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"RICH MAN, POOR MAN--WHO'S THE BEGGAR MAN OR THIEF?"--MO       November 11, 1974       NO.321--GP

The STORY of the RICH and the POOR--A Child's Course in Economics!--Or, What's the Matter with the Oil and Money?

Copyright © November 1974 by The Children of God
P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936

Dear Children:
       Once upon a time in a very big city in a very big country there lived very many poor people and very few rich.

       1. NOW IN THE BEGINNING, GOD, THEIR HEAVENLY FATHER, BEFORE ANYBODY WAS RICH OR POOR, HAD GIVEN EVERYBODY ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT of land and food and things with which to build their houses and make their clothes and beasts to carry their burdens and help plow the land so they could grow their food and carry their things they made to market to trade for other things that other people made that they liked and needed and who liked and needed to trade their things for their things. See?

       2. AND EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY AND HAD EVERYTHING THEY REALLY NEEDED AND HAD NO WARS. Everybody worked hard to grow their own food and make their own clothes and build their own houses so each had plenty of what he needed.

       3. BUT SOME WORKED EVEN HARDER THAN OTHERS AND GREW AND MADE ENOUGH EXTRA THINGS TO TRADE for the extra things and food that other hard workers grew and made too. That way different people grew and made different things they could trade for other different things that other people grew and made.

       4. SO PEOPLE GOT TO DOING WHAT THEY CALLED "TRADING," and this business of taking all these different things to market to trade for all these other different things made by other people was called "marketing" and "trade." Some people grew lots of food but not much cotton or wool to make their clothes with, so they would take their extra food to their market and trade it for the cotton and wool that other people had lots of but needed more food. Others had lots of trees and grew lots of timber for building houses, much more than they themselves really needed, but they too needed more food or clothing, so they'd take their wood to market to trade for the food and clothing they needed. See?

       5. EVERYTHING MOVED RATHER SLOWLY because they only had horses and oxen and elephants and camels and animals like that to carry all these things. So life went rather slow and easy and nobody was in much of a hurry and they had lots of time to relax, ate good natural healthful food the way God made it, and had lots of good normal healthy exercise, working and walking and riding and trading and playing together.

       6. THEY BREATHED NICE CLEAN FRESH AIR AND DRANK NICE CLEAN PURE WATER, and got lots of nice quiet restful sleep at night and lived in comfy warm little tents, cabins, huts or houses with little fires and the few things they needed and the few clothes they wore.

       7. AND EVERYBODY WAS PRETTY HAPPY AND THERE WEREN'T MANY FUSSES OR FIGHTS OR WARS because everybody was healthy and happy and had what they needed and shared and helped each other. Because God taught them to love one another and to help each other and be happy with their happy healthy little lives and the very few things that they really needed.

       8. NOBODY REALLY NEEDED VERY MUCH--just enough to eat and clothes to keep warm and tiny tents, caves or houses to live in for shelter, and a few animals to help them with their work.

       9. SO EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY AND CONTENTED WITH THE LITTLE HE HAD because it was enough to satisfy all his needs and the needs of others.

       10. BUT THE DEVIL, GOD'S AND MAN'S ENEMY, WAS NOT HAPPY ABOUT ALL THIS because he likes to make people unhappy and sad and mad, and he's very unhappy when everybody's glad because that makes him very mad!

       11. SO HE DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT TO TRY TO RUIN ALL THIS NICE PEACEFUL WORLD THAT GOD HAD CREATED and destroy as many of these happy people as he could and try to wreck the whole thing so he could be happy!--So he began causing all kinds of trouble!

       12. HE BEGAN TEMPTING SOME OF THESE HAPPY CONTENTED PEOPLE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL called "higher education" 'or how to be unhappy by thinking you can be happier by knowing more than you really need to know and getting more things than you really need to have.

       13. AND SOME PEOPLE BELIEVED HIM, SO THEY BEGAN LEARNING A LOT OF EVIL THINGS called man's wisdom and higher education, and they began stealing from each other the things that belonged to others or tricking them out of some of these things so they themselves could have more!

       14. THE PEOPLE WHO BEGAN GETTING ALL THIS EVIL KNOWLEDGE of how to trick and rob others and lie and steal and cheat and even kill to get it began to be known as the rich and the powerful and the great ones, the smart ones!

       15. WHILE THE POOR PEOPLE THEY WERE OUTSMARTING and robbing and cheating and killing to get more than their share became known as the poor, dumb, uneducated, overworked labourers, the weak and the meek ones.

