A Study of the Counterintuitive: It's an Honor to be Poor

Those Who Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Are More Blessed Than They Realize

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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I don't have to explain what's been happening to the US Middle Class over the last 35 years or so. Many people who used to be Middle Class in America are now poor. I should know, since I used to make a whole lot more money than I do now. But that was before the bottom fell out of everything. I've been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. Everyone is lamenting because they're living paycheck to paycheck and they don't know what to do about it. Going to the ballot box, so far, has produced an exacerbation of America's political problems – exactly the opposite of what is intended. Now we have people talking about civil war, and America's citizens are emigrating at record levels. The ones who are staying are buying guns and ammo at record levels. No wonder everyone is so tense and on edge!

That's why the purpose of this week's message is to console those who are angry and hurt, to counsel those who have been pushed aside or shown the door without just cause, and to reassure the frightened and confused. It's not hard to get pretty befuddled about current events. We live in a world of mass shootings in schools, work places, grocery stores and even churches – or synagogues, as was the case recently. Things have gotten so bad that we can't even attend church or go out for a movie without having to be alert for anyone carrying a weapon. There is a good side to being poor, and a positive thing about being oppressed, according to the Word of God (or the Bible, if you prefer). Allow me to cite a few examples from Scripture.

My first example is that of the apostle James, who was a very astute individual, and so his writings are something to take very seriously regardless of one's religious beliefs – or even a lack thereof. These words can still be beneficial regardless of faith. “5) Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6) But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7) Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of Him to whom you belong? 8) If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing right.” (James 2, verses 5-8)

Take heart if you are poor or otherwise financially hard pressed! Contrary to what many think and say, there is no shame in being poor. I was pretty well off at one time myself, mainly back in the 1990's through most of that decade, wrapping around to the early 2000's. I know what it's like to earn a six figure income, and to have to meet a payroll every week. But those days are gone for good, and there's little I can do about it except to keep on writing. I live on my small pension check, plus a little extra each month when I sell a book or two, and I've come to terms with that. But, what James wrote is even more true today than back then: “Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?” The student loan crisis is one modern example of this, foreclosures are another, and the so-called Drug War is yet another. Over half the people in state and federal prison are there for nonviolent drug offenses. America spends entirely too much money locking up all the wrong people.

“Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” If you're poor, mentally depressed and running low on hope, then heed these words of the apostle James, the half-brother of Christ. To say this another way, it's better to be rich in faith than rich with worldly goods, and it's better to be poor in worldly goods than it is to be poor in faith. “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.” The much-beloved phrase, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is found first in Leviticus 19: 18, and it was an admonishment from the Lord Almighty to us all, that there be no hate among us – none at all! Judging by the racial tensions that simmer all across America, I'd say we have our work cut out for us as far as loving our neighbors – regardless of color.

Jesus himself was more blunt and direct than James in Luke's gospel when he said: “20) Looking at his disciples, he said: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21) Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22) Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. 23) Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. 24) But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25) Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. 26) Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.'” (Luke 6, verses 20-26)

The world's poor, sick and disabled, Jesus was saying, will be the first through the gates of heaven. If you hunger, you will be filled by Christ, not by McDonald's – Jesus guarantees it. Weep all you want for now, Jesus was saying, because in the end He will give us life and laughter everlasting. The more people hate you because of me, Jesus was teaching them, the greater your reward will be. So, let others hate you just because you will not hesitate to make a stand for Christ. Never mind Republican or Democrat, conservative, liberal or progressive – they all pale in comparison to the Spirit of our Lord and Savior. But in verses 24 and 25, Jesus taught that anyone who enriches themselves in this life does so at the expense of another, and those wealthy individuals risk paying an eternal price for being selfish beyond reason while others went hungry. Verses 24 through 26 could also be interpreted as a prophecy against America, but that would be another message for another time.

So, I want everyone reading this who is going through a hard time financially – and that would be the majority of you – to take heart in their situation. Granted, you are suffering and miserable, I know how you feel. But take it from a guy who's been there, you can and will survive the ordeal you are currently undergoing. If you can't raise your income, then find ways to cut your expenses. The main thing is knowing that Jesus is walking beside you in every conceivable way, every step of the way.

We can end poverty in 1 generation. So why aren't we?

How We Can Make God, and Each Other,

Happy by Ending Poverty

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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Today in the early 21^st century, and with 99% of the wealth in America in the hands of 1% of the population, the US has a bigger and wider gap between the richest 1% of American money earners and big business owners and the remainder of working Americans than there is in many supposedly “third world” countries. The widespread and systemic unemployment or underemployment that currently exists in the US job market (including those who have given up and dropped out of the job market) is no longer just an economic problem. It has become a civil rights issue of the highest priority. The US job market has been turned into a raffle, where one lucky person gets the job while entire groups of others get left out in the cold – sometimes literally. I am vigorously maintaining that every human being has the basic, God-given right to a livelihood and to a living wage. There is no such thing under God's laws that say any given person should be unable to support themselves and their families! Anything less becomes a gross civil rights violation. Based on that, I would say those jobless individuals are victims of systemic economic discrimination. And so I further state unreservedly that restarting the civil rights era protests, demonstrations, sit-ins and the occupation of government buildings, or whole city blocks, is the most effective way of addressing the rampant inequality and persistent economic hardship that currently exists in the US.

