Common Good: Rising of a New Dawn How Living a More Conscious Life Can Heal a Nation One Heart, One Mind, One Thought at a Time - Softcover

Farrow, Juanita S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1630476188 ISBN 13: 9781630476182

Verlag: Morgan James Publishing, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The Common Good: Rising of a New Dawn will forever change how you see your “neighbor.” It will take you on a captivating spiritual journey through America, where ordinary people are making an extraordinary difference in the lives of many. With passion, wit, and wisdom, Juanita Farrow discusses business, politics, and religion, and paints a compelling picture of how the common good is not only God’s desire for America but why it’s “good” for America. The Common Good: Rising of a New Dawn explains how living a more conscious life can heal a nation―one heart, one mind, one thought at a time.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Juanita Farrow, an authority on entrepreneurship, business, and consulting for more than twenty years, is also a former adjunct professor, hospital administrator and the founder and president of a consulting company specializing in government contracts and grants. In recent years, she was appointed to serve on Virginia’s Veterans Services Foundation board, and is now an inspirational speaker and business and global healthcare consultant.

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The Common Good

Rising Of A New Dawn How Living a More Conscious Life Can Heal a Nation One Heart, One Mind, One Thought at a Time

By Juanita S. Farrow

Morgan James Publishing

Copyright © 2016 Juanita S. Farrow
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-63047-618-2

Contents

Preface, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1 It's Not Just the Economy, 
Chapter 2 Nothing for My Journey, 
Chapter 3 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Triumph, 
Chapter 4 The Millennials: A Chosen Generation, 
Chapter 5 Social Entrepreneurship: The Solution, 
Chapter 6 It's All about the Relationship, 
Epilogue, 
Bibliography, 
Endnotes, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

It's Not Just the Economy

* * *

"Rediscovering Lost Values" (1954, Sermon)

Man's scientific genius has been amazing. I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man's problems and the real cause of the world's ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men. The trouble isn't so much that we don't know enough, but it's as if we aren't good enough. The trouble isn't so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live, have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man's soul. We haven't learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we've made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we've failed to make of it a brotherhood.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Economic or Moral Crisis?

It's not just the economy that has America off course. Rather, there is a very disturbing, underlying problem that we face as a nation. In 2009, we experienced the most devastating economic downfall since the Great Depression in the 1930s. We were losing nearly 800,000 jobs per month in this country. The stock market plummeted. People lost their life savings, lost their homes, and gained a sense of despair that most had never seen. We could talk about the economic crisis and how we got there, but I believe there is a more disturbing crisis at hand. We must examine a much deeper problem: the moral crisis. The economic crisis is the symptom of the underlying moral problem.

The moral crisis is like a cancer left untreated. To make sense out of this, we have to examine a few things. We are the wealthiest country in the world, yet 48 million persons in this country were without health insurance in 2012. (The number has started to decline as a result of the Affordable Healthcare Act.) We throw away nearly 40 percent of our food according to a report released by the Natural Resource Defense Council. Considering the resources to grow and produce the food, this would be worth more than $165 billion annually for food that never gets eaten. This is even more difficult to reconcile when you look at the statistics on food insecurity. According to the US Department of Agriculture report, "Household Food Security in the United States in 2013," 85.7 percent of American households were food secure throughout 2013, leaving 14.3 percent of households food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.6 percent with very low food security. Food insecurity means there is not enough food in the household for all members of the family to eat three meals a day, and food consumption is reduced because of a lack of money and other resources needed to access food. Often this means stretching the meals to make them last longer. Children were food insecure at times during the year in 9.9 percent of households with children, or 3.8 million households total. These households were unable, at times during the year, to provide adequate, nutritious meals for their children. Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the Federal Poverty Level, households with children headed by single women or single men, and black and Hispanic households. Food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and other outlying areas around large cities. We are the most obese nation in the industrialized world, and while we have an obesity problem, at the same time, we also have a hunger problem.

We cannot sustain economic growth in this country when there is such a large disparity of income and wealth among our citizens. How can a country be so willing to leave so many behind? To put things in context, we have to look at the Great Depression. The peak of the Great Depression took place between 1932 and 1933. In the 1920s, prior to the Great Depression, the wealthiest 1 percent owned more than a third of American assets. The average income of the American family dropped by 40 percent from 1929 to 1932. Fast-forward to the recent recession experienced in the United States, where economic inequality has continued to grow. Overall, incomes have declined even as job growth has occurred. I believe that addressing economic inequality is the key to economic growth. Although poverty rates have declined as a whole since the War on Poverty in the 1960s (in 1959, over 22 percent of Americans were living in poverty), a discouraging 15 percent of all Americans still live in poverty, according to the 2012 census data. That report shows 46.5 million people living at or below the poverty line. In 2012, 13.7 percent of people 18 to 64 were in poverty, compared with 9.1 percent of people 65 and older. But it is the 21.8 percent of children under 18, or 16.1 million, living in poverty that should have this country outraged.

Although there has been some decline, resulting from the War on Poverty declared by US President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, the growing income inequality is concerning. Income inequality is the highest since the Depression, with the "richest 1% in the United States now owning more wealth than the bottom 90%." In addition, the income inequality between women and men in the workplace is ever-present. In 2012 there was a 77 percent female-tomale earnings ratio. Therefore, women were only paid 77 cents for every one dollar that men earned when there were no differences in the job requirements.

A growing inequality in income is not healthy for our nation and threatens the overall health of our economy. Without a living wage, it is harder and harder for families to make ends meet. When income increases for those with lower wages, the money normally goes back into the economy through the purchasing of goods and services. Only those who have lived with blinders on, totally removed from the rest of the world, would fail to understand the consequences, turmoil, and instability that could result if, as a nation, we continue to ignore such a growing disparity. When people get up every day and go to work, only to find an eviction notice on the door at day's end, or when looking for a job becomes the full-time employment opportunity, there is something very sinister about this picture.

Nevertheless, the scenario is not new. Instability has existed in numerous countries because of income disparities and feeling disenfranchised from society. Egypt is one example that comes to mind. Some would say that the upheavals that led to the 2010-2011 protests by Egyptians were inevitable, due to the high...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Morgan James Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1630476188
• ISBN 13: 9781630476182
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 156
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland