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how important is money for you~ ?


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Unfortunately it is extremely important for survival.  But if we focus on having it, or wanting to have it, it can ruin lives for the most part.  Like my husband,.  He feels he can never make enough money and I am all about stability and living a simple life.  So it stresses me out.  Also I supported him for 2 years and I finally told him that he either has to pay half of everything or he can go live with his sister.  Even though he helps now (he could help more) he is still stingy with his money.  

 

So the best advice about money...don't let it ruin you.  Also life is too short to worry about trivial things.

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Money is good.  Money is necessary.   But there's a point where enough is enough.  People that keep going beyond that to collect hundreds of millions or billions of dollars are seriously mentally unstable in my point of view.  (I would even go so far as to make a blanket statement that all billionaires are sociopaths.)  Money should be a means, not an end.  Not to say that I don't like spending money, but tbh I'm fine not spending it as well.  Concentrating on other aspects of my life can be lots of fun too.

 

On 1/17/2019 at 9:03 PM, Nono said:

I was happy when I started getting my checks direct deposited. I use my debit card to pump gas, and that's it. I try to only carry the cash that I think I'll need, maybe a tad more just in case, just because I know myself.

I have a similar system.  I have even put myself on an allowance.  My paycheck (less 401k withholding) gets direct-deposited to my savings account, and I have a set amount every month transferred automatically to my checking account.  The amount that gets transferred is enough to pay the bills, with a little extra for fun.  If I want to buy something then I wait until I have enough in the checking account to buy it.  I try to look at the savings account as little as possible.  This system tends to keep me out of trouble.

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Oddly enough capitalism would have you believe no one could survive without money. That simply isn't true. If everyone took the skills that they've learned in everyday life  and applied them, taught them to others and then created a system based on trade we wouldn't need to be so reliant on money. We had a system of trade before and it worked.

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24 minutes ago, Crevanille said:

Oddly enough capitalism would have you believe no one could survive without money. That simply isn't true. If everyone took the skills that they've learned in everyday life  and applied them, taught them to others and then created a system based on trade we wouldn't need to be so reliant on money. We had a system of trade before and it worked.

Yeah, it did kind of work, but the trouble is that the things being traded must be considered fair and desirable to both parties.

Money kind of gets rid of that problem, as long as everyone believes that it has the value it is said to have, and dealing with taxes tends to be easier.

Only real way that you would get rid of the reliance on money is if the cage we live were shattered and everyone became completely self reliant.

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15 hours ago, brycec said:

Yeah, it did kind of work, but the trouble is that the things being traded must be considered fair and desirable to both parties.

Money kind of gets rid of that problem, as long as everyone believes that it has the value it is said to have, and dealing with taxes tends to be easier.

Only real way that you would get rid of the reliance on money is if the cage we live were shattered and everyone became completely self reliant.

Well when people did trade they agreed that the services or product traded would be a fair deal. The trade wouldn't happen if there wasn't a mutual agreement it was a fair deal.

I believe if this idea was expanded a bit more it could override our current system. 

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I think money is the reason for a lot of bad things that happened and are still happening. It is not money itself however, but the greed behind it. But money enables this greed in an unparalleled way. Trade, if it is kept to actual and not 'virtual' trade or trade through intermediates, might be able to put a certain practical limitation to this greed because it would take too much to actually get vast amounts in the end.

But, money is quite a lot more practical than trade which is probably why over time it was generally accepted. In theory it doesn't matter if it is money or 'virtual' trade. Here's what I mean.
Let's say you have 1000 marbles but want a car.
Person A trades 1 sack of paper per 10 marbles.
Person B trades 1 printer per 10 sacks of paper.
Person C trades 1 car per 10 printers.
To get a car with just the 1000 marbles, you would first need to go to person A, then person B and finally person C. Since this would involve quite a lot of work just to get what you actually wanted, you would probably make something like 'virtual' transactions. You say to Person C that they will get 10 printers from B, and to B that they will get 100 sacks of paper from A, and you give person A the 1000 marbles. With that you could skip person B.
If you transfer this to longer chains of trade, you will in the end get a 'virtual' currency, which will not be much different from money.

