The economy and the power to make things better--Part 3 of 5--The spiritual point of view

God looks with compassion at modern America, and he suffers with the victims of economic abuse. With scorn he addresses today’s arrogant and inexperienced managers, the “Paper Barons” of modern times, as well as impulsive politicians: “You have become too big for your breeches. All the world’s resources are mine. Your greedy appetite and lust for power are wasting what belongs to me and all my people!”

And God continues: “I have made America the bastion of free enterprise. You have eliminated your competitors by swallowing them up one by one, not with your own money but at the expense of my people. You have borrowed money and then passed on the cost of your insatiable growth to the consumers. They carry the burden of your grandiose schemes through higher costs of the market basket or smaller food packages. In your grandiose plots you start new ventures with borrowed money and then fold them up when things do not work out. Who do you think is absorbing the loss? Surely it is not your financial backers. They are even greedier than you are. They are in business to make money no matter what. And look at your accounting schemes. Suddenly you play the fool, claiming that you do not know what is happening. You know how to give yourselves huge salaries, bonuses, and generous pensions. My people must pay for them by your denying jobs, health coverage, and pensions for my hard-working people.”

God’s voice now thunders: “By what rules do you gamble the hard-earned savings of my working people in 401(k) plans? Who decides that you have the right to declare a stock under value or encourage companies to dilute the number of shares? Who do you think is picking up the tab when your schemes fail? Unscrupulous institutional managers of the public trust are the great evils in modern times. A lot of money is changing hands without control and without consideration of the needs of the owner.”

Furthermore, God says: “You pay obnoxiously high salaries in professional sports. Whose money is it that you are wasting? You recover every penny through advertisements of the products my people must buy in order to live. But it is my people who must swallow with each spoon of food the bitterness of your schemes. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

God says: “My wealth in America belongs to the American people. It is my gift to them.” God admonishes America’s leadership—business leaders and politicians alike—concerning job losses: “When you scorn the American workforce as an expense that is prohibitive, you are attacking the foundation of the American dream that I put in place for a bright future of job stability and family income. You are attacking me when you take work away from my people. Your cheap labor tactics are now the cause of many social ills in America. Your greedy appetite is placing the American family in jeopardy. Your greed is a monster that gnaws at the hopes and dreams of my people. And that is not all. You now sell in America for dollars what you have manufactured offshore for cents. Your exploitation of cheap labor markets is slavery. Your greed is responsible for hatred and wars because exploited people feel the injustice done to them. You are fools if you think that I will let you get away with it. Beware of your greed. Greed is a killer. I will not stop your greed, for eventually your own greed will destroy you in due time. Repent therefore. I, the Lord, have spoken.”