Fortunately, this has already started here in the US, with the advent of the protests for so many unarmed Black men being killed by police officers. But these protesters are actually somewhat behind the curve. Because, before them there was Occupy Wall St., “we are the 99%” and Anonymous. And before those there was the Arab Spring in Egypt, the summer of 2011 in Great Britain and Greece, plus Libya, Syria and Gaza in the Middle East. So from a political standpoint, the current crop of protesters here in the US have some catching up to do. And yet, that was before the rest of the world got on board protesting globally for the many murdered Americans in Florida, Missouri, New York and elsewhere. So now, like an echo from the fairly recent past, the protests over police violence has echoed across the globe and is still reaching a crescendo.

The least common denominator to all this rage in the streets is that of being economically disadvantaged. “You will always have the poor”, Jesus said, “but you will not always have me” (This was prior to his being crucified). Deuteronomy chapter 15, verses 7-8 state, “If there is a poor man among your brothers.... do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your brother. Rather be open handed and freely lend him whatever he needs.” People everywhere find themselves surrounded by wealth and opulence, luxury and self-indulgence, while they are themselves isolated from it. It is one thing to be rewarded for success and a job well done. But it's an altogether different matter to have obscene riches flaunted in your face on a daily basis in order to remind certain people of their alleged inferiority. I think what we really need to do is find a way to end poverty. I can sum up the answer in two words: Free Education. Otherwise those who are poor will always remain so.

Who’s responsible for the poor? Back in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth, English lawmakers said it was the government and taxpayers. They introduced the compulsory “poor tax” of 1572 to provide peasants with cash and a “parish loaf.” The world’s first-ever public relief system did more than feed the poor: It helped fuel economic growth because peasants could risk leaving the land to look for work in town. By the early 19th century, though, a backlash had set in. English spending on the poor was slashed from 2 percent to 1 percent of national income, and indigent families were locked up in parish workhouses. In 1839, the fictional hero of Oliver Twist, a child laborer who became a symbol of the neglect and exploitation of the times, famously raised his bowl of gruel and said, “Please, sir, I want some more.” Today, child benefits, winter fuel payments, housing support and guaranteed minimum pensions for the elderly are common practice in Britain and other industrialized countries. But it’s only recently that the right to an adequate standard of living has begun to be extended to the poor of the developing world.

In an urgent 2010 book, “Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South”, three British scholars showed how the developing countries are reducing poverty by making cash payments to the poor from their national budgets. At least 45 developing nations now provide social pensions or grants to 110 million impoverished families — not in the form of charitable donations or emergency handouts or temporary safety nets but as a kind of social security. Often, there are no strings attached. It’s a direct challenge to a foreign aid industry that, in the view of the authors, “thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects for the poor” even as it imposes free-market policies that marginalize the poor. “A quiet revolution is taking place based on the realization that you cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots,” the book says. “And giving ‘boots’ to people with little money does not make them lazy or reluctant to work; rather, just the opposite happens. A small guaranteed income provides a foundation that enables people to transform their own lives.”

There are plenty of skeptics of the cash transfer approach. For more than half a century, the foreign aid industry has been built on the belief that international agencies, and not the citizens of poor countries or the poor among them, are best equipped to eradicate poverty. Critics concede that foreign aid may have failed, but they say it’s because poor countries are misusing the money. In their view, the best prescription for the developing world is a dose of discipline in the form of strict “good governance” conditions on aid. According to The World Bank, nearly half the world’s population lives below the international poverty line of $2 per day. As the authors of Just Give Money point out, that’s despite decades of top-down, neo-liberal, extreme free-trade policies that were supposed to “lift all boats.” In Africa, South Asia and other regions of the developing “South,” the situation remains dire. Every year, according to the United Nations, more than 9 million children die before they reach the age of 5, and malnutrition is the cause of a third of these early deaths.

Just Give Money argues that cash transfers can solve three problems because they enable families to eat better, send their children to school and put a little money into their farms and small businesses. The programs work best, the authors say, if they are offered broadly to the poor and not exclusively to the most destitute. “The key is to trust poor people and directly give them cash — not vouchers or projects or temporary welfare, but money they can invest and use and be sure of,” the authors say. “Cash transfers are a key part of the ladder that equips people to climb out of the poverty trap.” Brazil, a leader of this growing movement, provides pensions and grants to 74 million poor people, or 39 percent of its population. The cost is $31 billion, or about 1.5 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product. Eligibility for the family grant is linked to the minimum wage, and the poorest receive $31 monthly. As a result, Brazil has seen its poverty rate drop from 28 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2008. Data released on December 15^th, 2017 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) shows that nearly fifty million Brazilians, or just over 20 percent of the population, live below the poverty line, and have family incomes of R$387.07 per month – approximately $5.50 a day USD. In northeastern Brazil, the poorest region of the country, child malnutrition was reduced by nearly half, and school registration increased.

South Africa, one of the world’s biggest spenders on the poor, allocates $9 billion, or 3.5 percent of its GDP, to provide a pension to 85 percent of its older people, plus a $27 monthly cash benefit to 55 percent of its children. Studies show that South African children born after the benefits became available are significantly taller, on average, than children who were born before. “None of this is because an NGO worker came to the village and told people how to eat better or that they should go to a clinic when they were ill,” the book says. “People in the community already knew that, but they never had enough money to buy adequate food or pay the clinic fee.” In Mexico, an average grant of $38 monthly goes to 22 percent of the population. The cost is $4 billion, or 0.3 percent of Mexico’s GDP. Part of the money is for children who stay in school: The longer they stay, the larger the grant. Studies show that the families receiving these benefits eat more fruit, vegetables and meat, and get sick less often. In rural Mexico, high school enrollment has doubled, and more girls are attending.

