Letters to the Bouncy Banker...

Letters to the Bouncy Banker...
...from a struggling artiste.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

If you think about it...

...you can't put a price on a human life. People are our greatest asset so why is it we fail to invest in them? Is it because we cannot give them a specific value? Given that any life is priceless does this mean that because it has no price it is without value? If life has no value one cannot come up with a reasonable notion of how much to invest in education, work programs, the environment because these are all ill defined in monetary terms. Being financially dyslexic is a good thing. Instead of seeing life in strictly financial terms we give it another value that is defined by the fuzziest math imaginable. There are no financial returns. Frankly nobody really seems able to put a price on money these days anyway so I see no problem with that. What is my dollar worth? Today eight blueberries, tomorrow ten, the next day, three. Financial constants are no more. What remains constant is the value of life—it is consistently priceless— but unfortunately many who have the where-with-all to invest in progressive and enlightened projects will fail to do so until someone can show them where the money is. I say invest in Gold! I don't mean the mineral, the metal. I mean the gold that glows internally, warms your insides. Throw your money at creative projects and look for the return on your investment in how good you feel.  Money comes and goes, wilts and flows, evaporates and materializes but education and jobs open up and flower and create and grow and sow and sow and sow.  Don't invest in the material. Invest in the abstract. Throw your money at projects that nurture the imagination and encourage creative thinking, and look forward to the returns on your investment. They might surprise you.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you Stephen. I've become so opinionated! Next I'll be on Twitter so I can add to the cacophony that is already out there. I'm trying to find the fine line between being really angry and keeping one's sense of humor.

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