People! We are ignoring the huge spiritual danger facing rich people! They’re going to hell. Jesus did not pull any punches while stating this. He said it repeatedly. He said it clearly. Christians must act to save the souls of billionaires!
The billionaires are not the top 1%. The billionaires are the top 0.001%. There are 650 of them in the United States. And I’m talking about wealth, not high paychecks. A sports star may be earning $46 million per year, but their net worth may still be just a few million. The mega-rich own companies, own scads of real estate, have wealth that exceeds the Gross Domestic Product of many third-world countries, and pay very low taxes. Let’s talk about them.
Christ Taught That Rich People Don’t Go To Heaven
Let’s start with Christ’s teachings about the wicked mindset that is endangering billionaires. The mega-rich are clearly laying up treasures on earth rather than treasures in heaven, to their eternal detriment. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
In Luke 12:16-21, Christ told a parable about a rich man whose harvest was so great that he didn’t have room to store it all. The rich man solved his problem by building bigger storehouses. Then he relaxed. He had enough stuff stored to meet his needs for the next several years, so he relaxed and threw a party. That night, God required his soul (he died) and called him a fool.
Jesus told another story about a rich man in Luke 16:19-31. He had fine clothes and good food. Meanwhile, the beggar Lazarus laid at his gate, full of sores and begging for food. They both died. Lazarus evidently went to heaven while the rich man was tormented in hell. The rich man begged Father Abraham to send Lazarus with a drink of water. Father Abraham said that in mortality, the rich man had it good and Lazarus suffered, so now their situations are reversed.
In Matthew 19:16-23, a rich young ruler said he was living a righteous life and asked Jesus what else he needed to do to obtain eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and come follow him. The rich young ruler “went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.”
This prompted Jesus to say it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. No, there is no gate called the ‘eye of a needle’ that camels can get through if they’re unloaded. Though Jesus did essentially say this in the JST of Matthew 19:26. The JST says, “But Jesus beheld their thoughts, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but if they will forsake all things for my sake, with God whatsoever things I speak are possible.” If rich people will “forsake all things” (unload the camel) then maybe they can go to heaven.
Basically, Jesus reaffirmed his teaching to the rich young man. Forsake all your stuff, give it to the poor, and follow Christ.
The Mega-Rich are Bad For the Economy
In my exercise class (picture about 40 postmenopausal women working out to Neil Diamond) (or maybe don’t), I talked to a woman who firmly believed that our society needs billionaires because they create jobs for the rest of us.
No they don’t.
Buckle up, we’re going to learn about stock buybacks and how Trump’s 2018 tax cut contributed to all the labor strikes we’re seeing now.
Let’s use Warren Buffet and the railroad industry as an example. Warren Buffett is a billionaire who owns a railroad, BNSF Railway Company (and SO MANY other businesses). Warren Buffett has also pledged to give away 99% of his wealth during his life or at his death. Keep that in mind – he’s planning to give it all away.
Stock buybacks are exactly what they sound like – a company buys back its stock from a stockholder. There are a couple reasons this happens. Stock buybacks are a way of manipulating the stock market, but I’m not going to get into that. [fn 1] Stock buybacks are also a way for a company to give a whole lotta cash to its biggest shareholders. Stock buybacks are not like dividends that go to all shareholders. Stock buybacks are offered to the ones who own (control) the biggest shares of the company.
In the first six months of 2022, railway companies (not just BNSF) reported $10 billion in stock buybacks. This was before the threatened railway strike. You’ll recall that one of the biggest issues in the strike was getting sick days. The railways have ramped up profits by cutting labor costs. Then they gave those huge profits to the stockholders rather than using that money to hire more people. In other words – let’s be very clear about this – rich people have REDUCED the number of jobs in order to increase their profits. Labor is an expense. Railway workers can’t take sick days because the railroad is so short-staffed that if someone calls out sick, there isn’t anyone who can cover for them.
“At the same time they have fought to deny sick days and other vital benefits to workers in the freight industry, rail carrier executives have been rewarding shareholders with billions of dollars in stock buybacks and dividend bumps.” [source]
Do you want someone with a fever and fatigue working on a train? No, you do not. The rail unions had to threaten a strike to try and get sick days because the rich people didn’t want to pay money to hire enough people to cover a shift if someone calls out sick. (They got the sick days eventually.)
Same thing with the Teamsters Union (truckers). Federal regulations make it so employers can’t force long-haul truckers to drive for long periods without time for sleep. There aren’t the same protections for local delivery drivers. It’s cheaper to overwork one person than it is to hire two people. So that’s what happens. Ending “mandatory overtime” was one of the union demands. That means the unions were forcing the shipping industry, with its recordbreaking profits, to hire enough people to do the job. If it’s up to the rich business owners, they’ll hire fewer people so they can put more money in their own pockets. They’re already rich. Why are they doing this?
Short-staffing every project imaginable was also a factor in the Writers Guild of America strike last year.
The mega-rich do not create jobs. Workers have had to strike to get their mega-rich bosses to fully staff jobs. I bet you know someone, or you are someone, with a story about how short-staffing meant you couldn’t take your vacation days, or you went to work sick because no one else could cover for you. It’s labor unions and federal regulations that insist on rest time and minimum staffing that force companies to fill jobs, not just leave the job posting up and never really try to hire someone.
Now let’s get back to Warren Buffett. He’s pledged to give away his fortune. But he was part of that coalition of railway owners who short-staffed his railroad, refused sick days, cut pay, and otherwise squeezed his employees as hard as he could to extract extra work without paying for it. If you’re going to give it all away anyway, why not use some of that value to make life better for your employees?
Is it morally better to donate a ton of money? Or to donate a half-ton of money while using the other half-ton to treat your workers better?
And no polemic about billionaires uncreating jobs would be complete without talking about Elon Musk, who famously fired most of the people who worked at Twitter as soon as he bought it, and told the remaining employees they would have to work insane hours if they wanted to keep their jobs.
