Money is one thing in life you should understand and teach your kids about. Money & trade is the thread that holds the fabric of society together with or without capitalism. It is the net that catches you in a fall and when the waters of life rise up, it is the lifeboat you row away to safety in. I remember being told when I was a child that money isn't everything. At the time that sounded good to me because money was so hard for me to get. I was glad it wasn't everything, and I hoped it never would be. I felt that way because I had to work, do chores, sell things, or beg to get it. This made life seem pretty tuff to me as a kid. Yes, it taught me the value of earning but little else.
Now that I'm an adult my understanding of money has changed. Money is still not easy to get, but it wouldn't be as hard to get if I had known all about it early on. So now the matter is worse because money is everything and in reality, it always was! I still have to work to get it, do chores for it and sometimes beg for it. The problem is that without it everything stands still. Now I think money is not only everything but a necessity so important to live that you can die from not having it. And in fact, an embarrassing number of Americans do and that number has increased exponentially over the past 40 yrs.
A person shouldn't say money isn't everything in capitalism unless they explain why it is. We've all been down on our luck and at some point suffered long and hard because we didn't have a higher paying job, a savings or an investment activity in place. Under a rigged system, most will not. Money buys everything in life even love, respect, family (families cost a lot of money relatively), and happiness. Those four things are important which makes money that much more important. Now that I've gotten that out of the way let's get right done to it! "In America money is everything"!
Money buys comfort, convenience and time. Given this, when you work as hard as Americans do you deserve those three advantages. Unfortunately, low wages due to evil politics and greed have eroded 'The American Dream' by putting those things farther and farther out of our reach. It by nature makes us work harder and more to grab that carrot, which is no longer there, pity. This is a labor trap that has taken The American Dream out of the picture for some people because they were misguided about the importance of money in America. If you mention it, they'll call you a communist. And, this word has been their escape route for damn near a century and people still fall for it.
If you are sick you need money to get help and pay medical expenses, and when you're hungry you need money to eat. You need it to communicate with a cell phone or computer if you want to live in the present and not the past. If money is not everything why do you have to work for it, why don't people just give it to you? An individual should work for a living, but to rig the system and undermine the individuals' efforts is simply evil. But then greed does encompass all sin. It can only get worse over time unless that carrot is removed.
Here's the truth, money should not be worshiped. By that I mean one should not seek money as the answer to everything. It is only a means to an end. We need money for trade and there is where the value of money should stop. Money can foster greed and greed will eventually devour the better part of a man's character and in some instances his life. One must respect money in order to make wise decisions concerning it. And we should be careful what we purchase with it to avoid misusing it.
The person who doesn't take money for granted will always have more of it, so we should purchase what we need as opposed to what we want about 99% of the time. Do you need a vacation, okay, but do you need a lavish vacation, who does? It's easy to think of money as a status symbol to impress ourselves or someone else, but there are more important ways to impress someone. You just have to think about it a little harder.
One example is people who always put others before themselves. Now there is an impressive person. If you spend your time learning what good values are, the money will never come to mind and in that way money is not everything, and in fact, it literally becomes nothing at all. However, none of that counts if you need a place to live. For that, you need the money and by today's standards, more than you should have to.
Kids should be taught finance early, and how the value of money in their lives will become more important as they ascend into adulthood. But they should be encouraged to live an honest, keep balance in their lives too. Furthermore, parents should explore the strengths of their children and help them relate to those strengths and avoid temptations. For example; a child who has an aptitude in math should be told at a young age what the careers in math are and the job descriptions explained to them. If it is highly paid they should be told that and how to handle the higher income.
But they should also be told of the dangers of greedy behavior. They should be shown those that pay well and those that don't and told what the difference means from a financial point of view. Thus the child becomes equipped early on to maneuver in the forest of employment, understand why poverty is not chosen, and then taught about having their own business. When we teach them how to stay prepared, they never have to get prepared. This shows them the value of capitalism and how not to support its flaws! It also shows them the importance of having social programs in place to support capitalism because the greedy (those with privilege and opportunity) will fight any kind of social program.
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