Artful Dodger:

> If Jesus was in charge, we wouldn't be in this mess!

I suppose Jesus would do certain things differently. He would probably support free, universal health care for the poor since his ministry dealt so much with the suffering of the poor. He would probably support feeding the poor too, and to do so he might have had to use state funds. Jesus would be on the side of the poor all the way. He would care for the working man (his father was a carpenter), and he would pardon criminals who repented of their transgressions. He would probably get rid of all the weapons, including the nuclear arsenal. He would leave all theatres of war operations and simply refuse to go to war. It is difficult to say. It all depends on how one interprets the New Testament.

> I don't want to vilify the rich generally. I know a few millionaires. One, uses his money to help the poor build churches in South America along with roads and wells.

I don't generalize abou the rich. Some of them do great things with their money. Other are just plain greedy. The rich live in a state of contradiction. They want to make a lot of money, and to do that you have to be aggressive. At the same time they want to be good, or at least be seen as good.

The best example is John D. Rockefeller. He founded the Standard Oil Company (today's Exxon). He turned that company into the biggest monopoly in the world. To do that he engaged in industrial espionage, price wars, heavy-handed marketing tactics, courtroom evasions and shennanigans, bribery, supporting dictators abroad, using thugs to beat up workers who went on strike, influencing and corrupting elected representatives, etc. At the same time he was engaged in huge charity projects and gave away over 1 billion dollars to charity (in today's money that would be about 50 billion).

So there is a deep contradiction between the brutality of his business tactics, and the generosity of his charitable donations. He made thousands of people poor and dispossesed, and helped thousands of poor people at the same time.

Some of the businessmen that influence Washington today probably have the same contradictions. They will use their money to influence representatives, they will use brutal business tactics both at home and abroad, and then they will donate a lot of money to charity. Sometimes those donations are given out of altruistic principles, sometimes the donations become tax deductions. In the meantime representatives are easily swayed by money and a system that undermines the democratic process.