As Dave started the interview, he
mentioned how the author had purposefully used his name to get more hits on his
article. At first I thought, well that’s
pretty much a cheap shot. After some
consideration, I thought why don’t I do that?!
So that’s the reason I included Dave’s name in the title of this blog
entry.
I saw one of Dave’s tweets the
other day that his latest show was going to be on the demonization of
wealth. I didn’t listen to it but wish I
could have. I’m currently in a third
world country so the internet isn’t always reliable to say the least. I’ve listened to him enough throughout the
past few years though that I have a pretty decent idea of what his arguments
were.
I can practically guarantee you
that he spent time quoting Scripture and pointing to men in the Bible who had
wealth as a defense as to why having wealth isn’t a sin. He probably said something along the lines of
how broke people can’t help people.
There are some other things I’m sure he mentioned but I don’t remember
them currently.
I’d like to take a different
route completely. Dave defends the 1%
(as well as the middle class in general by the way), while the Occupy Wall
Street movement vehemently opposes them.
Personally, I kind of appreciate the Occupy movement as a fresh wave of
democratic voices being aired. They just
went about it the wrong way. Regardless,
that’s not what I want to focus on here.
They were undoubtedly against the 1 percenters, in spite of many of them
being 1 percenters themselves.
How can this possibly be?? They would probably assure me they are NOT 1 percenters;
those people are pure evil after all, right?
Well, head on over to globalrichlist.com and prove yourselves
wrong. If you make a net income of
$31,100, you are in the top 1% of the world.
According to Ramsey in The
Total Money Makeover the average salary of an American family is
roughly $50,000, maybe it was $48,000, it doesn’t really matter for this
case. I’m not sure if that was gross or
net, again it doesn’t really matter for this.
On the globalrichlist.com site, they ask you for your net income, so if
you’re making $48,000 gross then your net is definitely more than $31,100.
I know, I know, that’s surely a
ridiculous argument to make, right?
Maybe it should be considered though for a couple of different reasons. For starters, talk about giving you
perspective, right? I mean, I happen to
love going overseas and on mission trips, so I’ve met a lot of the people who
live below $1 a day. They have an
amazing faith that makes us rich Westerners realize the poverty of our own
hearts. That being said, I’d love to
help them start their own businesses and am starting down that road while
learning with an internship with Opportunities Now! an organization here in
Myanmar that provides business classes and start up capital for underprivileged
youth.
Secondly, maybe we would be wise
to consider how wealthy we really are. Countless
people have repeatedly assured me they are NOT rich. I have no idea what their salary is nor do I
desire to. I can assure you though, many
of them make at least what I make and that is $40,000 (gross) a year. My argument to practically all my friends and
family is that you/we ARE rich, in spite of what you may believe. Let’s go based on the facts, shall we? Let’s not base our confidence in our
perception that is based largely on what we see on TV as to whether we are rich
or not.
Thirdly, we would be wise to
realize we ourselves are in the top 1% before we lash out against the
super-rich. My friend Ryan and I were
laughing the other day as we discussed this.
He said he uses the globalrichlist whenever he speaks to churches back
in the states in order to raise money.
He said he had good friends who were very concerned about America and
our current direction, saying things like we’re heading down the tubes. He humbly asked them, well maybe not so
humbly since we’re somewhat similar in this area, to check the
globalrichlist.com for some perspective.
I went a step further and said maybe we should reply to people who
complain about the 1% they need to just shut up before they speak from such
complete ignorance.
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