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Where is the Judge: Part I
By Dr. Patti Amsden
My grandson walked through the front door in his soiled baseball uniform with his hat in his hand and his lip dragging on the ground. “How did it go?” I asked even though his body language had already supplied the answer. “They cheated!” was his reply.
Both teams had arrived at the field assuming that the normal rules of little league would guarantee a fair and fun contest. However, the umpires were late. The opposing team, by virtue of the fact that they were one year more advanced in the league or perhaps that their coaches were more aggressive by disposition, decided that the play should begin on time with or without the officials. One inning and five runs for the other team later, the umps arrived, allowed the earned runs to count, and refused to hear any objection of “foul!” Neither goal of fairness or fun was achieved that night.
A sporting contest is actually one of many forms of relationship. Simply defined, a relationship is an association whereby two parties relate; and all relationships are predominantly a form of contractual connection. Some facilitate a task, i.e. a business affiliation, and serve mainly a practical function. Other bonds foster and sustain emotional or sychological needs. Whether pragmatic or quixotic, all relationships require the same key elements. There must be clear description of each party’s role, a definitive set of rules, and unambiguous clarification of the outcome that each
party can expect. Finally, a means of conflict resolution or a court of appeals must be identified in case either party defaults upon the terms.
In the case of my grandson’s ball game, the contract was altered jeopardizing the relationship. The first “curve ball” came in the form of changed rules. Ten-year-old boys play with more advanced regulations and equipment than that which is standard for the nine-year-olds. The younger boys were out-skilled and under-trained for the changes. ontractually or relationally speaking, the game they had agreed to play was on a whole new “playing field.”
The second “change up pitch” was that the coaches became the umpires. The nature of any contract is that the participants expect to receive a benefit. Relationships are mutually binding and mutually rewarding. Benefits flow because each party gives what has been agreed. Neither party may coerce or extort. When disagreements arise, the rules function to define “fair” or “foul”; but if either party defies the rules or disputes the application of the rules, an unbiased third party is called to make a judgment based upon the pre-set rules. For either side to act as the judge is to
introduce the possibility of partiality, prejudice, and ultimately extortion of the benefit. Judges cannot be either party in the relationship. Judges must know the rules. Judges must enforce the rules or the relationship is at risk.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. The rules of an agreement serve to judge the actions of each party; but if either party challenges the rules, a third party judge is mandated to insure the integrity of the relationship.
Where is the Judge: Part II
By Dr. Patti Amsden
Relationships are the glue that holds our world together. Marriage affixes our passions to our spouse; parenting secures sacrificial love for our children; and a business relationship attaches loyalty to a partner. So well accepted is this principle, that a commonly applied synonym for relationship is the word bond.
Another interesting place where our American vernacular applies the word bond is to a promise. We all know that our word is our bond. Therefore, what we promise to others with whom we desire to relate must be fulfilled or else the adhesive of the bond begins to dissolve causing the relationship to disintegrate. When relationships disintegrate, our social order crumbles.
Promises must be kept. From vows of fidelity in marriage to fulfillment of contractual obligations in business, the agreed terms connect the parties for mutual obligation and mutual blessing. Unless pledges are executed, the adhesive
of personal relationships, corporate contracts, and national accord stand in jeopardy. When either party breaks his word, a judge can be summoned to enforce the rules and re-glue the contract.
A judge is a third party who can enforce the terms without partiality for the purpose of holding the bond together. Moms judge between the kid’s differing interpretations of the rules of sibling play. Referees use set rules to judge between teams engaged in a sporting contest. Churches hold a form of ecclesiastical court with judging elders knowledgeable of Scriptures, while the civil realm elects and appoints those with knowledge of Law to sit on the court’s bench and execute justice.
Justice flows when an unbiased judge applies the pre-determined rules to the situation and ascertains which party has failed to live under the terms of the agreement. Judges adhere to set pledges. Judges apply the pre-approved ethics. Judges may not inject new rules, new laws, or new regulations. There must be no ex post facto statutes or sanctions. No reasonable person would engage in a contract with undisclosed or fluctuating rules. To promote cooperative efforts between the members of society, rules and sanctions must be announced in advance. If private citizens lose faith that the courts will uphold contractual agreements, they will be less inclined toward cooperative efforts and more inclined to vigilante-style justice.
