A Nation of Burnout – The Rise of High Turnover Rates

Workers are quitting their jobs at record rates, and few industries feel it more than education. High teacher turnover affects schools across the country, leaving students with less experienced educators and overworked staff scrambling to fill the gaps. Many teachers don’t stay long, and the reasons are clear.

Low salaries push many out. The average teacher salary has barely risen in decades when adjusted for inflation. Many educators take on second jobs just to pay the bills. Starting pay is so low in some districts that teachers qualify for public assistance. Teachers also face growing class sizes, more responsibilities, and little backup when dealing with behavioral issues. Many feel isolated and stuck handling everything alone.

However, the impact of burnout is not limited to the education field. Healthcare workers are also leaving their jobs in large numbers. Nurses, in particular, are quitting at alarming rates. Long hours, chronic understaffing, and emotional exhaustion push many out of the profession.

Retail and food service industries also struggle with constant turnover. Low wages, unpredictable schedules, and demanding customers make it hard for workers to stick around. Many quit within months, forcing businesses to spend time and money training new employees who may not stay either.

Even white-collar workers aren’t immune. Many in corporate jobs report feeling overworked and undervalued. The rise of remote work initially promised flexibility, but for some, it blurred the line between work and personal life, leading to higher stress. When employees burn out, companies lose knowledge and productivity, creating a cycle that’s hard to break.

Outdated education systems make things worse by leaving students unprepared for the workforce. Many college programs still follow models designed for roles that are no longer in demand, forcing graduates into debt for degrees with shrinking job prospects. Meanwhile, trade skills and tech certifications, often dismissed as secondary paths, now lead to more stable careers.

The Trades Gap – A Hidden Workforce Crisis

America is running out of skilled tradespeople, and the problem is worsening. Plumbers, electricians, welders, and mechanics are aging out of the workforce faster than they can be replaced. This trend slows infrastructure projects, delays repairs, and drives up costs for businesses and homeowners. However, the shortage of tradeswomen reveals a barrier to entry and an opportunity to solve the shortage.

Despite high demand and good wages, women make up less than 15% of the construction workforce. Many never consider trade careers because schools prioritize college over hands-on work. Those who do face barriers like a lack of mentorship, gender bias, and fewer training opportunities. Some quit because of workplace culture issues, limiting progress even more.

But the problem extends beyond construction. America’s labor shortage affects everything from manufacturing to aviation. Without skilled workers, industries struggle to grow, supply chains suffer, and wages rise without matching productivity. The country depends on these workers, yet the pipeline to replace them keeps shrinking.

The Impact of Technology on the Workforce

Technology is changing jobs faster than many workers can adapt. Automation has already replaced roles in manufacturing, logistics, and customer service. Companies use algorithms to analyze data, write reports, and even make hiring decisions. This raises concerns about job security and the skills needed to stay employable.

The presence of machine learning and AI in today’s workforce is becoming more prominent. These tools handle tasks that once required human effort, making businesses more efficient but leaving workers uncertain about their future. Some jobs are disappearing, while others now require tech skills that many employees don’t have.

Workers who don’t keep up risk being left behind. As automation spreads, industries must balance efficiency with the need for human workers who bring critical thinking and creativity.

Immigrant Labor and Economic Stability

Immigrant workers are the backbone of many industries. In agriculture, they make up a large share of the workforce, doing physically demanding jobs that are often difficult to fill. Without them, crops go unharvested, driving up food prices. Construction also depends heavily on immigrant labor, especially for skilled trades like masonry and carpentry. A shrinking workforce in these fields leads to delays, skyrocketing costs, and more.

Immigration policy plays a key role in these labor shortages. Strict visa limits and increased restrictions have reduced the number of available workers, worsening employment gaps. When businesses can’t find enough workers, economic growth slows, and consumers feel the effects through higher prices and stalled development.

