OK so I've used this image before. It's just too good.
Stupid economy only makes sense when it's working. When it's failing it seems silly. We work for money so we can buy a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat. We don't grow our own food anymore, dig our own wells, make our own clothes (unless you're a wanna-be fashion designer), or build our own homes. We don't barter our skills with our neighbors, we work for useless paper bills that we trade for things. What if we didn't value those thin green slips of paper so much? What if the gold they represent wasn't as precious as the food we fill our stomaches with or the roofs over our heads?
It kind of makes life seem a little pointless when you look at it that way.
In a good economy we're happy to work for a fair wage so we can spend our extra time with the things we care about: our homes, our families, our hobbies, our charities, our art (ha, say "our art" three times fast). But in a sucky economy we have to budget every cent; we can't spend what few dollars we do have on anything outside of the absolute necessities, which means the people whose jobs have little to do with absolute necessities might lose them, which furthers the cycle of people having few dollars to spare.
My work has a great fund available for employees willing to give back to the organization, and it's a fund I'd love to be a part of. But even a mere $2 per pay period or a one-time donation of $5 is too much for me to donate. You know where that $5 goes? It's the fee my bank charges me to transfer money from my savings account into my checking account when my credit card company causes the minimum payment to double based on a technicality. Had my last payment gone through one day earlier I would not have had a double payment this month. Or, had my paycheck come through one day earlier I would not have needed to transfer money at all.
Congratulations, Lindsay. You officially can't afford rent next month.
oh man, i hear that. i really do. financial stress has never been a big part of my life, thankfully. But this year, the year I've made the most money of any other year in my life, has been the most stressful and anxiety ridden one I can remember. What is that? I remember being completely broke in college, literally living on carrot sticks and coffee, walking 3 miles a day to get to school because I couldn't pay for the bus, and it was the best effing time of my life. WTF.
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