Poverty Is Not A Money Problem

Money is no more than an object.

Money is assigned value by AGREEMENTS that people make to value the money-object in a certain way.

If I agree that one dollar equals one dollar and nine cents and everyone agrees, then I can take a certain kind of dollar to the bank and cash it in to receive one dollar and nine cents.

I can still do this if I am poor and I find a dollar in the street, turn to the bank for cashing the dollar in at $1.09 value.

This is because the bank agrees that the dollar is worth $1.09.

What happens next to the dollar or the dollar and nine cents has nothing to do with the dollar, but has everything to do with the needs of the person holding the dollar or the dollar and nine cents.

Even sitting in one's pocket, a dollar IS STATIC!

It can only be spent by interacting with someone else and by way of another 'agreement.'

The dollar can be traded off, in an agreement with a store that puts a price tag on an item that says 'cost: one dollar.'

The dollar-in-pocket doesn't have cause or effect - it is an object. It represents something.

Therefore, it doesn't CAUSE POVERTY...it can, in some cases, be an object that someone can utilize for leverage in gaining some basic needs. Still, since money is an object, HAVING MONEY will not solve issues of poverty, either.

If one gives away dollars in an exchange for needs, one is left without the dollars again.

It's a vicious circle.

Poverty is a problem that cannot be solved by money.

What can be changed, however, is how people VALUE dollars. What can be changed are peoples' IDEAS about what dollars represent.

Although most people rarely think of 'bartering,' and the world generally lives within a 'money system' rather than a 'bartering system,' people forget to stop and think about what the exchange of money really is.

The exchange of money is a kind of 'bartering' in itself, although most 'finances' and money systems are far out of the control and hands of individuals - or - THIS is what we THINK - this is what we have come to belive.

Here's a twist:

What if everyone or a very large portion of people in the world simply REFUSED TO AGREE about the value of a money-object?

Or - better yet...what if a significant portion of society STOPPED bartering with MONEY and started bartering in an older style of 'task-and-object' trading?

What then?

Though theoretical, it IS conceivable that if many people stopped using money the way that banks, governments and merchants said, then money would MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT to those people.

Money does NOTHING on its own. We assign the meaning to money and the value to money.

What does money mean to you?

What if something ELSE was used to barter with in the accessing of our needs for items, living resources, etc.

What if, instead of trading money for a 'job,' one was paid in something that he or she needed or valued more than money-in-pocket?

What if a person traded 'tasks' at work then was paid, barter fashion, in groceries that one needs? Would this work?

It used to!

Upon agreement of what certain labour and time spent in labour was valued at, an older bartering system used to see people managing quite fine - BEFORE money ever gained the significance that it holds today.

People used to 'task-trade' and pay each other with agreed-upon-items, and situations like this worked well when, say, one person fixed another's wagon and was paid in leathers that one needed for boots or clothing. Both parties had their needs met and often, both parties held a similar standing in society.

Now, 'worth' is measured by how many dollars are in-pocket or in bank accounts, and people have really been DEHUMANIZED in ways.

People who have few or no dollars in their pockets or bank accounts are not considered worth much these days. To compound problems for these people, they are treated as if they have different needs than people who do have pockets and accounts holding money.

In years and years and over many ages, nobody has ever been able to prove that wealthier people DESERVE or require food, clothing and shelter more than poor people, yet this has no bearing on how poor people are actually treated.

Since this is not even logical, the faults must lie in how people think and treat each other and not in the object of money or in 'money systems.'

Money, in fact, can actually be 'handled' in a way that is beneficial for all, yet few people take the time or effort to ensure that this happens.

Money-issues are usually a form of money-bartering that is top-heavy and is more of a POWER system than a money-system. We are so distracted in our daily lives with bills, purchases, accessing needed items, that we rarely - if ever - think of what money really is and what bartering might be worth in our lives.

If I trade my time doing a favour for someone else, I can often gain much, much more value in whatever is 'traded' or bartered - more than I can purchase with the funds I have.

For instance, I can call a taxi to get from A to B, but I can also ask a friend to drive me somewhere. In payment for the gas money it costs for the ride, I can work out a deal, say, to pet-sit for my friend the next day to repay for the favour. In a case like this, I would not only return a task - I would also save my friend significant cost of a pet-shelter fee.

Everyone happy...well, so long as I am not allergic to her pet!

Poverty is about what be believe about other human beings.

It is about how we 'classify' and stereotype people. It is about deciding what people are worth, and if we took a very mindful look at how we do this as people, in general, we would mostly agree that, sometimes the way we classify and sort out different types of people is WRONG.

I believe that it is often a mistake our brain will make for us when we are NOT PAYING ATTENTION!

Many people stereotypes others without ever knowing we are doing it.

Nobody is really to blame - it just happens - our minds need to classify things and put 'order' around things so we can navigate in the world.

If we are MINDFUL, however, we can start to change things. We can begin to 'pay attention to' harmful things that we weren't noticing before.

If I refuse to be mindful about my opinion of a homeless person I see in the alleyway, then my brain simply enters data into my personal belief system while I am concentrating on something else. My brain might make a guess about the person I just viewed, then will proceed to 'classify' that person in a certain way. My 'unconscious' and 'unmindful' obsevations still get classified by my brain, but in an 'unthinking' manner that sorts things into stereotypes that I might need to retrive later in a hurry.

If I am not 'mindful' my brain will later retrieve an image of a 'worthless homeless guy' instead of a PERSON. To counter this, even though I tend to be less prejudiced than some people I meet, I do have to pay attention to my 'classifications.' I sometimes have to ASSERT to myself that the apparently homeless guy I might be looking at is A PERSON, and not some stereotypically homeless guy.

Now, doing so doesn't bother anybody at all but it makes a HUGE difference in my ability to see people as people and not as stereotypes. Hopefully, if need be - in the future - this will help me to also treat people decently. This is my belief, however, I have to re-state and re-assert my belief often in order to be fair to people.

Possibly, there IS A WHOLE LOT that each individual CAN DO ABOUT POVERTY, in very subtle, non-threatening, non-public ways.

However, how many people believe that 'the problem is just to big'?

How BIG a deal is it - HOW MUCH WILL IT COST - to simply pay attention and

CHANGE YOUR MIND?

I know I just posted the Bono video, even though I have concerns about the kind of campaign the video contains.

It contains:

* Children - to soften the ol' heart-strings up

* A 'Global' message (what about the homeless children, teens and adults in your hometown, Bono? Are only those far-away in distant countries important to save?)

* Bono is talking about MEDICINES that are available but are sitting in storehouses in great abundance! They are 'stored,' doing NO GOOD for anyone right now - not until someone 'gives/donates' to this campaign. The medicine is available and processed in bulk quantities in non-third-world countries, then the medicine just SITS...

Does it make sense to store warehouses full of desperately needed medicines?

To end on a positive note, I believe the most effective little piece of this video is Bono snapping his fingers...

Try that - and remember THAT PART OF THE VIDEO...every few seconds, *snap* there goes another one, *Snap* and another life gone, and *snap* on and on...

This is chilling...