It‘s My Money

Oh no! Good old Phil Mickelson, a golfer, made a bonehead statement recently. He was complaining about higher taxes on the federal level and in his home state California saying, “doesn’t work for me right now.” And he might have to make “drastic changes.” Oh well, he was having a bad day after a final 66 to finish in a 10 way tie for 37^th at the Humana Challenge. Such a poor fella who has a net worth in the $100 million range. He later apologized for his remarks.

David Brunori on the Tax Analysis Blog chalked it up to that nasty political incorrectness but concluded it was after all “his money.” Damned liberals wanting to take away his money.

"It’s my money and I earned it" crapola irks me. No man (or woman) is island righties! We have these illusions about what we own and what is ours. We own homes and land, right? Don’t pay your taxes and see if you still own them? We are all renters whether we believe it or not.

Elizabeth Warren has articulated it best in recent years when she said,

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!

But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

I’ve been tired of meism for a long time. We are all dependent on each other and we should acknowledge it and appreciate it and work to see wealth is distributed more equally. [See my obscenity piece before this one.]

Where would the Walton’s be without the hard work of all the employees they refuse to pay a living wage while they accumulate obscene amounts of wealth? Where would corporations be without the workers who produce the materials the sell and then lower their wages while giving huge bonuses to their CEO’s even when it is shown they do really bad work? And AIG wanted to sue the government when it bailed them out saying they have to give unfair concessions; Or as Business Time said, “A Heaping Helping of Chutzpah.”

Phil Mickelson may play golf as a lefty but we know he is really a righty in more than one sense.

Obscenity

Robert Reich writes about glum consumers, who while the economy is good on paper are having a harder and harder time of it economically.

The stock market is growing and bullish, the housing market is getting back on track but incomes are another story with dropping median wages (adjusted for inflation).

As Reich writes, “Profits are the highest share of the U.S. economy on record. Wages are the lowest.”

That is obscene.

Believers and Non-Believers

Greenbean’s comments have led me to reflect a bit upon my on religious and spiritual journey. First, I don’t believe in my own title of this article; there are no non-believers. Everyone believes in something whether it is religion or not is besides the point.

But I am a believer in a deity, specifically the deity of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That does not infer I don’t accept tenants of other religious traditions; I do. My journey is like most believers as expressed in the old Sunday School song variation: “Jesus loves me this I know for my mother told me so; in other words I was brought up in a church going and believing family. But that is just tradition, though important.

In my early college years I challenged my belief systems more and engaged in religious debate; and I got flat beat in an argument with a pastor. The gist of the debate was on the subject of predestination, of which I will not bore you with it here and is a most misunderstood theological stance. Suffice it to say, with a more enlightened mind I saw God as a passionate loving being intimately connected with all creation with a plan to have everyone live and work in harmony and love. It is akin to Joseph Pintauro’s statement, “To believe in God is to believe that somewhere, someone is not stupid,” because our history, besides marking human development, also well shows our negative sides.

Now that I have said that I am a believer that does not infer I have no doubts about my theology, the existence of God and practically everything else. I have wrestled with my faith for as long as I have lived it seems and many times I feel I have lost my faith in God completely, only to wake up the next morning to find it intact. Strange. I also describe myself as an agnostic. I think it is the height of egotism to say one can prove or disprove the existence of God in whatever incarnation that God may have. To me, that lies solely in God’s domain, thus his great description to Moses when questioned how to describe God to Pharaoh. God says, “I am.” It’s quite a statement. Descartes tried to do something similar in proving his own existence when he said, “Cogito ergo sum” or “I think therefore I am.” But my questioning mind counters, “What if you are merely a thought that thinks, therefore dependent on another thinker and in essence have no real existence.” I rather like that. What I am is a believing agnostic.

I think I am a typical person, filled with questions, doubts and beliefs. I have met exactly one person in my life that said she never ever had any doubts about the existence of God. I believed her, but it boggled my mind. For me, doubts and questions is what drive my theology and spirituality; it is what gives it substance and strength. I love to debate with believers and so-called no believers because everybody has a glimpse of truth.