       16. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL RICH by their evil wisdom of the Devil were even so smart with their evil knowledge and lies called higher education, propaganda and advertising, that they even convinced lots of poor people that they were right and persuaded them to voluntarily give up some of the few things they had to make them even poorer and the rich even richer, so the rich could have more and more and the poor less and less. These are called "taxes" and "profits" and "interest."

       17. THE RICH EVEN PERSUADED AND FORCED THE POOR TO MAKE THEM SOMETHING NEW CALLED "WAR" AND "WEAPONS," like swords and spears and guns and tanks and planes and bombs so the rich could fight these wars with other rich people to try to grab what they had too!

       18. THEY EVEN MADE THE POOR PEOPLE FIGHT THESE WARS FOR THEM, when all the poor really wanted was peace and enough to eat and wear and a place to sleep!

       19. BUT SOME OF THE POOR WERE NOT VERY HAPPY ABOUT THIS AND BEGAN TO COMPLAIN AND REFUSE to pay these taxes and fight these wars and rebelled against letting the rich rob and kill them this way and make them so unhappy. This is called "revolution."

       20. SO THE RICH USED THEIR WEAPONS TO FORCE THE POOR TO FIGHT THEIR WARS AND PAY these taxes, profits and interests and continued to rob and kill them by force if they refused!

       21. BUT THE RICH NEEDED A LOT OF SMART PEOPLE CALLED "TECHNICIANS" AND "ENGINEERS" AND "SCIENTISTS" TO MAKE THESE weapons and war machines for them and teach the poor how to build them and also how to make other fancy things they wanted but didn't really need, like machines to travel very fast in because the rich were always in a big hurry to make more riches and fight more wars and have more power to try to be happier than anybody else.

       22. THE WEAPONS AND MACHINES OF WAR ARE CALLED "MUNITIONS" and the smart people whom the rich trained to teach the poor how to use them and lead them in these wars are called the "military," and these fast ways of getting around are called "modern transportation." The rich also needed smart people to build ways of getting messages to these war leaders faster so they could fight the wars better, and to their market places quicker so they could make more riches in a hurry.

       23. SO THEY PAID THESE SMARTER POOR PEOPLE MORE THINGS TO INVENT THESE quicker ways of getting messages, ideas and information back and forth, called "communications," like the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, etc.

       24. THE RICH ALSO HAD TO HAVE QUICKER WAYS OF EXCHANGING THE EXTRA THINGS they didn't need for other things other rich had that they wanted to trade them for, as it was pretty hard to keep carrying them back and forth to each other even on these big new machines they made.

       25. SO THE RICH INVENTED A NEW WAY OF TRADING these goods back and forth without even moving a lot of them so they could just keep them in their bigger and bigger barns and storage places called warehouses without even moving them around too much except when absolutely necessary.

       26. THIS NEW WAY OF EXCHANGING GOODS WITHOUT ACTUALLY MOVING THEM VERY OFTEN WAS CALLED "MONEY." At first this money was something really valuable, like gold and silver and diamonds and jewels and pretty things like that that the rich always like to decorate themselves and their houses with and which they valued very much to show that they were very rich. But the rich also wanted other things like finer food and clothing and grander houses and fancier machines and bigger lands.

       27. SO THEY WOULD AGREE AMONGST THEMSELVES TO TRADE SOME OF THESE VALUABLES LIKE GOLD AND SILVER AND JEWELS THAT THEY LIKED SO MUCH FOR THESE OTHER THINGS they needed and wanted, like houses and lands where they grew things and factories where they made things and the machines to make them and travel in and talk back and forth with. The rich man who paid this kind of valuable money for the valuable things he wanted was called the "buyer" and the man who traded him the things for the money was called the "seller."

       28. THIS BECAME KNOWN AS BUYING AND SELLING FOR MONEY, A WHOLE NEW WAY OF TRADING things back and forth. It worked pretty good for a while, but pretty soon the rich became so rich and paid such big "prices" (the amount of money you pay for a thing you want) for such big things they wanted that it was even hard to carry the gold and silver and jewels back and forth as they became so heavy and hard to hide from robbers and other rich who might rob them while carrying them!

