Money and Manure

Whether we like or not, money makes the world go around. There are a number of ways to say it. He who pays the piper picks the tune. Then there is the “Golden Rule”: He with the gold, rules. How about: “Money isn’t everything. It’s just most everything.” Then there is Sophie Tucker’s “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better!” And let’s not forget John Rockefeller’s answer to the question “How much money is enough?” He replied “A little bit more!”

Those among us who spew platitudes argue that money isn’t everything, that money can’t buy happiness. Actually a recent study at the University of Kansas determined that it does buy happiness...at least to a degree. A generic family income of $75,000.00/year seems to be the magic number. People are happier above that number than below that number. BUT, there is also a leveling off. The happiness quotient seems to top at $75,000.00/year which leads me to believe what they actually were measuring was contentment rather than happiness. There’s a difference.

All of us wish we made more money. But I have learned in my practice that at the end of your life when you are sick and lying in a nursing home, whether you have one dollar or a hundred million dollars, it makes no difference. Everyone is treated the same.

Since class warfare is the buzz word for this election, maybe we should have a frank talk about the nature of money. The left wraps itself in a blanket of self righteous indignation about people who make money. But mostly they are concerned about business people who make money. They aren’t so concerned about athletes and movie stars and celebrities who make millions upon millions. If I were to list the tax breaks the entertainment industry gets, you would call me a liar. Nobody believes me when I tell them so I stopped telling them.

On the other hand, nobody can deny that greed is a factor in the business community. Scandals have rocked various companies over the years. A current scandal involves Chesapeake Energy which is a major player in the gas industry in northeast Ohio. The 2008 collapse of the financial industry has raised all sorts of questions about both big business and big government. Let’s not forget the boom time scandals of Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco. These folks are either dead or doing the time. Not pretty at all!!!!

Then there are those who can’t figure out where they are in the scheme of money. I have a friend who runs a successful business but is an avowed leftist…except for HIS business. While worried about traditional liberal issues of increasing rents and gentrification, he has actually been successful in getting people to give him money to buy real estate with nothing in return. I can’t figure out whether he truly believes what he says, or whether he is playing to what he considers to be his clientele and has shrewdly figured out how to make money in this anti-money environment. It is a thing of beauty and I salute him.

Then there is politics and money. I have always felt that Obama’s Achilles heel was his campaign financing, which reeked of big money and scummy bundlers laundering money. Nobody has really taken the time to look at it. He also has been the beneficiary of major left wing Super Pac’s, which if he truly practiced what they preached, wouldn’t be doing this sort of thing. And don’t look to closely at left wing 501-C-3's. It’s almost a joke as they use tax deductible donations to fund their “non-profit” goals…which happen to be electing left wing politicians. This is a scam that has been raised to an art form under the nose of the IRS.

The right is a little more brazen in their approach to donations. They basically operate Super Pacs but without the machinations of trying to hide who gives what. They put it out there for everybody to see. Unfortunately, when it comes to creative campaign financing, they are behind the curve and will take years to figure out how to use public money to backdoor finance political campaigns.

All of this being said, a wise man once told me: “Never knock another man’s hustle.” That is good advice. Money has always been with us, and always will be with us. With it comes greed, but also great generosity. As Dolly Levi’s late husband said (paraphrasing Thornton Wilder) in Hello Dolly: "Money is like manure. It doesn’t do any good unless you spread it around." At the end of the day, it's not whether you are a member of the 1%, but what side of the manure spreader you are on.   It's a dirty business either way, but we we all have to deal with it.