India guarantees 100 days of wages to rural households for unskilled labor, paying at least $1.25 per day. If no work is available, applicants are still guaranteed the minimum. This modified “workfare” program helps small farmers survive during the slack season. Far from being unproductive, the book says, money spent on the poor stimulates the economy “because local people sell more, earn more and buy more from their neighbors, creating the rising spiral.” Pensioner households in South Africa, many of them covering three generations, have more working people than households without a pension. A grandmother with a pension can take care of a grandchild while the mother looks for work. Ethiopia pays $1 per day for five days of work on public works projects per month to people in poor districts between January and June, when farm jobs are scarcer. By 2008, the program was reaching more than 7 million people per year, making it the second largest in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa. Ethiopian recipients of cash transfers buy more fertilizer and use higher-yielding seeds.

In other words, without any advice from aid agencies, government, or nongovernmental organizations, poor people already know how to make profitable investments. They simply did not have the cash and could not borrow the small amounts of money they needed. A good way for donor countries to help is to give aid as “general budget support,” funneling cash for the poor directly into government coffers. Cash transfers are not a magic bullet. Just Give Money notes that 70 percent of the 12 million South Africans who receive social grants are still living below the poverty line. In Brazil, the grants do not increase vaccinations or prenatal care because the poor don’t have access to health care. A scarcity of jobs in Mexico has forced millions of people to emigrate to the U.S. to find work. Just Give Money emphasizes that to truly lift the poor out of poverty, governments also must tackle discrimination and invest in health, education and infrastructure.

The notion that the poor are to blame for their poverty persists in affluent nations today and has been especially strong in the United States. Studies by the World Values Survey between 1995 and 2000 showed that 61 percent of Americans believed the poor were lazy and lacked willpower. Only 13 percent said an unfair society was to blame. But what would Americans say now, in the wake of the housing market collapse, the bailout of the banks and the phony economic “recovery”? The jobs-creating stimulus bill, the expansion of food stamp programs and unemployment benefits — these are all forms of cash transfers to the needy. I would say that cash helps people see a way out, no matter where they live. Not only that, the Bible condemns those who refuse to help the poor, as it is written in the Book of Proverbs: “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker” (chapter 14: 31), and again it is written, “Rich and poor have this in common: The same Almighty God has made them both.” (chapter 22: 2).

More Lies From Our Government

This Week's Bogus Unemployment Report Is a Sin Against Us All

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this on my website, click here.

I have always believed that being a good Christian means standing up against social and economic injustice. After all, being religious without putting one's faith into action is like calling oneself a Democrat or Republican without ever voting. The Bible says in the New Testament, “Faith without works is dead”, and I'm a firm believer in putting that into practice. One social injustice that I wrote about in my 2011 book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” was the outsourcing overseas of what used to be good American middle class jobs. I have some ideas about what is wrong or unjust in this great country of ours, and the following is just one example of what I would like to see fixed within society at large. I am talking about this week's federal government's press release that puts American unemployment at 4.6%. This simply hilarious number is being peddled to the American people at a time when only 61% of American adults are working. So, we're supposed to believe America has 4.6% unemployment while over one third of our workforce has given up looking for work out of sheer discouragement!

Now that Washington is waking up to the destructive impact of outsourcing good middle class jobs overseas, something the American people have known about for years, globalism's advocates have decided this facade of lies has to be maintained by the elite 1% at all costs. The Wall Street Journal, a supposed bastion of truth, recently stated that "the fact is that for every job outsourced to Bangalore, nearly two jobs are created in Buffalo and other American cities." I bet “Buffalo and other American cities" would like to know where these jobs are. On October 25, 2011, 60 Minutes had a program on unemployment in Silicon Valley, where formerly high-earning professionals have been out of work for two years and, today, cannot even find part-time $9 an hour jobs at Target.

The claim that jobs outsourced by US corporations increases domestic employment in the US is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American public (excluding the biggest one, which is the so-called “Federal Reserve”). Based on a bit of research that I have done from an economics standpoint, I can tell you that our country's governmental and business leaders have reached this erroneous conclusion by counting the growth in multinational jobs in the U.S. without adjusting the data to reflect the acquisition of existing firms by multinationals, and for existing firms who have turned themselves into multinationals by establishing foreign operations for the first time. There is no new multinational employment in the U.S. Absolutely zero. Existing employment simply moved into the multinational category from a change in the status of firms to multinational. American workers have become expendable because corporate America has decided they are too expensive to keep around. I know this to be true because it once happened to me.

The jobs that replaced the ones that were outsourced overseas for pennies on the dollar consist of waitresses and bartenders, health care workers, social services, retail clerks, and while the bubble lasted, construction. These are not the high-tech, high-paying jobs that the "New Economy" promised, and they are not jobs that can be associated with global corporations. Moreover, these domestic service jobs are themselves scarce. Just ask anybody trying to find one. Until this past year the construction jobs had all but vanished. Did you ever wonder how it was possible to have simultaneously millions of new good-paying middle class jobs and virtually the worst income inequality in the developed world, with all income gains accruing to the mega-rich? Or was that just me?

Education is no longer the solution it once was. For example, we already have more engineers than we have jobs for them due to outsourcing. A Philadelphia marketing and research firm called “Twentysomething” found that 85% of recent college graduates planned to move back home with parents. Even if members of the "boomerang generation" find jobs, the jobs don't pay enough to support an independent existence. And let's not forget that nearly all of these recent graduates have student loans with payoff balances in the tens of thousands of dollars. This in turn ruins their credit, which makes finding employment even more difficult. Reporters repeat the lie that the unemployment rate is 4.6%. The government's own more inclusive rate stands at 17%. Statistician John Williams, who counts unemployment the way it is supposed to be counted, finds the unemployment rate to be 22%. In my 2012 book, “Occupying America: We Shall Overcome”, I estimated the total unemployment rate to be 24%. Near the end of 2016 as I write this, total unemployment plus under-employment remains stuck at roughly the same figure.

