By: Rev. Dr. Robert M. Spooney
The president-elect announced on December 16, 2024 that a Japanese company by the name of SoftBank was going to invest over $100 billion dollars and create over 100,000 jobs on US based projects over the next 4 years. Doing the announcement the president-elect asked the CEO of SoftBank if he could up that to $200 billion. SoftBank is big in AI and has investments in dozens of Silicon Valley startups, along with big companies like semiconductor design company Arm and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. I’m not a brain surgeon but I got enough sense to know that a lot of advanced tech, including AI, is capital intensive and also highly dependent on high-paid skilled workers. I wonder where the skilled labor will come from. The stock market rally and craze for AI has boosted the value of SoftBank’s assets, but it’s unclear whether its investments will create that many jobs. Upon reading the announcement what immediately went through my mind was a phrase from the old TV show “In Living Color”. The show had a sketch that was a parody of the Home Shopping Network in which Damon and Keenan Ivory Wayans portrayed two street wise pitchmen named Wiz and Iceman whose catchphrase was “Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money”. The president elect hasn’t been sworn in and he’s already cutting deals to bring “mo money” to him and his family.
Most people don’t know it but doing the period that he served as president of the United States of America according to the tax return submitted by the president-elect, he made more than $160 million dollars from international business dealings. This was despite the fact that he and his family spent years swearing that they put a hold on all foreign deals and that the presidency was without conflicts of interest. Obviously that was not true then and most certainly will not be true for the next four years.
The Bible says in 1st Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows”. In the Gospel of Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money”. I submit that it is highly possible that plenty of Trump’s actions in the White House during the next four years will be influenced, if not guided by his financial interest. If he did it once, he will do it again. In the words of Yogi Berra, the former manager of the New York Yankees, all I can say is “This is like deja vu all over again”
I’ll keep you posted!!