       29. SO THEY HAD TO INVENT A WHOLE NEW KIND OF MONEY THAT WOULDN'T BE SO HARD TO HIDE AND CARRY AND TRADE, CALLED "PAPER MONEY" OR "CURRENCY." Each rich country run by its rich people would hide their gold and silver and jewels in strong thick-walled buildings called "treasuries," "vaults," "banks," etc. Then they'd print these little pieces of paper in a special way, each little piece showing that the rich of that country had that much gold or silver, etc., in the treasury or the bank, as much as was written on the piece of paper. Then they could take it to the bank or the treasury and trade the piece of paper for the real thing, the gold or the silver.

       30. THEY COULD JUST TRADE THESE LITTLE PIECES OF PAPER FOR THE THINGS they needed or wanted so they wouldn't have to move the actual valuable gold and silver money around so much. The little pieces of paper money were supposed to show that they had that much real gold and silver money in the bank that they could trade it in for if they wanted to.

       31. THIS MONEY ("MONKEY"?) BUSINESS WAS ALL CALLED THE "MONETARY SYSTEM," or a very easy way of trading things quickly without actually having to move anything but these little bits of paper money. But pretty soon the rich got so rich even with paper money that it would have taken a lot of trucks to carry it around while trading it from one rich man to another.

       32. THEY GOT SO RICH THAT EVEN THE PAPER MONEY GOT TOO HEAVY TO CARRY! SO THE RICH INVENTED ANOTHER WHOLE NEW WAY OF TRADING CALLED "CHEQUES," a way of not only trading goods or gold but even trading paper money, so they wouldn't even have to move the paper money so much back and forth from bank to bank! They could leave the paper money in the bank and write these little notes to the bank called cheques telling the bank to pay so-and-so so much money out of their money at the bank called a "bank account."

       33. THEN THEY COULD JUST WRITE CHEQUES FOR THEIR MONEY in their bank accounts to pay for the things they wanted to buy. This made the big business of big buying and selling of big things by the big rich much easier and faster in a new kind of market called the "stock market" where they could trade things back and forth without ever even seeing them or the money either!

       34. THEY COULD EVEN TRADE WHOLE FACTORIES AND BUSINESSES and gold and silver and sugar and cotton and wheat and all kinds of things at the stock market with these little pieces of paper called "cheques." And the things or parts of things they wanted to trade were shown by papers called "stocks."

       35. THE STOCK MARKETS EVEN TRADE PAPER MONEY THAT'S NOT EVEN PAID OR THERE YET, CALLED "BONDS." These are "loans" or amounts of money which people, businesses or governments have promised to pay later when they have it, because they don't have it right now but hope to have it later by selling goods or doing business or taxing the people some more so they can pay it later on.

       36. THESE PROMISES TO PAY LATER ARE CALLED "BONDS" because that word is supposed to mean they're bound to pay it sooner or later because these bonds are also pieces of paper which say they promise to pay it back sometime together with even a little bit more called "interest" on these loans.

       37. THE STOCKS ARE ALSO PIECES OF PAPER CALLED "SHARES," which means that if you own one of them, one of these little pieces of paper called a "share," you own a share in some kind of business, factory, gold mine or stocks of goods like gold, silver and other precious and useful metals, or foods like sugar and cocoa and coffee, or textiles like cotton or wool, etc.

       38. THESE ACTUAL REAL GOODS OR THINGS ARE CALLED "COMMODITIES" and they are also bought and sold on the stock market for various amounts of money called "stock prices," paper money which is actually exchanged by these little pieces of paper called cheques. But the rich are always in such a hurry to get richer quicker, even these ways of trading money and things called goods, etc., have become too slow.

       39. EVEN THE CHEQUES ARE SO MANY NOW THEY'RE BECOMING TOO HEAVY FOR THE BANKS TO HANDLE SO FAST because things are being bought and sold at such a rate and money exchanged so fast the banks are having a hard time keeping up with it all!

       40. SO THE RICH HAVE HAD THE SMART OR EDUCATED POOR INVENT SOME NEW MACHINES CALLED "COMPUTERS" TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THAT MONEY, stocks, bonds, cheques, shares, goods, etc., etc.

       41. PRETTY SOON YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE TO CARRY MONEY OR CHEQUES AROUND TO BUY THINGS, BUT JUST A LITTLE NUMBER on a little card that the cashier at the store can stick in a new kind of "cash register." This is a machine they usually put your cash or money or cheques in, but instead of putting your money in it they'll just put your number in it and how much the goods you bought cost or the price. Then this will be automatically taken out of your money at the bank by the computer and transferred electronically on electric wires to the bank account of the store from whom you bought that thing or things and put in the store's bank account of money instead.

