The World Tomorrow

It used to be that we in North America like to hear about rising profits and business success in our large corporations. Why? Because we hoped that such good news would translate into more jobs and better paying jobs for us—the middle and working classes. Sadly, this is not the reality for 21^st Century North Americans. According to The Economist newsmagazine,

Corporate America has bounced back impressively. The quarterly results season that is now nearly over has revealed that profits are back within a whisker of the all-time highs achieved before the downturn in late 2008,” (p. 62, August 7, 2010).

Why are corporate profits back up to 11% of the U.S.A.’s GDP? Well, big business squeezed down costs through a combination of layoffs, wage cuts, reduced hours, and reduced benefits. Many people have discovered that their once full-time work with benefits has been reduced to part-time work or independent contractor status with few benefits. As The Economist noted “US unit labour costs falling at their fastest clip in the post-war era” made those healthy big business profits possible.

Actually, this trend is not new. It really started more than a generation ago and merely reflects a speeding up of the erosion of the standard of life for the North American middle and working classes.  Our national wealth is rapidly shifting into the pockets of the richest of the rich. Diane Frances said in her article “In most countries people work harder than in U.S., Canada,”Financial Post, Aug. 17. 2010):

In 1980, the richest 1% in the United States received 9% of its total national income. In 2007… the  [top] 1% took home 23% of the income. In the 1970s CEOs made 40 times the average compensation of workers. Now it is 350 times. The top 25 hedge-fund managers (the people who brought you the 2008’s Great Recession) made an average of US$1 Billion and paid 17% income tax, a lower marginal rate than paid by middle-class families.

I still remember the outrage I felt about our economic system some thirty years ago when I was working as a real estate agent in Los Angeles. Back then I was making about $40,000 a year and was paying far more in taxes than some of my clients who were making several millions a year in profits. As Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour during the Clinton presidency and now a university economics professor, observes,

Bottomline: higher corporate profits no longer lead to higher employment. We’re witnessing a great decoupling of company profits from [North American] jobs ( The Economist, August 7, 2010).

In essence, big corporations have shifted many jobs overseas to much lower wage nations like China while those jobs remaining here are under intense pressure to cut wages/benefits. In his August 28, 2010 commentary in the National Post newspaper entitled “American Apocalypse” Conrad Black notes that while American unemployment is officially listed at about 9.6%, when the chronically underemployed are added into the statistic the real lack of work is around 18% of the U.S. workforce—misery levels approaching those of the 1930s Great Depression.

Nevertheless, the fat cats, the richest of the rich, have successfully manipulated our North American political system to give themselves advantageous tax and securities law treatment. And, of course, the richest of the rich– because they have the power and corporate control–have been rewarding themselves with spectacular pay increases and fantastic bonuses even while they squeeze the pay of their employees in order to keep the gravy train of corporate profits rolling for their own benefit.

Sadly, the avaricious human nature has not changed much over thousands of years. As the Roman Empire became increasingly corrupt, the wealth of the empire became increasingly concentrated into the hands of the wealthy few while the small landowners and free labourers of Italy were increasing squeezed by taxes, cheap imports, and slave labour that undermined their ability to make a decent living. Eventually, the Roman Empire collapsed because few found it in their interest to support it against the “barbarians.” While some aspects of barbarian culture seemed less appealing, like wearing itchy furs, styling one’s hair with rancid butter, and being deeply involved in the weapons culture of the day–on the other hand–the taxes were low to non-existent and one had a shot at dumping debts and getting a new start at life. So area after area of the Roman Empire gradually fell to the control of the freedom-loving “barbarians” moving West—who, of course, were the ancestors of many North Americans. Ironic?

The love of money and social inequity is a serious spiritual  challenge to our present society. Jesus of Nazareth warned us to beware of materialism.

Mark 10:23-25 The Message: Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.

This is a real challenge for those of us today who believe that life’s “winners” are those who accumulate the most toys. The real winners, however, will be those whom God will call His very own children, giving them eternal life in His everlasting Kingdom. They will have an exciting, abundant life that never ends.