Bridging the Gap – A Call for Sustainable Solutions

Fixing America’s labor crisis requires action from all sides. Policy reforms can ease worker shortages while better job training prepares people for high-demand fields. Outdated education systems must adapt to modern workforce needs, and the shortage of tradeswomen shows why diversity matters.

Photo Credits

Photo is from Pexels

Guest Author Bio
Charlie Fletcher

Charlie Fletcher is a freelance writer from the lovely “city of trees”- Boise, Idaho. Her love of writing pairs with her passion for social activism and search for the truth. When not writing she spends her time doodling and embroidering. And yes, she does love all kinds of potatoes!

Dark Clouds Looming?

The TD report states:

“Canada is also one of the few advanced countries that has not recovered its pre-pandemic level of per capita GDP. Longer-term, the OECD projects that Canada will rank dead last among OECD members in real GDP per capita growth out until 2060. This underscores that without fundamental changes to our approach to productivity and growth, Canada’s standard-of-living challenges will persist well into the future…”

You can see a striking depiction of this in this video of the top 15 wealthiest countries by year from 1500 to 2019 (it is fun to watch from the beginning but you may want to roll forward to about 1900 for the purpose of this article.)   Pretend it’s a race and watch Canada and Argentina carefully.  

Both Argentina and  Canada consistently rank in the top 15 from the mid 1800’s onward and briefly during WWII Canada is the second wealthiest country in the world! Watch the Canadian flag drop off the top 15 list in the 1980’s, never to return.  For some time Argentina has been wealthier than Canada.  But it drops off the list about 1950.  Since then it has been an economic basket case with a currency so weak and inflated that you have to buy a house in US dollars as people won’t accept their own currency.

Argentina once had a vigorous middle class which was wiped out by government fiscal mismanagement within a few decades.   The reasons included ignoring the very products  that brought the country wealth, wasteful and increasing deficit spending and debt.  Instead the government invested in heavily subsidized industrial projects which became political footballs and a sinkhole for, rather than source of wealth.  The result was hyperinflation and an economy that has had to be bailed out by repeated International Monetary Fund loans.  The country remains an economic basket case.

The wealth of Argentina and Canada were both founded on natural resources and agriculture.  

What went wrong with Argentina?  Its government lost track of what was putting bread and butter on the table and roofs over their heads.  In Argentina wheat, beef and mining took care of this.  In Canada petroleum, agriculture and mining are major sources of our wealth.  Currently over 30% of our exports are made up of one product: petroleum and its derivatives.

Canada would appear to be headed towards the same fate as Argentina.  I am sure the people of Argentina believed that their comfortable existence would continue indefinitely.  There are quite a few Argentinians living who still remember the prosperous lifestyle that they once had. Now most of the population is poor with a small, moneyed class controlling most of the country.  

Sure, climate change has been a major concern in recent years and this has been a challenge for Canadians.  Unfortunately, unlike Norway, instead of sensibly managing our hefty petroleum resources we seem to be actively trying to torpedo them.  The world will require oil, gas, plastics and fertilizers for many years.  All we accomplish by targeting these industries is to raise the incomes of countries with horrendous human rights records.  Natural gas produces about half the CO2 of other petroleum products and unlike coal does not produce noxious acid-rain-producing byproducts like sulphur dioxide (which turns to sulphuric acid in the sky).  Someone recently and seriously suggested that we pump it into the air over the Arctic to slow down global warming.  Duh!

We should be encouraging natural gas production and export in Canada to provide an ethical and less noxious alternative to the coal fired plants that are sprouting up all over Europe and elsewhere in the world since the Ukraine conflict started.

It is us who  should be filling this gap.  Additionally, threats of curtailing fertilizer use and production forces Canadian farmers to face 30% drops in crop yield and probable insolvency.  

Our mineral wealth includes gold, diamonds, rare earths, cobalt, nickel and lithium, the latter four are key products in the electrification of automotive transportation and in the computer industry.  I have read many business publications and they rarely consider Canada a serious contender to supply these products because of bureaucracy and unnecessary regulatory complexity.

