President Roh of South Korea has attempted to improve his dismal popularity ratings by giving his government a face-lift. He recently forced his Prime Minister, Lee Hae-chan, to resign. During moments of national crises, typhoons, widespread forest fires and crippling strikes, the Prime Minister bunkered down at country clubs and played golf. He isn’t the only South Korean politician not tending to business. Representative Choi Yeon-hee was caught fondling a reporter's breast. He later apologized by stating that, "I was drunk and I thought she was the club owner."

Chung Dong-youngWith the forced resignation of the Prime Minister, one official who moves up in influence within the Roh government is Chung Dong-young, the Unification Minister and former Chairman of the Uri ruling party in South Korea.

Not known for his intellectual prowess, Chung Dong-young began his "illustrious" career as a news anchorman for MBC, a popular South Korean TV network. The Uri party, affiliated with President Roh, sought him out for the chairmanship of its Party. It assumed that Chung Dong-young’s fame would be a boost to their electoral prospects in the last election. However, his chairmanship of the party had the opposite effect when Chung Dong-young addressed elderly citizens during the campaign and advised them to stay home and rest on election day. He elaborated on his comments to a group of reporters in Daegu, South Korea on the evening of April 1, 2004. The gist of his statement was that people who are 60 to 70 years of age or older do not need to cast their votes since they will soon exit the political arena anyway. Since older voters tend to side with the conservative party in national elections, the Uri party chairman apparently was trying to diminish their turnout at the polls. Because of the ensuing controversy over his comments, the Uri party leaders forced Chung Dong-young to step down as Chairman because the controversy he caused resulted in the seemingly insurmountable lead vanishing overnight.

Nonetheless, President Roh Moo-hyun won the election, and he subsequently appointed Chung Dong-young Minister of Unification to oversee policies related to North Korea. Conservatives in South Korea have dubbed him "Comrade Chung" for his pro-North Korean sentiments. On behalf of the South Korean government, the Unification Minister oversaw hundreds of millions of tons of food and fertilizer to Communist North Korea without sending proactive monitors to make sure it got to the people in need instead of going to the dictatorship.

When asked why the South Korean government abstained from the U.N. resolution on North Korean human rights abuses, Chung Dong-young’s response was that "human rights problems in communist countries have never been solved by applying pressure." He has discouraged North Koreans from defecting to the South by saying "activists should not help North Koreans to defect since it could harm inter-Korean relations." When the U.S. government first accused North Korea of possessing nuclear weapons, Mr. Chung commented that there would be no definitive proof until there was a "detonation".

The list could go on and on of statements made, and actions taken by South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, which reflect his policy of total appeasement of the Communist regime of North Korea. But, does he have any results to show for all of this groveling towards the North? The North communist regime continues to introduce and circulate millions of counterfeit American dollars into the South Korean economy. The North Koreans repeatedly break up, or walk out of, inter-Korean meetings designed to better relations between the two governments. North Korea continues to build nuclear missiles aimed at the South. The policy of appeasement by the South Korean government is met by an attitude of belligerence on the part of the North Korean dictatorship.

The South Korean government’s appeasement policy not only has little to show for it in terms of results but it also is becoming increasingly unpopular with the South Korean public. Polls show that few South Koreans support the government’s appeasement policy. South Korea’s leading newspaper, Joong Ang Ilbo, has questioned the policies of Chung Dong-young and the Roh government on this issue: "Why do they show such a forgiving attitude toward the North Korea dictatorship?"

Chung Dong-young appears to be positioning himself to succeed President Roh in the next election for President which will be held in December 2007. His repeated failures as Party Chairman and Unification Minister have made Chung Dong-young the butt of jokes by South Korean comedians. But the opposition conservative party in South Korea (the GNP) has had a hard time getting its political act together in recent years. So, it is too early to count Chung Dong-young out in the next election. His victory would continue South Korea down the path of increased anti-Americanism and the ongoing bailout of the economic basket case that is known as the government of North Korea.

An interesting event occurred this morning during President Bush’s hour-long news conference, suggesting that people are listening and make up their minds.

At the fitness facility where I work out, the televisions are always on. Very few listen. For as long as I can recall, the TV’s shows are blaring forth, MSNBC, Today, CNN Today, etc., but the attention spans of the scores of people working out is elsewhere. This morning was different.

I walked in one room during my workout and everyone in the room was stopped, heads turned to the TV and they were intently listening to what President Bush had to say. The fact that every morning of the year, no one is concerned with the television and this morning everyone in the room was focusing and paying attention suggests that something is going on. At first, I thought perhaps President Bush was announcing significant news, or some out of the ordinary event had occurred, but no, this was a seemingly routine news conference.

About 15 minutes into the news conference, the reporters seemed to be stepping up their aggressions towards Bush, judging from their tone and manner of asking the question. Bush appeared to meeting their aggressive questioning with responses in kind. Someone in the audience, in the room I was in, yelled out, "Give ‘em hell, George."

