Why Big Money is Such a Big Problem

20 for 2020 is a newsletter sent to 20 people in preparation for the U.S. Presidential election of 2020. This is the fifteenth and final newsletter in preparation for the 2020 Presidential Election on Nov. 3, 2020

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveter after, they have erred from the faith, and pieced themselves through with many sorrows.”

1Timothy 6:10
KJV 

I read the Bible every morning in consecutive order and this was part of my reading today. It is also a fitting conclusion for this project. The Bible and Jesus Christ speak of money more than any other subject and for good reason. Money has no intrinsic value but rather it facilitates exchange for the acquisition and disbursement of goods and services. Money in itself is not evil, it is a necessary conduit. The love of money is the problem. Greed is the problem. Seeing money as the answer to problems is the problem.

When we believe more is better or more is necessary or more will bring greater happiness and we put that above faith in God and moral principles and allow that desire to take on a life of its own, and it will and does, we do indeed pierce ourselves and we will not be satisfied. We may even find ourselves making decisions we never thought we would or having or creating a culture of priorities that are harmful, dangerous, mal aligned and lack virtue, that is to say: evil.

As Goldman Sachs is being fined for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and JP Morgan Chase was just fined by the SEC for manipulating metals and U.S. Treasuries, we have to wonder what have financial institutions come to? When Boeing lost sight of the most important element of airplane design, safety, and willfully chose to over extend its product line to have a competitive advantageous when it was no longer safe to do so, and when pharmaceutical companies develop or procure compounds that lack efficacy and damage the body, yet disregard these findings, label them blockbusters, promote them to providers and on television, ghost write false journal articles and more, what have our corporations come to? When no one investigates all of these things and no individual is held accountable and the machine trading money producing stock market no longer reflects fundamentals and executives receive golden parachutes when leaving organizations that in some cases have strayed so far as to have behavior that is a crime against humanity, we need to put on the brakes, pause, reflect, and change direction. There are no heroes. There is no one seemingly to say stop.

We need to repent. We need to see what we have done and by the grace of God vow to change course. Fines, even $1 Billion fines can be relegated to a business decision to take the risk until prison sentences come into play and they should. The damage caused is not insignificant and may be lasting. Lives can and have been taken. Democracy and freedom are impaired. Decency is no longer valued.

This isn’t easy. The longer it has gone on, the more addicted we all become to this false reality. The more it can and is labeled as “just business”. This has gone on at an escalating pace since the 1970s, facilitated by a divergence from the gold standard and the false notion that the economy is to be globally competitive and labor and resources are to be exploited and that shareholder return is to be the primary focus of a corporation. We find ourselves lacking creativity and beauty and enmeshed in highly concentrated, impersonal even unnaturally monopolistic “industries” that seemingly run on artificial intelligence. This just may be Mark Zuckerberg’s view of the world. It’s not mine, it may not be yours, and more importantly, it is not God’s.

We now find ourselves with two old men, angry old men running for President and acting like spoiled children with only a superficial grasp of the issues and very superficial, brush stroke proposed remedies, nearly all of which are financial in orientation. 

Praise God American Society is about the strength and character of the American people, and not the United States Government leaders and current self-interest policies. It is time we all step out of our comfort zones and take a step toward righteousness. Write a letter, help a friend, quit spending on Amazon, sell all your stock in immoral companies, Give your employees a raise.  Manifest values of righteousness in tangible ways. In America, we do vote with our pocketbooks and it is time we realized this and had the discipline to behave this way. No more Uber. No more Lyft. No more cheap clothes from China. Good bye to most of today’s politicians. 

In June I prepared a list and brief summary of 200 acts and events that in my lifetime have influenced our society as a road map for change and restoration and understanding and as examples of magnificence that is uniquely American. It was accompanied by a list of 16 acts and events that provided a foundation for our nation. 

I think I did a good job with the lists, but there are two things I I wish I would have called out: The founding of Rock and Roll, and the Corporate Stock Buybacks whereby corporations use their income or borrow funds to influence/manipulate their stock price per share instead of investing in research and development, building new plants, or paying employees higher wages or more benefits.

The U.S. music industry used to be diverse and larger than the television and movie industries combined. It was one of the United States largest exports and it supported and build a robust radio industry. Radio historically was the forum for breaking news. It now is a highly concentrated industry of historic superstars and there is little money left in radio, primarily due to changes in regulation, hedge fund ownership, and lack of local ownership and management. iHeart Radio owns over 800 radio stations, frequently multiple stations in the same market and play tapes. Money is now the demise of new music. Music is good for the soul and an important part of life.

Buybacks occur when a company takes profits, cash reserves, or borrowed money to purchase its own shares on the public markets, a practice barred until the Ronald Reagan administration. (The regulatory argument against allowing the practice is that it is a way for companies to manipulate the markets; the regulatory argument for it is that companies should be able to spend money how they see fit.) In recent years, with corporate profits high, American firms have bought their own stocks with extraordinary zeal. Federal Reserve data show that buybacks are now equivalent to 4 percent of annual economic output, up from zero percent in the 1990s. Companies spent roughly $7 trillion on their own shares from 2004 to 2014, and have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on buybacks in the past six months alone. (The Atlantic, July 31, 2018)

With the dominance of this greedy and immoral behavior, is it no wonder so many under forty are in favor of socialism with their panacea view of it? Look what they have seen and continue to see. They have not known America to be good, let alone great.  

Our government leaders aren’t saviors, Jesus Christ has come and given his life and died and rose again so that by His grace, we all may all have salvation and have the capacity to work for change. Let’s start doing so. Michael Jackson had a hit with “Man in the Mirror”, he sang,

“I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
(If you want to make the world a better place)
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change
(Take a look at yourself, and then make a…”