No Cash … No Crash

Those of us still working a job and paying down personal debts are understandably envious of those who have managed to retire early from work or inherited millions and enjoy the “high life” of world travel and other leisure pursuits.

We can’t help ourselves.

It just reminds us of our continued bondage to the paycheck. If we don’t have a plan to pay down debt, then we are frustrated at the likely prospect of living our indentured lifestyle until the end of our days.

Sure, we can imitate that “high life” by going on exotic trips, hanging out at A-list clubs, or buying the most expensive cars but only at the cost of more debt in the form of bank loans or outrageous credit card balances.

Our current global class system of “haves” and “have-nots” is determined by who has the financial means (or not) to enjoy a life of ease and plenty. For those who do, they have options and opportunities available to them that those who don’t can only dream of.

Why does it have to be this way? The answer is self-evident.

We are stuck in the mindset that those who have the most money will always have the most options and that this is the way it has always been.

So the obvious solution is to remove the money and opportunity becomes available to everyone.

Paradigm shifts are always mind blowing aren’t they?

$70,000 per minute … $4 million per hour … $100 million per day.

That’s how quickly the fortune of the Waltons, the clan behind Walmart Inc., has been growing as of August 10, 2019 or about $23,000 since you began reading this post.

The Walton family settled and mostly live in Arkansas.

The minimum wage salary in Arkansas? Approximately $20,000 per year.

People talk about economic inequality and wonder how big an issue it really is.

$70,000 per minute versus $20,000 per year.

That should provide a good idea.

According to one definition, the “unobservable market force that helps the demand and supply of goods in a free market to reach equilibrium automatically is the invisible hand.”

Invisible hand was a term coined by 18th century Scottish economist, philosopher and author Adam Smith that many believe he used to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. Surprisingly, that is not how Smith originally intended it.

Today, the concept of the invisible hand has been simplified beyond Smith’s original uses and is generally understood to mean that if consumers are allowed to choose what to buy and producers are allowed to choose what to sell, the market will settle on pricing that benefits all members of a community.

In the case of everyday consumable products the concept applies quite well, but when it comes to luxury items the the invisible hand cannot influence market pricing because such products are too expensive for the majority of people to afford. Consequently, the market is unable to settle on pricing that benefits all members and only the elite class in a community can afford them. Luxury is beyond the reach of the average individual.

So much for the invisible hand.

Now you see it, now you don’t.

How many times have you found yourself thinking a week after the current month’s paycheck that there are more days left to the month than there is cash in hand?

Sadly, most people can relate to the feeling more times than they care to admit.

How can that be a healthy way to live?

It never will be.

“It’s the Worst Time to Make Money in Markets Since 1972“

That’s what a Bloomberg.com headline proclaimed on December 5, 2018.

So here we are again.

Another threat to our investments and pension plans.

First, global markets were relatively stable, then a major news story shakes market investor confidence, and market indices take a nosedive. Stock exchanges adjust to the new reality and indices stabilize … until the next big news event.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

What a way to make a living.

What a way to break one’s spirit.

What a way to tear the world apart.

Today marks the day that Christians the world over solemnize the execution of a man known as Jesus and celebrate his resurrection from death.

Now, don’t panic: This post isn’t going to preach the Easter message since that isn’t the point of this blog.

What I do find interesting to point out is how a centuries-old pagan tradition was adopted by another culture and made to spread the world over. Imagine taking a more than 2000 year-old pagan practice and repackaging it to influence the thinking of a large portion of humanity. It seems all the more impressive when you realize this was during a time with no Internet and no social media to influence our thinking!

So, if we can take an ancient practice of celebrating Ēostre and influencing whole societies to ritualize differently, imagine what we can do with a centuries-old practice of monetary exchange and influencing humanity to adopt a new one?

See what I did there?

Has this ever happened to you?

You are comparison shopping for a new product and, after spending a bit of time researching what’s available, are finally left to decide between two different items. If you are like me, you end up choosing the less expensive product assuming everything else being equal.

A short time later, however, the item you thought was the better deal ends up breaking or is defective in some way.

Why does it need to be that way? Why can’t we just spend our money once and not have to gamble on whether or not a product was actually made to last?

There are so many low-quality consumer products clogging our landfill sites because we have tossed them away in frustration because we were duped into buying them in the first place.

If manufacturers did not have to think about “cutting corners” in order to keep costs down, then it does not take a lot of thought to realize that we would see quality items on our store shelves.

Once again, money has not improved our quality of life. In the area of consumer goods, it has driven quality downward and often results in the sad realization that you get what you pay for.

It would be a whole different thing if you knew that the next time you were looking for a product it was actually made to last.

