a long disjointed blog about money

10:38 AM 1/31/11

I haven't been working many hours at McDonald's. Nobody has - they've cut everyone's hours temporarily. This would've been the best time to have a second job, but I lost the job at Weis.

So my bank account was depleted as I kept paying my bills and buying my food over all these months. I got the check from the insurance company to fix the bumper of my car, and instead the check was used to pay my rent, and my bumper is still not fixed, though the accident was all the way back in October. I have not been happy about that at all. I am aware that if I get hit again, it will do even more severe damage because the bumper is already bent and it won't protect the car.

I will be applying for a second job but it takes a while to do that. I have to get through every difficult step of filling out the application and going to the interview and then waiting to find out what happens.

My mom called on the phone a couple days ago and I had to call her back. I was dreading it. I've resolved many times to stop getting financial help from them. But I am always losing jobs or having health problems and so I go through many periods of time when I'm not working enough hours to pay the bills. So I end up taking money from them.

They gave me a check for Christmas and I decided that I would save the money and not spend it on anything. I would use it if I needed to pay the rent.

There is always this uncertainty. If they offer me money, I want to take it. And I also want to learn self-reliance, and I can only do that if there are strict rules forbidding me to take money from my parents. That's why I was dreading talking to Mom on the phone. If she offered to help me, I would be hesitating and uncertain and I might give in.

How did I 'save' the Christmas money? I bought a gold coin with it. It was a very small coin. But since a coin isn't as easy to sell back, it isn't as easy to spend, then that makes it easy to save the money, by force. I can't just go out and spend it. I have to plan ahead and call the guy at the coin shop and make sure I'll be able to meet him and sell it back to him. If I had put the money into my bank account, it would've gotten spent. I would've felt secure and I wouldn't have been worried about hunting for a job just yet, because I would've felt like there was enough money to pay the rent this month. My job hunting would have been delayed even more.

I've never tried to sell back a coin yet, so I didn't know whether it would be easy to do or whether I needed to give him advance notice. I called him this morning and found out that I can just bring it in, so I will definitely be able to get the money back to pay my rent. After I found that out for sure, I felt comfortable calling Mom back.

Mom had been asking if my job hunting was going okay. I knew that she would be offering to help with money again if I needed it.

I had one of those 'discussions' with 'them' this morning. There is something that happens, and I can't tell if the uncertainty is my own, or if it's fake. I have to fight this battle to get permission to follow my values. When I want to pay for things myself instead of getting help from my parents, I have to ask 'them' permission to let me pay for things myself. 'They' have always been perfectly happy to let me take more and more and more money from my parents, and they often argue with me and tell me that I am entitled to it and it's like a 'sweet deal' that I should take advantage of.

I have this argument with them every single time this happens. I have to fight with them (the voices) to explain that I will never learn to support myself if I never have any pressure to support myself, and that I don't want to take all of Dad's retirement money, because his money is mostly 'paper' money - it will all be destroyed if there is a collapse, and he doesn't believe there will be a collapse, even though I have tried to warn him about paper money. I can imagine my dad committing suicide when an economic collapse occurs and his whole life savings is wiped out. So I don't want to take any money from them. My mom also urges me to take the money, and she doesn't believe that I'm being parasitic or taking advantage of them too much. So both my parents and 'the voices' are opposed to my attempts to be self-reliant.

It was the same old argument again. The forced feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. I knew I had the gold coin, I knew the guy had told me I could sell back to him anytime, I knew I could just call and ask, but still they gave me the fake feeling of uncertainty - I don't think it was my own feeling. I think it was forced. I felt like I had to talk to Mom and find out if I could take advantage of the 'sweet deal' again (that phrase has connotations to me, unethical unscrupulous people who take whatever they can take, because they can). I am trying and trying and trying not to do that. I see my dad committing suicide. This is a life or death thing. I must not take too much money from them. My dad has to have enough for his retirement and enough to survive an economic collapse.

So they were 'nice' about it this time. They allowed me to follow my beliefs. They allowed me to make the call and find out if I could sell back the coin. I can, so I will.