I really want to talk about Bed, Bath & Beyond too, which spent millions upon millions on stock buybacks before declaring bankruptcy and putting 28,000 people out of work, but this is too long anyway. Many thanks to those of you still reading.
The point is that the mega-rich do everything they can to NOT create jobs.
Trump’s Tax Cuts and Record Breaking Profits
In 2017, Trump’s administration passed a law that cut corporate taxes, and cut taxes on the mega-rich. You can read the specifics about the dollar amounts in this summary written by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan and nonprofit entity that writes about tax policy. The law took effect in 2018, and then it took a year or so for companies to adapt their tax planning.
Then the headlines started rolling in about recordbreaking profits. In a multitude of industries, recordbreaking profits kept breaking records year after year. The pandemic hit, and that upended sectors of the economy, and recordbreaking profits kept happening.
The thing about Republican tax policy is that it assumes that if they cut taxes on businesses, the businesses will use that money to invest in better products, or treating its employees better. That’s not what happened. My hypothesis is that when taxes were cut, companies started pocketing the tax reduction in the form of those recordbreaking profits. No longer did companies need to seek tax deductions in the form of investing in research and development, or in hiring more people. The less a company can spend, the more a company can charge, the more a company can profit. Then it spends those funds on stock buybacks, because mega-rich people pay less individual taxes now too, thanks to Trump’s tax cut.
The Way to Limit the Mega-Rich is to Tax Them
Billionaires spend money on stupid things [fn 2]. Jeff Bezos spent $500,000,000 to buy a yacht. Why does he get a fancy boat while other people are homeless? It isn’t because Amazon added more value to America than it took. Amazon should have been paying loads of money in taxes, and instead they got every tax break in the books. As I write this, a taxpayer funded mail truck pulled up to my house on a Sunday and left a box from Amazon on the porch. Amazon is paying the post office to deliver its packages on Sunday. Clearly Amazon has to rely on taxpayer funded government infrastructure to run its business. Think about it. How wealthy would Bezos be if he’d had to build roads for his delivery trucks to run on? If he had to create the electric and Internet infrastructure to connect houses to the Internet and his website? Amazon doesn’t deliver to rural areas — they hire the post office to do that. Amazon can’t make a profit if they’ve got to send their own delivery trucks to booneyland. The government paid for the infrastructure to create a nationwide delivery system to every single person (the Constitution requires the federal government to have a post office). Amazon couldn’t do that. If it snows, government-funded snow plows clear the roads so Amazon delivery vehicles can get through. Amazon can’t even pay for its own delivery infrastructure. It’s using taxpayer funded infrastructure.
Mega-corporations use more than their share of taxpayer funded resources. William Buffett didn’t build those rails that all his trains run on. The government did. Walmart famously pays some of its workers so little that they qualify for food stamps; taxpayers are feeding some Walmart employees.
Mega-rich individuals and companies take more from America than they give back.
Republicans lowered taxes on the wealthiest corporations and individuals. We’re seeing the effects of it now, with all those record breaking corporate profits while individual employees have to strike to get a living wage.
Here’s the part that really cleans my clock. Rich corporations and people don’t even pay the taxes that they should be paying. The IRS estimates that if it could collect taxes owing from the mega-rich, they could bring in so much money that the government wouldn’t even need to raise taxes to fund all social programs. The wealthiest 1% of Americans failed to pay $160,000,000,000 ($160 billion) in taxes in 2021. When Joe Biden got his signature legislation passed, he got authorization to fully fund the IRS – meaning they can hire enough lawyers, accountants and other staff to chase down the wealthiest Americans and force them to pay their taxes. Biden got $80 billion for the IRS to spend on tax collection efforts, with the hope that the IRS can turn that into $400 billion in taxes collected from the rich.
Republicans are doing everything they can to stop them. Remember the Kevin McCarthy circus last November when the Republican-led House of Representatives nearly imploded before McCarthy could pass a budget? One of the sticking points for the Republicans was the IRS funding. McCarthy forced through a $20 billion reduction, cutting 25% of the IRS’s enforcement budget. Then the Republicans forced out McCarthy as House Speaker and eventually Mike Johnson got the job. Johnson accelerated the $20 billion reduction in IRS funding, and Republicans are promising to do more to trim the IRS’s enforcement budget.
Republicans are using tax policy to move wealth away from people who have to work for a paycheck to the people who are already mega-rich. The Republicans are also fighting tooth and nail to keep the IRS from going after mega-rich tax cheats.
You know what happens if you tax a billionaire a whopping 30% of his fortune? He’s still a billionaire with more money than he can possibly spend in his lifetime.
You know what happens if you cut funding to social programs for the poorest people? They suffer and die.
Conclusion
Economic issues are moral issues. The only truly effective way to take unearned wealth from the richest people and use it to help the poorest people is to tax them. Democrats are willing to tax rich people; Republicans are not. Democrats are willing to fund the IRS; Republicans are not.
It’s sickening and sad to watch middle-income and low-income MAGA Republicans insist that the real threat to America is sex when really it’s economics. Christian sexual values won’t strengthen the middle class. Transphobic legislation won’t narrow the gap between rich and poor. Outlawing drag shows won’t give people a living wage. They’re using you, do you see that? Republicans try to get regular people worked up about sex and reproduction so you don’t see them stealing America’s prosperity and putting it in the pockets of their billionaire friends.
Vote Democrat. We have to give control of the House of Representatives back to Democrats or the Republicans will bankrupt the country in their effort to give more billions to people and companies who already have billions.
Then they’ll go to hell. Jesus said so.
