what's the price?

  Are we pricing ourselves out of living? That's a question I have. I hear about the cost of living all the time, the price of this and that. I hear how we can't afford things. The things we can't afford, we should have, because that's equality. And that is where the issue lies in my opinion. We have become conditioned to believe unless we have everything those with more wealth have, we are not equal. We are not equal because we don't have disposable income. In short, money to throw away. Isn't that basically what disposable income is? The name says it all. Money I can dispose of in any fashion I choose because I have more than I need. That is the American dream? It is what that dream has become but not what it was originally.

 I believe the original intent of America was to have a place where you could earn your way, unmolested by government intervention, your individual rights protected by law. America is very much about the individual. The founding fathers were very much aware of class and privilege. The haves and have nots. Taxation without representation is tyranny! Remember that slogan? Are we being represented today? Yes, but by whom? Our representatives are the ones that have, representing others that have even more! We call it lobbying. When it benefits our representatives they will lobby on our behalf, mostly when they need our votes, and when it doesn't; well, you are on your own. Good luck with all that. 

 There is no question that living today requires far more monetary resources than at any time in history. Self sufficiency today means I can order my groceries online. Yes there are those that talk about living off the grid. LOL, takes a lot of money to live off the grid. You can't chop down some trees and build a cabin in the wilderness. There is absolutely no free land in America! None, zip, zero. In fact the government owns about 33% of all the land in the United States. That certainly wasn't the intent. The intentions were good, like most intentions are in the beginning. Yellowstone National Park was among the first tracts of land owned by the government! It was to be protected against development for future generations to admire. Originally however the government was to only own and control land for federal offices and military installations. That was it. But the good intentions have now consumed nearly a third of 2.4 billion acres of land in the United States. Plenty of room for 340 million people.

 Money and living. Are they one and the same? Yes, the reality is that is the long and short of it. We can talk all day long about those being different things, but they are not. As far in history as you wish to go wealth of some form has always dominated a society. Doesn't matter if it is a Kingdom, a Dictatorship, Communist, Socialist or a Republic. Money, wealth and power will rule the day. Until everyone in those societies have exactly the same, there will be inequities. That's life. 

 All men are created equal. All men are not born into equal circumstance. All men are not born with the same intelligence, drive, compassion or skills. All men are capable of success. The issue becomes the measurement of success. Generally speaking that means wealth. You got money? Lots of money? Disposable income? You are a success because you have more than you need. And it isn't even controlled by what you feel you need, it is being controlled by what others feel you should have. And in the ultimate irony it is being controlled by what the government says you have to have as a minimum! Currently the government says if a family of four requires 27,750 dollars in annual income. That means one person working a forty hour week would have to earn 13.34 dollars an hour, before taxes! And that is just to be poor. That is the min amount. So how much do you need to be rich? According Schwab and other investment corporation about two million dollars puts you in the wealthy group. Of course those two million dollar wealthy people aren't in league with the billionaires, they aren't equal. 

 So where does all this end? When no one needs to buy anything is the only answer. Only then will everyone be equal. But people will always need or want what others have. That's a fact that cannot be ignored or disputed. The only difference is in the strength of that desire. What we call being content. It is difficult to be content with what you have when others have so much more. Is the minimum ever enough? Not supposed to be, that's what we are told from birth.

 The wealth has been distributed equally among the players. The game begins. What is the objective of the game? Is it to survive or to gain control? The objective is to gain all the wealth. We call that game monopoly. A fun game to play. Wouldn't be much fun if every time my wealth exceeded yours you had to give it back. The redistribution of wealth? Maybe what needs to change is the objective of the game. But, how do we measure success? If everyone is the same, who is the winner? 

 Apparently, I have written a lot about nothing. I'm trying to figure out the point in all of this for myself. The often-misquoted Bible verse about money sums it up. The LOVE of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It isn't money itself that is evil, no more than a gun shoots people, it what you do to get it, and how you use it that matters. Who gets to decide how much is enough? The government tells us what the minimum is, should the government also dictate the maximum? A price cap on wealth?