Let's talk about money...

I keep having the phrase "money is the root of all evil" pop into my head with everything going on, and it's got me pondering something. Money, as an idea, is meant to open up accessability for goods and services for everyone. With the bartering system, you may only have the skillset or resources to provide one of two different goods or services that may not be needed or wanted by those that have things you may need or want, so having a currency does genuinely seem to be a solution to that scenario. However, that solution is only as good as the checks and balances levied against it, as those with more wealth, therefore higher spending power, in turn get more power, and that's what we're witnessing right now.

For the average American, money is a constant fixture. You need money to have shelter, food, water, clothing, in one way or another. You may not have any wealth attached to your name and get a free meal a day from the local shelter, but that food was paid for by somebody else, there is always an exchange of currency for goods. This has allowed the accumulation of wealth to become the American dream, through a majority of the working class facing struggles directly attributed to the currency system and balance that opens up mass manipulation through media. How many popular songs, shows, movies, books, and other forms of entertainment have centered around money, be it being able to buy a boat and a truck to pull it or detailing how a horribly socially adjusted boy wound up dethroning Myspace as the defacto social media platform? Money is worshiped in this country, and it's incredibly problematic.

The first problem, in my mind, is how it actually affects us. While money allows us to go buy food and shelter, it also keeps us from learning how to provide those things for ourselves. Unless, a good portion of the time, there's some sort of financial incentive in doing so. Your average Joe likely couldn't build a (by modern standards) comfortable shelter by himself if he found himself in a situation, such as the US and global economies absolutely collapsing, where he had to. You could argue that Joe doesn't have the knowledge to even make a survivable shelter, or know how to secure food in the wilderness, or really any actual survival skills. Currency encourages the populace to become dependent upon the currency system to survive, with little to no encouragement from the system to reduce that dependency.

It also gatekeeps access to certain knowledge, if we're looking at the US Education system. What has kept humanity moving forward has been persuing and obtaining knowledge, our ability to not just discover and learn about things, but to also document, share, and carry forward that knowledge, is one of our most powerful tools as a species. If humanity carrying forward is the goal it would make sense for knowledge to be easily accessible. However, currency inheriently places value on all the various topics and subjects we have knowledge of, that in turn gets a price point based upon the expected return someone is to get utilizing that knowledge. For example, it's a whole hell of a lot cheaper to go become a certified auto mechanic then it is to become a lawyer, which makes absolutely perfect sense from an economic standpoint. In terms of the betterment of mankind as a whole though, it's detrimental.

And then there's the emotional impacts it can have on ones self. If you're dirt poor, you feel like shit about yourself, you feel like a failure, which is only exceserbated by the dependency created by the currency system. So not only do you feel bad about yourself, but you find yourself at risk of losing your job, your ability to keep food on the table, your home, your transportation, likely with little to no true survival skills. Toss in the fact that for a good majority of American workers, their time working isn't going to build their own wealth, it is instead going to the wealthy owners of the various almost-monopolies we have in almost every industry while their workers struggle to just simply exsist. Your made out to be a societial leech while any and all roads to improving your circumstances, improving your share of the currency pie, are riddled with blockages that boil back down to currency. Want to earn a degree that'll give you a good paying career, gotta saddle yourself with debt that 20 years down the line you'll still owe 90% of, and you gotta make sure you pick a school that's highly regarded in your industry, which in turn means more debt. Not to mention having to balance that with working full time, as that meger income can't afford to be lost. "You just need to work hard," is something that is conveyed by those who look down upon anyone with Section 8, SNAP, Medicare, or any other federal assistance, and it's said with complete ignorance of the insane amount of obstabcles people face when trying to get themselves off of assistance. From racial baises limiting job opportunities, gender inequality making women recieve less then their male counterparts, a majority of employers (when allowed to do so) offering pay that does not meet the cost of living, our system of justice not being about reform but netting private prisons profits for slave labor, people who boil it down to somebody not working hard enough are speaking from a vantage point of pure ignorance and privilage.

And that's just barely touching on the socitial dynamics, how currency ultimately breeds jealousy (what is percieved as competition, because it's not actually about pushing the bar forward in any significant manner but just making more and more money) and has played a major role in so many countless lives lost (from people getting fired and killing themselves to full on war over natural resources because of what it equates to in currency,) or the other avenues that showecase how currency is ultimately detrimental to us as a species.

That leads me to the acting President himself, Elon Musk. He's currently sitting at around $400 billion USD as far as net worth, having dropped roughly $90 billion over the past month with Tesla's stocks in a freefall. Let's put that number into perspective. If you earned $81,000 a year, at 40 hours a week, it would take you 123,457 weeks, or 10,288.07 years, or 133 lifetimes (with the 77.5 year life expectency for both male and female Americans) to have the same amount of money. If there is anybody on the face of the Earth that has more money then they could ever possibly spend, money that is just sitting around when it could be going to help people in desperate need (like the 30,000 homeless Veterans in this country,) it would be this guy, but he also has friends that have a stupid amount of wealth. Mark Zuckerberg is worth $250 billion (83.07 lifetimes,) Jeff Bezos is worth $242 billion (80 liftimes,) Larry Ellison is worth $213 billion, Bernard Arnault is worth $184 billion (70 lifetimes,) etc. The worlds wealth is valued to be around $915 trillion dollars, with roughly 1% of the human population controlling around 46% of the wealth.

Is having 133 lifetimes worth of wealth enough? Clearly not, as his gaining read-write privliages at the Treasury Department was, just like everything else the man has ultimately done, done to make himself more money. Except this time it's going to be stolen from the American taxpayer, as he is an unelected immigrant that is clearly running the show if Trump letting him behind the desk in the Oval Office is any indication. I have family that supported this man, I know people that idolize Musk because "he wants to take humanity to Mars" and his terrible self-driving cars, and I honest to God hope that they realize how badly they have been manipulated and led astray.

Money is not to be worshipped, but that appears to be all American society is about.

1 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.

Until next time.