Money bugs
Bugs, indeed “annoy”, don’t they? They are certainly of significant bother to us all, be it a microorganism, typically a bacterium that is bugging you, or the typical small insect; thick green scum which crawls with bugs, often with a discomforting feeling about their movements and eventual action.
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When that insect bites, it is never pleasant, even if there was anything like a pleasant bite!
Well, what about the other definition of a bug that talks about the concealment of a miniature microphone in (a room or telephone) in order to eavesdrop on or record someone's conversations secretly? Equally annoying, isn’t it? Bugs certainly not a good thing!
Searching for a befitting analogy with bugs in order to situate in context what l intend explaining today, l settled on software bugs. My interpretation here is that this kind of “computer bug” can help explain the money bug equally too.
So this is what l found about a software bug: “An error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer programme or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.
“Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a programme's source code or its design, or in frameworks and operating systems used by such programs, and a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code.
“A programme that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy or defective”.
With that stated, let us now come back home, to look at the buggy nature of our finances. Reading other people’s work last week got me exposed to some “money bugs” that affect the individual, but seem so far remote that we hardly notice them because of its “macro” nature.
And this is how: Reading an article online about the effect of climate change and how much it cost annually just to keep the subject alive, at least, (it is very difficult to find a sustained programme aimed at tackling climate change entirely) my mind got trapped on a number of issues.
I got thinking about some creepy issues that deny the poor access to cash to better their lot, and worryingly situations influenced by both the rich and poor.
I wondered, that, if all the money spent on climate change, for instance, was shared among us all how interesting it would have been – (forgetting about the effect on money supply on this particular occasion); if all the money that gets missing through corruption was shared among the poor, how important it would have been in the fight against poverty, and most importantly also, if the money that was spent in poor countries to organise the processes leading up to the events to choose a leader, was shared among chiefs and traditional rulers who seem more respected than some politicians, to organise grassroots participatory governance system, how development would have been faster in some communities.
Wishful thinking, it might all seem, or perhaps a case of getting “out of touch with reality” but indeed, there are some bugs that seem to eat away our money and in the process stealing our joy and happiness.
We have, in the search for true economic and financial freedom, replaced the basic structures that would have given us the best things in life with limits that prevent us from getting the real cash.
The world is cycling money every day, and that is the realism. Money is pumped into education, health, agriculture, governance, etc. ultimately creating employment and getting the cash back into the economy. Then the cycle continues…and the problems persist!
Well, l mentioned climate change earlier so let me speak about it more. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that “over the past 20 years, the federal government has spent billions of dollars to address climate-related risks”, stressing that in addressing the issues, coordination and planning “are critical to effective and efficient efforts”.
The amount involved is startling and quite revealing and to prevent sounding like someone who doesn’t believe in the need for climate risk issues to be addressed, l would rather choose to explain why these bugs are preventing billions from reaching those who need it the most, and why our world continues to talk about the rich and poor, when it should be easier for us all to live happily - and not happily ever after when we make it to Heaven!
First off, let us look at life in general. Dinosaurs lasted for millions of years, and records also show that Neanderthals, which became extinct between 40,000 and 28,000 years ago, were said to have existed for about a quarter of a million years, but homo sapiens has existed barely 100,000 years and is fast running out of time.
We have, it appears, over-populated the world, turn the land into desert with our crude methods of farming, production, pollution, destroyed the animal insect and therefore are exposed to other diseases, and destroyed plant life that sustains us as a result, pollute the air, ultimately changing the climate, and the worst of all, kill one another rather than co-operate.
Of course there are many reasons to why dinosaurs, for example, became extinct, some argue. For instance, one argument put forth is that they became extinct presumably because they lacked the physical and mental equipment to overcome the problems presented by huge changes in the planet and its climate.
They did not, perhaps, have generational thinkers like the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates to advance their cause using technology to influence some part of their logical thinking, their way of life that eventually caused their ultimate extinction.
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But hold on a minute. Have we, as Homo sapiens, been able to apply our scientific and technological thought in the most effective way? In other words, have we not, rather, been successful at applying such thought to the world around us, and not to the world inside us?
Truth is, each of us has our own individual framework but collectively we act as if we are programmed the same way. We have, collectively, created some of the serious money bugs that keep denying us the best life we need.
Climate change problems, most of which were created by us, is just an example. The other bugs are corruption, greed, selfishness, and the likes, that have all caused pain and discomfort for us all.
So, ultimately, we have human errors, flaws, failures or faults that are causing us to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. Therefore, to change the world and address poverty we must “kill” the bugs, and that is mostly a game of attitude-changing than anything else.
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