I saw the above posting, as usual, on Facebook. I am not sure who the author is. But, like most postings of this type, the above is only possibly true if you make some rather odd assumptions about both the people involved and about what is ethical and moral.
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. This sounds good, the problem is that this is not what is happening. Both Republicans and Democrats are increasingly concerned about the gap between the wages of those at the lower end of the scale and those at the higher ends of the scale. Legislation to ensure that all who are paid receive a living wage and/or a wage commensurate with their training and experience is not inappropriate. The fact that this would mean that those at the very top (and shareholders) could not receive such a massive profit is not legislating the wealthy out of prosperity by any means. Saint James said:
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. – James 5
To pay insufficient wages is considered a major sin by God.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. This is absolutely true. Parents work for years without ever receiving any recompense from their children. They well know just how expensive it is to raise them. But, they care for them out of love. Nevertheless, the meme clearly assumes that those receiving it are worthless. This is the myth of the deserving poor. It assumes that most who receive should not be receiving at all. Yet Saint James said:
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. – James 2
Yes, it is true that what one receives another must pay for, and that is exactly what Saint James supports. People love to quote Saint Paul about if anyone will not work neither let him eat. However, if one reads all of Saint Paul’s corpus, one begins to find various times when he talks about supporting widows and orphans and virgins without expecting them to do manual labor. It is obvious that what Saint Paul is talking about is when someone is able and when there is also work available. During the famine prophesied by Saint Agabus, Saint Paul merely said give, and then took the collection over to the Holy Land.
For those of you who try to claim that this is the Church’s job, then you must admit that we have utterly failed at our job. In fact, that argument was indeed what people love to call a “false flag” whose only purpose was to keep you from seeing the utter failure of the Church in this area.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. Absolutely true, it is called taxes. That is why God, particularly in the Old Testament approved of taxes imposed in the name of the Temple and in the name of the King. Even when confronted about taxes, Jesus himself simply said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Taxes are not theft and are approved by God. You have roads, etc., because of taxes. Given those whose income is so low that they are not liable to taxes, that means that there are many people using roads who never paid their full share. Live with it.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. It would not be helpful to debate economic theory right now. But, at least some of the economic theories would disagree. Microenterprises and investing in them have been ways in which the beginnings of a free economy have been brought to some exceedingly poor areas of the world. In the USA, anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws were passed at the beginning of the 20th century precisely because of the great economic harm that the USA was suffering from the robber barons and monopolies. I suggest you read USA history.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does not good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
There are enough myths and falsehood in this statement that it is hard to unwrap. First it assumes that there is a great horde of people that is just sitting around waiting to be given money. Depending on whom you consult, the welfare benefits ranges from 23-34%. Frankly, a big part of the problem is what to define as welfare! Is any not earned government benefit welfare? Or, is it only direct payouts for those who need food assistance, housing assistance, etc.? Some states have programs that give “free” vaccinations to all children, regardless of income level. Is that a government benefit that should be considered welfare? Many seniors are receiving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare payments far beyond anything they invested, even given the most liberal earning percentages. Is that welfare? I am not being facetious. How you define some of these is the difference between 23% and 34%.
Regardless of how you define it, if you actually take the number of people who are receiving the full ride (food, housing, etc.), that percentage is actually very low. Most people receiving government assistance only receive a bit of one or another program. Nothing in any figures posits 1/2 of all a nation receiving assistance from the other half. And, that is where the half lie comes in. It is probably true that if half of one nation was not working and being supported by the other half that the nation would economically collapse. However, no USA figures show anything near that level of total support.
Finally, though people have been jumping on Greece, it is worthwhile to note that one of Greece’s strongest opponents is Germany, a country with an extremely strong socialist-like social net. Germany is not in economic problems despite its high taxes and it many “free” benefits. It is not whether you tax and spend; it is how you tax and spend.
I do not have confidence that the current USA bureaucracy could come close to handling a German-like social net. The bureaucracy would have to be fixed and brought under control. At the same time, I know that the ultra-conservative vision is simply a recipe for social unrest and for creating a situation that would bring about Saint James’ strongest condemnations.
How about a few truer myths. One is that when we make the rich richer, they will spend the money and it will trickle down. No, because it’s almost impossible to imagine the top 2% finding more to spend on; they put it into investments. If you want money to trickle down, put it in the hands of people whose cars and clothing are wearing out. Then they will spend the money on things they need, and it will get pumped back into the economy.
Hear, hear, Father!
3 is actually distinctly wrong, in a country that controls its own monetary policy (like the US, unlike Greece or Germany). The Federal Reserve invents money ex nihilo and gives it to big banks all the time; if they synchronize it right, it all balances out, but with the total amount of money increasing over time.
Wow…. you’re a communist fool. How did we ever become friends?
You advocate theft by government. That is repulsive,
Buh-bye.
Really? Everyone who is ok with a non-zero tax rate is a communist? That does dilute the word to near-meaninglessness.
The rich have hired lobbyists to influence taxation laws to their advantage for so long that it is always a surprise that they cry ‘foul’ when people begin to talk about fairness in the economy. I am old enough to remember when working people had a chance to move upward. Today, my savings don’t earn nearly as much for me in interest as my parents meager savings earned them.
‘Special interests’ favor the rich. Not the upper middle class. And certainly not the middle class. As for the workers and the poor, there are those who work two, three jobs and send their children to college, but among the poor, there is so much discouragement in areas where poverty is concentrated and jobs are scarce.
The wealthy have a great contempt for our poor. Those among our poor who cannot help themselves do need to be assisted in real ways . . . not the old systems that continued the discouragement.
The wealthy? Obscene in their greed.
My guess is John Galt or Ayn Rand.
Thank you, Father. I only wish your good sense had a chance of being better heard over the nonsense. But God is not mocked, and all this contempt for the poor and veneration of obscene wealth will come to the end that is set for it, of which he has plainly warned, since the very beginning of his revelation to mankind.