The Time of Need in the Time of Greed

August 28, 2019

By Jim Culp

This morning I drove to the Veteran’s Hospital for another evaluation. It was a nice little drive. There was a fair amount of traffic, but it was cool enough to have my windows down and give the air conditioner a rest. While waiting for my appointment, two gentlemen (both Vietnam veterans) were talking about their grandkids and how spoiled they are. One man was an Army veteran that served in the la Drang valley in 1965. He was shot twice and sent home. He marveled that his children were mostly like him…pinching pennies and watching their spending to make sure they kept a fair amount in savings for emergencies. He almost broke into tears talking about his grandkids, though. He said they know nothing of poverty, and usually receive $2-3,000 worth of gifts on birthdays and Christmas.

The Air Force guy was ground service technician for a fighter wing. He named some airbase, but neither me nor the other guy knew where it was. He volunteered to return to Vietnam four times; and served a total of 60 months in country throughout the war. He said that his kids were spoiled brats when they were young… but were really good parents when they got older. When grandkids came along, he said he was a “real stickler” about dolling out funds. He wanted the grandkids to learn the value a dollar, and also wanted them to work for it.

We all talked for a while, and I had to break away and get my appointment handled.

As for me, I was tough on my daughter (way tougher than I should have been) but taught her life skills that she can still use today, and that was my gift to her. She received gifts on holidays and birthdays, but I was never one to buy lavish gifts for a kid, because I knew that it made them devaluate money.

I think the old Army guy was upset because children of today rarely know the value of money, nor do they appreciate receiving a plethora of nice gifts on two or three occasions per year. I see it at Walmart very week. Children are screaming in every isle of the store, and Mom is threatening them with a death sentence of never getting another toy again. Dad is still in his grungy work clothes, and just can’t wait until they get to the beer coolers.

When I was a wee lad, I lost my Dad. This was 1969. A couple of years later, my Mom married a railroad man, and he made good money. Birthdays and Christmas were pretty nice, as we would receive several gifts, have a really nice dinner, and have a grand old time. These were not lavish gifts; they were moderately appropriate. A I grew up… I saw kids receive more and more gifts on these special days. One kid up the street from us couldn’t even remember everything he received at Christmas, because he would have needed a camera to remember all of it. I never believed in that, and still don’t.

Going back to Walmart, here’s a few statistics. Walmart earns a whopping $36 Million an hour in sales each day. It makes $34,985 every minute of every day of the year. The average Walmart Super Center takes in a whopping 3000-4500 customers per day. It has 8,500 stores in the USA, and demographically well-placed stores average 10,000 plus customers a day. Get ready for this…Walmart as a whole earns $36,750,000 every hour of every day of the year.

That comes to $882,000,000 per 24-hour day.

How much is that in a calendar year? More than my third-grade math can calculate.

On the other side of reality for this place we call Earth, here’s some really disturbing statistics.

9 Million people die of hunger on our planet every day.

3.1 Million children die or hunger every day.

Forty percent of preschool-age children are estimated to be anemic because of iron deficiency, and anemia causes 20 percent of all maternal deaths. In addition, it is estimated that 250 to 500 thousand children go blind from Vitamin A deficiency every year.

Poverty is the number one cause of world hunger. The World Bank estimates that 10.7 percent of the world’s population, or 767 million people, lived on less than $1.90 per day in 2013.

Over 75 percent of the world’s poorest people grow their own food. This causes widespread food insecurity in developing countries, as drought, climate change and natural disasters can easily cut off a family’s food supply.

One third of the world’s food that is grown for consumption is wasted each year; roughly 1.8 billion tons.

The United States by itself wastes $218 billion in food products per year.

I told you all of that to bring a point across. If you are a person that lives in the world trying to amass fortunes instead of helping people who can’t help themselves, you’re one of this world’s problems. If you have enough money to buy your kids lavish gifts, and keep them ignorant of the world’s declining health, you’re one of this world’s problems. If you believe that people of other colors are “infestations” or “problem people,” you’re one of this world’s problems.

As climate change, corporate greed, and billion-dollar deals keep wars going for 18 years; people in all parts of this Earth suffer, become ill, and die.  

It is time for change. The Earth has become polluted and disemboweled from the love of money. It is a place where less than two percent of her population care about the health of the oceans, or the oxygen levels of the forests. Look at the statistics above and ask yourself why people are starving.

-Jim