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[fn 1] Read this article if you want an explanation of how stock buybacks manipulate stock prices. Manipulating the stock market sounds like a bad thing! How is that legal? Well, it was a crime (like insider trading is a crime) until Reagan legalized it in 1982. Stock buybacks increase the value of the remaining shares because there is now less common stock outstanding and company earnings are split among fewer shares. It’s a way to give a whole lot of money to a company’s biggest stockholders. And furthermore, all that money is taxed at the lower capital gains rate. Biden added a 1% excise tax to some stock buybacks, beginning in 2023.
[fn 2] This 45-year-old multi-millionaire is spending about $2,000,000 per year trying to reverse the aging process, including getting blood donations from his teenage son. He stopped the blood swap because it didn’t do any good, but he’s still following a strict regimen of nutrition and exercise. Why is he obsessed with staying young? Shouldn’t he be more concerned about his eternal reward? It’s too bad this man doesn’t need to work to put a roof over his head anymore. He’s sure wasting his life now that he’s rich.
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Questions:
- Is it morally wrong to give a poor, disabled person a decent place to live and adequate medical care? Even if they can’t work?
- Is it morally wrong to give a billionaire another billion dollars in the form of tax cuts?
- Is it better to spend half a billion dollars to fund social programs or to buy a yacht?
- Who is more despicable:
- A poor person who cheats welfare by saying they have three children when really they have two, and thus gets an extra few hundred dollars a month, OR
- A wealthy person who pays lawyers tens of thousands of dollars to find tax loopholes and move their money offshore so they don’t have to pay $12 million in taxes?
- Have you ever been poor?
- Have you ever needed help to buy food or pay for a place to live?
- Have you ever NOT gone to a doctor when you were sick because you couldn’t pay?
Wheat & Tares 
Janey, I loved this so much! Cany
All this is good, but another factor in reducing the tax rate in 2018 was to keep companies in the USA. Companies were moving to other countries to save taxes. After the tax cut, some of them even came back.
I am absolutely for funding the IRS. My family roots were located in Ogden Utah. Ogden has a big IRS facility. Their computer systems are so old they can hardly function. Providing the IRS with the tools and funding they need to collect the taxes is a no brainier. Government workers are people too. They want to be able to do their jobs efficiently instead of leaving people to wait on hold indefinitely and complain about the service they render. Government workers are people that support their families and run their communities. That community really needs that money and our country really needs the money they would collect for us if we would allow it. It’s shameful we have allowed the IRS to go down hill and become what it is today.
The title of this article is “Saving the Souls of Billionaires.” The conclusion of the article is “Vote Democrat.” Sorry, but voting Democrat will not save the souls of billionaires. Taxing their money will not save their souls. I thought that I was going to read a post about the challenges that wealth can pose for those seeking salvation, things like changing greed to compassion. This post could have come from the Democratic National Committee. Voting Democrat will not help save billionaires’ souls, nor will it solve all of our nation’s ills. Neither will voting Republican. Sensible legislators voting for reasonable policies is what we need. How we get there is the difficult part, as is persuading a greedy person to be less greedy. I agree that our corporate tax policy is warped, but it was warped way before Trump. By the way, Trump’s tax cuts also significantly increased the standard deductions, and that has helped a lot of poor and lower middle class people pay less taxes, and that is good for poor and lower middle class people like me.
Yes, I grew up poor. Part of why I have always been a heretic. When I was 8 the steel plant went on strike. It was about safety issues. Two men had fallen from a catwalk over the blast furnace. The catwalk didn’t even have safety railings, just a small walkway on top of molten steen. Sure money was involved. The company thought it was cheaper to pay off the family of dead workers than install railings. So the Union voted to strike. Well, my dad was Union. So, no money coming in for the six months strike. We did go hungry. I remember my mother sitting on the kitchen floor just bawling because the flour bin was empty. I was without any shoes for almost a year except some too small flip flops. It took time to recover financially. The church refused to give any aid to Union families because, because it was all the union’s fault that the steel plant was shut down. My husband’s family got food from church welfare during that strike because his dad was considered management. The local wards politicized who was given church welfare, by excluding any union members. And it was whole stakes that did that. Because the church was SO Republican, and according to Republicans unions are evil trying to save people’s lives when working conditions are unsafe. Yeah, that is so evil.
As for not going to a doctor because we couldn’t afford it, yes, and I have injuries that did not heal properly as a result.
This whole economic thing is so important, and so many people just don’t understand. My sister in law is one who is always talking about lazy people on welfare, and makes no distinction between welfare and disability. She complains about illegals crossing the boarder. Then she admits they fail to pay taxes on the company she and her husband own, and admits they hire illegal immigrants. And she just can’t see how her own illegal behavior is immoral, but those people (like the disabled and homeless) just need to get off their butts and get a job. My brother is disabled, and I see how much he is given to survive on, and yet this sister in law owns a million dollar vacation home that sits empty 90% of the time. Sure, her husband started the company and they have put a lot of work into it, but they have broken laws to do so and yet have no empathy for people who are really struggling. And of course they vote Republican.
Cachemagic, the solution for the very wealthy moving their companies overseas is to tax the very wealthy themselves. Skip high corporate taxes and tax the stockholders. Then they personally pay taxes or they move overseas and find that other countries do not have millions of voters who vote against themselves to lower taxes for the very wealthy.
Reagonomics was a huge failure. Trickledown economics is nonexistent. If you believe either of these ideas is wrong, then you are believing Republican lies.
Jarod Diamond, who wrote “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” also wrote a book called “Collapse.” The main point of the book was how ancient societies like Easter Island, or Greenland, or the Mayan Civilization grew and then eventually collapsed because of a wealth gap that could or would not be closed. It’s a great book to read and goes along with the points of this post.
