In today’s #fridayfive, we’ll look at the patience of website hackers, the looping fiscal cliff and Christian hypocrisy.
Never underestimate the patience of cybercriminals to incrementally gain what they need in order to steal from you. Today’s story comes from a recent USA Today article in which hundreds of USPS workers entered their usernames and passwords into a mirror-image-like website which they thought was the real USPS website for managing their paychecks. For months, cybercriminals patiently gathered usernames and passwords while building out a mirror site that imitated the postal service’s real site. The cybercriminals then logged into the real site and rerouted employees’ paychecks. About $1M was initially lost, though some of the monies have been recovered.
Christians are to be patient in afflictions and patient with each other’s faults and weaknesses. This is even more true for Christian Business Owners and leaders. But we are never to be patient with sin or the commission of sin.
Sam Bell, a real estate giant, died recently at age 81. He grew his company, Equity Group Investments, to a net worth of $3.8B, which he later sold to Blackstone Group for $39B, netting for himself a tidy $1B. I always wonder what people like Sam think of their lives after they have passed. I wonder if he knew the Lord.
Christians are reminded to build treasures in heaven, where our rewards will never fade or spoil, instead of building up treasures on this earth. Was Mr Bell successful? I don’t know. I suppose it’s all in how one defines success. Christian business owners are put on notice that no matter how much wealth we generate, our true rewards are in heaven.
I try to stay away from politics, but corruption is another matter. There’s smoke around the Biden family for money they have received from a number of corporations and individuals. Eventually, fire is likely to be found. But will anyone care beyond the hard right? I don’t think so. To my way of thinking, the two differentiators between Biden and Trump are these: A) they are corrupt in different ways and B) Biden has better manners when it comes to his corruption. Biden is corrupt with money and influence. Trump is corrupt with bullying and sexual liaisons. But both are corrupt.
Share prices for those companies that own large office buildings have sunk to an all-time low. This is due to a stalled return-to-work recovery and vacancy rates rising even though the pandemic is over. Others are predicting the next major fiscal cliff is the default on mortgages by office building owners. Recently, a Pimco-owned office landlord defaulted on a $1.7B mortgage. Brookfield just defaulted on $750M. Bloomberg wonders if this is just the beginning, with $92B of mortgages maturing in 2023. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the next contagion in our banking system is all these high-rise office buildings we look at every day.
Finally, from our friends at the Barna Research Group, their research is indicating that Americans are warm and positive in their perception of Jesus Christ. Apparently, 71% of Americans have a positive view of Jesus. Yet people may be reluctant to hold Christian beliefs because of the “hypocrisy of religious people.” Take a look at the article and see what you think.
My response is that Christians – like many others – are quick to point out the faults of others and not be so critical of themselves. It’s usually easier to critique others than ourselves. I believe it was Christ who told us to take the log out of our own eye first and then we would see clearly to take the spec out of someone else’s eye. Perhaps our hypocrisy rating would go down if we took time to confess our sins daily before God, allowing him to inventory our lives in a way only the Holy Spirit can.
Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business