I don't know what life would be like if I weren't being controlled. I would motivate myself differently. I would choose my goals and activities differently. I would have different priorities. Some things would be more urgent and other things would be less urgent. I might have a whole different direction.

When I talked to Mom on the phone, I didn't want to say that I had bought a gold coin to force myself to save the money. That would be 'weird' to her. It would be something she doesn't understand and doesn't trust, something unfamiliar. She hasn't spent the last decade reading about economics and fiat money, as I have been. I have become convinced from all my reading that the economic problems are caused by the banking system and by irredeemable currency (paper money that doesn't represent a certain amount of gold or silver), and I have developed a strong faith in gold and silver. She hasn't.

I mentioned to my dad about buying bullion coins. He believes that they will be worthless in the future and I won't be able to get any money for them. Or at least, it seemed like that was what he was saying.

But he also seemed unsure about something else - I had said that I was saving them without meaning to sell them - I meant to just keep them forever and ever - and he said that it's not worth anything unless you plan to eventually sell it. If you're not willing to sell it then it's not usable as money. That sort of makes sense but doesn't make sense. I might be planning to pass it on to my own children. Somebody someday will sell it if necessary. I don't mean FOREVER. He was thinking I meant forever and ever till the end of the universe or something. I just meant, a very long time from now, and only in an emergency. Like if I needed to buy my way out of the country, or something. So when I told him I saved my money as silver coins (because usually that's all I can afford) he didn't seem to understand why I would do that.

So when I talked to Mom on the phone this morning, after finding out that yes, I can sell the coin for sure, I was able to say to her that I had 'saved the money in case I needed it.' I didn't mention anything about coins. I wanted to, because I love to tell the details of how I do things. I don't like to leave out any details. But I knew that if I mentioned that, it would be 'weird' and she would be suspicious about it. She doesn't know how the value of bullion coins works. She probably thinks that it's 'speculative' and that I could 'lose money' that way.

***
This is a 'disjointed thinking' section. I'm half paying attention to my movie again, while thinking about something very difficult to think about.

I have a definition of what it means to 'lose money.' I decided that if the dollar value of my bullion coins goes down - which it might someday - I would tolerate that and not count it as a 'loss.' The coins themselves would still exist. This might be a 'bubble,' and the economic system might cause the value of gold and silver to change, to go up or down, but I still have to buy coins anyway, for the long run. In the long run, only the coins will always have SOME value. Paper money is able to lose ALL value. Coins can lose SOME of their value, but not all of it. They are the only form of money that cannot be completely destroyed in the long run.

This is a what if scenario. I don't know if I'll be able to explain it (particularly when a movie is playing on my laptop and I'm hearing it 'out of the corner of my ear' while trying to think, and I don't want to shut off the movie).

What if:
the value of metals went down,
AND,
I had been saving my money as paper money all that time?

This is the hardest thing for me to think about, and I've struggled with it many times in the past, as I asked the questions about what it means to 'make a profit' when the 'value' of your metals 'goes up.' I decided that it's meaningless to think of profit in those terms. So if it's meaningless to think of profit that way, it might also be meaningless to think of loss that way. If you DON'T SELL the coins, then it doesn't matter if their 'value' 'goes up.' I am not going to sell them even if their dollar value goes up. They are for an emergency. I am not going to sell them if their value goes down either.

If I had saved my money as paper money all that time, while the value of metals went down, what would it mean?

Let's say I was CAPABLE of saving money in cash without spending it. That's hard and unlikely, but, okay, I'll pretend I can do it. (Suspend your disbelief.)

Would I have 'profited,' or perhaps, 'prevented a loss,' if I had saved the money as paper instead of coins?

That's looking at only a short-term time period. You're only looking at the period of time during which the prices of metals fell. That is a short period. In reality, it would be a long period during which the prices of metals changed constantly, sometimes going up or down.

If I bought a coin, and then, the very next day, the price of metals collapsed, and it stayed down low for a very long time, like, years, then I wouldn't be able to sell back the coin at a high price. If I bought it at $100 and the next day there was a commodity price collapse, then I could only sell the coin for $50 or $30 or whatever it collapsed to, THAT DAY.

