Who Pays Wal-Mart's Employees?

Does this make sense to you?

Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and many other corporations readily admit that they don't pay enough and/or offer enough hours for the majority of their employees to get by without public assistance. Capitalistic thinkers say this is just good business practice that helps boost profits.

Depending on an outside entity to pay employees so the company can increase profits isn't Capitalism. It's a form of Socialism some call Corporatism. An aspect of socialism is that a portion of revenue is used by the government to provide benefits for all members of the society. Some use the negative sounding term "redistribution of wealth", implying that rich people have their supposedly hard earned money taken from them by the government and given to undeserving poor people as some sort of free ride.

Right now, here is what we have: Wal-Mart, as an example, posted yearly profits of $17.6 billion. At the same time, Wal-Mart employees collected $2.66 billion in public assistance last year. What that means that American tax payers gave Wal-Mart $2.66 billion towards that $17.6 billion in profits, WITHOUT HAVING ANY MERCHANDISE TO SHOW FOR IT. That's right, everyone who pays taxes is giving FREE MONEY to Wal-Mart, along with McDonald's, and every other corporation which reaps big profits while most of its employees collect assistance.

As I understand it, in Capitalism, the idea is that a company survives and profits based on its own ability to compete in the marketplace. If the government is subsidizing over 15% of Wal-Mart's or McDonald's or Starbucks's profits, how does that qualify as Capitalism? It doesn't. The government giving money to corporations in order for them to operate is Socialism, plain and simple.

Yet the response of many Americans (a response programmed into them by the corporate controlled media and equally corporate controlled Republican party) is to blame the workers. “If they don't like working at Wal-Mart (or fill in the blank) they should just find another job”. This is one of the most inane statements I can think of on this subject.

First it infers that those working at places which underpay aren't trying to find better paying jobs. Or, worse, it carries a mentality that the employees of these places are second rate citizens who deserve the jobs they have due to lack of training or motivation to get better jobs. Consider the millions of people who work at these jobs, such an assumption is statistically unsupportable.

The second inanity of the statement is that it's simply a, selfish, cowardly response to an age old problem. From the moment the first “king” who used force of arms started claiming that all the land belonged to him so everyone who worked it had to give him money, there have been self-serving people who have supported such acts for their own benefit.

The “Gentry” has always benefited from supporting the class system which funnels a disproportionate amount of wealth to the aristocracy. If Wal-Mart, McDonald's et al raised wages, people would have to pay a little more for Levi's, Big Macs and their morning lattes, and “Gentrified” people certainly don't what to have to do that. They work hard for their money (or so they say), apparently harder than the underpaid employees who stock the shelves with Levi's, make the Big Macs and serve the lattes, so they are entitled to lower prices more than the employees are entitled to a decent wage.

The irony is these same people will complain about how high their taxes are and how their tax dollars are being squandered on helping lazy, poor people buy steak with food stamps and get free cell phones. They don't stop to think that their tax dollars are also helping the Walton family buy race horses and multimillion dollar mansions, or McDonald's or Starbucks pay their CEOs over $9200.00 an hour.

So, it doesn't make sense to me that not only do so many corporations depend on the government (meaning the rest of us) to pay their workers with nothing to show for it in return. It also doesn't make sense to me how readily people will come to the defense of the situation. Not that I don't comprehend how and why people do that. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense.

Does it make sense to you?

Thanks to Huffington Post Business Insider  and Daily Kos for information regarding salaries and profits.

The Visitor's Question

The Visitor asked, "Who are the wealthiest of your world?"

The answer was easy. "Mostly bankers and Wall Street broker types" I said. "Many of them have more wealth than tens of thousands of other people combined."

The Visitor nodded appreciatively. "They must do something of priceless value to your people. Are they the best healers? Do they produce the most food? Do they build shelters and make clothing and other items that make life better for all? Are they the protectors who risk their lives for the sake of others? Do they create music or art or literature that brings beauty into everyone's lives? Are they your best educators? On my world, those we reward the most do the most for the rest of us. Yet, no one is nearly as wealthy as you say these people are. Tell me what they do that is so valuable?"

