Are the Super Rich and there companies to blame for our Economic crisis and plunder?

[stinkcat_14]

Yes but it is a crucial question. Greed is almost completely subjective. It’s an emotional word used to promote envy.

It could be used to promote envy, but it doesn’t follow that it necessarily must be used to promote envy. The Church clearly teaches that greed is a bad thing, but nobody can argue that the Church also promotes envy.

To give you an example, I used to work for a guy who promised to pay me $5 an hour, which was at the time when the minimum wage was $3.35, so it appeared to be a promising job. Except when I went to work for him and we got nothing done because we spent all day trying to fix the equipment. He then only paid me for four hours when I was actually there for eight hours. That was clearly greed on his part because he valued his money more than doing what is right and honorable. But bringing up this story does nothing to promote envy.

 

[nmgauss]

It could be used to promote envy, but it doesn’t follow that it necessarily must be used to promote envy. The Church clearly teaches that greed is a bad thing, but nobody can argue that the Church also promotes envy.

To give you an example, I used to work for a guy who promised to pay me $5 an hour, which was at the time when the minimum wage was $3.35, so it appeared to be a promising job. Except when I went to work for him and we got nothing done because we spent all day trying to fix the equipment. He then only paid me for four hours when I was actually there for eight hours. That was clearly greed on his part because he valued his money more than doing what is right and honorable. But bringing up this story does nothing to promote envy.

If he agreed in writing to pay you $5 an hour and you worked eight hours, then he owed you $40.00. There is no element of greed here. Maybe he could not afford $40 that day because his broken equipment prevented him from being productive. Greed is a state of mind which is difficult to pin down. In not paying you the agreed amount, his business downturn was responsible, not his greed. Of course you could take him to small claims court.

 

[sallybutler]

If he agreed in writing to pay you $5 an hour and you worked eight hours, then he owed you $40.00. There is no element of greed here. Maybe he could not afford $40 that day because his broken equipment prevented him from being productive. Greed is a state of mind which is difficult to pin down. In not paying you the agreed amount, his business downturn was responsible, not his greed. Of course you could take him to small claims court.

Since the employer offered payment based on hours, not on results, the employer was in the wrong. Doubly so if it was the employer’s equipment.

And if StinkCat_14 spent the time trying to help fix the equipment, that was work.

Many people like to say that employers should not be expected to raise salaries just because the cost of living went up. Well, neither should they expect to change the terms of an employment agreement just because they didn’t make enough money.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

So how does one determine whether a person is rich? Is it his total assets or his net worth? How is it usually done?

I consider anyone who has one dollar more than me…to be rich.

 

[manualman]

So how does one determine whether a person is rich? Is it his total assets or his net worth? How is it usually done?

Boil the question down to it’s simplest form and it becomes rather easy to answer:
If I borrow a billion dollars today from the bank today, am I richer now than I was yesterday?

Of course not, quite the opposite, actually. (Unless I’ve borrowed it for a good investment). M assets ($ 1 billion) are outweighed by my debts ($1B plus interest).

 

[styrgwillidar]

Yes but is the answer using the police power of government to confiscate wealth from the rich? Wouldn’t it be better to raise the poor up instead of tearing the rich down?

Well, I see the problem as using the police power of government to protect the rich/politicians in collusion with each other. (This includes both private and government worker unions, not just corporations).

The whole idea of “too big to fail” is a crock. It basically privatizes gain but then makes the risk public, burdening the taxpayer. It also results in rewarding folks for making bad decisions, virtually guaranteeing they will make the same decisions in the future.

If the large banks had been allowed to fail during the crisis in the US, smaller solvent institutions would have stepped in and bought the debts/assets at greatly reduced prices. This would have allowed them the wiggle room to negotiate reducing the debts of individuals and still made a profit. The idiots of the larger banks who led them into the debacle wouldn’t have been able to get new jobs, (instead they were seen as savvy leaders for getting their debts transferred to the government). The smaller better run businesses would have reaped the reward of their prudence and good judgement through expanded business and profit opportunities. GM and their unions transferred the debts from their bad judgements to the US taxpayer and the debt holders who were illegally shorted.

It is the collusion of businesses with politicians thats the problem. And in the US, both parties are the same, they both take money from large businesses, there’s rampant cronyism in passing information and hiring- crossing from private to public, government flunkie to lobbyist. The problem with the public, IMHO, is people want to blame either corporations or government when the problem is corporations and government. Corporations couldn’t get the benefits without government (who’s supposed to be representing us) cooperation.