“The right to liberty… guarantees a degree of personal autonomy over important decisions intimately affecting his or her private life. … The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount to that of the state.” (Morgentaler et al. v. Her Majesty The Queen, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 at 37)

As a consequence of the above legal opinion by Canada’s supreme court, abortion is entirely unrestricted in Canada. In our brave and free True North country, there are about 100,000 abortions to Canadian women each year. Statistics Canada says in its most recent 2005 figures that there were 96,815 abortions, while in 2004 this figure was 100,039. This is more than all the people who live in Nanaimo and its surrounding suburbs! Since 1989 roughly 2,100,000 Canadian babies have been aborted, roughly equivalent to half the population of the province of British Columbia. That’s quite a crowd of not-to-be taxpayers, moms, and dads.

Is abortion negatively affecting Canadian society? Well, I know this is a silly question that has only one answer. Our B.C. provincial finance minister when presenting his post-Olympics austerity budget for the coming year gloomily forecast eroding worker to retiree ratios and warned of a disappearing tax base. To make up for the dearth of native-born workers paying Canadian Pension Plan and other taxes to support our current social schemes, our government admits that it must beat the drum more loudly to convince outsiders to immigrate to our presently affluent but increasingly unsustainable society.

So hey, you would-be immigrant strangers, come to Canada and pay our bills so we can maintain the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed! We couldn’t be bothered to have enough kids to take care of us in our old age, but come on you all, and do it in their place! We’ll even let you wave those little plastic Canadian flags on July 1st.

What will happen here in B.C. as the number of babies born to our women continues dropping? We presently whine in our letters to the editor about school closings and other unpopular school program cuts being made by those nasty school boards year after year due to declining attendance. But in the near future many Canadian businesses will start struggling to get the workers they need to replace the aging baby-boomers in order for the economy to just keep running in place. Will we be able to keep our stuff and our society as a whole fixed, running, and safe till we die? Who knows?

But consequences of abortion are affecting other nations in even more serious ways. Consider the case of some of the largest Asian societies. Due to governmental one-child policies, and ancient prejudices favouring sons, millions of baby girls have been aborted in China and India amongst other East Asian Nations. Twenty years ago in 1990 the Indian economist Amartya Sen estimated this “gendercide” at approximately 100 million baby girls. By 2010 the figure has undoubtedly grown much higher. There are now scores of millions of young men with little prospect of finding wives and establishing families.

According to the March 6th issue of The Economist magazine’s article on the subject, “Throughout human history, young men have been responsible for the vast preponderance of crime and violence—especially single men in countries where status and social acceptance depend on being married and having children as it does in China and India.” The problem of this disparity between single men and available women is just getting worse in Asia. One thing The Economist didn’t mention is that also throughout history states have used the aggressiveness of unattached single men, the bare branches, as soldiers in their armies.

Did you know that a vision of hundreds of millions of desperate men on the move in Asia was actually prophesied in the book of Revelation?

Then the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were turned loose to kill one-third of all the people on earth. I heard the size of their army, which was 200 million mounted troops (Revelation 9:15-16 New Living Version).

Just one hundred years ago the idea of a 200 million man army coming out of the East was assumed to be preposterous and just another example of a biblical flight of fancy. Considering the actual facts of what is developing right now in China and India, such a prophecy should sober us considerably.

Asian societies do not have the heritage of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. The massive slaughter of girl babies in Asia reflects their traditions and would appear logical according to their values. That is their excuse. What is ours?

A foundational moral teaching of both Old and New Covenants is that “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Aren’t our unborn children the closest neighbour any parent could ever have? If we are willing to consign an innocent neighbour to death for our mere personal convenience, don’t we deserve the same? Perhaps the future holds out something far more ominous from the East than merely hordes of immigrants whom we import to pay our debts in the places of sons and daughters who never were.