What's Wrong with a 401k? | Good Money

Speaker 1 Warning. This is an automated alert from new polity adhering to the following investment advice, will inevitably make you poorer? You will probably still be able to afford a Speaker 2 Foxton or bird nest. Speaker 1 But luxury sedans may be hard to come by please. Proceed accordingly. Thank you. Speaker 2 Well, welcome to good money, everybody. I am Jacob on the other side of the Atlantic for from Mark and now work, I hear there's on the other side of the Atlantic for me. Speaker 1 Oh man, it's lonely out here. We've got a picture of you taped up to the camera. You look like you're going to kill me because Alex tried to dry it, dry it and he drew it without pupils. That's but it's what I need. I'm a relational being, I can't possibly be an eye without a vow and Camera. Aren't cutting it as far as being thou's. So now we have a little sharp. Yeah, try P picture of Jacob. Looking good, man. I'm a little scared about today because we're going to talk about 401ks and this is a little bit intimidating because for one goes are not just, they're not just something to sort of stampede over. There's a certain eggshell eggshell tread that one must adopt because I mean, my father is in a 401k plan. Most of the people I love and respect our part of it, it's given as a very prudent and normal way of taking care of your money, And so taking care of other people. So to have any kind of critique of a 401k, a lot of emotions, a lot of feelings, a lot of people. Speaker 2 Yep. Feeling it up. Why do you think Speaker 1 feeling it up? That's crude. There's a crudite. They're good thing that we have clean up your Speaker 2 mind. It didn't end it. I didn't end it. That's a sign of Purity. It's the Speaker 1 it's the people fully mastered their souls. That always end up saying things that's, you know, because it's because they have that kind of Purity so they can just say feeling it up. All right, go ahead lead us. Thanks for 1K Forest. Speaker 2 Well, I know I agree. I just want to reiterate that and I think there's kind of two things that I want to slowly toss out there as well as that one. I hope this isn't sound too harsh in a certain way towards any, any one person or anybody listening because this is uncommon. No, we don't know Speaker 1 you. We love you dearly. We're full of compassion for I promise. Speaker 2 I'll give you a hug. The other thing that is that, whatever conclusion we come to. And indeed, we've already spoiled it. We have a critique of 401k's for you that. Sorry, I'm reaching for something that the thing to do, if you are convinced by this argument is not necessary to rush into canceling, it and We think that this great transition out of a liberal society and into the good Christian kingdom of God is something that will take some time. It has to be absolutely deliberate but at the same time it doesn't have to be rushed and so so those are my Speaker 1 two. No I mean this is true like I have a really strong critique of the car. I find the car is a net negative for Humanity but when I went out and slashed my tire Fires. My wife had issues and I think that, yeah, this is relevant. Don't have to come over and I never change the tire before. It says, was a mess. So, similarly, we are a part of this world are part of these systems are born into them, were raised in to them where habituated into them. So there is a matter of prudence right now, but Prudence can't be a code word for cowardice. This is what happens. A lot of the time is that we as Russians throw around these ideas of prudence and and carefulness by which we mean nothing should change. There is no radical solution, keep your heads down, keep going. So the trick is to say no, the Prudence is in how we are, radical not in whether we are radical, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a great Point. That's a great Point. Can't be said enough, because I do think that there's a claim that we often hear about. It's just irresponsible to use your money in the ways that Christ tells us to use our money because Christ doesn't mince his words in the gospel. When it when it's not just to the one wealthy man that he says to give everything away. I mean there's a completely new vision of how the use your money that Christ sets forth and people. Often say, yeah, but that's for God. It's not necessarily for me or he doesn't expect that for me and I think marks Point your point is just perfect. It said, well how do we start to enter into the radicality of God himself and which is entirety of her life? So Speaker 1 well you might be more like me and don't have any idea what a 401k is. I think we should cover it from some kind of starting point which I think can be helpful to even people who think they do know what it is or who just have it. Habitually what's a 401k? How did we get here? So we can know where to Speaker 2 go. Yeah, well for one case that the most popular retirement plans in America today 32 percent of Americans have them. So yeah, it's just about a third but that is almost 60% of all employed Americans out. So that's a kind of an important stats while it's kind of a strong minority overall. It's a very Maturity as it pertains to the working class and the 401K this really. I, in my mind, I see it as kind of a consummation of the retirement plans that emerged during modernity. So, during the Middle Ages, you just did not have retirement plans at all, you had friends. That's really the thing. You had family, you have productive property, you had the expectation that you're going, Going to be taken care of. Because naturally, you have these, these stages in life, were as a baby, your need to be taken care of, as an old man, you need to be taken care of. And in the middle, you take care of both the younger and the older and the same assumption really holds true today. It's just whether or not, you know, the people who are taking care of you in your old age or not. That's kind of one of our truisms about money that we All the time. Is that money takes the place of where love lacks is? It comes to retirement. We still need to be taken care of. There's no way around it. It's just, whether or not, we know the people who are doing, really taking care of us. Sure. Or whether we're paying somebody else try to do it and so rude. And so, the 401K the retirement plan is really what one such way. So to do that to not be a burden on people that we know, No. And the rather pay be able to pay people that we don't know, to take care of us one. And then two to be able to stop working earlier and we've kind of already discussed an idea of retirement in an earlier podcast. And so anyways, this is kind of getting to tangent along winded, but all the say, in the Middle Ages, you didn't have a retirement account in the first time that that emerged, that idea emerged again, is in Speaker 1 Works Germany. You said emerged again. What do you mean Speaker 2 mean that there were in a sense, retirement plans? And that was that in that I know of at least, is in the Roman the Imperial times of Rome. When people were welcomed to join the Army and kind of enticed to do so with the provision that the Empire would take care of them once they were too old to fight and it would give you land they would give Give you house. They give you money to have your servants and enjoy your freedom Speaker 1 quota, mostly an Empire. Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's exactly how retirement plans quote-unquote returned in modernity is Mark, wanted to bring all the principalities of Germany together. He needed a strong Army to do. So he enticed more people to join that strong army or to make that army. Strong by encouraging them to join with a retirement plan Speaker 1 except and I think right at the beginning, this is a really important point. It's going to come up later that you can't offer retirement plans, apart from beginning, a regime of incentive, right? So like insofar as your retirement plan, and whatever form. It takes is, always from another there's always a certain way in which that other You know, can use that retirement plan for certain ends which may or may not be your ends. Now within care within like loving care, you want the ends of the other and your own ends to meet up in a perfect harmony like a well ordered ordered Garden. But whether that's the case in all retirement plans as they are today, at least we'll see, but okay, so Bismarck. So it's actually within the rise of nation. States. Then which is how I understand the unification of of diversity into a uniformity, which becomes a unified Nation. So it's actually within that project of nation-building that retirement plans are developed and deployed. Speaker 2 That's right. And, of course, kind of the later stage of nation building is, when kind of the big business sides of