The main fault is with human greed, but money is an excellent fuel for this greed.

Edit:
From a psychological perspective money can become what one really wants because of its reinforcing effects. Money itself has no/little value but since you learn that money can lead to desirable things (the reinforcing effect) you can end up wanting money itself, which actually never really had any value for you, because it led to desirable things so often or you just imagine what desirable things you could get. Then you are no longer after the things you want to buy, but money itself.

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1 hour ago, Illusion of Terra said:

I think money is the reason for a lot of bad things that happened and are still happening. It is not money itself however, but the greed behind it. But money enables this greed in an unparalleled way. Trade, if it is kept to actual and not 'virtual' trade or trade through intermediates, might be able to put a certain practical limitation to this greed because it would take too much to actually get vast amounts in the end.

But, money is quite a lot more practical than trade which is probably why over time it was generally accepted. In theory it doesn't matter if it is money or 'virtual' trade. Here's what I mean.
Let's say you have 1000 marbles but want a car.
Person A trades 1 sack of paper per 10 marbles.
Person B trades 1 printer per 10 sacks of paper.
Person C trades 1 car per 10 printers.
To get a car with just the 1000 marbles, you would first need to go to person A, then person B and finally person C. Since this would involve quite a lot of work just to get what you actually wanted, you would probably make something like 'virtual' transactions. You say to Person C that they will get 10 printers from B, and to B that they will get 100 sacks of paper from A, and you give person A the 1000 marbles. With that you could skip person B.
If you transfer this to longer chains of trade, you will in the end get a 'virtual' currency, which will not be much different from money.

The main fault is with human greed, but money is an excellent fuel for this greed.

Edit:
From a psychological perspective money can become what one really wants because of its reinforcing effects. Money itself has no/little value but since you learn that money can lead to desirable things (the reinforcing effect) you can end up wanting money itself, which actually never really had any value for you, because it led to desirable things so often or you just imagine what desirable things you could get. Then you are no longer after the things you want to buy, but money itself.

I actually understand what you mean. Although all you need is to find the right person. One right person.If your trading for a car or need groceries, carry out tasks that would be the equivalent of what your asking for. You know how to fix a roof? Capable of saving your fellow trader the trouble of finding transportation? Offer to help them x amount of times. Honestly we've monetized natural resources that have no business being on a market. Since they're natural resources.

And I agree wholeheartedly about people being the issue. Money in itself isn't bad.

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3 hours ago, Crevanille said:

Well when people did trade they agreed that the services or product traded would be a fair deal. The trade wouldn't happen if there wasn't a mutual agreement it was a fair deal.

This is certainly true, and something that I did take into account, though not explicitly stated, but for it to really work, our system of specialization would not really pay off, unless you are an information broker.

To make it work, people need to be skilled in multiple fields, though maybe not to the level of jack of all trades, which they are not, if you get what I am saying here, otherwise there would be very few deals going on. That is where it will fail.

3 hours ago, Crevanille said:

I believe if this idea was expanded a bit more it could override our current system. 

This part I completely agree with this part.

Sadly, we never really iron things out when it really matters.

Edited by brycec
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22 hours ago, Crevanille said:

Oddly enough capitalism would have you believe no one could survive without money.

This is not true!  All capitalism requires is productivity, and it doesn't even specify how that comes to be.  As long as someone wants what you have and has something that you want more then a "capitalist" exchange can occur.  "Capitalism" is simply the trading of goods and services in a manner that both parties freely exchange something they have of lesser value for something they consider to be of greater value.  In its simplest form it does not require money.  If I have an apple and you have an orange but I don't like apples as much as oranges and you don't like oranges as much as apples then we simply trade.  Win-win.  That's capitalism at it's most fundamental.

