The principle to increase by,Dr Sammy D.James

The principle to increase in prosperity is to always be gathering. There is no reason why a person should ever stop. This does not mean that we should be miserly, trying to accumulate more and more to hold, but that our thought should so enlarge that it can not help gathering more and more, even though with the other hand, we are ever distributing that which we gather. Indeed, the only reason for having is that we may give out of that which we have. We’re here to be a conduit of abundance in expression.
The key to meaningful life is in enlarging our thought. We can never stand still in our thought. Either we will be growing or else we will be going back. As we can attract to ourselves only what we first have a mental likeness of, it follows that if we wish to attract larger things we must provide larger thoughts. This enlarging of consciousness is so necessary that too much cannot be said about it. Expansion or enlarging of consciousness is for the purpose of becoming and of course having and experiencing more.
Today well-lived makes for a better tomorrow.
No one knows what tomorrow brings.
Into the '90's and 21st century, the meaning of
prosperity has gone beyond material wealth.
What is your measure of prosperity? Material wealth
may not always equate to emotional and spiritual
well being and happiness. The expensive things
you surround yourself with does not mean an
atmosphere of warmth and happiness. At times,
these possessions emit a coldness and the
unspoken words: Touch me not.
The measure of prosperity embraces the total
well being of a person, the mind-body-spirit
connection. The obvious signs of material prosperity
does not necessarily mean a happy and fulfilled life.
A hectic social life may be just an excuse to stay away
from a cold house, devoid of laughter and good cheers.
One may have all the money, yet lives with that nagging
feeling of emptiness, restlessness and even boredom.
There is a void that can not be filled.
It is documented that money does not buy happiness.
Some are content with being able to meet their basic
needs. They may never have ventured outside
their towns, but with the advent of television, and
the internet, they are aware of what's happening around
the world. They are happy.
Do they feel prosperous? They are blessed with peace
and serenity. They enjoy the company of family and
friends. A Sunday drive around the country and a
stop at the fast food place warms their hearts and
they feel content with their modest lifestyle.
Less is more. Those who subscribe to this belief
find contentment with what they have and not fret
over what they don't have. Often it is the pain of
not being able to meet the "want" list that leave
people in misery. To fulfill this list, many go into
unnecessary debt for temporary gratification and
more misery when debt piles up.
Look at problems objectively, worry is not a solution
but a hindrance. Living within your means and be
contented with what you have is more peaceful than
go through sleepless nights worrying about spending
money you don't have for things you don't need.
Good and loving family relationships- this is wealth.
Health of mind, body and spirit is wealth. Indulge in what
adds to your prosperity and well being such as: reading,
writing, music, meditation, walk in the woods,
sitting in the park, cooking,
gardening and visiting relatives and friends.
Share a few laughs with friends in the backyard
or wherever is convenient.
You have a demanding career, learn to take time to do
these things. The almighty dollar is not the ultimate
measure of your prosperity and abundance .
As a prosperity Pastor, I’m excited about answering the essential question "What is prosperity?" You know, it's taken me years to get clear about its meaning, because the ways in which we define language change as we change.
As a young man in north bahamas , I had a significantly different idea about prosperity back then, as I do now. And there's something I want to point out before I go any further, and that is we're not talking about some rigid dictionary meaning here, but a fluid and evolving understanding of the power of language to define your self.
In other words, I’m going to share what prosperity means to me, but I don't want you to take it as anything other than my opinion. Instead, I'd encourage you to define or even redefine prosperity for yourself. Because, after all, it's what you think that makes the difference.
I think it's fair to say that bahamian culture has essentially equated getting rich with being prosperous. In fact, there's a strange irony when you consider that while much of the world believes the United States to be extraordinarily affluent, the hard statistics show that we are currently facing record-setting national debt and personal bankruptcy. It's about time for new meanings and new methods.
The dictionary defines prosperity as: The state of being successful, thriving or wealthy. And there you have it. If you remember anything at all from this episode, let it be this: Prosperity is not something you have, it's something you are. By definition, it's a state of being rather than in amassing of what you can buy, or store, or covet or lose.
To be prosperous is about merit, not material. To be successful is to enjoy personal power, not purchasing power. And to be a wealthy is to be healthy and whole; to have a presence about you, and to own your own brilliance, your own joy and to be fully autonomous, fully free to pursue the happiness you seek.