I thought for a moment, then answered, "Well...for the most part they just use other people's money..." The Visitor looked perplexed. "By that I mean they take money and invest it in things that you mention. They might give loans to farmers or builders. They may find people to invest in a business that makes clothing, or medicine, or even in schools. Then they make a profit off of the loan interest or the investment."

The Visitor's eyes lit up in understanding: "Ah...so they donate money to good causes, ones that benefit the People, and in return they receive a modest reward! Excellent!"

I frowned, his naivete regarding our ways both encouraging and discouraging at once.

"Not exactly. They charge a lot of interest on the loans. If it's an investment, they expect the company to do everything possible to reap the highest profits, including paying workers the least amount possible, using the lowest quality materials they can get away with, cutting corners at every turn: profit matters the most. In a lot of cases, the banks and investors actually end up making more money than those they loan money to or invest in."

Now it was the Visitor's turn to frown."So, what you are saying is that those without any genuinely useful Gifts make more from the efforts of those with Gifts that serve the People, simply because these bankers and investors let them use money? Furthermore, that money doesn't even belong to the bankers and investors to begin with?

"Um...yeah, that's one way to put it".

The Visitor made a noise that sounded like a combination of a toilet flushing and an old truck backfiring.

"That makes no sense whatsoever, that those who have nothing of real value to contribute to People, other than convincing someone to let them use their money, make more than your farmers, teachers, healers, builders, tailors, poets, musicians, artists. protectors...they make more than those who actually DO SOMETHING good? They simply profit off of what those with real Gifts do?"

I sheepishly nodded.

"On my world, we have a name for such creatures, but I am too much of a gentlebeing to repeat it to you now. I can only wonder why a People who would let such a system exist call themselves Homo Sapiens (Wise Man).?"

In a flash of scintillating light and a breeze that smelled like ginger, the Visitor was gone.

Economic Recovery According to 3 John 1

In 3 John 1:2, the "Beloved Disciple" writes:

"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."

It seems to me these tender words sum up what other parts of the bible say, that our physical prosperity and health are interdependent with our spiritual prosperity and health.

Right now we have millions of people arguing, with good reason, about the economy: what and who broke it, how to fix it, etc. Still in my opinion something important is being overlooked, a spiritual reality many have neglected to include in the debate on the economy. As I see it, what is being overlooked is the "leanness of soul" we have been experiencing as a nation for many years. (Ps. 106:15 And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul ).

We have prospered greatly as a nation over the centuries, leading the world for decades in nearly all economic, technological and quality of life indicators. Despite a darker side of our growth as a nation (slavery, abuse of Native Americans, colonialism abroad) for the most part the people embraced solid values of compassion, altruism, generosity and benevolence. Somewhere along the way, we lost track of these virtues as being vital to our spiritual, and therefore physical, prosperity and health.

Sadly, this started with the Church, when we began to focus too much on using our resources and our politics to try to make life more comfortable for ourselves instead of reaching out properly to the world. Instead of offering the Light of Christ for people to embrace as a walk of faith, we resorted to using political tactics to try to get people to behave in ways we found acceptable. We forgot that achieving Christ's stated goals for his followers, to nurture and bring up disciples from out off all nations-meaning all cultures, ethnic groups and world views.Instead, we tried to convert them to our own world view as American Christians.

This is something Jesus never intended when he mandated the “Great Commission”. He constantly pointed out that the ways of thinking of the world were at odds with the Great Commandments of loving the Father with all our being, and loving others as we love ourselves. Yet now, if we look at what is being expressed by Conservative, Republican Christians, we see a frightening example of modern Pharasaism.

We have entire political parties, and millions of people who support those parties, preaching that the poor are to blame for their plight and must be forced to find jobs by cutting off benefits. In doing so, we demonstrate the "leanness of soul" through our lack of compassion for the poor, and our stiff-necked unwillingness to obey one of the primary mandates given us as part of spreading the Gospel.