Now, admittedly, Dallas is Bush country, and particularly so in the typical North Dallas private fitness center. But for people to be listening to a Presidential news conference, and listening intently, and even yelling out to the TV in this manner, indicates that there is something going on. Maybe, just maybe, minds are being made up. Maybe, just maybe, lines are forming. I do not know, but I do know that I’ve not seen this group reaction to a George Bush press conference or speech in a very long time, say since 9-11.

One definition is a period of high inflation with no growth. Another is a STAGnant economy plus inFLATION. My definition is a period in which more than 2/3’s of nominal sales growth comes from inflation.

Business sales (Manufacturing Shipments, Retail Sales, and Wholesale Sales) grew by $44.7B between June and December 2005, in nominal dollars. Real Business Sales (deflated for price increases) increased $15.4B during the same period. The government statisticians due not count inflation until a good is sold. The value of Business inventories grew by $26.9B between June and December 2005, in nominal dollars. Real Business inventories (deflated for price increases) increased $7.3B during the same period.

We have it and policy makers are not willing to acknowledge its existence or deal with its consequences. One should question the actions of a FED that accommodates growth of short term credit (bank loans + commercial paper outstanding) at a 10.2% rate for the last 13 weeks and a 12.4% rate for the last 52 weeks in this environment. One should question the actions of a FED that accommodates growth of M2 at a 7.5% rate for the last 13 weeks and M3 at a 8.3% rate for the last 13 weeks in this environment. To put M3 into perspective, it is up $789.5B in the last 52 weeks; the FED is ceasing to publish this statistic – the lifeblood of loanable funds - they say it is not meaningful.

You should care because this environment should not be facilitated by high monetary aggregate growth and high Federal deficits, both of which the U.S. is experiencing. The result in the past is higher inflation, leading to lower growth, a restrictive policy response by the FED (raising reserve requirement is the only tool they have left), a recession, and loss of confidence in our currency’s value by foreigners who lend us $75B a month to fund our trade deficit.

Somewhere on my "to-do" list for the year: No. 116, No. 117 -- something like that; right after "Rearrange Sock Drawer." That's when I pick up Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code," to ascertain, if possible, why a whacked-out account of Christian origins has earnest people debating the whacked-out implications.

The inevitable movie version, produced by Sony, comes out in May. We're agog to know what people will think on seeing -- not just reading about; seeing -- Jesus depicted as marrying Mary Magadelene and having children with her, and a Catholic lay organization depicted as murdering folks so as to keep the secret.

Hoping to head off a Christian backlash, Sony has created two web sites, www.thedavincichallenge.com and www.thedavincidialogue.com. The material features short commissioned essays by Christian writers, opining on the novel's plot. There's additional information on the Bible and some material noting differences in the Gospel accounts -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Dan. The Gospel of Dan is now the hot property -- 40 million copies sold. Not a patch on the Four Evangelists, but of course they had a 2000-year head start.

Meanwhile a civil trial in London goes forward: its purpose being to ascertain Brown's liability, if any, for using in his novel the structure of another book that posits the Jesus-Magdalene connection. All this on top of "The Passion of the Christ"! The idea spreads fast through our society that this Jesus of Nazareth was some guy.

Nor have Christians ever pretended he was anything but colossal. The Nicene Creed, from the Fourth Century A. D., gives the classic account: "only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light..." Not to mention "incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary." Not to mention either that, following that episode on the cross, "he rose again according to the Scriptures." And...and... " shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead..."
Pretty stout stuff. How "The Da Vinci Code" threatens to mess up the Second Coming is not automatically apparent. I think the nervousness in Christian circles about "The Code" and its implications stems as much as anything else from nervousness about Christianity’s centrality in a world where faith and foolishness rub elbows daily.

Fifty years ago Hollywood celebrated the tribulations of early Christianity: Robert Taylor, bound in the arena before Peter Ustinov, calling on Christ to save Deborah Kerr from a mad bad bull; Richard Burton and Jean Simmons going gladly to execution for the sake of their new faith, accompanied by the rantings of crazy Roman emperor Jay Robinson.

Fifty years, and it’s come to this? -- "God of God, Light of Light" in the arms of, hmmm, yes, Mary Magdalene? How came it to this? You might well ask. The consumer society that’s been a building for the past half century hasn’t been especially kind to unflinching affirmations of a spiritual order that trumps the material order. The culture likes what it likes. Best of all it likes that which affirms the convenient, the personal, the profitable, the malleable. Dan Brown (I gather) gets a hearing partly because he tells a gripping story, partly because the story of a Jesus "Like Us" has great appeal. Odd thing, the theologians might say: He was like us: human as well as divine. But that’s hard to grasp. Give us a Jesus with a wife and kids and maybe an SUV.

Does "The Da Vinci Code" matter in the great scheme of things? So much so that we’re all atwitter waiting to see how the movie comes out?

Can a movie make Jesus other than as the creeds of the church say he was? That would seem the real question. Attempts to remold him after the moldmaker’s fancy easily preceded Dan Brown and Sony. And will continue. But the Jesus of the creeds, "God of God, Light of Light" -- it really should have struck us long ago that the likes of Dan Brown can’t lay a glove on this guy.