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November 1, 2023

Without vision apart from obedience to all the Lord has commanded in Scripture  the thread of our lives quickly unravels. Missteps and mistakes are, more often than not, the result of a failure to plan.

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson recently spoke with author and talk radio host Dave Ramsey about the value in and importance of financial planning something many Americans fail to do.

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“I’ve had lots of clients who were much better off when they had no money at all,” Peterson said. “Those were often people who had addiction problems, because, as soon as they had any money at all, they were in the bar and into the cocaine until they were face-down in the ditch. So there’s all sorts of causes of poverty and certainly one form of poverty and one cause of poverty is absence of a plan.”

“You need to develop a vision for your life and that makes delaying gratification, for example, and not engaging in impulsive momentary pleasure worthwhile because you’re building toward something you actually want to attain,” he continued. “We’re very bad in our society appallingly and miraculously bad at helping people develop a vision.”

The Canadian professor and renowned speaker chastised the school system for failing to teach children how to effectively plan for their futures, calling the number of people now living in poverty a “miracle of stupidity” that could have been avoided.

“Our school system was set up to produce mindless, obedient workers,” he told Ramsey. “We havent updated our notion of what schools are for 140 years.”

A failure to plan, Peterson asserted, is a major reason people in the U.S. end up trapped in poverty. In fact, choosing to plan in any area of life  seems always to improve one’s quality of life.

Peterson claimed those who use “future authoring” the practice of taking time to map out with a pen and paper one’s future goals  improve their grade-point averages by 35% and decrease their dropout rates to 50% below the national average.

“It’s the No. 1 thing we should be teaching people  and we don’t do it at all,” said Peterson. “Who do you want to be and why? What do you want your life to look like in five years? What are you building towards? Why are you delaying gratification, assuming you are? Why are you saving, for example, or working? What’s your vision? What makes it worthwhile?”

He encouraged those listening to set attainable goals and walk them out, noting those who do so will feel the strong positive emotions that come with such planning.

“No goal, you have none of that,” he said. “No vision  no goal. So youre not going to get tired and feel hard done by if your sacrifices youre endeavoring to do are clearly worthwhile by your own definition.”

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law” (ESV). Vision walking in obedience to Scripture, which is God’s plan for us in all aspects of life results in our spiritual prosperity.

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World

Trump warns Hamas – and claims Israel has agreed to 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

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Trump warns Hamas - and claims Israel has agreed to 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

Analysis: Many unanswered questions remain

In the long Gaza war, this is a significant moment.

For the people of Gaza, for the hostages and their families – this could be the moment it ends. But we have been here before, so many times.

The key question – will Hamas accept what Israel has agreed to: a 60-day ceasefire?

At the weekend, a source at the heart of the negotiations told me: “Both Hamas and Israel are refusing to budge from their position – Hamas wants the ceasefire to last until a permanent agreement is reached. Israel is opposed to this. At this point only President Trump can break this deadlock.”

The source added: “Unless Trump pushes, we are in a stalemate.”

The problem is that the announcement made now by Donald Trump – which is his social-media-summarised version of whatever Israel has actually agreed to – may just amount to Israel’s already-established position.

We don’t know the details and conditions attached to Israel’s proposals.

Would Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza? Totally? Or partially? How many Palestinian prisoners would they agree to release from Israel’s jails? And why only 60 days? Why not a total ceasefire? What are they asking of Hamas in return? We just don’t know the answers to any of these questions, except one.

We do know why Israel wants a 60-day ceasefire, not a permanent one. It’s all about domestic politics.

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to agree now to a permanent ceasefire, the extreme right-wingers in his coalition would collapse his government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have both been clear about their desire for the war to continue. They hold the balance of power in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.

If Mr Netanyahu instead agrees to just 60 days – which domestically he can sell as just a pause – then that may placate the extreme right-wingers for a few weeks until the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is adjourned for the summer.

It is also no coincidence that the US president has called for Mr Netanyahu’s corruption trial to be scrapped.

Without the prospect of jail, Mr Netanyahu might be more willing to quit the war safe in the knowledge that focus will not shift immediately to his own political and legal vulnerability.

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UK

The PM faced down his party on welfare and lost. I suspect things may only get worse

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The PM faced down his party on welfare and lost. I suspect things may only get worse

So much for an end to chaos and sticking plaster politics.

Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer abandoned his flagship welfare reforms at the eleventh hour – hectic scenes in the House of Commons that left onlookers aghast.

Facing possible defeat on his welfare bill, the PM folded in a last-minute climbdown to save his skin.

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Welfare bill passes second reading

The decision was so rushed that some government insiders didn’t even know it was coming – as the deputy PM, deployed as a negotiator, scrambled to save the bill or how much it would cost.

“Too early to answer, it’s moved at a really fast pace,” said one.

The changes were enough to whittle back the rebellion to 49 MPs as the prime minister prevailed, but this was a pyrrhic victory.

Sir Keir lost the argument with his own backbenchers over his flagship welfare reforms, as they roundly rejected his proposed cuts to disability benefits for existing claimants or future ones, without a proper review of the entire personal independence payment (PIP) system first.

PM wins key welfare vote – follow latest

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Welfare bill blows ‘black hole’ in chancellor’s accounts

That in turn has blown a hole in the public finances, as billions of planned welfare savings are shelved.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves now faces the prospect of having to find £5bn.

As for the politics, the prime minister has – to use a war analogy – spilled an awful lot of blood for little reward.

He has faced down his MPs and he has lost.

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‘Lessons to learn’, says Kendall

They will be emboldened from this and – as some of those close to him admit – will find it even harder to govern.

After the vote, in central lobby, MPs were already saying that the government should regard this as a reset moment for relations between No 10 and the party.

The prime minister always said during the election that he would put country first and party second – and yet, less than a year into office, he finds himself pinned back by his party and blocked from making what he sees are necessary reforms.

I suspect it will only get worse. When I asked two of the rebel MPs how they expected the government to cover off the losses in welfare savings, Rachael Maskell, a leading rebel, suggested the government introduce welfare taxes.

Meanwhile, Work and Pensions Select Committee chair Debbie Abrahams told me “fiscal rules are not natural laws” – suggesting the chancellor could perhaps borrow more to fund public spending.

Read more:
How did your MP vote?
Welfare cuts branded ‘Dickensian’

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Should the govt slash the welfare budget?

These of course are both things that Ms Reeves has ruled out.

But the lesson MPs will take from this climbdown is that – if they push hard in enough and in big enough numbers – the government will give ground.

The fallout for now is that any serious cuts to welfare – something the PM says is absolutely necessary – are stalled for the time being, with the Stephen Timms review into PIP not reporting back until November 2026.

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Tearful MP urges govt to reconsider

Had the government done this differently and reviewed the system before trying to impose the cuts – a process only done ahead of the Spring Statement in order to help the chancellor fix her fiscal black hole – they may have had more success.

Those close to the PM say he wants to deliver on the mandate the country gave him in last year’s election, and point out that Sir Keir Starmer is often underestimated – first as party leader and now as prime minister.

But on this occasion, he underestimated his own MPs.

His job was already difficult enough – and after this it will be even harder still.

If he can’t govern his party, he can’t deliver change he promised.

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Politics

US sanctions crypto wallet tied to ransomware, infostealer host

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US sanctions crypto wallet tied to ransomware, infostealer host

US sanctions crypto wallet tied to ransomware, infostealer host

The US Treasury has sanctioned a crypto wallet containing $350,000 tied to the alleged cybercrime hosting service Aeza Group.

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