Our founding fathers set up a system of government in which the Legislative Branch writes the rules and the
Judicial Branch enforces the laws. Judges are not constitutionally-empowered to change the laws. However, beginning with the 1934 case entitled Home Building and Loans Association v. Blaisdell, the Supreme Court gave Minnesota the authority to force the bank to delay foreclosure. The mandated loan forgiveness altered the rules between the parties and started a precedent that empowered the bench with legislative prowess. From the Great Depression’s mortgage crisis until today, the trend has escalated. Public trust is being dissolved. Judicial tyranny weakens the bond of the nation’s relational glue. There is a moral imperative upon the courts that promises be honored.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. Courts must safeguard rather than re-write those agreements.
Where is the Judge: Part III
By Dr. Patti Amsden
Relationships exist on multiple levels and offer many benefits. The relationship between the government and its citizens should be conducted by similar contractual rules that preside over other relationships. Both parties’ boundaries and authority must be honored and respected; rules of interaction must be established and obeyed; mutual obligations and rewards must be defined and observed.
The temptation of the civil governing power to overstep its role with either individuals or private businesses is nearly irresistible because the state has the power to force compliance. Therefore, the framers of our Constitution separated the powers of the legislative and executive from those of the judicial. By doing so, the forefathers intended that the courts would hold civil government accountable to laws and rules of contractual obligations in the same manner as the private
sector. The state and the individual are both to be restrained by law. Such a system of government provides protection for the citizenry from civil abuse and fosters personal and financial freedom.
In the last few decades of America’s history, the courts have broadened their role beyond the original boundaries found in the Constitution. The judicial system has been charged with judicial tyranny, a term that has been applied to
courts that rewrite the law through verdicts rather than enforcing the terms of the preexisting law. Legislating from the bench appeared in 1990 when Missourians defeated a tax increase, but the 8th Circuit Court overruled. In 1995, Californians voted to stop state-funded taxpayer services to illegal aliens but federal judges overruled. Missouri passed the law ‘A Woman’s Right to Know’ in 2000. Although then Governor Bob Holden vetoed it, legislators followed the due process of law and overrode the veto. U.S. District Judge Scott Write overthrew the legislature’s veto. Many such
examples of legislating from the bench are recorded.
When citizens doubt that the courts will protect the private sector by upholding the pre-established laws of contracts, they engage in less constitutional ways to secure success. Frequently, businesses position themselves for big government favors to improve their advantage. Manipulation and coercion prevail as the dominant form of interaction. Bribes are encouraged when justice is abated. Bribery extends beyond the concept of direct payoff but can come in the form of political support or exchanged favors. Bribery is an attempt to secure contractual advantage. Bribery corrupts a social order and is wide spread in a society where the courts have failed to honor just contracts between the civil and private realms.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. If Courts do not safeguard rather than rewrite those agreements, society runs the risk of losing faith in the system and adopting less ethical means to secure contractual advantages.
Limited Resources Demand Creativity
By Dr. Patti Amsden
The economic reality of limited resources, known often as scarcity, promotes creativity. On the surface, that statement might seem problematic. We might conclude that limited resources would mean limited productivity. For example, if we only owned one tree, we could conceivably cut down the tree and use it for firewood to cook our last harvest from that tree. In such a scenario, limited resources would have caused our demise.
However, if creativity were applied to the above illustration, we could gather the seed from our tree to plant a forest and still cut down the original tree to build a barn to house the increase of the forest. Creativity finds ways to maximize
limited resources. Creativity discovers future potential within a resource. Creativity finds a new market for an old resource with the hope of releasing economic prosperity instead of existing with the old or languishing monetary reward.
All economists acknowledge the principle of scarcity. They also acknowledge that creativity overturns the law of
scarcity by the invention of something new with which to fill the market and meet a demand. Each new product decreases lack and advances productivity. Products, goods, and services drive the markets and prosperity.
