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Reading AT's thread of woe set me thinking on this again... luck with that, btw, AT. Does it ever strike any of you as deeply weird that none of us has handled much by the way of real money for a long time? Not talking about those notes you get out of the cashpoint - that's not real either, it's just an IOU from the Bank of England. I doubt there's even a penny's worth of copper in a penny. Our entire lives are governed and/or blighted by the movement of hypothetical sums of cash that probably don't exist beyond a bunch of numbers shuffling around. The stock market is /insane/, with the value of things whanging up and down on the hypertensive mood of a mob. Most people are living in debt as a matter of course. Our economy is kept up by consumer spending, so they make it easy to borrow so that we can spend - surely that's going to go tits up sooner or later? I know a lot of people in so much debt they'll never be able to pay it back. What are we doing it for? Whether or not you believe this is the one shot at life we get is kind of irrelevant to the question: either way, is this really a good way to be spending our time? How did we get convinced en masse that our four score and seven years were best spent scrabbling around trying to make do with not enough fictional money? How on earth did we end up convinced that what we need to make us fufilled involves plastic of any description? I'm as prone to it as anyone, but every now and then it strikes me how utterly absurd it all is and how ultimately meaningless most of our lives are apt to be when we follow that path. We spend so much of our time being afraid of other people, or angry with them when really, most of them are just like us - doing this crazy little money rain dance and somehow thinking we're doing okay when the only thing that comes out of the clouds are tokens - most of which get taken right back off us. What are we all doing? Why are we doing it? Are we mad? Should I go to bed? |
Money, life, peculiarities thereof.
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MetalDog 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years ago -
Derblington 35,161 posts
Seen 23 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoYes! -
Sid-Nice 15,848 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years agoGood thread, has me thinking Metaldogs and Englishmen towards the end. .gif)
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Ban this subversive talk!
Seriously though, I've hated the monetary system for as long as I've realized how superfluous it all is, which is why I've dabbled with Anarchism and such ideas, still haven't found an ideal solution as of yet... don't expect we ever will as long as people don't want to go back to a natural way of living like all the other animals seem to live okay with. -
Homer-Simpson 1,543 posts
Registered 17 years agoDerblington wrote:
Yes!
She asked quite a few questions, so which one are you referring to? -
Derblington 35,161 posts
Seen 23 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoHomer Simpson wrote:
Derblington wrote:
Yes!
She asked quite a few questions, so which one are you referring to?
Any that can be answered with my answer. I've thought about things like this a lot and agree with all that was said in the above post, but I'm tired and couldn't be arsed to specify.
Now that I've written this I should've just done it the first time -
terminalterror 18,932 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 20 years agoBut without fictional money we wouldn't have games, or the internet, or Eurogamer!
It does occasionally strike me as absurd. However, for most of my life my parents just gave me an allowance and I spent it on games etc. Now I get a student loan to spend on alcohol and games etc. but I also now have a debt I'm going to have to repay eventually. -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 21 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago -
MORRIS: The Bank of England is in chaos after the discovery that the pound has been stolen. As the news broke, trading rooms were plunged into chaos, even seasoned campaigners known for grace under pressure being reduced to squawking the day's panicked cry, "What's happening?"
'nuff said
TRADER: What's happening?
MORRIS: The pound was stolen at 1.30 this afternoon by thieves dressed as cleaners. They drove a white Montego - helicopter police gave chase [footage of a speeding Montego crashing into another car] but despite the shunt the men escaped, making good with their legs across open ground. [A freeze frame shows two sets of animated footprints hurrying away from the crash] As City markets crashed and flew off, the government tried to stabilise the economy with an emergency currency based on the Queen's eggs, several thousand of which were removed from her ovaries in 1953 and held in reserve. This meant anyone mad enough to seize on the panic selling of dead pounds could become a dollar millionaire in less than an hour.
CREEPY-VOICED INTERVIEWER: How much money have you personally made today?
TRADER: About ten million.
CREEPY-VOICED INTERVIEWER: Wow.
MORRIS: Throughout the day, bank officials have refused to confirm the rumours that the pound was only vulnerable at all because they removed it to play with at lunchtime and forgot to put it back. Later tonight we'll be asking Malcolm Rifkind for his view, and asking him why he likes pulling the legs off live dogs and shooting foreign policemen.
VOICEOVER: The Day Today - hommy sidey news. -
pjmaybe 70,666 posts
Seen 12 years ago
Registered 20 years agoOr even, look at it another way - the amount of things that you STILL have to pay cash for, and the bloody inconvenience of it...
