The End Of Money

When I was younger, and much more idealistic than I am now, I used to imagine how wonderfully Utopian our world might be if we could only do away with money. Imagine a world in which nobody has to pay for anything. Everyone contributes according to their talents, and takes only what they need. Crime and poverty are non-existent. People are more fulfilled and happy in their work, because they do what they enjoy and what they excel at, rather than what pays the most. Gone is the society in which a privileged few enjoy obscenely ostentatious lifestyles while the unfortunate live in unspeakable poverty. Everyone enjoys a lifestyle that's comfortable, but not extravagant.

Before I go all John Lennon on you, let me assure you that I fully understand why such a system could never be. One problem is greed. There will always be those who crave the lion's share; those who, for some reason, feel entitled to more than the rest. The other problem is laziness. There will also always be those who want to enjoy the fruits of others' labor without contributing themselves. In order for my Utopian society to work, everyone would have to make a genuine effort to contribute to the best of their abilities and learn to be content with a common standard of living.

On the other hand, it seems to me that we may be evolving to a version of my money-less society. I rarely use cash anymore. Almost all of my payments are either by debit card or through on-line banking. I likewise almost never receive cash either. My employer pays me by automatically depositing my salary into my bank account. There's not even a cheque to deposit. I can see society moving to a point at which all transactions are electronic and no actual money ever changes hands at all.

This ties in with my recent post about money having no intrinsic value in and of itself. First, we did away with the gold backing the cash. Now we're eliminating the cash itself. In a sense, you might consider an electronic commerce system as dealing in "points" rather than cash. Each of us receives 'X' number of "points" for whatever contribution we make to society, and we use those "points" to acquire the things that we need and want. The "point" system gets us around the problems of avarice and sloth. It's not exactly the Utopian society that I imagined in my younger days, but perhaps is as close as we're ever going to get.

Stone Washed

Yesterday, I went canoeing for the second time in my life. Our group followed the same course that I blogged about the last time around; a twenty kilometer run from Cambridge to Paris, Ontario.

My wife and daughter did not accompany me this time as the bad taste from our last expedition still lingered in their mouths, and neither was much in the mood for a swim, if you get my drift. Instead, my rowing partner this time around was my good friend, Michael Feeney; an avid outdoorsman with previous canoeing experience. He even brought his own wooden paddle, with which he would whack me every time I mistakenly referred to it as an "oar".

Having Michael in the canoe with me was a refreshing change from my previous company. It was nice to row with someone who worked with me, rather than having to constantly struggle to counteract what the other person was doing, or having to periodically exclaim "Okay, stop rowing for a moment ... no, just stop. Stop! Just stop I say! STOP!!!"

Michael and I worked well together and made very good time. By the halfway point, we were far ahead of the rest of the group. We enjoyed the peaceful, natural surroundings and caught many a glimpse of nature's wonders, including two cranes, a muskrat, and a young fawn.

The fawn was a special treat. It stood there on the riverbank, watching us curiously, apparently content that the water people seemed comfortably distant enough to be unable to harm it. Then Shawn, my cousin's eighteen-year-old son, who followed a short ways behind us in another boat, spied it. Shawn is ... how shall I put this? Not exactly the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer. The moment he noticed the fawn he crowed "HEY DAD! DEER! LOOK DAD! IT'S A DEER! DAD LOOK! HURRY DAD, IT'S RUNNING AWAY!" And thus was our admiration of the young fawn sadly curtailed.

Our canoe trip was a spur-of-the-moment idea, agreed upon because it looked like a splendid day for one. The morning was brilliant and warm, with nary a cloud in the azure sky. Naturally, while we were on the water, huge gray clouds sprang up literally from out of nowhere and rained down upon us; not just a gentle, pattering rain, mind you, but a full-blown thunderstorm with sheets of water cascading down on us! As if nature were rubbing it in, my wife reported later, when I returned home, that she had seen no rain at all. No, apparently, it only rained where our group decided to go canoeing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that it did not, in fact, rain anywhere other than along the length of the Grand River. The clouds probably went out of their way to follow our boats and relieve themselves upon us, not that I suffer from any sort of persecution complex. Perhaps the Great Rainmaker reads my blog and remembered my earlier post romanticizing rainy days. "So you like rain, do you?" I imagine Him chortling to Himself, as he began conjuring up a collection of thunderheads.

