Interesting article on money

[reohn2]

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureco ... rebellion/

[Cugel]

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureco ... rebellion/

Interesting indeed - but something that's been obvious for a very long time. It's a simple thing to understand that real value consists in all sorts of things - physical and metaphysical - but those things don't include the symbols of wealth or their use to render down every beneficial value into the toxic "value" of excess money in offshore accounts. Especially when the rendering, crushing and extraction is applied to the whole planet and everything in or on it, including the biosphere.

The article asks what we can do about it and comes up with this:

"So how should my former colleagues in finance contribute their time and expertise during the unfolding drama? What I have discovered is that finding a way forward begins by admitting your lack of knowledge, and talking to people who previously seemed too radical for meaningful conversation".

Another way of putting this is that business and finance perpetrators of the notion that money-grubbing and "growth" is the be-all and end-all should somehow install different ideas in their heads, to generate different actions in the world. Now what chance do you think there is of that happening? Those people will keep on with their beliefs and damaging actions whilst most of us, the human herd, will follow them "down the banks" we're all headed for.

In short, it's too late now to change and no one will anyway, even if we're convinced that "there is another way". To make any significant change in our current death-run, we humans would have to give up a great deal. Every now and then I make a list then fail to do any of the give-ups on it. How about you?

Cugel, just another wildebeest heading for the saurian maw of capitalism.

[axel_knutt]

How about you?

I gave up almost all unnecessary consumption when I decided to retire at 38, you can live off surprisingly little if you're minded to. My house looks like something from the 1950s/60s/70s, this dining room table I'm sitting at is older than my 63 years.

[Tiberius]

I gave up almost all unnecessary consumption when I decided to retire at 38, you can live off surprisingly little if you're minded to. My house looks like something from the 1950s/60s/70s, this dining room table I'm sitting at is older than my 63 years.

Very well done Sir.

It was 55 for me but we're clearly on much the same wavelength. Numerous people told me that we would never survive on our megure income, yet both myself, and my wife, have got by just fine. I did what I did just ten years ago, I don't regret a single thing.

No debts/credit etc...2008 car/40,000 miles (just 900 last year) which SHOULD see me out.

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

[Nearholmer]

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

Because, from early childhood onwards, people are taught that the path to success, social status, and happiness is paved with possessions, consumption, extensive and frequent travel, and all the rest of what an ever-expanding consumerist economy needs to sell us all in order to sustain.

And sadly, there is nothing, no example, no leadership, nothing, to provide a counterpoint that is even one percent as powerful as the “more, more, more” messaging.

I think some young people do ‘get it’, can see through the whole thing to the fact that the consumerist path is far more likely to lead to misery than happiness, but whether enough of them do, I rather doubt. It takes a very intelligent and strong-minded young person to say “No, while everyone around me is engaging in all that, I’m going to live a genuinely low-impact life, and get looked upon as a weirdo crusty for my efforts.”.

[reohn2]

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

Because, from early childhood onwards, people are taught that the path to success, social status, and happiness is paved with possessions, consumption, extensive and frequent travel, and all the rest of what an ever-expanding consumerist economy needs to sell us all in order to sustain.

And sadly, there is nothing, no example, no leadership, nothing, to provide a counterpoint that is even one percent as powerful as the “more, more, more” messaging.

I think some young people do ‘get it’, can see through the whole thing to the fact that the consumerist path is far more likely to lead to misery than happiness, but whether enough of them do, I rather doubt. It takes a very intelligent and strong-minded young person to say “No, while everyone around me is engaging in all that, I’m going to live a genuinely low-impact life, and get looked upon as a weirdo crusty for my efforts.”.

I was listening to JV on Radio2 at lunchtime today,the subject was school "proms"
A teacher from Solihull IIRC had what can only be described as set up a dress agency for students who can't afford to by a dress formthe big occasion.
The amount of money parents were prepared to part with so their children were able to show off at what is after all a teenagers school leaving do was so ridiculous as to be unbelievable,£500 for a "prom" dress wasn't uncommon andnthere were others who mentioned £10000!
Then there was the need to arrive in style,stretched limo,Italian sports cars,etc,one silly chap phoned in to admit he'd paid £600 for a Rolls Royce to take his stepson the 3miles(yes that's right) to the do!

But the one that struck a chord with me was of the mother who rang in to say her daughter,I think made her own dress or just wore an ordinary dress,and asked to be taken to the prom in a wheelbarrow as a kickback of the needless waste and stupidity of it all!
I actually cheered this teenager when I heard it.Great!

[Carlton green]

The comment above reminds me of the great disparity we have in disposable incomes and how our system of taxation is so flawed. Amounts spent on (say) Proms, holidays and weddings vary a lot and they do so between relatively ordinary folk rather than the clearly rich. At the same time everyone complains about paying too much tax and the lack of public services. Perhaps I misunderstand but if middle income earners - and likewise upper income earners - paid a bit more tax then rather than having Rollers taking youngsters to Proms their schools would have more teachers, roads would be mended and parks tended.

