Albert Einstein's Poverty Equation: Why the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer

 "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.  He who understands it, earns it... and he who doesn't, pays it." ~ Albert Einstein

Have you ever wondered why the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?

Marxist and free market capitalist theories aside, it's really a pretty simple matter of understanding the above quote by Albert Einstein.  If you can grasp this idea, you can feel free to ignore just about everything a politician says about the issue in the up and coming presidential election in America.

The reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a simple matter of arithmetic:  Rich people get richer, because they have math working on their side.  Poor people get poorer, because they have math working against them.

Simple enough, right?

Consider Bill Gates.

He has an estimated net worth right now of about $89 billion dollars.  Imagine if all this money was sitting in a savings account, earning 1% of annual interest.  That means without doing anything except letting his money sit in a savings account and earning interest, Bill Gates would earn $890 million dollars in one year alone.  That means he would make more than a million dollars every day before it is even lunch time.  His situation goes from great to greater, and all because of simple math.

Now consider the average poor person.

They live paycheck to paycheck, and are never able to save much of any money.  While driving to work one day, their car breaks down.  Not having enough money in the bank to pay for the repairs, but needing to make them because their car is the only way they can get to work, they sign up for a credit card at the auto repair shop in order to finance $2,000 to get their car fixed.  And at the end of the month, they receive a bill in the mail from their credit card company saying that they need to make a minimum payment of $60 a month for the next few years.  Living paycheck to paycheck as it is, they aren't really sure how they are going to squeeze another $60 out of their budget this month, let alone next month, and every month thereafter for the next few years. They try hard, but eventually "life happens" and they miss a couple payments in a row.  And suddenly they discover their balance of $2,000 has grown to $2,200, and they now owe $75 a month.  Their situation goes from bad to worse, and all because of simple math.

Albert Einstein was onto something.  Compound interest is an amazing thing.  It has the ability to make the rich even richer, and likewise, it has the ability to make the poor even poorer.  Compound interest impacts everybody in this world.

Compound interest impacts the rich, it impacts the poor, and it impacts you.  

Rant and rave all you want about economic and social injustices, real or imagined, at the end of the day rich people get richer, not because they are busy screwing over poor people, bribing politicians, and exploiting the working class.

The rich get richer simply because they have learned how to put the money they have to work, and to take advantage of the simple law of compound interest.  The poor individual, unfortunately, experiences the devastating impact that compound interest has on his life.  What turns out to be a positive experience for the rich ends up turning out to be a negative experience for the poor.  What creates wealth for one person ends up creating poverty for another.

As Einstein said, he who understands how compound interest works will earn from his understanding.  But he who does not understand how compound interest works, will pay for his understanding.

God's blessings, numbers, and money

How do you know if God has blessed you, and the direction you have taken in your life?

For many people, this involves telling a success story.  You had a dream, you set some goals, you worked hard, and you accomplished what you set out to do.  Inevitably, you point to trophies on the wall, awards received, the endowment of titles, increased positions of influence, a new car, a nice house, and perhaps even a modest to large stash of cash sitting in your bank account.

At the end of the day, many of us attempt to assure ourselves and convince others we are blessed because we can quantify our blessings in some numerical way.  So much so, that our blessings can often be summed up and easily displayed by a pie chart on a short PowerPoint presentation.

Churches often do this.

"We had 13,000 show up last week!  We brought in over $400,000!  We are thinking about expanding our facilities just so we can make room for the numbers we are seeing!  We are blessed!"

When phrased like this, I could be talking about the mega-church I go to.

But, when phrased like this, I could just as easily be talking about a local movie theater, a concert venue, a theme park, or some other business operation.  Perhaps I am talking about a local political rally.  Or, maybe I know of a con-artist that is ripping senior citizens off left and right through some sort of illegal operation.

Either way, you can't distinguish God's blessings simply by looking at numbers.

Individuals or churches that point to their numbers or cash flow to prove God's blessing on them often forget that bars and strip clubs can do the same.  Dare we look at the numbers that flow to pornography websites every hour?  Or, how about the speed and numbers at which Islam is spreading across the world?

Jesus once said that "God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust alike." (Matthew 5:45)

Or if you wanted to make it a little more contemporary and in modern vernacular, Jesus is saying "God sends boatloads of cash to the people I love, but he also sends boatloads of cash to the people I hate.  Deal with it!"  (King Jimmy Version- 1982 edition)

Knowing these things, perhaps we should be more reserved in pointing out the quantifiable and numerical data that we often invoke to show God's blessings in our lives.  We need to stop thinking that way.  For truth be told, both good and bad men find measures of success in this world.  I know both good and evil men in this world, some who are swimming in rivers of money, others somewhere in-between, and others who are destitute.

God has not distinguished men and His approval of them by the degree to which their actions are successful or unsuccessful in this world.  Only the "prosperity Gospel" does that.  Indeed, the measures of success and blessing you enjoy might actually be the very thing that becomes a curse to you and results in your very undoing.

According to ancient Greek mythology, there was once a king named Midas, who requested that one of the gods bless him with the gift to turn everything he touched into gold.  His request was granted.  Initially he touched a twig, and it turned to gold.  What an awesome gift!  But when it came time to eat dinner at home, he found he couldn't eat anything.  For every time he picked up something to eat, what he touched turned into gold.  As a result, Midas starved to death.

Recent history has seen this play out numerous times in the church.  Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker were arguably the two greatest "televangelists" in history.  Their preaching was so influential and popular, that their sermons were broadcast all around the world.  Millions upon millions of dollars came pouring in.  By every measure of success, God's blessing seemed to be on them.  But the "blessings" they enjoyed eventually became a stumbling block for them, and when temptation set in, both had their ministries ruined overnight by scandal.

