Friday, December 08, 2006

Something is very wrong with this…..

Here’s an article in the Guardian. An excerpt…

The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet’s wealth, according to the largest study yet of wealth distribution. … The report found the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world’s adult population, however, owned barely 1% of global wealth.

Once you get past the cold econo-speak, somewhere down on a gut level this strikes me as injustice. I’m no bleeding heart libby, but this stuff makes me feel ill when I read it. I don’t know what to do to fix this. I’m not big on collective guilt trips- I don’t think they accomplish much and the efforts that result from them are often more demeaning to the dignity of the “helped” than anything else. Still, who can read this and not feel that something is totally out of whack? Who can’t feel the urge to do something personally? I’m not in the top 1% (not even close), but I’m not willing to just shrug it off as “not my problem” either. When you meet and talk to one of those lower 50% who own 1% and you see how much they appreciate even little things we take for granted (clean water anyone?) you can’t just walk away. At least I can’t. Some day I know that God will ask for an accounting of this- He has to. What will we say?

1 comment:

Keith Lango said...

original comments here..
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?p=422#comments