Our problems include addictions, suicides, a legacy of wounded warriors and a do-nothing government. Misinformed and leaderless we resemble patrons of a smoke-filled theater panicking because media shock jocks shout “Fire!” Only the multi-national corporations seem to have found an exit. Let me try to blow away some of the smoke.

Our post-World War II prosperity was fueled by pent-up demands from the Great Depression and wartime rationing supplemented by the need for materials and machines to rebuild Europe. When these demands were largely satisfied we were left with tired manufacturing plants managed by zombie corporations.

To protect them and to keep the economy moving, we used import quotas or subsidized them directly or with government contracts. The Reagan Revolution lowered taxes while increasing spending, making stimulation a permanent practice instead of a counter-cyclical tactic. Our economy has been on life support since 1973! Please don’t talk to me about too many citizens sucking on the government teat!

Our financial corporations thanked us by conspiring to defraud the public paying themselves billions for their ingenuity. This transfer of wealth from the middle-class accounts for the 36 percent decrease in the net worth of middle-class families. Few, if any, of the perpetrators have gone to jail. Generally they pay a fine while admitting no wrongdoing. Letting them off so easily institutionalizes crime.

Industrialized man’s productivity is so great and so internationalized that any one’s productivity is no longer necessary. Many of the jobs left are demeaning to the producer and the seller being wasteful of resources and often harmful to the consumer. Your work can no longer justify your existence. We must resurrect our brother’s needs as sufficient motivation for production of necessities for all those benched by capitalism. This message of Jesus voiced today by Pope Francis and John XXIII, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rick Warren, et. al., must be heeded lest mankind continue struggling as a threatened species.

John E. Gibson

Owatonna