Fiscal disparity

A week or so ago, I noted on my Facebook page (yeah, I'm one of them, too) that it would take a USAF Master Sergeant 1,000 years to earn as much as the Dallas Cowboys mega-scoreboard cost. Today, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times included similar salary statistics from the Wall Street Journal that makes the head swim.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this is what is required to earn $100,000:

• Football's Ben Roethlisberger needs 3.6 snaps
• A-Rod needs six pitches in the batter's box
• LeBron James? 21.2 minutes on the hardwood
• Tiger Woods? A grueling 11.2 holes.
• You and me? Almost four years
  

In a culture that has grown increasingly giddy about income redistribution, such stats tend to raise the hackles. "Hey, where's my cut!" we scream, our feet propped up on the coffee table, our hand buried into an obese bowl of popcorn.

Why do we besmirch these guys for getting whatever they can for doing what they love? If it would only take Tiger 9.7 holes, I say, "More power to him!" If Ben can do it in two-and-a-half snaps, sweet! It's just money. Paul (apostle type) warned that loving such is a root of all kinds of evil. Yes, the wealthy have many cares of which we are unaware.

Our problem? "Greed is good," intoned Gordon Gekko in the middle of Wall Street, and we bought it. "YEAH!" we cried, not understanding that we were swallowing a line from a Hollywood bad guy like a fat bass sucking in a Mepps spinner.

Folks have been deluded into thinking that there were only x number of dollars in the world. No, wealth can be created. Plan one kernel of corn and you get hundreds. What a deal! It's not like your earnings are a sliced off of a portion of the fatted calf. It's not like Tiger gets 3/4 of the critter and the rest of us slobs divvy up the hind parts. We can raise another calf! Why stop there? Breed a herd; the cows don't mind.

Stats tend to make us focus on what we don't have. I don't have a 300 foot yacht. I don't even have a 30 foot dinghy. I do have a home (mortgaged) and a family. I have a couple of Suburbans for toting the family around (used), and a Suzuki (also used) for getting to and from work. We have food in the fridge and my wife knows some amazing things to do with it.

Discontentment seems more and more to be the park where we like to spend our days. We become embittered by what we do not have instead of giving thanks to the God of good gifts for the wondrous riches we do have. The writer of Proverbs nailed it when he said,

"...Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."

So, for those who are rich, well done! I hope you do well with the responsibility given you. For the man in the mirror, I hope you, too, do well with the few dollars given you and are ever thankful to the Lord your God for the abundance he has lavished on you beyond the monetary.