Right after my mission I worked for a company that made tile. Wages were $1.60 an hour and the work was backbreaking. The minimum wage was $1.60 an hour as well. I belonged to the union and after a month of working they went on strike. After two months, I left the strike line to continue college but my brother stayed. In another month they settled for $2.35 an hour. The company opened up the plant, cleared out the inventory in a couple of days, and then closed the plant and laid off all the workers. A month later the minimum wage went to $2.35 an hour but these jobs were gone from the USA. Thousands of jobs during that time, the 1970s and 80s were moved offshore for wealthy corporations or individual industrial owners. Walmart during that time went from a store that prided itself in American-made goods serving small towns (remember that when they didn’t have any stores in larger towns but only in small off-the-freeway towns) to after the passing of the elder Sam Walton to a corporation that eventually pushed American companies to close plants because of the buying power of Walmart spending for less expensive goods from Asia. So I’ve seen a small part of the economic shift in my own life because of this. We don’t buy American anymore and we’ve become of country (dare I say even our religion) of money worshipers who praise the rich and look down on the poor.
Yes, I’ve been poor, had to not go to the Dr., wondered how I was going to pay rent, had to have second signatures on loans, and second mortgages, and simply did without for many years of my life. I’m a teacher and my ex-wife refused to work but didn’t refuse to spend and it caused problems. I also watched Republicans take away funding from schools, chip away at social programs, and give tax breaks to the rich. The Democrats seemed to be in a haze about many of these things because I don’t think they understood the power of the “Prosperity Gospel” and the “right-wing.” I think now there is a clearer distinction between the two parties but for LDS members it’s a hard reality to grasp because the words of their leaders, both at the general and local levels, seem to support the Prosperity Gospel, put down social programs, and ignore the rich using just some scriptures to justify it while ignoring other scriptures that clearly point out the problems. I don’t believe the Democrats have all the answers nor would I trust them because all political parties sway with the popular breeze but right now at this moment they are working to address the issues brought up in this blog. The Republicans are not. They are working to make it worse.
When the IRS isn’t properly funded those who are wealthy benefit, vs those who are not. The IRS cannot afford the manpower to properly audit corporations and their wealthy owners and therefore direct their attention more to middle and lower class taxpayers.
Most of the 2017 corporate tax cuts—lowering rates from 35 to 21 percent are permanent.
At the end of 2025 all of the individual tax cuts will expire. Individual tax rates will revert to 2017 levels.
My spouse has worked as a CPA in charge of taxes for a multi billion dollar private corporation for over 30 yrs. He believes the corporate tax cut was too deep and is unsustainable.
I generally avoid political discussions on the internet simply because they are so futile and quickly turn caustic. I’ll weigh in here though: Yes, there are problems. No, the answer is not “Vote Democrat.” It’s also not “Vote Republican.”
We humans like to simplify complicated things into binary choices – interestingly it’s often some version of red vs blue: Democrat/Republican, Coke/Pepsi, Crips/Bloods, Yankees/Red Sox, BYU/Utah. The truth is that every single group on that list of red vs blue is not nearly as interesting without their rival. Both sides are offering essentially the same thing, but the more we fight in favor of our preferred color, the more BOTH sides profit.
So, both sides yell “Washington is broken!” And we lowly voters happily march along and echo the cry in our red or blue shirts. The truth is that it’s not broken at all for the politicians and the election industry…just for us in the public who are frustrated that the government isn’t serving us well. It’s a duopoly doing what duopolies do: maximizing their money and power.
A two-year election cycle brings in tens of billions of dollars in revenue. That money comes in no matter who wins the election. It’s virtually impossible to break into the industry without joining a side because the biggest players get to make all the rules – good luck winning anything as a third-party candidate. In any other industry, the FTC would be champing at the bit to bring down an antitrust suit.
So yes, more taxes on the mega-rich could fund a lot of worthwhile social programs. But the people with the money are also the ones brokering power and wielding it. Democrats are just as happy to take campaign contributions as Republicans, especially when they tend to include promises of cushy jobs in places like private equity once they retire from public service (Private equity has donated ~$900 million to federal candidates since 1990 to help shape lawmaking in its favor and it’s now a $12 trillion industry…a pretty good return on investment. There is a very long list of former top officials on private equity payrolls…and not just Republican ones).
It’s not exactly sexy to march around with a sign that reads “NON-PARTISAN VOTER REFORM!” But if we want to see real change take place, we need to step away from the hype of the red/blue rivalry and fight the problems asymmetrically.
Much smarter people than me have discussed this. I recommend reading the paper “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America” by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter. Gehl is a businesswoman and author who is an expert on political system reform. Porter is a Harvard professor and one of the world’s most renowned business strategy experts. Gehl brought in Porter to help analyze the US political system as an industry.
Remember what I said the other day about avoiding politics on W&T? I guess some of you just can’t.
I have nothing really to add to this powerful Social Gospel sermon (very timely, indeed, leading up to MLK day), except one minor correction. The United States Postal Service (USPS) does not receive federal funding and hasn’t really since 1970 when Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act. It was required to at least break even until 2006 when G Dub Bush and company passed a law requiring USPS to pay for pensions 75 years in advance. This put immense, unreasonable financial pressure on USPS that has proved totally unsustainable. So they have had to increase rates, peddle in more “junk mail,” and yes, accept whatever Jeff Bezos wants to pay them to deliver Amazon packages and other bulk mail. Additionally, they have relied increasingly on non-union “casual” workers to whom they do not need to pay competitive wages or benefits (trust me. I have been one), in order to cut costs.
