To contact Shay Miles: shay@thecowboyacademy.com or call 719-352-8886

The Worldview Conference is sponsored by the Christian ministry Revolution Camps in cooperation with Summit Ministries and will be held the weekend of Nov. 4-6 at the Wiens Ranch, 5567 S. Perry Park Rd. The schedule—from 6:30 p.m. Friday to 4 p.m. Sunday—will look like this:

Friday evening Check-in 5:30. At 6:30 we’ll hear a challenge from Randall Niles, a former skeptic turned prolific Christian apologist, followed by entertainment by the famed musical group Cowboys for Jesus. Niles, an attorney and educator who has published hundreds of articles on apologetics and comparative worldviews, is co-founder and director of the popular online resource www.AllAboutGod.com. He will address the fundamental question “Does Truth Exist?”—absolute, unchanging truth in a changing world.

Now, if you like the Flying W Wranglers (or just cowboy and Christian music in general), you’ll love Cowboys for Jesus. In fact, Vern Thompson is a former longtime member of the Wranglers—and his sidekick Joe Stephenson is just one of the best Western fiddlers anywhere. They’re on at 8 to finish the evening.

Saturday Coffee & doughnuts, 8 a.m. At 8:30 John Stonestreet, dynamic speaker and commentator with the Colson Center/BreakPoint and Summit Ministries, will speak on “The Difference a Worldview Makes”–what it is and why it matters–and “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” a look at media, entertainment and the marginalization of God. After lunch Randall Niles addresses the key questions “Does God Really Exist?” and “Is the Bible Really True?”

Then kick back and relax and enjoy a wonderful dinner up the hill at the Wiens home. Afterwards, I will attempt to pull all these issues together to focus on how competing worldviews have impacted the great American Experiment. I’ll explore the meaning of American exceptionalism and how America can be pulled back from the abyss that lies in front of us. How we look at the world affects how we live, compete and survive. How did we become a country that puts more value on what we buy and consume than on what we produce?

Sunday Coffee & doughnuts, 8-8:30. Then we’ll hear from Bill Jack, faculty adviser for the Worldview Academy, an academic leadership program that trains Christian students to think and live in accord with a biblical worldview and to exercise leadership in the culture. His topics include “Creation-Evolution” and “Simple Tools for Brain Surgery” (you’re gonna love this guy) to arm Christians for contending with secularists, atheists and others. We’ll finish mid-afternoon with a question-and-answer session.

For more information, visit www.revolutioncamps.org. A suggested donation of $150 per person to Revolution Camps is recommended, but no one will be turned away based on price. To RSVP, email rsvp@revolutioncamps.org or call (719) 352-8886.

Every American should read “The Death of Osama bin Laden and the Future of Al Qaeda and the Islamist Jihad: A Primer,” from the average citizen to the high-level policymaker. Col. Ruffini has done a wonderful job of breaking down this very complex and confusing subject and giving us a very clear picture in a short read (only about 15,000 words).

Americans cannot afford to have our heads in the sand when our very national security is at stake. No, the War on Terror is not over just because Bin Laden is dead. Ruffini explains why and provides a much-needed challenge for all of us to get informed and be vigilant. He gives some great suggestions about how we as average citizens can help.

He also points out the lessons that we should be learning from our far-from-perfect War on Terror. I’d like to call it the Ruffini Doctrine: No foreign occupations. No expensive nation-building. Just as in the successful Bin Laden operation–Operation Neptune Spear–American forces will acquire the target, arrive unannounced, eliminate the target and leave. “People will be killed. Things will be broken. The U.S. will not pick up the cleaning bill.”

This is also a hopeful and encouraging book. With Operation Neptune Spear, America experienced a kind of success that could serve as a model for the future. Ruffini also suggests the possibility of an end in sight. Not only has the leader of global jihad been liquidated, but his ways may be going out of style. The recent largely non-violent uprisings in numerous Muslim nations suggest to him that young Muslims may be turning in a different direction to realize their aspirations for freedom.

Maybe you’ve wished for one resource that would spell it all out concisely and comprehensively. If you read only one book on this tough topic, this should be the one. Thanks, Col. Ruffini.

Steve Adams
Author of The Middle East Conflict, Alpha Books, 2003

You can also watch Joe explaining this subject on YouTube.

This week Big Five oil executives were hauled before Congress to explain why their companies should continue to receive big government “subsidies” with gasoline now at $4 a gallon at the pump. It’s the typical politician’s scapegoating of an easy target. Problem is, the charges are recklessly misleading, if not outright false.

The proper response we’ve been waiting to see has been delivered by our friend, former Colorado Congressman Bob Beauprez, a successful businessman who’s not fooled by this kind of chicanery.

