The Update

I was introduced to a new website yesterday called the “Global Rich List.” It’s a site that has you put in your annual income and it tells you how wealthy you are compared to the rest of the world.

So I plugged in the median income of Maple Grove ($90,000/year), hit ‘Show Me The Money’, and voila! Richest 0.72% of the world. There are something like 6.7 billion people in the world who earn less than that a year.

“But wait!” you say, “I don’t make that much!” You’re still filthy stinking rich. If you live around the U.S. poverty line you’re living of around $14,000/year. That still puts you in the top 12.5% of the world. So by the time you’re “poor” in the United States, there are still around 6 billion people poorer than you in the world.

But the real kick in the teeth for me was when I figured out where I would be in my old high school job. I made a unexciting $125/month. That still put me in the top 1/4 of the world, there are still 5.8 billion people who live off less than I made in high school (and I didn’t have to pay for food or clothes or anything). 

So what should we do? I think we simply need to hold our money more loosely. The love of money is a sin, and one that Jesus is pretty serious about staying away from. We’re in the middle of a recession, with headlines every day talking about what a catastrophe it is. While it isn’t pleasant to hear of friends and family losing their jobs or taking cuts in pay, I am always in favor of some perspective. And the perspective here is that we are filthy, stinking, rich.

(ht to Mark Collier for the link)