Note that this can easily be used to encourage specialization.  If I have a useful skill but no time and no food and you have an apple but no applicable skill then instead of "spending" my time scrounging up my own food then I might use my time and skill(s) to do something for you in return for your apple.  You can spend your time growing apples (and developing the skill(s) to grow apples) and I can use my time doing something like growing oranges, or sewing, or chopping wood.  Again, no "money" required.

All that "money" does is make the transactions more efficient and allow them to occur at different times.  If I always had to carry around all the things that I might want to barter for any of the things I might want to obtain then I’d have to carry around a lot of stuff!  That or always be brokering elaborate multi-party chain deals to get what I want using what I have on hand.  My apple might also spoil before I find someone who wants it AND has something I need.  Much easier to produce (there's that word) and sell what I don't need to people that want it in exchange for some kind of proxy that that we all agree can be used as such, then value everything in terms of this "money".  Then I can just carry around a pocketful of coins or bills (or whatever) and exchange those for anything I might want as needed.

The particular item used as “money” is usually selected for its durability, its portability, and its inability to be duplicated (counterfeited).  Traditionally this means something like gold or other precious metals.   Banksters and their politicians have a hard time playing their shell games if they can’t produce “extra” on demand however so in practice the gold often winds up being replaced with promises of gold, and eventually simply unbacked promises.  That typically works until somebody points out that the emperor has no clothes.  Unbacked promises represented by easily-duplicated tokens are called “fiat” currency, and economic systems that rely on them historically don’t end well.  Take Rome for example, whose once-valuable silver coins were mostly tin at the end.  Or Zimbabwe for a more recent example.  For a while Zimbabwe's economy was reduced to trading cigarettes and whisky as "money" when people stopped accepting Zimbabwe's paper currency.   Unfortunately, when the fiat fails it is usually the economic “ism” in use that takes the blame instead of the debased monetary and/or political system.

Regulations to limit distortions and inefficiencies created by things like fraud and coercion are also desirable under capitalism, as in any economic system.  Again, this isn't a capitalism thing so much as a governance issue to make sure everyone plays fair.

Edited by efaardvark
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1 hour ago, Kanamesensei said:

Oh and let's not forget taxes!

Don't even get me started.  A few years ago I broke down all my pay stubs, sales receipts, etc. and put them in quicken for a year.  (Yes, this is a pain in the a--.  I don't recommend it unless you're a masochistic accountant.)  Anyway, turns out when I added up everything - sales tax, car registration fees, income tax, property tax, all those inscrutable government-required fees on your utility bill, etc. - I would up paying nearly 60% of "my" gross wages for that year to the various governments whose jurisdictions I fall under.

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3 hours ago, efaardvark said:

I would up paying nearly 60% of "my" gross wages for that year to the various governments whose jurisdictions I fall under.

Do you live in the US? If so, I'm really wondering why your taxes are so high in the end. Especially when your healthcare and other social systems are not that great compared to wealthy European countries, Canada or Japan - no offence though.

I pay 50% taxes, healthcare, retirement and social security tops. Usually it is less than that but it depends on your income and other things. And I don't really mind since I and others get quite a lot. I think the US has a much more anti-socialist, 'keep the government out' mentality, if I'm not mistaken. That's why I wonder even more that you'd pay so much in taxes.

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11 hours ago, Kanamesensei said:

Oh and let's not forget taxes!  The government gets you coming and going🙄

Taxes surly are important for them. Though we never get back what we put in.

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14 hours ago, Kanamesensei said:

Oh and let's not forget taxes!  The government gets you coming and going🙄

Don’t forget, if they could get away with it, the government would tax us for every nanosecond we breath and our hearts beat.

 

8 hours ago, Illusion of Terra said:

Do you live in the US? If so, I'm really wondering why your taxes are so high in the end. Especially when your healthcare and other social systems are not that great compared to wealthy European countries, Canada or Japan - no offence though.

