THE GREAT SWINDLE

CONTENTS

• Basic Human Needs
• Camel & Needle
• Money & 'Evil'
• Money & Wealth Defined
• Value of Wealth
• Price of Wealth
• Seed of Happiness
• Monetary System
  • Inflation
  • National Debt / Deficits
  • Economic Growth
  • Interest Rates
  • 2003 Update
  • Summation on Money
• Power / Status
• Self Extrication
• All a Matter of CHOICE

How many times have you heard it said, 'Money isn't everything'?

Or, 'Money can't buy happiness'?

How many times have you said these very things, or something similar, yourself?

How many times, and how much, did you really BELIEVE any of what these things seem to be saying? How many times did you really mean them when you said them?

(Come on now. Be honest.)

Do you genuinely BELIEVE that these statements are an accurate description of true human REALITY as you have experienced it to be? Or, are they more of a description of an idealized "reality" that we wish were true, but deep down, "know" really isn't?

Most of us would likely agree, when we stop to think about it honestly, that while money, in and of itself, may not be able to guarantee happiness in a person's life, it can most definitely bring certain qualities into life which can go a long way toward making life a more pleasurable experience.

And, most of us would agree that a lack of a minimally sufficient amount of money can directly result in a great deal of misery and un happiness in our lives.

To put it another way, there are certain material needs we have as physical beings which, if they are not met above a certain minimal threshold, will result in our being in serious physical distress, and, therefore, unable to be even minimally happy.

These basic needs are food, shelter, clothing, general health, and quality time for introspection and creative spiritual development and growth.

If these needs are met in minimally adequate amounts, we have at least a chance for happiness. If they are not minimally met, we have little or no chance at all.

And, money can provide for these needs.

Indeed, it often looks as though money is the only  thing that can provide for them.

An enlightened man named Jesus once said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

But, he didn't  say it is impossible  for a rich man to be happy in this  world.

Or did he?

He also promised heaven to the poor man.

But he didn't promise the poor man, who is in such a state of poverty and squalor that he has been ground down into near apathy, any happiness in this  world.

Or, did he?

There is an old adage which is commonly quoted as, 'Money is the root of all evil.'

But, that is a misquote.

The correct quotation is, 'The love  of money is the root of all evil.'

The correct quotation is certainly more plausible and realistic sounding than the more common misquote.

But even it is misleading.

The love of money is no doubt a cause of a lot of the evil in this world. But it is by no means the cause of all  of it.

This all seems rather confusing, does it not?

And that is the whole point of this discussion.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion and uncertainty in our minds about the relative value of money, what it can and cannot do for us, how important it actually is, and where we should place it within our own scheme of priorities.

The result of all this confusion and uncertainty is this Grand Distractor.

And, because this whole area of life is so mired in imprecision, uncertainty and confusion, this Grand Distractor cannot be as easily and directly defined as can the other Grand Distractors.

We will have to define it more by way of example and general discussion as we go along.

First off, money, in and of itself, is nothing more than a medium of exchange for wealth. It has no intrinsic value within itself. It takes on value only by way of the increments of material wealth it represents.

Material wealth, in and of itself, has no intrinsic value either. It is only in our view of what that wealth can do for us that it, and, therefore, the money that represents it, takes on any value at all.

So, what is wealth?

At base, wealth consists of material goods and objects we derive from the earth, and lay claim to personal possession or use of. The land, itself, when we claim a right to own or use it, is wealth. The things that grow on the land (trees, crops, etc.); that we can extract from beneath its surface (ores, minerals, oil,etc.); and the animal life that is supported by it, can all be wealth.

All of these things provide useful benefits to us, therefore they have value to us, and, therefore, to the extent we can claim the right to own or use them, they constitute wealth.

And, if we invest labor (physical or mental; ours or someone else's) into them so as to make them even more beneficially useful to us, they become of more value to us, and, therefore, constitute even greater wealth.

It is at this point, at which we perceive what material goods can do for us, ie., at which we begin to place relative values on them according to the beneficial use and worth we see in them, that the concepts of wealth and money begin to take on the qualities of a Grand Distractor.

Determining the relative value of, say, an automobile, as compared with a hand made clothes pin or a healthy dog, can be a very complex process. It is based upon a myriad of factors within each of us, that are not entirely the same for all of us, and are not necessarily logical.

Add to this initial complexity a medium of exchange, (ie., money), which is supposed to represent the relative values of each of those items in comparison to one another, and the whole process becomes even more complicated.

This is because money, itself, does  seem to take on a certain intrinsic value unto itself, which it needn't (and preferably shouldn't); and because the system which creates money and governs its use - the monetary system - involves in its functioning certain factors which have nothing whatever to do with the value of the wealth the money is supposed to represent, and yet, have an impact on those values.

As a result of all these complex factors, the inherent value of money, as the medium of exchange it is supposed to be, becomes seriously distorted. And, due to that distortion, our perception of what the wealth the money is supposed to represent can actually do for us of any true worth, is also seriously distorted. The more we distort the value of money, the more we misperceive the true value of wealth, and, the more potent this Grand Distractor becomes.

