THYME Magazine: A Case for Vision IV

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VII, Issue VII

A Case for Vision IV

A recent buzz on social media was one to the effect that Hobby Lobby was planning to close stores in response to the Obamacare insurance contraceptive/abortificant mandate. The rumor was not new. The company is actively fighting this regulatory infringement upon its right of conscience. Founder and CEO David Green was quick to respond to the news piece in which he is reported to have announced the downsizing [1.]. Actually Mr. Green said that the company had plans to build 30 or more new stores this year. Doing the news involves checking facts and we found Mr. Green's actual statement in a report issued in conjunction with receiving an award from a major university this past April [2]. The reasons for the award actually spoke volumes about the life and vision of David Green. From the news articles it would appear that Mr. Green was quietly doing what CEOs all do, just running his company to make a profit, when all of a sudden he became the object of Federal regulation. The fact of the matter is that David Green's work itself springs from, and is dedicated to, a higher vision.

Dr. Henry Smith, President of Indiana Wesleyan University said in conferring the honor: "I am excited to announce that Dr. David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby Creative Centers, has accepted our invitation to the Society of World Changers as our 2013 inductee. David Green is a business leader, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, an author, a patron of scholarship and culture but above everything else, he is a servant of Christ like any one of us, a saved sinner dependent upon the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He attributes any success he has had to his trust in G-d, and acknowledges that G-d has used that success as a platform to minister to the world. IWU recognized David Green and his achievements previously through the conferral of an honorary doctorate in 1999."[3.]

FORBES notes: "There are very few members of The Forbes 400 who bring religion to work. Most notable are Chick-fil-A's Truett Cathy and Forever 21's Jin Sook and Do Won Chang, born-again Christians who keep Bibles in their office and print John 3:16 on the bottom of each shopping bag. More typical is Warren Buffett, who admits to being agnostic. Green joined Buffett’s Giving Pledge in 2010: His public letter doing so quotes 2 Corinthians ('Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver'). And that's about all that Buffett and Green have in common philanthropically." Green has a vision to change the world and it plays itself out in the way he conducts his business. He does not see any part of his life as outside of G-d's oversight: "You can't have a belief system on Sunday and not live it the other six days."[4.]

Green is the son of a preacher who's small congregations in Oklahoma barely supported their family. He wore hand-me-down clothes and ate many a meatless meal with his siblings. His five siblings all became pastors (or pastors' wives). Green took "the road less travelled," struggling through school and eventually becoming a stock boy in a general store. FORBES says of him: "Green spent most of his time sweeping floors and unloading boxes for 60 cents an hour, but he fell in love with the romantic idea of buying something for 10 cents and selling it for 20." He served in the Air Force Reserve, and was working as a manager at TG andY stores when he borrowed $600.00 to buy some picture frame making equipment. He and his wife Barbara and another manager literally started the business working on his kitchen table. Their first product was miniature picture frames which they began selling in 1970. In 1972 they opened their first 300 square foot retail location.

Green credits the bead buying craze of the hippies for growing his business to the point that he was able to quit his day job and open a larger store in 1975. Barbara was not thrilled. Those days he was doing about $100,000 in sales and TG andY was doing two billion. Today Hobby Lobby makes well over three billion dollars annually. He speaks candidly of the businesses' struggles and near failure. In 1985 the business was overleveraged and struggling under the weight of bad inventory decisions. Green says of that time: "It was a pride problem, and I had to get rid of it. It's sort of like God says to me, because I was arrogant, 'I'm going to let you have it by yourself.'" Green prayed, worked hard, cut costs and negotiated with his creditors. In the end his perserverance paid off and the company not only survived, but thrived.

Hobby Lobby stores close on Sundays to allow staff time to worship and enjoy time with family. He starts employees well above minimum wage and sees the company's profitability as a gift from G-d. He has given much to further the work of the Gospel and Christian education. Green says: "I want to know that I have affected people for eternity. I believe I am. I believe once someone knows Christ as their personal savior, I've affected eternity. I matter 10 billion years from now." Dr. Henry Smith says of him: "We thank God for David Green's example precisely for that reason: because he sees his wealth as God's possession rather than allowing himself to be possessed by it; because he judges himself by the standards of Heaven and not of earth; and because he recognizes that his own efforts are in vain unless he trusts and depends upon the Holy Spirit." [5.]