It seems that the ways in which my ideas about prosperity have changed is not so much a function of aging as it is of maturing. By that I mean that how I define success is more holistic than ever before. And I’m curious if the same thing isn't true for you. Do you feel successful when you are tired and stressed out and overwhelmed? Does what you have in the bank ever make a difference when you get to that burned out stage?
Yours truly was the poster boys for the Superman . By the age of 17, I’d started my third business, was deep in the throes of an eight year do-it-yourself remodel, all while taking courses and doing volunteer work. My motto was “If it is to be, it's up to me." Everyday I got up and lived my list. But no more! Now I get up and live my life. I choose the sweetness of being human over the habitual desire to do more.
And the thing is that choosing your self is the key that unlocks what's possible. When you are willing to stop getting and stop going, you have an invaluable, precious opportunity to uncover the reasons why you put yourself last. It's a journey; a long and winding path from merely surviving to really thriving. Welcome, you're not alone…
It was Earl Nightingale who said “We must be the epitome, the embodiment, of success. We must radiate success before it will come to us. We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become."
Until next time, I leave you with abundant peace.

THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM

If our poverty were due to famine or earthquake or war—if we lacked material things and the resources to produce them, we could not expect to find the Means to Prosperity except in hard work, abstinence, and invention. In fact, our predicament is notoriously of another kind. It comes from some failure in the immaterial devices of the mind, in the working of the motives which should lead to the decisions and acts of will, necessary to put in movement the resources and technical means we already have. It is as though two motor-drivers, meeting in the middle of a highway, were unable to pass one another because neither knows the rule of the road. Their own muscles are no use; a motor engineer cannot help them; a better road would not serve. Nothing is required and nothing will avail, except a little, a very little, clear thinking.
See, too, our problem is not a human problem of muscles and endurance. It is not an engineering problem or an agricultural problem. It is not even a business problem, if we mean by business those calculations and dispositions and organising acts by which individual entrepreneurs can better themselves. Nor is it a banking problem, if we mean by banking those principles and methods of shrewd judgement by which lasting connections are fostered and unfortunate commitments avoided. On the contrary, it is, in the strictest sense, an economic problem, or, to express it better,[Pg 6] as suggesting a blend of economic theory with the art of statesmanship, a problem of Political Economy.
I call attention to the nature of the problem, because it points us to the nature of the remedy. It is appropriate to the case that the remedy should be found in something which can fairly be called a device. Yet there are many who are suspicious of devices, and instinctively doubt their efficacy. There are still people who believe that the way out can only be found by hard work, endurance, frugality, improved business methods, more cautious banking, and, above all, the avoidance of devices. But the lorries of these people will never, I fear, get by. They may stay up all night, engage more sober chauffeurs, install new engines, and widen the road; yet they will never get by, unless they stop to think and work out with the driver opposite a small device by which each moves simultaneously a little to his left.
It is the existing situation which we should find paradoxical. There is nothing paradoxical in the suggestion that some immaterial adjustment—some change, so to speak, “on paper”—should be capable of working wonders. The paradox is to be found in 250,000 building operatives out of work, when more houses are our greatest material need. It is the man who tells us that there is no means, consistent with sound finance and political wisdom, of getting the one to work at the other, whose judgement we should instinctively doubt. The calculations which we ought to suspect are those of the statesman, who, being already burdened with the support of the unemployed, tells us that it would involve him in heavy liabilities, present and to come, which the country cannot afford, if he were to set the men to build the houses; and the sanity to be ques[Pg 7]tioned is his, who thinks it more economical and better calculated to increase the national wealth to maintain unemployed shipbuilders, than to spend a fraction of what their maintenance is costing him, in setting them to build one of the greatest works of man.
When, on the contrary, I show, a little elaborately, as in the ensuing chapter, that to create wealth will increase the national income and that a large proportion of any increase in the national income will accrue to an Exchequer, amongst whose largest outgoings is the payment of incomes to those who are unemployed and whose receipts are a proportion of the incomes of those who are occupied, I hope the reader will feel, whether or not he thinks himself competent to criticise the argument in detail, that the answer is just what he would expect,—that it agrees with the instinctive promptings of his commonsense.
Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the Budget. For to take the opposite view to-day is to resemble a manufacturer who, running at a loss, decides to raise his price, and when his declining sales increase the loss, wrapping himself in the rectitude of plain arithmetic, decides that prudence requires him to raise the price still more;—and who, when at last his account is balanced with nought on both sides, is still found righteously declaring that it would have been the act of a gambler to reduce the price when you were already making a loss.
At any rate, the time seems ripe for reconsidering the possibilities of action. In this belief I here re[Pg 8]examine the advantages of an active policy, beginning with our own domestic affairs and proceeding to the opportunities of the World Conference. This Conference may be well-timed in spite of its delay. For it will come at a season when bitter experience makes the assembled nations readier to consider a plan. The world is less and less disposed “to wait for the miracle”—to believe that things will right themselves without action on our pa
The reluctance to support schemes of capital development at home as a means to restore prosperity is generally based on two grounds—the meagreness of the employment created by the expenditure of a given sum, and the strain on national and local budgets of the subsidies which such schemes usually require. These are quantitative questions not easily answered with precision. But I will endeavour to give reasons for the belief that the answers to both of them are much more favourable than is commonly supposed.
It is often said that it costs £500 capital expenditure on public works to give one man employment for a year. This is based on the amount of labour directly employed on the spot. But it is easy to see that the materials used and the transport required also give employment. If we allow for this, as we should, the capital expenditure per man-year of additional employment is usually estimated, in the case of building for example, at £200.
But if the new expenditure is additional and not merely in substitution for other expenditure, the increase of employment does not stop there. The additional wages and other incomes paid out are spent on additional purchases, which in turn lead to further employment. If the resources of the country were already fully employed, these additional purchases would be mainly reflected in higher prices and increased imports.[Pg 10] But in present circumstances this would be true of only a small proportion of the additional consumption, since the greater part of it could be provided without much change of price by home resources which are at present unemployed. Moreover, in so far as the increased demand for food, resulting from the increased purchasing power of the working classes, served either to raise the prices or to increase the sales of the output of primary producers at home and abroad, we should to-day positively welcome it. It would be much better to raise the price of farm products by increasing the demand for them than by artificially restricting their supply.
Nor have we yet reached the end. The newly employed who supply the increased purchases of those employed on the new capital works will, in their turn, spend more, thus adding to the employment of others; and so on. Some enthusiasts, perceiving the fact of these repercussions, have greatly exaggerated the total result, and have even supposed that the amount of new employment thus created is only limited by the necessary intervals between the receipt of expenditure of income, in other words by the velocity of circulation of money. Unfortunately it is not quite as good as that. For at each stage there is, so to speak, a certain proportion of leakage. At each stage a certain proportion of the increased income is not passed on in increased employment. Some part will be saved by the recipients; some part raises prices and so diminishes consumption elsewhere, except in so far as producers spend their increased profits; some part will be spent on imports; some part is merely a substitution for expenditure previously made out of the dole or private charity or personal savings; and some part may reach the Exchequer without relieving the taxpayer to an equal[Pg 11] extent. Thus in order to sum the net effect on employment of the series of repercussions, it is necessary to make reasonable assumptions as to the proportion lost in each of these ways. I would refer those who are interested in the technique of such summations to an article by Mr. R. F. Kahn published in The Economic Journal, June 1931.
It is obvious that the appropriate assumptions vary greatly according to circumstances. If there were little or no margin of unemployed resources, then, as I have said above, the increased expenditure would largely waste itself in higher prices and increased imports (which is, indeed, a regular feature of the later stages of a boom in new construction). If the dole was as great as a man's earnings when in work and was paid for by borrowing, there would be scarcely any repercussions at all. On the other hand, now that the dole is paid for by taxes and not by borrowing (so that a reduction in the dole may be expected to increase the spending power of the taxpayer), we no longer have to make so large a deduction on this head.
My own estimate, taking very conservative figures in the light of present circumstances, makes the multiplier to be at least 2. It follows that the loan-expenditure per man-year of employment is, not the figure of £500 with which we began, but £100. Since, however, I am anxious not to overstate what will be a sufficiently striking conclusion anyhow, let us take it at 1½, i.e. that two men employed by loan-expenditure lead indirectly to the employment, not of two further men, which represents my own belief, but of one further man. I do not think that anyone who goes through the detailed calculation can bring it out at less than this; which means that additional loan-expenditure of £200 on[Pg 12] materials, transport, and direct employment puts, not one man to work for a year, but—taking account of the whole series of repercussions—one and a half men. This gives us a figure of £133 as the amount of additional loan-expenditure required to-day to stimulate a man-year of employment. But let us, in order to give ourselves a further margin of safety, base our argument on the figure of £150. This answers, most conservatively, the first of our two questions.