things start to emerge. Probably, a lot of nuance, I need to give their butt. But the, but the Real Genius of financiers, we're always, you know, a part of this system. But for the most part, they were working for the crowd. And once you find an independent group of merchants that are not in some real sense attached to or working for, or in bed with the government, you find a new set of financial techniques emerging And and this a new form of retirement accounting began to emerge, you find the emergence of Pensions Speaker 1 patterns pageants. So what is a picture? Speaker 2 So pension is I mean it comes from Pain CEO from from the Latin which means to pay into its attacks. So you are as an employee paying into a retirement fund or really an investment fun ski. That then is going to provide for you once you do retire. Speaker 1 Okay. Now, is it an investment fund? It was my I was under the opinion that pensions were just Speaker 2 a straight-up Speaker 1 cut of a salary, that's put away until later and then you get it back Speaker 2 well. So it could be, there are two different ways but they are often investment funds that a person or employer would contribute to come Yeah. Now the 401K emerged kind of by accident when you say by accident in the late 70s 78 when you would, when when the government allowed for you to store away money that was untaxed. So somebody was receiving part of their cell was not receiving part of their salary. It did not. Need to be taxed, gosh. And really the idea and this is there are different forms of the 401K, but the classic 41k is that you put away money. You're able to put away part of your salary that is often matched by your company into an investment account that then you are not taxed on right? But eventually, whenever you take that money out to be used some time in your 60s 70s. He's in your, in your retirement, then you're taxed on it, based upon whatever amount you take out at that time, okay? And whatever tax bracket, that would that would put you in. So, say, you had six hundred thousand dollars in that account. And you were, you want to take 60,000 out every year, ten percent matching Market, or whatever it may be, then you're just taxed at that 60,000 dollar bracket. And so it seemed like a kind of a good idea to people that I know. Mightn't, I can continue to live. I can continue to live on a salary that might be similar to the one that I'm living on now, and that I don't have to pay an exorbitant amount of tax for it, others. However, do actually put use the 401K because they think that they will be in a lower tax bracket later on as well. So say that you're making three quarters of a million dollars every year. Awesome, you you're going to be taxed at the highest bracket You don't want to be taxed at the highest bracket. Oh no. You don't really feel like you can go through that. No, no, IIT must be Rama. Yeah. And and at the end of your life, you're going to own your house, you're going to own your car. You're getting your kids are going to be done with college, you're not going to be spending all that much may only need 100 and 150 something like that to live on. And so I'll just take that amount which? Yeah, I know Speaker 1 sorry it sounds really sweet. Let's go, I'm understanding this is ours. Awesome. Jacob, I need this. I need this Speaker 2 sort of description. All right, Speaker 1 so then I'm just using it. So that instead of having a big fat chunk of money with with lots of taxes, I'm essentially using it to not pay as meant as much in taxes. Speaker 2 Yeah, so it's a great way of saving so it's not cool. Speaker 1 Well, hey this all sounds pretty sweet to me. Speaker 2 Well, you know what? In there are there should be something that I need to say right up front. Is that The early church really was not totally convinced that we had the pay taxes, you know, that needs to be set up front. Tertullian made this really clear as and and quite a number of other Scholastics. I mean in particular, we're saying just how unjust an indirect tax system is an indirect tax. System is exactly what we have today. It's when you have to give money when you don't know what it's going for. So so I'm kind of I really sympathize more than sympathize with, with that way, tax evasion. Yeah, you heard it here first. Jacob Speaker 1 sympathizers with tax evader. Speaker 2 But I think that the mentality that it often goes along with in a 401k, is not the anger at the Injustice of the state that uses money in the more Pro inappropriate. I want to save some more money. Speaker 1 Well, and let's be honest here, it's a from the state. All right. So, you know it only so much Rebellion. You can do against this day by using what they offer you to Speaker 2 use. Yeah, that's a great Point. That's great. Okay. Okay, I know you looked at. Ted, you looked into Ted sister said, yeah. Okay, Speaker 1 little bit. Yeah. So Ted, benna. I look down at my notes. If you're just listening to this that was why there's a pause between the first name, the Christian name and his last name, Ted is a great guy who was in some way responsible for any say, inventing the 401K basically seeing the possibility within the tax code for this to happen that is obviously an inadequate introduction to a child of God, but that's what I know about him thus far. And he has a critique. So he thinks that his little, his little baby has become something of a monster, you know, which, as parents, we all know the feeling. And he thinks this 401K thing has started with some good intentions and has got a little bit off the rails, because sorry, there's mixed metaphors. Now, we have a train and a monster, but we're going to keep going with the monster train writing a baby before I end it all the way home. He says that what the 401K A plan was intended was to basically achieve some of what we've already talked about, right? Like this desire for people to be cared for, in later life to have a Secure Retirement, blah, blah, blah. We all know that but as it changed and developed by basically, including more and more investment options. So instead of a very simple investment plan, it became a lot of different options for the waves that the 401 k could be invested and as more people entered into it, It and as it became basically a source, great source, I mean trillions of dollars in in revenue revenue. It's not the right word but money that companies could access through these Investments. It became the source of a lot of jobs and a lot of money for financial advisors and Wall Street. So now something that they really didn't have a lot to do with becomes something that they have a lot to do with and he cited recently that Used to be like 0.1% maintenance maintenance fee, you might think of it on these 401k plan. So like money that just goes into developing and maintaining the actual structure of the 401K plan and that's actually jumped up to 1% now, which sounds like a little. But what it really means is that a very significant chunk of money is just going to the people who make 401K plans tick and to him this is This is I think is fundamental critique which is that it's not supposed to be a way for Wall Street to make more money. That wasn't the point. The point was to give retirements and now it is a way. Yeah, it's just a, another kind of investment game. And so he, his advice is not a critique of the 401K is such like, we're going to talk about, but it does point to, I think the idea that there's something rotten in the state of wall, Wait, everyone knows that in the state of the Florida Line, 401 k. That is it is doing something different than what we are. Simply told when we're sat down and said, hey, you just got to put money in this account and then you can get more money out and it's going to help you live a good life, like no one comes to us. And says, hey, you're going to put money into this account and wall Street's going to benefit and financial advisers are going to keep their jobs. And a lot of companies are going to get a lot of money to do the things they want to do. And we're not really going to tell you which companies those are. I'm anticipating. Submitting a little. But the point is there's a real difference between what the 401 k means in reality and then what is given to employees by their employers when they sit down to have the 401K talk. So that's why I learned from Tibet. Oh so yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, and I guess it should be said that everybody has a, there's a critique of everything. And so for Ted to come out and say that I don't like the way that this is because it's a little different now. You know, might not be all that convincing you say, well, it's still perhaps better pulling another plan. If only, you know, it does a lot better than an alternative pension plan. Or whatever. But I really think that for, for Ted to say that there's I mean his main inside is this is that there is a leech on the system, but there are more players involved in the 401K than there is in any classic Model of retirement planning or just the family including the family which was the Medieval retirement plan. So that is probably where we'll start to go with with this a little bit. We're, let's critique yeah, Speaker 1 we got all our pans on the stove. Got the butter melting, let's make the 401 Speaker 2 critique K. Kate get that cake. Well I do think that the number one thing that I'm I'm always a little bit uncomfortable with is slavery. Just I know No, Speaker 1 this is just bugs. You, I know. It's like a little itch. