Why I Need Money

First, I should say that I am set up with a Paypal account and if you would like to support my quest for money, you can give securely online by using account: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com. If you would like to contact me directly, use the same e-address without going to Paypal first. The money that flows through Paypal is what we use to fund our labors of love, planting native trees, guiding ecotourists through Northeast Wisconsin and teaching the elements and principles of sustainability. Even though I would love to just do this all day every day, we are limited in our efforts by a continuing lack of funds. If you would like to assist us in bringing our program to even more people, please pass on this blog entry and encourage benefactors to give as well.

In our culture, money is the primary way that we use to keep track of human effort, or potential. Necessarily, we find great disparity in how we value human effort. For instance, there are a special few who earn more per hour than most of us earn in an entire year. It is hard to fathom why their efforts are uniquely valued. Just let that be for now. we are also struggling with the fact that the vast majority of workers are off the books. Housewives for instance are typically not reimbursed, although by all measures they perform essential tasks that have great impact on society. Even though we have such inherent imbalance in our monetary system, we are routinely told that "we have the greatest system in the world."

I have just completed an eighty hour week during which I earned just enough to keep me from looking poor on paper. Now, it is back to half time employment and perhaps no work at all next month, but that is the cost of my profession. The difficulty that temporary workers find themselves in is that government assistance is based on income over time, which they assume to be constant. That means that last week throws me out of contention for Wisconsin's Badger Care Insurance. It also throws me into a realm of taxation that makes no sense if we look at my annual income. I have no problem paying for the continuation of our government, if we get something of value from it. I do, however have a problem with being treated as if my need for money is not so great, as to deserve the fruits of my own labor.

Because of the passing of a relative, my wife and I received a bit of inheritance. The federal government got 15% of it and the state got another 5%. When we spend the remainder, we will pay another 5.5% in sales tax. Fully 25.5% of the money that was intended to go to us was absorbed by the government. If we made $100,000 or more each year, this would be a remarkably tiny percentage. Certainly fair and affordable. Giving away over twenty-five percent of your inheritance when you are flirting with the poverty line is infinitely harder to swallow. That money could have allowed us to put a new roof on our house, or finally do the car repairs that we have been putting off for years, heck, we could have purchased a car that was less than twelve years old. Instead, we will continue to work for hourly wages doing what we always do for the benefit of others, and hoping for the promised rebound of the economy.

In time, perhaps the value of our homes will rise enough to be higher than the amount we owe on them. Perhaps after another thirty years, we will finally re-establish train service between the town where we live and the town where I work and perhaps, in time, we will be able to travel. My hopes are not very high for this, but I will be the first to admit that I will enjoy making enough money to be able to afford and extra tank of gas or two. The money that we had invested in our homes was never supposed to make us a large profit. Instead it was meant to reduce the impact our budget would feel upon retirement. Instead, all of that "value" (called equity in real estate) evaporated and now we owe the bank twice as much as those properties are worth. The news this week indicated that top bank executives nationwide received 5.7% more compensation this year than last, while my own pay went down again. For the foreseeable future, I will be driving further still for fewer hours and be expected to continue to hone my skills, pay for my own education and eat ever more meals away from home while my employers receive tax breaks and special consideration, allowing them to cut costs further and increase their profits.