Worldwide Income Inequality

I admire the people involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement for bringing attention to some serious flaws in our financial system.  One of those flaws is the fact that many people responsible for our current financial problems have not had to face consequences for rigging the system so that they could bet on its failure.  Our system of investment has moved further away from realistic assessments of the productivity or profitability of an enterprise.

One of my Facebook friends works in banking.  He claims that the housing crisis and the financial collapse that followed were caused by legislation that forced lenders to make loans available to people who could not pay the loans back.  Although they have not used the exact words, he and other Facebook friends have made comments that lead me to believe that they think the people occupying Wall Street are operating under a sense of entitlement.

Income inequality is an important issue to address, but I get the impression from some things I read that some members of the Occupy Wall Street movement need to be reminded that no one owes anyone else a job.  Businesses hire people to do jobs because they think they can make a profit from the work that gets done.  If a worker is paid more than the revenue brought to the business as a result of the work done, that worker will not have a job for very long.  Those who protest income inequality in the United States need to consider income inequality worldwide.  Those who claim to be among the 99% in the United States may be among the 1% worldwide.

For many decades, the citizens of the United States have made up a small fraction of the world’s population, but have consumed the majority of the world’s resources.  We take many things for granted while people around the world do without food, housing and medical care.  Improved communication technology is changing that.  Employers can now find workers around the world who are more skillful and reliable than domestic workers, and will work for much lower wages.  This means more profit for businesses that send office work overseas.  As the Chinese economy grows, more people in China can now afford to buy things that they could not afford in the past, such as beef.  A greater worldwide demand for beef will result in higher prices for beef at supermarkets and restaurants in the United States.

Even if those who occupy Wall Street are successful in reducing income inequality in the United States, addressing income inequality and consumption inequality worldwide will mean that we in America will have much less than we do now.  The Arab Spring may result in even higher gas prices.  We forget that dictators in the Middle East made it convenient for us to extract oil from their countries at low prices.  Democratically elected governments in Egypt and Libya may want their fair share of oil revenues.  Overall, we can expect to become poorer as people in other parts of the world become less poor, especially if we continue to think that someone owes us a job.  We have to have skills or products that we can sell in a global marketplace if we want to maintain our current standard of living.  Advances in communication technology will give us the chance to do that, but will also give a chance to everyone else in the world.

Invest, Don't Protest

The Occupy Wall Street movement is as historical as the movements that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall or the protests at Tiananmen Square, because instead of taking their protests to the United States Capitol, citizens are taking their complaints to the place where decisions about money are made.  They know that our government is unable to help them.  They acknowledge that our elected representatives are puppets of Wall Street.

I ask the people occupying Wall Street to look deeper.  Wall Street is a puppet, too.  Wall Street is merely one component in the Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.  President Kennedy also warned us about a monolithic conspiracy.  Taylor Caldwell wrote a novel about an international cabal that controls our lives.  I am now starting to wonder if this vast complex devised a powerful system to control trading and banking that is now out of control. 

If Occupy Wall Street wants to correct the abuses of our financial system, I suggest that they use their organizational skills to get people to pool their money to invest.  Wall Street will not listen to protests in the park.  They will listen to how shareholders vote for board members.  If we want our media to give us real news instead of celebrity gossip, we need to elect enough directors to the boards of media corporations to make that happen.   If we want to make sure that pharmaceutical companies are not sitting on patents for lifesaving drugs, we need to organize with each other to put enough money together to buy enough shares of pharmaceutical companies to elect directors to the board.  If we don’t want a manufacturer to ship jobs overseas, we need to own enough of that company to make them keep the jobs here.

If corporations are our government, getting involved in public life means owning a piece of Corporate America and getting our neighbors to do the same.  We also need to organize boycotts of privately-traded firms if they do harm to the social good.  The boycott of one bus company helped end racial segregation on public transportation throughout the United States.  We can influence policy with how we decide to use the few dollars we have.  Getting more directly involved in the financial world may be the only effective way to uncover and correct the shadowy forces that control our government and our financial system.

"If it weren't for the unions, you'd be working for peanuts!"

I am grateful that I do not have to work on Labor Day, but will get paid for it anyway.  I had to work the Saturday and Sunday before Labor Day this year, but I am grateful for that.  I hear about so many people being out of work lately, that I am grateful to have work.  I am also grateful to have the day off because I predict that by the end of the decade, Labor Day will no longer be a legal holiday.  Labor Day reminds me of other things that I should be grateful for.  In some parts of the world, Labor Day is called Eight Hour Day.  Think of that.  We take for granted so many things that the labor unions negotiated for us, such as not being expected to work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week without being paid time and a half or compensatory time off.