Next consider the magnitude of the relief to the Budget. For purposes of broad calculation, the average cost of a man on the dole is usually taken, I think, at £50 a year. Since, on the basis of the above calculation, a loan-expenditure of £3,000,000 will employ at least 20,000 men for a year directly or indirectly, it follows that it will save the dole £1,000,000. Here is one-third of the expenditure already accounted for.
But there is a further benefit to the Budget. The yield of the taxes rises and falls more or less in proportion to the national income. Our budgetary difficulties to-day are mainly due to the decline in the national income. Now for the nation as a whole, leaving on one side transactions with foreigners, its income is exactly equal to its expenditure (including in expenditure both consumption-expenditure and new capital-expenditure, but excluding intermediate exchanges from one hand to another);—the two being simply different names for the same thing, my expenditure being your income. Thus new capital-expenditure of £3,000,000, paid for by an additional loan and not by reducing consumption-expenditure or existing capital-expenditure, increases the national income by more than £3,000,000 if we allow for repercussions. The calculation to obtain the appropriate multiplier is much the same as in the case[Pg 13] of employment; except that it is somewhat greater, since to obtain the national money-income we do not have to make the same deduction for a rise in prices. However, to be on the safe side, let us, as before, take the multiplier as being 1½.
It follows that our capital expenditure of £3,000,000 will increase the national income, subject to taxation, by £4,500,000. Now on the average about 20 per cent of the national income is paid to the Exchequer in taxes. The exact proportion depends on how the new income is distributed between the higher ranges of income subject to direct taxation, and the lower ranges which are touched by indirect taxes; also the yield of some taxes is not closely correlated with changes in national income. To allow for these doubts, let us take the proportion of the new income accruing to the Exchequer at 10 per cent, i.e. £450,000. There will, it is true, be some time-lag in the collection of this, but we need not trouble about that; though it is a powerful argument in favour of proposals for modifying the rigidity of our annual Budget and for making our estimates, on this occasion, cover a longer period than one year. Owing to the time-lag in the effect of increased taxation in reducing the national income our existing budgetary procedure is open to the serious objection that the measures which will balance this Budget are calculated to unbalance the next one; and vice versa.
Thus the total benefit to the Exchequer of an additional loan-expenditure of £3,000,000 is at least £1,000,000 plus £450,000; or, in round figures, £1,500,000, i.e. a half of the loan-expenditure; or two-thirds of it, if we were to take the multiplier as 2. We need see nothing paradoxical in this. We have reached[Pg 14] a point where a considerable proportion of every further decline in the national income is visited on the Exchequer through the agency of the dole and the decline in the yield of the taxes. It is natural, therefore, that the benefit of measures to increase the national income should largely accrue to the Exchequer.

If we apply this reasoning to the projects for loan-expenditure which are receiving support to-day in responsible quarters, we see that it is a complete mistake to believe that there is a dilemma between schemes for increasing employment and schemes for balancing the Budget,—that we must go slowly and cautiously with the former for fear of injuring the latter. Quite the contrary. There is no possibility of balancing the Budget except by increasing the national income, which is much the same thing as increasing employment.
Take, for example, the proposal to spend £7,000,000 on the new Cunarder. I say that this will benefit the Exchequer by at least a half of this sum, i.e. by £3,500,000, which vastly exceeds the maximum aid which is being asked from the Exchequer.