In spite of Michael's superior canoeing skill and the improvements to my own skills from the lessons learned on my previous trip, our journey down the Grand River was not completely without mishap. Our canoe did get upset just one time, as we tried to negotiate a fast-moving current over some particularly jagged rocks. Our boat came up against one of the rocks and listed seriously to port (he said, in his most convincing "Old Sea Dog" voice). We managed to counter-balance and avoid tipping, but the incline had been enough to allow a large quantity of water to rush into the boat. By the time we were righted, the boat was low and heavy, and water was still sloshing in over the sides, not to mention the fact that we were still being jostled about by the rocks. I just had time to shout "We're not gonna make it!" before we listed again and capsized.

Here's where I made my mistake. I instinctively tried to stay with the boat. Before we disembarked on our trip, our guide had cautioned us never to position ourselves downstream from the canoe should it tip, as a water-logged canoe can weigh as much as two thousand pounds, and getting pinned against a rock by that kind of weight can totally ruin one's day.

I quickly learned the truth of this as I did, indeed, find myself on the downstream side of our overturned craft. I tried to stand up and hold the canoe in position with my torso, only to be unceremoniously pushed back as my legs splayed out underneath the canoe. Remembering the guide's warning about getting pinned against a rock, I wisely moved aside and allowed the boat to float past me, so that I was now upstream of it.

This is where I made my second mistake, deciding that, if I couldn't brace myself in front of the canoe, I would grab onto its stern and stay with it as it floated downstream. Well, stay with it I did (for a few brief moments), with the boat dragging me along behind it, over many a large, jagged rock.

After a few painful bounces, I wisely let go and tried to plant my feet on the riverbed and stand up, but the water was high and the current was strong from the rainfall. I couldn't find a level footing because of the many jagged rocks, and the currently simply buckled my knees and pulled me down. I flailed around among the rocks for several frightening moments, swallowing large mouthfuls of water, coming up just long enough for a desperate gasp of air before tumbling under again. Now I know how laundry must feel in a front-load washer, except that the walls of a front-load washer drum are at least relatively smooth! Stone washing may be cool for jeans, but not so good for shins and kneecaps. Somehow, I managed to hang onto my paddle throughout the ordeal, which is a very good thing. It did escape me a time or two, but I always managed to grab it again before it got out of my reach.

As the current tossed me helplessly about, I had the presence of mind to worry about dashing my head against one of those jagged boulders. Had that happened, things might have gotten seriously ugly. Equally worrisome was the realization that my strength was failing me from the exertions of trying to steady myself. The longer I tumbled about, the more powerless I became to regain control. Fortunately, I cleared the rocks just then and floated into a river trough that was so deep that I could no longer touch bottom with my feet at all, but at least it was calm and, thankfully, I was wearing my life preserver. I bobbed there, limp in the water, allowing myself to slowly float downstream while I caught my breath and collected my wits.

Not long afterward, my feet touched ground again. In the meantime, Michael had caught up with our canoe and one of the guides helped him to right it, after which we pulled it to shore and collapsed in the tall grass. My knees and shins looked like something out of Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ".

Now here I sit, bruised, scabby and sore, but happy to be here to tell the tale. Here are a few tips for anyone who may someday decide to go canoeing, especially in a fast-flowing river, from one who's learned from his mistakes:

Try to place any belongings that you bring along in water-tight bags, preferably something that can be clipped, tied or otherwise attached to the canoe in some fashion.

If you capsize, don't panic. It will happen from time to time, just as skiers or snowboarders will wipe out from time to time, but it needn't be traumatic unless you lose control of the situation. Keep your head about you. DO hang onto your paddle, DO NOT worry about the canoe. The canoe may float downstream a ways but it likely won't go very far, especially if it's water-logged. You can catch up with it later. If you've attached your belongings to it as I suggested, you'll catch up with them too. Your paddle, on the other hand may quickly disappear downstream and you'll need it.

Financial Cognitive Dissonance

One of the nice things about this blog is knowing that my readers (or my regular readers, anyway) are intelligent people who don't need me to explain that cognitive dissonance refers to the stating of a given belief but acting in a manner contrary to that stated belief. That's probably why my readership is so small.