 

[Thomas0]

I detect a lot of green. Both money and envy are green, you know.

I read these forums not a lot but quite often. I rarely post. I am stepping out of my comfort zone for this thread. It is an interesting topic. A topic I think about, actually, these days. I apologize for coming in late and for any redundancies.

As they say, money isn’t everything, but it’s ahead of whatever comes in second.

I think the important question is how much money and stuff do You want? What is it You want? Perhaps I ought to ask, what do You think You deserve?

No system is perfect. In fact, socio/economic perfection cannot be achieved. Not in this life, anyway. It cannot even be agreeably defined.

I am relatively wealthy. I got this way from intelligence, planning, saving, a lot of deferred gratification, and lots and lots of hard work and sleepless nights. Using my God-given attributes I have created good jobs for a significant number of people over the years.

So, what is preventing the complainers from using their own God-given talents to do the same? Or, to otherwise get what they think they deserve, if that is what they are really complaining about.…

I tithe religiously. Does that make my 1% acceptable?

The political party currently in power in my state likes jobs. But it hates business. I am about to retire (65). Any advice regarding the intense temptation to simply walk away from what I created and ending these jobs? Would I then conform to current fashionable political / social leanings and the moral assessments I read here?

I went to my 40 year HS reunion a few years back. There were number of unemployed classmates there. They vociferously complained about rich people in pretty much the same way I read here. I could not help pointing out to them that while I stayed at home almost every Friday night studying and doing my homework they were at dances and keggers.

There is a strong correlation, you know.

 

[stinkcat_14]

If he agreed in writing to pay you $5 an hour and you worked eight hours, then he owed you $40.00. There is no element of greed here. Maybe he could not afford $40 that day because his broken equipment prevented him from being productive. Greed is a state of mind which is difficult to pin down. In not paying you the agreed amount, his business downturn was responsible, not his greed. Of course you could take him to small claims court.

He had the money to pay me, he could have paid me what he owed, it certainly would have been painful, but to have cash to fulfill an obligation and not do so is a form of greed. In his behavior he showed that he valued hanging on to his money more than doing what is right, which I think we can both agree is a form of greed.

Clearly I could have taken him to court over the difference that he owed. But sometimes moving on and finding another boss is the more productive thing to do.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I detect a lot of green. Both money and envy are green, you know.

I read these forums not a lot but quite often. I rarely post. I am stepping out of my comfort zone for this thread. It is an interesting topic. A topic I think about, actually, these days. I apologize for coming in late and for any redundancies.

As they say, money isn’t everything, but it’s ahead of whatever comes in second.

I think the important question is how much money and stuff do You want? What is it You want? Perhaps I ought to ask, what do You think You deserve?

No system is perfect. In fact, socio/economic perfection cannot be achieved. Not in this life, anyway. It cannot even be agreeably defined.

I am relatively wealthy. I got this way from intelligence, planning, saving, a lot of deferred gratification, and lots and lots of hard work and sleepless nights. Using my God-given attributes I have created good jobs for a significant number of people over the years.

So, what is preventing the complainers from using their own God-given talents to do the same? Or, to otherwise get what they think they deserve, if that is what they are really complaining about.…

I tithe religiously. Does that make my 1% acceptable?

The political party currently in power in my state likes jobs. But it hates business. I am about to retire (65). Any advice regarding the intense temptation to simply walk away from what I created and ending these jobs? Would I then conform to current fashionable political / social leanings and the moral assessments I read here?

I went to my 40 year HS reunion a few years back. There were number of unemployed classmates there. They vociferously complained about rich people in pretty much the same way I read here. I could not help pointing out to them that while I stayed at home almost every Friday night studying and doing my homework they were at dances and keggers.

There is a strong correlation, you know.

Welcome to CAF Thomas.

Two things you touched on that I have not seen in this thread are:

1. It is not surprising that the wealthier a person is, the higher is his income. N o mystery to that. Most people who are wealthy have income that flows from capital as well as labor. In this country right now, capital is well rewarded while labor is not. But a good part of that is due to the fact that capital is being very cautious, and not creating the jobs it could create. In my personal opinion, that’s due to fear of an erratic government with radical instincts.
2. People think of capital or wealth in passive terms; a portfolio of bonds or stocks or high-end real estate investments. Most people who are wealthy have a combination of types of capital. Some of it is passive, but a lot of it requires the labor of the owner to produce income. In your particular case, what you have been talking about is the latter. If you walk away, nobody has a job and the assets are worth nothing because they produce nothing.