       42. THIS WAY THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO MOVE THE CHEQUES OR ACTUAL MONEY FROM ONE BANK TO THE OTHER, but you'll just be billed by your bank for what you bought and the stores where you bought these things will be given credit for the money you will have paid out of your bank account.

       43. THIS IS CALLED A "CREDIT SYSTEM" AND WILL BE THE NEW WAY OF TRADING or exchanging money and things from person to person by computer.

       44. THE MONEY THE POOR ARE PAID IS CALLED "WAGES" for working and growing or making things, or moving and carrying them, or buying and selling them, or exchanging messages by means of communications like the telephone, or performing lots of other kinds of work called "services, because you are their servants doing these things for the rich, like building and painting or fixing their houses or cleaning them or cooking their food or driving their cars or trucks, trains or planes.

       45. THE MONEY THE POOR GET FOR DOING THESE THINGS FOR THE RICH IS CALLED "WAGES" OR "SALARIES" OR "PAY" and the ones who do the hardest work with their feet and hands and backs are called "labourers." But the ones who do the head work with their brains to invent and operate these things for the rich are called technicians, engineers, clerks, military officers, managers, brokers, business experts, scientists, builders, etc.

       46. ALSO, SINCE THE RICH ARE SO OFTEN SICK BECAUSE OF ALL THEIR MONEY WORRIES OVER THEIR RICHES AND STRUGGLES FOR POWER AND WARS, ETC., THEY NEED DOCTORS AND DRUGS to try to make them well and happy again, which they seldom are since God doesn't bless them for robbing, cheating and oppressing the poor and breaking His laws of love to do it.

       47. THEY ALSO HAVE SO MANY FIGHTS AND ARGUMENTS AMONGST THEMSELVES THEY HAVE TO HAVE LAWYERS AND COURTS AND JUDGES TO TRY TO SETTLE THEM. They also need military leaders and officers to lead the poor soldiers to fight the wars of the rich with other rich.

       48. THE RICH ALSO NEED TEACHERS TO TEACH THEIR OWN CHILDREN HOW TO GET RICH AND STAY RICH and oppress the poor, do business, fight wars, etc., and also they need teachers to train the poor to do their work, invent and operate their machines, perform their services as their servants and conduct their businesses, communications, transportation, governments, wars, etc.

       49. THE RICH ALSO NEED RELIGION AND RICH RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS LIKE THE CHURCHES TO TRY TO COMFORT THEMSELVES FOR ALL THE EVIL THEY'VE BEEN DOING and the poor they've been robbing and the wars they've been fighting, and also to subdue the poor and keep them from complaining about their poverty with promises of future Heavenly happiness and to brainwash the poor of any anti-rich ideas and indoctrinate them with complacency and willingness to be peaceful servants to the rich and work hard for them and do all these things for them as the will of God, which to religion, is the will of the rich.

       50. SO THE RICH ALSO NEED THE CLERGY OR PREACHERS AND PRIESTS AND CHURCHES TO KEEP THE POOR PEACEFUL AND WILLING WORKERS. all these smarter, better educated, better trained servants of the rich who do this head work more than hand work are called "white collar," workers, "professionals" or the "middle class" who make more money and are paid more than the poor hand-working, hard-working so-called "blue collar" ordinary labourers who do the manual, menial tasks and even work for the middle class too.

       51. THIS "MIDDLE CLASS" OF PROFESSIONALS AND TECHNICIANS AND SMALLER BUSINESSMEN, DOCTORS, LAWYERS, TEACHERS, PREACHERS, BROKERS, CLERKS, ENGINEERS, ETC., are not only paid and allowed to make more money than the poor but are also allowed to own more things like finer houses, better cars, colour TVs, hi-fi's, nicer clothes and eat more and better food, etc., to try to keep them happy so they won't rebel against the rich whom they serve, even though they're smart enough to do so.

       52. THIS PARTLY RICH MIDDLE CLASS OF WORKERS, scientists, technicians, professionals, etc., because they are so well paid and given so many things and allowed to live so comfortably, they help the rich to keep the poor in their place on the bottom so they won't rebel against being slaves of the rich, as they are also the slaves of the middle class who are a sort of semi-rich or half-rich known as the "bourgeoisie" or "intelligentsia," intellectuals, professionals, small businessmen, etc.

