Perhaps like you, I have been following the economic developments in Greece with limited understanding and passion. I read an article this week, however, about how much money a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs is making off the economic crisis in Greece.

Apparently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs earned $24 million in bonuses in 2014 alone. His great accomplishment for such a reward? Manipulate Greece’s debt to prolong the full discovery of the crisis. Clearly, greed is what this crisis really is all about:

• Greedy wealthy Greeks evade paying taxes, leaving the burden to the poor and working class.
• Greedy industrialized nations like Germany seem incapable of considering the poor of Greece who, right now, cannot buy food and medicine.
• Greedy lenders who can afford to pay $24 million bonuses will not ease the pressure, insisting that they be paid in full. Remember these are the same firms that brought the world economy to its knees, but then got bailed out themselves because, unlike Greece, they were deemed “too big to fail.”

I will confess that I still don’t fully understand all this crisis means, let alone how to fix it or avoid the next one. What I am becoming increasingly clear about, though, is that there is a super wealthy system in the world in which one percent of the people do not seem satisfied to have so much more than everyone else. They want it all, and there is hardly an evil in the world that cannot ultimately be traced to that greed.

The Bible says, “The LOVE of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Well, that is a passage that, more and more, I believe is literally true.

Blessings,

Rev. Michael Piazza