Clinton is not the devil

every payment to be given due process.

This means that politically unpopular organizations could easily be deprived of economic access. Past attempts to curb money laundering have already inadvertently cut off financial services for legitimate individuals, businesses and charities. The removal of paper currency would undoubtedly leave similar collateral damage.

The crime-fighting case against cash is overstated. Last year, a risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing conducted by the U.K. government found that regulated institutions such as banks (like HSBC) and accountancy service providers (like the Panamanian tax-shelter specialist Mossack Fonseca ) posed the highest risk of facilitating the illicit storage or movement of funds. Cash came in a close third, but if we’re going to cite unlawful transactions as a rationale for banning cash, it only makes sense to ban banks and accounting firms first.

The one benefit of replacing cash with claims on cash is that a claim can be discounted, canceled or seized. That doesn’t sound terribly beneficial to most people, but this attribute is attractive to a growing contingent that wants to send interest rates into negative territory.

As Rogoff explains, negativeinterest-rate policy is an important tool for central banks to restore macroeconomic stability. During times of slow economic growth, a lower cost of borrowing gives companies an incentive to invest and consumers to spend. Physical currency gets in the way of negative-interest-rate policy because people who don’t want to accrue negative interest can simply store their cash in a safe. By confining the national currency to regulated account holdings, the government can impose a tax on savings in the name of monetary policy.

Now if there’s one thing the population is good at, it’s tax avoidance. That’s a good part of why we’re having this conversation in the first place. If interest rates fall too far below zero, it’s possible that citizens would avoid the currency tax by finding an alternative form of cash. Drug traffickers certainly would.

Money has been repeatedly reinvented throughout history, as shells, cigarettes and cryptographic code. Humans are resourceful.

Rogoff acknowledges this risk, and states that the removal of paper money will be effective only “provided the government is vigilant about playing Whac-a-mole as alternative transaction media come into being.”

This sounds a lot like a policy employed in 13th century China, where the use of gold or silver as a medium of exchange was punishable by death. Such is not the hallmark of a free society, but neither is the abolition of cash.

A cashless economy violates the basic laws under which currency has operated since before the Industrial Revolution.

The question is whether it’s worth giving up a fundamental freedom to clear the way for an experimental policy designed to place a tax on currency.

Money may be a shared illusion, but cash abolitionists are in a hallucination all their own.

Hillary Clinton is the devil? Really? That’s what Donald Trump has said repeatedly, including at the last presidential debate, when Trump allowed he was surprised to see Clinton primary rival Bernie Sanders “sign on with the devil.”

That’s a fairly powerful, if theologically inaccurate, charge.

But judging from the number of evangelicals who are opposing Clinton and supporting Trump, the Republican nominee may not be alone in his aversion to Clinton.

“I was at a Christian apologetics conference and every time [Hillary Clinton’s] name would come up, everyone would boo,” said Rachel Held Evans, a religious speaker and author. “A friend of mine said, ‘Christians aren’t allowed to say “bitch,” but they make an exception for Hillary.’ She was the first woman I remember being described as a feminazi.”

That moniker likely came from talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who, believe it or not, is not the most obsessed or deranged of Clinton’s critics. That would probably be Alex Jones of the conspiracy-mongering website Infowars. On his own show, Jones claims a source confirmed to him that Clinton was either a demon or possessed by one.

Gee, you’d think she’d have been powerful enough to keep all those emails from coming out, huh?

Leave it to pastor Franklin Graham to correct the record: “Donald J. Trump has said Hillary Clinton was the devil, but I can assure you that’s not the case,” Graham wrote on Facebook. “The devil is real. Hell is a real place.”

Still, Graham urged Christians to vote for the candidate who promises the better future for America, and will make better appointments to the Supreme Court. How many of you think he’s referring to Clinton?

So a solid majority of Christians appear ready to vote for a foulmouthed, thrice-divorced TV reality show host who fails to render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, who boasts in private about having tried (and failed) to violate the Seventh Commandment and revels in the fact that stardom apparently gives him free reign to assault women. Sounds reasonable. Not that Hillary Clinton is without sin: According to FBI director James Comey, Clinton allegedly bore false witness about her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

So, what’s a good Christian to do? True followers of Jesus wouldn’t be comfortable in either political party. On the one hand, they’d be called to minister to the poor and immigrants (legal and otherwise). They’d be expected to care for the planet and all God’s creations. But they’d also be expected to stand up for moral principles such as the sanctity of life and the dignity of the person. (Think Pope Francis, and you’re on the right track.)

Part of the problem is that the Bible is many things — history, prophecy, poetry, a repository of great moral wisdom — but a political guidebook it is not. Jesus Christ took an active disinterest in temporal politics at every turn, and taught his followers that he’d come to build a kingdom based on love, forgiveness, worship of God and service to each other, leading to eternal peace in the next life. The politics of the day wasn’t even an afterthought for him. So trying to pound the square peg of the Good Book into the round hole of politics is a fool’s errand.

Yet, it happens every day, with Republicans claiming more believers, mostly because of their stances on social issues.

“Evangelicals are simply not going to vote for Hillary Clinton,” said David Lane, founder of American Renewal movement. “Donald Trump’s comments were stupid and they were awful. The question is, where is he now? Donald Trump is moving. He was on national television, he apologized, he said he was wrong.”

Well, he’s got the forgiveness part down, at least.