Josh h
The Book of Mormon contains stories about the wealthy and proud and their consequences on society. Of course, there’s also the story of King Noah or even a better story of King Benjamin. Then in the Bible, many of the Old Testament prophets prophesied about the destruction of society based on how they treated the poor or worshiped idols. Even in the New Testament Christ is constantly at odds with the political establishment even if they were religious leaders and it was the ultimate political power, the Roman Empire which had him crucified. I believe in the Constitutional separation of religion from the state because throughout history religion has been used as a tool for power to rule the state. Hence the state should allow religions but not support a single religious state even if it’s “Christian.” On the other hand, a religion that ignores politics and the consequences of individual actions, many times based on religion, risks having any influence on society. Here in Utah, we can see the influence the LDS Church has on the legislature directly but we can also see how beliefs in the religion influence laws passed or not passed even when the Church doesn’t make a statement. In a forum like W&T, none of this should be ignored and if it is, as per your suggestion, what do we believe anyway, how are we going to understand our place in society and how are we going to make any changes in our thoughts and behavior? Religion is what you believe. Politics is how you put that belief into action. What good would separating religion and politics do except make it easier for people to dig a pit for their neighbor without remorse or bury their heads in the sand and claim ignorance of what’s happening? If a person can’t justify their politics with their religious views, it’s hard to believe their religious views from their politically separated justifications.
I don’t know how to respond so I’ll make some random thoughts. I can’t defend billionaires and I don’t want to, but in the spirit of transparency, and as Taylor Swift might say, “it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me.” I have an MBA and am a banker. Bankers would claim countries require a sound financial system for a civilization to exist. Others might say of if the federal government loans money to banks for nearly free, and they can loan the same money for profit, then yeah, bankers are going to make $$. But do you want the US Government to hold your mortgage? I don’t know.
I’ve been poor and it sucks. My wife and I once applied for WIC but abandoned the process because it was humiliating. We qualified for subsidized housing but we decided to suck it up and deal with it. We both went to college and were both frugal and we saved and visited Italy for the first time in 2023. It was amazing but I could have given that $$ to people who needed it more than I do – and I don’t feel guilty.
Every tax break is in fact welfare for the wealthy. Mortgage interest rate deductions are a huge benefit for home owners at the expense of the poor. 401k tax breaks – huge welfare for the wealthy. Building freeways to suburbs instead of subways to urban areas – huge benefit for the middle class and wealthy at the expense of the poor. Pell Grants? Largely a benefit for people who will become wealthy.
I honestly don’t know the answer other than I try to be a good person. I adopt rescue animals. I’ve raised good kids who aren’t criminals (but they do work for defense contractors so maybe they are war criminals). I’ve never stolen anything more than printing personal things at work. If there is a god (and I don’t think there is) I just hope that he/she/they will say “well he’s kind of pathetic but he tried and he was nice so we’ll allow him to live in a tent in the celestial kingdom and feed the otters.” And he’s a smoothie so we don’t have to worry about him being around the women.
Concerning this post:
John Wesley, who together with his brother Charles Wesley (the writer of many famous Christian hymns, some of which are included in our Hymnbook), started the reform movement of the Church of England, which eventually morphed into Methodism. He had many famous sayings. My favorite is:
Make all you can,
Save all you can,
Give all you can.
This is my interpretation of this three-line saying:
Get out there and make something yourself. If you can, create wealth, because the world necessarily operates on money. However, do not waste your wealth on riotous excess, but be frugal. And, most importantly, give as much of your wealth as you can to others and for the betterment of the world in which we live.
I find this saying to be an admirable summary of Christian living, one that can be delivered while standing on one foot.
Thank you,
Taiwan Missionary
Thanks for good comments, all.
Cachemagic – do you have any sources for saying the tax cuts brought companies back to the USA? Companies like UPS, Disney, and other companies with recordbreaking profits never left. I read that the tax cuts allowed companies to keep assets overseas without being taxed, but I didn’t dig into the legislation enough to see the specifics about how foreign assets were being taxed and if that was enough of a financial break to affect a company’s decisions.
lws329 – fully agree. I live in Utah and know people who work at the IRS or have in the past. It’s a job. People take pride in doing their job well. Some people aren’t so great at their job. But it’s sure hard to do your job when you don’t have the resources to get it done!
Georgis – the blog post title was rather tongue in cheek. The part about Democrats is an acknowledgment of the fact that only Democrats are willing to tax the rich at higher rates, and only the Democrats are willing to fund the IRS. Will those two things solve all America’s economic woes? No, but it’s progress in the right direction.
Yes, Trump’s tax cut threw a few hundred dollars at middle income Americans. And they also handed millions upon millions to the mega-rich and corporations with recordbreaking profits. The average person gets a tax cut of 2% and the mega-rich get a tax cut of 24%. (Making up the percentages, but the fact that you got a few hundred dollars of a tax break doesn’t mean that the multi-million tax break that went to the wealthy was therefore worth it.)
Anna – oh wow, what a story! Truly, economics and economic policies matter so much to people. People just want to earn a living wage and have food and medical care. Those aren’t unreasonable expectations. America is rich enough to provide all that, if we were willing to spread the wealth around.
Instereo – worker protections definitely pushed a lot of jobs out of America and into other countries. In my opinion, the solution for that is to support worker rights in other countries (to the extent we can; I’m with them in spirit!)
A business that can’t pay a living wage is a bad business. Big company: “we can only make a profit if we exploit our employees. If we have to pay fair wages, we can’t make a profit!” Well then, big company, you fail capitalism. Go out of business.
Pirate Priest – agree that these issues are complex. But in this situation, it is a binary choice. The only two political parties are Republican and Democrat. You choose one or the other (or not vote; or very rarely an Independent wins an election). I’m not saying Democrats will save the economy, but their economic policies aren’t rushing the USA into disaster the way the Republican economic policies are. And yeah, you only get two choices about who to send to the House of Representatives. In my state (Utah), I don’t even have a choice because we never have Democrats on the ballot.
I don’t understand the people who say we can’t do anything because it’s all complicated. Not doing anything is still a choice. Republicans aren’t sitting home and refusing to cut taxes because it’s complicated. Republicans aren’t sighing and letting Biden’s full funding for the IRS go through because it’s complicated. Republicans are out there lowering taxes on the rich and blocking as much IRS funding as possible. How is it complicated to know that’s a bad idea? How is it complicated to notice that the Republicans are the ones doing that and the Democrats are not?
