Renting from Ourselves - Rich Dad, Poor Son

Before the crisis in the mortgage market, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for teaching people the basics of money management, and even a game designed to teach people how to get out of the "rat race" of a working life, into the life of a property owner, making passive income from the ownership of property - or a piece of something - that we have lent our capital to.

There is a fundamental problem with this method, and I cannot be the only one who sees it. If everyone is an owner and no one is a worker, who makes the stuff we make our enlightened profit from?

If everyone is a property owner, who rents?

I don't particularly like games where somebody wins only if someone else, even in the smallest measure, loses. It may be an effective way to transcend class, but it only works by exception. Unless, that is, we all rent from ourselves.

I heard a bit of complaining from working class "Joe the Plumber" sorts, being interviewed about class warfare and how "hard" people making executive salaries worked for their money. I know some entrepreneurs and CEO's who work pretty damn hard, but not, I think, 410 times as hard as the average salaried bank manager with three kids facing unemployment.

I believe in the creativity of the American people, put to test, to generate enough wealth to take care of themselves, their children, with enough left over to safety net the less fortunate. I believe in the fundamental generosity of the American people. I believe that, if provided with leadership, we can transcend anything we are presented with.

But we are not going to do it working 100 hours a week at Walmart taking amphetamines to stay awake.

Just a thought, but the greatest return on investment, via GNP, that a country can make is in education. The rate of return is 25% for every year of education.

But to do that we're going to have to spend money. And to spend it, we're going to have to collect it.

I'm willing to pay my share to take care of my neighbors' children, the old, and I sure as hell am willing to pay to have the mentally ill housed rather than sitting on the street corner on my way to work.

And I think we should take a close, scrutinized look at those who are unwilling to be of service to their neighbors to the degree they have prospered.

Government isn't some other entity to fear. It is a social contract between us and us. It can be as honest and trustworthy as we hold it responsible to be.

And holding it accountable means participating. I don't know what the outcome of this election is going to be. Like most Americans, right now I am hoping, praying, working and talking about it when the opportunity presents itself. I could not be more proud of the contingent of young people who are not allowing their elder's cynicism to infect them.

So while we're at it, lets begin to ask some questions about the basic assumptions we hold near and dear.

Biblical scholars will tell you that some commandments are held more highly than others. The commandment not to kill or, conversely, not to let someone die, preempts the commandment not to work on Sundays.

Perhaps it is time to look at the presumptions of property ownership and, most of all, at the rights of a corporation which cannot be held criminally or morally responsible for its collective behavior. Does the corporation who turns the family out of their homes for failure to support an unwise mortgage deserve our community support while the now homeless family does not?

The only thing that keeps us from bringing this sort of common sense argument into our political conversation is a short lived rhetorical tradition of labeling progressive ideals as somehow less than American.

It's all American. The right to have these conversations is American. The right to make decisions about what kind of society we want to live in is American. The right to grow and change through peaceful revolution is American.

Barack Obama was accused of being an advocate of wealth distribution, with his tax plan that calls for those who make more to return to graduated tax system. The interviewer called it socialist.

The candidate laughed, graciously, and said: "That's not socialism. It's being neighborly."

I was born between classes, mother moving up and father moving down. It gave me all kinds of concepts to sort out, from a wounded sense of entitlement, to the final ownership of a quality of pride that I have worked all my life, and probably will work the rest of my life.

My father's family came from money and land. My grandmother came from the land too - but she never presumed to own it. Ultimately it is her words that I find the easiest and most satisfying to live by.

Be your brothers' family
Share in time of plenty
Share in time of need
Work, trust, love, and be grateful for what you have been given
None of us makes it through life alone

The concept that I may be my brothers' keeper is as old humanity, from every people on earth.

It might be a concept that we can circle America around.

The question that pivots before this generation is how wide do we make the circle?

Do we include our neighborhood, our city, our outcasts, our country?

Do we include the people who don't agree with us?

And, eventually, do we include the world?

For when we do, then there will be no economies that we profit enormously from if we are not invested in their long term well being.

If every man is my brother, can I take his money to pay my mortgage on a piece of property I then call my own?