[Nearholmer]

It’s going to be a tough nut to crack, unless or until the writing on the wall is absolutely enormous, by which time it will probably be too late (that time may be now, of course), because we are bunch of stupid monkeys.

Our entire evolution and history has been tied-up with two, often contradictory instincts: our willingness to cooperate for mutual benefit, which might seem small and flawed, but is huge and powerful compared with that of any other animal; and, our need to hog resources in order to propagate our genes. We will individually hog anything given half a chance: food; mates; land (because that gives more food); buildings; space; money (as a token for all the rest); and, especially power, because that trumps(!) even money, in that it gives money and everything else. We even use our ability to cooperate in order to collectively hog stuff, wiping-out other tribes, conquering other nations, establishing entire empires.

So ….. we instinctively want more, of everything and anything, and consumerism offers more of everything. “Enough” is not a concept that is anywhere in our DNA, we have to be taught it, and it’s only just very recently, and in what are quiet voices compared with the clamour telling us we still need “more”, that anyone outside ascetic religious orders has taught “enough”.

Young children are now beginning to be introduced to the idea of “enough” through learning about sustainability, but they are continually bombarded with the contradictory message of “more, more, more”. That’s one heck of a mental burden to dump on the rising generation.

[reohn2]

...... How about you?.

I'm an average Joe trying to look after myself at no one else's cost,though I suspect I do at times.

[PedallingSquares]

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

Maybe they don't see it as rubbish
I said on another thread that you only have one life so live it.
I plan to live until I pop my clogs.Merely existing is a waste of a life.We've been in our house 22 years.I have purposely not moved 'up the ladder' with higher mortgages so I can spend my money on new cars/motor bikes/bikes/whatever.
When I fully retire,at 60, my wife will be 51 so will have to work another 16 years so we'll be fine.
Yes you can exist on surprisingly little but why would you

BTW I've worked since 16 but have never worked my self stupid and my money is earned rather than hard earned
Work to live not live to work

[Nearholmer]

Yes you can exist on surprisingly little but why would you

Because consuming far more than is needed isn’t sustainable.

[Cugel]

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

Maybe they don't see it as rubbish
I said on another thread that you only have one life so live it.
I plan to live until I pop my clogs.Merely existing is a waste of a life.We've been in our house 22 years.I have purposely not moved 'up the ladder' with higher mortgages so I can spend my money on new cars/motor bikes/bikes/whatever.
When I fully retire,at 60, my wife will be 51 so will have to work another 16 years so we'll be fine.
Yes you can exist on surprisingly little but why would you

BTW I've worked since 16 but have never worked my self stupid and my money is earned rather than hard earned
Work to live not live to work

What can one say to this?

I suppose one thing is that, in practice, even we virtue signallers who believe in (and sometimes try to enact) different less destructive behaviours fail to do so. Only our attitudes, not our behaviours, differ from yours. However ....

Some of us keep trying to reduce our personal damaging and self-centred consumerist profligacy; and to attempt behaviours which can't be put in the class "money-grubbing by any means in order to spend it on endless gewgaws". Ofttimes, we fail of course. Still ....

My own small actions consist in stopping some of the most damaging behaviours: no flying or other fuel-guzzling hooning about. Use of efficient power, in the form of ground source heating, solar panels and (eventually) a windmill. Buying and eating high quality locally produced grub that avoids damaging practices such as excessive fertilisers, animal torture and the mad use of antibiotics in livestock.

But these and similar small actions are a drop in the ocean. I'm still addicted to Amazon buying of many things, keeping dogs which are fed on commercial dogfud, drinking gallons of coffee & consuming far too much chocolate and failing to make any significant protest against the hugely damaging actions of various politicians, businesses and other major damagers.

************
So, rather than excusing myself on the grounds that "everyone else is profligate, so I might as well be too - and anyway I deserve it for working hard" I'll keep trying to get better at doing what I know I should instead of being a willing pawn in the death and degradation races.

Cugel, an often incoherent virtue signaller (it's me cognitive dissonance).

[Nearholmer]

Yep, I’m no Saint either, and sometimes find myself trapped into very unsustainable behaviour, but as they say about addictions: admitting you have one is the first step.

[simonineaston]

I imagine that generations who will be aware of the impending end have a subconscious fin de siècle-like attitude to money & possessions...
As someone who is old enough to have inherited the notion that there may still be hope, I have trouble spending. It's quite annoying!

[Tiberius]

I look around and wonder, why so many people work themselves stupid and then spend their hard earned on so much rubbish?

Yes you can exist on surprisingly little but why would you

I'm from Yorkshire....