November, 2012

A new study released by one of the world’s most respected international organizations shows that “global inequalities in wealth are at their highest level for 20 years and are growing, ” the BBC reported yesterday.

The global study found “that in most of the 32 developing countries they looked at, the rich had increased their share of national income since the 1990s,” the BBC report said.

Making matters worse is the fact that one reason the gap between the rich and the poor is widening is not necessarily because the rich are getting richer, but because the poor are getting poorer, the study shows. “In a fifth of the countries, the incomes of the poorest had fallen” over that same period since the 90’s, the BBC report said.

The worldwide study was released by Save the Children, an international non-profit organization whose stated goal is to improve the lives of children everywhere.

“The gap (between the wealthy and the poor) has become particularly pronounced among children, and affects their well-being,” the BBC report quoted the charity as saying.

While neither the Save the Children study nor the BBC report regarding it made any mention of world attitudes around the so-called Global Wealth Gap, we will here.

In the United States, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been taking considerable heat from his political opponents in the Republican Party the past year for wanting to “redistribute wealth.”

The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was famously caught by a hidden microphone at a GOP fundraiser last May talking about the “47% of Americans” who he said were going to “vote for this president no matter what” because they were “not paying taxes” and were dependent upon the government to get by.

This 47%, Mr. Romney went on, were not willing to take responsibility for themselves. Mr. Romney told his campaign contributors, who paid many thousands of dollars per-plate to attend the fundraising dinner (served by white-gloved waiters), that it was not his job to be worried about that 47%.

In the immediate aftermath of the release of the recording, when he was being criticized for his remarks, Mr. Romney stoutly defended what he had said. Only as the criticism grew overwhelming during the weeks that followed, threatening to derail his candidacy for his nation’s highest office, did Mr. Romney retract his remarks, repudiating them in full. “I was completely wrong,” he allowed.

Startling, however, was the number of Americans who appeared to agree with his earlier-stated views. Public opinion surveys showed a remarkable number of members of his own Republican Party who supported his ideas. Presumably, after Mr. Romney repudiated his own statements, those Republicans repudiated theirs.

Yet this is only the latest in a decades-long opinion trend — not only in America, but around the world — that now begs the question: Do people holding great, or even modest, wealth really care about the people holding none? Further, and perhaps more to the point, should they?

Is it at some level the responsibility of those who “have” to be worried about (much less actually take care of) those who “have not”?

This, of course, is not a small social issue; not an insignificant question. Human societies from the beginning of civilization have had to face it.

Is it okay for such societies to “take from the rich and give to the poor” through taxes, levies, or by whatever legal means?

Conversations with God is very clear on this subject. It says that in highly evolved societies of this future there will be no taxes, levies, or limitations on a person’s income whatsoever. It also says this would be so because in such societies people would voluntarily give a generous percentage of their income to a global fund for the poor.

CWG also suggests that members of such societies would voluntarily place on themselves an upper limit on income…say, $25 million a year, as simply an example…and that everything above that amount would be freely sent to a global fund to help those living in poverty, but with the stipulation that those contributing the funds could specifically direct their use to the programs and charities of their choice — meaning they would still be in charge of where their money went.

Such ideas are utopian, to be sure, but they do raise a continually nagging question: How much is ‘enough’? And, since the wealthy worked to produce their wealth (presumably), should they be required, even by social pressure, to share it with the less fortunate (or with, as Mr. Romney said in his now admittedly mistaken remarks, the 47% of people who will never “take responsibility for themselves”)?

The question, of course, presumes an equality of opportunity for the poor to themselves become rich — an assumption that may or may not reflect the true state of the global marketplace.

And your thoughts?



Part Three: The road well-traveled

In the past two weeks, we have focused heavily on the psychological process of bullying, and on how changing our thoughts, has, in due course, changed our mentality on bullying. We have concentrated in near entirety on our personal self, and how to overcome our personal experiences. Yet, as facts and statistics incessantly inform us, we are not alone in our path, or in our journey. As stated in an article from The San Jose Mercury News, dated October 24th, 2012, over 13 million teens across the nation face bullying every day. Bullying may stem from personal problems, but it hardly ends there. As bullying continues to affect more individuals every day, we still see our own experiences with bullying as disconnected and separated from the world. Why, as individuals, do we feel as though bullying is only a personal struggle?

As bullying attempts to prevent us from expressing our personal self, it has also prevented us from expressing our collective self. For in society, so far, we have adopted the “Minority of One” view, which has left teens isolated in their understanding of their situation and in their quest for solutions. The belief in the personal struggle, without any guidance or support, has led countless teens across the nation to believe that they are alone without any help or hope along the way. Feeling alienated in their personal condition, teens and even adults often become so engrossed by this mindset that they forget how often bullying really does occur. As those 13 million teens have a unique story, they all share a common experience. With that common experience, teens also share a common knowledge of facing those experiences.

So why can’t we just share what we know? Why can’t we share what we have experienced individually, so that the understanding may be raised collectively? For in this case, Sharing IS Caring. The path of overcoming bullying is not one that is being trail blazed by each of us, but is rather a walk down the road well-traveled by everyone who has ever encountered bullying. What we have learned through our experience, through our trials and tribulations, can be explained and understood by those who still struggle with bullying today. With collective sharing of what we have learned individually, we have an opportunity to raise the entire consciousness of the group collectively.   

 By sending out your message, whether it be of forgiveness, expression, or acceptance, we give others the chance to absorb a new pattern of thought and emotion towards bullying itself. Just merely letting others have this level of exposure to alternative methods of overcoming bullying is a foot in the right direction. Too many times we believe that we face an ultimatum, of flight or flee, that hearing the other approaches serves as a reminder to what we essentially know to be true of life as possibility. With the simple knowledge of ‘there is another way’, teens will pursue these alternatives that will ultimately lead to higher thought levels of decision and action. Even though the situation may be slightly different, the same messages will still apply. Collective collaboration, and ultimately, conversation, is truly at the core of being beyond bullying.

(Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com.)