“The industry doesn’t receive any taxpayer-funded subsidies. None,” Beauprez wrote for Fox News. What companies do receive are certain tax credits and deductions, just as other industries receive–and even individuals, in the form of mortgage interest deductions–to spur investment. But the idea that the oil industry is tax dodging is just wrong. Beauprez wrote:

[T]he oil and gas industry pays a much heftier percentage of net income in taxes (41.1%) than the average of all other S&P Industrials (26.5%). Every single day, the industry is sending more than $85 million to the U.S. Treasury for taxes and royalty payments.

Read the entire Beauprez article 3 Myths About the Oil and Gas Industry.

Even more disturbing, though less noticed, is an all-out assault by the Obama administration on the banking industry. Investor’s Business Daily terms it “an anti-discrimination witch hunt against banks for simultaneously lending too much and not lending enough to minorities.” That’s right–the former is called “predatory lending,” the latter “red-lining.” We call it “damned-if-you, damned-if-you-don’t” nonsense.  Sixty banks are currently under investigation.

Worse, this push to loosen credit qualifications in the home mortgage industry is the very thing that crashed our economy three years–from which we’re still trying to recover. IBD editorialized:

Yes, the government is forcing banks to bend their underwriting standards again, in a renewed campaign to socialize mortgages for the uncreditworthy. … These housing-rights zealots have returned to the scene of their original subprime crime and are shaking down banks for more multicultural loans.

Again, political demagoguery at its worst. Read the entire editorial Holder’s Anti-Bank Witch Hunt

But what if this isn’t just another economic cycle where we pick right back up where we left off? What if we’re seeing a permanent change creating a new normal for millions of Americans? That might not be what we want to hear, but author Steve Adams suggests in a Washington Examiner op-ed that may be exactly what’s happening. He says:

The modern office/factory-model job as we know it actually could be headed for extinction. Goodbye, permanent employment. Hello, contingent work, contractual employment and “composite” careers. …

Actually, work in the form of jobs is merely a 200-year blip in the human experience. From time immemorial before the Industrial Revolution, the workplace was the village, the field and the home. Our forebears were largely self-employed farmers, craftsmen and merchants who worked as needed and quit when the larder was full.

The pendulum seems to be swinging back that direction. If you play the game of musical chairs long enough, eventually everybody runs out of a place to sit. More and more of us will need to learn how to make a living as self-employed professional independent contractors or as entrepreneurs who start our own businesses.

Since publishing that column, Steve has found full-time employment. He now works right here–at New West Capital, LLC.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/135051#ixzz1M578Xohp

Read about his book Back to Work! at http://www.back2workbook.com/

• We’ve reportedly reached a new high–28.4 percent–of homeowners in negative equity, according to CNBC News. That means the unpaid mortgage balance exceeds the market value of the house–a.k.a. being “underwater.”
• In major metropolitan areas the numbers are far worse. In our neighborhood–Denver metro–it’s some 41 percent. The high water mark is Phoenix, where nearly three fourths of homeowners are underwater.
• It’s in danger of becoming a self-feeding vicious cycle: The higher the levels of negative equity, the greater the rate of mortgage foreclosures and strategic defaults (borrower “walkaway”).  The higher the rate of foreclosures and walkaways, the more depressed the value of real estate. The lower the value of real estate, the higher the negative equity for mortgage holders. And so on.

But that’s not the whole story. There is some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel with reports of housing values beginning to trend up again in about 40 percent of major metro centers. For those able to ride out the current storm, there could be some big opportunities in the down market. Some real estate experts are even advising trading up to a bigger and better property or buying a vacation home. Whatever hit you take selling a current property is likely to be offset by the huge bargain you realize on the purchase end in this buyer’s market.

One expert, R. Donahue Peebles, said that’s not just because of depressed housing prices, but because of super-low interest rates remaining below 5 percent. It might seem counter-intuitive, but that makes for the best time to buy. Peebles told CNBC:

“I saw great fortunes that were made in the early ’90s. I saw great fortunes made back in the early ’80s,” Peebles said. “I’m a big believer in the fact that you buy when fewer people are buying … It’s stressful, but you get rewarded for it. It’s called risk-taking.”

Read the entire article 10 Tips for Surviving the Housing Market.

Sunday’s successful take-down of the world’s most notorious terrorist after a 10-year manhunt simply had to have an impact on something as volatile as markets, and that appears to be the case.

Take the price of oil, for example. Today U.S. crude dropped below $100 for the first time since March 19, plunging 8 percent for its third biggest drop ever. While other factors come into play, bid Laden’s death is prime. Chris Jarvis, senior analyst at Caprock Risk Management in New Hampshire, told Reuters the two biggest reasons for the price drop were the pending expiration of QE2 and the death of bin Laden:

“With Osama bin Laden dead, the market is adjusting the geopolitical risk premium down accordingly. Given this, speculative money is being taking off the table.”

