Dan O'Neill talks about money
“Money doesn’t grow on trees”, so said the local homeless man when I asked him of the origin of his troubles – and he was right. Money does not grow on trees. But oranges do, so why are they so expensive? Is it because of Fair Trade, or the increasing awareness of the poverty in countries where fruit grows large and succulent? If things carry on the way they do and prices, of even the most essential provisions, keep on rocketing upward and out, we will all eventually get our own taste of poverty.
However, if money did grow on trees – which it doesn’t, according to a reliable and absolutely sober source – would it not send our country spiralling backward to Germany, 1929, in the depth of the ‘hyper-inflation-filled’ Great Depression? Yes it would, hence I would like to congratulate Her Majesty the Queen on a job well done - ‘well done for resisting the temptation of printing too much money’. Although, it is not actually Her Majesty the Queen who prints the money. The Bank of England does, and has done so for over three hundred years now. Though, with the economy’s struggle to wrench itself out of a deep recession, how has the public’s confidence in the currency stayed intact? I, for one, find it difficult to believe that a heavily decorated piece of paper, that costs pennies to produce, is worth the ten, twenty or fifty pounds that it is in today’s society.
Following the recent Election 2010, the former investment banker, David Laws of the Liberal Democrats, is now the Chief to the Treasury. This means he will negotiate with departments about budget allocations, welfare reform and public sector pay. In addition to this, Laws has been named as a crucial individual in the new-look Government’s team, and will attempt to organise the economy so that Britain does not fall back into the recession. However, I believe it is not fair that he, a member of the lowest scoring major party at the election, should have any power at all.
The coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats was unfair to many people – mainly those who voted Labour, but also to those who voted for certain policies the Conservatives offered, which will now be altered to make ‘both parties content’. Not only do we not know what the new policies will be, but who and how they are going to affect the people of Britain. You never know, they might surprise us, and not increase the price of fuel, bread and water further – I can never bring myself to pay for bottled water, something I could easily retrieve from a lake in St. Albans.
But what if Laws sorted out Britain’s economy so well that companies could afford to give goods away to people, for absolutely free? Food tastes better when it is free. Soap smells better when it is free. Silver-wear has more shine when it is free. Perhaps that is why people steal. Though they are in a minority. Although, if everything were ‘free of charge, no catch’, then there would be no such thing as robbery, armed or not, hence making the world a better place, because no one should be punished for stealing what would otherwise be totally complimentary – unless because it is not theirs. If that is the case, they should ask permission first before taking the object, to avoid pinching something that could be valued within a home or family.
The reality of it all – things are growing more and more expensive with every hour. Fair Trade products are at least one-pound more expensive than the usual, therefore making the customer pay more towards the poorly treated Brazilian businessmen instead of the multi-million-pound manufacturing company. This defeats the object of Fair Trade – this is not fair. This repels normal people from making kind donations to the ‘hard-done-by’ farmers. The economy is backwards! Confused. Why can’t we all just fight for our gold like Clint Eastwood in that musically inspiring
Spaghetti Western?
Published in: On June 21st, 2010