We have allowed our health care system to be reduced to a pure profit-oriented, corporation controlled industry that literally holds the health of the entire nation hostage in order to increase profits. We are commanded to heal the sick, as a gift. Yet, again we speak and act in direct contradiction of Christ when we favor corporatist health care that favors those with the means to pay, and disenfranchises the poor to the point of allowing them to die for lack of adequate care.

We view the earth as an exploitable source of profit, mistakenly thinking Creator God has handed it over to us to use as we want. We think the earth is meant to serve us, when not only the Bible, but common sense makes it clear that we must live in harmony with the earth and understand that, as with all creatures, we serve each other by being integral parts of a global ecosystem that humans have, tragically, thrown far out of balance. We are supposed to be stewards who care for Creator's earth to His glory, not disreputable servants who misuse what is not ours for our own satisfaction.

We resort to violence as a solution for far too many things. We have a military far larger and more powerful than we need. We spend more money on going to war than the next 10 nations combined. How can we reconcile with Jesus expecting us to spread peace to the corners of the earth in His Name. We are told “blessed are the peacemakers” and we toss that aside to favor violence as our way of ensuring we can get what we want from the rest of the world.

We treat our most precious gift, our children, as though they are property that we can use and manipulate to continue the consumerist, violently competitive and destructive System which leads to the behaviors described above. As Jesus said of the Pharisees, we are making our children twice as fit for damnation as we are.

We have even abandoned the honest, humble and critical use of the gift of Intellect. We are blessed with a capacity for critical, abstract thought and reasoning that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence can barely mimic. The one thing that proves we are created in God's image is our ability to reason, as Homo Sapiens in ways far beyond that of any other creature. Creator says “come let us reason together”, yet we do the opposite, surrendering our God-given ability, right, and privilege to use our reason in favor of letting others tell us how to think, act, speak. What we like, even what we believe, is handed to us in ways that discourage thinking for ourselves. We accept this willingly, because it's easier to let others tell us how to think than to develop our own opinions and world view.

So, we have “leanness of soul”: lack of compassion, lack of humility, we're violent and competitive, we lust for material things, disobedient to the very God we claim to honor, lacking in common sense and sensibility, having become hard-hearted to the point that we think the things we do which are the opposite of Christ's teaching and example are acceptable. Spiritually we are living a delusion of righteousness where none really exists. We twist His Word to prove our self-delusion, and those who don't buy it are dismissed as being lost sinners, enemies of God who are not worth consideration.

Our delusion has reached that point that when those outside our Churches and/or our Nation tell us they see the truth of who we are and are not willing to participate in our delusion, we declare they are saying so simply because they are jealous of what we have. Then we pat ourselves on our collective religious, nationalist backs for being something and someone other nations reject, despise and in some cases pity.

If we want to fix the economy, we need to start with the source of our poverty: our own spiritual lives, both individually and collectively. We do have many people in the various walks of faith who are abundantly rich spiritually. Sadly, they are often rejected by the mainstream. They're called names such as “hippy” or “socialist” or “bleeding heart liberal”, as though actively encouraging people to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ (or others who have taught love, harmony and respect for all creation) is a bad thing.

Instead of dismissing them we should be electing them to office.

One last thing about “leanness of soul”: it's related directly to living in fear. The reason the Israelites demanded so much from YHWH that he gave it to them, but also allowed the leanness of their souls to come into being, was because they were afraid of not being like other nations. They were afraid they would not get what they truly wanted, that they would be taken advantage of by others. They were afraid that living life as Creator intended them to live wasn't good enough. They were ungrateful for what YHWH had given them.

Therein lies the secret of a prosperous soul (and therefore physical prosperity). It is understanding that spiritual, and physical, prosperity are not a matter of getting what we want. Rather, it's a matter of recognizing that what Creator gives us is always the best thing for us in the long run. It's called “contentment” and “gratefulness”, and we are told that godliness (right living) with contentment is great gain, or true wealth.

When we, as the Church and as a Nation, reacquaint ourselves with lives of contentment and gratefulness, we will find we naturally want to help the poor, heal the sick, make peace, reject greed and consumerism, respect the earth and bring up children who are likewise content and grateful. Until that happens, no politically based solutions will rescue our economy.