I Got a Gift Card For Christmas

Saturday, December 27, 2008
I got a Gift Card for Christmas, and I'm looking for places to spend it on-line. Electronic money is new to me so it raises some questions about currency, banking and the economy in general.

Banks were the first to issue currency in America, then the Federal Government and now I don't know who is in control of currency. Money is supposed to be portable. Whether it's a gold coin or a paper bill. Certainly I can carry this plastic money with me, but is the money really in my pocket?

What happens if the electricity fails? I'm supposed to have some control over my money, control that I share with who-ever issued it. It seems that someone far far away has total control over my supposedly portable currency, and that brings me to the economic crisis that the world is facing.

Where did the money go? Who was controlling all that money that seems to have vanished? I'm not in control of my money, my elected officials obviously lost track of it somewhere along time ago and I doubt very seriously if anyone on Wall Street knows anymore than the rest of us...

I suspect there's a little room somewhere deep inside a computer complex, where several computer geeks are hiding, afraid to come out, and asking each other,
"Did you press the delete button? Are you sure we can't 'undelete' all that capital? You know, if anyone finds out, we're going to be in big big trouble ...ssshhh ...someone's coming..."
  
Americans have lost trillions of dollars to banks and businesses that refuse to disclose where they are putting the money. Maybe they put it all on a little plastic card, and are trying to get those geeks in the basement to put it back 'on-line' before anyone realizes what really happened.

I have this dreadful feeling that the situation is more like the Jesse James strategy ( he committed the first daylight bank-robbery in America ). He said,
"If you're going to rob a bank on one end of town, light a fire on the other end of town."

I'll be looking to spend my $50 plastic scrip today, as I have real doubts about it's durability in today's economy. 

1 comments:

r_i_d said...

//Americans have lost trillions of dollars to banks and businesses that refuse to disclose where they are putting the money.//

It's one provocation after the other. The mismanagement of the banks was already a reason for people to revolt against the system, but the government, which should represent the people, gave the banks trillions of dollars. People should have revolted; nothing happened. Now perhaps the money is lost, and I bet you that nothing will happen.

The super elites may be super surprised to see how they effectively turned 300 millions of people into sheep.