For Those Who Work For Their Money

For all those who work for their money, this one's for you. It's a comment we recently read that hit home - being of that set of folks who do work for their money. And it appeared at a time when the thoughts it expresses were running in and out for a long stretch.

Indeed, the thought it expresses was first spoken many years ago by my late father-in-law. As a young man, barely out of college and working at an uninspiring but paying job, with no assets to speak of, my relationship with money was just blooming. We hadn't yet had our first child, so responsibilities were not that great. Since both of us weren't spendthrifts, and we grew up being careful with the little money we had, there was some sensibility towards what the Bible labels at one point "filthy lucre." We weren't greedy, but we knew it was important.

So here's this guy - my father-in-law - who owns a nice house, raised three children, one wife, an immigrant who arrived here from a DP Displaced Persons) camp after World War II. Raised in a rural part of Eastern Europe, peasants, they were part of a wave of folks who lived through the war, made it to the Allied side to avoid the Soviets when the war ended. They came here with nothing, sponsored by some relative to get into the States with the chance to become citizens. Their native country was subsumed by the Soviets, and having lived under Soviet rule prior to the war, they knew what was up with Communism.

Anyway, here they are, with nothing, somehow finding jobs to earn their keep. They worked as superintendents of an apartment building in Manhattan, held outside jobs and saved, saved, saved. Living in a small apartment, they had two children. Eventually their savings - and some money borrowed from relatives, allowed them to buy a house in one of the outer boroughs of the city, a pleasant, safe neighborhood, where they had one more child and settled down for the long haul.

These folks knew the value of money in every possible way.

While the details were different, I got the whole immigrant sensibility from my own family. My grandparents (both sides) came here in a wave of Southern Italians in the early part of the 20th century. They were peasants and worked for the food, clothing, and shelter. There were no government assistance programs to ease the way. Any help they might need came from family. My parents carried on in this manner, although by their time the government had instituted some programs - particularly the unemployment benefit - that helped my Dad - a blue collar worker - at times. Nonetheless, we were careful with our money - the little we had. I learned to be careful and to save.

So one day - I don't remember exactly the circumstance - my father-in-law opined on the government's "claws." He was not a formally educated man, and was not savvy about economic theory, the financial markets, or any of the forces that now pretty much dominate our thinking when it comes to money.

Oh, and my Dad, who only cleared 8th grade before being needed by his family to get full-time work, also did not have much formal education. 

One thing both these guys had was a clear understanding of how the world worked, and how it should work.

Anyway, my father-in-law held forth on the government and its impact on his savings, on what he had accumulated (house, money in the bank). He was quite aware that all that we typically think we own is not exactly so. Those government "claws" not only take a piece of what we earn, but dig deep and hold on tight to what's left.

As we trudge through this summer with an economy touted to be strong (but isn't) and a stock market hitting new highs despite being about as overvalued as its ever been, these words may give us a splash of cold water to settle our brains into an understanding of the basic reality of our money, our assets, and our government's power to muck things up at best, to grab what should be ours, at worst.

In the midst of these hot, humid summer days of July, take these words in and think about them. If you haven't realized this, you should.

(BTW, if you bother to read the whole article, you may or may not agree with everything the author says. But it's hard to argue with this one paragraph.) 

When one works at earning his money, to whom does that money, that property, belong? When any government can tax, impose fees, and put us in debt, on a whim, we don’t own our property; the government does. Granted, we all need to pay our fair share for the structure a government affords us, but when we have to work half the year to pay all our taxes, the price is too high.

(Source)