Monday, March 28, 2016

money ain't but a thing 1 of 3


MONEY AIN’T BUT A THING
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note: a huge thank you to the mystery minion who sent #10 cans of storage food ( again! ).  Consider your readership dues paid for the next year.
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I was motivated to write this article from a combination of two minions comments, one some time ago and one recently.  So props to you, yo!  The first was that the more money a prepper had, the more they were likely to piss it away and have less to show for it whereas a poor prepper thought out each purchase and ended up with better preps, cheaper.  The second comment was that by being out of debt he was living a much higher quality of life than others making far more money ( but being in debt ).  There was actually a third comment, about how well an LEO position paid in my old home town, which also lit a fire under my subconscious to come up with this article idea, which is just a mash-up of two or three ideas.  Money ain’t but a thing, yo.  It doesn’t do you as much good as you think, either in this life or in preparing for another. 

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Money is a tool to be used.  Not an end to itself.  A hammer, by itself, is a clever steel shape.  But not even very aesthetic.  It isn’t a piece of art to admire.  It only gains value when you use it as a tool.  Money should only be valued for its use as a tool ( a substitution for barter to reward labor ).  Yet most people, and I mean like 99% of folks in a modern society, place a mystical religious icon value to it, to be valued for itself rather than what it can accomplish.  We are a nation ( or a globe ) consumed daily with the worship of the false idol of money for monies sake.  We always claim it is a valuable tool, but then we act like the tool itself is more valuable than what it accomplishes.  A hammer will always have use as a tool, even if we run out of steel nails.  Money, on the other hand, is a company chit only good for use at the company store, and only good as long as the company doesn’t go bankrupt.  Which they all do.

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Fun filled fact.  The worlds longest running company lasting something like 1500 years.  That is not a typo-one thousand five hundred ( although, note, I might be off a smidge here as I’m going by memory ) years.  The first government subsidized temples in Japan were built by them, and even right before bankruptcy they still built the odd one or two.  This construction company ran uninterrupted all those years, through violent civil wars and complete economic disruptions, and then finally succumbed a few years ago.  NO company on earth lasts anywhere near as long, and they usually don’t even outlive empires, which are rather fragile things themselves.

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All that money you lust after, it has value as a barter facilitator right up to the moment your economy bites the big one.  Then it isn’t even worth much as toilet paper.  If my best buddy in the whole wide world, someone I trust with my life, came to me and said, hey, I want you to pay me gold for a stack of promissory notes  which I’ll redeem every payday, with interest ( and he worked at a good paying job which was very dangerous ), I think I would tell him to kiss my ass.  His word is solid, but his ability to pay is compromised.  That is the money in your wallet.  Good as gold, until the day it ain’t.  Yet people act like money is the most important thing in their lives.  Romances are built on it, marriages flounder on it, up to half of all waking hours are devoted to acquiring it.  Otherwise intelligent people stress over not having an excess of it ( nobody wants too little of it, unable to feed and shelter themselves, but everyone worries about not having far more than that minimum ).

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Now, I’m the last one to throw a stone in a glass house, accusing others of materialism.  I don’t buy a whole lot of preps ( or perhaps I do compared to others spending far more on shelter and transportation ), as I’m pretty well squared away even if you can never stop as you never have enough of everything, but I buy the heck out of reference books.  It is a sick addiction, and I can’t even convince myself that it is even an investment anymore.  I still learn something new every day, and gaining knowledge is never a waste, but I could learn the same with free library books and the Internet.  At this point, I’m collecting dead tree trophies.  So, we all buy too much crap, then convince ourselves it is to beat inflation or to invest with a soon to be worthless currency, or it is for the End Of The World ( same as investing, one could argue ).  These are not invalid arguments, but they are also cop-outs at times.  I’m not even worried about what I’ve spent, but more about having to go cold turkey and suffer withdrawals.

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So even someone who cares very little about money can fall for its Siren call.  Sure, when I was a young punk ass teenager, I fixated on money as I had very little ( I tried working a weekend job but there was the transportation issue as well as the free time issue and I felt it wasn’t worth it ).  And when I joined the military I pissed it all away on nothing of substance.  But by then I had read and re-read and read a couple of more times ( the beer budget was always competing with the book budget in those days, and I didn’t have a huge library so I kept reading the goods ones over ) Long’s book on living without a salary and I realized my initial disdain for work was correct.  And I’ve had an uneasy relationship with money since.  It was a good thing I didn’t love it more than life itself, since the evil demon spawn of Lucifer took almost all of it for twenty years ( in working 33 years I’ve seen about 10 years worth of my pay ). 

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More Tomorrow.

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9 comments:

  1. (The more they were likely to piss it away and have less to show for it whereas a poor prepper thought out each purchase and ended up with better preps)

    Yep I’m poor and I think through EVERY item I buy (Other then Chinese Buffets, I’m always ready for them) I do buy expensive things as they generally last longer and are a better value over the long run. But I have to save for a while to get them.


    (Being out of debt he was living a much higher quality of life than others making far more money)

    This I also do, I have no debt and will NEVER have it again. And I think my life is pretty good and stress free.


    I think the oldest company right now is Beretta firearms, they are close to 500-years old. And they make fine firearms, I have 3 of hem and all 3 are good guns.


    (In working 33 years I’ve seen about 10 years worth of my pay.)

    This is one of the reasons I thing going Gault and off the books income would be nice. But then I think about sitting in jail and think otherwise. But it would be nice if we could keep a bit more of what we make.


    I have never been a person that was driven to make gobs of money as I enjoy life too much to slave away 50-hours every week. I make enough to get by and still get out and enjoy life..

    I do (and have been for years) buy silver and put it in a safe for future use.

    The safe I bought for $25.00 as the thrift shop didn’t know the combination, and I took it to a locksmith and paid $30.00 to have them figure it out. Looked on E-Bay and it sells for $900.00.

    Chuck Findlay

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    1. Just for the safe score I'll award you Top Minion Of The Day, and being a bit jealous I don't qualify.

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  2. I used to have a job. Then one day I decided life is too short to have a job. So I decided to stop having a job. Best decision I ever made!

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    1. Damn books, forcing me to have a job! Still, 25 hours a week is semi-retirement. For me it wasn't a hardship but a savior, cutting hours.

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    2. I was just being a wise ass James. I came across that quote somewhere on the internet, and it cracked me up, so I thought I would share it. I too was inspired by the book written by Mr Long. Truth be told, I no longer have a job, but I had no choice in the matter, having been laid off from my electronics job of 15 years.

      I'm currently trying to turn a coin by working at Amazon's Mechanical Turk. So far it has not at all been profitable, but I'm told that if you stick with it, and get your hit count up (Around a 1000 hits, I'm currently at 43, with 4 days into it) you can actually do alright with it.

      I was never happy devoting 40 hours of my life a week to making someone else wealthy, and even as a dumb kid starting out at my first job, instantly knew that there was something not quite right with this arrangement? I'm doing my best to set myself up in a work at home scenario, so that I never have to report to a boss at a brick and mortar ever again. Maybe I'll give some occasional reports on how the Mechanical Turk is working out, or whatever else that I may end up with?

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    3. Don't you hate explaining a joke? Not so funny then :)

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    4. Sure, it's not so funny, but the explanation sure is intriguing... I'll have to check it out :-)

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  3. Well stated...I look forward to your next two sequels.

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    1. I try my best as I cast pearls before swine. :)

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