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, but you know, go with me on this one guys, it's not that great. When you're not able to exercise, your full will so st. Thomas talks about four different types of fear. The first is a fear of material of losing material goods and that is what he calls material, fear fear interestingly enough, and he just outcome all out. Condemns that You should not be afraid of losing material. Things Christ tells us not to, so let's not do it. Speaker 1 Don't fear. The one who kill the Speaker 2 body, then the second type of fear, it is what he calls, servile fear. And this is of a person that fears kind of unnatural ordering of thing. So, so, like getting beaten up or bruised or burned or anything else that starts with Abby. And, and, and really the idea here is that Is that you are you might be compelled to do something good but you don't do it for the right reasons, you have a compromised. Well so the classic example of the example that Saint Thomas gives is if somebody comes to your door and says, hey, get out and you might in a sense willingly come out say that you're held at gunpoint or something like that, you might willingly walk out, but you, but if that guy hadn't showed up at your door, all things being equal. Will you two have stayed inside? The only person that has done a completely involuntary Act is if they are dragged out of their house? Those are the people who have kind of been in one since maintained their whales. Right. Charlie I'm perfectly. Where is the person that walked out has a compromised will sure. And and think Thomas is worried that most of the time in business we are we act by compromised wails this. So the other two, Two types of fear are what he calls initial fear. And then filial, fear where you fear, Eternal, Pains of Hell, which is the initial fear, which he also condemns as being bad. And then the filial, fears, only one that he says is good and that's where you feel the real loss of separation from God. So here's the initial fear was was still a fear of punishment. Yeah. And so you might act negatively the filial fear is brings you. The Positively out of your love for God Speaker 1 but now it sounds like you're saying that the 401K inaugurates a certain servile fear Speaker 2 in. Well, I think that's right and I think it does. So on a number of fronts. The first one though, is that it attaches you to a particular Master. It means that you really do not have the full Freedom, you are inviting somebody to say hey come to my door. Oh, hold on, hold on, never Speaker 1 land and in what way though. So you're just saying that that by virtue. Two of your employees. What? I don't even I don't get it. Give it to me, give it to me slow and Speaker 2 dumb. Yeah, so so when so one of the aspects of the 401K is that you don't have you don't have the funds until you turn a certain age. Yeah. Right. So when you okay so when you and it is kind of a choice of when you pull out on these things. But wouldn't you say you hit 62 years old? Okay. And at 62 is the first Time, you're actually able to touch your money without some sort of penalty and tax on top of it extra tax. Absolute least. That's what they call it if you pull out your money early. Yeah, so in a real sense, you are saying to somebody else. You can use this, I'm loaning you my own money. For what to invest in a certain set of companies. Often times, you don't have a full Choice over, what those companies are. And and at that point, you don't have the control over your own money. Now, Speaker 1 it's like you do if you are, but now there's a threat, right? So by giving you that giving you that option, okay? You're going to put in this much of your salary and we're going to match it with another four or five percent whatever of your salary. Laurie. And that's your 401k plan. What you do is you now have you changed your mode of earning money. So at first you work and your work is rewarded. Your labor is rewarded with money, reward is not the right word, it's justly compensated with money. Now you work and some of your money goes to this plan right? Which you're not allowed to touch but which now comes with From penalties and threats. So you start to imagine I think this happens, right? You start to imagine this money, as sort of being out there. There it is. It's accruing. It's growing. It's like, an organism in a Petri dish and now there's a new source of threat. Namely, if I don't put in money, I lose this much. If I take it out too early, I lose this much, you start to compare. So yeah. So now you I've entered a different mode where you're trying to not do the wrong thing. You have a little bit of a fear of messing up at promised a promised land at the end of the road. Like you don't want to screw it up anymore. So I think that for most people when they enter into 401K plans it's like okay, this is awesome. I'm going to get this thing but then up until that age of 62 or something. There is a new fear that's introduced like I now have to maintain this Speaker 2 thing. Yeah, okay, so there's a whole number of different fears. The first one, is the fear of losing that extra 45 percent from my company. He says that they would match if I put x amount into my 401k so that's, that's configure number one wears. I don't think that that's a kind of a positive move that people make because most of the time people would, if you were given the fact of a hundred percent of your money now or or, or 96% of it now, Percent later, you would just say, no, no, 100%. Now, it doesn't make much sense. Unless you do have one of two things, one, the fear of not getting under percent at all, like, what you have justly earned or two, if you do have kind of a real fear of retirement. So one of the two things you couldn't be acting in in a positive way but that's still kind of a but I wasn't the other Speaker 1 bigger fear which is that you just don't want to be a sucker. GE, right? Like if everyone's doing a 401 KS and they're making way more money at the end, then you would be by just plowing ahead and working a wage job or whatever it is. Then there's a fear of loss in not in the sense of an actual loss, right? It's not like by not participating like they take your money right? Which can, you know, you can you can start to think in those terms but it is like, hey, well, compared to Joe I'm I'm being foolish with my money. I'm not making it making it work for me and ending up with this security at the end. All right yep. Yep. Speaker 2 Yeah. Well said, so, so you it really begins with a with a threat of imitation. I think where people are ya. So we've explained that but later on and I think this is probably the bigger the bigger problem is that when you do come to, Age and you do have your money, you still have a certain same fear of taking all of it out. Lest you, you know, feel the penalties of that totalizing, taxation of 37 percent. Plus some, if you are in in a good state that takes money from YouTube, So that's its fear all the way down up and down. And in addition to that, it does pull you into the market. And this is Another thing, it pulls you into a blind market and you have to just kind of call it for what it is. You don't know what your money is investing in. For the most part you could ask for the documents most the first thing if you that spell out which companies you're, you're you're investing in the first thing that those that the, the financial planners for the, your 401k will probably send you is their, their plan, or their breakdown of what they what there. Feels of how to invest now, that's not really all that helpful because you might say, yeah, those ideals are great. I want to help those ideals like I want to help no Innovations or, you know, or green things or yeah, like let's help like, you know, I don't want to invest in guns or beer or whatever which I think is too bad and some some regards. But, you know, those are might be things that, like, at least, I'm staying safe from substances or whatever that are addictive or that. Cause harm. Sure and but then you have to ask well, okay, that's great. But one