twenty-five cents' worth of trickle-down

Speaking personally, I think the only trickle-down benefit I've received in the 17 years I've been in the work force was the quarter I found in the parking lot back in '96.

The aggregation of wealth to an increasingly small minority is not a good thing, and it is not something we should cheer. True, the gospel isn't about money and it's foolish to argue that Christ's sole or even primary concern is that the poor become wealthier. That's Marxism, not Christianity.

Money is a spiritual force, not merely an economic one, and it is one that has twisted American society into unbelievable knots. There's nothing wrong with having money, but judging by our preoccupation with accumulating and retaining wealth, I'd say we don't have money. It has us.

Laissez faire is as destructive to a society as democracy. The one leads to a cutthroat mentality as robber barons rise to the top and crush whomever they want; the other leads to popular but ultimately ineffective officials who win on the merits of personality rather than actual ability. And try as we might, no regulation or amendments or legislative efforts will ever correct those problems. They'll just give us new opportunities to make things worse.

I don't know which is worse: Democrats who use the "class warfare" notion to advance their cause politically, or Republicans who just don't care, as long as their power base and interests are served.