A Vision For Work and the World

"Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." -- Psalm 90:16-17

I am reading The Poverty of Nations, A Sustainable Solution [click to read] by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus. It examines the reasons successful nations are successful and how successful nations can forget the roots of their success and fall into decline. Like Alvin Schmidt's Under the Influence [click to read], the book does not hide the influence of Biblical principles in advancing the state of humanity. As many in the academy and the media today criticize free markets, Grudem and Asmus point out that the flaws are not necessarily a flaw in free markets, but in human morality. If a people have no moral barrier to it, markets will indeed deliver drugs, slaves and a host of evils, but that is not necessarily a fault of a free market. Indeed the attempts of government to control such evils will inevitably cost far more than imagined and have far less effect on curtailing the evils than proponents of such action desire. Thus the authors show how the Rule of Law, Respect for Property and Good Leadership are all essential for national prosperity... these things being rooted in values presented in the Bible.

Markets, influenced by morality, are actually quite fertile for creativity. When the slave trade was ended in England by William Wilberforce, the initial result was the economic decline of the port of Bristol. Creativity responded to the need as Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the Great Western Railway and steamships to link Bristol to America. The heart of George Müller ministered to Bristol's cast off children, but it was possible largely due to the creativity that linked Bristol to the economic pulse of the world. In fact, Grudem and Asmus point out that a wonderful coming together of talents and resources occurs in markets that requires no huge agency of oversight. In a simple little story called I Pencil, the beauty of this phenomenon is wonderfully illustrated.


I Pencil.

"No single person on the earth could make a pencil without the help of countless others."

Read, Leonard E., "I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read." [click to read] 1999. Library of Economics and Liberty. 5 February 2014.

Creative Construction Capitalism

Creating a Free Market that Empowers Individuals


A dogwood blossom displays balance in design.

Two economic ideologies vie for the right to control the affairs of men. The idea of individual liberty and free markets stands against the ideas of Socialism, Statism and central planning. That the Statist's greatest success story is the old Soviet Union, which replaced a top-heavy aristocracy and serfdom, should give us pause. Clearly free markets are better but the problem of the disenfranchised dogs Capitalism constantly. 'Creative Destruction' which results in more and more disenfranchised citizens can be the vehicle by which Statists rise to stifle the marketplace.

Suzanne Fields writes in Towards a New Capitalism [click to read] that "If market capitalism is to survive the assaults of statists and populists, the former far more dangerous than the latter, we need what might be called a neo-orthodoxy — the development of new adaptations of the basic truth taught by great economists from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes. From these adaptations might emerge a new capitalism, the latest form of this most resilient of economic systems" -- Irwin Stelzer

Ms. Fields points out that: "Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher accepted aspects of a socialistic past they didn't construct and didn't like because they recognized futile fights in dismantling the past and fertile soil in which to plant their own new ideas."

"Ronald Reagan, for example, accepted advice from Irving Kristol, who told him that conservatives should accept much of the New Deal even though it ran counter to their philosophy because it was now part of the economic architecture of America, "complete and irreversible." Reagan went on to change attitudes and spread a revolution of the values of individual obligation and responsibility."

"Swallowing hard, Margaret Thatcher left socialized medicine in Britain intact, but successfully privatized many of the enterprises Labor governments had stifled under state control. Tony Blair, who succeeded her, made the changes permanent, putting limits on the uncontrolled trade unionism that crippled British initiative and innovation."