Because resources are limited, creativity does not come at zero price. Ingenuity carries a price tag. That price tag
might come in the cost of an education, in the overhead of failed attempts, in the expenditures incurred by production, or at the expense of forfeited wages from other employment opportunities. There are no free lunches and no free capital in the economic land of scarcity.
Creativity requires risk. Security seekers will choose to live in the land of limited resources rather than take a chance. New developments demand that risks be taken. Creators forfeit present comfort for future proliferation. Therefore, creators must be allowed to reap the market reward of their labors. Without the hope of future increase and economic compensation, an individual and a society would not have the incentive to break from scarcity.
Theft robs the creative individual from the rewards of his chance taking and creative labors. Theft seeks to redistribute the wealth earned by the entrepreneur to the one who elected to co-exist with scarcity at zero price to his own security. Person to person theft threatens the businessman’s gain, but laws and insurances provide a pathway to recover what
was stolen.
However, communal theft or laws drafted by the collective populace to steal the reward of the capitalist and industrialist not only steal prosperity but are outside of the protective barrier of law suits and insurance coverage. Excessive and disproportionate taxation, legislated redistribution of wealth through entitlement programs, and government intervention in the market that askew the indicators of profit and loss reduce the earned reward of the risk taker. Not only is reward stolen, but also motivation is stifled. To steal the innovator’s incentive through legislative theft is to shut down productivity. Reduce the creation of new capital and the nation will be reduced to scarcity. In such a scenario, the economists of scarcity are self-fulfilling prophets.
Principle: Prosperity is built on five pillars or foundations: faith, relationships, limits, stewardship skills, and sound organizational structures.
Limited Resources Demand Thrift
By Dr. Patti Amsden
I have raised five children. We had an active household when the children were small and an even more vigorous one when they became teenagers. One pearl of wisdom that I discovered early in my life of parenting was the truth of limited resources. I regularly ran out of day before I finished all the chores. I frequently ran out of entrees at dinner before the kids satisfied their appetites. I normally came to the end of my budget before I finished purchasing all the back to school clothes and supplies. At times, I even ran out of patience before resolving the conflict over who touched who first!
The acknowledgment of limited capital positions us for making wise decisions. Scarcity means that assets have to be intelligently allocated and time has to be efficiently managed. Any parent who lives in the moment without considering demands that will be placed upon future allocation of time, money, or strength will bankrupt his or her own household’s financial and relational storehouse.
All schools of economics acknowledge the concept of limited supply or scarcity. If any commodity is in high demand but low supply – meaning more scarce – that commodity will have a high price tag. Conversely, any product with greater supply than demand will have a low price. At the most basic level, the market place centers upon the concept of limited supply.
Money, or the currency of a society, has limited supply and must be treated as a scarce item. Whether stewarding
money at the family level or the federal level, thrift is a quality that insures the supply is not wasted. The primary tutorial for comprehending the scarcity of money is the paycheck. Investing the highly demanded yet sparsely available commodity of time to generate an income teaches every worker that money is limited. Knowledge of limited funds necessitates efficiently managed funds.
Gaining knowledge of thrift is circumvented when money is rewarded without any price tag attached. No price tag
communicates more supply than demand. When any commodity is viewed as unlimited, there is no need for thrift. Both the parent who passes out allowances without requiring chores and the government that doles out entitlements without compelling labors are failing to communicate truth. They fail to communicate that money is scarce. Instead of training in
thrift, they encourage profligacy, present verses future orientation, and lack of productivity. When all economic resources are expended rather than proportionally allocated, the malady of scarcity is propagated. Thrift fails with handouts.
Acknowledging that resources are scarce demands thrift, which is one principle that minimizes the effects of scarcity upon a family and a society. Efficiently managing funds has the positive effect of overcoming scarcity by supplying today’s needs and tomorrow’s storehouse. A child and a citizenry shielded from the knowledge of limited resources and protected from the work ethic that creates the attribute of thrift, will live in poverty and proliferate poverty for the future.
Principle: Prosperity is built on five pillars or foundations: faith, relationships, limits, stewardship skills,
and sound organizational structures.
