Understanding Finance

Much of what goes on with our money goes on behind closed doors. This necessary, we are told, because it is complicated: millions of transactions a second all over the place.

But Life itself is complicated, with millions of interactions all over the place. But somehow it keeps working.

And we, as people, are stuck in the middle, between Life and Technology. Money is a big part of our Technology.

And much of what goes on with our money, goes on without our knowledge. Contracts have been made, and they have to be fulfilled.

Much of this is a good thing: I get my retirement income once a month, and I live off of that.

But much of that money sloshing around is not so benevolent. And sometimes it stops moving, and we have a very hard time: a Depression.

We should be asking ourselves "How can we have an economy that works correctly?"

But instead, we have dictators who tell us "I will take care of that. All you have to do is follow me!"

They do not want you to know about the secret contracts that are siphoning off our money.

I have been talking about the mega-economy here - a very big subject. I now want to talk of something much smaller: the economy of our individual lives - that we should understand.

We should know what is going on with our money, all the time. But our Banks do not want us to know this.

They give us credit (or debit) cards that let us spend our money invisibly, and very easily. They take care of the details behind the scenes for us. This is great, I use mine all the time.

But sometimes other people use my money (without my permission) and I want to know about this. I want to have control of my money.

This should not be hard: I could be notified (by email) whenever money is withdrawn from my account. Is this too much to ask?

According to the Banks, it is. They want to have control of my money, not me. They will not come right out and say this, but it is not hard to look behind the Financial Curtain and see what is going on.

This sounds like a theory proposed by Marx long ago. And many people since then are pointing to Wall Street and saying "You are bad!"

And there is some truth to this, money has been known for its bad effects for two thousand years, ever since the dawn of Christianity and Islam. But Money has not gone away. If anything, it has grown in importance.

We tried getting along without it (in the Middle Ages) but this was a disaster.

The disaster we have now is almost as bad: people who do not know what is going on.