If we don’t take some positive steps to address these issues many Canadians could be poor, hungry and cold within the next couple of decades.  I know as I was flying out of Buenos Aires the day the riots started.  But don’t take my word. Just ask someone from Argentina.

Photo Credit

Image by Joe from Pixabay

Most residents of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are dissatisfied with the lack of consultation extended to them by the federal government in measures to tax and reduce petroleum production and use of fertilizers with concomitant drop in crop production by about 30%. They argue that this will be very damaging to not only their own economies but to Canada as a whole. Since Canada, and especially the Prairie provinces have freezing temperatures in the winter and often have to travel long distances to get food, supplies etc it is important to have affordable energy for heating purposes and travel. Poor planning in this area could have serious consequences for the average Canadian.

Saskatoon Sunset

So what would the Prairie Federation (PF) look like? For starters, the population total of the three prairie provinces is about seven million versus a Canadian population approaching forty million. Within this region exist the world’s third largest oil reserves, third largest uranium reserves and about ten percent of the world’s wheat output. Twenty five percent of Canada’s exports are petroleum related! Most come from these three western provinces. Furthermore, our hypothetical federation shares a long border with the resource hungry US market.

In addition to the huge mining, petroleum and agricultural resources Manitoba has a viable saltwater port on Hudson’s Bay, the port of Churchill. This is accessible by rail and is probably Canada’s best port on the Arctic Ocean. It has been woefully neglected and was even sold to private American interests at one point. The port needs a substantial cash infusion and upgrading of the rail system but could be harnessed for much of the year to export petroleum and wheat. As the Arctic warms, open water conditions will become more frequent and Arctic Ocean ports will be of great consequence. Russia knows this and has dominated the Arctic region with well developed ports and a fleet of ice breakers. Canada has ignored this vital and resource rich territory.

CN Rail

The Prairie Federation would have to take on a proportionate amount of the federal debt (about one-fifth) but would take away a disproportionate amount of wealth. In fact each resident would likely see a healthy bonus as resource sales are divided among a much smaller population. Residents of Alaska receive a yearly Permanent Fund Dividend ranging up to two thousand US dollars per person and I suspect the PF would offer an even more substantial amount to residents.

I sincerely hope we never see this scenario materialize as the Atlantic Provinces would largely be on the losing end (except perhaps for Newfoundland, which has huge hydroelectric and substantial offshore oil and might want to join the PF!)

Canada take heed.

Photo Credit

Saskatoon Sunset Image by james_nagarbaul from Pixabay

Train Image by Jennie Roberts from Pixabay

None of that is to say that it is impossible to be successful as a restaurant owner today. In this article, we take a look at what it is like to run a restaurant in a post-COVID world.

Labor

You’d have to have been living under a rock for the last few years to have missed news of the ongoing labor shortage. During the pandemic, people quit minimum-wage jobs in droves for a combination of reasons. Many federal aid critics cited high unemployment benefits as a big motivation for people to stop coming to work.

Conversations with American shift workers paint a slightly different picture. Sure, people knew about unemployment, and how it had changed shape a little bit in the face of the pandemic, but they also began to reevaluate what they were willing to do for money.

Can I just stop you right there?

Oh, I didn’t see you there. Sure. Go for it.

The pandemic is pretty much over now, isn’t it? So what do I care about why people quit their jobs two years ago?

Well, that’s just the thing. The pandemic permanently re-framed the way people saw their minimum-wage jobs. They were essential. But they could also be sidelined for weeks at a time in accordance with some lock-down restrictions.

When they did come into work it was with the understanding that they might be exposing themselves to a dangerous virus. Suddenly, working in a restaurant didn’t feel safe anymore.

All of this was a lot to ask of a person who was making $10 an hour. So people quit in droves. Now, things with the pandemic have calmed down, but restaurants are still struggling to staff their shifts. American labor is no longer in a state of crisis. In fact, experts largely agree that the advantage will shift back to the employer later in the year.

