Greedy, Evil Me

Aaron #428 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 13 [ Read: First / Last ]

The saying goes "Money is the Root of All Evil". Is it?

My understanding of money was always that it was just a way to trade goods and services. Without money, you have to barter. Bartering is fine, but it's hard to buy a house with it. Say there's a house you'd like to own. In terms of money, it would cost $100,000. I just did a quick search for the value of a cow, and it seems they run about $800. So to barter for a house, you'd need about 125 cows. And that's assuming that the owner of the house even wants cows.

Money is just bits of paper that we assign value to. It's handy to have a common method to exchange value. It means, when you perform work, your employer gives you cash. That very same cash can go buy you dinner. So, for this purpose, money is wonderful. Evil is not a part of the act of me buying groceries with cash I earned from my job, and you'd have a hard time convincing me that it is.

So, where does the evil part fit in? Evil can certainly exist outside of money. Jeffrey Dahmer was most definitely evil, but I don't think he made huge wads of cash by storing heads in his freezer. I think I've shown pretty conclusively that money and evil are not always related. Whew, glad that's out of the way.

Greed! you say! Ah yes greed. One of the seven deadly sins: Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. Or from the dictionary: An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.

Excessive? Needs or Deserves? What does that mean exactly? That everyone should have exactly the same stuff? The same quality of life? No matter what? Hmmm, I don't know if I like that. See, the problem is that that means that someone who decides to intentionally rip off social services from the government, and intentionally be unemployed, should have the same TV and car as me? But, that's not exactly fair, is it! I work really really hard at a job that is challenging. If I lost that job, I'd go get another one at McDonald's the next day, and bug companies into giving me job interviews every day until I got a good job at this same level. I lived in my car once, I was homeless, but I didn't settle for it.

Why do I do that? You may call me greedy if you wish, but I call it doing what I have to be happy, and to feel like I am a good person. If an opportunity presented itself to me to make even more money, should I turn it down? Of course not. Or if I start a business, and it starts making truckloads of money, and I use it to buy me and my family nice things, does that make me evil? If your answer to that question is Yes, then why should I ever do anything? If enjoying the life you create for yourself is evil, so be it, I am evil. I don't steal - I work, and I'm not ashamed to be compensated appropriately for it.

Comments: 13

Jim - #1 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 1:27 PM 223 words

Read about The Money Artist, J.S.G Boggs. It seems that one day he was sitting in a cafe doodling on a napkin and drew a dollar bill. A waitress saw it and liked it. She offered him $20.00 for it, but he refused. When he went to pay his tab, which was only ¢85 he asked if he could use the drawing. She took it and gave him change back. Since then he has specialized in drawing money. He never sells it, but uses it to buy things for the face value of what he drew and always gets a receipt and change. The people who accept the trade usually end up selling the art for much more than the price of the meal of movie ticket it was used for. Of course, his toughest critics are the Secret Service. The thing that helps keep him out of jail is the fact that he is always up front and his money looks very different from the real thing, so people know right away what he is doing. Here are some links to his artwork and background.

	Jim - #2 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 1:46 PM 28 words
	Here' is an example of Boggs' work. Remember this is drawn on white paper from scratch.

	Aaron - #3 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 1:53 PM 31 words
	Looks like Slick Times is selling these, and a bunch more. Is J.S.G Boggs licensing his work to them?

	Jim - #4 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 2:04 PM 27 words
	Crap! I did not read that close enough. This is NOT a Boggs bill. It just has his sig on it. Let me find a better pic.

	Jim - #5 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 2:11 PM 29 words
	Here's a better file. Oh this is sloppy. Aaron feel free to clean up my mess.

	Aaron - #6 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 2:12 PM 18 words
	Nah, it's fine. This guy is skilled.

Jim - #7 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 2:34 PM 102 words

You can see why he is not particularly popular with the government.
Three quotes on money:

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Woody Allen:

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

	Constantine - #8 Wed, Apr 28th 2004 @ 7:04 PM 43 words
	I can't remember off hand who said it, but there is a quote out there along the lines of "all printed money is eventually reduced to its intrinsic value: zero". Buy gold my friends, and bury it in your backyard!

Aaron - #9 Thu, Apr 29th 2004 @ 7:08 AM 105 words

Welcome back Conner!

You know they'll be able to synthesize gold eventually, right? I saw a Twilight Zone episode about a group of scientist bank robbers who pulled off an amazing gold heist, and then went into suspended animation for 100 years. When they woke up, their gold was worthless. They can synthesize diamonds right now really well and cheaply, except that they are yellow in color.

But yes, gold is a great way to store your value. Doesn't burn easily, and makes you consider your options when spending, because it takes a long time to convert to currency.

	Constantine - #10 Thu, Apr 29th 2004 @ 7:24 AM 8 words
	I remember that TZ episode! What a classic.

	Jim - #11 Thu, Apr 29th 2004 @ 7:32 AM 68 words
	That's a good TZ to discuss in this post because it showed how arbitrary value can be. All it takes is for something not to be rare and it goes from highly coveted to worthless. That is, of course the whole reason for couterfeiting being illegal. Too much money in surculation and the system becomes unstable

	Aaron - #12 Thu, Apr 29th 2004 @ 7:35 AM 25 words
	Yep. In the end, the only thing you have is your own set of abilities, and your motivation to put them to work for yourself.

	Aaron - #13 Thu, Apr 29th 2004 @ 8:55 AM 20 words
	The TZ episode was The Rip Van Winkle Caper

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