one step further, what is it that you actually are investing in and and most people just don't do the work. And that's that's the truth of the matter is that the 41k plane is so easy, right? To to invest in that you feel like you just don't need to look anything up. You You decide to invest in it because it's simple. And that's the last thing that investment really should Investments really should be. They should be really thoughtful if you're putting your money behind a new Venture, a new project, any Venture any project, you should know what it is. I mean, this is when st. Thomas says, that it should be built up for the common. Good. Your investment should be for the common good and he's not alone in sin. This, this is kind of one of these Universal statements of the Sticks, no matter what strength they are. Dominican. Princes can whatever. So you your Investments need to go be building up the public Speaker 1 good. And I think and I think you can really sympathize with people because when this becomes, the norm for investment, the thing is, they're investing in hundreds of companies. Write these plans. It's not, it's an added. How do I say I'm just saying that it's designed for you not to particularly care. I mean, the whole point of what Ted said that it's creating an industry of financial advisers is that's precisely the gift that the financial advisors are saying that they're giving to you. Like don't worry, we've got it. Right? And that's that I think is hard because we don't want to worry about Investments. Like the point of the 401K is not because we wake up in the morning and say, like, hey, I want to make extra money by investing in companies. We wake up in the morning and say, hey, I'm worried about retirement, right? So the answer that question. And doesn't, it doesn't naturally lead us to want to go dig into companies and see if they're doing good things and it, especially and we haven't mentioned this yet and especially doesn't mean you couldn't even conceive of this working. If there was an emphasis on local investment, right? Like, wanting it to not simply to benefit a kind of General common good, or a national common good. However, you would want to describe that but a common good in which you are Foley a participant, namely your locality the people for whom you directly affect through your virtuous actions. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 yeah. I know it's makes it much harder at that point. If you, I mean, you'd even have a have to have a bigger financial industry that goes around to every local city and says, okay, you know, Mark he wants to invest locally, I guess. I have to fly out the stupid Bill to figure out what's, you know, on the ticker of what they need and what they They what they're investing in if he comes out, you know, so that's one side of it or you just get to know your city, you know, on the on the other hand, but the Brilliance of the 401K is that we live in a globalized, you know, world. And as a result we can keep putting money Beach behind McDonald's and Starbucks and whatever else. So that Amazon, they just continue to expand. Every city ends up becoming like every other Speaker 1 City. This is brilliant and it It is an important point. So this isn't a point about the individual choice. I think there's actually pretty removed from it. So this isn't a critique of individuals reasons for going to 401K, but it is it is I hope something to consider as an individual. When you're asking yourself, whether you should have a 401k and that is that the whole glory of the 401K is its security, right? Like you're guaranteed virtually guaranteed. This this return, right, 60, percent, whatever /. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more, but the point is, you're guaranteed to return. And usually, that's all we look at. We say, wow, that's great. I'm definitely getting money, this isn't a risk, this isn't like that other investing where it's sort of a gamble. Okay, even though it is risky, it's always risky because Investments are inherently risky, the difference between pension plans and 401K is in a large part is that 401k is ride with the market? Well, what does it mean though? For an investment to be virtually risk-free in that manner. Like, why is that the case? Well, the answer is pretty simple. Is that the success and power of the companies investing in being invested in is already assured, right? So if I want to provide like a secure plan, I don't invest in like, some young startup or something. That's, you know, trying something new or different. I invest, where there's already success. I want I want guarantees here. We're okay but that's of course that makes total sense. But then what does it mean? Well it means that a portion of people's salaries is going directly to the maintenance of the status quo. So part of part of what I want to argue is that the 401 k plan is a certain snipping of the bud of any radical as many real change in society and in our economic models and most importantly, in the actual power structures that structure our You right now, it's like, if we are all buying into guaranteed returns, it means we are all buying into those companies that currently have power over our world, right? So it's a way of guaranteeing their own, perpetuity it perpetuates their existence. Right by tying our fears of being able to survive into our old age, directly to their their power, and their, and their established. The fact that they're established company. Now, I say this because look, I can I, if they were all just good I suppose and then it wouldn't really be a problem to maintain the status quo of power within a society. I'm not saying that's like necessarily bad in itself as if radicalism is its own justification. Like, well, if it existed for a while and it's secure, we should obviously break it. That's all I'm saying, but I think we know right now that we live Even the age of the largest concentration of wealth that human history has ever seen the status quo in America right now, is not some neutral, like, good old companies that just provide the good product every time, like we know who it is. Google Amazon Facebook. So we are our lives, our livelihood contributes to their perpetuation. And the idea that they are, they have clean hands in the way they are. Structuring, our world is just Speaker 2 laughable. Right? It's in this real sense, you can have the comfort of retirement it so long. As you run in, you live in a world in which six companies run everything, like absolutely the comfort is there for you but it's going to become a very uniform Society from one to the next and even in your own. Yeah, also I mean, when one other thing is that investing in companies that are stable, Our it's kind of a strange modern phenomenon as well. Usually just buying from those companies is what makes them stable? What really needs and Seed capital or is the new radical things that you're mentioning the things that need they happy started up. And so just the mere fact that Apple has a trillion dollars in cash suggest that they don't need the help of investment. Yeah, so totally Bonkers. It's Speaker 1 like you know what? It's like it's like just coming with your with your offering to the king. He's already the king. He's got it all. But you're showing up. Speaker 2 So anyways, this. So this is really the first and major problem. I'm, I guess how many problems have Speaker 1 we met? Well, you said it inaugurates. A new relationship to money fear. Speaker 2 And then it certainly is. Speaker 1 And then it also Creates blind investing as Speaker 2 an orb. Yeah, and then it makes a globalized right old as a result. That's right. That is a result. Speaker 1 Okay. But but it's okay. But if that wasn't the case, we're talking about the 401 k itself. Okay. So now I have work with my guy, I've got a plan it's just investing companies that aren't doing evil things but it's the same structure. Is there a problem? Are we just saying that the 401K is is a good tool that's currently being utilized for bad Speaker 2 ends? Yeah, I know this is a great question. I really want to make sure that this is clear. Is that well, what if you had one like In group, that really does a great job trying to figure out what companies will really help the common. Good really need the money and that will really change society. What happens then? And, I mean, at that point, I would say there's there's a few different things that would actually say. But the first is, let's just look at the structure of the 401K. Anyways, if you can't get your money out until later in life, A and B, you can't. Well, that's actually a little tricky if you, if you can't, that might be okay. A in and of itself. Let's just talk about that problem because those companies might need that that money for a long time to get off, get off the ground. So if you have a new Venture, sure gonna be a little while before it's on its own. Might be a little bit longer as well Speaker 1 before you money is right up in their coffers and that's okay, Speaker 2 it just might necessarily be a little bit of an illiquid Investments are very unlike you putting money into any Fortune. 