At 65, what does a person do? Well, one thing that will probably keep me from ever retiring is the reflection that I have “paid my dues” and have become good at what I do. And I enjoy what I do. Why should I quit that in order to do something I’m not good at and might learn to find boring over time?

 

[bedan_elite]

We in the U.S. seem to have way to many Billionaires and way to many Millionaires lately, more so when our country in the last 7 years we have been in a recession. How is it they maintain making money while the rest of society collapses to the ground. Can we blame them for others failures to thrive or they share no blame in this? I have to believe there is a link there somewhere. I remember the wall street and mortgage loan fallout at the beginning of this recession/ Depression where in. I wonder what happened to the 99% percenters.

Christ was poor so don’t worry too much about it.

 

[nmgauss]

Boil the question down to it’s simplest form and it becomes rather easy to answer:
If I borrow a billion dollars today from the bank today, am I richer now than I was yesterday?

Of course not, quite the opposite, actually. (Unless I’ve borrowed it for a good investment). M assets ($ 1 billion) are outweighed by my debts ($1B plus interest).

A persons assets are not increased by borrowing from a bank. Even if you bought something with that billion, your assets will not increase. You have played a zero-sum game except for bank expenses.

According to some recent information appearing in this thread, church buildings are seldom paid for with mortgages. This means that the money was donated. And no property taxes are levied against religious organizations. So acquisition of a church building is a symbol of pure asset and net worth… In either case church property seems to indicate the church’s wealth minus upkeep expenses.

 

[nmgauss]

Boil the question down to it’s simplest form and it becomes rather easy to answer:
If I borrow a billion dollars today from the bank today, am I richer now than I was yesterday?

Of course not, quite the opposite, actually. (Unless I’ve borrowed it for a good investment). M assets ($ 1 billion) are outweighed by my debts ($1B plus interest).

Another way to look at it is that by buying a factory, you have an asset you did not have before. You did not become richer by buying the factory, but you now have a new asset by which you can work toward accumulating wealth. The fact that this acquisition may have been bought with borrowed money does not make that asset worth any less. You may have bought the business with your own money. In this case you have exchanged one type of asset for another. But if you have taken out a loan to acquire this business, your assets have increased. Your factory is a leveraged asset, but it still an asset you can add to your total.

 

[manualman]

The person that stated that few parishes have mortgages has either not been paying attention for 25 years or lives somewhere rather more wealthy than me. There may once have been a time when dioceses had the finances to lend parishes private mortgages, but it’s not common anymore. It can still exist on smaller projects, but it’s primarily internal investment. Take those cemeteries I mentioned above. They are required to endow perpetual maintenance costs, but they then have to invest that endowment in order to get enough return to cover perpetual maintenance. What better place to invest than to offer a modest-interest mortgage to parishes doing renovations? The ministry is supported and the cemetery endowment gets the return it needs to meet it’s commitments. How is this an example of “preposterous catholic wealth” compared to making the parish get a mortgage from the bank and sending the cemetery endowment to Merrill Lynch for investment??

While not wealthy myself (by your OR my definition! ), my parish is in a wealthy suburb, the building is about 14 years old and it isn’t even half paid for yet and needs some significant roof and window repairs. And we just replaced all the common area carpet and replaced some rather bad artwork… By the time the mortgage is done, the place will probably need tuck pointing and a total HVAC overhaul… Some things never end. Stuff you use wears out.

So in your system if I borrow a billion from a bank today and buy a billion dollar factory, then my wealth is a billion more than it was yesterday? I’m not buyin’ it. Sorry. It is a useful definition system with which to label the catholic church as filthy rich, but it’s not an accurate one.

 

[WilT]

I some dealings with various religious organzations (Catholic and non-Catholic) and their assets. One of the notable features about the Catholic properties is that I’ve never yet to come across a property that has a mortgage from a secular source. I’ve seen a few newer Catholic Churches with loans, which were from the diocese. As far as the properties owned for decades or centuries, never. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist, but that’s simply something I’ve noticed over the years with various religious organizations.

That’s important in terms of wealth, since my wealthy people generate income from real estate, either by renting or flipping. The Catholic Church normally does not do this. Occasionally real estate assets are disposed of, but more often than not it is because the asset has a negative cash flow; e.g., a church or school that has shut down due to demographic changes, a retreat where the maintenance causes a drain on assets, etc.