I remember witnessing an argument between my grandfather and one of his friends when I was a kid.  My grandfather's friend had said something about unions being useless or that they had outlived their usefulness.  My grandfather said "If it weren't for the unions, you'd be working for peanuts!"  I remember that when I hear about union-busting legislation in Ohio and Wisconsin.  The unions are almost dead.  Much of it is their own fault.  They allowed themselves to be corrupted, and they did not share a global vision of business with employers.  In many cases, they priced themselves out of markets.  Corporations determined that they could get higher quality work for less money in foreign countries.  Ohio and Wisconsin are probably just the first two cash-strapped state governments to refuse to continue to pay for unaffordable salaries and benefits.

As the unions die, we can all expect to see the benefits they negotiated for their members fade away.  Many of these benefits apply to all of us, not just union members.  The laws of supply and demand will give employers greater negotiating power as unemployment remains high.  We will all be competing with each other for fewer jobs, so employers will hire those of us who will settle for lower pay and fewer benefits.  We can expect to see less paid time off, less coverage for health care insurance and longer workdays and workweeks.  We can expect working conditions to deteriorate.  Laws governing these things will either not be enforced or will be weakened or repealed.

I hope my predictions are wrong.  I would like to have Labor Day as a paid holiday until I retire, and would like my son to be able to take a long weekend when he joins the workforce.  I hope we can remember the power  of collective bargaining, and learn to use it wisely.

Jesus, The Performance Artist

Two different Facebook friends have posted declarations of faith in the last few days, requesting that all of their friends copy and paste the declaration to their Status.  Both of the declarations contained reminders that if we deny Christ in front of men, He will deny us to The Father at The Judgment.  I needed to ask myself why I hesitated to comply with their requests.  It is because I have become leery of reposting anything on Facebook, and I do not want to be responsible for turning anyone away from Christ. 

Many requests to repost information on Facebook turn out to be rumors or hoaxes.  That was not true in this case, as both of my friends accurately paraphrased what Jesus said.  I am concerned about turning anyone away from Christ because I have seen it happen.  Jesus told us not to judge anyone, but my impression has been that many people who call themselves Christians are some of the most judgmental and mean-spirited people around.  I think that many other people share this impression.  People I have known who have been some of the best examples of loving thy neighbor, who were most like the Good Samaritan, have been people who did not even think of themselves as Christians.  Reminding people that they face damnation unless they declare themselves as Christians will probably not motivate people to learn about Jesus Christ.  Jesus said that he came not to condemn the world, but to save it from condemnation.

If we are going to use Facebook and other social media to share the Good News, we must share the good news with those who have not heard it.  They can learn about not hiding their light under a bushel after they get interested and start reading a Bible.  Jesus preached a message of love and hope and the power of faith.  One important thing I learned from reading the Bible is that we do ourselves a larger favor by forgiving others than any favor we do for anyone else when we forgive them.  I learned that we can overcome fear by faith.

Jesus was the ultimate performance artist.  Historians regard the Gospels as historical documents.  The Crucifixion was an historical event, not just a religious event.  Even if we leave aside some of the dogma, such as whether Jesus was born of a virgin, He really did go to the cross to send a message.  He had enough love and enough faith in him to undergo torture and die an extremely painful death so that the rest of us can have a focal point for our faith.  He died so that we can have life more abundantly and so that we can face the afterlife without fear.

Taxation Without Representation

An important principle for us to keep in mind on Independence Day is the idea of taxation without representation.  It was an important reason for the American Revolution.  It is the reason the franchise was expanded to include more than male property owners

Many citizens of the United States today are taxed without representation, but that is at least partly their own fault.  Less than half of the eligible voters in Ohio showed up at the polls to narrowly elect the now unpopular governor, John Kasich.  The government of Minnesota is now shut down because the governor and the legislature cannot agree on a budget.  The Democratic governor wants to raise taxes on state residents with the highest two percent of income, and the Republicans in the legislature refuse to agree to this.  It looks as though the same thing may happen to our national government.

The people who represent us in our state and national governments do not represent all of us.  They certainly represent the wealthiest among us, because the wealthiest among us vote.  They also have the means to fund election campaigns to influence how the rest of us vote.  If the wealthiest among us have a disproportionate share of power, it is because we gave it to them through our apathy. 

This problem goes back many generations.  Many people are apathetic about voting because they do not understand the importance of voting.  They did not adequately learn about civics in school because their parents did not vote for adequate funding for the public schools.  Those parents did not vote for money for the schools because they did not understand that their children must have an adequate education to participate in government effectively.  As a result, we have a population that believes that their votes do not count.  Many of those who do vote are manipulated by politicians who tell them what they want to hear.

