What's a buck?

In the US, we spend $43 Billion dollars a year on our pets. We also spend billions on cosmetics, clothing, and gas gulping cars built for style and flash more than value or efficiency. Many of us live in homes large enough to hold an entire clan in many other parts of the world. We are 5% of the world's population and we consume 25 to 35% of the world's resources. It's not to say we haven't earned it, but at what cost?

If a man has $5.00 in his pocket and is standing next to someone who hasn't eaten in a couple of days, does that man not have the "right" to buy himself a super-sized hamburger with that $5.00 even as the person who hasn't eaten looks on? Sure he does. He has every "right" to eat that burger as the hungry person watches. No one argues with his "rights." He earned that $5.00 and owes no one.

But there is more to the story than that. The man with the $5.00 by some extension actually owes the hungry person some of that $5.00. Maybe quite a bit of it.

Much of what we consume--cars, food, clothing, TVs, CD/DVD players, the personal computer you are using right now, the tools in your shop, the furniture and appliances in your home, your cell phone, and just about everything imaginable comes from somewhere else in the world. If you bought only those things made 100% in the USA of materials 100% from the USA and made by people 100% from the USA, you would likely be hungry, nearly naked, and living a much simpler life with few possessions. All that "stuff" came with a cost, some of which is not compensated by what you paid.

When someone gets ill from polluted air or water because they live near the factory in Mexico where the engine for your vehicle came from, what portion of the price you paid goes to them? When the refining of the gasoline from Nigeria that you pump into your vehicle sickens a child many miles from the refinery, how is that cost added to what you pay at the pump? What about the Chinese political prisoner or Bangladeshi child who gets a few pennies per day to make your footwear? Are they fairly compensated?

The point is, we don't live in a nation that exists apart from the rest of the world. Our market economy isn't as neat or as fair as we would have it. While we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year for things that aren't critical to our survival--that is, things that by any measure are considered luxuries by the rest of the world, the equation is seriously out of balance. Just because my country has the money, we still do not have the right to suck all of the water or fuel, or resources out of any country just because someone is willing to sell it, regardless of what happens to the people in that country.

We are a civilized people. One of the major foundational components of civilization is mutual aid and cooperation. That means helping each other.

It doesn't take a whole lot to help someone. One dollar can buy a child in the developing world two meals, a day's worth of education, and a school uniform (http://www.cunninghamfoundation.org/Home). One dollar. One dollar to ward off hunger, nakedness, and to give the child knowledge to better his or her condition. A buck. Not enough to buy much more than a can of soda or a candy bar.

No one is asking us to spend this nation into poverty. As long as we keep spending on our pets, fast food, fashionable vehicles, and $10 billion a year on tickets to sporting events, not spending that one dollar or ten dollars or a hundred dollars to feed, clothe, and educate a child makes us look mean-spirited and miserly.

Yes, some (a lot) of it is borrowed money. Yet, we stopped paying our way decades ago. Besides not always paying the real cost for what we consume, we have been paying with borrowed money for decades. If China called in all of our debt that they hold, we'd be scrounging the same dumpster for our next meal. As of April 7, 2009, the total U.S. federal debt was $11,152,772,833,835.89, or about $36,676 per capita. China holds about 25% of the total and the imbalance increases by about $1 Billion each day. A good portion of what we think we own already "belongs" to someone else.

I agree that governments are not always the ideal path to helping a person in need. There are plenty of NGOs, missionaries, and others working to help those in need. Rather than relying on political winds to favor them, we can more directly help as private citizens.

All it takes is a dollar. One buck. One child. For one day. You won’t save the world, but it’s a start.