Monday, January 25, 2016
So Jeremiah sent for Baruch son of Neriah,
and as Jeremiah dictated all the prophecies that the Lord had given
him, Baruch wrote them on a scroll. Then Jeremiah said to Baruch, “I am a prisoner here
and unable to go to the Temple.
So you go to the Temple on the next day of fasting, and read the
messages from the Lord that I have had you write on this scroll. Read them so the people who are there from all
over Judah will hear them. Perhaps
even yet they will turn from their evil ways and ask the Lord’s
forgiveness before it is too late. For
the Lord has threatened them with his terrible anger.” Jeremiah 36:4-7(NLT)
According
to a New York Times article JPMorgan, Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon got a nice 35% raise
this year – from 27 million to 35 million! [2]
Wonder how
he made ends meet before getting that raise?
Meanwhile,
my bank, along with the rest of the banks in America pays its customers about ¼
of 1% interest on their savings accounts.[3] For a modest savings of, let’s say, $5,000,
you get $13 per year interest. Pitiful,
but I guess I was spoiled early on. When
I first opened a savings account as a pre-teen, the interest rate was about 20
times higher, 5¼%. And the mortgage rate
my parents paid on their little house was 3%.
Credit cards were not used by the average person back then, but we all
seem to live on them today. The average
consumer credit card interest rate today for unpaid balances is 17.55%[4]
So…if I get
this right: if you manage to save up
$5,000 and put it in a savings account, the banks can reinvest it and pay you
back $13 interest a year! But if you use
that credit card and run up your balance to $5,000 – you have to pay them $877.50
per year.
Somehow that doesn’t sound
like it would be a good idea (except for the banks)!
Now, I know it is a “free
country” (except if you borrow money), and I am free to stuff whatever money I
want under the mattress; frankly I don’t think my bank would miss me. And this isn’t a tirade against the banking
industry. But, I just can’t help
wondering why, less than 10 years ago the poor banks were being bailed out via
the pocket books of middle-class Americans, while the interest those banks
returned on life savings for plain people disappeared altogether; and now, in a
time when the economy is supposed to be dancing-happily along in recovery, the
poor are getting worse off, and the so-called middle class is disappearing
altogether. And the head banker gets an
$8,000,000,000 raise!
Is there something
intrinsically-wrong with the system? I
wonder.
In Jeremiah’s day (not much
different than every other day in human history), the poor were exploited by
the rich and God’s prophet delivered the not-so-good-news that God
wasn’t pleased.
That we repeat often this
oppression of the poor by the rich is a given.
Consider the lottery: two hundred
fifty years ago the cost of a lottery ticket was so high that only the affluent
upper-class could afford to play. Poor
people spent what little they had providing for their families. Today, because of advertising appeals to the get-rich-quick
mentality that longs for a way out of poverty, being tied to the temptation of
low prices, many under-educated people living in poverty put their children to
bed hungry.
That this is a scheme which targets
the poor is indefensible. In city after
city the largest numbers of lottery ticket outlets are in the poorest
neighborhoods.
What’s worrisome here is
that while we in America are repeating these oppressive, cold-hearted attitudes
towards the poor and marginalized, God is aware of every bit of it, and He has
been known to repeat judgment on an unrepentant people.
I don’t mind getting just a
postage stamp return on the little life-savings I have, but an eight million
dollar raise for a CEO, while my poor neighbor’s children starve to death,
tells me something is exceedingly wrong in this country.
For You Today
What’s in YOUR wallet? Hopefully enough to carry a warm meal to a
hungry child.
No comments:
Post a Comment