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Today we remember the victims of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.  

Vivid remembrances of the events of that fateful morning include an America that was heartbroken, in shock, disbelief, and mourning.

One of my many memories of that day is the erie silence created by the absence of incessant airline traffic over the city where I live.  Today my wife and I flew 1,000 miles and travelled through the US Airways hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Ten years ago today the airport was packed with thousands of stranded passengers who had to find alternate transportation to their destinations once US air traffic was grounded.

19 Arab terrorists led by Mohammed Atta hijacked American Airlines flights 11 and 77, and United Airlines flights 175 and 93 and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an open field in Pennsylvania.  Since that day the world as we once knew it has changed.

Consider... 

Global terror is common and widespread

There is a need for a Department of Homeland Security and a Transportation Security Administration

An "Arab Spring" has resulted in the revolutionary overthrows of various Arab dictators

Several of the world's economies teeter on the verge massive inflation and devaluation of their currencies, or the threat of possible financial collapse

America has a $14,000,000,000,000 + rising national debt.

Economic austerity measures have resulted in several rounds of rioting in Greece

Political unrest characterizes dozens of countries worldwide

Ongoing wars continue in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other locations around the globe

Gold sells at more than $1800 per ounce

A floundering American economy is characterized by a disastrous period of record unemployment, and a nation that has lost faith in Washington's ability to lead it into anything other than more of the same

Reviewing these past 10 years forces one to realize that the world has experienced drastic changes for the worst.  

Is terrorism becoming any less of a threat?  Hardly, today (09/11/2011,) a terror attack directed at NATO in Afghanistan claimed the lives of a few people and injured more than 100 others.  A radical Islamist terrorist group, the Taliban, claimed responsibility for today's attack.

One haunting question remains unanswered…"If 19 Islamic radical terrorists can, by a single act of terror, bring such changes upon a nation and an entire globe…what could millions of Christians could do if they began speaking out and living out their faith in bold and uncompromising terms?"

We will be held accountable.  God help us be faithful!

Whenever the talking heads on TV start talking about the national economy, most of our eyes start to glaze over. The gigantic numbers that they throw out there are ridiculous; most Americans have no idea what those numbers mean in practical terms. So, I thought it’d be fun to turn those figures into something we can understand a little better—like a household budget.

The federal government will take in $2.173 trillion in 2011. That’s their income, and it sounds pretty good. Until, that is, you factor in that the federal government will spend $3.818 trillion during the year. So, just like many families, the government’s outgo exceeds their income—to the tune of $1.645 trillion in overspending. That’s called the deficit. Altogether, the government has $14.2 trillion in debt.

What would happen if John Q. Public and his wife called my show with these kinds of numbers? Here’s how their financial situation would stack up:

If their household income was $55,000 per year, they’d actually be spending $96,500—$41,500 more than they made! That means they’re spending 175% of their annual income! So, in 2011 they’d add $41,500 of debt to their current credit card debt of $366,000!

What’s the first step to get out of debt? Stop overspending! But that means a family that is used to spending $96,500 a year has to learn how to live on $55,000. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Those kinds of spending cuts seriously hurt, but it’s the only way out of debt for John Q. Public.

If I ever got a call from a family that was spending $41,500 more than they made every year, you would definitely expect me to yell at them for their dumb behavior, right? Kids, no more McDonald’s four times a week. Snacks come from the grocery store now. And we’re not going to the movies for a while, so break out the board games and TV Guide. This family has a problem, so it’s time to amputate the lifestyle!

It works the same way for the government. You can’t borrow your way out of debt, whether you’re a typical American family or the entire U.S. government. At some point, you’ve got to say, “Enough is enough!” and make the hard cuts necessary to win over the long haul.

Dave Ramsey is author of the above article.  That and a myriad of other resources are available at www.daveramsey.com

I asked for STRENGTH that I might ACHIEVE.

He made me WEAK that I might OBEY.

I asked for HELP that I might do GREATER things.

I was given GRACE that I might do BETTER things.

I asked for RICHES that I might be HAPPY.

I was given POVERTY that I might be WISE.

I asked for POWER that I might have the PRAISE of man.

I was given WEAKNESS that I might feel the NEED of God.

I asked for ALL THINGS that I might ENJOY life.

I was given LIFE that I might ENJOY all things.

I received NOTHING that I ASKED for;

ALL that I HOPED for;

My PRAYER was ANSWERED!

