Friday, July 30, 2010

Money as a Zero-Sum Game

I used to read the New York Times, but Reality Sandwich seems to have more interesting content these days.

In Money as a Zero-Sum Game, Pendell writes, "As long as the real resources don't dry up, the illusion of prosperity can be maintained with more and more IOUs. To the future. To the earth. Like all stimulants, money steals from tomorrow."

Written in free flow mini-rants, the piece asks many of the questions racing in my head and heart. But, is rejecting money and the philosophy behind money even possible in today's society?

I quoted Allen Ginsberg's America on FB today, "America, when can I go into the supermarket and buy what I want with my good looks?...Your machinery is too much for me." (Obviously, money already had my wheels a-turning).

In theory, we'd all just live. We could buy groceries with our good looks, our cowry shells, our cooking skills, whatever commodity we inherently possess. That's theory. In reality, the machinery has taken over. We have to provide maintenance to a machine that we didn't invent but depend upon for everything.

Money, as Pendell points out, steals from tomorrow; it demands that Obama end the moratorium on deep sea oil drilling. Why not?

There's money to be made, y'all. And that oil spill thing happened months ago. We've already forgotten.

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Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- Oscar Wilde

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