The current new reports that Chief executive pay has roared back after two years of stagnation and decline: “America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40%last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay.” This dramatic turnaround comes as the latest government figures show wages “for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation.”
Giving me a face for this story is the veteran nurse I know--hard-working and highly-qualified; she is someone I know has overcome against great odds--severe health issues--to work in a field she loved and respected. Then, the axe fell. She lost her job--unwilling to put her nursing license on the line to support fraudulent claims of an “unqualified” military supervisor who did not accept female equals in his “good ole boy“ system.
Overnight, this highly-skilled industrial nurse that won awards for the lives she saved, went from her very taxing job--well-paying--and good retirement, to no job and no future. This skilled employee was expendable because a government contractor could "bend the rules" and avoid facing legal scrutiny of sometimes operating outside the law.
Not realizing the cards were stacked so high against her, she lived on her retirement fund --until it was gone. Today, she exists from day to day--no income--no future. Unable to find a legitimate job, dependent upon emergency social agencies, she occupies her house, not knowing when the Bank will enforce her unpaid mortgage, which was sold-and-resold leaving a paper trail of legal proportions--of illegal operations.
She lives with circumstances she has not known in her lifetime. She wonders how she got to where she is: she worked long and hard, played by the rules but stayed honest, cared for people, and did everything the right way. I look at her and see a victim of America’s "Corporate Feudalism," in which Corporate CEOs are the 21st century version of Royalty and rule by Divine Right. Peasants (employees) are not of major concern, mere obstructions to those pleasured by divine rule, as it was in the feudalism of the Middle Ages.
After his conversion, William Wilberforce sought out the man he had idolized as a boy, John Newton,former slaver--October 1787. Wilberforce sought Newton’s counsel about how to invest his life as a Christian, thinking probbly he should leave Politics and enter ministry. Newton counseled, “You are the Lord’s servant, and you are in the post He has assigned you.”
Now satisfied that perhaps he could serve God faithfully and remain in parliament, Wilberforce wrote, “God Almighty has sent before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners … Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its (slavery) Abolition.”
The world honors William Wilberforce as a key component in bringing down the Goliath of human slavery, in spite of impossible odds. Today I pray God’s will be done “on earth” as it is in heaven. This Christmas season is God's reminder that God wants to bless men, women, boys and girls to serve Him in those tedious details of ordinary everyday living.
From Warner’s World, walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
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