Philip Blond may have some insight into how the modern free market may need to provide for people who have traditionally been thought of as the dependent class. Here is a Synopsis of Blonnd's Ideas [click to read]. "Blond told us how it began to go wrong when Disraeli failed to offer an economic stake to the poor. You cannot be a capitalist without capital, you cannot be part of a capitalist society without having access to capital, and in our society a significant proportion of the population will never have this access. During the 1960s and 70s the liberal left tried to pursue social justice through the state. In the 1980s and 90s the liberal right tried to encourage the creation of wealth by getting the state to back the financial market. New Labour tried to find the middle ground between the two but failed to foster a true ‘stakeholder society’. This failure was inevitable as Tony Blair et al were addicted to the liberal political settlement of post-war Britain. Politicians always confuse and conflate the term freedom with liberalism. For Blond, freedom cannot exist unless you have continued access to capital. The ‘free market’ is anything but free. It rigidly serves those who have capital to spare."

Blond offers such solutions as reformatting public assistance so that people and communities have more say in how the monies are spent. Indeed, if one looks at the modern welfare state honestly, it has destroyed community. Even the Soviet-style Le Corbusier blocks of human filing cabinets known as public housing tell this story.[1.] Better results come when people have a stake in their community and resources to invest.

Knowledge is Power

The DC Opportunity Scholarships [click to read], I would suggest, are an example of how Conservatives already own this type of empowerment. They involve using vouchers to enable students access to schools that will give them the tools they need to participate in the marketpace. It is very telling that our Socialist President is against them and most of us Conservatives are for them. Beyond programs like this, might we see new programs in apprenticeship undertaken by industry to bring people into the new market economy.

George Müller's Model [click to read] took orphans and gave them basic necessities, but the vision included apprenticing the boys to local tradesmen at fourteen. The young ladies remained in the homes until they were seventeen and received training as nurses, teachers and domestics. Could we accomplish great things by breaking the monopoly of the academy and providing similar career paths for young people today?

At the very least we should see more programs like the co-op program at Virginia Tech where students in the Engineering department spend a substantial amount of time actually working in private employment. At best, we would see industry create programs within the private sector to meet the challenges of providing an intelligent articulate workforce for the 21st Century.

Failure is Always an Option

The modern attempt to eliminate risk and provide equal but mediocre results needs to be replaced by a true safety net that does not create an entitlement mentality. Compassion will not allow your neighbor to starve but I would argue that compassion also will not allow your neighbor to be warehoused in public housing when he might be building up his community.

In fact, wouldn't charity require that we somehow bring our neighbors into the true spirit that built America, neighbor helping neighbor, working together, bringing in each other's harvests? Now that's an American Dream all of us can relate to.


Split rail fence at Humpback Rocks.

Phillip Blond Speaks [click to watch]. ht/Steve K

THYME Magazine

Citizen Jornalism with a Better Flavor


Volume II, Issue XII

An Essential Guide to the New Plan

2400 pages that create new bureaucracies and regulations, unconstitutional mandates and the destruction of private insurance are obvious. The design of the program that spends two trillion dollars and makes us even more a vassal state to China is even more ominous.

THYME Illustrates the New Plan [click to read] in an earlier issue.

The destruction of our self-sufficient nation as a lighthouse of freedom is cause enough. Stay in the fight. Pray! "Never give up, never give up, never never never... give up!" -- Sir Winston Churchill

An Economic Agenda for the GOP:

Free Markets, Not Big Business...

Luigi Zingales and the 100mpg Carburator

Luigi Zingales in City Journal [click to read].

In the 1970's, at the height of the gas crisis, there was an urban myth circulating about the 100mpg carburator. It went something like this: Someone had invented an ultra-efficient fuel/air mixer but industry interests had bought the patent, assuring the device would never see the light of day.

The myth persisted with the story that the prototype device had accidently been installed on a production vehicle and was thus discovered. The unknowing purchaser enjoyed passing by the gas station for months on end. When he went back to the dealer for scheduled maintenance they tried to swap it for a regular carburator but the savvy customer caught them and kept the device.

The basis for the myth is the American's inherent trust of large entities, be it big government or big business. Mr. Zingales makes a helpful, and healthy distinction between being "pro-market" and being"pro-business."

In this blog I've chronicled the story of Preston Tucker's innovative automobile and how his company was brought down by established interests. "Pro-business" can sometimes default into the worst kind of protectionism. Mr. Zingales offers a clear thinking approach to this problem that Conservatives would do well to heed.