A recent newspaper headline said the poorest Americans are getting poorer. Nearly 16 million people are living -not just in poverty- but in sever poverty. The highest it’s been in 32 years. I often wonder why, if we are living in the greatest most powerful country in the world, are there still people in the USA who don’t have at the very least, a middle class life style? There is not just a gap between those who “have” and those who “have not“, there is an ocean. Don’t get this wrong, there is nothing wrong with money, but those Americans who have EXTREAM wealth of this magnitude I don’t and hope l never understand.

I am particularly concerned about our obsession with Celebrity Status. Especially it’s affects on the next generation. It’s a serious problem that I hope we can do something about. We are teaching our children (who no longer want to grow up and be a policemen, doctor, teacher, or even The President of the United States) to only desire wealth, power and fame. Not everyone can have that. That montra "you can be anything you want, if you just try hard enough" is not always true.

It’s not good for a generation to grown up and think it’s ok to have a thousand pairs of shoes in your closet while other people are shoeless. Or, to have a $600,000 dollar sixteenth birthday party when that much money could feed a starving nation.

Even on a deeper level, I see it as a possible tragic end to life as we know it. I know that may sound CRAZY but down the road of time it could be the civil war we don’t talk about. The war between the rich and the poor. Could you blame the laborer who has worked hard every day of their life and still can’t afford to buy their child a birthday cake or buy shoes for their kids to start school in?

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