To keep our eyes off the loss of jobs to outsourcing, policymakers and their minions in the financial press blame US unemployment on alleged currency manipulation by China and on the financial crisis. The financial crisis itself is blamed by conservatives on low-income Americans who took out mortgages that they could not afford, and on US “entitlement” programs. In other words, the problem is China and the greedy American poor who tried to live above their means, or who are allegedly too lazy to work. With this being the American mindset, you can see why nothing is being done to save the US economy.

We need to stop blaming poor people and minorities for America's problems. If anyone wants to know what is wrong with our country, the answers are located inside the D.C. Beltway, and they are there in abundance. This country can end or greatly limit unemployment, homelessness, poverty and economic inequality by simply reeducating its population. The Bible says in the Old Testament, “The people perish for a lack of knowledge”, and it's ever so true even after all the centuries that have gone by. The US is the only remaining developed country that does not do this for its citizens. The same can and should be done today, and I think it should also be a jumping-off point for overhauling or replacing the US public school system.

Take all the long-term unemployed, particularly older workers like I was, and send them back to school for up to two years (four year programs would be available at extra cost using my idea), and allow them to earn the degree, diploma or professional certification of their choice. Do the same for all parolees, as well as all homeless individuals who are judged healthy enough to work – anyone who might otherwise find it nearly impossible to find employment. Should the taxpayers pick up the tab for this? No way, let corporate America be compelled by law to pay for the retraining of these still-valuable US workers! If they can afford to send our jobs overseas for pennies on the dollar, then paying for up to 2 years of school to teach new trades to anyone who wants retraining should similarly only cost them pennies on the dollar relative to their exorbitant annual profits. Moreover, these multinational corporations already engage in enough tax dodging and evasion to pay for all of it!

There is a price to be paid for social and economic injustice, and it's a steep price too. Human being are driven by, among many other things, a desire for achievement, or to better one's lot in life. Those who see opportunities to improve themselves or their situation are by nature predisposed to take advantage of that opportunity, whatever it might be. So, when people find themselves being denied opportunities to succeed, along with the rewards that accompany that success, they resent it. It hurts our feelings because it seems as if we are being punished for wanting to better ourselves, as if we have done something wrong. There are those who might say, “This is something that's beyond my control”. But I continue to maintain that only happens when one capitulates to that 'something', whatever it may be. But if we band together and fight the 1% elitists, we have them outnumbered by 99 to 1, and I predict that is exactly what will happen if our new president sells out to Wall Street like he seems to be doing. As the late president Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make a violent revolt inevitable.”

The GOP debates, Jesus, and inequality

Poverty and Inequality Are Everybody's Problem

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

As I was watching the GOP presidential debates this past week, I was struck by the fact that several key issues were completely ignored. One was the urgent need for development of clean energy and a green economy. Another big one that got brushed aside was climate change and what we can do about it, not to mention what I view as the urgency of that situation. But the biggest issue by far that got ignored was economic inequality, the fact that 99% of America's wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population. This situation is much the same throughout the world. It is not something that is peculiar to America at all – far from it! My further observation of both of the presidential debates was that most, if not all, of the candidates running for the top office in the land are these same 1%-'ers who crave the Oval Office and the power that accompanies it. It seems that the same people who are part of the problem are putting themselves forth as being the engineers of the solution. Donald Trump is, without question, the best example of this so far. The fact that he's another billionaire from New York underscores the rampant and often extreme economic inequality that exists in America today.

According to statistics published by the Economic Policy Institute, and backed up by US government data, one in every seven persons currently living in the USA lives at or below the poverty line. One in seven sometimes goes hungry, especially children. For over one forth of America's school children, lunch at school is their only meal of the day. One in seven pregnant women don't get enough food for themselves and their unborn child. One person in every seven lives in a household with a gross income of under $14,000.00 per year for a single person, allowing only slightly more for children. Poverty devalues the individual in such a way that it can damage the mind or crush the spirit of anyone in its path. The hunger pangs are only what's on the surface. Poverty is everyone's problem because when one person is marginalized, then society as a whole becomes marginalized, and this is compounded the more that person becomes devalued. I submit to you that we are all made in the image and likeness of the same Almighty God who made us all (see Genesis chapter 1). 

 

It is our capitalist economic system that is broken, and we are all feeling the effects of it. More and more people are being thrown out of work, often losing their homes, their transportation and their dignity as corporate America continues to re-size downward. The more that American business downsizes, the more people will be affected. Life can sometimes be like a game of musical chairs, and people are starting to notice that the music has stopped playing and there are no chairs left. For one thing, jobs are disappearing. Many of these jobs were out-sourced overseas, and many more that still remain will be replaced with robots and artificial intelligence within 10 or 15 more years. The US economy, plus the job market or what's left of it, is in much worse shape than we're being told (surprise, surprise). People are banding together by family or by neighborhood to ensure one another's well-being. In Detroit, in particular, people are beginning to say the only way to survive is by taking care of one another, by recreating our relationships to one another, that we have created a society, over the last period, in particular, where each of us is pursuing self-interest. We have devolved as human beings.