Funny you think that, when some people in the US think we do not pay enough taxes.

All I can say is that it is because the government might just be far worse than other governments because it cannot seem to do a good job of dealing with its finances, since it can get away with things that the ordinary citizen cannot with its own debt, if I had to take a guess.

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14 hours ago, Illusion of Terra said:

Do you live in the US? If so, I'm really wondering why your taxes are so high in the end.

They nickel-and-dime you to death.  I'm in Los Angeles county.  22% income tax from the feds, 10% from the state.  That's over 30% right there.  Social Security tax is another 10% on top of "income" tax.  Property taxes are only 1%, but the median market value in my area is ridiculously high, especially since the banksters have been allowed to mark-to-model.  (Zillow says the median home price in L.A. county is $616,500, for $6150/year in property taxes, which is basically another 10% of your income if you make $60k/year.)  Then if you buy anything there's the 9.5% sales and use tax in L.A. county.  Then there's the "hidden" taxes like car registration.  Depending on your location there may also be local taxes/assessments/fees to pay off bonds, etc.  It all adds up.  I'm not even counting "required" expenses like federally mandated health care (at whatever rate the companies want to charge).  Normally that's called a tax.  I think there was even a lawsuit over obamacare that came to that conclusion as well.  We're basically socialist, we just don't admit it because it isn't politically palatable.

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20 hours ago, efaardvark said:

Don't even get me started.  A few years ago I broke down all my pay stubs, sales receipts, etc. and put them in quicken for a year.  (Yes, this is a pain in the a--.  I don't recommend it unless you're a masochistic accountant.)  Anyway, turns out when I added up everything - sales tax, car registration fees, income tax, property tax, all those inscrutable government-required fees on your utility bill, etc. - I would up paying nearly 60% of "my" gross wages for that year to the various governments whose jurisdictions I fall under.

I hear you.  This is the first time I owe taxes.  I shouldn't have gotten married😞  I could have claimed head of household since I support my daughter.  But I screwed up.  I should have handled my withholdings better last year.  But I was dealing with a person (husband) who hardly helped me financially.  So I needed all my money up front.  Now I know...But regardless...taxes gets you in the end.

I don't itemize like you do.  I wonder if it would even help?

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1 hour ago, Kanamesensei said:

I hear you.  This is the first time I owe taxes.  I shouldn't have gotten married😞  I could have claimed head of household since I support my daughter.  But I screwed up.  I should have handled my withholdings better last year.  But I was dealing with a person (husband) who hardly helped me financially.  So I needed all my money up front.  Now I know...But regardless...taxes gets you in the end.

I don't itemize like you do.  I wonder if it would even help?

I would suggest seeing an accountant or other tax professional to help you on this one.

One of my parents is a CPA, but I do not think they would be able to help you, due to the licensing standards.

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On 2/7/2019 at 4:43 PM, brycec said:

To make it work, people need to be skilled in multiple fields, though maybe not to the level of jack of all trades, which they are not, if you get what I am saying here, otherwise there would be very few deals going on. That is where it will fail.

This part I completely agree with this part.

Sadly, we never really iron things out when it really matters.

Exactly. Teaching the general public multiple skills freely would actually help in the long run. The problem here is that in today's society unless your paying for those skills your not learning them. Many can take to literature and go very far on book smarts alone. Yet countless people need hands on training to truly grasp any form of new skills.

On 2/7/2019 at 6:34 PM, efaardvark said:

This is not true!  All capitalism requires is productivity, and it doesn't even specify how that comes to be.  As long as someone wants what you have and has something that you want more then a "capitalist" exchange can occur.  "Capitalism" is simply the trading of goods and services in a manner that both parties freely exchange something they have of lesser value for something they consider to be of greater value.  In its simplest form it does not require money.  If I have an apple and you have an orange but I don't like apples as much as oranges and you don't like oranges as much as apples then we simply trade.  Win-win.  That's capitalism at it's most fundamental.