F'r instance - you go to a parking meter, you've gotta root around for change to put in it. You buy a bus ticket, you've gotta find the correct change. I dunno about the rest of you but this inevitably means for me 1) finding a cash machine 2) buying a pack of gum with a 20 pound note and 3) asking the poor bloke behind the counter for change that I can use.
Bloody daft in some ways the fact that even though we're almost in a cashless society we still need to do this now and again.
Peej -
Lots of interesting stuff on TV last night which got me thinking about money. Whilst channel flicking, I came accross a program about Malaria in Kenya.
In the 1940's & 50's Loads of money in Britain was spent on eradicating this disease. It dissappeared as did the money, so there soon ceased to be preventative measures and now it is on the rise again.
In remote villages in Kenya, the month of June is the peoples worst fear as it is known as malaria season and they lose hundreds of people to the disease in just that one month. In these settlements they have herbalists and 'quacks'. These are unlicensed doctors who get hold of western medicines, use them and just hope for the best. Obviously there are feuds between the herbalists and quacks and each is quick to blame the other if a patient dies.
The reason that there are no actual doctors is a lack of money. To get someone to hospital means a 4 hour walk through hills and mountains to the bus stop, a 2 hour wait and then a very long drive to the nearest hospital. Most people scrape a living by maize farming and have no money at all. In this program, a mother made it to the hospital to be told that her dying son would recieve free anti-malaria drugs, but there was a hidden cost of buying a book to notate medical details etc. She was then told that her son needed admitting and that she had to buy a second book and pay bed charges. O_o FFS! This is the 21st century.
This is in a country where noone has any money. The hospital treated her son on credit and I suspect this was because the cameras were there. These people have NO money and yet they are being forced to pay for things. How are they supposed to get money? Prostitution? What other options? Money manipulates the financially weak into crime for the gain of others.
There was an earlier program on about a Roman settlement and they talked about how Roman society was based and funded on prostitution and the dealing in human misery. I dont think we are much further forward than 2000 years ago.
Edited by Madder Max at 10:30:52 12-01-2005 -
Spanky 15,037 posts
Seen 5 days ago
Registered 18 years agoYou're all whores to Mammon. Money gives the talentless something to barter with.
/gets loudspeaker
/heads to oxford circus -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoTsk. Money buys me beer. That's good enough for me. I have a purple beer voucher (aka a 20 pound note) in my pocket and I'd be using it right now (it being lunchtime) if I didn't have an important forum to post on. Um.
Money (the barter-free trading system) is inherent to any human society I want to live in. I want to be able to reward people I like (musicians, comedians etc.) without having to give them each a ton of carrots. But it doesn't mean that most of the other things done in the sake of money aren't highly dodgy. Even interest is a bit suspect, as Rhy mentioned earlier. -
pjmaybe 70,666 posts
Seen 12 years ago
Registered 20 years agoSpanky wrote:
You're all whores to Mammon. Money gives the talentless something to barter with.
/gets loudspeaker
/heads to oxford circus
I too will join my scottish brother in severing the many heads of the western capitalist pigs, and hoping that roses grow in their place...
Peej -
hulahoops 2,311 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 20 years agoMoney allows us all to concentrate on one particular thing which we're especially good at, creating a global product which is far, far more than the sum of it's parts.
Subsistence farming is all well and good until you need medical attention, or you have a bad crop.
Money may not be the perfect solution, but much like Churchill famously summed up democracy, it's the worst solution apart from all the other solutions we've tried. -
hulahoops 2,311 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 20 years agoOh, and I completely agree that chasing money will not bring happiness.
The only things which money can buy are security and choice. Once you've reached the security line - the point at which almost any misfortune the world is likely to throw at you you won't dip below the poverty line - all you need is a little more money so that you can choose where you live rather than being forced to live somewhere, and that's about all you need to remain happy, IMO.
Edited by BlankOBlank! at 14:24:36 12-01-2005
Edited by BlankOBlank! at 14:25:10 12-01-2005 -
I did a good old fashioned deal recently. I got my ipod from some woman at work who's husband sells them, and I sorted him out with a cheap mobile phone contract.
It felt good. Trade for trade you know. Somehow more honest in a way (although actually very dishonest if I read the small print in my contract ) -
BlankOBlank! wrote:
Oh, and I completely agree that chasing money will not bring happiness.
The only things which money can buy are security and choice. Once you've reached the security line - the point at which almost any misfortune the world is likely to throw at you you won't dip below the poverty line - all you need is a little more money so that you can choose where you live rather than being forced to live somewhere, and that's about all you need to remain happy, IMO.