500 company. Sure today. Okay, so that's the first thing. But what about that tax implication of being able one day? You have hundreds of thousands of dollars in this account and you want to take it out? Well, at that point there's just this huge kind of mental block like a psychological barrier. Think I just can't handle the idea of getting hit with 45%, you know. That's just, this is way too much and I really understand that. I think that's just a real like Real barrier because you look back and said, well I could have just been taking money out all these years. I wouldn't have been hit with as much so I think that's a that's a real real problem and in a particular regard, its stunts magnificence in a great way. If you do find at the end of your life that you have an extra six hundred thousand dollars, we're out of whatever that you literally do not need. And you want to help build up a new chapter. Apple in your son school or you want to be able to build up something great in your city. You all of a sudden think I just don't have that money or I just can't do it. I can't stomach the idea of it and and I saw it and I don't want to complain about that. I think that's just hard to deal with. And so I would say that that is one of these inherent flaws to the 401 k. Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean it and what it does it's interesting. Right. Because it Specifically afflicts a certain class of people. Like, people that have worked all their lives. And now have an opportunity to an opportunity to be magnificent. This isn't just an idle problem. The whole point of money for the Christian is for its use and its use for others. Right? There is no other justification that is what money is for. That's the only way that we can have it with Clean Hands is to say, we've used it well and we have orientated towards the common good. So it's it's what what it does is it creates For people that have lots and lots of money. All right, they are able to retain the appearance of magnificence and great expenditures and for people that make quite a bit of money with the 401 k plan. They are the ones who are reduced in their capacity. So again, it's a certain maintenance of the status quo. The rich are able to do this in a certain way, and then the people that would otherwise have this moment of wealth at the end of their lives. Say, To do great. Things are cut off from practicing that virtue or rather. There are at least incentivize not to practice that virtue by the fear of losing a portion of their money to the tax. Yeah. Right. And I guess this might be the one place where we can say it is that if you if you might have some Speaker 2 About retirement where you don't do not have any kids or your kind of later in life and you can't make the transition or you can't depend upon anybody or your kids have all run off the cemetery or something like that and you want to stick some money away. There's reasons to do that, but is the 401K the right idea for you? And would because you just do not, you do not know what's going to happen later in life. And if you have the chance of being particularly generous, which is what magnificent, This is then then give yourself that opportunity and in a real sense, don't let any barriers get in the way from God, leading you into that and that place, Speaker 1 well, one of the troubles I think, with our age, that, that sounds kind of Epic. One of the troubles died age is that we indulge ourselves in a lot of periods of waiting, where we kind of imagined that the Christian Life is attained at some later point in some better place than the here. And the now College was Is a great example for this. It's like we literally take people in the prime of their youth and for four years we say, all right you're going to enjoy this sort of formation period. You're going to live in a little world where you have a like little restaurants and little games that you get to play and you have your own little dorms and you're going to live in this Micro World and you're not going to go out of it, right? And you're going to and you're going to somehow at the end of it before me as this being that's like now you're ready to go out there, right? Right? And it does. The opposite is the case. It just as we know, extends, adolescents and makes it into this sort of weird, I must join this social party called College because that's where everyone is. And maybe I'll figure out a degree while. I'm there that idea that the Christian Life is something that you do after a period of formation, is just wrong, right? Like there are periods of formation but it's formation through act right, you act. So as to form habits, you don't You don't do alternative actions like okay by studying and thinking I'm then going to become really good at applying an acting. It's it doesn't work like that, you have to do it. So that the point of the 401K the proud one of the problem with the with the 401 k s is that you don't your habituated to put money away for later. To give later to help later to be magnificent later to be liberal later. And this is a real problem because it's not like when you finally arrive at later, you arrive as one habituated in those virtues know. You arrived kind of as an infant in The Virtuous life. And this is something we talked about in the retirement, in our concern with retirement generally is that What you practically see in retirement is not people being virtuous. And I'm talking about Christians here you do not see a lot of Christians who retire with a big lump sum of money and that they're just getting dividends off of and are becoming Saints. What you see is that they become like Jimmy Buffett fans. You know. Is that Margaritaville or Cheeseburger in Paradise? I forget, I'm thinking of like, like boats, you know? No offense to Jimmy Buffett. My point is simply that it's not actually. Building up virtue. And I think the 401K is one of those ways where we are habituated to save our magnificence for later, right? And then that later, never arrives. And I think that that's problematic, and it's also socially problematic because it basically cuts off a whole class of people from Ever ascending to real positions of power, or they can do good, they just don't have a lot of room there, stunted magnificence isn't just, like showy just a way of, like, doing something big and flashy that everyone admires you for, It is also that it is taking a moment of real power to change the world, right? And if Christians are not able to do that because they're worried about taking too much out and getting a tax it. Well, then you have a lot of Christians that are going to change the world and that's, that's sad. Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll just talk to other things. These are a little bit more theoretical and probably harder to accept Embrace, but there's kind of two principles that this, that the father's in the Glass takes unanimously agreed on in the first was that if you want a profit for its for profits own sake, that's Eagle bag depraved in needs to be confessed if you have entered into to business, just for the sake of getting more money than that is something that you actually have to go. The confession for the reason why is because Prophet because it comes back to this understanding that the world was a gift to all of us. And if you're getting more out than in, Is your two or more out than you need? That means that somebody else doesn't need it. And that somebody else was originally gifted that That's what the universal destination of all Earthly Goods is this is the original Cosmic gift of the universe that God gave to all of us. This is a really important point for the patristics in this Classics, because that starts to re-orientate everyone away from gain glory and honour, and towards the lifting up, the lowly. This is the great Christian Revolution. But there's also another side, Warriors wealth without work. Is also another one of these economic sins or product, without labor is a way that you find a lot of the Scholastic's talking about it. And, and I think that the 401K Falls prey to both of them. Now, you might say that with the whole product without labor idea or wealth without work that isn't that original and to the frame of the entire universe, like didn't God give us all of this and we didn't do anything for it. And the answer is yes, of course but when it comes at the expense of The else it mainly that somebody in a real sense unwilling to give