just another rhetorical question about God

THE SPORT OF TYCOONS is the title of the 1974 painting of Scrooge Mc­Duck by leg­endary artist Carl Barks. Barks was a Disney Studio artist who made his way into comics in the early 1940s. Like other artists who worked for Disney at the time, his work was un­signed and so he was known only as “The Good Duck Artist” to fans. Barks cre­ated many mem­o­rable char­ac­ters for Disney, in­cluding Scrooge, Glad­stone Gander, and Gyro Gear­loose.

“The Sport of Ty­coons” is based upon the tale “Only a Poor Old Man,” pub­lished in Four Color Comics #386, the comic book that in­tro­duced Scrooge Mc­Duck in 1952. Barks orig­i­nally sold this and other Disney-authorized oil paint­ings for $500 each.

A few ar­ti­cles about the state of cap­i­talism and its over­whelming fond­ness for cre­ating and sus­taining bil­lion­aires caught my eye. There are now more than 2,000 bil­lion­aires in the world, of which more than 600 re­side in the US. Many of these people pay ab­solutely no in­come taxes on that wealth, which some might argue as be­yond ob­scene.

Of course, some others might argue that they have spent their money well in the bribes—er, I apol­o­gize: I mean, “in the support”—they have given politi­cians and are merely reaping the re­wards of their in­vest­ment. But that’s an­other story.

So, all this caused me to ask a rhetor­ical ques­tion: “If God did not want rich people to be rich, why did He create loop­holes in the tax laws that favor the rich?” Which is also sup­posed to be a bit of cruel irony.

PS: “The Sport of Ty­coons” sold for $262,900 in 2011.