I also support non-partisan voter reform, especially campaign finance reform. I can do that while still knowing that, if the IRS is ever going to be fully funded and staffed, it is only the Democrats who are willing to do that.
josh h – what did you think of the rest of the post? The last couple paragraphs were about politics. Ignore that and talk about the morality of being mega-wealthy. What did you think? Is Jesus being too judgmental about rich people?
instereo – great points about religion and politics.
mat – thanks for the clarification about the USPS!
Toad – I don’t think you’re the problem. I’m glad you got to take a trip to Italy, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about not giving that money to the poor. We’re all allowed to live a life. As I tried to make clear in the first couple paragraphs, my comments are about the mega-rich. Not about people who have worked hard and are finally financially comfortable. You’re not the problem. You’re the American dream. We need to get more people to the place where you are. It isn’t your personal responsibility to solve poverty.
Just one more thing—the husband and wife team that owned the company my husband worked for did do humanitarian projects—like building a school for the underserved, education scholarships and others. They also matched their employees donations every year to other charities up to $10,000, meaning if we donated $1000 to Drs Without Borders, they would too.
It made us feel better to do that rather than pay tithing.
I very much enjoyed reading this post and agree that wealth inequality is a HUGE problem. The pendulum has swung way too far in the direction of protecting the rich. Prosperity gospel and justifications like “the eye of the needle was a gate” are excused for the rich to justify themselves and protect their own assets.
I might quibble a bit on the stock buybacks, which I think are widely misunderstood. I’m not an expert, so if I try to explain my position I may sound like a mansplainer, but I don’t see why a company that can buy and sell stock in other companies should not be able to buy its own stock if the company board believes it’s stick to be undervalued. In an openly traded company that really shouldn’t benefit the executives more than anyone else as everyone can buy and sell their stock.
Now the case of Bed Bath and Beyond sounds like a situation where the board and executives did not act in there interest of the share holders. There may be a way, and probably should be way, for creditors and/or share holders to hold them accountable, perhaps in the form of class action. They may also be criminally liable.
@Janey Thanks for the response. It’s nice to see responses to commenters.
I have complicated emotions about wealth. I served a mission in Guatemala in the 90s towards the end of their civil war and I witnessed crushing poverty. One Christmas my dad sent me a photo of my siblings and all their gifts and I was appalled at the wealth – even though we were solidly middle class.
A guy here in my ward has a net worth of approximately $50 million but it’s land that he inherited. He lives in a small home, drives a 20 year old Corolla and wears ratty clothes. You could think he’s barely surviving. He treats his wealth as imaginary because until he sells the land it is. In one of your previous posts about wealth I mentioned this and sparred with you and other commenters, some of whom gave me the impression that my friend is as bad as a billionaire – but I’m not willing to cast that stone.
So while I agree that I’m not solely responsible for solving poverty I do feel a twinge of guilt because my goal is to retire well and not worry about money – yes I’d even love to try wealth on for size.
Christ famously taught that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to enter heaven. That seems to be a teaching most Christians ignore or justify away somehow. Even though I’m not a believer I have a lot of empathy for the poor and think I could give up my wealth if I thought everyone else would too, and that it would make a difference. I do wish the US would implement more European or Scandinavian like policies but for a politician to say there here would be political suicide.
Toad – my mission was in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, where I stood in bread lines and met people who hadn’t gotten a paycheck in over a year and grew most of their own food. Subsistence farming is a hard life. When I got home to the USA, the first time I went to a supermarket, I had an anxiety attack and had to leave. It was so overwhelming to be in a place with That Much Stuff after seeing the scarcity in my mission country.
Another story about wealth: When I was in college, I helped arrange a conference in which we invited religious and political leaders from other countries to come to BYU. It was a 3-day symposium and really a wonderful experience. We took the foreign leaders to Welfare Square so they could see the Church’s humanitarian efforts. I was so proud of our generosity as we toured Welfare Square. But one political leader from Africa was outraged. He was polite about it, but the gist was outrage that a country could be so wealthy that its cast-offs and unwanted items were so desperately needed in his country. I started to realize that fairness was better than charity. We should strive towards economic equality. Not a flat sameness, but also not a world where what the wealthy throw away is better than anything the poor can ever aspire to. People don’t need to be so wealthy that they own multiple mansions and a private jet, while others can’t afford medicine.
Fairness is better than charity.
Land worth has gone wild. Your friend who inherited a lot of land and lives a modest life is in a tough spot. I have opinions about the estate tax, and taxing assets as they pass from one generation to another, but I bet the $50 million price tag on your friend’s inherited land is also partly attributable to the way real estate prices have spiraled and gotten just plain weird.
I look at the socialism in Europe and I think they’ve got some great ideas, and they take care of their people. I dislike that, in the USA, if a politician says something like, “we should help poor people more with health care costs,” others erupt in condemnation for a nanny state or whatever. I think capitalism is salvageable if it’s got strong limits on it, both at the top and the bottom. The unlimited accumulation of wealth is wrong; allowing the poor to suffer is wrong. Somewhere in the middle of that is the sweet spot, and it’s a pretty wide range. I believe we’re outside of that range right now, and I want the pendulum to swing. Government needs to do more to take care of the poor because unrestrained capitalism won’t take care of the poor. And individuals, like you and me, can’t solve systemic poverty. No matter how much food I put in the community pantry down the street, government issued food stamps will do a better job of helping hungry people. I still put food in the community pantry, and I also vote for people who want to fund government programs that will help the poor.
I want a compassionate government. I want a government that cares more about feeding the hungry and housing the unsheltered than it does about giving tax breaks to billionaires.
50 million dollars is a lot of money (a LOT!). Good on your friend for maintaining his values. Still, the difference between $1 billion and $50 million is $950 million.
I trust Janey that she isn’t targeting you and your friend in this post.
When you and I and the man with $50 million land holdings likely pay more income tax than Jeff Bezos (who reportedly pays no income tax), something is deeply wrong.