Or take the expenditure of £100,000,000 on housing, whether for rebuilding slums or under the auspices of a National Housing Board, this would benefit the Budget by the vast total of some £50,000,000—a sum far exceeding any needful subsidy. If the mind of the reader boggles at this and he feels that it must be too good to be true, let him recur carefully to the argument which has led up to it. And if he distrusts his own judgement, let him wait and see if any competent person has been able to confound the bases of the argument, where I first offered it coram publico in the forum of The Times.[Pg 15]
Substantially the same argument also applies to a relief of taxation by suspending the Sinking Fund and by returning to the practice of financing by loans those services which can properly be so financed, such as the cost of new roads charged on the Road Fund and that part of the cost of the dole which can be averaged out against the better days for which we must hope. For the increased spending power of the taxpayer will have precisely the same favourable repercussions as increased spending power due to loan-expenditure; and in some ways this method of increasing expenditure is healthier and better spread throughout the community. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer will reduce taxation by £50,000,000 through suspending the Sinking Fund and borrowing in those cases where formerly we thought it reasonable to borrow, the half of what he remits will in fact return to him from the saving on the dole and the higher yield of a given level of taxation;—though, as I have pointed out above, it will not necessarily return to him in the same Budget. I strongly support, therefore, the suggestion which has been made that the next Budget should be divided into two parts, one of which shall include those items of expenditure which it would be proper to treat as loan-expenditure in present circumstances.
I should add that this particular argument does not apply to a relief of taxation balanced by an equal reduction of Government expenditure (by reducing school teachers' salaries, for example); for this represents a redistribution, not a net increase, of national spending power. It is applicable to all additional expenditure made, not in substitution for other expenditure, but out of savings or out of borrowed money, either by private persons or by public authorities, whether for[Pg 16] capital purposes or for consumption made possible by a relief of taxation or in some other way.
It is often pointed out that, when loan-expenditure was on a larger scale as a result of official encouragement, this did not prevent an increase of unemployment. But at that time it was offsetting incompletely an even more rapid deterioration in our foreign balance. The effects of an increase or decrease of £100,000,000 in our loan-expenditure are, broadly speaking, equal to the effects of an increase or decrease of £100,000,000 in our foreign balance. Formerly we had no visible benefit from our loan-expenditure, because it was being offset by a deterioration in our foreign balance. Recently we have had no visible benefit from the improvement in our foreign balance, because it has been offset by the reduction in our loan-expenditure. To-day for the first time it is open to us, if we choose, to have both factors favourable at once.
If these conclusions cannot be refuted, is it not advisable to act upon them? The contrary policy of endeavouring to balance the Budget by impositions, restrictions, and precautions will surely fail, because it must have the effect of diminishing the national spending power, and hence the national income.
People with higher skills levels achieve more at work—they’re more committed, more innovative, more productive, and more confident about taking risks and growing businesses. Low skill levels keep individuals, businesses and the economy on a flat growth curve.
There is a productivity gap between the UK and competitors like France and Germany. Around 20% of that gap is down to the relatively low skills of UK workers. This leads to a low-wage economy, which in turn affects communities in profound ways, including poor health, crime, low aspirations, and lack of engagement.
Skills mean opportunities, choice, independence and greater prosperity. Passing two A-levels can mean earning 17% more than someone with 5 good GCSE passes. A degree can earn people a further 27%.
Our skills programme focuses on developing the demand for skills: from the economy, from businesses, and from individuals. Our interventions focus efforts at a higher (macro-economic) level, looking at how a more skilled workforce can contribute to reshaping places and competitiveness. We want to:
Encourage young people and adults to aim higher, through enhanced skills
Encourage businesses to expect more, by developing and harnessing effective skills solutions
Stimulate the region’s economic performance
By working with partners to influence and enhance mainstream education
By working with partners to develop the region’s skills offering, and communicating it to businesses and individuals.
By commissioning a programme of higher-level skills, to take advantage of economic opportunities.
Our programme operates at a variety of geographical levels. Work with young people is delivered at local authority level. Higher-level skills are focused on the labour market, and therefore on the city-regions. Business demand is managed through
To improve the employability of young people by raising their achievements in English,French,spanish maths snd so on, and skills for the knowledge-based economy (eg science, engineering and languages)
To encourage young people to become their own bosses
To retain talent and skills in our region, particularly graduates, by helping businesses and graduates find each other
To increase leadership abilities, including an understanding of the value of skills
To help technicians develop the skills to take on management roles
To pilot ‘rising stars’ programmes, developing regional talent and improving management capability. We’re working with local authorities to ensure that plans for children and young people align more closely with regional economic priorities. We’re working to influence businesses and intermediaries, as well as government departments and public agencies (the Learning and Skills Council, skills councils, learndirect, Job Centre Plus, and the Higher Education Funding Council our the world). We’re working with the region’s skills boards and higher education.
The team of, World Vision Ministries International need your help.