The Almighty Dollar

I'm not made out of money, nor are most people I know. I know a few people on the higher end of the scale, but by no means are they filthy rich. My husband and I do the best we can, and sometimes it can be hard. It can be very hard. The other day I started thinking about money and began to wonder why so few have it all and the great percentage of us don't.

The elevators in my building each have a television screen, and every ride up and down we all have to see what's going on in the world. Sometimes there is entertainment news or health tips, sometimes the weather. Most of the time, though, it's politics and big money. I simply brush off the politics or write a blog about how much I hate the Bush Administration, but it doesn't particularly phase me. But then I take notice of the big money news. $32 million to this company, $4.2 billion to the other one. Where does it all come from and where do they keep it all?

When I was little I used to think all the money in America was kept at Fort Knox. Then I learned about investing and how people gamble their money on the market in hopes of making more. And now I'm wondering where does it all really go? Where does a company keep millions, sometimes billions of dollars? Where does a single person keep it all? And when the market crashes, where does it all go? My even bigger question is, if you can't see or touch all of that money, how do you even know it exists?

The US government spends billions and trillions of dollars a year on war, weapons, Presidential and Congressional vacations, and we never see any of it. You're going to tell me that in just under 230 years of being a unified, self governing nation, we have been able to make ourselves the richest most powerful country in the world? Our ancestors came here with not much more than the shirts on their backs and now we have everything we want and more. How is that possible? It took the Roman and British Empires hundreds and hundreds of years to accomplish the same thing. That leaves me with two possibilities: 1) We're stealing the money somehow or 2) it doesn't exist. Wouldn't it be a trip to go to Washington, DC and demand to see all of the gazillions dollars our government claims to have? Or call up Bill Gates and say, "Hey! I'm coming over to see all of your cash!" It would never happen.

How is it that the majority of the country is struggling to make it from paycheck to paycheck, and a certain select few can buy mansions, cars, boats, islands without a second thought? Has anyone noticed that the rest of us are starving to some degree? Some of us don't have food, some no heat or housing, some no health insurance. We're all starving while you financial gluttons eat up everything we're supposedly earning. I'm not even talking about the doctors and lawyers. It's affecting them, too. I know doctors who have had to retire early or quit their practice because big money is demanding too much from them. That doesn't sound right, but it's true. We're all fighting a losing battle. The only winners are the ones taking the money. And what makes me sickest of all is that government joins in the gang bang and raises are taxes instead of doing something about it.

Am I proud to be an American? Sometimes, but I'm more apt to say I'm Scottish, Irish and English than I am American. I once got into an argument with an Irish guy at a bar who asked me what I was. I replied, "Scottish, Irish and English." He fought me for about 5 minutes about how I have no right to say that when I'm from America. My ancestors came from Scotland, Ireland and England, not me. I closed the argument saying, "I hate what this country does to it's own people and how they allow it to happen. Until that changes, I will not call myself American." This stills stands today.

It's sad to say it, but where to we turn when we have no real guidance, only politicians and corporations raping us at every turn. If we're not at war, we're in recession or depression. We came here struggling and we will struggle everyday until someone steps up and says, "No. You can't have anymore of my money. My children are starving, my family and friends are ailing and there's no where I can get what I need to keep our lives going. It's my turn to take the money and your turn to sit and starve." Say what you like, but the time is coming. Isn't it, honey?

Pirate fact: The city of Port Royal, Jamaica was pronounced to be “the wickedest city on Earth” (Rankin 118). It became known across the world as a den and haven for pirates. They off-loaded their ill-gotten gains there, and spent many nights in a state of drunken debauchery over the years, until the sea swallowed the entire city in the aftermath of an underwater earthquake. (Thanks to Mike Walser for this little tidbit of info. Please visit

Piracy and America

for the complete article. )