Another effect: Treasury bonds got a boost as uncertainty drove investors into more secure havens as we await the dropping of the second, and third, shoe. If the United States is to make any use of the treasure trove of intelligence gleaned from the mastermind’s hideout, it must act soon before trails go cold. Either way, the threat of retaliation from the other side grows with each passing hour as well.

But wait a minute. Which is it? A lower or higher “geopolitical risk premium”? The answer probably depends on whether you’re talking now or later–the calm before the storm or the storm itself. Look for oil to go right back up once the other shoe drops. And let’s not forget the major differences between a commodity–especially one directly tied to the Middle East–and equities like stocks and bonds traded on Wall Street. They behave differently under different circumstances, investors get in and our of them for different reasons and speculators can aggravate trends.

But you know something extraordinary is going on when oil, gold and silver are down while the dollar is up, despite negative economic reports and bad unemployment numbers. Little doubt it’s a good case for the “bin Laden effect” having something to do with all that.

Answer: The new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which–irony of ironies–was designed to protect Americans from financial abuse in the marketplace. The CFPB was mandated last summer as part of The Dodd-Frank comprehensive reforms in the aftermath of the mortgage banking meltdown and the ensuing Great Recession.

Among its many responsibilities (beginning July 12) will be rule-making authority over credit cards, credit counseling, credit reporting bureaus, debt collectors, deposit accounts, mortgages, payday loans, prepaid cards and wire transfers. The Heritage Foundation calls the CFPB “the epitome of regulatory excess.” Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called the CFPB probably “the most powerful agency ever created.”

That’s why House Republicans are trying to knock it down a couple of notches. As it stands, the CFPB will be run by a presidential czar. Its budget (projected at $329 million next fiscal year) has been placed beyond congressional control with funding automatically appropriated from the Federal Reserve. Its nebulous mission to reign in “unfair” and “deceptive” practices in the arena of financial services and products gives it broad license to meddle in virtually every area of American economic life. Experts expect the measures to increase the costs of financial services and products.

All that, and such a bargain, too. Which raises the question, who’s going to protect us from financial abuse in the public sector?

Read NASDAQ’S Spending At Consumer Watchdog Agency Is On The Rise

Other top-opportunity sectors are more counter-intuitive–like automobile dealerships. Apparently there’s enough of a recovery now that consumers are making up for lost time and finally replacing their old car, a spending decision they’d been putting off for quite some time.

One that made the list only makes sense once you think about it–public relations, a field that has been quite stagnant in recent years. It’s largely a business-to-business service, and one especially sensitive to economic swings. Yet, who else is more naturally positioned to take advantage of the exploding demand f0r social media marketing services than PR folks? And that’s apprently exactly what’s been happening, giving the PR industry a new lease on life, according to Inc.:

While annual revenue for public relations firms flat-lined between 2008 and this year, IBISWorld forecasts that the industry will grow by 6 percent annually over the next five years. And while employment in the field has actually declined lately, it’s set to increase by 3 percent every year through 2016. That’s due largely to a shifting industry that incorporates more social-media management and marketing, experts say. The industry has a low barrier to entry, and low capital intensity, but is highly competitive.

Read more here.  Read the entire article The Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now.

It smacked not only of an attempt to shift the blame from the public to the private sector, but even as an easy excuse to make life even more difficult for greedy capitalists.

So, it is all the more refreshing to learn that at least one part of those reforms may actually do just the opposite–cut red tape and paperwork and simplify the mortgage loan process for both the lender and the consumer.
Bloomberg reports that Elizabeth Warren, tasked with setting up the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the agency will soon release model mortgage forms that may become the basis of new regulations on home finance.

“We’ve come up with a couple of prototypes,” Warren said today during a meeting with community bankers in Louisville, Kentucky. “In a few weeks, we’ll be ready to share those prototypes.”

Warren, 61, has made simplification of mortgage disclosure forms a centerpiece of her work at the new agency, which is scheduled to officially begin work in July. Warren has said that many of the forms now in use are duplicative.

Warren has touted mortgage disclosure as a way community banks can make inroads against larger rivals like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) If disclosure is simpler and less costly, community banks can compete based on their close ties to customers, she said.

“A community banking model works for American families,” Warren said during the session.

Warren highlighted how the new agency has built outreach to community banks into its initial structure, with a “box” on its organizational chart for a liaison to community banks and other small firms.

“We don’t need a box for the biggest financial institutions,” Warren said. “They’ll be in our face every day.”

Now, when it comes to financial reforms of his scale, there’s always chances for a slip twixt cup and lip. But for now, this is looking like progress in a very broken part of our economy–community banking.

Read the entire article: “Warren Says Consumer Bureau to Release Model Mortgage Forms“