Our Wednesday Night topic for September 5th is a Parable found in Luke 16:1-14.  This was the text for a Sunday School Lesson several weeks ago – and the class was struggling to interpret it. At first glance, it seems that the Lord is telling His disciples to be more like some of the managers of some of the “TOO BIG TO FAIL” Banks on Wall Street.  The Lord seems to be commending this dishonest manager for shrewdly packing a “Golden Parachute” to insure that he has a bright future when he gets fired from his current position. That’s Shrewd!

      We’ve seen several examples of this in the news recently. Bill McMahon, a top official at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), has been suspended with pay for his involvement in the “Fast and Furious” scandal – but instead of being fired or prosecuted – he is still earning a six figure salary from the government – PLUS he is now also working and drawing a check from JP Morgan Chase bank.  That is also Shrewd!

      When the Economic Crisis in 2008 threatened to crash the Financial system – it turned out that one of the reasons for the crash was Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). Wall Street Banks like Goldman Sachs were selling MBS that they knew were bad – THEN they bought insurance to “hedge” or protect themselves when these MBS failed. But the problem became bigger than they planned for — so many mortgages failed at the same time that the insurance companies (like AIG) couldn’t cover the losses. The Banks told the Government that their banks were TOO BIG TO FAIL – because if they failed the whole system would collapse – so the American Tax Payer paid over $700 Billion to make sure that these banks did not lose any money. Nobody went to Prison!  That’s Shrewdness on a global scale !

      What is the point of this parable?

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