Messages from the Ancient Prophets: Lessons for Today

Most Americans feel that America is not on the right track and that our future is bleak. Much of this feeling is due to the belief that our entire political system is paralyzed and under the control of big money. America is not the first great empire to be in danger of collapse; numerous ancient empires failed. Many, especially ancient Israel, were warned by the prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel, and others that they were heading for disaster. This paper demonstrates that the message of the prophets is as relevant today as it was more than 2,500 years ago. Perhaps if we heed the words of the ancient prophets, America’s confidence and leadership can be restored. Americans are demoralized. In fact, in a recent poll, 64% of respondents believed that America was on the wrong track; apparently, Americans have little confidence in how the country is being run (Holland, 2011). America‟s confidence in Congress is at an all-time low – 12% (Newport, 2011). Much of this feeling is due to the belief that our entire political system is under the control of big money. Wall Street, which is largely to blame for the financial meltdown, paid very little for almost destroying the financial system. In fact, corporate profits hit a record high and the financial sector receives more than 25% of all American business profits (Rich, 2010). The wealthiest Americans are becoming even wealthier. Meanwhile, the rest of America is watching their incomes shrink and their jobs disappear. According to Lawrence Katz, Harvard University economist, “This is the first time in memory that an entire decade has produced essentially no economic growth for the typical American household” (Eckholm, 2010). The unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/data/) may be 9.2% but the underemployment rate (this includes people who have given up finding a job and those who are forced to work fewer hours than they would actually prefer) is 22.5% (Kelley, 2010). The middle class is indeed shrinking and income inequality keeps getting worse: the bottom 50% of U.S. income earners own less than 1% of America‟s wealth. The top 1%, on the other hand, currently owns almost double what they had 15 years ago. The wealthiest 1% of Americans own about 43% of the financial wealth of the United States (Domhoff, 2010). In 1950, the average executive‟s paycheck to average employee‟s paycheck ratio was 30:1; today it is between 300 and 500 to 1 (Snyder, 2010). The media pay for CEOs in 2010 at 200 large firms was $10.8 million; an increase of 26% from 2009 (Davidoff, 2011). Between 1979 and 2007, the tax rate for the top 1% fell by 20%; it only dropped by 8% for the average American (Blow, 2011) During the past several decades, several crises have buffeted the United States economy. The savings and loan debacle of the 1980s and 1990s, which cost American taxpayers $124 billion and led to the failure of more than one thousand banks, was followed by numerous corporate scandals at such firms as Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing, WorldCom, and Tyco International, involving accounting fraud and financial irregularities.