By Dr. Patti Amsden
My grandson walked through the front door in his soiled baseball uniform with his hat in his hand and his lip dragging on the ground. “How did it go?” I asked even though his body language had already supplied the answer. “They cheated!” was his reply.
Both teams had arrived at the field assuming that the normal rules of little league would guarantee a fair and fun contest. However, the umpires were late. The opposing team, by virtue of the fact that they were one year more advanced in the league or perhaps that their coaches were more aggressive by disposition, decided that the play should begin on time with or without the officials. One inning and five runs for the other team later, the umps arrived, allowed the earned runs to count, and refused to hear any objection of “foul!” Neither goal of fairness or fun was achieved that night.
A sporting contest is actually one of many forms of relationship. Simply defined, a relationship is an association whereby two parties relate; and all relationships are predominantly a form of contractual connection. Some facilitate a task, i.e. a business affiliation, and serve mainly a practical function. Other bonds foster and sustain emotional or sychological needs. Whether pragmatic or quixotic, all relationships require the same key elements. There must be clear description of each party’s role, a definitive set of rules, and unambiguous clarification of the outcome that each
party can expect. Finally, a means of conflict resolution or a court of appeals must be identified in case either party defaults upon the terms.
In the case of my grandson’s ball game, the contract was altered jeopardizing the relationship. The first “curve ball” came in the form of changed rules. Ten-year-old boys play with more advanced regulations and equipment than that which is standard for the nine-year-olds. The younger boys were out-skilled and under-trained for the changes. ontractually or relationally speaking, the game they had agreed to play was on a whole new “playing field.”
The second “change up pitch” was that the coaches became the umpires. The nature of any contract is that the participants expect to receive a benefit. Relationships are mutually binding and mutually rewarding. Benefits flow because each party gives what has been agreed. Neither party may coerce or extort. When disagreements arise, the rules function to define “fair” or “foul”; but if either party defies the rules or disputes the application of the rules, an unbiased third party is called to make a judgment based upon the pre-set rules. For either side to act as the judge is to
introduce the possibility of partiality, prejudice, and ultimately extortion of the benefit. Judges cannot be either party in the relationship. Judges must know the rules. Judges must enforce the rules or the relationship is at risk.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. The rules of an agreement serve to judge the actions of each party; but if either party challenges the rules, a third party judge is mandated to insure the integrity of the relationship.
Where is the Judge: Part II
By Dr. Patti Amsden
Relationships are the glue that holds our world together. Marriage affixes our passions to our spouse; parenting secures sacrificial love for our children; and a business relationship attaches loyalty to a partner. So well accepted is this principle, that a commonly applied synonym for relationship is the word bond.
Another interesting place where our American vernacular applies the word bond is to a promise. We all know that our word is our bond. Therefore, what we promise to others with whom we desire to relate must be fulfilled or else the adhesive of the bond begins to dissolve causing the relationship to disintegrate. When relationships disintegrate, our social order crumbles.
Promises must be kept. From vows of fidelity in marriage to fulfillment of contractual obligations in business, the agreed terms connect the parties for mutual obligation and mutual blessing. Unless pledges are executed, the adhesive
of personal relationships, corporate contracts, and national accord stand in jeopardy. When either party breaks his word, a judge can be summoned to enforce the rules and re-glue the contract.
A judge is a third party who can enforce the terms without partiality for the purpose of holding the bond together. Moms judge between the kid’s differing interpretations of the rules of sibling play. Referees use set rules to judge between teams engaged in a sporting contest. Churches hold a form of ecclesiastical court with judging elders knowledgeable of Scriptures, while the civil realm elects and appoints those with knowledge of Law to sit on the court’s bench and execute justice.
Justice flows when an unbiased judge applies the pre-determined rules to the situation and ascertains which party has failed to live under the terms of the agreement. Judges adhere to set pledges. Judges apply the pre-approved ethics. Judges may not inject new rules, new laws, or new regulations. There must be no ex post facto statutes or sanctions. No reasonable person would engage in a contract with undisclosed or fluctuating rules. To promote cooperative efforts between the members of society, rules and sanctions must be announced in advance. If private citizens lose faith that the courts will uphold contractual agreements, they will be less inclined toward cooperative efforts and more inclined to vigilante-style justice.