The G-20's call for austerity, the burgeoning global debt and Greece's recent financial crisis have got me thinking about money, lately. I wonder how many of us recall that paper money has no intrinsic value in and of itself. Paper money is nothing more than a fancy I.O.U.

In medieval times, people would trade goods and services for other goods and services; "you give me that ox, and I'll give you twenty chickens" or "you give me a room and a bed for the night and I'll plow ten furrows for you tomorrow".

Trading literal goods in this way was somewhat cumbersome and arbitrary. Precious metals, such as gold and silver, were far easier to carry and exchange than oxen, and their value was more easily standardized; easier yet if those precious metals were stamped into light-weight, standardized coins.

One of the earliest examples of this originated in the Bohemian city of Joachimsthal in 1518, where a silver coin known as the "Joachimsthaler" or "Thaler" (pronounced "Tahler") for short was minted in large numbers thanks to the rich silver deposits to be found near that town. In fact, the "Thaler" is the origin of the North American "Dollar's" etymology.

Eventually, the world came up with something even lighter and easier to exchange than gold and silver coins; paper money. The idea, originally, was that each dollar (for those of us living in North America) was really nothing more than a government-issued voucher for an equal value in gold; in other words, each paper dollar represented one dollar's worth of gold stored in Fort Knox or some other such place of safekeeping. Rather than lugging around heavy gold coins or bars, people simply exchanged these paper vouchers instead.

In the early seventies, then President Richard Nixon stirred the financial porridge, so to speak, when he decided to kill the gold standard; in other words, he decreed that the U.S. dollar need no longer be directly convertible to gold. Why? Well, because the United States' ill-considered conflict in Vietnam plus increased domestic spending had created these pesky fiscal and trade deficits. Nixon's solution - no problem; we'll just start printing lots more paper money and do away with that inconvenient rule that it be backed up by something of real value.

You'd think that the rest of the global financial community would cry "foul" or something but, oddly enough, they did the opposite. Gradually, country after country began to follow the United States' lead and started printing currency willy-nilly, beginning with West Germany and followed by Switzerland and, eventually, the rest of Europe and, of course, Canada. Because of all this, today international currencies are valued based on their projected future value rather than the amount of gold that they can buy; in other words, currencies today have no real intrinsic value, other than that assigned by speculators.

In an earlier post, I wondered aloud whether the amount of money that is owed by Canada alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world, actually even exists. I suggest this answers that question.

I wonder what would happen if the majority of the world's financial institutions realized that simple fact tomorrow? More interestingly, if we assume that the world's financial institutions are governed and operated by basically intelligent people who already understand this fact, then we can only conclude that they conveniently choose to disregard that knowledge, and carry on as though money were still backed up by something of value. Now wouldn't that be a fascinating example of financial cognitive dissonance?

A Black Mark on Canada

Dr. Paul Williamson, the father of a Kent State student, once wrote in a letter to his son, "Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you." After witnessing the anarchy that erupted during the G8 summit yesterday, I can understand his point of view.

Toronto resembled a war zone yesterday as windows were smashed and police cars were burned by a group of anarchist thugs known as the "Black Bloc". Let's not make the mistake of giving these goons the respectability of labeling them "protesters". The legitimate protesters demonstrated quietly and peacefully, as one would expect from any self-respecting Canadian. The legitimate protest parade was already "fait accompli" by the time the black-garbed, masked hoodlums began their vandalist spree. The only thing that they were protesting was peace, order and the rule of law.

Sadly, it's precisely these types of hooligans that enable our government leaders to justify the expenditure of a mind-boggling one and a half billion dollars for security. Even the harshest critics of the G8 and G20 summits can't deny that a gathering of all of the world's major leaders in a single location makes a tempting target for any fanatical whacko with an agenda of destruction to which he believes to have been ordained by The Almighty Himself.

Ridiculous fake muskokas aside, I would argue that getting the world's leaders together to talk about the many global challenges that we face today including economic, political and natural, can only be a good thing. The jaded may argue that these summits are nothing more than pointless photo ops for a group of talking heads. There may even be some truth to that point of view. But would it be better if the nations of the world simply threw up their hands and didn't even try? Would it be preferable for every nation to focus solely on its own interests rather than trying to work together to find common solutions?