However, there are still things to keep in mind as you consider staffing your restaurant.

• Compensation: Minimum wage doesn’t cut the mustard in many parts of the country anymore. “Unskilled laborers,” as they are called, are still in high demand, which means they can sell their time for more money. It’s not uncommon for restaurants to pay their staff $15-20 an hour. Even jobs that used to primarily be compensated in tips are now receiving minimum wage as well in many parts of the country.
• It may be hard to fully staff your shifts: Over the last few years, it’s been common to walk into restaurants that are half empty and find out that you still have to wait for a table. Why? Even though there are spots open, there aren’t people available to cover them. Restaurant owners are still finding it hard to find enough people to cover their shifts. Higher compensation can help, but with rising expenses in the form of rent, ingredients, etc. there is only so much you can do.

It’s More Expensive Than it Used to Be

Then there’s that inflation everyone has been talking about. Eggs that cost $7 a dozen. Produce and meat prices are going through the roof. Post-pandemic restaurants have found themselves in a tricky position when it comes to ingredient prices. On the one hand, they need to turn a profit. That’s hard to do without raising their prices. On the other hand, the more expensive the menu gets, the fewer people will come in.

Unfortunately, this is a calculation for which there is no easy answer. Most restaurant owners aren’t trying to beat inflation but merely survive it.

People Don’t Go Out to Eat as Much as They Used to

It’s also true that people simply don’t go out to eat at restaurants as much as they used to. This began as a matter of necessity. In many parts of the country, it was literally against the law to sit down in a restaurant, making the question a moot point.

However, as people adjusted to pandemic life, they became used to planning and cooking their own meals. Now, many people who never thought of themselves as cooks before have made it a normal part of their routine. And because inflation is hitting everyone, this is a social change not necessarily poised to correct course anytime soon.

Less Competition

Around 90,000 restaurants closed during the pandemic. Sad news for restaurant owners and the communities that they used to serve. However, this mass closing of eating establishments has left a large hole that will need to be filled by someone.

That person could be you! It’s a pretty basic economic principle. Supply and demand. The fewer restaurants there are in a town, the more business each of them will do. Of course, you still have to check all the other boxes. Good food. Sensible prices. Friendly staff. Great atmosphere.

Still, for the time being, at least, the hospitality industry is wide open for newcomers.

Almost All of That was Bad News

Did you read the last section?

The one about how almost 100,000 restaurants closed in two years? Not very heartwarming!

Well, ok. Sure. It’s not the easiest time in the world to be a restaurant owner. But things do seem to be looking up. The recession that experts have been forecasting for months now isn’t impacting average Americans the way economic crises of the past have.

That means that people do still have money in their pockets, and they might be willing to spend some of it on your food. There are challenges. Staffing. Inflation. But these issues are cyclical. They creep up. Eventually, they go away.

None of that is to say that this is the most ideal time to open a small business. But it’s never going to be. There are always going to be challenges. If you are serious about owning a restaurant in the post-COVID era, you need to figure out how to navigate the hardships and make them work for you.

Photo Credit

Restaurant image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Kitchen image by Werner Heiber from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Sarah Daren

With a Bachelor’s in Health Science along with an MBA, Sarah Daren has a wealth of knowledge within both the health and business sectors. Her expertise in scaling and identifying ways tech can improve the lives of others has led Sarah to be a consultant for a number of startup businesses, most prominently in the wellness industry, wearable technology and health education. She implements her health knowledge into every aspect of her life with a focus on making America a healthier and safer place for future generations to come.

What is the Gig Economy?

The gig economy is the new catchphrase referring to those who earn their living primarily through freelance work. “Gigging” today is perhaps more popular than it has ever been, with the gig economy growing dramatically in recent years — thanks in no small part to the shakeup of the Great Recession. Displaced workers found themselves preferring to rely on their own wits and their own efforts, rather than put their trust in some faceless corporation. Having discovered what it felt like to be nothing more than expendable servants of the bottom line, many of these workers determined to strike out on their own, exchanging the mantle of the employee for that of the entrepreneur.