We have been focused on taking care of ourselves for so long that we have forgotten how to take care of each other. Now that hard economic times have hit us right between the eyes, we need to do more to take care of each other. Get plugged into a volunteer program in your community. That would be one good place to start. Do this knowing that by helping to pick others up, you ultimately pick yourself up with it. And do it all knowing that God is watching over you as you go about your business. So, do not put God out of your life but rather keep Him within your heart and allow Him to dwell there. That is when you will know for sure that you are on the right track. Jesus summed this up perfectly when He defined the two greatest commandments, “...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22, verses 37-40, NIV) The apostle James similarly wrote, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James chapter 1, verses 26-27, NIV)

That's not all the apostle James had to say about the loving the world as opposed to loving God. He connected it with the same mass inequality that we see today when he wrote, “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you.” (James chapter 5, verses 1-6 NIV) Your wealth has lost its value!! Your investments have divested themselves of their own worth!! Not just their net worth either. Not only have you lost all your interest, you have lost the principal as well! Your entire portfolio is forfeit! Total disaster will overtake all of you who put yourselves into your careers and climb the corporate ladder to the exclusion of everything and everyone else! In so doing, you have fallen into idolatry!! Idolatry, you ask? But how? By prioritizing your careers over your worship, and by valuing your material goods over the supreme sacrifice Christ made for you on the cross. Make no mistake about it, the shed blood of Jesus Christ is more valuable than anything else on the planet – period! The biggest mansion, the most expensive yacht, the fastest car or truck and the trendiest clothes and night clubs are rubbish when compared to the purity of Christ. Besides Him stands no other! Jesus stands alone, heads above the rest!

Speaking of Jesus, He had lots to say about rich people. But, one of His most famous comments comes from the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew chapter 6, verses 19-21 NIV) The more attached we become to our material stuff, the farther away we get from God. But it's more than just stuff. We can become more attached to our spouse or significant other, to our children, to our careers, and even to recreational activities like water skiing, snow boarding, our boats and motorcycles, or fitness training. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the above. But we must always put our personal relationship with Christ first because it's invariably the most important! I cannot overemphasize this one main point!

In closing, the fact that Donald Trump is still considered the GOP front-runner in the early part of the presidential race to the White House says a lot about the state of our country. The most eligible candidate, if the Republicans get their way, is the Donald, the one with the most money. The most eligible Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has reported earnings together with former president Clinton at $140 million over the last seven years. That's a cool 20 mill per year, there are a lot of professional sports players who don't make that much. So, the bottom line here is that the two front runners in the 2016 election are both 1%-ers who profess to have the solutions to the plight of the remaining 99% of us, when it's already an established fact that no matter who wins, the winner is beholden to the mega rich who bought the election in the first place. Capitalism – and the materialistic consumer lifestyle that goes along with it – has conquered the world without firing a single shot. In so doing, the top 1% are in charge of, and in many cases own, just about everything, right down to the land every building is built upon. But when Jesus returns, all power and authority will be given to Him on earth as it is in heaven, and the rich will be destitute.

Has capitalism run out of gas? If so, greed is the reason.

Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Has Run Its Course

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

As world trade continues its anemic 1.2% average annual growth rate, politicians in most industrial countries, and particularly in the US, have an incentive to make exaggerated claims about the alleged ongoing economic recovery. The government wants us to think the Great Recession is over, and that we're on "the road to recovery," while the American people and other nations look on skeptically. The ugly truth is that more and more people have lost confidence in – and consequently no longer trust – the federal government. To make matters worse, 2014 turned out to be the year when the American public lost confidence and trust in law enforcement. The street protests in New York, Chicago, L.A., Atlanta and elsewhere attest to the factuality of that mistrust. Below are seven important social phenomena that point to a more realistic economic and political outlook for 2015. Let's start where it matters most by beginning with the economy.

1) The central banks are clueless. The usual tricks that U.S. and European central banks such as the Federal Reserve use to avoid recessions are long-exhausted. Interest rates cannot get any lower, and they've stayed that way for the last several years. And because cheap money wasn't working, the printing press was turned up a notch or two, into what the U.S. federal reserve euphemistically calls quantitative easing – flooding hundreds of billions of dollars into the world economy, escalating an emerging currency war between the US, the EU and the UK on one side, against China, Russia and the BRICS countries on the other.

2) Trade war. For the global economy to grow, global cooperation is needed. But there are too many countries engaging in a bitter struggle to dominate foreign markets so that their own corporations can export. These markets are won by devaluing currencies (accomplished in the U.S. by quantitative easing), installing protectionist measures (so that a nation's corporations have monopoly dominance over the nation's consumers), or by war (a very risky but highly effective form of market domination).

3) Military occupation and conquest. This is the part where I can't help but question some people's faith in God, or sometimes the lack thereof. If we are going to continue to call ourselves a Christian nation, then our nation's leaders – the ones who have been elected to take charge of the course of America – are going to have to find a better way of dealing with America's global problems and adversaries than by arbitrarily killing people by the hundreds of thousands. Besides, don't they comprehend that endless foreign wars are a telling symptom of economic decay? And then there are the economic wars, starting with the domination of markets – every inch of them – which has lately become an issue of life and death importance. "Containing" economies like China and "opening" economies like Iran and North Korea become more urgent during a major recession, requiring brute force and creating further global instability in all realms of social life. There's got to be a better way of doing this! The problem here is that America is not relying on God!!

