The DiLauro Dossiers

Remember Kojak?
Lieutenant Theo Kojak?
Well, it’s that irrepressible, charismatic and entirely fictional character that comes to mind whenever I read about that protest-oh-so-desperately-wanting-to-be-a-movement, more commonly known as Occupy Wall Street.
More specifically, what comes to mind is his plain-talk take on capitalism. “Sure,” Kojak once said, “The system stinks, but hey, show me someone who’s got a better one.”

OK, so maybe I’m coming off as unsupportive. Negative, even.
And I’m not, really I’m not.
Because, hey, I’m just as dead set against corruption, and avarice, and irresponsible consumption as the next guy.
And if Occupy Wall Street is giving a voice to the little guy (and gal), and if Occupy Wall Street is providing a vehicle—an awakening—of what’s wrong with capitalism, well hey, like Kojak also said, “Who loves ya baby?”

But still.
Looking at the long game, I don’t hold out much hope for Occupy Wall Street.
Look, let me get to the point.
My belief is that Occupy Wall Street will, quite simply, peter out, sputtering under the weight of its own well-intentioned (I suppose) but misguided (I’m pretty sure) idealism.

Why?
Why do I say that?
Because of the hippies, that’s why.
Let me be stronger.
Blame the hippies.
It’s all their fault anyway.
You remember hippies, right?
Late 60s? San Francisco? Haight-Ashbury? Free love? Tune in, turn on, drop out?
Now that was a movement.
A grass-roots movement created not so much by focused strategy as by osmosis.
Hippies sprouted up, occupied and multiplied in ever-increasing numbers throughout North America and the world.
Hippies were anti-establishment.
Hippies were down on the man, man.
Hippies were about equality and classlessness.
And against consumerism, materialism and most of capitalism.

And now. And now.
Well, they blew it.
The Hippies blew it
Think about it, what happened to all those hippies?
More importantly.
How many of those hippies eventually turned their back on anti-establishment idealism? How many of them shed their tie-dyed threads for a three-piece, button-down look?
How many of the late-sixties hippies became the bankers and brokers, and VPs and CEOs of the twenty-first century?
And now, how many hippies are the targeted capitalists that Occupy Wall Street is protesting against?

Just like that old expression says… Plus ça change…

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I deal in money. All day long. I deal in money.
Do you know what that’s like?
Those of you in IT; those of you in marketing; those of you in engineering, you probably think my work is sorta boring.
(Well, maybe not the engineers. Maybe the engineers see perverse beauty in number crunching. Oh the formulas! Oh the systemic logic! Debits = Credits? Yes! Yes!)
But the rest of you, I bet the rest of you would rather cuticle your toes than balance your chequebook–and yes, I know cuticle is a noun, not a verb. It’s just that I like the sound of it. Sue me.
Yeah, I bet that, to you, number crunching is one big yawn.
And you know what? For the most part, you’re right.

Because, at the end of the day, the mechanics of money are just so goddamn… um… mechanical.
Money in… Money out…
Earn more… Spend less…
(See? The engineers are right, what you’re looking at, right there, are your basic money equations).

All of which brings me to another aspect of money. An aspect I love exploring. An aspect that saves me from the… um.. drudgery.
What I’m talking about are the perceptions; the beliefs; the views of money.
What I’m talking about is the psychology of money.
The psychology of money?
What the heck does that mean?

It means this.
I bet most of you believe that more money will make your life better.
I bet most of you believe that infinitely more money will make your life infinitely better.
I bet most of you believe it would be great—really really great—to be rich.
Dirty rich, filthy rich, rotten rich.

I bet most of you believe that more money automatically equates with (choose all that apply):
1) Happiness
2) Success
3) Security
4) Accomplishment
5) Freedom

And you know what? If you believe any of the above.
Then all can say is (and please sit down)…
You’re wrong.

But hey, don’t take my word for it.
Don’t argue with me (although, truth be told, I’m up for a good debate).
Argue, instead, with the authors (the malefactors? the infidels?) of these two studies.

In a piece called The Economics of Happiness, Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs argues that, “The relentless pursuit of higher income is leading to unprecedented inequality and anxiety, rather than to greater happiness and life satisfaction.”
In his exposé, Dr. Sachs tells us, “In the US, GNP has risen sharply in the last 40 years, but happiness has not. Instead simple-minded pursuit of GNP has led to great inequalities of wealth and power, fueled the growth of vast underclass, trapped millions of children in poverty, and caused serious environmental degradation.”
Professor Sachs then concludes that, “The mad pursuit of corporate profits is threatening to us all.”

So waddya think?
Wassat?
You want more?
Oh I got more baby!

In this piece, craftily titled Maslow 2.0: A New and Improved Recipe for Happiness, Dr. Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychologist, goes on to interpret a global study of individual and collective well-being. Here then are just a few highlights…
“Focus—away from money-measures—should be considered, in light of findings that income has little impact on happiness.”
“Policy itself follows from what is measured, and if all that is measured is money, all policy will be about money.”
“The needs that are most linked with everyday satisfaction are interpersonal ones such as love and respect.”

OK. Hang on. Let’s take a step back. Let’s ask…
What the heck does all this mean?
Well, here are my two cents.
Going all the way back to Richard Easterlin, study after study after study have all arrived at the same conclusion.
And the conclusion is this; More money, for someone who has none, goes a great deal toward increasing happiness.
But then, once you’re rich enough, that extra moolah has very little (if any) impact on your overall well being.
And if you’re ready to accept that (yeah, yeah, I know, for some of you that’s a big if), if you’re really ready to accept that.