Also important to note that the various entities within the Church may hold what appears to be a large sum of money, but that large sum may be actually being used like a trust fund to support that community. As an example, let’s say a religious organization holds $25,000,000 in the bank account. At a 4% return, that is $1,000,000 per year income. That doesn’t go very far once salaries, benefits, maintenance, etc. are considered.

I having dealing with America’s 1% on an ongoing basis, and the manner that the Catholic Church deals with Her assets is entirely different from the way the 1% deals with their assets. The Catholic Church acts like an old philanthropist, not a greedy Wall Street type.

As usual, many people point an accusatory finger at the Church without really understanding the issue.

Thanks for the clarity TheWarriorMonk

 

[Ridgerunner]

Another way to look at it is that by buying a factory, you have an asset you did not have before. You did not become richer by buying the factory, but you now have a new asset by which you can work toward accumulating wealth. The fact that this acquisition may have been bought with borrowed money does not make that asset worth any less. You may have bought the business with your own money. In this case you have exchanged one type of asset for another. But if you have taken out a loan to acquire this business, your assets have increased. Your factory is a leveraged asset, but it still an asset you can add to your total.

Speaking only for myself, I have never acquired any wealth other than by borrowing money to buy an asset. For the most part, assets that would pay their own debt service in whole or in part.

I think of it metaphorically as pulling apart matter and antimatter from the nothing we are told results if they join. The asset is the matter. The debt is the antimatter. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the two apart because there is a powerful attraction between them early on. But if you do it long enough, you can push the antimatter farther and farther away. Eventually it dissipates, leaving the matter.

I also believe most wealth is created by the combination of borrowing to acquire a quality asset, and the passage of time. I well remember one time driving with my son in the Branson, Missouri area. Some of that real estate is astronomically expensive. I pointed out to him this property and that which could have been bought in my youth for a fraction of their present worth. He asked “Why didn’t you buy some of it back then”. I heard myself respond “It was just as expensive then, relatively speaking, as it is now.”

And it was. Other things, though, were cheaper, and I bought some of those with borrowed money. They didn’t go up like the land on the Branson “strip”, but they did okay.

 

[nmgauss]

So in your system if I borrow a billion from a bank today and buy a billion dollar factory, then my wealth is a billion more than it was yesterday? I’m not buyin’ it. Sorry. It is a useful definition system with which to label the catholic church as filthy rich, but it’s not an accurate one.

I said that your assets have increased by a billion dollars not necessarily your wealth. If yesterday you had no money-making assets and today you have a factory plus your pre-existing assets, your total assets have increased by a billion dollars. When a property trust-deed accompanied by a mortgage is issued by a bank, the property is deeded over to the borrower with a lien attached to it. The lien is executed if the borrower fails to make steady payments on the loan. The bank holds the title but the borrower has been deeded the property as long as he maintains mortgage payments.
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property

This means the borrower can make alterations to the property without asking permission from the bank. It’s his to do with as he pleases.

So the factory can be counted as among his assets.

 

[WilT]

Speaking only for myself, I have never acquired any wealth other than by borrowing money to buy an asset. For the most part, assets that would pay their own debt service in whole or in part.

I think of it metaphorically as pulling apart matter and antimatter from the nothing we are told results if they join. The asset is the matter. The debt is the antimatter. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the two apart because there is a powerful attraction between them early on. But if you do it long enough, you can push the antimatter farther and farther away. Eventually it dissipates, leaving the matter.

I also believe most wealth is created by the combination of borrowing to acquire a quality asset, and the passage of time. I well remember one time driving with my son in the Branson, Missouri area. Some of that real estate is astronomically expensive. I pointed out to him this property and that which could have been bought in my youth for a fraction of their present worth. He asked “Why didn’t you buy some of it back then”. I heard myself respond “It was just as expensive then, relatively speaking, as it is now.”

And it was. Other things, though, were cheaper, and I bought some of those with borrowed money. They didn’t go up like the land on the Branson “strip”, but they did okay.

Thanks for sharing your story Ridgerunner

 

[WilT]

Christ was poor so don’t worry too much about it.

But we must!!!

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

The person that stated that few parishes have mortgages has either not been paying attention for 25 years or lives somewhere rather more wealthy than me.

Actually this is the 25th year I’m dealing with such issues. I’ve never seen a mortgage on a Church property that is from a secular source (I’ve seen money loaned by private sources for say, a new church or renovation). FWIW, I have several excellent sources I can discuss the matter with, and will bring it up in the future.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

By the way, if you have evidence of Catholic Churches borrowing money from secular lenders, I would be interested in which Churches and banks are involved for personal reference.