4) U.S. economic strength overstated. The most important consumer market in the world, the U.S., is a nation of nearly bankrupt consumers. After enduring prolonged periods of unemployment following the 2008 economic crash, the greater majority of America's middle class fell into poverty, with a good number still there today. Nearly thirty million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, while further job losses are certain, due to nearly every state's budget deficit (unless it's minimum wage jobs – there are plenty of those to go around). As if that weren't enough, the student loan bubble currently stands at $1 trillion dollars 'plus', proving that America's educational system is broken. States are now bracing for more painful cuts, more layoffs, more tax increases, more battles with public employee unions, and more requests to bail out cities. And in the long term, as cities and states try to keep up on their debts, the very nature of government could change as they have less money left over to pay for the services they have long provided. Capitalism's infrastructure is falling apart, and no one is doing anything about it. There's no money to fix it.

5) Bailout Capitalism. First it was the banks and other corporations that needed bailing out, and now it's whole nations like Greece and Spain. Western nations bailed out their banks by falling into the massive debt that they are now drowning in. Greece and Ireland have been bailed out once, Greece just got a second one just a month or two ago, and Portugal, Spain, and Italy are all works in progress. The entire European Union is being called into question as the Euro takes a beating in the bailout spree. If the EU is dismantled, the shock waves will quickly reach other economies.

6) Bailout repercussions. All western nations – including the U.S. and England – are grappling with their national debts. Rich bond investors are demanding that these countries drastically reduce their deficits, while also demanding that the deficits be reduced on the backs of working families, instead of rich investors. This is tearing the social fabric apart, as working and poor people see their social programs under attack. In Europe mass movements are erupting in France, Spain, Portugal, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy, etc. Social stability is a prerequisite for a recovered economy, but corporate politicians everywhere are asking much more than working people are willing to give. People everywhere are sick and tired of being broke.

7) The emergence of the 'radical right'. To deal with working people more ruthlessly, the radical right is being unleashed. In normal times these bigots yell furiously but no one listens. But in times of economic crisis like we're living in they're given endless airtime on all major media outlets. The message of the far right promotes all the rottenness not yet eradicated by education: racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, violence, and a backward nationalism that fears all things "foreign." These core beliefs effectively divide working people so that a concerted campaign against the corporate elite is harder to wage. Meanwhile, labor unions, progressives, and other working class organizations are instead targeted.

The various reasons for capitalism's impending failure I have just elaborated on do not happen in a normal economic cycle of boom and bust. These symptoms point to a larger disease in the capitalist economic system, a disease that cannot be cured by politicians who swear allegiance to this deteriorating system and to the wealthy elite who benefit from it. To ensure that the economic system is changed so that working people benefit, the ones who do the real work every day to keep things moving, large-scale collective action is necessary based on demands that unite the majority of working people. What America needs is a massive job-creation program at the expense of Wall Street, no cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and a moratorium on home foreclosures. If the Christian community worked cooperatively with the unions in promoting these demands, working people could put up a real fight. After all, the Bible says, “The workman is worth his/her wages”.

The latest dispatch on the implosion of the American empire

Fall of An Empire: An Inside View

By Rev. Paul J. Bern

Much has been discussed and written about the decline of America over the last several decades, and increasingly so as time marches on. The latest announcements via the main stream media about rumors of wars and the earth's damaged environment – damage that absolutely must be repaired if humankind are going to survive as a species – are becoming ever more frequent. I've been studying these two interrelated phenomena for the last eight years or so, and achieving world peace and environmental cleanup are the twin finish lines in the race for permanent peace and balanced living globally. So, if this is the finish line to this race for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as it is described in the Declaration of Independence, then where is the starting point? I had to stop typing and just sit and think for a short while before I wrote down any more of this, but if I had to pick a single starting point, it would be American education.

The average student loan debt upon graduation from college with a 4-year degree was $40,000.00 as of 2011. If you are just graduating or recently graduated from college, you will have to go back to school and earn a new degree, or otherwise change vocations, about once every ten to fifteen years over your lifetime in order to keep up with changes in the job market and new technologies. That is a frightening prospect for anybody. I argue that if we have to go back to school that many times in our lifetimes just to stay gainfully employed, then it is the system that is broken. The graduates are doing their part by their years of diligence in school, but the educational system has stopped putting up their fair share, and the results are an educational, financial and vocational train wreck for every new graduate.

Higher education as it stands right now is only for those who can afford it, or only for those who can “qualify” for predatory student loans that bury new graduates under mountains of debt so large that many can never be fully repaid. Unfortunately for these people, it is now standard operating procedure for prospective employers to check the credit of job applicants, and this is a practice that needs to be outlawed because it too is discriminatory. The end result of this is that the further behind one gets on his or her student loan payments due to unemployment the worse one's credit rating becomes, and so the harder it becomes to find suitable employment, and so on. This is a social injustice that must be vigorously opposed at every turn. It amounts to economic discrimination based on class; in this case employers (those who possess wealth) vs. the unemployed (those who have none), and that is a civil rights issue if ever there was one. And so, to correct this injustice, higher education should be free to everyone who desires it, and it should be available unconditionally. For details on how this can be accomplished simply and without reinventing the wheel, please order my book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto”. Thanks so much!

