Remember the Bible story about Joseph? This wizard of economic interpretation told the king of Egypt that there would be seven good years and seven lean years. Pharaoh put him in charge of taxing the people during the good years. Back then nobody had coins, so the peasants paid in grain. Joseph made sure the grain was stored in vast silos.
Then the lean years came. First Joseph sold the grain back to the peasants for their gold and silver. During the next year he gave them bread in exchange for their horses, cattle, and all their flocks. In the year after that, the destitute people came to Joseph and said, “There is nothing left but our bodies and our lands. Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh.”
In that way all of Egypt became Pharaoh’s, except for the lands that belonged to the priests. All the Egyptians became Pharaoh’s bondsmen—as the Bible says, “until this day.” And the people thanked Joseph for saving their lives.
The important thing to remember is that the grain in those storehouses was produced by those peasants. Pharaoh didn’t produce it and neither did Joseph.
So why is this legend relevant today? Whose tax money bailed out Wall Street? Why are Americans losing our jobs, our health insurance, our pensions, our homes and any equity we had in those homes—what financial wizards drove the economy into the leanest years we’ve seen since the Great Depression? The more we struggle in this quicksand, the deeper we sink. Get behind on one credit card, and the rates on all the rest go up to heights that would make a loan shark blush. Borrow money to go back to school, but don’t expect to find a job that would enable you to pay it back. You will be enslaved by the banking industry forever.
I've read the story of Joseph before, and had the same thought occur to me: Pharaoh really made out big-time by taking advantage of the Egyptian people's misfortune.
ReplyDelete(Keep in mind, though, as I understand it the mindset of their culture was vastly different from ours. Pharaoh was considered divine and the people existed to serve him. So it's no wonder the people thanked him for saving their lives, rather than protest that he ripped them off.)
The parallel you draw between then and now is excellent, but there's another parallel that could be drawn: our collective failure to plan ahead. The Egyptians didn't have enough to eat during the famine, and it was unfair of Pharaoh to take advantage of the situation as he did, but the people could have helped themselves by saving grain just as Joseph did.
Likewise, I am saddened by the sight of those in my community who have been laid off, unable to find new work, saddled with crushing debt, foreclosed upon, etc. And while we are right to blame, among others, bank execs who made bad loans, also to blame are the homeowners who accepted those loans. And while it's wrong for credit card companies to jack up interest rates to the sky, people who take those cards and run up their balances beyond their ability to pay are also at fault.
How many people do you know who are barely making ends meet, yet still have oversized houses, several vehicles, cable TV, internet access, smartphones, and take-out for dinner on a regular basis? I'm acquainted with quite a few.
And while there's nothing wrong with having any of these things, it is wrong to live beyond one's means. It is also wrong to place all the blame for our misfortunes on the shoulders of Wall Street big shots - though they certainly deserve a large share - when there's plenty we could have done to plan ahead for the hard times that are bound to come to us sooner or later.
I don't mean to come across as judgmental or unsympathetic. It's just that if there is a question of who is at fault for our current woes, there is plenty of blame to go around.
I don't know anyone who is barely making ends meet and has oversized houses, several vehicles, cable TV, internet access, smartphones, and take-out for dinner on a regular basis. A few of our friends in the Bay Area are considerably better off than Sylvia and I, but they have economic cushions--house paid off, a good pension, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Egyptians helping themselves by saving grain, the way things worked back then was that the priests at the First Cataract had what later writers called a "Nile-ometer." They measured the annual inundation and calculated what the crops would be liked, then taxed the peasants as much as they could. The tax collectors were allowed to keep a percentage of what they extracted, and if you didn't pay what they thought you owed, they would beat you until you did. I've done a bit of research into the economics of ancient Egypt (for my next book), and the majority of the peasants lived at subsistence level.
I've been attending meetings of a group called We Are Oregon, and we are working to help people stay in their homes. One of them is a single father of two small children--he lives in this neighborhood and owns a small business, but income has diminished drastically in the last three years. He tried negotiating with Wells Fargo, but all they did was give him the runaround. Last week a group of us went to Wells Fargo and spoke with the manager on his behalf. I just heard today that they have offered him a $200/month reduction in his mortgage payments. We also went to the Bank of America on behalf of an elderly woman--we haven't heard back from them yet.
Since I work with seriously disabled people, I get to talk to a lot of people who were doing OK until they had serious accidents. A year ago I interviewed the wife of an ironworker who suffered a 30-foot fall and has mild brain damage as well as crippling orthopedic injuries. He was making a great income until the accident. Afterward, he lost his job, his health insurance, and his home, and he and his wife and kids had to move in with their parents (his parents or hers, I can't remember). The wife can't work full-time, because she has to take care of him. Before the current downturn, the overwhelming majority of personal bankruptcies in this country were the result of catastrophic illness. Now I suspect that a lot of them are the result of long-term unemployment.
However, I think it's less important to ascribe blame than to take a look at the systemic causes, and see what can be done to improve matters. For example, thousands of Americans (Sylvia included) lost good-paying jobs because companies decided to ship their work overseas to places where people work very cheaply and have no benefits, and where there are no restrictions on how much you can pollute the environment. Through its tax structure, our government actually subsidizes corporations to send jobs overseas. Free-trade agreements like NAFTA cost the U.S. over 766,000 jobs between 1993 and 2001 (see http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_nafta01_impactstates/). Instead of trying to keep jobs here, our government has just signed three new free-trade agreements--they will benefit multinational corporations, but they will make the job situation here a lot worse.
As for the foreclosure issue, I met with our state senator Chip Shields on Wednesday. He said that one-third of homes in Oregon are either in foreclosure or in danger of foreclosure. This isn't just a problem for a handful of improvident individuals--it is an economic catastrophe. I am working with him and the We Are Oregon group to help craft legislation that would ameliorate the situation.