From today’s NYT in an article about the amazing disparity in income between chief executives and those in proximity to them:

But the widening disparities in business, which show up in a variety of other ways, reflect a dynamic that is taking hold across the economy:”the growing concentration of wealth and income among a select group at the pinnacle of success, leaving many others with similar talents and experience well behind.

Let’s talk about wealth. The article points out:

From 1985 to 2005, the incomes of taxpayers in the top 10th of earnings rose about 54 percent after inflation, to an average of $207,200, according to Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley.

But among the top 1 percent of taxpayers it increased 128 percent, to $812,500. And among the top 0.01 percent it nearly quadrupled, to $14 million on average.

It is hard to sit back and think that this falls within the realm of that word “justice.” In another age and at another time people would look at statistics like these and pronounce that great injustice was being done – that the rich were getting ridiculously rich on the backs of the poor. Christians would probably be at the front of the line protesting this injustice. Perhaps it is time that we begin that protest again because this is not justice and if Jesus was about anything, he was about justice.