       53. THIS HALF-RICH MIDDLE CLASS ARE ALL THE SAME AS THE VERY RICH TO MOST OF THE VERY POOR of the world, since the middle class is rich compared to the poor. So that the slightly richer middle class and the very rich upper class who govern them are all the same to the very poor who serve them as their servants and slaving labourers.

       54. TO THE POOR MAN WHO IS TRYING TO EARN ENOUGH TO GET ENOUGH FOOD, CLOTHING AND SHELTER TOGETHER to keep the body and spirit of himself and his family together and alive, the rich and the middle class are all the same--they are all his masters and he their slave.

       55. THE POLICE AND ARMY TOO LOOK TO HIM LIKE NOTHING BUT THE TOOLS OF THE RICH AND MIDDLE CLASS who make the laws and enforce them to protect themselves and keep him under and in subjection so he can't rebel or riot or revolt for his rights or strike for higher wages or demand better housing and living conditions or more food and better clothing.

       56. SO THAT THE COURTS AND PRISONS ARE NATURALLY LOADED AND FILLED TO OVERFLOWING WITH MANY MORE OF THE POOR and very few of the middle class and almost none of the very rich who, after all, are themselves the government and the law and its enforcers and are always excused or buy their way out even if they do happen to run into trouble with the lower classes for robbing or cheating them or even killing them.

       57. THE RICH SELDOM HAVE TROUBLE IN THE COURTS EXCEPT WITH OTHER RICH OR RICHER GOVERNMENTS, for the laws and courts and governments are made by the rich for the rich and to protect the rich so they can stay rich and powerful and continue to oppress the poor, their slaves and servants.

       58. OF COURSE SOME SAY THAT THE VERY RICH AND POWERFUL AND INTELLIGENT UPPER CLASS AND THE SEMI-SO MIDDLE CLASS ARE NEEDED TO DIRECT AND MANAGE THE LABOUR OF THE POOR MAN who doesn't really know what's good for him or how to manage himself and his own affairs, so they must do it for him. So as long as he is fed, clothed and housed with the barest necessities and doesn't have to slave too hard to earn them the poor are usually content or made to be content and conditioned to be satisfied by the System of rich that rule them so there will be no strikes or riots or rebellions and everybody will be comfortable and peaceful and fairly happy--except for the rich!

       59. THE RICH ARE NEVER COMFORTABLE ENOUGH, SELDOM PEACEFUL AND HARDLY EVER HAPPY! So since they got rich in the first place thinking that more things and more power would make them happier and yet they're still not happy, they are continually seeking even more things and even more power to try to be more happy. But this actually makes them even more unhappy because they have to break God's loving laws of equality and sharing to do it!

       60. AND SINCE THEY DO NOT DARE TAKE MORE, OR AT LEAST NOT MUCH MORE, FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS whom they must try to keep happy lest they rebel against them, there's only one class left that they can both oppress and rob and cheat and even slaughter if necessary to keep themselves in power and make themselves richer than ever, and that's the poor man, the pitifully poor underdog who can never see any way to get out of his dilemma, and so is just thankful if he manages to stay alive!

       61. BUT WHEN THE RICH AND SEMI-RICH BEGIN TO PASS THE BUCK OF MORE TAXES, HARDER LABOUR, HIGHER PRICES AND WORSE CONDITIONS ONTO HIM, MR. POORMAN, IT BEGINS TO BE ALMOST TOO MUCH FOR HIM TO BEAR! So he starts striking and rioting and demonstrating in protest to get a little more of what's coming to him, at least his poor little share of his actual needs!

       62. AND IF THESE NEEDS ARE NOT MET AND HE AND HIS FAMILY ARE ACTUALLY HUNGRY OR STARVING OR FREEZING FROM THE COLD FROM LACK OF CLOTHING, FUEL OR SHELTER, MR. POORMAN WILL SOMETIMES GET SO DESPERATE JUST TO LIVE, HE AND HIS FELLOWS MAY RISE UP TOGETHER AND START A GREAT REBELLION CALLED A "REVOLUTION" to overthrow their rich and middle class oppressors and robbers of the poor and establish a new government with poor people in power to rule in favour of the poor instead of the rich.