Our founding fathers set up a system of government in which the Legislative Branch writes the rules and the
Judicial Branch enforces the laws. Judges are not constitutionally-empowered to change the laws. However, beginning with the 1934 case entitled Home Building and Loans Association v. Blaisdell, the Supreme Court gave Minnesota the authority to force the bank to delay foreclosure. The mandated loan forgiveness altered the rules between the parties and started a precedent that empowered the bench with legislative prowess. From the Great Depression’s mortgage crisis until today, the trend has escalated. Public trust is being dissolved. Judicial tyranny weakens the bond of the nation’s relational glue. There is a moral imperative upon the courts that promises be honored.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. Courts must safeguard rather than re-write those agreements.
Where is the Judge: Part III
By Dr. Patti Amsden
Relationships exist on multiple levels and offer many benefits. The relationship between the government and its citizens should be conducted by similar contractual rules that preside over other relationships. Both parties’ boundaries and authority must be honored and respected; rules of interaction must be established and obeyed; mutual obligations and rewards must be defined and observed.
The temptation of the civil governing power to overstep its role with either individuals or private businesses is nearly irresistible because the state has the power to force compliance. Therefore, the framers of our Constitution separated the powers of the legislative and executive from those of the judicial. By doing so, the forefathers intended that the courts would hold civil government accountable to laws and rules of contractual obligations in the same manner as the private
sector. The state and the individual are both to be restrained by law. Such a system of government provides protection for the citizenry from civil abuse and fosters personal and financial freedom.
In the last few decades of America’s history, the courts have broadened their role beyond the original boundaries found in the Constitution. The judicial system has been charged with judicial tyranny, a term that has been applied to
courts that rewrite the law through verdicts rather than enforcing the terms of the preexisting law. Legislating from the bench appeared in 1990 when Missourians defeated a tax increase, but the 8th Circuit Court overruled. In 1995, Californians voted to stop state-funded taxpayer services to illegal aliens but federal judges overruled. Missouri passed the law ‘A Woman’s Right to Know’ in 2000. Although then Governor Bob Holden vetoed it, legislators followed the due process of law and overrode the veto. U.S. District Judge Scott Write overthrew the legislature’s veto. Many such
examples of legislating from the bench are recorded.
When citizens doubt that the courts will protect the private sector by upholding the pre-established laws of contracts, they engage in less constitutional ways to secure success. Frequently, businesses position themselves for big government favors to improve their advantage. Manipulation and coercion prevail as the dominant form of interaction. Bribes are encouraged when justice is abated. Bribery extends beyond the concept of direct payoff but can come in the form of political support or exchanged favors. Bribery is an attempt to secure contractual advantage. Bribery corrupts a social order and is wide spread in a society where the courts have failed to honor just contracts between the civil and private realms.
Principle: Relationships are built, maintained, and deepened by making and keeping clear agreements. If Courts do not safeguard rather than rewrite those agreements, society runs the risk of losing faith in the system and adopting less ethical means to secure contractual advantages.
Limited Resources Demand Creativity
By Dr. Patti Amsden
The economic reality of limited resources, known often as scarcity, promotes creativity. On the surface, that statement might seem problematic. We might conclude that limited resources would mean limited productivity. For example, if we only owned one tree, we could conceivably cut down the tree and use it for firewood to cook our last harvest from that tree. In such a scenario, limited resources would have caused our demise.
However, if creativity were applied to the above illustration, we could gather the seed from our tree to plant a forest and still cut down the original tree to build a barn to house the increase of the forest. Creativity finds ways to maximize
limited resources. Creativity discovers future potential within a resource. Creativity finds a new market for an old resource with the hope of releasing economic prosperity instead of existing with the old or languishing monetary reward.
All economists acknowledge the principle of scarcity. They also acknowledge that creativity overturns the law of
scarcity by the invention of something new with which to fill the market and meet a demand. Each new product decreases lack and advances productivity. Products, goods, and services drive the markets and prosperity.
