Money, Money, Money

Here's a bit from macroeconomics: In 2008, per person income in the United States was nearly four times that in our neighbor Mexico, more than ten times that in India, and one-hundred twenty-five times that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the United States we have an adult literacy rate of ninety-nine percent, compared to twenty-six percent in Mali.

And here's one from micro: Two products that start out selling for the same price could come to differ for any combination of four reasons: If more people value and want to buy good A or fewer people want to produce and sell good A, its price will go up; but if fewer people want to buy good A or more people want to produce and sell good A, its price will go down. If people care about doing work they enjoy, then the fact that one job gets paid more than another could either mean people want to buy the product of the higher-paid job more (maybe some people value the product more), or it could mean they enjoy doing the higher-paid job less (maybe it takes a lot more to get people to deal with the drudgery / risk involved).

When I think of personal finance and income, these are the things that come to my mind. The vast majority of the wealth I have is mine simply because of where I was born. Any extra wealth I have that comes from my job has more to do with choosing a field most others would find mind-numbingly dull than it does with how much use I am to the corporations of the world, and neither of these has anything useful to say about any sort of inherent personal value. All the things that put me in the position I am in were given by God, anyway, and the more I have to covet the more God requires I give up for others.

In my mind, to hear that someone else makes more money than me sounds a lot like hearing they have a larger shoe size than me. If it matters at all, the ones with more money have a moral obligation to use it in the interests of those around them with less, in the same sense that someone with a bigger bit of floating debris after a shipwreck ought to share it with other survivors.

All this is background to the fact that I tend to be rather nonchalant, and even flippant, about matters of money. It never occurs to me that talking about how much money I make isn't polite, or that mentioning where my expected payscale ranks compared to those around me is the uncouth work of a braggart. How can one brag about the size of one's shoes, or the buoyancy of one's debris? I ask myself. But the fact that it doesn't bother me doesn't make it OK for me to treat others as if they're silly to let it bother them. I am not the arbiter of truth or seriousness, and the world isn't wrong just because it doesn't see things the way I do. On the contrary, ignoring other people's thoughts and feelings, especially when I don't think or feel the same way, is no way to live in community; it is, however, a perfect way to fail at loving my neighbor.

So if I have bragged about money to any of you before, I am sorry. I was wrong, although I hope you'll believe me when I say there was neither malice nor pride behind it. I was "merely" thoughtlessness, which of course isn't really less wrong. I'm trying to be better. I hope you'll bear with me.

"I repent
...of the way I believe that I'm living right
By trading sins for others that are easier to hide
Oh I am wrong and of these things
I repent"
-- Derek Webb (and, all too rarely, me)