       63. THESE ARE SOMETIMES CALLED "SOCIALIST" OR "COMMUNIST" OR "REVOLUTIONARY" GOVERNMENTS, WHEN THE POOR HAVE HAD ENOUGH AND FEEL IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE! The only trouble is this usually only creates a new class of the newly rich and powerful because of the greedy evil hearts of men, both rich and poor, so that none are ever satisfied no matter what they have without the real Love of God in their hearts for their fellowmen!

       64. SO THE RICH, GOVERNMENTS, SOCIETIES, AND EMPIRES COME AND GO, BUT AS JESUS SAID, "THE POOR YE HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU." Even under a new government intended to help the poor, some always get rich and powerful and become the new rich oppressing the new poor. And so it goes on and on and we're back to "square one" again, even when there is a change in some places with some peoples.

       65. HOWEVER, MOST OF THE WORLD HASN'T CHANGED MUCH, BUT IT JUST SEEMS THAT THE RICH HAVE BEEN MOVING STEADILY WESTWARD from the ancient empires of the powerful like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Medo-Persia in the East and Mid-East to the succeeding empires of Greece, Rome, Europe and now America in the West.

       66. BUT ONCE AGAIN THE WINDS OF CHANGE ARE BLOWING EASTWARD AGAIN: The poor of Russia and China have overthrown their former rich rulers and become the new ruling superpowers of the East leading many smaller, poorer "Third World" nations to do the same in their wake, including many former European and American colonies of the vastly poorer continents of Southern Asia, Africa, South America and Australia.

       67. THIS NEW "THIRD WORLD" OF THE POOR IS RISING FROM THE RUINS OF THE COLONIAL EMPIRES of the North and West which oppressed and exploited them for centuries. These former colonies now are demanding their human rights to live and to eat and to be clothed and housed and enjoy some of the good things of the so-called "good life" of their rich neighbors.

       68. THE POOR LABOURING TOILERS OF THE WORLD OF THE POOR who through blood, sweat and tears have for years produced the raw materials from which these things are made by their richer neighbors are finally demanding a higher share in the enjoyment of these products by insisting on higher wages for their labours and higher prices for their goods.

       69. THIS HAS HELPED CAUSE THE PRESENT WAVE OF WORLDWIDE INFLATION, WHICH SIMPLY MEANS A CLIMBING SPIRAL OF A VICIOUS CYCLE OF CONTINUOUSLY RISING PRICES AND WAGES. Since the rich and the powerful always control the governments and the prices, they keep raising these prices faster than the poor labourers can get their poor wages raised.

       70. SO MR. POORMAN FINDS HE CAN NEVER MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET AHEAD OF THE RAPIDLY RISING PRICES of the things he needs, and the poorer nations cannot even raise the prices of their raw materials as fast as the richer nations can raise the prices of the finished products which the rich process and market and sell back to them.

       71. SO THAT IT CAUSES THE RICH TO GET RICHER AND THE POOR STILL POORER by comparison no matter how much more they get for their raw materials and labours, because the rich industrial nations buy these raw materials from the poor and make them into things wanted by the rich at prices the poor cannot afford.

       72. THE RICH ARE ALWAYS CLEVER ENOUGH AND HAVE ENOUGH CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENTS AND MARKETS AND MONEY TO ALWAYS SOMEHOW MANAGE TO GET THE LION'S SHARE. For example, no matter how much the farmer gets for his products and as little as it usually is, by the time the finished products reach the markets where the poor labourer has to buy them back in order to eat, the men in the middle, the rich manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers and the banks and governments and big money men who finance them, have made most of the money between the poor producer and the poor consumer who constitute the vast majority of the people.

       73. THESE RICH MIDDLE-MEN ARE LIKE THE MONEY CHANGERS AND MAKERS AND BUYERS AND SELLERS OF GOODS AND WARES THAT JESUS DROVE OUT OF THE TEMPLE WITH A WHIP, overturning their tables and scattering their money because they were polluting His Temple and robbing the poor! And the money changers of today have still not changed, they're just the same, they are still polluting man's temple of the earth and robbing its poor of their sacrifices!

       74. BUT THE WIND OF GOD'S WHIP OF JUDGMENTS IS BEGINNING TO CRACK AGAIN and His angry Voice is being heard again and the tables are once more being over turned as the rich are beginning to themselves be destroyed by their own riches and evil pollution of the earth!

       75. THE WORLD'S WORST WASTERS LIKE THE NEWLY RICH UNITED STATES AND WESTERN EUROPE ARE BEGINNING TO BE BURIED IN THEIR OWN WASTE and suffocated by their own befouled air and poisoned by their own polluted waters from the wasteful byproducts of their wanton wastefulness!