Because resources are limited, creativity does not come at zero price. Ingenuity carries a price tag. That price tag
might come in the cost of an education, in the overhead of failed attempts, in the expenditures incurred by production, or at the expense of forfeited wages from other employment opportunities. There are no free lunches and no free capital in the economic land of scarcity.
Creativity requires risk. Security seekers will choose to live in the land of limited resources rather than take a chance. New developments demand that risks be taken. Creators forfeit present comfort for future proliferation. Therefore, creators must be allowed to reap the market reward of their labors. Without the hope of future increase and economic compensation, an individual and a society would not have the incentive to break from scarcity.
Theft robs the creative individual from the rewards of his chance taking and creative labors. Theft seeks to redistribute the wealth earned by the entrepreneur to the one who elected to co-exist with scarcity at zero price to his own security. Person to person theft threatens the businessman’s gain, but laws and insurances provide a pathway to recover what
was stolen.
However, communal theft or laws drafted by the collective populace to steal the reward of the capitalist and industrialist not only steal prosperity but are outside of the protective barrier of law suits and insurance coverage. Excessive and disproportionate taxation, legislated redistribution of wealth through entitlement programs, and government intervention in the market that askew the indicators of profit and loss reduce the earned reward of the risk taker. Not only is reward stolen, but also motivation is stifled. To steal the innovator’s incentive through legislative theft is to shut down productivity. Reduce the creation of new capital and the nation will be reduced to scarcity. In such a scenario, the economists of scarcity are self-fulfilling prophets.
Principle: Prosperity is built on five pillars or foundations: faith, relationships, limits, stewardship skills, and sound organizational structures.
Limited Resources Demand Thrift
By Dr. Patti Amsden
I have raised five children. We had an active household when the children were small and an even more vigorous one when they became teenagers. One pearl of wisdom that I discovered early in my life of parenting was the truth of limited resources. I regularly ran out of day before I finished all the chores. I frequently ran out of entrees at dinner before the kids satisfied their appetites. I normally came to the end of my budget before I finished purchasing all the back to school clothes and supplies. At times, I even ran out of patience before resolving the conflict over who touched who first!
The acknowledgment of limited capital positions us for making wise decisions. Scarcity means that assets have to be intelligently allocated and time has to be efficiently managed. Any parent who lives in the moment without considering demands that will be placed upon future allocation of time, money, or strength will bankrupt his or her own household’s financial and relational storehouse.
All schools of economics acknowledge the concept of limited supply or scarcity. If any commodity is in high demand but low supply – meaning more scarce – that commodity will have a high price tag. Conversely, any product with greater supply than demand will have a low price. At the most basic level, the market place centers upon the concept of limited supply.
Money, or the currency of a society, has limited supply and must be treated as a scarce item. Whether stewarding
money at the family level or the federal level, thrift is a quality that insures the supply is not wasted. The primary tutorial for comprehending the scarcity of money is the paycheck. Investing the highly demanded yet sparsely available commodity of time to generate an income teaches every worker that money is limited. Knowledge of limited funds necessitates efficiently managed funds.
Gaining knowledge of thrift is circumvented when money is rewarded without any price tag attached. No price tag
communicates more supply than demand. When any commodity is viewed as unlimited, there is no need for thrift. Both the parent who passes out allowances without requiring chores and the government that doles out entitlements without compelling labors are failing to communicate truth. They fail to communicate that money is scarce. Instead of training in
thrift, they encourage profligacy, present verses future orientation, and lack of productivity. When all economic resources are expended rather than proportionally allocated, the malady of scarcity is propagated. Thrift fails with handouts.
Acknowledging that resources are scarce demands thrift, which is one principle that minimizes the effects of scarcity upon a family and a society. Efficiently managing funds has the positive effect of overcoming scarcity by supplying today’s needs and tomorrow’s storehouse. A child and a citizenry shielded from the knowledge of limited resources and protected from the work ethic that creates the attribute of thrift, will live in poverty and proliferate poverty for the future.
Principle: Prosperity is built on five pillars or foundations: faith, relationships, limits, stewardship skills,
and sound organizational structures.