you a gift, did something to give you something, give you that thing without you with you, operating within it point is this, if you have something without doing anything for, that means that somebody did something for it. That's my point. And and that again is the another frame of one of these economic sense for for the, for the patristics in this Classics. And I think that the 401K Falls prey to both of those is that we might say that this is for retirement that I fear not being taken care of when I'm old. But you don't know what those dollars are doing and that is a really scary slippery slope to Greed where that you just expand into the infinite sum of accumulation. Ian because you never really know what each dollar is for. And so you just get profit for profit. So and sake at that point and the second thing of the accumulation or gaining something from somebody without doing labor for it, that serves as strip us away from the or understanding of the Dignity of work itself. The Dignity of others who are working. And so these are two just great temptations that I think are inherent to the point 1. Speaker 1 I want to talk about something. Specific to some 401K plans called vesting. And I think this is important because it has also application to all the all 401K plans. Now, investing is just the, I think a problematic practice by which your company says, okay, we're going to take some of your salary, 5% say and put into this 401k plan and then we're going to match it with whatever. Five percent say and you can have that if and then the if is a little bit up to the company but say if you work for us for five years, if you were first for 10 years and usually the way these, these plans work as I understand it is that it's incremental, right? So you get this much of the match. If you work this long, you get more of it. If you get work this long and when you really work for us for a long time, then you can have the full match, right? And, and this I think this is just straight-up wrong, right? Because what it's doing is is buying loyalty. It's trying to buy loyalty to the company. Now these important to realize that I'm very suspicious of companies. So like if you if you're a company and you're telling me like as its CEO or whatever like you know at the end of the day I'm in it for the for the good of all my employees. I always have to kind of add in my head like insofar as they're profitable to me, right? Which maybe is cynical. Maybe it's too soon to cool but it's Important to say, when we talk about companies, wanting to take care of their employees. In retirement, I think it's right to be a little bit suspicious in to ask. Okay. Sure. But in what way is companies doing that, helping them write helping the company itself, perpetuate itself. It's sort of drive for self-preservation and profit because that's what's motivating from the get-go and investing in the practice of esting. You see it right here, right? Like, they are giving a gift that's really a carrot on a stick. So the gift is the match, right? And then if you are for them, this long then and the principle is that by having that you have an incentive to ignore other problems with your company, right? So say, it's year for, right? And you're thinking hey these guys aren't really being just in all of their dealings with their clients, right? But if I can just stick it out for one more year, I get this thing, right. I get this. It's good. Or it's your 90k. And you know what? I am not being treated with human dignity, right? They are, they are just making me. Look at the same spreadsheet and they're not listening to me cry. Well you work it out another year, you get even more money, so just stick it out kid, you know, I'm saying? So it creates a way for them to have an incentive, but it's an incentivizing system, which is it as an incentive, it means that you fear the loss of the reward. Even as much as you desire, the reward itself. So it's this inauguration of the person into a fear-based Economy once they dwell there, once they live there then you have this ability to pull them into different kinds of actions that you want, right? And the problem is, I mean, I think the problem is pretty obvious, but it seems to me that what it allows companies to do is to describe this activity in totally moral terms. I mean they sound like Saints when they're describing their 401K plans like taking care of our employees and their old age. No one ever says like creating an inroad by which we can incentivize employees. To stay despite flaws that they perceive in the company, like, even though that's obviously just as true. That's not how. That's not how its presented. It's presented as like, like a moral gift to humanity that you can, you can retire. So that I think is a huge problem. Now, some companies don't do this, right? I think probably the better ones, don't they don't indulge in this particular practice. However, the question I always have when it comes to 401K plans is just y, if, if it's all true that you want to, take care of your employees that you believe in them and you and you want to, you want them to be loyal to you and you want to show them that you care about them and blah blah blah, why not just give them a raise So at the end of the day, a company is calculating whether it can afford to match right to do these plans, right? It's looking at it spreadsheets. I say it as if it's like some monster like a particular person is looking at spreadsheets and saying all right. Can we afford to do a four percent match on all these plans? If we can sort of assume that it's going to be good for our employees? And I think I'm going to stay with us because it's a benefit blah, blah. They're doing the map and doing what they can to predict, right? Right. And then at the end of the day, they're saying, yes, it works for us to do this. Okay, well, if you have the money, why not raise the salary? Why not give people more money that they can actually spend? Why, why put the Rays in shackles right? Like if, if they have to buy into a 401k plan, if you're like incentivizing this and you've decided that it's worthwhile why only do it in such a mode, right? That it's limited in how they can use. Speaker 2 It right? And again, not give part of the. Yeah. If you if you have, you more profit in the company than then, you know what to do with, in a certain key card, why not give it to them, Speaker 1 right? And the idea that this somehow you no longer Ascent devises, them is ridiculous because everyone's incentivized by our salary. I mean, call me crazy. I think that's something that we've understood for a while. So now, of course, the answer that you're going to get to this, is that while you're able to make much more money through these Investments, right? So, it's like, Like the company has to do a little less because they are able to make money by investing in other companies that are doing that are doing this work. And again, this falls under that same critique of the, the problem with the blind blind investing. And I think that it's important to recognize that that there's no like there is no way that the Christian critique of the 401K doesn't end up in saying that there's less money. If money is your goal. Now, let me explain this a little bit. So I'm actually, I'm drawing a line on that that rant and then I'm moving on Speaker 2 to my hand is baking a cutting motion right now. So that, that is my problem with directed towards companies who uncritically adopt 401K plans is that if they have the money to do this, why don't they Speaker 1 The money to have a better company, right? And then it's always the benefit of investment right? That you get more money by investing it. That is the answer, right? I think that that's a little bit disingenuous, because I think the other answer that is not being told is that it creates bonds of loyalty through systems of incentives and a fear of loss and that, that wouldn't otherwise exist, right? Like, that doesn't necessarily exist. If you just increase the salary, but if you can lock people into plans, then it does never mind the kind of bonds. It makes to financial advisors and such, but, but what I want to what I want to say now, Is that what do I want to say? No. Wait. It's coming. It's almost there. She sits on the cusp Here Comes. Oh, right. What I want to say is that the there is no way that the Christian critique of the 401K ends up in you having as much money. Speaker 2 Yeah, this is important for warning, everybody. You will get poorer if you take this line of Speaker 1 advice, right? So the question is this, what is your work for? What is the money that you make for? If our orientation is towards while I'm doing this thing that I wake up and I drink coffee, and I go do this thing and I'm doing it for money. Then the 401K plan is always the