- [Justin Buzzard] Yeah.
Okay, thinking Christianly about the economy here, I mean, I think the first
thing I would just want to start saying with that is the Bible has so much to say
about economics, big picture, small picture, and so we don't have this
narrow Christian view of the economy, we have this holistic view
of, for an economy to be healthy.
We have so many factors that need to be at play.
You need supply and demand to be operating in a wonderful way. Like, we have a real
problem with that right now in Silicon Valley because the demand for jobs
is massive, the demand for housing is massive. But the housing supply is so
small, and it's so, so expensive, and so it's constantly forcing people
out of Silicon Valley who can no longer afford to live there.
Median price for a home now in Silicon Valley is $1.3 million, and so
it's just outrageous.
It's the most expensive place in America right now to live.
So on the one hand, you could say the economy is healthy in Silicon Valley
because there are so many jobs, but you could also say it's not healthy because
the supply of housing is so poor. And so it creates a less diverse economy
socioeconomically because people are forced to move out. And there are a lot
of fears right now of, will Silicon Valley become just this economy of the elite,
of tech people, of high level...of white-collar work, of executives
and blue-collar work?
Is that going to leave?
No, it can't leave because it's there to serve, you know, these other...
The industry has to be served by people doing that work, but they're not living
there, and they're living far away and commuting in so...
- [Eden Chen] Yeah, I know.
I think there's, like, not a huge divide that I typically think of between a
Christian economics and regular economics.
I think, like, people that are outside of Christianity desire productivity,
creativity, and I'd say, like, justice.
- [Justin Buzzard] The flourishing of their city, of their community.
- [Eden Chen] Yeah. Yeah.
So I don't think, like, those that are in San Francisco, that are in government are
stoked about you know, folks that can't afford housing.
They would love to see what I would consider, like, justice which would be,
like, equal opportunities for people in different races and different
socioeconomic backgrounds, the ability to afford housing,
and we would love those things as well.
I think, like, the difference maybe for some Christians is that from a
Christian perspective, even in a down market,
God's always working in some way. Like, during 9/11 and all that, New York saw,
like, this huge, like, revival and, you know, they said that, like, tithes didn't
really go down during that time, church attendance was up things like that.
Now whether that addresses economics and whether that's a healthy
economic environment, those are kind of separate questions where they're, like,
there's a spiritual [crosstalk].
- [Justin Buzzard] I think what does make it a healthy economic environment is it's
a resetting of the economic environment.
Like, if capitalism is doing its job realizing oh, this way we were operating
the subprime mortgages, those went bad, those were not good,
we're not going to do that anymore.
And so there's going to be a reset in how we think about mortgages,
and how we extend loans.
So I think that's a great point to keep in mind that God's always at work even when
the stock market's tanking when the economy's down when the
recession is happening.
That's laying the groundwork for a healthier economy moving forward if we're
being humble and if we're learning from it.
- [Eden Chen] Yeah, and actually, I mean,
I would say even from a non-Christian perspective, if you look at it, like, so
many great businesses were born out of, like, these recessions.
So I don't know that, like, I'd say it, like... Ray Dalio just has a book on debt
crises that just came out, and he talks a lot about, like, how, you know, basically
there's no perfect balance in terms of how debt can be kind of loaned out.
So there's always either an oversupply of debt or undersupply of debt, and so that's
why we have these bubbles that form, and those are just natural human tendencies.
So I think in a lot of ways from a secular standpoint those are healthy
rhythms as well.
So from a economic standpoint, I don't know that
I see, like, a huge divide, but I think there are probably certain instances in
history where those that were in the governing bodies maybe didn't desire some
of the things that we desire like justice, and productivity, and creativity
and seeing those and diversity and seeing those things happen.
- [Justin Buzzard] Yeah.
We have some time let's talk about this capitalism.
Are you a fan? [crosstalk]
- [Eden Chen] I would say... Yeah.
That's a really good question I think, like, it's probably, to me, a system that
works. It is most aligned with the reality of us as humans, I think humans
naturally try to maximize value, and capitalism is about really allowing that
extraction of value to happen.
So I think, like, when you don't allow for the natural order of things to happen,
for example, like, in a communist economy, the incentives are not the right
incentives because our natural incentive is to want to maximize things.
The communist sort of philosophy doesn't allow us to do that, and so people are not
incentivized to do the things that they would want to do, and therefore, like, are
demotivated to do anything.
So I think, like, it's the best system.
The reason why it works to some extent, in my opinion, is because we're sinful.
We're selfish and capitalism recognizes that.
So I think without proper sort of regulation in place, there's a lot
of danger behind it too as well because, like, on the one hand,
it's healthy because it recognizes that we're sinful but without the proper
boundaries in place then that sinfulness gets extracted to its highest level which
is, you know, why we see huge amounts of inequality with capitalism.
So what do you think about...
I don't know if you have time but...
- [Justin Buzzard] I agree with everything you said, completely agree.
Yeah.