Stock Market Pros & Cons, IRS Satire, US Debt Ceiling & A Bill Bezos the Conman!

Hello C3 Family!

What is
True Christian Investing? Think: Sainthood > Easy Retirement. Planning for the future is great, but the Eternal Future needs to be more pressing on our minds then the finite “Golden Years.” How can we best serve God, rather than, how can we best serve ourselves.

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Video of the Week

Comedian JP Sears has a great, and kind of not Satirical, take on the IRS.

Stories of the Week

To Default or not to Default…

A possible Credit Default in the US has everyone a little tense. At the time of writing this newsletter even some emerging markets like Brazil and Mexico have lower cost credit-default swaps then the US. The Bond market is struggling, but the stock market is holding steady as traders try to play
it cool and act like they have full Faith in the Us gov to come through! McCarthy has said it is possible to reach an agreement by the end of the week,

WSJ Article

Why Hitting the Debt Ceiling Would Be 'Catastrophic' for U.S. Economy | WSJ

Bill Bezos the Snake Oil Salesman

(A short story with absolutely no hidden meaning about the real world)

A Snake Oil Salesman named Bill Bezos comes into a small town and starts selling his magic elixir called FAANG+M. Mr. Bezos claims that this concoction will cure all medical and financial woes. He convinces everyone to buy as much of it as possible and people start trading it and becoming very
wealthy. Meanwhile, old Bill Bezos uses all of the profits to buy up all the land in this little town. Before anyone knew it, Bill owned all the land and the people owned all of FAANG+M. Want to take a guess how the story ends?

A Free TV might be the worst thing I heard all week!

TVs are joining the ranks of Gmail, YouTube, and every other Social Media platform where everything is free, because YOU are the product! Telly is a new TV company thought up by Ilya Pozin who founded Pluto TV. The idea is to give away free TVs that will constantly play ads in a 9in corner of
the 55in 4K flat screen. The TV is free because you have to interact with it in the form of surveys so advertisers can better target you. How much of our privacy and dignity are we willing to sacrifice for free and cool tech?

The Hill Article

A Little Pro-Con list for the Stock Market. Let us know your thoughts!!

SM PROS

Helps People Retire.
Helps People Combat Inflation.
Gives people Financial Freedom.
Allows Wealth to spread rapidly throughout society.
Produces a lot of jobs.

SM CONS

Disconnects Labor from Compensation = Greed & Sloth.
Produces a Globalized Economy (Family & Community Decay).
Incentivizes an Abstract-based Economy.
Is a factor that produces inflation.
Promotes the Anti-Christian Idea of Retirement.

Quick Hitters

Apples Market cap is no greater than the value of every Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index company combined.
people are leaving the city for the suburbs and retailers are taking
notice. From 2010-2020, the suburbs experienced a 10% increase in population, and that was before the mass exodus in recent years due to Covid and political polarization from intensified wokeness.
$95 billion is how much we here in the Us bet on sports (legally) last year.
Economist Phillip Jefferson is now the second in command at the Federal Reserve behind Jerome Powell.
Vice Media just followed
for Bankruptcy along with 6 other large companies making the last 48 hours almost as bad as a similar time span in 2008.
The US consumer is in record high debt at $17 trillion. That is $3 trillion worse than pre-pandemic levels. I wonder if the constant rise in consumer debt has anything to do with our economy’s production being 75% in the abstract (AKA Stocks)?! probably not, right?
25,000 US Pilots may go on strike this
month.
The IRS is challenging HR Block and Turbo Tax by offering a free Gov. sponsored online tool to do your taxes…if they are simple enough. It goes without saying that this announcement has DIY Tax tools worried.
China has finally reopened their economy, but Consumers are just not spending like they did pre-pandemic. This is disappointing for even American companies as they are relying on the Chinese consumer as American
Consumers tighten their budgets.
Capital One got a $1M boost from Warren Buffet.
Home Depot is struggling because people are not into DIY projects at the moment.
The gov will attempt to regulate AI but hopes of success are not high.

Christus Rex,

Marc Lozano, Christ Centered Capital

support@christcenteredcapital.com