The fact that this Distractor is listed here is an indication of the extent to which our misperception of the value of wealth, and our distortion of the meaning of money, have reached.

So, in order to sort this all out, let's go back to basics for a bit.

What can the possession of material wealth actually do for us?

Well, it can, as we have already mentioned, provide us with the adequate food, shelter, clothing, health, and leisure time for inner spiritual growth, that are minimally essential for a decent and reasonably happy life.

And, nothing else we have available to us at the moment can provide these essentials. An adequate amount of wealth, and only an adequate amount of wealth, can provide them.

Beyond these minimal essentials for a decent existence, more wealth can only bring either more of those essentials in an abundance beyond what we really need, or, it can bring those essentials in a package of seemingly 'higher' quality, which 'higher' quality would, presumably, bring with it a 'higher quality' of life.

As to the first alternative - an abundance we don't really need - the only possible benefit we can derive is the creation for ourselves of power and status by using the excess to manipulate others. We shall get to this topic shortly.

As to the second alternative, when we start talking about having those essentials in a package of 'higher' quality, we have to start using terms such as 'seemingly' of a higher quality, and 'presumably' more happiness.

Even at this early juncture in our analysis of the true value of wealth and money, we are already stepping off onto ground fraught with the danger of fallacious assumptions, and of entering into the realm of Erroneous "knowing".

Assuming two diets of minimally adequate quantity and of adequately well rounded healthfulness, does a diet of filet mignon necessarily bring more happiness than one of ground beef, or even pork?

There is a price to be paid for being able to afford the steak which goes beyond the price for being able to afford the ground beef. In terms of overall human happiness, is the pleasure to the taste buds truly worth the price one has to pay in order to be able to afford it?

It is important to note that we are not talking here about the price tag on the steak itself, which is presumably higher than that of the ground beef. Rather, what we are talking about is the personal, human price one must pay in order to accumulate the amount of wealth necessary to be able to afford the higher price tag of the steak in the first place.

There is a price we have to pay in order to be able to accumulate wealth. It is a human spiritual  price.

The more the wealth, the higher the price.

Indeed, a lot  of wealth requires the devotion of all  the more creative energies and time of one's entire life.

Is it worth it?

Again, assuming that they both keep the weather out and provide minimally adequate and healthy living space for their occupants, is a three story mansion necessarily more conducive to human happiness than a simple frame house?

Is the woman wearing the mink coat necessarily happier because of it than the one wearing the levi jacket?

The key word in all of these examples is 'necessarily' . Does more wealth necessarily  bring more happiness than less wealth? (Still assuming, of course, that 'less' wealth does not fall below minimally adequate).

We have all no doubt heard enough of the many true to life stories about 'poor' little rich kids, and of the tragedies and miseries in the lives of the rich, not to be aware that more wealth, in and of itself, does not necessarily bring happiness.

More wealth might amplify the happiness in the life of someone who has within himself the personal ability to be happy. But, super-abundant wealth will not create that personal ability to be happy, nor bring happiness itself, to someone who does not already possess the ability to be happy independent of that super-abundant wealth in the first place.

And, there we have the true REALITY about the value of money and wealth.

Wealth, in minimally adequate amounts, is necessary to happiness, in that it is required for the provision of our basic material needs, so as to provide the soil in which happiness can take root and grow.

But, it is not, and cannot provide, the seed of which happiness consists, to be plantedin that soil.

The seed of happiness is within us, personally, and within our personal ability to be happy.

If we have the seed within us (which weall  do), and if we have liberated that seed within us so that it can take root (which far too many of us have not ), it will take root and flower just as vigorously in a small patch of the soil of minimally adequate wealth, as it would in a large field of super-abundant wealth.

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* As to what the source of that 'seed of happiness' is, what it consists of, and how to go about releasing and nurturing it within ourselves as individuals, that is  what this entire writing is so very much about.

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On the other hand, if we have not liberated that seed within ourselves, if it is not free to take root, a field of wealth the size of the universe itself wouldn't make any difference. The soil of wealth would remain barren of the fruit of happiness regardless of the amount of wealth possessed.

Yet, how many of us fail to recognize this FACT in our daily lives? How many of us who already possess a minimally adequate amount of wealth (and, quite often more, much more), still struggle and strain and strive to accumulate more wealth, in the hope and BELIEF that a larger amount of wealth will somehow bring us the happiness we haven't yet found in our lives?

How many of us, in the crises and turmoils and drudgery of daily living, chase after more wealth as a means of eliminating the misery of our daily turmoil and drudgery, failing to realize that if our daily lives are misery and drudgery, more wealth, in and of itself, won't necessarily cure that; but, indeed, our very BELIEF that it will is a large part of the cause of all that misery and drudgery in the first place?

Many of us already have sufficient soil in which to plant our own personal seed of happiness, but we don't plant it because we are too busy looking for more or better soil.

And that is how this Grand Distractor operates within the Great Swindle. It distracts us into focusing on something that cannot, by itself, bring us happiness, and, thereby, keeps us from focusing on the only  thing that will .