Note that this can easily be used to encourage specialization.  If I have a useful skill but no time and no food and you have an apple but no applicable skill then instead of "spending" my time scrounging up my own food then I might use my time and skill(s) to do something for you in return for your apple.  You can spend your time growing apples (and developing the skill(s) to grow apples) and I can use my time doing something like growing oranges, or sewing, or chopping wood.  Again, no "money" required.

All that "money" does is make the transactions more efficient and allow them to occur at different times.  If I always had to carry around all the things that I might want to barter for any of the things I might want to obtain then I’d have to carry around a lot of stuff!  That or always be brokering elaborate multi-party chain deals to get what I want using what I have on hand.  My apple might also spoil before I find someone who wants it AND has something I need.  Much easier to produce (there's that word) and sell what I don't need to people that want it in exchange for some kind of proxy that that we all agree can be used as such, then value everything in terms of this "money".  Then I can just carry around a pocketful of coins or bills (or whatever) and exchange those for anything I might want as needed.

The particular item used as “money” is usually selected for its durability, its portability, and its inability to be duplicated (counterfeited).  Traditionally this means something like gold or other precious metals.   Banksters and their politicians have a hard time playing their shell games if they can’t produce “extra” on demand however so in practice the gold often winds up being replaced with promises of gold, and eventually simply unbacked promises.  That typically works until somebody points out that the emperor has no clothes.  Unbacked promises represented by easily-duplicated tokens are called “fiat” currency, and economic systems that rely on them historically don’t end well.  Take Rome for example, whose once-valuable silver coins were mostly tin at the end.  Or Zimbabwe for a more recent example.  For a while Zimbabwe's economy was reduced to trading cigarettes and whisky as "money" when people stopped accepting Zimbabwe's paper currency.   Unfortunately, when the fiat fails it is usually the economic “ism” in use that takes the blame instead of the debased monetary and/or political system.

Regulations to limit distortions and inefficiencies created by things like fraud and coercion are also desirable under capitalism, as in any economic system.  Again, this isn't a capitalism thing so much as a governance issue to make sure everyone plays fair.

Aye. Nevertheless Capitalism is synonymous with private enterprise. And what's the purpose of private enterprise? It's main aim? Profit. How do we define profit in a capitalist society? Financial gain. Trade itself goes back as far as the beginning of civilization. The idea of capitalism didn't even register until somewhere in the 1800s. 

On 2/7/2019 at 8:31 PM, Kanamesensei said:

Oh and let's not forget taxes!  The government gets you coming and going🙄

 

IRS....Indefinite Raping Services. Seems about right. When tax time comes around i never get a return. Always somehow owe federal and state tax. According to them, i'm not withholding enough from my paycheck to stop these particular incursions. That on top of constant streams of nothing but bills? Gee it makes you wonder why people ram their cars into IRS buildings. 😠

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29 minutes ago, Crevanille said:

Exactly. Teaching the general public multiple skills freely would actually help in the long run. The problem here is that in today's society unless your paying for those skills your not learning them. Many can take to literature and go very far on book smarts alone. Yet countless people need hands on training to truly grasp any form of new skills.

Aye. Nevertheless Capitalism is synonymous with private enterprise. And what's the purpose of private enterprise? It's main aim? Profit. How do we define profit in a capitalist society? Financial gain. Trade itself goes back as far as the beginning of civilization. The idea of capitalism didn't even register until somewhere in the 1800s. 

 

IRS....Indefinite Raping Services. Seems about right. When tax time comes around i never get a return. Always somehow owe federal and state tax. According to them, i'm not withholding enough from my paycheck to stop these particular incursions. That on top of constant streams of nothing but bills? Gee it makes you wonder why people ram their cars into IRS buildings. 😠

"The more you make, the more they take."  That should be their motto.  Even if you claim zero, that is still not enough.  You need to give extra in order to not pay.  Cost of living is high.  But that's the government for you.  

