Hope and Change

Envy

A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another. The object of such feeling: Their new pool made them the envy of their neighbors

Greed
An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: "Many . . . attach to competition the stigma of selfish

Redistribution of wealth
The act or process of redistributing. An economic theory or policy that advocates reducing inequalities in the distribution of wealth

Equality
The state or quality of being equal. Mathematics A statement, usually an equation, that one thing equals another.

Hope and change. Great campaign slogan. It worked didn’t it? We are in the midst of change. What is changing, and what do we see happening around we. We have watched protests in the Middle East and the fall of Egypt and Libya. We have watched the economic systems of Europe fall right before our eyes. Who’s to blame? Government or the people. What if I said it was the people? What if I said the elected officials did exactly what people wanted and created the policies that have brought the world economies down?

The Wall Street protests are interesting. They are asking the government to regulate and control the very institutions that hold our money and investments; correct? Top democrats are supporting it. Do you want the government controlling your money? Let’s put it this way. You save your money and make wise investments, but the government comes in says you have too much so we are going to take half of it, and give to someone else.

Yesterday I had online discussion regarding unions. It is interesting what is happening now with unions. There was a comment made that human rights were being violated because of collective bargaining. With the termination of unions employers are only required to maintain safety regulations for the employee. Someone made that comment that a teacher that had been there 10 years could be fired and replaced with a teacher that just graduated and would make less. What if that teacher of 10 years has a poor record regarding her students’ education, and if she is fired the union comes in and threatens to sue? They hire her back and she still has a poor teaching record?
Manufacturing in this country has been leaving for years. Why? It costs a lot in overhead to run a company. There was comment that India and China have higher regulation so why would they move overseas. The individuals that work in these countries in these fields don’t get paid anything. India and China have extreme poverty rates. Corporations can make the same product without the high overhead of paying their employees. The bottom line. The goal of business is to make money.

We glorify Hollywood and athletes in this country. We look at them and think they are heroes. We are in awe of these individuals. We look at investment bankers, CEO’s, and our politicians as greedy people because they profit off of you. Healthcare is demonized because it is making money off of you being sick. That is morally wrong; correct. Why? It costs millions and millions to cure disease, diagnose the disease, and treat the disease. We want cures, and treatments right?

Did we not understand interest rates when purchasing a home, a car or applying for a credit card? Did we not understand the fees associated with banks when they manage our checking accounts and savings? Did we not understand that when we hire an investment broker to manage our money for us that we would have to pay him?

When we turn our lights on do we think that just comes from no where, and the individuals that have to produce that electricity for us? When we pump gasoline into our cars do we not understand the production of that product? If there are millions of individuals purchasing food do we not understand the farming costs of raising the food. Do we not understand the production costs to actually put that food on our table?

Steve Jobs is a great example of our desire for a want and not need. He made billions off of us all because of a great product and marketing. A cup of coffee at star bucks costs on average over $3.00, and they make millions off of us. Michael Moore and Hollywood elite are protesting right a long with these individuals. They are demonizing the very system that made them wealthy. They made their wealth off of us.

Teachers, fireman, police, and military make nothing. I have a question to those that in their fields did you not know that you would not become wealthy off of this? It is known fact in this country that we do not make any money doing this, so why did we go into those fields? These are government jobs. Correct? We as taxpayers pay these jobs, so the more we add to the government’s responsibility to pay for we will make less. Government jobs need the private sector to pay for their salaries. If we go after corporations, individuals and businesses that are wealthy they will stop producing, and then where will money come from? Of course that is not fair and that shows greed, right? Government employees want more so how is that fair to the private sector? No one held a gun to your head and told you to take those jobs when you knew you wouldn’t make anything.

Here is what we are asking for; equality in pay. Ok let’s make it a law that everyone will receive the same salary. You work 8 hours and give 110 percent of yourself, and your co-worker only works 1 hour and gives nothing. How is that equal?  Want to know how we are equal in God’s eyes. We are equal in the above definitions only. He will hold us accountable to that and why we thought life was going to be fair without working for it I don't understand.

Our very livelihoods are being taken from us right before our eyes. We wanted more, we envied it, we craved it, but who is going to pay for it. It looks like all of us are going to pay for it now, because that is what we are asking our government to do for us. Be careful for what we wish for, because we might just get it.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

(2 Timothy 3:1-9 ESV)