflation, the fractional-reserve banking system, and myths and facts about the causes of inflation, and you want to go directly to the investment strategies, skip to page 59, where Pugsley talks about the solution.

But if you want to know about the causes of the problem, which is equally important as the solution, then read The Alpha Strategy from the beginning.

Then share the book with a friend.

It is available for download here:

New Link: The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan for Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor

Old Link:The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan for Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor