Two Old Christian and Muslim Wealth Managers Provide Enriching Counsel About the Abrahamic Faiths, World Peace, Trumpism & Your Financial Well-Being
By Yaqub Mirza and Gary Moore
The central premise of this (forthcoming) book is that you, and especially your grandchildren, will likely grow richer, financially and/or spiritually, if the three great faiths of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) cease fighting each other and join in Love. We might then battle that great idol of Mammon that has been unleashed during recent decades by traditional morality no longer bridling the making of money.
With due respect to the millions of Buddhists, Hindus and people of other faiths around our world, our cover depicts what we believe are the four major religions of the West. Three have been in distinct tension with the fourth for centuries. But it appears the fourth (money) has won the hearts and minds of most during recent decades.
Even most Christian sociologists and pastors lament that America is now a “post-Christian” nation. But few suggest what it now is. We will. America is a capitalistic nation. One that has increasingly abandoned traditional religion in the questionable belief, or at least practice, that making money is the moral purpose of life on earth. It might seem odd to suggest money is the world’s new religion. And while we know most Americans have been taught communism was the worship of government, very few now worship it! But as professional money managers, we believe there is more than abundant evidence for us to suggest the making of money is now our new age religion.
That was clearly the intent of atheistic pop philosopher Ayn Rand, about whom I’ve cautioned for decades. She once wrote to a friend that she’d make capitalism unbridled by Judeo-Christian morality into a new religion for Americans who’d lost faith in traditional Judeo-Christianity. She even called such capitalism the “unknown ideal,” words the children of Abraham used to ascribe to God. Her book Atlas Shrugged has been judged by the Library of Congress as the second most influential book in America, right after the Bible. We’d suggest it is more influential, at least in practice.
Even Christianity Today has referred to the Bible in a feature story as “The Greatest Book Never Read.” Tens of millions of professing Christians therefore now work where they can make the most money, rather than where they can love God and neighbor as self. They have increasingly voted for politicians who simply promised the most money, probably paving the way for the gilded businessman turned politician Donald Trump. They save and invest where they can simply make the most money. They even go to “Christian” churches that teach so-called “prosperity theology” so they can make the most money. While there, they often hear they should give generously so the money given will be multiplied with the most money!
Atlas Shrugged is tremendously influential on Wall Street and in Washington, largely due to unwitting believers who have never heard of Rand. But years ago, The Economist magazine said Rand was the world’s most influential female economic philosopher. That was due to her closest disciple Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve Board (Fed). Like Moses, Jesus and Muhammed, the first thing she did was create a few close disciples, which she ironically termed “the collective,” and insisted they never deviate from her teachings.
The Economist added Rand’s teachings influenced Greenspan and other disciples–leaders from former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to judges on the Supreme Court–to make “easy money” the foundation of Reaganomics. That turned the teaching of wise old Salomon that the easier we get our money, the less good it will do us (Proverbs 13:11), upside-down, as she did most biblical virtues. Still, Greenspan’s successors at the Fed have continued his easy money policies, first by huge government borrowing and more recently by “quantum easing,” or the Fed buying government bonds by the trillions, thereby putting even easier money into our economy.
That easy money has caused the stock market and housing prices in our richest areas to boom as affluent Americans have thrown money at assets they thought would make even more money. Unfortunately, it has done little good, and probably harm, for anyone but the richest ten percent of Americans, of which I’ve long been one, as the percentage of our nation’s output going to workers has declined. That too is likely an intended by-product of Rand’s gospel. She thought we ten percenters, primarily CEO-types who she called “producers,” would one day gather in “Galt’s Gulch,” her ultimate guarded-gate community, so we can avoid the “moochers” of the world.
Yet as we edit this book manuscript in the summer of 2018, an increasing number of economists and wealth managers are deeply concerned such elitist economic practices have left American economic policy handcuffed, seriously threatening our economy…and perhaps validating the ancient wisdom. As often happens, biblical “sin” is quite intoxicating when the Fed “spikes the punch-bowl” in the short-run but often hurts quite badly when the hang-over arrives. More concerning, the moral hang-over can hurt even worse, causing pain in the body politic.
Due to Rand’s new-age philosophy regarding the centrality of money to our moral lives, it was as likely Mr. Greenspan would stop printing money as it was that the Gideons would make it hard to find a Bible by stop printing them. It was just as likely that most Americans would grow deeply skeptical, even cynical, of government, as Rand also taught that despite traditional morality. She understood that while governments can certainly over-reach as the Bible teaches, they also prevent many business people from harming others, the environment, and so on, for money, as Romans 13 also teaches. Google the Ayn Rand Institute or other “libertarian” think tanks and see how many morally questionable businesses, from tobacco companies on, are major donors.
Atlas Shrugged therefore ended with Rand making a new symbol over the world that she hoped would replace the Cross, Star of David and the Crescent, as well as the hammer and sickle, particularly in America, her promised land of unbridled capitalism. It was the dollar sign, which was reportedly at the head of her casket. Ironically, many conservative Christians unwittingly helping to make her vision a reality also consider a universal sign needed to buy things to be a sign Armageddon is rapidly approaching. Few understand the dollar has long been the “reserve currency” of the world, meaning it is required for most international trade around the world, as well as purchases at home.
One might therefore wonder if these Christians–usually economically ignorant as their leaders have been myopically focused on human sexual for decades–aren’t unconsciously helping to destroy the better world future generations should inherit in the false hope they will be “raptured” anyway. They too often seem to believe religion is simply about “saving sinners” by talking them onto a train that will get the evangelized to the right station after death. They too rarely seem to understand Jesus clearly said he had come so that he might be an example to all his disciples of how to make the train ride more abundant for everyone during this life.
That too is supported empirically. During the Reagan years, the conservative Heritage Foundation, Reagan’s favorite think tank, sought to prove the social benefits of religion. It had to conclude the “extrinsic” religion of simply wearing necklaces with a cross and WWJD bracelets, while placing fish symbols on their cars, the type of religion seemingly preferred by most conservative Christians, is the even more socially harmful than is atheism. Fortunately, Heritage also concluded “intrinsic” religion, where the heart, soul and mind are transformed, is the most socially beneficial of all.
While intrinsic religionists seem preoccupied with finding the anti-Christ, very, very few seem to have noticed the words Ronald Wilson Reagan contain six letters each (666!), and the Reagans reportedly lived at a 666 address until they changed it for political purposes. To be very clear, I doubt the nominally Christian Reagan, who like Trump was an actor turned politician, was the anti-Christ. I simply state the possibility to suggest conservative Christians might do well to look for the demonic within ourselves rather than exclusively among others, as Jesus clearly demanded when he said we must take the spec out of our eyes before we can remove the log from the eyes of others. For the Bible is also quite clear than many, many professing Christians will be fooled as Armageddon and Judgment Day approaches.
Yet Peggy Noonan, President Reagan’s favorite speech writer and now a featured writer for The Wall Street Journal, has written:
“The other day I met with a Chinese dissident who has served time in jail, and whose husband is in jail in Beijing. I asked her if the longing for democratic principles that has swept the generation of Tiananmen Square has been accompanied by a rise in religious feeling—a new interest in Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity. She thought for a moment and looked at me. ‘Among the young, I would say our religion is money,’ she said. I nodded and said, ‘Oh, that’s our religion too.’”
Yaqub Mirza is Chairman of the Amana Mutual Funds; Gary Moore is Founder of The Financial Seminary. Their forthcoming book, Heavenly Returns…Even on Earth!, is reviewed elsewhere in this journal and will be available in the fall of 2018.