In light of these things, perhaps there is something else we need to be looking for when it comes to God's blessing on our lives, and in the lives of others.  Perhaps God has blessed us in such a way that we can't easily quantify that blessing by looking at a pie-chart on a PowerPoint presentation.

Perhaps God's blessings cannot always be quantified because they are so much immeasurably more than we could even think or ask.  

Maybe that is why Jesus told the poor that they should count themselves blessed, even though as poor individuals, they didn't have much to count to begin with.  He didn't tell them they were blessed because they tithed and could now expect a large windfall of cash to come their way.  He told them they are blessed because theirs was the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is not something you can quantify.  It's not something you can toss up on a PowerPoint presentation.  Rather, the kingdom of heaven is something you can only see by interacting with the people God has blessed, by His giving to them a small portion of that kingdom through the Holy Spirit.

In such individual people you see light and you taste salt.  Gathered in the greater assembly of such a people, whether it be 2, 3, or 10,000, you experience something supernatural and other worldly.  And such people, no matter if they are rich or poor, many or few, carry with them something glorious and powerful.  While they may celebrate any quantifiable measures of success they experience as a community, they are a people who ultimately know that they are all a part of something greater than what can be measured or numbered.

Avoid comparing the "blessings" others seem to enjoy that you do not.  Doing such will only serve to rob you of what God has already given you in Christ.  Don't look at the size of your church, or whether or not your business is thriving.  In doing so, the blessings you already enjoy may turn to rot, and the apple tree that you eat from may no longer be so edible.

Ultimately, no metric system can quantify or measure the work that God has done, and the many blessings He has blessed you with.  If you believe that Jesus loves you, died for your sins on the cross, was raised from the grave, and gave you new life in the process, then count yourself among the blessed.

Don't count yourself blessed because of the success of whatever work you attempt to accomplish.  Count yourself blessed because of the work that God has already done on the cross for you in the person of Jesus Christ.  

Telling homeless people they are blessed!

A few years ago, I used to teach a weekly evening Bible study at the "Fifth Street Ministries" shelter in Statesville, NC. One of the first series of teachings I did was on Jesus famous, "Sermon on the Mount."

Looking into the eyes of the homeless people that came to my study, I was immediately challenged with the first of the Lord's sayings:

"Blessed are the poor..."

Talk about a tough saying to sell my target audience. Saying it almost makes me sound like an inhuman monster. You simply do not tell poor homeless people to their face that they are blessed! Such is akin to telling a 5-year old child that they should be happy their puppy died!!!

It seems counter intuitive in our society to associate poverty and being "blessed." In the Greek, to be blessed is literally "to be fortunate, or to have favor." The words "fortune" and "favored" are not words we ever use about homeless poor people. If they were fortunate, they would have a home of their own and not be poor. If they were favored, they would at least have family that liked them enough to take them in... Right?

Most homeless people I've ministered to do not feel like they are blessed, they feel cursed. They definitely don't feel fortunate, they feel like they are in a place of great need. They definitely don't feel favored, they feel forgotten.

But Jesus tells us the poor are blessed.

Yet, most of us spend most of our days doing as much as we can to avoid poverty. We study hard, we work hard, we climb the corporate ladder, we start our own business, and we strive to constantly obtain more and more and more. Some of us even try to work so hard that we can one day retire, and dream of being able to spend the last 20-30 years of our lives living comfortably off the interest from our investment portfolio.

Jesus says we've got it all wrong.

There is nothing wrong with making the most of our opportunities, studying hard, working hard, getting promoted at work, starting our own business, saving, and even investing enough so that we can one day retire. However, there is a mindset and spirit that we need to avoid in the process. And that is the mindset that puts us in the place where we feel like we have pulled ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps, that we've earned what we have, that we are a self-made man, and that we lack for nothing. We need to avoid feeling full and satisfied.

Contrary to the practice of some charismatics who rebuke spirits of poverty, Jesus says we actually need to embrace it, and that we will be blessed in doing so.

No matter how well off we are, we need to see ourselves as a people who are in need of God's fortune and favor. We must realize that everything we have is from His hand, and that whatever we have, no matter how hard we studied and worked for it, is a good gift that comes from Him as a kind act of grace.

Even if you are rich and successful, you should not look at yourself as entitled to anything in this world. You are no more entitled to the wealth of your labor than a poor person is!

Unfortunately, the more affluent we become, the more entitled we often feel to stuff. We worked hard for it... right? So why should I give it to help poor people out? They didn't work for it after all.

And why should anybody criticize me for owning so much stuff? I earned tremendous royalties from the books I sold (as one pastor recently said). It's my money to spend as I want... right?

Unfortunately, the more we earn and the more we look around at what we've earned, so often the less we see the hand of God in freely providing all of these things for us. And the less we see of His hand freely providing the things we feel we've earned, the less we are willing to part with what we've earned and give to others in need.

Such is probably a reason why those in higher income brackets often give a smaller percentage of their annual income to charity than those in lower income brackets. Self-made people have a tendency to forget that God has been their source all along. They've become deceived by the illusion of their wealth. Their wealth tells them they've earned what they've got, now they need to hoard it in order to stay wealthy.

(Talk about a spirit that needs to be rebuked by charismatics, especially considering money doesn't really talk!)

And to come full circle, people who have been deceived by the illusion that their wealth has often generated, now actively fail to see God as their source of all they have, and they no longer see themselves as people who are still in need. They are rich, they are full, and they are satisfied, they have met their own needs, and now God is forgotten.

What a terrible attitude to have.

It is an attitude that can take us far from God and damn ourselves in the process.

No wonder Jesus could tell the poor they are blessed. They are in the position to look up and look beyond themselves, and possibly see the One who can freely provide them an entire kingdom.