Author Unknown

According to the AP.  Bolivia lowered their retirement age to 58, and will be backing the move with borrowed money.  The authors state that Bolivia enacted a law Friday lowering the country's retirement age to 58, bucking a global trend in which countries push people to work longer to counteract the burden on national treasuries of rising life expectancy.

Critics say the law, which also nationalizes the pension system and generously extends coverage to the poor, is overly ambitious and unsustainable.

Leftist President Evo Morales signed the bill surrounded by members of the powerful Bolivian workers federation, which helped draft the law.

Bolivia's current retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women.

"We are fulfilling a promise with the Bolivian people. We are creating a pension system that includes everyone," Morales he said at the signing ceremony.

The law, which takes effect in a year, also extends pensions to the 3 million people -- 60 percent of the working population -- who labor in the informal economy as everything from street vendors to bus drivers.

"Evo Morales thinks about the poor people, so they can have something for when they get old," said Juan Quispe, 45, a father of three without a pension who sells ice cream on the street outside the National Palace.

The new law will allow Bolivia's 70,000 miners to retire two years earlier -- or as soon as age 51 if they have worked in life-sapping conditions deep underground. Mothers with more than three children will also get special treatment: the right to retire at age 55.

Morales, an Aymara Indian and the country's first indigenous president, grew up a dirt-poor llama herder and later went on to become a coca-growers' union militant.

The socialism he preaches is rooted in the communitarianism of his native culture. Since taking office in 2006, he has put this landlocked Andean nation's natural gas reserves, main phone carrier and electrical grid under state control.

"This is enormously important, possibly one of the greatest advances for lower- and middle-income people in South America in the last 15 years," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

But critics say the new law could breed financial disaster.

Jacob Funk Kierkegaard, an economist at the Peterson Institute in Washington, says he knows of no other country lowering its retirement age at a time when higher life expectancy is burdening national budgets with pension obligations.

"I would say that they are setting themselves up for a train wreck down the road," he said in a telephone interview. "That they should be willfully going down this road strikes me as very, very shortsighted."

Other countries are moving in the opposition direction. France has led the charge to raise the minimum retirement age in Europe, increasing it last month to 62, with full benefits not available until age 67. Even socialist Cuba has raised its retirement ages from 60 to 65 for men, and from 55 to 60 for women.

Bolivia's deputy pensions minister, Mario Guillen, says his nation should not be compared to the rest of the world.

"A lot of Bolivian workers perform jobs that are eminently physical, not intellectual, and this means that at age 55 they don't have the ability anymore to keep working," he told The Associated Press. "Yet we made them continue."

Bolivia's average life expectancy is 68 years for women and 63 years for men, according to the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs' Population Division. The division puts the global average at 68 for both sexes, with western Europe at 80 and Latin America at 73.

In addition, Guillen said, the conditions spurring European governments to raise retirement ages -- more elderly people and falling birth rates -- don't exist in this country of 10 million where per capita annual gross national income was $1,620 in 2008.

Lowering the retirement age had long been a priority for the labor federation, a strong backer of Morales.

Bolivia's business community is not pleased, however.

The president of the country's Federation of Private Businessmen, Daniel Sanchez, called the new law unsustainable and complained that his group was never consulted on it.

And the government has not explained the financial details of how the new system will work.

"The government is preparing a banquet for 300,000 people, but inviting 3 million to partake," said pensions expert Alberto Bonadona. "It will collapse."

In order to provide for those 3 million new future pensioners, employers will pay the equivalent of 3 percent of their payrolls into a "solidarity fund." Workers will add 0.5 percent of their wages on top of retirement contributions of their own.

Informal sector workers will qualify for pensions if they pay at least $13 a month into pension funds over a decade. They would then qualify for pensions beginning at $68 a month.

Thirteen years ago, Bolivia privatized pension funds after a state-run system collapsed under a cloud of mismanagement and theft.

Currently, Bolivia's two pension funds, covering 1.2 million private- and public-sector workers, are privately run by Zurich Financial Services and the BBVA bank. Together, they manage $4.5 billion.

However, the state has borrowed most of that money -- $3 billion at 2.6 percent interest -- and critics cite that as a worrisome precedent how the government will now administer all pensions.

Associated Press writers Paola Flores reported this story from La Paz and Frank Bajak from Bogota, Colombia. AP writer Carlos Valdez in La Paz contributed to this report.