I cannot overemphasize the fact that the loss of housing, jobs, savings, pensions and other investments, plus transportation, access to higher education and the human dignity that goes with them, and the loss of access to health care, are all civil rights issues for the early 21^st century. The fact of the matter is that we all have the right to all of the above as American citizens – the fundamental right to shelter, to a livelihood and a living wage, to preventative health care, to free education for life instead of having to pay for it. But instead I'm sure you all have noticed, as I have, that America's existing constitutional rights are being systematically taken away from us a little bit at a time by the top 1%. The only way to stop this from occurring is to take to the streets in nonviolent protests, to organize and initiate general strikes, to flood the social media in order to better organize, and to keep doing these things until satisfactory changes are made. What will happen if this does not occur? Where will our formerly great country end up if everybody sits idly by and does nothing? Let me paint a portrait for you of what would likely happen in that event, a devastating portrait of a country in ruins. The end, you see, has nearly arrived. In fact, the end of all things as we have known them is a lot closer than you may have previously thought. Allow me to present a few examples.

[1] The number of Americans that have become so discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now stands at an all-time high.

[2] Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week before taxes.

[3] Since 2001, over 42,000 U.S. factories have closed down for good.

[4] In 2012, 1.6 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.

[5] According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

[6] According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

[7] As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

[8] In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

[9] One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040. At any rate, the Chinese economy will eclipse the US economy by 2016.

[10] The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

[11] The true U.S. unemployment rate, if everyone is counted who currently aren't being included in the “official” government numbers, is at least 20%.

[12] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are currently 6.3 million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for rent.

[13] Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.

[14] 18 percent of all residential mortgages in the United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter of 2012.

[15] In 2010, 55 percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive. Retirement in America has become a lie and a cruel joke.

[16] As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer. If we have all this economic and military might while one third of our children come from households that rely on food stamps to eat, then I would say there is something really wrong with this picture.

• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when half of its working adults can't find meaningful work.
• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when it is the last developed nation in the entire world without national health insurance for its citizens.
• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when all the good jobs get out-sourced overseas for pennies on the dollar while formerly employed Americans and small business owners lose their houses, their cars, their savings and wind up homeless and destitute.
• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when it is the last developed country where there is no family leave for its workers.
• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when our nation has more people in prison than any other country in the world.
• There can be no doubt that the USA has become a second-rate country when our country has accumulated the largest foreign trade deficit and federal budget deficit in the history of the world. Since the government is either unwilling or unable to address these issues in an intelligent manner, it is up to us, “we the people”, to tackle the job from the bottom up since the top-down approach apparently isn't working.

Today, the United States spends roughly 76 cents of every federal tax dollar on just four things: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the $14 trillion debt. That leaves 24 cents of revenue to pay for everything else the federal government does. Barring serious efforts to curb the growth in the country's debt, by 2020 Washington could be spending 92 cents of every tax dollar on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest alone. That would leave just 8 cents to pay for everything else. This is just one reason why the country's fiscal course is often described as "unsustainable." There is one more major thing that makes America as we have known it to be "unsustainable", and that added ingredient is oil.

World civilization is based on oil. The world is running out of oil. The oil companies and governments are not telling the truth about how close we are to the end. Whoever controls the remaining oil determines who lives and who dies. Sixty percent of this oil is under a triangular area of the Middle East the size of Kansas. But instead of an alternative energy plan we got the invasion of Iraq by oilmen wedded to a dying business, willing to kill hundreds of thousands to cling to the last drop. The US is never leaving the region or withdrawing from Iraq. The oil won't last that long... It's not about greed any more. It's about survival. Because the leadership of this country was initially too greedy to switch from oil to solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable alternatives, it may now be too late. Had the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan (might as well include western Pakistan plus Yemen and Somalia while we're at it) been put into alternative energy the world might have had a fighting chance. As of now that is far from certain.

World oil reserves are far lower than officially reported, the situation far more serious than publicly admitted, and we're already past “peak oil”. That's the word from two anonymous IEA whistle-blowers, The Guardian reports. To add insult to industry, the figures were deliberately massaged, at least in part, to appease the United States: Apparently the IEA was concerned that reporting the true reserve numbers – and keep in mind that determining oil reserves is as much art as science – it would trigger a buying panic. The US enters the picture encouraging the IEA to underplay the rate at which oil fields are being depleted – something which the IEA has admitted in recent months is occurring more quickly than previously acknowledged – while at the same time overplaying the possibility of new large discoveries.

There should be protests and demonstrations in the streets because of big oil's hijacking of the US economy (the Occupy, Anonymous and “99%” Movements were only the start). I must say I'm a bit surprised and disappointed by this fact, but I continue to be hopeful for a resurgence in protests all across America. But what will millions due in a real national emergency? For example, right now gas is about $3.75 a gallon. But America's supply chain for petroleum has a problem. Over 80% of US oil refineries are located in the Gulf Coast area, consisting mainly of southern Louisiana and southeast Texas, right in the middle of hurricane country. All of these refineries are at least 30 years old. All it will take is one category 4 or 5 hurricane to knock these refineries off-line for a few weeks or months and the US will find itself in very serious trouble. Then there is the fact that the US gets 40% of its imported oil from one country, Saudi Arabia, which ironically is the birthplace of Osama Bin Laden. If Saudi Arabia decides to cut off our supply of Middle Eastern oil, the US will also be in very serious trouble. If Iran decides to blockade the strait of Hormuz (Google or Yahoo that), much the same thing will occur. No matter what happens, the price of gas is sure to rise up to between $6.00 and $7.00 per gallon by the end of 2016 or the beginning of World War 3, whichever comes first. What will we do then? At these price levels, working Americans could be paying nearly $200.00 to fill up their cars with gas, even more for full-size trucks and SUV's. What will we do when we can no longer afford to drive to work? I'll bet you won't be sitting at home alone crying in your coffee!