That is the question posed by Cathleen O’Grady in an Ars Technica article published on February 6, 2018.

It discusses whether “first-world quality of life for all” is a realistic goal and suggests that the only way to achieve it is through an “efficiency shake-up.”

Unsurprisingly, money (often tied to greed in high places) is at the heart of many inefficiencies that prohibit or hinder an individual’s access to a decent standard of living. This only bolsters my argument that money is such an impediment to progress in so many areas of our lives that it should be eliminated entirely.

In my opinion, the only impediment to change in our lives is money, the “great un-equalizer”.

Toward the end of the article, and to my great surprise, Ms O’Grady makes the following statement:

“This implies that wealthy countries … would require a shift from the pursuit of GDP growth to what the researchers term ‘alternative economic models such as a steady-state economy.’ ”

A pursuit of alternative economic models? How about no economic model at all?

If we are ready to seriously consider alternative models to help equalize the standard of living for all, then we should push for a zero-money world.

As a follow-up to last week’s post, I wanted to elaborate on the last sentence where I state that “we should be evolving as a species and making conscious decisions about why giving up money would be in the best interest of us all.”

I felt moved to do so after overhearing a song entitled “Revolution of Love” (penned in 2015 by the non-profit organization, Life Vest Inside) which depicts the story of a musician who “utilizes his talents to help a homeless man find hope in a time of despair.”

The song lyrics make the point clearly enough:

So many things I see that I would like to remedy
And save the world from this insanity
And if we all could shift our focus on the positive
We’d know the answer is to live and let live
:
For all the violence to cease we must agree to disagree
To grow beyond power and greed, with selflessness we’ll plant the seed …

I think I already implied what this insanity is all about, but what kindness movements like Life Vest Inside (LVI) miss is that they operate within the paradigm that the concept and use of money will persist. Unfortunately, money will always hinder the best efforts of these movements to “empower, educate and unite the world with kindness.”

Now I don’t wish to knock LVI’s mission because its motives seem pure. However, when they state that “unkindness exists and it varies for every person. Whether it be loneliness, unemployment, lack of education, health issues, distrust, trauma, hardship, no support system, bad experience and so much more,” I can’t help but point out that most of the unkindness listed earlier exists because of money.

The same can be said for anti-poverty and anti-homelessness movements. They exist solely because money exists. In fact, so do many others!

• Anti-sweatshop movements
• Anti-austerity movements
• Anti-capitalist movements
• Anti-materialism movements
• Anti-globalization movements
• Anti-establishment movements
• Anti-war movements

In spite of these organizational movements’ efforts to address and resolve their target issue through awareness campaigns, protest marches, and so on, the fact remains that not one of them has implied that money is the root cause of their issue and should be abandoned.

So, I guess that burden falls to me.

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” they say.

Okay then.

I guess that makes me a new movement: A one-man, anti-money movement.

Humble beginnings!

I recently came across a November 2012 opinion piece published in Business Insider and titled “A Message From Us Rich Plutocrats To All You Little People” by American entrepreneur and author, Nick Hanauer.

At first I thought Hanauer was serious, but it then dawned on me that it must be satire since his past published works would suggest that Hanauer is not a plutocrat apologist.

It turns out that his piece was written in response to an excerpt from Chrystia Freeland’s book “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else” that is a result of her decades-long research into the trend of the 0.1% of the world’s most wealthy individuals. Apparently, it’s not about the “1%” anymore since even the majority of that elite club are seeing their own fortunes eclipsed by those of the super-rich. (Will we next see these “unfortunate” millionaires start their own movement called “We Are The 99.9%“?)

Obviously, you know things are bad when income inequality has reached such an absurd level of imbalance.

While reading that excerpt from Freeland’s book, I came across this startling passage: “For the super-elite, a sense of meritocratic achievement can inspire self-regard, and that self-regard — especially when compounded by their isolation among likeminded peers — can lead to obliviousness and indifference to the suffering of others.”

My first reaction was one of sadness. Once again, here is evidence that money — in the end — does nothing but bring misery and isolation to humankind. How can the pursuit of wealth be worth that?

Based on my reading of Hanauer’s satirical take on the issue where he jokingly states that “Our manhood is at stake“, it struck me that the answer may come down to the male “id”, that part of a man’s “unreconstructed animal nature” where psychodynamic “conflicts are acute in the male for whom dominance and identity are preoccupying concerns.”

In other words, our centuries-old obsession with money may actually be tied to the male drive for dominance and power.

Does this mean that the solution to Humanity’s relentless pursuit of wealth accumulation would be to “lobotomize” that part of masculine nature? It would certainly be the quick way, but we should be evolving as a species and making conscious decisions about why giving up money would be in the best interest of us all.