Shana & Friend

Let’s Trade by Shana Lourey

Oxfam International just issued a new report on inequality, stating “The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world” and that “Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.” What world is this that we have created? Shame on us.

How can we help each other? I often think about the money used on the lottery, the many one dollar bills spent per day on a wish and a gamble. What if that money was re-shifted? Could we collect all the dollars and instead give them to those in need? Is it possible that we could save each other?

The 2014 report concludes that “Oxfam is concerned that, left unchecked, the effects are potentially immutable, and will lead to ‘opportunity capture’ – in which the lowest tax rates, the best education, and the best healthcare are claimed by the children of the rich.”

What an odd and scary fear, this ‘opportunity capture.’ It is a fear that is already largely a reality.

What would you do for our country and our world if you were president? Watching Obama going through his second term in office, I reflect on why I voted for him. I admired Obama’s campaign for the presidency because of his motto. He said “Yes, We Can,” never “Yes, I Can.”

A true leader and politician! One who puts many, many people into action based on the needs that they have expressed.

Clearly, our need is for more equality. President Obama has called for the national minimum wage to be increased to $10.10 an hour for federal contract employees. Is this a step in the right direction? Who will lead us into more action? Will it be you?

The government is the people, elected by the people. Why do many of us feel such distance from it? And such distance from each other that we can sit idle as others suffer? Even if that other is a stranger? And who are these 85 people who sit so far above the rest of us?

As I watch American liposuction commercials and advertisements for diet pills, I think about Malawi, Africa. Spending two years there as a Peace Corps volunteer, I often got complimented for being “very fat!” If only we could trade our apparent problems! We would send them our fat and they would send us their thin in return. Maybe then we would begin to be equal, versus a minority weighing over a majority.

Can we?