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Jarek Steliga

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You cannot eat money, or make clothes, or build a house out of it.

In this day and age when it is politically correct to be out of work and complain on being hard up I propose to reflect whether this widely proclaimed poverty is real or faked. If it is MONEY that you are after, then I have no remedy. You will be poor (in the sense that you have not enough) forever. If however you are able bodied and need food, shelter and security for yourself and your loved ones, and live in a town or a city and no-one wants to employ you and pay you for your work enough to cover your basic needs, then move to the country, grab the fork and shovel and produce your own kitchen veggies, keep a pork or two and some chickens. Chances are someone will help you build a decent house in exchange for the food which you have in excess. I agree individual small scale farming and husbandry is not efficient, but who wants the efficient when clearly efficiency does not prevent hunger and what is more is directly the cause of so much unemployment. Believe me, you will be happy as a lark provided it is not money that is your object in life!

Topics: Unemployment economy financial crisis poverty
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  • Greg Swanson

    • +4
    Jan 28 2013: To add a little to your argument Jarek, I ask that people take a look at the bottom graph on page 45 of this (http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/papers/pdfs/World_Income_Distribution_QJE.pdf). You will see the world distribution of income (WDI) per captia and also the same distribution for many countries in year 2000. Put shortly, the results indicate a fairly normal distribution of income and importantly, the income scale drops off to almost 0% at $100,000 USD. Based on these numbers, I have two points. First, it seems there are people still pissed at the 1% in this world. I've been there, but looking at some of these graphs, something hit me. MANY OF US ARE THE 1%. Yes there are some Billionaires out there that may not worry about money, but it seems that if we include countries outside the U.S., we need to make less than $100K a year to be in the top 1%. Correct me if I'm wrong of course. This leads me to our second point, something I want to call Greg's law of jealousy. It doesn't matter where we are at on the income scale, we often view those richer than us as rich and those poorer than us as poor (or maybe it's just me). That said, I think it's a slap in the face for many U.S. people to be pissed about their financial situation. We still have it better than many, and we will never all be the richest. I wrote in another post and I'll write it again; we simply need to work on caring less about things and more about people and we'll be happier. Simple as that. I'll start working on myself.

    Sorry for the rant, it's late.
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      Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+

      • +3
      Feb 7 2013: I don't think it's rant.
      If money, however failed as an economic instrument in the US, is ticket to consumption of world's resources, it is dangerously held with a scant little population on earth. I have grown out of the illusion of free enterprise and level playing field that Capitalism preaches because I have reasons to believe after someone accumulates some good money, it's growth is not anymore proportional to labor and industry but scheming and strategy.
      Someone told me that if all the money, printed, in bonds and debts, are summed up together the cumulative promise of its exchange value in terms of resources will be few times of that of world can ever produce. If this is true - there is false promise somewhere.
      I know it will not be very appealing to one who is starting his/her life but the race after money is an old trick that he/she has to give up. Real investment, instead, may be adding value to lives of people in every little way - by creating a common pool of resources and services with zero money value but immensely priceless.

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