It is like a haiku poem I once wrote based on a talk with my father who saw all of us in slated boxes but without tops on them. We can’t exactly look and communicate well with each other but if we look up and we can find a commonality; my poem: Look up please, see what others see; perceive?

So, Greenbean and others I welcome folk to attack my beliefs, for in the questing and debate, we find greater truths. Winning an argument is not the point; the point is that in genuine sharing of ideas which may conflict with each other and often do, we can come closer to discovering more and more complete truths.

The old Westminster Catechism question reads, “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer it gives is, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” The language is sexist and dated but there is great truth in it. I believe we are placed here on this earth to develop relationships; relationships with God and with each other. Those relationships can only be developed through dialogue, through agreeing and disagreeing and rethinking and rethinking again.

I think that is why Jesus spoke primarily in stories. Jesus didn’t just hand out answers to accept or reject, he told stories from which you can discern truths. His stories seem always to run counter the common point of view, the combative point of view, to a higher level of existence; toward the abundant life he promised. His stories I believe are about the kingdom of God and good citizenship in it.

At this point in my life I still have many questions and second guess my beliefs on a regular basis. It just doesn’t bother me much anymore, in fact, I like them. They tell me I am still growing. The core of my beliefs have remained with me a very long time and I am comfortable with them but how they have stretched and grown and changed and been reformulated over and over innumerable times. Fun!

I wish our politicians and our preachers would have more fun and more integrity.

A Response to Greenbean (see comment on previous article

Greenbean raised an interesting point, which I'm not sure I fully grasped but what follows is my response.

I have not read Freakanomics so read a few summaries; not sure I really get it yet, guess it will have to go on my reading list. It does take me back to my days of studying sociology. I remember learning and the relearning it when doing marriage counseling , that the single most important predictor of marital success was whether your parents were happily married. Through study and experience it does seem clear to me that the most important educational unit is and always has been the family; that is the reason I always required a parent to take a confirmation course with the confirmand so they  could discuss things at home. Communities that do not value education will have poor students; parents who do not support teachers have poor students as a rule. Folk who are raised with poor ethics are more likely to be unethical or amoral. I’ve always supported nurture over nature while not ruling out genetic predilections.

What does concern me today is our nation as a whole seems to produce poor thinkers. We have more data available to us than ever before, which researchers like myself delight in, but that does not mean we process that information well. In contrast, we seem less adept at inductive, deductive, rational, dialectical, and logical thinking. We seem more swayed by one liners and slogans rather than reasoned arguments. But that is primarily antidotal information and should be treated as such. At the same time I felt somewhat suspect of the conclusions reached Levitt and Dubner though they are most interesting. And I do believe that economics, while I tend to argue theory, is deeply driven by psychology; if we think the economy is good the economy will be good and vice versa.

Now let me make this clear, nothing you or anyone says will upset me as a minister. I’m pretty independent in my thoughts and love discussion whether I agree or not. I felt this lack of good airing a views with the purpose of discovering truth is very important. Again, to my dismay, I see little of that today but rather just like minded people reinforcing their personal views. Because of this view I must admit that I have not always been as sensitive to others feelings as I might be because discussion/argument is a method of discerning truth not personal attacks.

I also believe there is never “just one thing” that creates conditions such as crime rate or whatever. There are many intricacies involved and we have a tendency towards reductionism just to try and understand things. Though I do believe there are general principles we discover.

For myself, my lens has been a theological lens for understanding and interpreting the world. That lens includes a belief that there is a kind and unconditionally loving God is who is passionate about our world and especially us in a way that supersedes human understanding. More specifically it is a lens reflected in reformed theology, particularly of thought of John Calvin (who I believe most people misinterpret.)

As to solutions and think there are many, but at root of them is for us to have a great sense of unity and connectedness, and that all problems are our problems and need all our insights to work on solving them. I much prefer synergistic processes rather than competitive or antagonistic processes and believe they are far more effective. But we live in a world that seems oriented more towards competition and seeing each other as enemies or friends rather than just part of the human family.

I am hopeful that the MoveOn movement gathers strength and other groundroot organizations will empower folk to take more responsibilities and action to solving today’s issues.