The question then boils down to… How much is rich enough?
Well, lucky you, do I have an answer for you!
Just take a look at my post Five Ways to Know You’re Rich.
A bit of an eye opener, no?
Just think, just like it says in that big bank’s advert—the one that many Canadians will recognize—You’re richer than you think!

So now,
Where does this leave us?
Well it leaves me with mucho food for thought.
And it leaves you—probably—wondering whether to believe all these new-found mumbo-jumbo.
And you know what?
For your sake…
I hope you do.
And, if you don’t.
Well, there’s always cuticling your toes.

OK. So. If you’re a regular reader, you probably read last week’s post and you’re now probably thinking, “Hey, didn’t you say you’re too busy to blog? Didn’t you say you’re working on another book?”
Well, golly yes, I did say that.
And yes, I am working on that new novel.
But.
It’s friggin’ hard work you know. And sometimes I feel as though I need to hide from it.
I mean, I have this character—in the book.
This bloody enigmatic character. This compelling, larger than life character…
Who just about created himself.
And he’s hounding me. Day, and day after day. He’s demanding! He’s exhorting! “Tell them about this! Tell them about that! Don’t leave out this part, it’s important!”
He keeps popping up in my head, all the time, all the goddamn time.
You know, there are days, I’d like to shoot the bastard.
But, the thing is…
By the first chapter,
He’s already dead.

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Her statement was as bold and assertive as the graphic above.
We were having an informal chat, four of us, over a coffee. We were enjoying the moment, discussing trifles—work, travel, the cost of this and that.
Then she blurted it out, “I hate money!”

Let me explain something.
Like two acquaintances discussing the day’s weather forecast, the topic of money, in my line of business, is always brought up. It’s a given—given what I do.
But it’s the mechanics of money that usually get discussed with my business clients. You know, arcane topics like cash-flow; profit & loss; tax. You know; the fun stuff!

So what do I say, when someone close to me chooses—with the venom of a thousand rattlesnakes—to suddenly announce “I hate money”?

I guess I could have used my soft-skills, that deep, ticklish, tuned-in stuff.
I could have, I guess, brought up perception and beliefs, culturally-conditioned beliefs that we all grow up with, and that, unknowingly, form and shape our views and opinions.
I could have—I guess—talked about society’s view of money. How money, especially in our western world, is often used as a scorecard. A tool used to classify, rank and evaluate those we know and those that we don’t.
And, I could have then suggested that, to her, that is a ridiculous and odious notion
I could have—I guess—done any of the above.

But I didn’t say any of that.
Why not?
Oh, many reasons. Most of them, weak-kneed
It was a Sunday morning. Quiet and calm. It was, up to that point, an enjoyable, informal chat made even better by a just-right cappuccino.
But, most of all, I guess I just wasn’t ready for such a strong, seething sentiment.
So—you might wonder—what did I say? How did I reply to such a powerful and emotional outburst.
All I did was, put my coffee cup down, and say, “There are many that do.”

My question, therefore, is this. What would have said, if you were in my place?

Yes, by the way, I am aware that yesterday’s blogpost suggested my presence here would be sporadic. Why then a post the very next day?

I have absolutely no idea.

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Years ago, when my day job tilted toward a numbers-only workload, I remember a client coming in with a T4 that looked like this.

A T4, in case you’ve never seen one, is a Statement of Employment Income, and it describes the salary earned by an employee.
And so, what that T4—up there—tells us is this guy’s salary, for one year, was over $400,000.
This, of course, was in those halcyon days when IT ruled, when software-developers easily commanded salaries of 100 thousand dollars or more, even if they were fresh out of school and still in short pants … Oh wait a minute, dumb analogy, aren’t all software developers always in short pants?

Well anyway.

Around the same time, I remember another client–not a developer–coming in, and I remember that his T4 displayed a comparatively wimpish $36,000.

Coming so soon after my meeting with my first client, the software guy, I was almost tempted to chuckle at that second T4. Why? Because something in me wanted to associate with the first guy, with the winner. And maybe something in me was willing to resort to ridicule, if need be, if that aligned me with the guy earning the big bucks, with the winner.

Irrational? of course it was. But, admit it, we all want to cast our lot with winners. That way, if only by virtue of our association, we become winners too.

But anyway

I’m a curious guy. I’ve mentioned that before.
And, during those T4 meetings, I remember spending an inordinate amount of un-billable time talking to those clients, chatting them up, asking questions.

And you know what I discovered?
They were both broke.
Yep.
They were broker than broke, broker than poor old Wimpy promising to pay Popeye, on Tuesday, for that hamburger today.
And that’s not all, either. For there was something else they shared. They both stubbornly believed that if they could somehow find a way to earn more money, then everything would be all right.

But you know what Fay would say to those guys? Fay would tell those two guys, as she did, in my book, to Charles, “It’s not about the money.”

And what Fay means is that, on one level, we know the the problem isn’t with what’s coming in. It’s with what’s going out.
Income and outgo.
And when outgo exceeds income, then, er… Houston, we’ve got a problem.

Guess which sides are Income and which are Spending

But at a deeper, more fundamental level, it’s a question of beliefs, of values, and of attitudes.
What I’m describing here is the beliefs that we all–my two T4 clients, me, you–have about money.
We all have beliefs about money, and about our relationship with money. Is money scarce, is it abundant? Is money good, or is it evil?
But to explain the intricacies about that relationship, well, one would have to write a book.

And so, in the meantime, just look at it this way.
Thinking that more money—in and of itself—of will cure us—once and for all—of our constant pecuniary state is pretty much like saying,
Yeah, I know I overeat, but if you’ll just give me more food, I’ll be fine.

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