       76. THEIR MONEY SYSTEM IS ALSO COLLAPSING because they have built it on paper and now even mere electronic impulses instead of real valuables such as the gold and silver from whence it came! The paper empires of the paper tigers of paper money, paper stocks, paper bonds, paper cheques, paper securities, paper deeds and paper contracts are beginning to burn like a wick without the oil and raw goods that used to feed it!

       77. MR. RICHMAN DISCOVERED OIL IN THE BACK YARD OF MR. POORMAN AND TRADED HIM PAPER MONEY FOR IT so Mr. Richman could burn it wastefully and luxuriously in his rich industries, rich homes, rich cars, trains and planes and create a massive mess of plastic luxury products from petrochemicals derived from Mr. Poorman's oil and upon which the rich world has become so dependent that it thinks it cannot survive without it!

       78. BUT MR. POORMAN, AFTER MANY YEARS OF PUMPING HIS PRECIOUS OIL OUT OF HIS OWN BACK YARD FOR POVERTY-LEVEL PRICES TO TURN THE WHEELS OF MR. RICHMAN'S INDUSTRIES AND LIMOUSINES AND PLASTIC TOYS HAS SUDDENLY AWAKENED that he's been selling his precious commodity too cheap and has been losing his share of its benefits for many years while Mr. Richman has been getting ever richer on it as well as wasting it because Mr. Poorman was selling it too cheap!

       79. SO IT HAS FINALLY DAWNED ON MR. POORMAN THAT HE SHOULD RAISE THE PRICE OF HIS OIL TO WHAT IT'S REALLY WORTH TO GET BACK SOME OF HIS SHARE OF THE VAST RICHES WHICH HIS OIL HAS CREATED FOR MR. RICHMAN. So Mr. Richman is now furious and screaming that he's being robbed by Mr. Poorman because he can't rob Mr. Poorman anymore of his just desserts for his oil.

       80. THEREFORE, MR. RICHMAN IS NOW YELLING FOR THE HELP OF HIS RICH NEIGHBOURS, whom the oil has also helped to make rich, and is complaining to the rest of the world that Mr. Poorman is now the robber, so they should all help Mr. Richman rob it back again from Mr. Poorman to whom it really belongs!

       81. THIS IS THE LOGIC OF THE RICH, THAT THEY ARE ALWAYS BEING ROBBED BY THE POOR by wages or prices of the poor's services and goods while it is really the rich who have constantly been robbing the poor of their fair share, as small as it may be!

       82. AFTER ALL, MR. RICHMAN FEELS HE DESERVES AND NEEDS IT ALL FOR HIMSELF, so why should this little upstart of a Mr. Poorman start demanding proper pay for his goods and services! Isn't Mr. Richman the one who is using them and turning them into pleasant products for the other rich to enjoy as well?

       83. SO WHY SHOULD MR. POORMAN SUDDENLY START DEMANDING THINGS HE'S NEVER EVEN HAD BEFORE and wealth he's not accustomed to or a share of the benefits with which he has not formerly been blessed? After all, he's always been poor so why shouldn't he stay poor and go away and leave his oil alone so Mr. Richman can have it all and stay rich in the riches to which he has been so well accustomed?

       84. WHAT RIGHT HAS MR. POORMAN TO START DEMANDING ENOUGH FOR HIS OIL to be even repaid a little of what the rich have robbed him in the past as well as its present values? But Mr. Richman says that this means we'll have to raise all our prices in order to stay rich, and the other poor people and labourers may not like this and may demand higher wages which we may have to pay them to keep them alive so they can remain our slaves.

       85. THIS WILL ONLY SPEED UP THIS TERRIBLE INFLATIONARY MERRY-GO-ROUND OF HIGHER PRICES AND WAGES until everybody gets thrown off balance and goes flying through the air in one great crash!

       86. BUT REALLY, MR. POORMAN COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT THE PLIGHT MR. RICHMAN HAS BROUGHT UPON HIMSELF by robbing Mr. Poorman for so long, so that Mr. Richman made the whole world think he could rob Mr. Poorman forever while the rich all enjoyed luxuriating in Mr. Poorman's oil which they were buying for almost nothing while making vast fat rich profits from it for their own pleasure and throwing away the rest which the poor of the world would have been happy to have if they could!

