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Economy andastaanding…and the VIP

PoliticsEconomy andastaanding…and the VIP
Many economists will tell you that, excepting a world war, the world will never experience serious money chaos like it did in the early part of the 20th century, because the financiers of today know a lot more about paper money management than they did back then.
 
War can play havoc with paper money. The Wall Street Journal publication, Guide to Understanding Money & Investing, written by Kenneth M. Morris and Virginia B. Morris, says that during the American Revolution paper money dropped in value from $1 to just 2 and a half cents. In Germany in 1923, you needed 726,000,000 marks to buy what you’d been able to get for 1 mark in 1918.     
 
Tremors in the US money marketplace in days gone by quickly became chaos. According to the Wall Street Guide, there were two big crashes in the marketplace – in October 1929 and in October 1987. The Guide says the crashes were triggered by too-high stock prices and inadequate controls on trading. Afraid of losing everything, investors rushed to sell, compounding the problem by driving the prices lower and lower.
 
They estimate the loss in 1929 to be 12.8% of the US economy, about $14 billion; and the 1987 crash to be 22.6%, about $500 billion. But, the market place recovered much more quickly after 1987 because of government regulations and trading limitations that had been put in place after 1929. If you remember your history, the 1929 crash led to a worldwide depression in the 1930’s. We have heard of people in that period going to the grocery shop with a wheelbarrow full of money. And you know what happened to jobs.
 
Devaluation of the Belize dollar just after World War II led to the birth of the People’s Committee. You know who they would grow up to be a short time later. And that’s a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on which color house you hang your dreams.
 
Before I go on, I must point out that I am not the resident expert on this money subject. But, in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. There is a vacuum in Belize about this money thing. I say, you can call this a skirmish piece. Scatter enough little seeds and some are bound to fall on fertile ground. Throw enough blows and somebody might get vex …and talk. Yap, it is a vital matter, understanding money, so we better get our heads on right.
 
A hungry man sells his legacy for a meal …a billionaire capsizes at sea and dies for a 2 cents drink of water.
 
Something is happening in the marketplace. The price of food and other necessary goods is shooting to the skies, but the money in circulation is more or less standing still. Sure, we all know what is happening, and everyday we hear how different world economies, and our government, are strategizing for survival. But on the micro level, there is a huge vacuum. At the end of the depression period, check who has the poor people’s property. And then there is bloody revolution.      
 
No, I don’t think our people are being properly prepared for all that is going on, and all that will go on. Every government comes to power promising to alleviate poverty. But they never teach the masses about money, and our assets. It’s like they don’t want us to understand a taal, a taal. Some time back the Central Bank published a couple booklets, but maybe the great Mohobub did more for us when he sang: noh sell yo land, plant yu kaan. Of course, land is a commodity that can be sold. Indeed, only a man’s soul, and his code, should be sacrosanct. In respect to Mohobub’s message, I interpreted him to mean that we should not get overly excited about the paper money, that we should appreciate the value of our farm plot. We’ll need to explore this territory some more.
 
It is a concern of those who have a little (or a lot of) money, how to invest profitably. Understanding the financials is also of great concern to the people at the bottommost rung of the economy – the unskilled laborers and the subsistence people – those who don’t have money. The only way to escape poverty (without a grand education, or underhanded business) is to understand the market place, and how money works. 
 
There are people about who, it seems, don’t want people of lower means to get understanding about the system. This is a very narrow view. That topic is worthy of its own discussion, so let’s back off from that tack for now.
 
The publisher of the Amandala is one who has called out a number of times for the masses to get wise about how the marketplace works. There is one man in the country, Mr. Bill Lindo, who has tried valiantly to explain to us about money. He even wrote a book, The ABC’s of Economics, a bread-and-butter type explanation of how an economy works. Unfortunately, Mr. Lindo has many detractors, who work overtime to keep the fertile seeds he sows, on cement.
 
In respect to the money business, there are many threads to understand in the weave. The bookkeeper can tell you how to count it, the accountant can tell you how to conserve and invest it, the lawyer can tell you how to protect it from rapscallions, the businessman can tell you where to find it, and the entrepreneur can tell you how to create it.
 
I close this piece with this note: the VIP party had the highest vision for the masses, by far, in respect to this money business. Not only did they sound great on paper, their core leaders – Morgan, Enriquez, Lopez, Rogers, and Erwin X, all have credentials. Hey, don’t blame ourselves for not voting them into office. But, we’ll have to blame ourselves if we allow them to sulk away their excellent vision until 2013

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