Regardless of what we may think of these summits, I think that most Canadians will agree that nothing justifies what happened in Toronto yesterday. Broken windows and burning police cars are images that we might expect from the streets of Tel Aviv, Belfast or even Paris, but not from Toronto. Canadians are better than that.

The Fathers' Day Present

The Fathers' Day that stands out most clearly in my memory is the one from 1967. I was four years old at the time, and not yet a father myself. But I had a father, who smoked at the time, and who had expressed an interest in a certain lighter that he had seen in a store during a recent shopping expedition. So mom decided that she would get him said lighter as a Fathers' Day gift, and that she would take my two-year-old sister and me along, partially because she had no sitter for us and partially so that we might feel that we had participated in getting dad's Fathers' Day gift.

"Big deal," you may say. I agree it may not seem like one, until you understand that:

a) The store at which dad had seen the lighter was a considerable distance from our home.

b) We had only one car, which dad had taken to work, and mom didn't drive anyway.

So we took the bus, but even that entailed a fair bit of walking, both to get to the bus stops and because mom didn't remember exactly where the store in question was, having been there only once or twice, and never having navigated her way there on her own. You know how it is; when someone else is driving, you don't always pay attention. Besides, the buses almost never take the same route as one would take by car.

Still, mom was confident that she could find her way there and so off we went, the three of us, leaving home at some time between 9 and 10 am. We started off in the best of spirits, but young children tend to tire easily. By noon or so we still hadn't found the store, we were getting hungry, not having had lunch, and my sister and I were both getting hot, tired and cranky.

Not long after that, we finally did find the store that we were looking for, and our spirits lifted slightly, both because our goal was finally within reach and because we were finally able to get some lunch.

Once inside the store, mother was just as vague about exactly where dad had seen the lighter as she was about the location of the store itself, so we wandered around searching for a bit until mom finally gave in and asked a store sales clerk. Unfortunately, we had been in Canada for less than two years at the time, having immigrated from Austria in 1965, and her mastery of the English language was far from refined, so she mistakenly asked the sales clerk where we might find a "flashlight", which she thought was the english word for an instrument that lights cigarettes. The sales clerk, of course, very helpfully took us straight to the sporting goods department, where there was a wide variety of flashlights to choose from, none of which, unfortunately, produced enough heat to ignite the end of a cigarette.

We stood there, somewhat befuddled, for a few moments. Mom did not want to explain to the sales clerk that this was not what she wanted at all as she already felt stupid enough. She didn't want to have gone to all that trouble for nothing either. So, after a little more unsuccessful searching around, she finally bought herself a pair of gloves for forty cents, and we headed home. By the time we finally arrived back home, it was about 2:30 pm. Exhausted, we all went straight to our rooms where we slept until almost dinner time.

Dad never did get his lighter; in fact, he eventually gave up smoking entirely, which makes his premature departure from this life seem all the more unfair. When mom later told him of our adventure, he laughed and told her that she'd better mount and frame those gloves.

Happy Fathers' Day, dad. I miss you.

Entitlement

Those who know me well, and even those who just read this blog with any sort of regularity, know that one of the things that I despise most is the stuffed shirt or fat cat; people with far more money than any one person needs or has a right to; especially people who came by that money through dumb luck or through family or social connections, as opposed to having earned it.

Understand that I have no quarrel with someone who happens to win a lottery, as long as they don't start acting as though they somehow deserve their good fortune. What really raises the temperature, not to mention the pressure, of my blood the most, is people with a false sense of entitlement; those for whom no extravagance ever seems sufficient; those who seem to perpetually want more, no matter how much they have already. Eleanor Clitheroe appears to be that kind of person.

Eleanor Clitheroe was vice president of Ontario Hydro from 1993 until 1999, when the Ontario government restructured the bloated, inefficient utility, already mired in debt, splitting it into five companies, one of which became known as Hydro One. Eleanor Clitheroe became Hydro One's president. She was paid a salary of over $2.2 million in 2001, which included $174,000 for a car and $172,000 in vacation pay.

In 2002, Hydro One's Board of Directors moved to fire Clitheroe, citing misuse of company funds, including personal club memberships which she charged to her corporate credit card and $40,000 worth of renovations which she had Hydro One's service providers make to her home. She eventually repaid the renovation money, but not until after she was caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. She wound up quitting to escape the humiliation of being fired.

