04 Jan 2017

Money is a subject I must have mentioned in the past, and here’s another go!

My urge to spend before Christmas isn’t all that great. I seem to spend all of my money anyway, and ever since I climbed out of my massive financial hole things that needed to be upgraded have been upgraded. I can even consider myself a bit of a techie now. If I break something, it’s no big deal.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was vocal round this period stating that people are too busy chasing money and things. They should be more in touch with their spiritual side and embrace that instead. After all, there will be an eternal reward in heaven for people who abandon these ideas of chasing money. But if you already have it that’s fine. I’m guessing anyway. So far, I’m unaware of any pressure on the royal family to give up everything and follow the righteous path. This was also coming from a man at the top of his profession in the Church of England. He has everything he would ever want. And accusing the religious of hypocrisy  is a cheap shot, and beneath me!

Our society is set up for spending. It has become an addiction. I could feel it the day before I went back to work. I needed something! I replaced my potable speakers. The pain of trying to chose one of the large variety is really annoying. So, I walked in to a decent shop, said what I wanted and bought a speaker I hadn’t seen reviewed. They were the last ones and I got some money off. I should be happy and I almost am. But are they the best ones? Who cares. It’s much worse when you buy a flat and didn’t spent the time working out which of the available options were south facing. I’m fine with it now, but for more years than I can remember I wasn’t.

Today has been loosely labelled “Fat Cat Wednesday”. By lunchtime, they would have earned more than normal people would earn in a year. Then someone pointed out that Wayne Rooney would have done that by lunchtime on Jan 1st!

Apparently, these “Fat Cats” running big business are worth all the money they get. The last time I checked, the average big boss earned 400 times more than the average wage of their employees. Around 20 years ago it used to be 10 times. That is until they were forced to declared how much they earned. Then waged spiralled upwards. But they are definitely worth it. They make profit, create jobs, more profit, and they are definitely worth it. They must be. Market forces don’t lie!

It seems to me just this moment, that there is a point where spending to collect things stops, and collecting money to fulfil a need takes over.

The Archbishop was taking a cheap shot, and missing the mark.