MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ...

Someone once said that "Money is the root of all evil." That concept is also mirrored in the literary themes that involve materialism, greed, and money. If you remember old Ebenezer Scrooge, he hoarded his money and didn't pay his employees what they were worth until he was encountered by his potential demise. He didn't want to die lonely and unloved. His ghostly visitors changed his materialistic greed. I find our world to have too many Ebenezers: government, CEOs of corporations, corporate administrators, high level school officials. All would rather cut the salaries or hours of their employees than cut their own income.

With this in mind, I find it interesting that politicians want to increase taxes because the tax base isn't funding the government and its programs or employees. Food producers, industries, and merchants are raising prices because the cost of creating and transporting their product is rising and they can't pay their bills.

It is too bad that they don't see what is going on here. Let's take a look.

If students were held responsible for what they were taught each year, teachers could move education farther forward.

If employers appreciated a job well done, more people would care about job performance.

If more people valued education and working hard for what they wanted, being on welfare wouldn't be as desirable as it is to some people.

If people who applied for welfare were held accountable for improving their education and obtaining a job, and if welfare was not such an all or nothing proposition, then being on welfare would be less desirable.

If we stopped giving so many people so much for free, people wouldn't expect more for free and they would understand that wants need to be supported with hard work.

If it was less desirable to be on welfare, then the government could spend fewer tax dollars on welfare.

If the government needed to spend fewer tax dollars on programs that gave people things for free, then the need to raise tax dollars would be eliminated.

Back to the beginning of the circle.

Too bad too many young people see the way to monetary success is through illegal activities: selling drugs, prostitution, stripping, etc. They see dollars as a way to success rather than seeing education and hard work as a viable way to the dollars they want.

Maybe I'm way to old fashioned, but this all is excessively frustrating.