Is the modern money system slowly sending us insane?

[Chris Caston]

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to make an honest living.

I'm as self-employed call out computer technician and i'm finding that as the economy continues to deteriorate there is an escalation of desperation, aggression and depression. I may even describe what I witness as widespread bi-polarism.

I used to say "I'm a call out computer technician not a spend all day listening to people grumble about money technician" but this money stuff seems to be sending us all mad.

I do my best to serve my customers, working diligently to fix their computer problems without it costing them to much. As a technician I see cost as another problem and I use my technical skills and brain power to try to save the customer money but this is a slippery slope and some situations are downright impossible to resolve for them at their budget.

Not only that but when you need to refer them to someone else with different expertise like a communications cabler to fix dodgey telephone wiring in their home it was a problem brought back upon me that they could not find anyone that didn't charge them rates as cheap as they desired.

I used to make up for it through sheer quantity. I'd got some customers that could pay be well and many came through with severe cash shortages but but increasing my efficiency I managed to make it through. In a lot of ways I was under charging. I wasn't charging enough per hour and I wasn't putting enough margin on my parts. In fact I was making a loss on my parts and that was subsided through sale of services.

Now with the declining economy and work really slowing down I'm lucky to get a few calls a week from people that "want something fixed but don't have much money"

I have a commercial credit card and a business overdraft facility. I seem to manage to just keep the minimum repayments on them and use the overdraft to pay off the commercial card every time I sell a computer system or something like that but it is a risky game.

I am longing to get even just a few weeks work at the the rate paid of a full time wager to pay off my card and overdraft properly.

I apply for jobs. I ask people to help me get work. Work for my business. Casual, part-time work. Anything! But they don't come through.

I feel that my sanity is slipping but I'm trying to remain strong. Sometimes I cry. I feel like this is mad crazy world and this money system is slowly driving us all to destruction.

I get hassled by my parents because they want me to move out. I want to move out as well but it's not an issue of how good a citizen I am or how grown up I am or how hard working I am it's a simple issue that the price of living, rents bills and so on and so high and the rate that our society is willing to pay me for my efforts is so low and they hell they put me through while working is so intense it completely drains me.

I think of how hard I struggle to earn each dollar and how much it costs to keep a roof over my head.

It's at the point now where for better or for worse I don't see the way out of this as just solving my own financial situation and having enough money to live in this expensive world. I don't even see my efforts in that direction being in away rewarded and positively encouraged by others in fact many cut me down and snigger.

I see a little bit of encouragement to take out a mortgage but it's like they are trying to talk me into it not actually help me get there. I see through this and think it's more likely they are trying to justify their own slavish existance to debt.

I'm starting to feel that the problem is not that I have to little money i'm starting to see that problem is that we are all short of money. Even some quite rich people still think they are not well off.
The problem is the money system.

This system makes workers cry. It make people feel like hanging themselves as this society puts little to no value on their efforts and hardwork.

To add insult to injury incredible amounts of money are wasted on the most stupid and pointless even destructive things. Think of gambling and alcohol for instance. Yet even the things seen to be "investments" such as mortages, bonds and shares are really just massive legalized ponzi schemes to suck money out families and communities and enslave them to a heartless global machine.

The problem is the money system. The problem is that it is kept in scarcity. It is that good people are not given opportunities to provide their skills to the community and be fairly paid for this because money is monopolized and controlled by the bourgeoisie.

I now see that it is not just my financial situation I must solve it the financial situation of all people. Even if it is not right for me to carry the weight of these people on my shoulders it is not working that we are attacking each other and trying to get "blood from stones"out of each other.

It is becoming clear that we cannot build wealth in isolation. We cannot even build it within the tight circle of people we are sleeping with if indeed that is anyone at all. We must build wealth together as a community and in order to do so we must awaken ourselves from delusions and commercial mainstream financial interests that promise to improve our conditions of life and offer us so much yet in reality only enslave us.

I believe that business is the highest level of consciousness but for to long the language and the means of operating has been monoplised. The only way forward is to break up that monopoly. We need to deregulate the currency industry.