How much do we need?

"Waste your money and you're only out of money but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life." 

—Michael Leboeuf

 

By Alex P. Vidal  

 

IT is foolish to despise money. We all work for money. We all want all we honestly earn.

Money means advantages for ourselves and those we love.

Of course, there are higher aims in life than money, but to attain those aims we need first to settle the money question intelligently. We ought to earn our money honestly, to save it carefully, to spend it prudently, and to invest the surplus wisely so as to insure ourselves against sickness and loss.

If we get the money question straight in our minds it will do much toward realizing our happiness and success.

Money is not everything, but money is something very important, according to thehindu in an article “Money is important, but how much do you need?”

Beyond the basic needs, money helps us achieve our life's goals and supports—the things we care about most deeply—family, education, health care, charity, adventure and fun.

It helps us get some of life's intangibles—freedom or independence, the opportunity to make the most of our skills and talents, the ability to choose our own course in life, financial security. With money, much good can be done and much unnecessary suffering avoided or eliminated.

 

Money talks

“The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”
--Billy Graham

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- WE learned an eye-popping lesson in the recent midterm elections that money really talked--and had “spoken” heavily.
Many competent and really deserving aspirants for a public office fell by the wayside or were badly clobbered by second-rate and amateurish rivals who brandished cash left and right like they won as grand champions in a multi-million cock derby.
Some of these lousy but moneyed candidates also got more attention from the press, while their more deserving rivals had to forage for recognition in order to be given a gargantuan space in the media.
Most of these good-for-nothing candidates also were recipients of fantabulous praises from paid media advertisements, newspaper columns, and blocktime radio programs.
Their poor rivals got nothing except being mentioned only in the news, yes, for being candidates in the elections. No mention of how good or great they are in certain fields, or how effective they would be if elected.

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Qualifications had no match against the full force of money.
Doctorate degrees were waylaid by inferior and unremarkable reputations.

Even ex-convicts, ruffians, rapists, grafters, magicians, circus players awash with cash steamrolled those with outstanding and distinctive reputations in community but didn’t have enough moolah to match their rivals’ ferocious expenditures.
The power of money and how to make the impossible become possible; how to turn black into white vice versa; how to make people turn deaf, mute, and blind, is awesome.
No one should underestimate the capacity of money to turn a normal situation upside down; to buy loyalties; to create and propagate a bundle of lies; as payoff to mercinaries and hooligans; to sponsor a mayhem; as a bribe; to harass; to kill; and, yes, to buy votes.

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We made a great deal of research on when did money start making the world go round.
In 101 Things You Need To Know…And Some You Don’t Know, Richard Horne and Tracy Turner give an explanation:
“Say you had twelve goats and needed a sack of grain and a pair of shoes. Before money was invented, you might offer one of your goats to a local farmer in exchange for the grain, and another goat to a cobbler in return for shoes. Hang on! A whole goat seems a lot for a pair of shoes. Oh, and the cobbler doesn’t need any goats. The farmer’s up for the deal if you can give him a cow. So you then have to find someone with a spare cow who wants goats? And how many coats make a camel!?”
Using money is a lot less complicated than this tricky bartering system, they explain.
No one knows who exactly came up with the idea, but they reportedly lived in China.
--It’s thought that cowry shells were used as the first ever money in China around 1200 BC. The first metal money appeared there 200 years later.
--Native American Indians also used shells as money. This is first recorded in the 16th century, but they were probably used long before that.
--The first coins were made out of silver. Unlike today’s coins, which are symbols of value, these silver coins were valuable in themselves because they were made from a precious metal.
--To avoid carting around heavy coins, the Chinese introduced paper money and used it from about the 9th to the 15th century (when they stopped the practice because of high inflation). Elsewhere in the world paper money wasn’t used for centuries.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)