According to recent estimates, nearly 57 million Americans are now doing some kind of freelance work, whether as a supplement to their primary, full-time job or as their only source of income. Further, the gig economy in the United States is now estimated to generate more than $1 trillion dollars for the national economy, and in the next ten years, more than 50% of American workers are expected to be working freelance at least some of the time.

But with the great good of this new, more independent form of work comes a lot of bad. And the harms of the gig economy, at least as it now operates — largely unregulated — are profound, wide-ranging, and long-lasting. The detrimental effects of the gig economy, in fact, are taking their toll not only on the workers themselves, but also on families, communities, and on the integrity and power of our labor laws and other essential worker protections.

Working Without a Net

For all of the advantages of self-reliance and self-determination that come with gig work, the sacrifices required to be successful are immense. All too often, freelancing means giving up the social safety net that has been in place to protect workers for more than a century. And these are no small matters.

What we’re talking about, in fact, are those provisions meant to protect you and your family in your old age, in times of illness, or in the face of other unforeseen but life-altering events. If you’re freelancing, chances are you will not be eligible for paid vacation, retirement, workers’ compensation, or unemployment benefits. Even more, you’re probably going to have to buy your own private health insurance — and that sure ain’t cheap.

Outside the Law

Working in the gig economy doesn’t only mean that you’re forced to forfeit the benefits to which most full-time employees are entitled, it also means giving up the most basic labor protections, from ensuring a livable minimum wage, restrictions on hours worked per day or week, or even on maintaining a safe and healthy working environment.

And because a lot of freelance work takes place online, from advertising services and booking gigs to doing some or all of the work online, you’ll also be responsible for your own cybersecurity. That’s a task that challenges even the largest, richest, and most powerful corporations in the world.

If that’s not enough, you’re also going to need to take care of your own taxes, and you’ll probably be subject to the higher rates independent contractors or “1099 workers” have to pay. You’re also required to pony up for your business taxes at least once each quarter, rather than dealing with them once a year, as with the standard federal income tax.

What’s To Be Done

The issues surrounding gig work may sound daunting because they are. But that doesn’t mean freelancers are helpless. There are important things that can and must be done to protect workers in this burgeoning industry. For example, a powerful movement to redefine the legal definition and status of the independent contractor is emerging. Likewise, increasing efforts are being made to unionize traditionally marginalized workers, with a particular focus on freelancers, whose lack of connection with and access to other workers has been one of the greatest sources of their exploitation.

The Takeaway

At first blush, the gig economy seems to be the path to ultimate freedom for the modern worker. All too often, though, gigging means chaining yourself to long hours, low pay, and profound financial uncertainty. It means living without the most basic rights and protections that full-time employees now enjoy. It doesn’t have to be this way, however. In fact, justice demands change, and that includes not only redefining the legal status of the independent contractor and extending the reach of the labor unions to embrace and empower the freelance worker.

Photo Credit

Photo from pixabay – creative commons

Guest Author Bio
Jori Hamilton

Jori Hamilton is a writer and journalist from the Pacific Northwest who covers social justice issues, healthcare, and politics. You can follow her work on twitter @HamiltonJori, and through her portfolio at Writer Jori Hamilton.

I have recently been reading a novel, The Gilded Age (1873) by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. It was the first attempt at a long work of fiction by either author and is now considered notable, not so much for its literary quality as for having called attention to the rampant political corruption, rapid growth, and irresponsible economic speculation which characterized America in the latter nineteenth century.

The title implies an age which has the superficial appearance of the classical “Golden Age” but conceals a reality which is far baser, less substantial, and more liable to corruption and decay. The term, which originated in this novel, caught on, and persists to this day as the term for American society from 1877 to 1900, between Reconstruction and the Progressive era. Actually, what Twain and Warner describe is Reconstruction, and about a third of the novel takes place in Missouri before the Civil War, inviting the reader to draw connections between abuses on both sides of that watershed event, involving the same cast of characters.

