For this post, I’d like to ask readers to put themselves in the position of an LDS family with the following circumstances.

–The husband and wife are in their late-30s. They have four kids.
–The husband and wife have decided that it is better for the husband to stay at home and watch the kids these days because the wife has a law degree and she wants to go back to work. The husband is working on a book but has not yet found a publisher.
–The wife has just been fired by her law firm which is going out of business. She was making $120k a year before. The only job she can find is one making $90k to start.
–The family has $120k of combined student loan debt. It is paying faithfully. There is about $20k of credit card debt, which is being paid down every month. There is a mortgage on the house, but the house is under water (they bought it five years ago for $250k and they have a $220k mortgage, but the house was recently valued at $170k).
–The husband and wife sit down and go over their debts and their income. They see they have a $1000 hole between their new income and their current expenses. They have some difficult choices to make. Let’s look at what responses would be smart and credible and what choices wouldn’t fly.

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Please leave your thoughts on Day 2 of General Conference.

Come one, come all to add your thoughts on General Conference this weekend. Hear modern-day prophets speak and offer guidance for troubling times.

We’vehad one commenter on M* ask me my opinion on the 2012 presidential race. That’s enough popular demand for me!

I’d first like to point out that I have come to the opinion this week that John McCain, the person I held my nose and voted for for president in 2008, would have been an even worse president than Barack Obama. McCain’s cheerleading for our ridiculous adventure in Libya has been nauseating. What would a McCain president have gotten us? Probably involved in a lot more countries than Libya and most likely a similar stimulus bill. He would have championed cap and trade (to get along with the left). The only advantages of a McCain presidency: better Supreme Court picks and no Obamacare.

A McCain presidency would have done no better on the vital issue of our national debt than Obama because, while McCain is supposedly a fiscal conservative, he would have expanded the military and supported some kind of stimulus. This is crucial because it means more long-term spending and more unsustainable debt.

I think Republicans like myself need to learn the lessons of a disastrous eight years under Bush and a McCain candidacy. That lesson is: our candidates have to offer a real alternative. The electorate does not get excited, nor should it, by choices between Tweedle-Dee and Tweddle-Dum.

With that in mind, here’s my take on the Republicans who may take part in the 2012 race.

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Most Church members make explaining Mormon doctrine on salvation and heaven much more complicated than it needs to be. By the mainstream Christian perception of salvation and heaven (by mainstream, I mean what most Christians actually believe, not what theological school graduates claim Christian doctrine is), Mormon doctrine is incredibly easy to understand.

To wit: “A loving God would not create human beings to send them to Hell. Only the worst people, those who repeatedly reject God even after they know Him, go to what Christians describe as Hell. The rest of us go to a kind of Heaven, a place that is much better than Earth and where you will feel joy.”

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