Can you now see that we as a united people must protest all this systemic greed in order to keep these things from happening, or at least to lessen the severity of their impact? As I watch the street battles in Egypt, Syria and Iraq on TV and the Web, all I keep thinking about is how they have mustered the courage to fight their government's tyranny while Americans remain unready to revolt against the peculiar American brand of consumer tyranny. How ironic that in the nation with monumental gun ownership among its citizens there is no hint of people giving up on meaningless elections and taking to the streets in massive numbers to protest their corrupt government. Just this week a new report documented this: Nearly a year and a half into the economic recovery, some 45.6 million Americans continued to rely on food stamps, and that was in November, 2012. That amounted to more than 14 percent of the population relying on food stamps to purchase groceries, just another result of stubborn high unemployment and low incomes among the employed. As of late 2013, that number in now approaching 17%. For this to be happening in the richest country in the world is simply inexcusable.

Anyone with a smidgen of intelligence and critical thinking capability knows that in almost every conceivable way the US is in awful shape for a large proportion of its citizens. The nation needs to shift into revolution mode. Watching the Superbowl, pro wrestling, the World Series, Dancing With The Stars and American Idol will not improve our situation. Neither will playing video games. While we're all preoccupied with the nonsense and insanity of everyday life through all our little electronic diversions of endless variety, America's government, banking and financial sectors are awash with corruption, greed and dishonesty. Our health care system no longer produces healthy citizens compared to many other nations, despite costing much, much more. Our physical infrastructure is a disgrace, crumbling and threatening public health and safety. Upward mobility has largely disappeared and the middle class continues to sink into a lower class. Economic inequality has skyrocketed with the rich becoming richer and everyone else suffering more and more. The large number of homeless, hungry, poor and imprisoned Americans defines a nation that has lost its glory and its luster.

It is the tyranny of silence that prevents so many of us today from rising up to protest the "forever wars" against illegal drugs, and especially for oil, that we cannot hope to win and can no longer afford. It is the same tyranny of silence that prevents us from rising up to protest the government takeover – not by socialists – but by extremists on the right who readily give tax breaks to the ultra rich at the expense of everyone else. This same cadre of the military-industrial complex has also been successful in more or less co-opting an otherwise capable president into believing that cutting spending on everything except war is the only way to solve our debt crisis. And it is this same gang of madmen that characterized the inaction of those of us who have suffered foreclosures of their homes, and those of us who find ourselves without jobs, and those of us who "played by the rules and worked hard" to get through school only to graduate into an America of diminished expectations and heavy debt, as well as all of the rest of us who have seen our salaries cut, our benefits cut, our pensions cut, and who now say to ourselves, "It's okay I guess, because at least I still have a job". Yes, it is all of us, including me and you, who see the protests in Egypt and cheer for democracy but are too afraid to reassert our ownership of the democracy we have at home. We all have been made afraid, having been bullied by the system. We live in a tyranny of silence. The time to break that silence has arrived. And, as Thomas Jefferson so profoundly expressed it: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

America 's founding fathers stood up for their freedom, winning it from the British. The Egyptian people have stood up for their freedom, too, winning it from the Mubarak dictatorship, finding their courage even when Mubarak's thugs flew fighter jets low over their heads, beat and murdered protesters, and otherwise threatened violence. But how does America compare with Egypt? The truth is there is a stunning amount of inequality in Egypt. But America is even worse.

 

* Egypt's Mubarak stole billions from his people, while the American oligarchs have stolen trillions.

* Egypt has been living under a state of emergency for over 30 years, yes. But Americans have been living under a continuous state of emergency for 13 years straight.

*Mubarak was supported by the military. But the military-industrial complex has taken over America as well.

*Mubarak ignored the wishes of his people. But has the American government been listening to its people? Consider the 2010 Rasmussen poll which found that "just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed."

A 2010 Gallup poll determined that nearly half of all Americans believe "the Federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." Poll after poll shows that "both national parties are deeply unpopular with an electorate looking for something new and different." Polls reveal that 82% of all Americans wanted Wall Street to be reined in, in a substantial and meaningful manner, and yet our government has let Wall Street have its way on all the important issues. Polls find that Americans want the big financial players who acted with fraud to be punished, and yet our government has let all of the big fish off the hook.

The heart of the matter here is that what has happened in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Greece desperately needs to happen here in the US. Even if we successfully repair America's broken educational system, that is only the starting point. If we do not then we will have only ourselves to blame, and we will get whatever kind of tyrannical government we deserve. But I do not believe that the American people will continue to put up with this situation any longer. In fact, I am convinced it is a certainty that the American people, if confronted by the continuing class war that I have been writing about, will ultimately rebel, forcing the current government from power and installing a new one in its place by popular vote just like what happened in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011. That rebellion has already started with the Occupy, Anonymous and the 99% Movements, and I have no doubt that these movements will continue to grow as time goes on. I participated in Occupy DC when it started in early October of 2011, and I must tell you that it felt really good to be a part of this historic and significant movement of the people. I would urge everyone who reads this to get involved in some way in this noble undertaking. If you can't physically be at the protest, organize one in your local area instead. Use the social media to promote it. Or to be a donor to existing Occupy Movements near you, simply search for them on the Web.

Besides, the alternative is unthinkable. The alternative would be for the US to turn into a third world country. We are dangerously close to that point already. But we can still stop that from occurring and turn things around in our favor if we unite together for change, and a sea of voices rising up from a multitude of humanity can most certainly change things for the better. The momentum for this movement is already underway, so let's capitalize on that and really get things rolling. Besides, it's a good positive experience to be a part of a new 21^st century civil rights movement such as this. Be sure and get started with this today, and for those who are already participating, keep up the good work!