While reading it, I could not help but be struck by certain parallels between the 19th century “Gilded Age” and America in the early 21st century, which might be termed the “Mylar Age.” The gilding on steamship fittings and cheap ostentatious furniture manufactured by immigrant child labor in New England factories was, after all, real gold, whereas the impressive superficial façade of our current culture is plastic, and comes from China.

Both the Gilded Age and the Mylar Age are characterized by extremely rapid economic expansion, during which many bottom feeders and unscrupulous operators rose to the top of the economic heap and were able to use that position to secure political advantage, setting up a feedback loop. In the 19th century actual territorial expansion predominated. In the late 20th century globalization of markets increased the territorial scope of corporations while keeping a large part of the operations outside of the political oversight of the American public. There is still a power and wealth feedback loop, but it draws upon forces over which our system, to the extent it is still democratic, has no control. One unfortunate result, in both eras, is a rapid expansion in wealth inequity, masked at least in the initial stages by improvement in the standard of living of the lower classes, though not in proportion to the rate of economic growth.

I subtitled this piece “Manipulating Altruism to Fuel Addictive Greed,” to focus on one phenomenon spelled out in considerable detail in the novel, of which I see numerous examples in my own community, and that is capitalizing on people’s natural inclination to be seen as doing good in the world in order to induce them to support causes, either through direct contributions or legislative action allocating and raising taxes, which do little to actually ameliorate the problems they purport to address but are immensely lucrative for the people pitching and backing the charitable endeavor.

In the novel, Laura, a cynical and manipulative woman, has inherited a tract of land in Tennessee with reserves of coal and iron on it. She and her family do not have the resources to develop it themselves, and her first inclination is to sell it to the highest bidder. A corrupt politician who is notable for his hypocritical support of causes decides that the most profitable course of action is to obtain government subsidies to develop the land as a source of income for an educational institution for freed Negroes. That sounds like a laudable aim, but neither Laura, nor Senator Dilworthy, nor most of the people involved in the venture believes that negroes are capable of benefiting from education beyond the primary level. If an earlier railroad subsidy scheme Dilworthy pushed through Congress on the grounds that it would stimulate the economic development of a very poor area in Missouri is any indication, the appropriation has already been earmarked for costs unrelated to the purported goal of improving public welfare, including bribes to congressmen.

To cite a present-day analog, my own community, and the State of Oregon generally, we are faced with a growing homeless population and a diminishing supply of affordable housing, and I see our City council and State legislature (both heavily skewed toward liberals who profess a concern for the poor and downtrodden and got their positions by appealing to an electorate which is genuinely, if perhaps not very wisely, concerned about human welfare) proposing solutions that have not worked very well in the past and logically will work even less well in the future. Raising local taxes to subsidize St. Vincent de Paul to construct a small number of subsidized housing units to be rented to low income families pinches landlords who are already renting at below market rates, spawns a paid bureaucracy to determine who is deserving of the subsidies, and ultimately decreases the stock of housing available to working people.

If the local economy were actually expanding, rather than experiencing illusory expansion due in no small part to inflation in medical care costs and an undependable source of Federal funds to underwrite that, the effect would be less noticeable. Bubbles and balloons, however, eventually burst, and the subsidies and appropriations currently being put into place for housing and medical care, and the poorly underwritten loans that shore up an educational system which is the other mainstay of our local economy, have the semblance of a gaudy Mylar balloon from the Dollar Tree, one, perhaps, with a smiley face on it, already beginning to show signs of deflation from having been too long on display.

