The Homeless and the Evolving Economy
Wednesday, 13. June 2007, 17:18:43
I was walking back to my office today after picking up lunch at quasi-fast food joint in downtown Cleveland today. It is a journey I make fairly regularly and is about a 1 – 2 block walk. There is usually a panhandler asking for money about 20 feet away from the door as one leaves the restaurant.
For some reason, seeing him today made me think of those awful debit card commercials where there is pleasant music and everything is running like a little assembly line in a shop until someone tries to pay for their purchase with cash and the whole thing comes to a screeching stop. Well I’ll get back to the commercial in a moment. Just keep it in the back of your mind.
Developing a personal financial plan requires some skills similar to going on a healthy diet. You need to track where your money is going (keep a food diary); determine what you can reasonably spend in a week (how many calories a day you can eat); figure out how you are going to spend the money allotted (what can you eat for those calories); only bring enough cash for your daily allocation of spending (pack a lunch); etc.
A few years ago I was struggling to pay off student loans and keep the debt collectors happy. I started carrying my “allowance” in an envelope. It was enough money to pay for the weeks parking and lunch. If I was a goose and splurged at the beginning of the week, I might have to skip lunch on Friday type of thing. As I became better at controlling my spending I stopped using the envelope.
Lately I have been putting all of my purchases on my Amazon visa. I get $25 gift certificates in the mail for doing this. I like getting gift certificates. As a result I carry a whole lot less cash then I had previously. I figure I can just go to the ATM if something comes up requiring cash.
In the commercial mentioned above I would be one of the happy little workers keeping the assembly line running smoothly.
I was thinking of that commercial today as I paid for my lunch. I even had the song “Brazil” going through my head as I left the restaurant and passed the panhandler. Then my thoughts came to a screeching halt.
Both the government and the credit/debit card companies would prefer it if we did every financial transaction with plastic. It would enable the government to track how we spend every penny, enabling them to tax us more efficiently and do the whole “Big Brother” routine, and the credit/debit card companies would be able to charge us, and the vendors, fees which are their real source of revenue. Aside from the sinister aspects inherent in the system, it is a fairly convenient way to buy things.
Which brings me back to the panhandler and the stupid commercial.
Back in the day when I was doing envelope budgeting, I would sometimes give the friendly homeless guy a dollar or two. If it had been a good week and it was Friday, and I was feeling really flush, I occasionally gave him $5 so he could get a hot meal at McDonald’s. We went to the same food court, so I knew he was really buying food with it.
Even if I had wanted to, I could not have given the panhandler any cash today. I knew where I was going for lunch when I left my office and had deliberately only brought my credit card with me. It’s light, it’s handy, takes up very little space in the pocket and the restaurant was only 1 – 2 blocks away.
If the utopia portrayed in the commercial comes to fruition, what happens to the beggars?
It isn’t like they are going to have little credit card machines they can run your charity through.
Also, I think the more affluent a person becomes the less likely they will be to carry cash on them. In futuristic sci-fi movies only criminals carry cash. If that really becomes the norm in the future then what happens to the panhandlers?
I get that some people don’t think that is a problem and think having the panhandlers going away is a feature of having a plastic economy. But seriously, being poor is not an easy adventure. Being homeless isn’t some lark for the vast majority of people. (There is the occasional grunge rocker who is doing homeless for his art, but I think his kind are statistical aberrations who should be discounted from the population of homeless people for purposes of aid proposals.)
Well that was my big thought for the day. Cash enables charity; charity is good for your soul. Plastic makes for plastic people; plastic people have no soul.
For some reason, seeing him today made me think of those awful debit card commercials where there is pleasant music and everything is running like a little assembly line in a shop until someone tries to pay for their purchase with cash and the whole thing comes to a screeching stop. Well I’ll get back to the commercial in a moment. Just keep it in the back of your mind.
Developing a personal financial plan requires some skills similar to going on a healthy diet. You need to track where your money is going (keep a food diary); determine what you can reasonably spend in a week (how many calories a day you can eat); figure out how you are going to spend the money allotted (what can you eat for those calories); only bring enough cash for your daily allocation of spending (pack a lunch); etc.
A few years ago I was struggling to pay off student loans and keep the debt collectors happy. I started carrying my “allowance” in an envelope. It was enough money to pay for the weeks parking and lunch. If I was a goose and splurged at the beginning of the week, I might have to skip lunch on Friday type of thing. As I became better at controlling my spending I stopped using the envelope.
Lately I have been putting all of my purchases on my Amazon visa. I get $25 gift certificates in the mail for doing this. I like getting gift certificates. As a result I carry a whole lot less cash then I had previously. I figure I can just go to the ATM if something comes up requiring cash.
In the commercial mentioned above I would be one of the happy little workers keeping the assembly line running smoothly.
I was thinking of that commercial today as I paid for my lunch. I even had the song “Brazil” going through my head as I left the restaurant and passed the panhandler. Then my thoughts came to a screeching halt.
Both the government and the credit/debit card companies would prefer it if we did every financial transaction with plastic. It would enable the government to track how we spend every penny, enabling them to tax us more efficiently and do the whole “Big Brother” routine, and the credit/debit card companies would be able to charge us, and the vendors, fees which are their real source of revenue. Aside from the sinister aspects inherent in the system, it is a fairly convenient way to buy things.
Which brings me back to the panhandler and the stupid commercial.
Back in the day when I was doing envelope budgeting, I would sometimes give the friendly homeless guy a dollar or two. If it had been a good week and it was Friday, and I was feeling really flush, I occasionally gave him $5 so he could get a hot meal at McDonald’s. We went to the same food court, so I knew he was really buying food with it.
Even if I had wanted to, I could not have given the panhandler any cash today. I knew where I was going for lunch when I left my office and had deliberately only brought my credit card with me. It’s light, it’s handy, takes up very little space in the pocket and the restaurant was only 1 – 2 blocks away.
If the utopia portrayed in the commercial comes to fruition, what happens to the beggars?
It isn’t like they are going to have little credit card machines they can run your charity through.
Also, I think the more affluent a person becomes the less likely they will be to carry cash on them. In futuristic sci-fi movies only criminals carry cash. If that really becomes the norm in the future then what happens to the panhandlers?
I get that some people don’t think that is a problem and think having the panhandlers going away is a feature of having a plastic economy. But seriously, being poor is not an easy adventure. Being homeless isn’t some lark for the vast majority of people. (There is the occasional grunge rocker who is doing homeless for his art, but I think his kind are statistical aberrations who should be discounted from the population of homeless people for purposes of aid proposals.)
Well that was my big thought for the day. Cash enables charity; charity is good for your soul. Plastic makes for plastic people; plastic people have no soul.
WIDGETIZE