I remain countercultural as my writings reflect and the model I see Jesus reflecting in his teachings. I think it is also seen in the teaching of the leaders of most major religions and philosophies. I see the Christian, the humanist, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Taoist, and so on as kindred spirits holding parts of truths we need to share.

I think I went way beyond the scope your question, but that seems the way I do things. I hope I understood a bit of what you were saying.

I guess I still expect divine intervention in human affairs, guiding us on paths that do not self destruct. Therein lies my optimism.

Planned Parenthood: Less than 100 years ago.

When my wife and I go on trips we like to listen to audio books. One of the books we listened to recently was The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards. It was about connecting with a long lost relative by the name of Rose that had influenced her family but they really didn’t know her history. Rose was a free spirit of the early 1900’s who up and joined the march with ladies demonstrating instead of doing the gardening she was supposed to do. She was also taken advantage of a boy from rich family and got pregnant, had to leave her child in her families care and made her way from then on.

It is a good story but what caught my ear was the state of women less than one hundred years ago in terms of options over their own lives. They did not have the foggiest idea of how their own bodies worked or how to control family size. In fact, it was illegal, due to the Comstock laws to teach women about sex education.

The leading force against this ignorance and oppression was through Margaret Stanton who founded Planned Parenthood. Stanton’s own mother had 18 pregnancies, bore 11 children and died in 1899 at the age of 40. As a nurse, Stanton saw how the Comstock laws affected immigrant families on New York’s lower east side; sickness, misery and death from unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion. You can find many good histories of this era and Stanton on the internet including the Planned Parenthood site: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm.

But to think of this type of inhumanity less than 100 years shocked me no end. Politicians have always had a hand in this from those early inhumane laws of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s to the more enlightened views during the Nixon administration where both parties worked together for adequate family planning services; and of course, Roe v. Wade in 1973. The movement lost ground during the Reagan years, Reagan opposing abortion and made simplistic arguments to limit Planned Parenthood work and limited research dollars. And we are all aware of the violence and bombings of clinics by fanatics over the years. George H.W. Bush catered to the right wing on this issue though initially supporting it. Bush 43 tried to turn back the clock and on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, his first day in office implemented a gag rule to restrict funds for international family planning. Enough detail, you can look it up for yourselves.

I then wondered how citizens of the future a hundred years from now will look at our social policies and perhaps see them as draconian and inane as we see the policies of yesteryear.

What will they think of a country without universal health care preferring to give governmental preference and aid to privatize medicine when other wealthy countries care for their citizens far better. What will they think of a country that did not have universal child care programs again in contrast to other more enlightened countries? What will they think of the rhetoric of extremists such as Newt Gingrich who stated on CNN that child labor laws are stupid? What will they think of our countries growing difficulty in providing and funding good educations that made us less able to compete globally? What will they think of our support of fossil fuel use and large carbon footprint and not investing aggressively in modern forms of energy as other countries have? What will they think of a tax system and government regulations that gave half the wealth of the country to one tenth of 1% of the population and drove down middle class poor incomes? What will they think of the hate mongering of radicals on immigration? What will they think of efforts to get rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and other safety nets? What will they think of a country that actually seemed to believe that trickle down economics worked? What will they think of the ability of the rich to buy elections and influence the legal system by corporate funding? What will they think of corporations being classed as people? What will they think of a country that buried its head in the sand over global warming ignoring the research of the scientific community? What will they think of a country that has more guns that any other country in the guise of the 2^nd amendment but where militias never did anything? What will they think of a country that incarcerates more people than any other country and is known for its violence? What will they think of a country that proclaims its religious freedom and belief but does not follow the moral teachings of those religions? What will they think of a president who said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” And then did everything he promised not to do: making the government larger, increasing the debt, etc.? What will they think of congressional representatives who let biased lobbyists write the legislation they should be researching and writing?

I wonder if in the future there will be two honest political parties with conservative and liberal components but have the willingness to work for the common good and recapture the vision of the founding fathers and give us back democracy. 