If you are a poor working stiff, your incompetent brother-in-law sleeps on your couch.  If you are well-to-do, your incompetent brother-in-law works in your tax shelter business.  If you are wealthy and powerful, your incompetent brother-in-law holds public office so that you can get government contracts and subsidies and so that the tax structure favors your business interests.

We can reverse this situation simply by voting.  This means all of us.  If we simply bothered to learn about the issues and vote for candidates who truly represent our interests, we might be able to choose from more than two parties, and we might be able to field candidates who know something about the United States Constitution and the law.  We might not have to put up with campaign ads that insult our intelligence.  We might be able to keep our government in operation.

I'm Still Here

Even though Harold Camping seems to have not read the verses in the Bible in which Jesus Christ said that not even the angels in heaven know when he will return, (Matthew 24:36) I would be reluctant to laugh or jeer at him.  Mr. Camping predicted that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. EDT.

There is a reason that we have a concept of a Last Day and a Rapture.  It is there to remind us to check ourselves to see if we are free of guilt and anger.  Whether you call these emotions sin, or bad kharma or negative spiritual energy, they hinder us from living life to its fullest in this world and prevent us from achieving Nirvana or entering the Kingdom of Heaven.  To be free of guilt and anger, we must seek forgiveness from those we have wronged, and forgive those who have wronged us.  This can be hard work.  The idea of the Rapture is there to remind us not to put off that hard work until it is convenient.  Jesus could come back at any time.  Even if he does not come back soon, any of us could get hit by a bus at any time.  We don't want a heart full of guilt and anger whenever something happens.

Basic Economics

WBNS 10TV, a television station in Columbus, Ohio, recently posed a question on its Facebook page. They asked followers who or what they think is responsible for the price of gasoline. The most popular answer among the people who post comments is that high gas prices are caused by the greed of the oil companies. President Barack Obama addressed similar concerns when he announced that the U.S. Justice Department will investigate whether the price of gas has been artificially increased by speculation among commodity traders.

Saying that an increase in the price of gasoline is caused by greedy oil companies is overly simplistic. They are in business to make a profit, but they have to compete against each other. If one oil company raises their prices significantly more than the other oil companies, they will not sell any oil or gas. I would be surprised if speculation is responsible for the price of gas increasing by more than a few cents a gallon.

What many of us seem to forget is the law of supply and demand. The price of gas is going up because we are running out of crude oil, from which gasoline is refined. The law of supply and demand determines the price of anything. If the supply of something increases or if the demand for something decreases, prices will go down. We can see this with the price of pork. More people now believe that the amount of fat in pork is not good for them and are buying less of it. The supply has not decreased in proportion, so those who still enjoy pork chops can find deals at the supermarket. Deals are not available on honey. A mysterious disease has killed off many honeybees, so honey is in short supply. The demand for honey has stayed the same, but there is less of it available. It is like we are all at an auction. Fewer people are bidding on the same amount of pork chops, and the same amount of people are bidding on less honey.

The situation with gasoline is similar to the situation with honey. There is less gasoline available than there used to be, but the same number of us are bidding on it. There is less oil available because we have used it up. We have been using it up for more than 100 years. Allowing oil drilling in places where we do not now allow it might keep the price of gas from going up for a little while, but it will go up again once we use that up. We have used it up through our pride, impatience, snobbery and laziness. We love to be seen in big, fancy cars, and we love to drive them fast. We think public transportation is for losers. We would rather spend the money to own a car than to walk a few blocks to catch a train or a bus. People who would rather take a bus or train to get to work are often out of luck because public transportation systems have not been built. We have put our money into roads and streets to accommodate automobiles. Those who want to ride bicycles risk death or injury at the hands of impatient and inattentive drivers. Obesity is epidemic, but we do not want to walk a few blocks to the store. We would rather use chainsaws, snowblowers and power mowers than do any kind of labor.

We have designed a transportaton system that uses fuel as inefficiently as possible. CSX claims that its trains can move a ton of freight nearly 500 miles on one gallon of fuel. This seems vastly more efficient than moving freight by truck. It makes me wonder why more freight is not moved by trains. If freight has to be moved hundreds of miles, it seems that it would be much more efficient to move it by train, and then put it on a truck to move it from a train depot to the final destination. This may add to the time it takes to deliver products to market, but I would think it would help decrease the final cost of the products.

We have used up all of our oil by using it inefficiently. If we want to stop paying outrageous prices for gas, we will have to avoid driving. We will have to take the bus, walk, or ride a bicycle. We may have to wait an extra day for products to arrive at the store.