Malignant terminal greed
The battle of the money bags and strong boxes

It is time to call things what they really are. The financial difficulty that our country is experiencing is not just a benign little outgrowth of a few lapses in judgment. Financial market abuses have turned into a malignant and terminal cancer. It is the explosive growth of plain old fashioned greed; what used to be called avarice. The news is filled with stories of high placed, well educated and extremely well paid individuals who are pillaging the hard earned wealth of their trusting investors. And it is not just a few rogue traders or wily investors. These folks are the CEO's and CFO's of some of the largest financial institutions in this country.
Just this week two of these individuals were arrested in the FBI's "Operation Malicious Mortgage" sting. But these arrests are only the tip of the iceberg. Actually there were over 400 arrests made nation-wide and the FBI has over 1,400 pending investigations. This is not a small "problem" folks, and it has been a long time in the building.
Starting with consumer credit abuses luring customers in with 6 or 8% interest and generous amounts of cash available; a missed payment or two found the interest rate jumping to 23% and higher. Extending Sub-prime mortgages to unqualified buyers guaranteed that they would forfeit their hope and dream of a secure investment when the interest rates automatically readjusted to a much higher rate.
Now it is the commodity spec-ulators driving up the price of oil, corn, soybeans, rice, etc.; inflating the cost of basic goods that people need to survive. Not caring about the hardships they are inflicting on their fellow man. And this predatory greed is not confined to the money markets alone.
Corporations refusing to increase the wages of those who earn them large profits, so that those same workers cannot afford to buy basic necessities. They seem oblivious to the fact that they will eventually shoot themselves in the foot when they have exhausted their cash cows' human fodder. The good book puts it like this, "A greedy man brings trouble to his family," 1 and we are all part of the family of man. Incredibly they seem completely oblivious to the fact they themselves will not be able to buy a loaf of bread with ALL THEIR MONEY once their baker has been run out of business. As Three Dog Night told us, "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do."
Common sense would dictate that they should not do these things. But it appears that they are not able to connect the dots any longer; their thought processes are corrupted.2 But are they solely to blame? No, the leadership of this country have reinforced their activities.3 And amazingly, virtually all our leaders (Democrat and Republican, secular and sacred) keep reassuring us all that it's OK.4
I'm sorry, folks, it's not OK. This nation is going to suffer economic collapse because we are devouring each other. Like our image and title above, it is a battle of the money bags; malignant, predatory greed. Before any of us shake our heads over these trouble makers we had better realize something. We were willing victims, we leveraged ourselves in our own avarice, we chose wage slavery.5
This problem is now too big to fix on a regional scale, it is world-wide in scope; it will require global government. And I'm convinced wage slavery is the trigger behind the famous passage in Revelation regarding buying and selling and the mark of the beast.6 Think about it...
If it comes to losing all your earthly possessions will you do whatever the money gods want, or will you proclaim your allegiance to the Kingdom of the God of the Bible even if it means living in abject poverty?
Even though I'm not looking forward to that day, I have already embraced my poverty I'm finding more and more peace doing with less and less.