What is the Answer?

"You only get one life and money is the answer to everything under the sun."

This quote is from a posting on the forum section of CBS News online edition. The comment was attached to the "Workers Find Gold at Goldman Sachs" article.

On Tuesday Goldman Sachs, a big investment house, reported the biggest profit in Wall Street history which translates to year end bonuses that will average $622,000 for each employee. But this is merely chump change to the top executives of the company who will earn as much as $20 to $50 million each.

Gee! And I thought Matsuzaka (the Red Sox newly acquired pitcher from Japan) was doing well in signing a six year contract for $52 million to PLAY baseball.

With millions tossed around like fried rice in a Chinese restaurant it makes the million that our newly elected Gov is about to spend on his inauguration seem like a drop in the bucket.

I wonder at whose expense the chosen few are acquring this money. A small percentage are basking in the light of tremendous wealth, so much so that they could never spend it all, while many are living in the darkness that's called poverty.

How can we justify living in a world of such imbalance?

A fifth of the world's population lives in absolute poverty. About three billion people lack adequate nutrition.

Every three days more people die from malnutrition and disease than from the bombing of Hiroshima. Every year more people die from preventable hunger than died in the Holocaust.

The man that posted the line, "Money is the answer to everything under the sun," has no idea how lucky he is to have access to safe drinking water. One out of four human beings has no access to such. I wonder if he realizes this was provided by Our Creator and not the money he so worships.

While we are throwing around million and billion numbers which I still cannot get a grasp on the enormity of the figure, contemplate on the fact that there are somewhere between one to two billion unemployed adults in the world. That poorer countries have 60 percent of the world's students and just 12 percent of the world's total education budget. That more than half of the world's adult population cannot read or write.

I wonder if that man that left the quote ever thanks God or whoever he believes created him for not being born in one those poor countries.

Thankfully, there are many generous people (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros) that give to the needy. They seem to understand that one day we will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory to bring vindication, to right all the wrongs done by human beings to each other. I wonder if the gentleman with the quote thinks that he will be able to buy his way into the Kingdom with his money.

My prayers go out to people like him.