Wealth disparity, flat, or even regressive taxes, seem to be commonly supported by many of the mormons, with whom I deal.
Robin Hood and his merry man now march on France and much of Europe. Germany approves. And Italy is already implementing.
"A tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor" is the proposition. They call it the Robin Hood tax.
The 99 percent continue to protest in cities across America. A third of our nations wealth is still held by the 1 percent.
The Obama administration remains reluctant to support such a tax however for fear that it will drive away business.
My question here is- in times of such inequality and disparity, how can we as Christians support such a thing as wealth inequality?
I have no grand political arguments. I'm not a mastermind economist and I don't pretend to understand theoretic mathematical concepts. I offer no persuading numbers.
All I say is this-
There is a closed door.
A person comes and opens that door.
The person walks through.
In this simple example, are we to imagine that the only person involved in opening that door was the person that did the deed of opening?
Nay.
Surely the carpenter who crafted the door should have some credit, for without him there would be no door to be opened. And the custodian? did he not make sure the hinges were properly greased so as to be easily opened? And who told the person the location of the door? Should we imagine that they found it all by themselves? And what of that persons parents? Did they not raise them, and nourish them to be strong enough to open the door? Did they not teach them how to turn the knob and get on through?
And so it is with money. It is narrow minded and foolish to say that I have all of my money because of myself and all of my hard work.
Now I'm not talking about welfare, and government handouts, and such nonsense systems that stunt the growth of a countries citizens. And I realize that mormons are one of the top donating demographics for philanthropies and such.
But what I'm getting at is that we should not assume that what is ours is really ours. We should get through that door and say -Ahha! I made it- and close the door on all the other people behind you. To do so would be ungrateful and, in our terms faithless.
I try to remember that we're all in this together and that not a penny of mine is a penny of mine.
Robin Hood and his merry man now march on France and much of Europe. Germany approves. And Italy is already implementing.
"A tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor" is the proposition. They call it the Robin Hood tax.
The 99 percent continue to protest in cities across America. A third of our nations wealth is still held by the 1 percent.
The Obama administration remains reluctant to support such a tax however for fear that it will drive away business.
My question here is- in times of such inequality and disparity, how can we as Christians support such a thing as wealth inequality?
I have no grand political arguments. I'm not a mastermind economist and I don't pretend to understand theoretic mathematical concepts. I offer no persuading numbers.
All I say is this-
There is a closed door.
A person comes and opens that door.
The person walks through.
In this simple example, are we to imagine that the only person involved in opening that door was the person that did the deed of opening?
Nay.
Surely the carpenter who crafted the door should have some credit, for without him there would be no door to be opened. And the custodian? did he not make sure the hinges were properly greased so as to be easily opened? And who told the person the location of the door? Should we imagine that they found it all by themselves? And what of that persons parents? Did they not raise them, and nourish them to be strong enough to open the door? Did they not teach them how to turn the knob and get on through?
And so it is with money. It is narrow minded and foolish to say that I have all of my money because of myself and all of my hard work.
Now I'm not talking about welfare, and government handouts, and such nonsense systems that stunt the growth of a countries citizens. And I realize that mormons are one of the top donating demographics for philanthropies and such.
But what I'm getting at is that we should not assume that what is ours is really ours. We should get through that door and say -Ahha! I made it- and close the door on all the other people behind you. To do so would be ungrateful and, in our terms faithless.
I try to remember that we're all in this together and that not a penny of mine is a penny of mine.
If we start to take money from one person and give it to another person we have just taken away the first person's agency. It's their choice to help or not, they will be held accountable for the choice that they made. There will always be wealth inequality but it should be the person's choice to help. As for myself, I don't their money. I don't want a handout. I was raised to work for my money. If I struggle, then I need to adjust how I'm spending my money. What this nation has forgotten, is how to work. Everybody just expects a handout. To quote Princess Bride, "Life's not fair and anybody who tells you otherwise, is trying to sell you something!"
ReplyDeleteHey George. Remember how we're linkedin friends and cycling friends? Let's be blogland friends!
ReplyDeleteIn what world does monetary wealth equal joy and happiness? None. Just because a few people have managed take hold of a great deal of money does not mean they are any better off than the man that drives the school bus. There are people in this world who live in dirt floor huts and must run barefoot 10k to school and back everyday that have more happiness than every millionaire that there ever was. Inequality, variety is one of God's greatest creations and to make everyone equal is to deny agency and diminish that beauty which God has instilled on this earth. Only in a world where there are free people with un real amounts of wealth do you have a blog published to the world for free. The same goes for electricity, running water, and heat. When someone gets really rich in the capitalist system everyone gets richer, you may not make more money but you get richer. This is because in our system we are not dealing with one pot of one set size, that leads to the idea that if someone has so much then that must have been relocated from someone else. It's not true in this system wealth is created not relocated, the world is exponentially richer now than it was 100 years ago. Someone else isn't making the door for someone else to set through my friend, there is no door. When you make the super rich pay for what the poor don't have the super rich have a harder time making more wealth and that makes life harder for us all. Nothing has ever created the way that innovative driven American business does and some may not be perfect but they are driven by what the consumer wants, if that's lower prices you got it, if that's more jobs you got it, if that's to say hey we don't even want to work with you just pay your fair share and ours to and by the way we think the poor should be helped but we don't want to do it so we are going to make you forget it. If I work with someone and they want to take my money I am not going to work with them anymore. It's simple, everyone in this country wether they have worked hard or not is way more wealthy than the wealthiest man that ever lived and that is because of inequality.
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