I'm going to shamelessly copy comments from a column by Rabbi Emeritus Dow Marmur (Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto) from the Toronto Star today. He said " Those who fight for freedom in the Arab world believe that exposing the powerful elites and their ill-gotten gains is essential to the success of the revolution. Commentators about the looters in London have pointed to the massive wealth of the few and the growing needs of the many. Israelis are rebelling against the high prices of food and housing, against the dozen families that own most of the countries wealth and against the disproportionately high subsidies for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank".
What we are seeing throughout the world is a rapid change by governments from managing for the pulbic good to managing their countries for the good of the elites. As evidence he quotes statistics saying "all the action of the American economy was at the top; the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent".
Throughout the ages some families have accumulated massive wealth. They had choices about what to do with the wealth, hoard it of share it. Money in its own right has no value except for how people use it. They can invest in social enterprise, create jobs, prosperity for the peole or they will eventually lose it when the people rise up as they periodically do such as the French Revolution and even the Amrican Revolution.
It seems that the wealthy today are hoarding their wealth. We see the American government is paralyzed by the rich who resist every effort by liberal politicians to improve the lot of the American public. Right wing politicians and their greedy financiers would rather see the country become third rate than do what is right for the people whose money they have largely stolen anyway.
Eventually the crunch will come and the people will rise up against them. It is impossible to say when or how it may happen but history cannot be denied.
