Mommy, It's Not Real Money, It's VISA
Throughout its seventy plus years Monopoly has taught the basics of money: debit, credit, acquisition, and renting. Generations of children have learned the hard lessons of spending, saving, and pay-as-you-go economics. Kids find out that in the end, it's not always the guy with the most toys who finishes the winner - it's the one with the most cash. Several generations have followed this business model in one form or another, building an America that was strong, eager to work, financially independent and secure.
By the mid-thirties the board game that is based upon the genteel streets of post-Victorian Atlantic City was in millions of households across the world. With its pastel shades of green, pink, yellow, and blue big bucks, its money would travel across the board passing from player to player, until finally only one savvy kid had enough clout to stay in the game.
This time of year TV loudly and repeatedly screams that happiness is stuff--newer, more, bigger and better sparkly stuff. Never mind that gasoline is at an all-time high, the dollar at an all time low, and China only gets fatter from America's plastic holiday spending spree. Heck, it's Christmastime, and junior deserves everything. More stuff makes the kiddies smile. It's all just the price of America's annual joy, and a yearly rite of the evergreen American dream.
This Christmas there's a new, improved version of Monopoly, with a decidedly 2007 twist. It uses no cash, just a VISA branded debit card and reader. Gone are the days of winning the game by hiding your stash of cash, no more flaunting your stack of paper. It's swipe and go, just like the real world, but watch out for those teaser-rate mortgages.
The mortgage meltdown illustrates that people often listen more to pitch than look at the small stack of cash in front of them. Americans are stuck with homes that they could never afford. Adam Smith's invisible hand is throwing the dice and forcing the middle class to go live under the Boardwalk. This all comes at a time when Bush's Iraq wastes 275 million dollars a day.
Americans have bought the warm and cozy rhetoric the Bush administration has pressed forward; the war and the cost of servicing the debt are just the costs of keeping us "free" and "safe." America is neither free nor safe as long as we owe this huge unserviceable debt to the rest of the world. Still, there is no shouting in the streets. Presidential candidates on the Republican side are more intent on finding the bigger Christian among them than finding a way to solve America's economic issues. Eventually America is going to have sell out or do something drastic to service Bush's huge faith-based debt.
In the mid-'seventies when one American town found itself at wit's end, it sold itself to the industry the state didn't want, but the city desperately needed for another sandy, salty chance. Louis Malle's 1980 film Atlantic City shows a town that has cashed in its chips and given into desperation to improve its future. Gone are the days of romps in the surf and strolls down the Steel Pier. The film opens and closes as one, then another of the city's great Victorian hotels fall under the wrecking ball. Urban blight and financial mismanagement have forced the entire town into economical expulsion.
Burt Lancaster plays Lou, one of the last of the old-timers, who meets Sally, played by Susan Sarandon. Sally craves the new life the casino gambling is offering, and Lou just wants to make sure all the old timers are out of their buildings before they are blown to bits.
The film captures a time and place in America when the realities of one generation were running into the ambitions of the next. In the end, people are still just trying to make it through the game to financial health, but most haven't even passed 'GO.'
Atlantic City was Lancaster's swan song and a fitting way for a grand Golden Age star to be remembered by a new generation. The film captured America's eternal promise--that with a little luck and a lot of cash you can buy your way out of any problem. Just don't try to use a credit card.
Comments for this post are now closed
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
What you forget is that the government made it all possible, by cashing in on equity on your house, the trillion dollar credit card debt. Just look, even my dog gets a credit card offer.
Don't blame the people for the direction they are taking when big brother made it available
all the while telling them that they are Number One in this universe and no other country is doing as good as we do. Nothing could be further from the truth!
How can anyone think Bush would try to reneg on a debt? That is just inconceivable!
Next, someone is going to tell me that Bush is reneging on the Geneva Conventions! What's next? Rigging elections?
It is not real money.
There are only two realistic ways to get out of our debt. One is sacrifice, on every level. The other is to have the government print more money. Lots more money.
Guess which one Americans will choose? Guess which one the world is betting Americans will do. (Hint: look at the price of oil and gold.)
It's U.S. debt to the rest of the world drives the global economy, at least, for the large part.
What self-respecting national economic policy minister, under any government, isn't going to want in on the $9,000,000,000,000 pie in the sky?
I heard a heartbroken woman say "this year, we can't buy the usualy 10 presents for our kids..only 3 or 4"...WTF? Okay...I'm a boomer..and we got to pick ONE present for Christmas..One! (okay..we got stocking stuffers from Santa too, candy, gum, maybe a comb or a brush)...and were excited and spent the whole day playing with that ONE toy, instead of pushing it aside to open another present. I'm not saying kids only need one toy..but do they really need an Ipod at 8? or a MAC at 12? and does daddy really need that HD plamsa TV? Bush told America to shop after 9/11..and they took it to heart...
FDR told America to sacrifice after Pearl Harbor..and they took that to heart..
Which American are YOU? (and yes, which one am I?)
I agree with Gregory's statements on the Christmas shopping. We as a country seem to have really gotten ourselves in a rut, and the lack of financial responsibility amongst a large majority of the population hasnt helped much. They willingly sink themselves into debt, because you cant make ends meet without doing it. That is, you cant make ends meet and PROSPER without digging yourself into a debt hole. The majority of people dont have the expertise to manage their finances to where they can completely aviod debt. They're always sucked into one thing after another. . .deluded into thinking that they 'need' it.