Hunger: An Issue on which We Should Be Able to Work Together

³⁴“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. ³⁵And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,

I was homeless and you gave me a room,

³⁶I was shivering and you gave me clothes,

I was sick and you stopped to visit,

I was in prison and you came to me.’                           [Matthew 25]

 Bill Moyers has a new piece out where our country and its leaders could and should unite: getting people out of poverty. He calls it An Antipoverty Contract for 2013.

It is best to read it for yourself, but let me lift up a few of the ideas he presents. He believes that we would move past the clichés and downright misinformation about poor folk, such as they don’t want to work, they want handouts, past programs failed, and the one promoted today – we can’t afford this investment. I believe the opposite is true.

Numbers. “People are beginning to recognize that we have a proliferation of low-wage work — over 25 percent of the jobs in the nation pay less than the poverty line for a family of four, and 50 percent pay less than $34,000 a year. It’s no wonder that 28 percent of all workers last year earned wages below the poverty line, and that more than 70 percent of low-income families and half of all families in poverty were working in 2011. (Low-income defined as living on less than 200 percent of the poverty line, or less than approximately $36,000 annually for a family of three — which now constitutes 106 million people, more than one in three Americans; poverty defined as living on less than $18,000 annually for a family of three, which now describes more than 46 million Americans.) People are looking for answers.”

Solutions he raises:

Raise the minimum wage. In the 60’s and 70’s a family could live on the minimum wage and not be in poverty which is no longer true. The minimum wage has only be raised 3 times in last 30 years, now at $7.25 an hour. That is about $15,000 a year for a fulltime worker. Tipped workers get about $2.13 per house since 1991. It is untrue that we cannot afford to raise wages, we cannot afford not to raise them, as that would stimulate the economy. This pleases my Iowa roots: “The Economic Policy Institute estimates the Harkin-Miller proposal would generate more than $25 billion in new consumer spending, which would lead to the creation of more than 100,000 new full-time jobs. It would also increase wages for nearly 30 million Americans — roughly one-fifth of the workforce — because raising the wage floor improves pay for workers who earn at or just above the minimum wage.”

Next, Paid Sick and Family Leave for all workers. We are the only wealthy nation that does not have such a policy. Again from his article: More than 40 percent of people in the private sector workforce — including 81 percent of low-wage workers — don’t receive a single paid sick day. Millions more lack paid leave to care for a sick child or family member. Nearly 25 percent of workers polled said that they have lost a job or were told they would lose a job for taking time off to deal with a personal or family illness.”

Next, Affordable Childcare for Working Families. Again we stand alone in wealthy countries in not providing this to our detriment. “Half in Ten recently reported that the average cost of full-time childcare ranges from $3,600 to $18,200 annually per child. Since there are 7.8 million families with children under age 6 that live below 200 percent of the poverty line — on less than about $36,000 annually for a family of three — that’s just unacceptable (and it’s unacceptable for the middle class, too).”

Next, End Childhood Hunger. Good grief, this should be a no brainer. 16 million, 25% of our children under 6 don’t have enough food; in our country like ours that is unbelievable and I refuse to believe Americans are that callous. Again, if we think long term, this benefits our country with healthier more productive people for the future.

Jesus’ and all major religious teachers tell us to care for each other. For those who are looking for a spiritual encounter look for those who are hungry, poor, lacking clothes, homeless or incarcerated (we jail more people per cent wise than any country in the world.) Looking beyond ourselves we can find ourselves.

Our country seems lost unable to find its way these days. Our leadership in congress reflects this loss. It is a loss of our own making our greed and our unwillingness to be informed and stand up to modern oppressors that create these problems in our society. Instead, we provide legislation and interpret the constitution to benefit the few over the many.

It may be the way things are but it does not have to be that way. I would encourage you to read Bill Moyers blog and search for ways you can address these problems in our society.

Willfully Deaf, Dumb and Blind?

You’ve Seen a Lot, but Looked at Nothing  [Isaiah 32 – The Message]

¹⁸Pay attention! Are you deaf?

Open your eyes! Are you blind?

¹⁹You’re my servant, and you’re not looking!

You’re my messenger, and you’re not listening!

The very people I depended upon, servants of God,

blind as a bat—willfully blind!

²⁰You’ve seen a lot, but looked at nothing.

