I was reading an overview of a U.S. governmental financial report the other day and it quite categorically said that the country’s economy is doing well! I almost fell off my chair in aghast disbelief of what I was reading! So, I pondered what the report was saying and probed a little deeper. Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, “There are three kinds of lies. There are lies, damn lies, and then statistics.”
The top elites (the 0.1%) are at this time pursuing an agenda of separation where everyone feels isolated and ready to blame everyone, except the elites, for the everyday problems they see in their lives. As such they are unlikely to notice what the elites are doing. Economically, this is especially true. Besides all the lies being fed to us, the statistics seem to show the economy is doing well but for some reason we regular people are not. It seems to be creating much of the discord in society that the elite agenda capitalizes upon (pun intended). To reiterate what I have already covered in earlier posts about economics, there is the regular economy where we live and then the elite economy where money siphons up to the elites who then just invest it in stocks and shares making just more money for themselves and nothing of any particular consequence to us mere mortals. Let’s say that the financial report I read was correct, and statistically it was probably right. The problem is not always in the statistic as in the general ignorance of what that statistic is really saying.
If I make a statement that the economy is doing great because it has grown 10% in the past year, I might be correct. The economists would be clicking their heels and the governments, businesses and the elites will happily report that it is because of their actions. Meanwhile, those forced to collect welfare and food stamps to survive might be a little puzzled that despite all this good news from the media, they see their lives are still monetarily the pits. To clarify using this really simplified example, let’s say last year 95 people had $10, 4 people had $100, and one person had $1 million. Now a year later, those 95 people still have $10, the 4 still have $100, but the one now has $1.1 million, then the economic increase has been 10% overall – so the statistic is correct. To add to the flawed understanding of that statistic, if the cost of living has risen 3% then the 99 people have not seen their value rise at all, so they have 3% less in real value than last year, while the one who gained $100,000 is still way ahead of any of this cost of living problem. After all the price of food and other costs is essentially the same for an elite as it is for the rest of us. So even if we find the elite only gained $97,000 in real terms, they are still doing incredibly well. Now they are not spending that $97,000 on anything contributing to the regular economy, but investing it in stocks and shares that is a wonderfully artificial way of making more money. The effect of all this is money constantly siphons up to elite economy. This is happening all over the world in every country, not just the MDCs. As a great visual of what is occurring between what we think is happening, what we think is fair, and the reality of the world, this ‘Monetary Wealth Inequity in America’ is eye opening – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM And what do the elites actually do with all this excessive money?
We are so wrapped up in being enslaved to this magic money system that we have lost track of the fact that money is merely a tool for convenience of transactions, MONEY IS NOT, AND SHOULD NOT BE, AN END GOAL IN ITSELF, which is what it has come to be. Money itself is worthless, except for whatever value we assign to it. Its only purpose is as a tool, nothing else, yet we put great store in hoarding it and using it to control much of the planets human population. Maybe a little perspective might help.
When you want a breath of fresh air you can in most places (maybe not in large polluted cities) step outside and breath in nice air. Now imagine that a monetarily wealthy person scared of not having enough air to breathe (note that I always define money wealth differently from real wealth, which is well-being) has somehow commodified fresh air and lays claim to a thousand square miles of land and ALL the air above it as far as outer space. No one else is allowed to breathe that air. Does that make sense at all? Hoarding the air and hoarding money are not that different. “Do what I say or I will not let you have any air to breathe” isn’t that different from control of money wealth. Yet, as I have said earlier, what we focus on as important is what we measure to justify the use of that measure. Economics as we practice it places little focus on people’s actually well-being except as it can be purchased using money. When we begin to measure people’s well-being, much as I describe with the Bhutanese system, as a primary goal, our society cannot help but transform itself. Measurement is everything!
In my first blog post (control) I gave a simplistic scenario of a game of Monopoly as indicative of how our world economy works with the elites wielding control with a monopoly of everything on the board being the aim of the game. Now that has to change, and if instead we begin with each player starting out with the same money, but instead of competition we have cooperation with the aim of the game being for everyone to benefit – we would have to add more benefits than the simple street and housing system that leads to monopolization in the game, but that ought to be our goal. Everyone wins big to a good level, not just one person winning to an obscene level. In my ‘Technology and Business’ post I discussed the Bhutan system of measuring Gross National Happiness. What is our focus – if it is health, happiness and well-being, then shouldn’t we measure those factors and get away from this deadly myth of money being the source of it all? Money is a limiting resource for use with a mindset of limiting resources that end up being hoarded much like my example of air above. But how can health, happiness and well-being be limiting resources, aren’t they humanities end goals? These goals like love are not limiting. Literally everyone on the planet can be happy. It’s not like there is only a limited amount of happiness and it must be hoarded. If those higher attributes are our goals then the resources ‘we think are limited’ can actually be shared equitably without anyone having to suffer. Again, what we measure is what we focus on as important. If we only measure money as the indicator of success then everything hinges on money. If we measure personal benefit such as health, happiness and well-being, as the most important aspects for ourselves then the measures become focused on those aspects. As such, money becomes merely a tool to be used and not one to be hoarded. Money as such isn’t the problem per se – it is but a tool of convenience. It’s how in our warped way of thinking that we endow money with special ability to create what we want that has created the sick world we live within. Wisdom is seeing the trap that money has created and then possibilities of a world where money is not even close to the primary measure if what we need to use. Measurement is everything.
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