Speaking of the wealthy getting into heaven and how people who hoard billions are guilty of letting people starve, what about people who are company executives for a company with hundreds of billions sitting in a bank account waiting for who knows what and those executives/general authorities won’t tell us what the purpose of hoarding all that money is?
Janey: not sure you’ll see this (writing Sat at noon): I loved the rest of the post. In fact, I think the Mormon prosperity culture is one of the most obscene belief systems I have ever experienced. And it’s a top down issue: The Church is wealthy because it is guided by God and we do as members can be. It’s sick.
There are ethical billionaires. Twiggy Forrest is an iron ore miner in north western Australia. He employs indigenous people, he is developing green steel, and a solar plant large enough to power Singapore, and building an undersea cable to singapore.
Another iron ore miner is fighting to stop her children getting any of the billions she inherited from her father.
It does seem to help greatly if there are basics like universal healthcare, a reasonable minimum wage $23/hour, and we have a tax free threshold of $18200.
But as you say the right of politics is always attempting to make it more difficult for the less fortunate and transfer more to those who don’t need any more. The left of politicsis trying to improve equality in society.
There’s a well-known business in my small town that sells a well-branded all-American product, one easily found on grocery store shelves. Though, they make their big money with things like government and corporate contracts, selling in bulk to prisons/schools etc. (so… lots of revenue from tax dollars). It’s a point of pride for the town that the production facility is here.
I’ve lived in this town over 17 years. In that time, this company’s production facilities have grown and its grain silos have doubled. This is brick and mortar growth I’m talking about, more product moving in and out. Nothing abstract or digital. New buildings. More space. Trucks and trains coming and going. This one company is most of the town’s skyline. It’s impressive. Here’s the deal…
In the same time span that the physical facilities have grown, the number of human employees has shrunk. Fewer people make their living with this company now than when I moved here. I once read an interview in a local paper where the owner bragged there has never been a mass layoff. The deliberate attrition has been accomplished by not replacing staff as people quit or retire. Automation has replaced much of the human staff. Automation, the job killer conservatives neglect to mention while they busy themselves blaming outsourcing and/or immigrants. They neglect to mention it, because many of them make their wealth off pushing automation. So…
Here we have an all-American company selling more product and making more money than it used to, but providing fewer human jobs to do it. Do you suppose the owner is making less? Do you suppose the executives are depriving themselves of any compensation? And for anyone dismissing Janey simply because she dared to take a political position, the owner also expressed support for a Trump presidency back in the local interview I read. Goes both ways
I feel no sympathy for someone who belt tightens by going from possessing many billions/millions of dollars to a few billions/millions of dollars. I trust it is not as simple as getting them to drop more of their wealth into the government coffers, but capitalism is no holy thing. And I am tired of living in a society that prices competition over cooperation
Jake C.
I like what you said and agree with it but I want to add one point to expand it a bit.
You’re right, capitalism is no holy thing but I believe we demonize government at the same time when it could solve so many of the problems we face. Of course, the real question is how and do we trust it enough to even try?
I think in the past government has always been something imposed on us by a person, family, or a group of people. The beauty of the US Constitution is that for the first time, we began to look at government as “From the people, for the people.” In other words, using democratic principles we could govern ourselves using a representative form of government.
This idea has both been developed with the Bill of Rights and court rulings but it has also been diluted with “State’s Rights” and right-wing politics which have their roots in Slavery which was never dealt with in the Constitution.
Now if we look at government as 1. Being of the People and For the People and 2. A place where we can combine the resources of the people to solve the problems of the people, we could change the selfish principles of capitalism from individual accumulation of wealth to a more cooperative society sharing the wealth to benefit all. We also have a big divide in our country where people look at the government either as the solver of all problems or the enemy. One thing I think we can all agree on is that government is the biggest player in the room. That’s why we have such a division and fight in our society because it seems whoever controls the government can reap the spoils of controlling the competition.
What if we looked at government as a way to solve problems we can’t solve ourselves without excess waste? As an example let’s look at healthcare. When the USA’s healthcare system uses 20% of GNP compared to Japan, Canada, or Germany which uses closer to 10-11% and has inferior results, where is the waste coming from, the government or those reaping the spoils of controlling the competition with the government, in other words, capitalism? The USA may have the best health care in the world but it also has the worst. What if we changed our expectations to the best healthcare for all instead of having a system that gives the best healthcare for only some? What if instead of a system designed on profit for some, we had a system designed on results for all?
If we truly are “the government,” then we should be able to have a government where service to the whole of the population is more important than income for the few who provide a service for some.
The final question to think about is the Postal Service which was written into the Constitution to provide a service to all regardless of income or where you lived and said nothing about making money or turning a profit. Today people (okay I’ll say it, the right-wing) have subtly changed the Postal Service’s mission from one of providing mail service to all but making it “run like a business” and turn a profit. The result is getting rid of service in smaller rural towns, rising postal rates, and opportunities for other companies to make huge amounts of money providing a service that should be a Constitutional right. What if we started to look at what the original meaning of service in the post office was supposed to be, apply it to the post office and then to healthcare, education, and finally transportation, and keep an open mind to how we can increase service to all in other areas as well like access to technology, electricity, or housing .
Jake C and Instereo — YES! That’s what I’m getting at, and I so appreciate your comments. Instereo, I wish I could shout that from the rooftops: “the govt is a way to solve problems!” That’s what we should be using govt to do. And it does! Like, despite all the problems and imperfections, food stamps are absolutely wonderful. Give people money to buy food and you reduce hunger! Incredible, wonderful, showstopping, standing ovation!
I was visiting teacher to a woman living in low income housing. Her rent was $30 per month. She was permanently disabled and her family wasn’t in a position to help her. She wanted to move, for various reasons. She qualified for a Section 8 housing voucher. The problem was that the vouchers weren’t funded regularly, and she couldn’t find a landlord willing to take it. The govt could fund those vouchers and streamline the process for landlords and tenants.