       87. SO THE POOR NEIGHBOURS OF MR. POORMAN ARE GETTING TOGETHER, PLUS SOME POWERFUL FRIENDS OF THE POOR AND ENEMIES OF THE RICH, AND SAYING, "WE THINK YOU'RE RIGHT, MR. POORMAN, and you have a right to charge whatever you think your oil is worth and share its benefits and even get back some of your losses for being cheated so long by the rich! So we'll stand with you, and we just dare the rich to pounce on the poor! We'll help you fight back, and if the rich try any funny stuff, they're going to be the losers this time and not us poor!

       88. "IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE AND THIS TIME THE CHANGE IS GOING TO BE IN OUR FAVOUR and there's going to be a fair share of the world's wealth instead of nearly all of it going into the pockets of the rich and the semi-rich!

       89. "IF NOT, WE'LL HAVE TO DESTROY THE RICH and take over the whole neighbourhood of the world ourselves for the benefit of the poor to save the earth from destruction by the rich!"

       90. LISTEN, MY CHILDREN, AND YOU SHALL HEAR OF THE WORLD'S LAST RIDE OF THE RICH TO THE REAR! But there will be no escape for them as there'll be no place to go and nowhere to hide, as they can't stop the world and get off as they'll wish they could!

       91. GOD IS ABOUT TO JUDGE THE RICH BY THE POOR, as He so often has throughout history, and the rich are about to reap the cruelties and poverties they themselves have sown amongst the poor, while the meek and the poor shall inherit the earth!

       92. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I MEAN, JUST TAKE A LOOK AT A WORLD MAP OR GLOBE AND LISTEN TO THE CRIES OF THE POOR THROUGHOUT THE EARTH to be soon answered by the thunderous judgments of God Himself upon the rich nations of the world!

       93. WHILE THE RICH U.S., WEST AND ISRAELIS ARE DECLARING A WORLD-WAR ON THE POOR ARABS TO STIR UP THE WHOLE WORLD AGAINST THEM, THE POOR ARE THIS TIME REFUSING TO BACK DOWN! "Let 'em come!" said one Arab.--"We'll boil 'em in oil!" In the recent Arab summit conference in Rabat, Morocco, the Arabs united unanimously in a solid Arab wall against their enemies and gave official recognition of the rights of the poor Palestinians to their homeland which all the rest of the world has already recognised except the U.S. and Israel who refuse to even talk to them!

       94. ONE LEADING ARAB DIPLOMAT COMMENTED FIRMLY, "WAR IS INEVITABLE AND IMMINENT!" MEANWHILE, THE U.S. IS SCREAMING ITS HEAD OFF THAT THE ARABS ARE ALL TO BLAME FOR ALL THE WORLD'S WOES and protesting the establishment of Russian naval bases and a doubled Russian navy in the Indian Ocean which could control or cut off the vast flow of oil from the Persian Gulf in hundreds of tankers supplying it daily to the Western world!

       95. EVEN THE U.S.' FORMER OIL FRIENDS, IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA, HAVE TAKEN A TOUGHER ATTITUDE ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE MOSLEM WORLD against the rich Jews and Christians who threaten them. The blood and faith of Islam forms an even thicker bond than oil!

       96. IF YOU'LL JUST VIEW THE MAP OF SOUTHERN ASIA AND NORTHERN AFRICA YOU'LL SEE HOW VAST AND HOW LONG AND STRONG IS THIS COMBINED ARAB-ISLAMIC WALL between Eastern oil and Western greed!--And most of the rest of the poor world will sympathise and back these kings of the East as they lead the poor to power while Western paper empires burn out in overheated friction without Arab oil!

       97. WHEN IT'S ALL OVER AND THE THICK BLACK SMOKE OF THE BURNING OIL PROBLEM HAS BEEN BLOWN AWAY BY ATOMIC BLASTS, MR. POORMAN WILL STILL BE WITH US TO HELP PICK UP THE PIECES AND BUILD A NEW WORLD wherein dwelleth peace, happiness and plenty for all, as it was in the Beginning!

       98. SO THAT, MY CHILDREN, IS THE HAPPY ENDING OF THE STORY OF "RICHMAN, POORMAN"!--Now do you know who's the Beggarman or Thief?--Who'd you rather be?--Mr. Richman or Mr. Poorman?--I thought so!--I would too! For Jesus said, "The meek (Poorman) shall inherit the Earth" and live happily ever after!--Will you?--Amen!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family