You’ve heard everything, but listened to nothing.

²¹God intended, out of the goodness of his heart,

to be lavish in his revelation.

²²But this is a people battered and cowed,

shut up in attics and closets,

Victims licking their wounds,

feeling ignored, abandoned.

²³But is anyone out there listening?

Is anyone paying attention to what’s coming?

²⁴Who do you think turned Jacob over to the thugs,

let loose the robbers on Israel?

Wasn’t it God himself, this God against whom we’ve sinned—

not doing what he commanded,

not listening to what he said?

²⁵Isn’t it God’s anger that’s behind all this,

God’s punishing power?

Their whole world collapsed but they still didn’t get it;

their life is in ruins but they don’t take it to heart.

I know we live in the post-Christian age. Oh, we may claim belief in significant numbers, and I am sure there are many believers, but in terms of the knowledge and practice of Christianity it is a thing of the past, a past the perhaps never was. The same can be said of many religions; people may proclaim their beliefs but their knowledge and practice again leaves much to be desired. We could also call this a post-Moslem age, a post-Hindu age, a post Buddhist age, a post Jewish age, a post whatever age.  I lament such a time.

Paul Ryan is the House representative of my state Wisconsin, the running mate of Romney in the past election and currently serves as the chair of the House Budget Committee. He is a practicing Roman Catholic and makes a good appearance. He also his adherent of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who is the author of Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, two intriguing books. He says the Ayn rand inspired him to enter the world of politics. He also believes that social security is a socialism-based system. With Ayn Rand he believes in limited government and a laissez faire economic system – just let capitalism rip without controls. Ayn Rand or Alisa Zino’yevna Rosenbaum was a Russian-American and a devout atheist. She believed in rational-egotism or rational self-interest. I also think it safe to say she is not taken very seriously by the academic community.

Both these individuals, while they are God’s children, appear to me to be individuals the prophet Isaiah describes as being intentionally deaf, blind, but not dumb (meaning they both talk a lot.)

They seem to be willing blind to the lessons of the past where the philosophies they subscribe to were the rule of the day and messed up the country. They are blind to the economics that lead us out of the morass of limited government intervention and laissez faire economics to times of prosperity and middle class growth.

In Ryan’s case he is our representative, a public servant to the people he is supposed to serve but seem deaf to his constituents listening only to the wealthy and a small group with similar ideological beliefs. He is like the robbers of Israel whose moral compass is not in tune with his professed religious teachings. Our world is collapsing under such self inflicted blindness and deafness and the country suffers for it.

I single Ryan out because there are those who follow his precepts in a similar blind and deaf and dumb pattern. Those who are not informed about the workings of our republic, nor apply their religious heritage to today’s issues. And many today feel like the victims licking their wounds feeling ignored and abandoned and not listened to.

Congress may find it politically expedient to have a chaplain and have prayer at the beginnings of sessions, but they and we would be well served if they took those relationships with the deity and the teachings of religion seriously as they lead our country.

There are many in this country set upon by robbers and lie beaten at the side of the road in poverty and in peril and we are in need of a good Samaritan, not those who choose to go to the other side of the road to ignore those in pain but cater to the lesser gods of power and wealth. The chair of the budget committee of the richest country on earth ought to pay attention to the needs of all its citizens and do right by them.

How Do We Value Human Beings?

Unfortunately the most common way we determine a person’s value to society is by how much money they make. We may say a lot of other things but that is also how most of us value our own worth. If we get a raise we feel better about ourselves, as it shows people have expressed the confidence in our work. For me it is another example of the counter culture nature of religion versus secular society and as I best under the teachings of Jesus that God sees all people equally or of the same value. One could argue that if we applied those religious values to our economic society, everyone would receive the same wage. The task then of employing people would be to find the most fulfilling and appropriate place for them to work. This would be an attempt to combine vocations and avocations. I also realize this is a “when pigs fly” concept.

But when an economic system of value is completely out of whack we see huge differences in the distribution of wealth as we see it now in our society where 1/10^th of the upper 1% of people (1,400) people have half the wealth of the country. Frankly they just are not that valuable to society and this shows a serious breakdown of our economic system.