That's another thing. People in this country have a really messed up perception of values. I highly suspect that if you got rid of their cell phones, iPods, computers, and cars. . .they would start to suffer withdrawl symptoms as a result. THAT is how badly our values have been mangled. It's to the point where we think ourselves incapable of going on without all of our luxuries. Now, I'm sure that there are plenty of exceptions from this. . .but this is how I view how things have become. It's sickening. And it can likely be proven, eventually.
The US amassed enormous wealth capital up through the middle of the 20th century, by producing products and services for domestic use and for the needs of Europe and Asia whose capacity and populations were devastated by regional and world wars.
We built factories, super-highways, cities, ports and airports, power grids, universities, communication networks, and more. We gave the world what it needed and they transferred their wealth to us.
In Monopoly terms, we owned most of the properties on the board. We collected rent on the debts they incurred to purchase our valuable output.
Since the late 1960's we've been mortgaging that property, turning the cards face down and getting cash from the others to fuel consumption. In the past 4 decades, we have severly neglected our infrastructure and damaged our productive capacity.
How does the game end?
When a player has all their properties mortgaged, they collect no rent and forfeit all they have to the opponent on whose property they happen to land.
The wave of debt defaults that is commencing will exacerbate the trade and fiscal deficits and expose the off balance sheet liabilities to naked insolvency.
This seems clear. All that remains in doubt is the severity and duration of the economic contraction and depth of the civil destruction.
Party over. Oops. Outta time. Too late to party like it's 1999.
"Bush will just reneg on the debt. It's not like the world could hate the United States any more."
Interesting idea. I don't see how it would work, though. Isn't part of the debt treasury bonds, Social Security, Medicare, savings bonds, etc.? Are they going to say no to the cash cows even now funding our debt? Say to China, India, Japan, et al, nup, no payback. That'd kill the goose, all right.
I mean, yeah, back in 1933 FDR could diddle gold, when we were on the standard. Expropriate citizen gold (mostly), then reset the official price from $20.47 to $35/oz. And then repudiate redeeming foreign currency for gold. "Tough luck , fellas!"
But though the rest of the world could not redeem, those US gold certificates still had an objective backing. Those dollars were still trusted. Not our fiat (non)Federal (no)Reserve Notes(a.k.a. a real note is a promise to pay.)
It's like a gambling debt: legally, no obligation to pay up. But when you get kneecapped, no one will be surprised.
Well, we can just say jesus or, drum roll please...ronald wilson reagan, ta da, who proved, "deficits don't matter." What the hell, the damn democrats will have to raise taxes to fix the shit again and we can rake em over the coals for wanting to live within the means. Ridiculous. Meanwhile, steal all you can...even their lying bibles in the name of king george and halliburton and blackwater and the children in the pentagon and walmart and toys for the lead resistant babies whom we save to save the people who live where there is oil and lets hope they can grow gills in time for the next round of thieves, murderers and lobbyists.
Well, what gets interesting is when we've got
this yawning debt hanging out there, and
China comes along with the other global creditors for the deed to the ranch.
I tell you what, I'm just glad I don't hold
a mortgage...spend the rest of your blanking
life working to 'pay off' a house you'll never
own, along with paying property taxes and
this tax and that tax and...and the hell
with it. There's going to be this thin layer
of people that play along with the globalist
moneymen, and there'll be everybody else.
I think the US will be infilled, and the
21st century's probably going to see the
end of our existence as an independent country.
The stage is set for something to happen,
that's for sure...be interesting to see how
it all works out...stay tuned!
I learned how to play monopoly in third grade and learned how compound interest worked before I left high school. I won't be living under a Boardwalk anytime soon.
Dandy12 has a good point. How much could we get for the Statue of Liberty? Maybe the French could buy it back with some of their strong euros. I know it was originally a gift, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Time to sell the national heirlooms. I imagine the National Parks Service could get a bundle for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the San Francisco area if the purchase came with an exemption for local zoning control.
"America is going to have sell out or do something drastic to service Bush's huge faith-based debt."
Yes, the problem is enormous. However, with such a superficial etiology as "Bush's debt" (the debt limit can only be increased by Congress) and the vacuous "or do something drastic" we are only left with "sell out."
Of course. What else have voters and our elected representatives been doing since Reagan's day. Mr. Biggest Seller-Outer of all time (here, Iran, are the nukes you want; you only need pay me--under the table of course--so I can hire my own private military) was joined by the Boll Wevil and now the Blue Dog Democrats in letting our creditors turn us into tenants and collect the rent.
Saw an old 1955 Buick on the street, with the familiar Buick "whine," where the faulty drive shaft sings. Is it any wonder that GM and other American auto makers have had their world-monopoly on cars stolen from them? Any manufacturer that gets indentified by a design flaw so thoroughly that it becomes part of the vernacular deserves to fail. American management sucks.
The answer is simple and elegant: put a $20/barrel tax on imported oil and raise it $20 every year until we use only a negligable amount.
The revenue will fund repayment of our debt and getting off the cheap oil habit will be priceless.
"Eventually America is going to have sell out or do something drastic to service Bush's huge faith-based debt."
It's truly frightening to think that the 'selling out' or the 'drastic' actions of the US government could get even worse.
Bush will just reneg on the debt. It's not like the world could hate the United States any more.
I suggest prayer so that god can be declared responsible which absolves us humans from being responsible for our own misconduct. Also we can blame Clinton penis and the terrorists who were never captured because they were never pursued.I mean what good is a god that can't be made responsible for human misconduct. Otherwise, god is just worthless if I can't make him responsible for my malfeasance, bigotry and ignorance, which is chosen and can be redeemed by deciding not to be ignorant, racist and benevolent.
Loading comments…
Posted December 12, 2007 | 02:14 PM (EST)