Edited by BlankOBlank! at 14:24:36 12-01-2005
Edited by BlankOBlank! at 14:25:10 12-01-2005
Yeah. I knew a guy a while back in Worcester who owned a million houses and supercars etc. He had worked his bollocks off as an actor and was doing very nicely with parts in the Bill etc... He said to me that once you get the money there is a sort of numbing of the soul and it is not as it seems. I guess its a balance....
Edited by Madder Max at 14:27:56 12-01-2005 -
jrolla 219 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 17 years agoblankoblank, i might point out that churchills statement was only a play of words, the least worst = the best, just from a different (discursive) angle.
the barter economy was sufficient for societies until the absolutist era when it just couldnt cope with the number of people within western societies. agree with blankoblank, you might rail against the awfulness of money until you need some of the things he pointed out... -
hulahoops 2,311 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 20 years agojrolla wrote:
I was about to say "Duh, I'm not sure if I follow, but it sounds about right", then I re-read and realised you were actually agreeing with everything I'd said - I was quoting Churchill in support of money. Or am I being really thick here?
blankoblank, i might point out that churchills statement was only a play of words, the least worst = the best, just from a different (discursive) angle.
the barter economy was sufficient for societies until the absolutist era when it just couldnt cope with the number of people within western societies. agree with blankoblank, you might rail against the awfulness of money until you need some of the things he pointed out... -
jrolla 219 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 17 years agoBlankOBlank! wrote:
jrolla wrote:
I was about to say "Duh, I'm not sure if I follow, but it sounds about right", then I re-read and realised you were actually agreeing with everything I'd said - I was quoting Churchill in support of money. Or am I being really thick here?
blankoblank, i might point out that churchills statement was only a play of words, the least worst = the best, just from a different (discursive) angle.
the barter economy was sufficient for societies until the absolutist era when it just couldnt cope with the number of people within western societies. agree with blankoblank, you might rail against the awfulness of money until you need some of the things he pointed out...
was talkin about churchill & democracy, people used to use that quote all the time at uni (did politics) when it doesnt really mean anything, the best is the least worst & vice versa. agreed with everything else you said, my dissertation was a study of the move from the barter economy to the money economy in the absolutist era thru 'social differentiation' sounds dull but i enjoyed it -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoI've always assumed Churchill said 'least worst' to mean 'best' but to also point out that it's not 'perfect'. That's true of both money and democracy, I reckon. -
jrolla 219 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 17 years agomal wrote:
I've always assumed Churchill said 'least worst' to mean 'best' but to also point out that it's not 'perfect'. That's true of both money and democracy, I reckon.
true mal, it is a loaded statement. get some foucaltian discursive analysis going on and we will be back in my final year politics modules again...and i thought i'd left it all behind when i graduated... -
Nemesis 20,312 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 20 years agoThis planet has, or had, a problem, which was this. Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nalied to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever. -
markypants 2,860 posts
Seen 5 minutes ago
Registered 18 years agoIf you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967) -
markypants wrote:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
Thats good. -
Pike 13,459 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 18 years agomarkypants wrote:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
Well I'd say most rich people seem to be a lot more content with their lot than those without money. so if I believed in a god I'd assume he looks quite kindly on money. -
Pike wrote:
markypants wrote:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
Well I'd say most rich people seem to be a lot more content with their lot than those without money. so if I believed in a god I'd assume he looks quite kindly on money.
The key there, is in the 'seem' bit.... -
Pike 13,459 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 18 years agoMadder Max wrote:
Pike wrote:
markypants wrote:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
Well I'd say most rich people seem to be a lot more content with their lot than those without money. so if I believed in a god I'd assume he looks quite kindly on money.
The key there, is in the 'seem' bit....
Oh come on. The whole idea of rich people being unhappy derives mostly from when the churh, in leauge with the state, tried to convince poor people that they should be happy with their lot and not try to change society in their favour. -
Pike wrote:
Madder Max wrote:
Pike wrote:
markypants wrote:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
Well I'd say most rich people seem to be a lot more content with their lot than those without money. so if I believed in a god I'd assume he looks quite kindly on money.
The key there, is in the 'seem' bit....
Oh come on. The whole idea of rich people being unhappy derives mostly from when the churh, in leauge with the state, tried to convince poor people that they should be happy with their lot and not try to change society in their favour.
Yeah I know....but until I am frickin' rolling in it I have to console myself somehow!!.gif)
Those San Andreas ads for that preacher guy crease me up every time....
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