CEO’s are incredible examples of overvalued people. CEO’s is our society earn 380 times the average worker in our society. Are they that much smarter, harder working, and adept that the average worker (even given monetary values systems)? Of course not, but in our efficacious ethic system in society they can get away with it. Here is the list of the top 10 CEO’s according to Forbes Magazine:

Rank	Name	Company	1-Year Pay ($mil)	5 Year Pay ($mil)	Shares Owned ($mil)	Age	Efficiency
1	John H Hammergren	McKesson	131.19	285.02	51.9	53	121
2	Ralph Lauren	Ralph Lauren	66.65	204.06	5,010.4	72	84
3	Michael D Fascitelli	Vornado Realty	64.405	-	171.7	55	-
4	Richard D Kinder	Kinder Morgan	60.94	60.94	8,582.3	67	-
5	David M Cote	Honeywell	55.79	96.11	21.5	59	138
6	George Paz	Express Scripts	51.525	100.21	47.3	57	36
7	Jeffery H Boyd	Priceline.com	50.185	90.3	128.2	55	12
8	Stephen J Hemsley	UnitedHealth Group	48.835	169.3	155.8	59	-
9	Clarence P Cazalot Jr	Marathon Oil	43.71	67.23	30.3	61	91
10	John C Martin	Gilead Sciences	43.19	214.92	90.9	60	131

The word I have for those and most of the list the follows is obscene. Obscene means without socially redeeming value. Or, in other words, they are highly overvalued.

What frequently amazes me is how condemning we are of folk on the low end of the scale, people living in poverty and needed government aid just to survive. They are loudly condemned and lazy, stupid, unproductive members of our society but on the other hand we hear almost no condemnation of those who earn far more than their worth. It is the Protestant Ethic gone awry or more appropriately at its worst: God values and rewards good people and punishes (with poverty) bad people. The wisdom writers of the Old Testament took a look at a similar way of thinking in their time and said, “Horse puckey!” or words to that effect. Solomon saw and lot of good old boys riding around the town square with the newest and fanciest camel and with great herds of sheep and goats and whatever who were real bad dudes while a bunch of really good folk were living in poverty and they said, that is just not right. The major and minor prophets were always harping on that subject of treating people properly and with dignity. They have a lot to say to our society and our modern prophets do but they do not seem to have much clout.

It is often the case of the ability to walk in another person’s shoes and see life from their perspective. The working poor, say an average Wal-Mart worker earns $8.81 per hour and is not allowed to work fulltime so Wal-Mart does not have to pay them benefits, so they have to get food stamps and other government aid from the tax payers. They are not bad people or lazy, they have just taken advantage of by folk who can do it, such as the CEO’s of Wal-Mart. If they would just charge 1 percent more per product sold, and employed their workers full time, these individuals would no longer be at the poverty level and the entire society would benefit. But what do we do? We give subsidies and inducements to such companies. I have written before how the sporting goods mega store, Cabella, demands that if they will condescend to build a business in a community that community much guarantee them tax benefits and the like. Or, they demand that tax payers subsidize them. That’s whako.

Another major case in point is our medical system which is known to be by far the most expensive on earth and does not provide as good of care for the populace as other developed countries. Why? It is a profit based system where it is easy for doctors and those in the medical field to take their eyes off their purpose – health care – and put it on making the biggest bucks. Frankly I think the old country doctors of old had more fulfilling lives even if they didn’t have as many benefits, they had the respect of the communities.

Capitalist countries always need safeguards built into them, meaning governmental controls to keep them from getting out of balance. Adam Smith knew that, John Maynard Keynes knew that and when we implemented their recommendations the country was very productive and the middle class was strong and the America dream flourished. But for the last 35 years government has abdicated their role in macroeconomics and we end up with the situation we have now. We are beginning to repeat the 19^th century all over again and that boom or bust economy is not good for the country.

Those who support our broken system, the toadies of the rich and unethical have lost sight of each human beings value. They are materialists of the first order. Jesus never said it was blessed to be poor, he believed in the abundant life for all, economically as well as spiritually. We need to take him more seriously in our daily lives.