AIG?

AIG?

OK. I thought at first that this was a non issue. But today I am getting a little more frustrated at the economic state of affairs in the good ol' US of A.

During the election there was all this buzz about how Obama was going to turn our country into a socialist nation. He was going to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Only not Robin Hood style just through taxes and bureaucracy. Wah Wah Wah. It was a good point by people opposed to the idea that the richest people in our country should be paying more taxes. Personally, even I was a little unsure about this. I mean, they earned it, right? Why should we be allowed to take it away to give to the people who have not taken the initiative to earn their fortune. I mean, special treatment for the poor? Who would come up with and idea like that. Doesn't that just encourage the welfare moms and the drop-out thugs right. Isn't that what they are?

I mean, these poor people, must be too lazy to go to school, go to college, get a real job, start a company and support their own family. All of those poor people are living the easy life while all of us middle class and upper class people work our tails off to foot the bill.

(btw, this was the exact argument that I heard Sean Hannity use a few months ago during the election heat.)

All of those hard working exeutives and middle management people. Poor fellas. Working their fingers to the bone. I mean look at me, I am positioned in the shrinking middle class. I work my butt off right. I mean think about it:

I went through elementary and middle school earning solid A's and B's. I braved the bullies on the bus and on campus to make it through.
I went through High School earning nearly a 4.0 GPA. I am guessing that in many classes, I averaged a strong C on the tests, but because I turned in my homework and was polite to my teachers, I could pull those C's to easy A's. All you really had to do was make sure that you turned in more homework than the average kid.
I did all this while working my butt off on the golf team (playing 9 holes 4 times a week) and playing in the orchestra.
Because of my very mediocre effort, and my stellar performance on a couple of standardized tests, I earned scholarships to many colleges. I chose to attend the prestigious ASU and basically float around campus changing my major a half dozen times and giving a half effort to the classes that I had no interest in.
After college I got pretty much every ministry job that I ever applied for. And now here I am living in a nice neighborhood in a very affluent community.

Not only that but I earn it by working sooo hard. I mean think about it. I preached twice yesterday, and then had to attend "pizza with the pastors" where I had to interact and answer questions from new church goers. After that, I barely got an hour to rest before attending the Children's day event. (btw. 3 hours of watching kids re-enact the New Testament, can actually count as difficult work.) During the week, I have to make phone calls, plan stuff, meet with families in crisis, go to meetings, study and write my messages. Man, I really slave away. Right?

Meanwhile, at my house a kind hispanic man and his wife show up. Not to rob it, although a neighbor did ask me if they were really allowed in our house while we weren't there. "You mean, you trust them around your tv's and computers and jewelry?" He said. They get there at 9am sharp. The husband works in the yard, he trims trees and bushes, waters the things that need watered, he blows off all of the desert dust and crunch tree droppings from all over my yard. He fixes anything that looks in need of repair. He then goes in and helps his wife who is vacuuming every inch of our house, cleaning our bathrooms, dusting, disinfecting, scrubbing and cleaning the tile floor, taking out the garbage and doing the dishes. For this, I pay them whatever they ask. I often feel that they ask too little.

Last week, the husband saw that our pool had a bunch of junk floating in it, palm fronds, dirt, golf balls, rocks and a bunch of random stuff that just tends to blow in there. He cleaned it. I'll bet it took hours. I've never asked him to clean my pool in the past. I didn't even notice it until he left. The funny thing was: he didn't look for a bonus.

Not only does this couple not steal from me, they give me more than I bargain for. But I am pretty aware that they are not well off. I'm sure not even close to middle class. I am thinking about giving them a bonus.

Here's what I notice about my own story, and I am just a middle classer. When I went to school, the only thing I had to fear was the occasional bully. I had the teachers who were highly trained and skilled. But in the inner-city, at the school in the poor parts of town, at the schools in depressed rural communities, there is more to worry about than bullies. The buildings sit in dis-repair, students who have seen violence in their own community commit violent acts at school or after school. Walking to school is dangerous in many communities. I never experienced danger walking to school. I was never worried about real violence, just getting my ear flicked in math class, or the constant psychological threat of swirlies (which were little more than an urban legend.) The kind of schools that I went to, were in communities where highly skilled teachers competed to just get interviews to work at. The standardized tests that I took look like they were custom made for me. They were all of the stuff that I was learning in school. Over 90% of the students in my graduating class took either the SAT or ACT test, but in many inner-city schools, that number is only 20-30%.

Did you know that the people who work at the McDonalds near my house live in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Phoenix? They take public transportation for 1-1.5 hours just to get to work and work for minimum wage.

The people who care for my yard, the people who work at McDonalds, the students that go to school in economically depressed areas, all of them work harder than I work. They worry about things that I will never worry about. Are they working these lower paying jobs because they are too lazy to get higher paying ones? NO. Did they have an easy time getting through school? NO. The education divide in our country based on family wealth is staggering. Can an inner-city student go to college? Yes. But they have to brave challenges that I have never had to worry about. They have had to take standardized tests that their schools don't prepare them for. ALL of the odds are stacked against them. And whether they go on to work the same job that I have or a high paying executive job, we can say that if anyone has earned it, they have. Oh yeah, and I have had health insurance my whole life.

So, we live in a country where a huge company, who made horribly risky decisions, basically gambling the insurance and money of middle class people. A company where the CEO owns private jets and lives on his own personal island. A company that, "in order to keep the talented executives working at their highest level" gives them 7 figure bonuses. A company where those talented executives were the ones who made the crap decisions that were going to not only bankrupt the company but lose the money and insurance of thousands and thousands of people. This company is given $175 Billion Dollars by our government so that they don't completely die out.

$175 Billion Dollars could give 10 million dollars to 17,500 schools or a million to 175,000 schools. It could give $3.5 Billion to each state to assist with poverty.

But you have to love what AIG has done with it. They took a couple hundred million and gave 7 figure bonuses to those talented execs. Now I'm sure that some of those folks, probably mostly white guys who were already wealthy before they took those jobs, worked pretty hard. I'm sure that some of them put in long hours. I'm sure that some of them neglected their families to take chartered jets to meetings all over the country. I'm sure that some of those guys are nice people. But 7 figures nice? That's 7 figures on top of their 7 figure salary.

When Sean Hannity says that the people with the money have earned the money, and when he stereotypes the people without the money as being lazy, uneducated, and unmotivated; he is dead wrong. The guy who works in my yard deserves a bonus. Teachers at economically depressed schools that give students hope and encouragement and the proper training and instruction to move forward, deserve bonuses.

People here in the Southwest are still whining and moaning about the illegal aliens who are taking our jobs down here. I'll tell you what, they are not taking $175 Billion worth of jobs.

Equality in this country is something that is a dream to the people who need it, and is tossed around superficially by Hannity and the other takers. They moan about the economy, they moan about illegals, they complain about their taxes, they complain about their made up welfare moms, but they have no idea what equality is all about.

They have health insurance while a growing number of americans are without. That $175 Billion would go a long way to cover the uninsured for years. We live in a country with socialized police, fire dept but we don't want socialized medicine because "those people" didn't earn it.

As a country we should be angry at AIG. But they aren't the only ones. It's happening everywhere and there is no equality in sight.