$ Strategies: A Conservative Foundation

My personal financial history isn't terribly interesting. Things are steady as she goes. So, what's the secret? How did I survive the Great Recession? To understand that, we must understand the other great financial crisis. The Great Depression began when my father was a boy. It shaped his manhood. His financial hygiene was as impeccable as his legal briefs. I cared for my father until he passed in his mid-eighties. Those hard decades for this country were carried into his last days. Example: when he couldn't finish dinner, he'd collect the leftovers into used napkins. He stuffed the bundle into his pockets. Later when I found the stash and asked about it, he couldn't remember doing it. He spent the innocence of his adolescence toiling in the dust of the Depression. Those wicked years manifested scares in old age – a powerful point of view he imprinted upon me. In his honor, I will share this hard-earned perspective, reshaped for today.

Money is the power that drives modern man. Without it, one does not last long. Nature did not equipped our species with the intrinsic tools to live more than a few nights alone in the wilderness. We require supplies, shelter, and tools. Only the most accommodating environments provide any chance. Of course, those places are filled with much more capable predators than a soft human. Even pray pose a threat; if the lion doesn't get you, the stampeding herd of water-buffalo will.

Humans are born to live together. We need each other. We don't need money to survive but we have collectively accepted it as the medium of our lives. Therefore, money matters and makes us happy – to a point, about seventy-thousand dollars a year for the average household. After that, the reasons for making more money become increasingly narcissistic. Example: the CEO of a Seattle company recently took a huge pay-cut and raised the minimum wage to this magic number. It is a bold move to maximize productivity, retention, and innovation. Only time will tell if it works.

Personally, I see money as a rudimentary system of enslavement that rapes the Earth and turns a cold shoulder to the ninety-nine percent. It corrupts and retards progress. It shapes our preferences and loyalties. It treats the average human as a selfish child and punishes us as if necessity equals petty greed. It places blinders on our future and distracts our ability to be present in the moment. But it is a fact of life that must be faced. Hating the system does little to change it or survive it.

Most do not make seventy-thousand a year. Many in this world make less than two dollars a day. This means most of us will be happier, healthier people if we learn to maximize the value of our resources. Outside of making more money, there are ways to make more out of the money we do have. This series of posts discusses my father's insights; make use of those that apply.