Since her deservedly disgraceful departure from Hydro One, Clitheroe has been collecting a monthly pension of $25,000. My keen sense of math tells me that's about $300,000 per year; a comfortable pension even by Canadian politicians' standards. But not enough for Eleanor Clitheroe, apparently. Last year, she petitioned the Ontario Superior Court to raise her monthly pension to $33,000 - that's almost $400,000 per year - claiming that her constitutional rights had been infringed when the Ontario government passed legislation that significantly reduced the $6 million severance which she had negotiated into her employment contract to a "paltry" $3 million. To its credit, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that having a grotesque severance cut in half after being fired for incompetence and embezzlement is not an infringement of a person's constitutional rights. This month, Clitheroe is back in court appealing the decision.

Eleanor Clitheroe is the reason why every Ontario family is now required to help pay down the enormous debt that Ontario Hydro and its offshoot, Hydro One, ran up under her watch. If you're a resident of Ontario, check your next Hydro bill. It's right there in black and white; "Debt Retirement Charge". In 2006, Ontario's Auditor General, Jim McCarter, confirmed that $127 million of that deficit came from "questionable" charges to corporate expense accounts, with few receipts to justify them. What's worse, we're given no idea how much of the debt has been paid down, and how much remains; in other words, how long we're expected to continue paying for the incompetence and excesses of Clitheroe and her executive cronies.

I'm not suggesting that Clitheroe is solely responsible for the Hydro debt, but I'm singling her out for her greed and her lack of empathy with the common ratepayer. In an economy in which many are unemployed and struggling to make ends meet, and many have lost jobs without receiving a cent of their modest severance entitlements, as often happens when companies go into receivership, Eleanor Clitheroe feels no shame in suggesting that a monthly pension that's more than three times the average working Ontarian's salary, to say nothing of the average retired Ontarian's pension, is insufficient.

If I were given any say in the matter, I would not only deny Clitheroe's bid to increase her pension, I would garnishee the pension that she is receiving so that she can personally help pay down the hydro debt.

Oh, and here's the icing on the proverbial cake. These days, "Reverend" Eleanor Clitheroe has become an Anglican priest. It would seem that the Anglican clergy aren't required to take a vow of poverty.

The Cover-up

My mother owns a very attractive living room set. The couch, chair and love seat are upholstered with a white fabric embroidered with a floral pattern, and the armrests are accented with teak wood. At least, that's how I remember it. I rarely actually see the upholstery or the teak accents, except on special holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, or perhaps when mom has special visitors, such as her Austrian relatives. I don't count as a special visitor. Neither does anybody whom she sees more than twice a year. The rest of the time, mom's living room furniture is covered with a checkered cloth cut from an old bedsheet and sewn to loosely fit over the various pieces (mom's something of a seamstress, you see).

The old bedsheets are there, of course, to keep the furniture's fabric looking nice. If someone should thoughtlessly sit on the furniture with dirty clothes, or if food or drink should accidentally be spilled on the bedsheets, they can be relatively easily removed and washed. Let's face it, white tends to stain pretty easily.

While visiting mom earlier this week, I noticed that her living room chair happened to be uncovered (I suppose the bedsheet cover was being washed or something) and I was struck by how much nicer the chair looked than did the rest of the furniture. Herein lies the fallacy. Mom covers up her furniture to keep it looking nice but, in covering it up, she hides its beauty. Personally, I'd be inclined to leave the furniture uncovered, to be admired by others and enjoyed by myself, even if it means risking the odd stain. I can deal with that if and when it happens. There are a lot of effective upholstery cleaners available these days.

Those who protect the fronts of their cars with vinyl "bras" commit the same fallacy. The bras are there to prevent stone chips and keep the finish looking shiny and new, except that you can't admire the shiny finish since it's covered in vinyl. I think it would make more sense to eschew the bra, show off the finish while it lasts and, once it gets marred by the inevitable stone ships, then cover them with a bra.

I've heard it proposed that it's foolish to save things for special occasions, because the special occasion may never come. More to the point, why can't the special occasion be right now? Let's try to remove phrases like "some day" and "one of these days" from our vocabularies. Let's make today the day. Don't save your best perfume or cologne. Use the good china. And lose the crappy bedsheets, mom. I promise to put on clean jeans before I come over.