I just see people who are desperate.  So don't go running your car into the IRS buildings.😁

The USA is NOT a free country.   

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Kanamesensei said:

"The more you make, the more they take."  That should be their motto.  Even if you claim zero, that is still not enough.  You need to give extra in order to not pay.  Cost of living is high.  But that's the government for you.  

I just see people who are desperate.  So don't go running your car into the IRS buildings.😁

The USA is NOT a free country.   

 

 

 

I really couldn't have said it any better. 

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2 hours ago, Crevanille said:

Exactly. Teaching the general public multiple skills freely would actually help in the long run. The problem here is that in today's society unless your paying for those skills your not learning them. Many can take to literature and go very far on book smarts alone. Yet countless people need hands on training to truly grasp any form of new skills.

Yeah, I agree with this one, though it is possible to gain skills somewhat freely, especially considering that such a method was how the tech we have today. We, as human beings, are just too lazy to go about it, or are not able to take that path.

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47 minutes ago, brycec said:

Yeah, I agree with this one, though it is possible to gain skills somewhat freely, especially considering that such a method was how the tech we have today. We, as human beings, are just too lazy to go about it, or are not able to take that path.

That too is also true. There are programs out there for people to learn freely. Though many either don't know about them and quite a few are limited. 

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2 hours ago, Crevanille said:

That too is also true. There are programs out there for people to learn freely. Though many either don't know about them and quite a few are limited. 

Yeah, there are programs, but I was saying that they could just get their hands dirty and figure it out themselves too, rather than rely on programs and classes.

After all, that is how the ancients figured things out.

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4 minutes ago, brycec said:

Yeah, there are programs, but I was saying that they could just get their hands dirty and figure it out themselves too, rather than rely on programs and classes.

After all, that is how the ancients figured things out.

Ah yeah that's true to an extent. But do-it-yourself only goes so far you know? If your trying something for the first time and don't know what your doing you could hurt yourself or break something. Hence having a teacher is important.

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10 hours ago, Crevanille said:

When tax time comes around i never get a return.

I always get a return, though the reason behind it sucks.  Back in the dot-com era I had some shares of a science and tech fund.  On the way down a lot of people were cashing out of any technology stocks.  I didn't, but as the other shareholders cashed out, the fund was selling shares to generate cash to pay them with.  As the fund sold shares they generated "internal" capital gains for the fund.  Unfortunately, the way mutual funds work they have to pass along any capital gains to ALL shareholders, not just the ones that cash out.  Even though the share price of the fund was dropping and I was losing money on paper, I got hit with an unexpected capital gains distribution at the end of the year from the fund.  Because I hadn't paid taxes on it by December I wound up owing about $6k to the feds in April when I filed.  This I paid.  Sent the check along with my tax forms, which were filed on time.  But because I owed so much the infernal revenue service assessed an extra penalty, and the next year I had to pay "estimated" taxes every quarter based on the previous year's income.  Thank you sir, may I have another?  Of course the next year I didn't get another such distribution, so I wound up being forced to over-pay my taxes by $6000.

In order to avoid this sort of thing in the future, ever since then I've had an extra $$$ amount over and above the usual withheld from my paycheck.  So now every April I get (most of) it back as a return.

Or how about this one?  (As long as I'm bitching about taxes. :) )  I have solar panels on the roof.  Solar's cheap these days, but it cost a significant chunk of change back 15 or so years ago when we built our system.  Fortunately the state of California had a deal where if you filed the proper paperwork and included the receipts for what you paid they would reimburse you for half the cost.  You had to install and pay for the whole system first, then file and hope you get the check, but it was a good deal.  We filed successfully and got a nice check.  Unfortunately the infernal revenue service claimed that the check was "income" and we had to pay taxes on it.

Needless to say, the IRS is NOT my on my Christmas list.

 

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