Chapter 9: Rich man, poor man

The Bible is full of great morality plays expounding the virtues of the poor and the malevolence of the rich. Mathew quotes Jesus as saying that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. I don't want to get into all the crazy arguments about whether Jesus intended to be literal. And it is silly to talk about the alleged misinterpretations assigned to the eye of the needle. Suffice to say that Jesus wanted us to understand that most rich people were assholes. They were assholes in his day and they are assholes today.

Today's political arguments revolve around this unarguable premise. To hear a Republican talk, one would think the rich were endowed with virtues far beyond the capacity of our lower class brains to decipher. They truly believe it when they say the rich work hard and the poor are lazy. I have been around both the rich and the poor all my life. I can honestly say I know of no rich man who works hard. Rich people think 8 meetings and two plane connections is a hard day. But if they had to work one shift at McDonalds, they would understand the true meaning of work.

Most of this idiocy revolves around the belief that most rich people are self made men. To the contrary. Most rich men are generationally wealthy. The top one percent had it given to them. They were born into it. They work to keep it. They work to keep from being swindled. They work to make it possible to pass it down to generation after generation after generation. Their ability to make more millions on top of what they already have boils down to the same kind of luck it takes to win at roulette. They spend their days betting on stocks and bonds and businesses to which they owe little or no sweat. To call that work is an insult to the working class.

They never clean a toilet or dig a latrine. They don't have to paint the eaves or clean out the basement. They don't rake their own leaves or dig their own weeds. They are mostly leeches on society, grabbing up most of the profit for themselves. The only value they give to our society is in the wealth they allow to be used to finance businesses...the bricks and mortar kind.

When we prospered, back in the 50s, the rich were taxed at 90 percent. Politicians knew that most rich people would never have to pay that rate. But they also knew that if you allowed them to park their money in high yield bonds and low risk derivatives, they would be absolutely happy to sit on their millions. That high tax rate pushed money into the markets. In order to avoid the tax man, the rich invested in charities and businesses. And boy oh boy did we prosper!

Most people have never read a single book on economics. I read three this year. All of them outline the following simple reason for high taxes on the rich:

If I am rich, I have a large amount of disposable income. Most middle class people have nearly none. Disposable income generates demand. Demand generates middle class prosperity and healthy tax collections. When disposable income is concentrated at the top as it is now, the markets starve. Demand is low because one man holding a hundred million dollars cannot possibly spend his disposable income. But if ten thousand people hold that same hundred million dollars, chances are excellent that they will spend a great percentage of it. They will be able to fix their cars and put insulation in their attics, or go to a movie or buy a new TV. They will generate demand. They will stimulate job acquisition.

Rich people are no more frugal than you or I. They just have no need to spend their cash as a percentage of income. So giving them tax breaks will only exaserbate the problem. Giving them tax breaks will tie up even more money that is never spent.

So now that you understand the great Republican lie, let's compare that with the great Christian makeover.

Why do you think most Catholic Churches have stopped preaching sermons about the pitfalls of wealth? Whe don't they follow the example set by Jesus and pillory the rich? Could it be because their most important benefactors are rich? Could it be that the collection plate dictates the political stand of the Church?

So they give Jesus a makeover and strip him of his anti-wealth, anti-violence message. They pray to Jesus to make them victorious in war. They pray to Jesus to help them nail that next commission check. They hobnob with the wealthy and flatter them. And the wealthy start believing that they do it all by themselves. They dip into the corporate coffers and scoop up the lion's share of the profits.

Michael Moore makes his point in this way: Imagine a large room with a hundred people standing around waiting to be fed. Everyone is very hungry and hasn't eaten in days. A man walks in with a large pie cut into 100 pieces. One of the hungry men walks up to the pie and takes 99 pieces for himself, leaving 1 piece for the other 99 people. That is how capitalism works in this country. And without the help of the Christians, it would never fly. Christians have forsaken the most important message of their great Savior. They have embraced greed and forsaken generosity.

“But that's just business!” they will say. That may well be...but Jesus was specific about this one and today's Christians are diametrically opposed to his message. There is a way to make capitalism a more egalitarian pursuit. But reforming it will be impossible until conservative Christians turn back to Jesus and accept his philosophy.

I'm not holding my breath.