Jake C – I read some snappy blurb on the Internet about how in the 1960s, people assumed that by the 1990s, we’d all be working 20 hours per week and making the same amount of money and having a better standard of living than in the 1960s. This would be due to automation and efficiencies. The assumption was that employers would improve production and profitability, and then share that with their employees. Instead of reducing staffing, keep the same number of staff, pay them the same (which the company can afford to do), and reduce their hours. Obviously that’s not how company owners function now. Your example was a great illustration of that.
Also agree with Instereo about the post office. Govt services aren’t meant to turn a profit. They’re a service. They’re supposed to make our lives better. I mean, don’t waste funds, but the idea that capitalism and competition will provide better services isn’t true. Some services aren’t supposed to turn a profit (public transportation) and for some things, it’s morally bankrupt to turn a profit (healthcare) (the profit margin on epi-pens is a disgrace).
josh h – I’m glad you liked the rest of the post. I’ll tell you why I put the politics in there. I’ve posted on economic issues before, and some of the commenters have agreed with my ideas and then said things that made it clear that they think Republicans are defending personal rights and it’s Democrats who are favoring big business, or other similar things. Like, our values about economics aren’t that far apart, but the commenters honestly think that Republicans are trying to help the working class. They’re wrong. Maybe they don’t understand the issues, or maybe they just made their political decisions 40 years ago and haven’t reexamined them since then.
People who want better economic policies need to know that the Republicans are actively working against better economic policies. I was careful to link to reputable and multiple news sources in my post, so anyone who clicks through the links can see backup for my statements that Republicans are widening the wealth gap and etc. It shouldn’t be controversial for me to say the Democrats are trying to fully fund the IRS and the Republicans are trying to block that funding. That’s actually what’s happening, if you clicked through the links.
I tend to trust my news sources as non-partisan and accurate. I work in the financial industry. Through my work, I’ve got paid subscriptions to news sources that report on financial news. The spin is minimal. I read that news. Then, if I decide to write a post, I find news sources that aren’t behind paywalls that essentially say the same thing. And the non-spinned news is a consistent stream of news stories that say, “Democrats are trying to help the middle and working classes and Republicans are trying to block them.” There used to be more bipartisan efforts to strengthen the middle and working class, but in the past few years it has changed, and changed drastically. People need to know that.
josh h – I have pondered and come to a conclusion. I could be more bipartisan. Tell you what. On the next post I do about economic issues, I will less partisan and accusatory when I talk about what the political parties are doing. In fact, I will try to find common ground.
Janey,
I really appreciate a more Nonpartisan approach. Some people’s brains turn off when they hear endorsements of one party or condemnation of another. You have a lot of excellent points to make and I want everyone with whatever political identity to hear and consider your arguments.
Jake C’s observation makes a good case for a social safety net.
Moving forward is good. As frustrated as I get when my work introduces new scheduling, time card, or communication software, when I stop and remember that 20 years ago we made trades by writing requests on a white board in the break room, I slog through, knowing I wouldn’t want to return to those archaic methods.
Trump and his allies promised more jobs and pay to coal miners. It didn’t happen because the energy economy is changing. The coal miners still need to work to support themselves.
Security is a universal need. When industry advances, the improvements shouldn’t be borne on the backs (and anxieties) of working people. We can have a universal basic income, and provide education and job training to those affected by disruptive innovation.
I hope politicians with great ideas(!) can find ways to message better.
I’ve been poor. Not recommended. Fortunately it didn’t last long. We aren’t going to solve poverty, but we can make life easier for the poor ensuring they have rights (labor law, minimum wage) and by investing in better infrastructure. The poor should be able to have some confidence in their personal safety, that their kids are getting as good an education as the kids on the other side of town, and that they can go to a doctor when they need it. In the US we sometimes do some of those things, but most of the time not very well if at all. I want us to do better, which will cost money, which requires more taxation.
I don’t understand the political movement to defund the IRS. As a non-tax-cheat I would like to see the law enforced, lest the tax code become taxation only of the honest. How is it that the party who claims to be on the side of law enforcement refuses to fund this critical form of law enforcement? Are you in favor of being a society of laws or not? Or is it just that one form of lawbreaking is more socially acceptable because all your rich friends and political backers are doing it?
The tax rate on billionaires has historically had very little to do with the overall funding of the government. Over the past 80 years, the top marginal tax rate has been as high as 90% and as low as the low 20’s. Yet, the portion of GDP going to the federal government has only fluctuated a few percentage points, typically around 18-19%. Taxing the very wealthy does little for government revenue, which is only very loosely connected to social spending. There are some lawmakers who understand this condition and try to follow the logic that flows from it: more government money comes from more economic growth above all else. This also helps those who can claim responsibility to get reelected.
The extra funding of the IRS was opposed by some who said that those extra IRS agents will go after the small business owners and politically unconnected upper middle class, not the super rich. I have yet to see the study of the actual results of the extra IRS enforcement on total revenue or revenue from the billionaires. It probably did not work as expected (yet). If it shows the promised results, there may be increased or at least continued funding in the future. Others opposed the IRS funding due to recent history of political bias in IRS decisions against conservatives.
Interesting that you rail against congressional republicans and want some changes, yet democrats were in charge of both houses of congress and the presidency just 1 year ago. Obviously, your preferred changes were not a priority then. You also mention 3 of the mega rich, Bezos, Buffet and Musk as using their wealth in bad ways. All 3 have voted or donated more to democrats than republicans (Musk seems to be having a change recently). Many other of the top US billionaires (Gates, Zuckerberg and the Google founders come immediately to mind) are also major democrat supporters. Only Charles Koch is primarily a supporter of republicans of the top billionaires. Most democrats can be bought and many billionaires know this.