best plan because you will always make more money by taking some of your money. Indulging within the incentivized programs that your company provides and investing it in companies, okay? You're going to end up with a bigger pot. Of money. Now, the downside, of course, is that you cannot access the pot of money, so it's in certain respects, right? So in the two respects that we've described one, you have to wait till you're older. To even when you're older, you have the fear of taxes that keeps you from usually keeps people from making large expenditures and really accessing that money. Okay, so but in terms of money it's more it's always going to be more and so if the end of work is the production of a number Money then. Yeah. Get a 401k plan and don't think about how you're being Limited in your ways of using it, because I will stress you out, but if the point of work is activity, is action is the use of the money, right? Then don't get a 401k plan because the access to the money that that's maintained and the lack of fear is more enabling for you to Act in particular various ways throughout the entirety of your life, not just when you're old. And when you're old, you're not struck with the fear of loss through taxation, okay? But I can clearly point out these two ways of doing it, one, which I think is Pagan? The other, which I think is Christian, but don't get me wrong. It's not like you're talking about the same, some the investment makes money, that's why we do it. But if part of Christianity is is to no longer say Say that you can pursue money for its own sake, if you really believe that if it's not just a word you say but it's it. Real intention that the point of all of this life is to do good become virtuous. And lift up the week, unto the full stature of Christ. Then the 401K plan is not for you. That's just all I have to say about that now. Speaker 2 So, really, really practical a lot of this is already been practical, but let's just kind of break it down. For everybody say, you're young, you have a very small itty-bitty cute 401K. I'd say, empty it out. Start again, figure out what your what you really want to be saving for and investing in Speaker 1 Can I have something in this regard? Do you think it would be good advice and I'm being tentative here because I know nothing. And maybe, you know, nothing to, I might know nothing, but do you think that companies would be at all responsive? So if you're in that state where you're young and maybe work for company to say, approach them and just say, hey, can I have my money just straight up? Is that even a thing? Speaker 2 Like you're gonna put all Speaker 1 this money into this 401K. I want to work for you. Excited to work for you. Can I have the money? Speaker 2 It's gonna be such a paradigm shift for the Speaker 1 company. What have you asked them? Hey, all right. All right, don't give me the money, but don't invest the money either. Okay? So forget it Jess. If you want to give me a match that I can't access, and I want to help you become Holier by not blindly investing money. Can you just give me my match at the end of however many years you're going to do it? Speaker 2 Otherwise, Well, I think we have a mutual friend, that's tried that. Yeah, at a particular company that he works for come and they said, no, you just lose this money altogether. All right. So yeah, so that's my one experience with this. So again, I like, Speaker 1 you can I ask one more question, which I realize I'm probably should have done this before we hit record. Why? Why do they have to say? No like what's the problem? Just don't you're putting the money in it. Anyways, why not? Just give it to you. What's the deal Speaker 2 more money that's in the company's overall account with the financial advisers brings down the financial fee. That's the reason why those Are you serious? That's, that's serious. I'm not joking. That's a reason. Yeah. Don't look at me like that. Sorry, I take care Speaker 1 of you and help people. So it's very easy to just like, blast you with the rage. I'm feeling right now. I don't have a lot of sympathy for this stripey. Jacob. So wait, I'm sorry to be clear Wall Street has a gun to the head of every company and we're cool with Speaker 2 that. Well, I mean, that's true, but we Wall Street control so much more than we realize. The fact that the financial industry has grown Owned by about 3 X in the last 40 years suggests that there's more money to be made in controlling people than in producing Speaker 1 Goods. Let's talk about something Speaker 2 else. Okay, so that none Speaker 1 of those things will work. You just have to pull your money out of a 401k. You have to, you have to jump ship if you're a young man with nothing to lose. Speaker 2 Yeah, our young woman, right? I think a lot of this really comes down to Prudence kept that heard of her and regions in the understanding of how you defined it. At the beginning of a slow strategic figuring out how to be radical as goddess. Finding God there. If you're, if you're in your mid 50s, then I would say hold on and shrink and slowly take money out more systematically than just pulling it all out at once figuring out. Also, because you need to figure out where you're going to be spending that money on, and that takes some time that takes some real thought to Experian out who your neighbor is. So that you might see what he needs. And what? He's maybe he's trying In to Speaker 1 build. So to be clear, that advice is because you'll take less of a hit in taxes if you pull it out Speaker 2 slowly Yeah, I think so. And I also I also think that there's because this is so paradigm-shifting as it were like the the Christian economic vision is anything, but the liberal capitalist economic Vision. Truth, it takes a while to figure out what what we really are oriented for. And so I'd say, give yourself some time with that Speaker 1 too. And an advice here to the 50 year, old, or someone that finds himself in this category, at least where they have a bunch of money and In the 401K plan, is that. So there's want to be clear on this, I think this really should matter to people. There's sort of two forms of advice here. One is to take the burden of investment on to yourself and it is a burden right by taking that money and if for, and if it is within your vocation, which is for others to need that money, right? Aquinas says, You should only have as much wealth as your office requires, okay? So if within your office as father mother leader Baker, whatever it is, you determine that you need money. Then those Investments need to become Investments that are localized. Investments, that are clearly for the common good, right? Investments in which you are taking a real part and not just doing blindly, right? So that you are activities, can be orientated towards the goods of those investment and not simply to the prophets, they might produce, is that Speaker 2 correct? That's right. Okay, let's Speaker 1 examine that school but then I want to suggest there's one more thing. That if you're 50 and you don't find within your vacation that you need all that money, then don't do that. And the reason I bring this up is because we are so habituated just to be scared of the loss of money, that the idea of pulling it out and then no longer having it as a possible future thing that accrues is terrifying, but we need to acknowledge that if you come to the realization, Ation that it is not within the particular vocation that you are called to, right? To be dealing with these large sums don't invest. How about that? It's a wild idea. Lose the money will gain the money, and you'll be able to give gifts, and you'll be able to get rid of it and spend it. And all the different ways that we've talked about in this podcast, and it's awesome. You can be magnificent, you me liberal, you can do all sorts of things, but don't sit there thinking like the Christian response is to maintain the 401K chunk. By other means that is not the case. The maintenance of a fund is not why we live and work and die. Not at all. All, so, if you need a chunk of money, okay, that's where Jacobs recommending new and radical strategies for investment. Awesome. Love to hear more. If you don't need it, just let it go Speaker 2 baby. Yeah, I said to two big things of absolute musts, even if you're going to take it a little bit slower. Pull out as much of your money from their Investments as possible, not necessarily of the 401 k because you do not know what you're investing in. And that is very dangerous territory, take it from Pope Francis, he just found out that the Vatican Bank was putting millions of dollars in abortifacients that he was that literally children were dying because of Vatican funds. He didn't know where the Investments were. So he had to make a whole new canon law of saying that you shouldn't do this. And take Heart Speaker 1 Take heart that the pope is dealing with this as much as. I mean this is your church has driven right through the heart with blind investment. This is not something that like, you know, the greedy lay people are doing or like the Knights of Columbus are doing. This is something that from top to bottom. We are all involved in and we need to get out. Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So that's the first thing I would say, Jay and the second is do take out as much as you need, I mean that is just because it because for this reason, you need to start to rehabilitate yourself. Towards being able to recognize that money is for a certain end to be sunk into something else. Otherwise you really have no chance. So, two things you need to pray in two weeks that you're going to be able to rehabilitate yourself out of it. One, taking money out, regularly often. And then the second thing is the prey like actually asked Christ to reveal himself to you go before the altar asking him to walk alongside you on this but you really want to see his face more clearly and and the only answer that. But it's just, it's just not going to, it's not going to be done. None of what we've ever said is it's going to be done without prayer. I mean, the whole point is to be able to find that intimacy with God and so to be able to. But there's just some real practical ways that we have to think through and in doing this as well. And so ask him to help you through through those ways. Speaker 1 Okay. So that's that's to sort of Life scenarios. What about someone who is done? They're retired or maybe they're retiring. Tomorrow say about those guys. Speaker 2 Well well those are, those are tougher guys and they have that you guys are tough guys. Love you. I think the first thing to do is to I mean there's just so many questions. Ask them. How are you doing with your kids? What's your relationship with them? Are they in the church? Like how far away do they live? You know, ours is your stability and near home worth With the distance away from them. I mean that's a real question. The begin to ask yourself. I think I'd say is there a chance where you could go to them and say, hey can we build something great together? I have money that that I've been saving up and I realized that having a greater relationship with you is, is more worthwhile than than this kind of the stale. Some, in my bank can we is there something that you really want to be building? Is there something I can help you with? Could we make this This kind of a project that we do together and I'm not talking about, we're certainly in all of this, not only talking about giving giving funds away which, you know, should be, what you do, you have, you've made a lot of money from those accounts. Give give your tithe away in that. Sure, but I think the natural transition point from retirement account in the market, inevitably ends up becoming a retirement account in productive property in A real relationship with your family. That's how the how the Christians got away with it in the Middle Ages. Is because people had their land, they had their Industries and they had their families and they didn't, they weren't slaves to anything. They didn't depend on other people's labor. They didn't depend upon upon alienated relationships that are lucrative. They depended upon one another and upon the goods that God God, gifted us. So those that's what. Really hoping to push over into, how do you handle retirement? Because it's going to be a problem, no matter what you're going to be old, you're not going to be able to work her family and productive property. So those are some of the things that I would suggest. Well, and starting to look around and investigate Speaker 1 come, I would also suggest this, because I can imagine for many people we live in such an age of alienation, That the idea of buying productive property in old age, right? So, where are your capacity for? Work is already diminished and the idea of just naturally and easily being able to turn to your family. And say, let's use this to to build to build this family up while it may. It's certainly no guarantee. That, that's the situation that confronts a lot of people write your family could be estranged. Could have you could accurately know that your family would not be made more virtuous by the offer of the use of the retirement fund that you deem it necessary to yourself, right? Like they could be made more vicious, that that's definitely true. So there's a lot of these situations and I think that there is, there is a way that we have to just admit that human life Is not something we choose from the outset. We are born into a particular time and within particular systems and particular power structures that are vicious or virtuous as the wind blows. And if you find yourself in a situation where your dependent upon this system in a real way, you really are, you need it, you need it to live. You need it to keep where you are. Then I think it is totally possible just to enter into A penitential mode, where you understand that the system isn't good. You understand that? You spent some time investing in things that you didn't know what they were. And that you don't bear that culpability alone. It's as much the company and those who run it, who have incentivized and even in some cases, almost mandated a plan of blind investment. So there's but you can enter into a mode that recognizes, okay? This is not a good system and begin to do Penance. That is to say, take upon that sorrow, that that sense of things not being as they should be and offer it up because as Christians were never without recourse to take that suffering and make it a part of Christ's suffering on the cross and say, okay my life, this this particular economic life is not as it should be right? So I'm going to do what's necessary, but I'm also going to, I'm also going to give alms with it to expiate my sins, and I'm going to use my money in such a way that it is just going to doing good. And that can be sufficient, right? Like, it's it stinks to be part of a system that is troublesome, but it's something that Christians face in absolutely every age early church, people are converting to Christianity and they're in the middle of a Roman army, which their soldiers and they're a part of an Empire Building campaign that has almost no sense of limitation, right there. Facing the same problem that you're facing right people conversing. Being in the middle, in the middle of being merchants and having greedy practices and then realizing that they're locked into systems of power that it's hard to get out of there. Going through the same sort of thing in every age. Christian conversion leads to this consequence, that the system's you are in, do not match the new heart that you've been given. Okay, suffering is involved. But suffering is just the thing you want because that suffering is Redemptive because it's not just Your sufferings Christ's suffering. I mean fundamentally, he suffers the world not being, as it should be. So when you participate in that right, it becomes Redemptive it becomes meaningful and purposeful. It actually merits and lifts your soul and The Souls of others. And those you care for to heaven to that place in which there's probably no 401K plans and everything is as it should be. So that's what I would say cuz I really want to acknowledge that, you know it's not all like it's not all like Check my steps and just you know pick which thing to do with this bloated monstrosity. That weird that we're dealing with. Yeah. Speaker 2 Well, Speaker 1 you were very patient with me as I went through that. Jacob Speaker 2 know that was beautiful though. I think. I think this is more pastoral than we even originally knew we were biting off and show. And we've walked with a number of people through this to these emails, and phone calls, and whatever else that we've been getting, and we know that we're with you to, you know, we this is this is not condemnation. I hope we hope you know and I guess we'll end it with that said we're just trying to us including we're just trying to see Christ. It's faced were clearly and so think about what you're going to do. Pray with, you know, on it hard and find somebody to talk with you about it, but know that it is you know, not wisdom of this world that Christ gave, you know, it was it was something else Speaker 1 entirely and and stop with stop in with us. Next time for the secret satanic numerology of the number 401. Thank you guys so much for going through this with us. As always, you can send us a message. If you have any questions, anything that we can maybe help with and and and I'm Market, New polity Jacobs, Jacob and new polity. And so it's that simple. Speaker 2 See everybody by fake carrots.