MANIPULATING THE MARKET

I ran across an interesting verse today. "He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it" (Proverbs 11:26). This particular chapter of Proverbs draws a lot of contrasts between the righteous & the unrighteous, & how they participate differently in the market.

One of the interesting things about this verse is what it doesn't say. It doesn't say that the one selling the grain should give it away, rather that he should not delay selling it. What happens if someone who controls the selling of commodities or goods purposely makes it scarce? It goes up in price (this is called "gouging" by some people). In effect, an artificial shortage is created for one party's benefit.

There are laws against businesses & companies doing this. When most of those operating in a free market willingly submit themselves to biblical principles, everyone benefits. When they don't, it is the responsibility of government to investigate & prosecute. 

That's because it is wrong for people to manipulate the market to benefit one party at the expense of another.

The same is true when government intervenes to "help" one class of people. Instead of investigating &/or prosecuting the individual or business, government's tendency is to create huge regulatory agencies that create their own regulations apart from any legislation.

What we have then is a whole bureaucracy manipulating the entire market, rather than an investigator looking at a particular case that may be worthy of prosecution.

There's a world of difference between the two. That's a large part of what has gone wrong with government in our country.