If I had not spent my money on the coin, I would still have $100 today and tomorrow.

Over a long time, the dollar value of the coins would go back up. I can't suspend disbelief enough to imagine that the government would stop trying to inflate the dollar by printing more money. Those $100 that I saved would gradually lose their value again over a long time.

But if there was a massive deflation, where the value of the dollar went up and up -

this is hard to explain, but I'm thinking about a situation where... the dollar value is worthless and it's not accepted as money anymore, but at the same time, it's deflating. This is confusing and unthinkable, but I am asking it because it is a logical possibility. Most people think of hyperinflation, where you have to bring a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. That happens if there's 'too much money' being printed.

I'm thinking of deflation, but not a good, happy deflation where we suddenly get rich because our dollars can buy more and more each day. Maybe a huge number of dollars vanish into thin air, because of an electronic trading hack. Or because of some consequence of economic forces that I can't explain. (Antal Fekete could explain.) Maybe instead, SOME people's dollars gain value, and they can buy more JUNK with those dollars, so they start buying more paper trading bills or something, buying stocks, derivatives, whatever, some worthless financial crap that's going to get destroyed in the future. But meanwhile, everyone else's dollars get weaker, and they can buy less food, less rent, less electricity, and less gas than before. That's one thing that can happen. Perhaps the value of the dollar-to-financial-paper ratio goes up? The dollar can buy more of the esoteric financial stuff that we can't understand. Stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. That actually almost seems like reality.

'Financial paper' isn't the same thing as dollars. There are complex financial instruments, ways of trading, where people promise to pay somebody a certain number of dollars (or whatever) in the future under certain conditions. 'Derivatives' are one of those things. People buy them thinking that they're going to make a profit on them, but then they lose all value and nobody can sell them.

If people's dollars are able to buy more and more complex financial instruments, but meanwhile they buy less and less gas, food, rent, etc, then the ordinary person's life gets worse, while the financial industry insiders' life gets better.

I'm trying to express something that I don't understand, based on fragments of things I've read about. (while watching and listening to a movie, and after having used half a Vivarin to get up this morning, which always makes me talk endlessly.) I'm doing it for my entertainment to hear myself talk. That's why this isn't a book that I'm trying to sell.

You know what's nice about blogging? I don't have to worry about whether I'm boring my audience to death. Nobody has to read it. Nobody has to answer. They can just skim. In the forum, I have to pay careful attention to the length of my monologues. I have to give a clear, brief, organized argument that won't bore everyone to death before they've finished it. I have to think hard, and know what I'm saying. That's why I blog, to release energy in a disorganized way and not worry about the audience too much. Everyone can just skim through it to see if there's anything interesting going on and see if I'm okay, and look for an unusual idea or two.

Anyway I didn't have to explain to Mom that I had used a gold coin to save the money they gave me for Christmas. I accepted that money, and actually I would rather not get any money from them at all. But if I take less money, if I refuse to keep on taking it over and over again, that's better. I might be able to 'negotiate' some kind of 'agreement' where 'they' allow me to save money for real while working, instead of spending it on useless things like electronic devices that I never use and didn't want. I wanted coins. I wanted to save the money for the future. I want to save money so I can take lots and lots of time off work while paying my bills. I want to take time off work. That is all that I want in the world, not electronic junk. It isn't 'junk,' it isn't 'worthless,' but it's not what I wanted, and I am very annoyed that they forced me to buy that stuff instead of buying coins. It was deliberately done to prevent me from getting what I want and following my values.

The movie is over, so I need to get ready to go run my errands today. I will have the rent this month. I hope I get more hours at work and get a new job by next month, because I won't have a coin to sell again.

I didn't get to completely and thoroughly explain the concept of 'profit' and 'loss' with respect to metals. Measure your profits and losses in terms of metal coins. That is all. You must own them physically and be able to reach them and trust that their location is accessible. I'll have to talk about it some other day then.