Photo Credits

Book images are scans from a 1875 printing of The Gilded Age

Balloon – Mike Mozart on flickr – some rights reserved

“Eating your seed corn” is a metaphor for consuming the means of future production for the purpose of present gain. It has been used to describe supposedly crippling taxation, siphoning off too large a share of profits into dividends, lack of investment in education, Ponzi schemes, failure to fund and encourage basic research in government laboratories, and strategies which discourage retention of experienced personnel. It refers to agricultural practices in place not a few generations back even in the USA, and still, albeit decreasingly, practiced in other parts of the world, where farmers relied on saved seed to plant the next year’s crop and eating that seed meant disaster. Before efficient transportation, eating seed corn created a snowballing famine effect. Once it was possible to replace consumed seed, but at much higher cost than saved seed, the consequences tended to be economic. Few people actually starved in the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, but many people lost their land, and borrowing to replant after one bad crop year was a cause of this. Still, eating seed corn, whether literal or metaphorical, was regarded as at best a last ditch strategy, not a viable business plan under average conditions.

All the sources I consulted list this as a traditional American farmer’s adage, and none cites a source earlier than the 19th century. Possibly this is because the wisdom is so deeply ingrained in traditional societies that it was taken for granted. The only directly relevant Biblical source I could find was in the Deuterocanonical Book of Judith, were Judith gains the trust of the Assyrian general Holofernes by saying:

“When the Israelites sin and make their God angry, they will die. 12 Their food supply has already run out, and the water shortage has become serious, so they have decided to kill their livestock and eat foods that God’s Law clearly forbids them to eat. 13 They have decided to eat the wheat set aside from the early harvest and the tithes of wine and oil, which are holy and are reserved for the priests who serve God in Jerusalem. The rest of us are forbidden even to touch this sacred food, 14 but since the people in Jerusalem have already broken this law, the people of our town have sent messengers to the Council there requesting permission to do the same. 15 On the day that they receive permission and actually eat the food, you will be able to destroy them.”

This seems to refer to a custom of setting aside a portion of the harvest for the temple storehouse and keeping it reserve for planting and other purposes regarded as vital to the continuation of the community in the event of crop failure. The temple grain storehouse and its sanctity are a common theme in ancient civilizations.

The adage, whatever its origins, seems to be enshrined in the parables that are told to schoolchildren about early America, along with George Washington and the cherry tree and Columbus sailing the Ocean blue in 1492 in defiance of a general belief that the world was flat. The story that the Mayflower pilgrims endured great hardships rather than eat their seed corn has a better claim to authenticity than either of the aforementioned fables, but claiming that this represents extraordinary foresight on the part of our ancestors, contributing to present entitlement, is probably a distortion.

Whatever the history, eating seed corn in the literal as well as the metaphorical sense has now become business as usual, as we consume the means of generating future sustenance in the name of present advantage. The explosion of credit boosts the phenomenon exponentially. A farmer who routinely and increasingly mortgages his land to buy seed and fertilizer, or a homeowner who runs up a credit card secured by his house to meet present living expenses, is eating seed corn. In an era when people do not literally stockpile seed, he is not only consuming the tangible means of future production, but even the intangible means of securing access to future production.

There is a great deal of lip service paid to sustainability these days, but too often that is used as a rallying cry toward consuming decisions that are anything but sustainable. As an example, the oversupply of workers in certain academic fields and the consequent dismal job prospects for individuals who are treated as a disposable commodity is being used as an argument for throwing more public resources into training programs of doubtful utility. Much of the public investment in renewable energy falls into the same category: borrowed money has been diverted into the hands of rapidly growing companies and their investors, without a corresponding net increase in sustainable energy production. The billions in borrowed money diverted into the effort, meanwhile, becomes a millstone around the neck of the public, bleeding off interest and compromising the ability to borrow “seed money” on reasonable terms if a true emergency does arise.

Once again, the Emperor has no clothes.

Source of Image

The Wonderful World of J. Wesley Smith by Burr Shafer, the Vanguard Press Inc. New York, 1960.

Over the eons of political time, even though the Emperors originally had complete control of the money piles the Empire had at its disposal, they somehow lost control of that important part of their immense power. In the beginning, the money piles in the Empire’s vaults were wonderfully visible and there were mountains of not only notes in many denominations and kinds, but there was above all a very respectable tonnage of real gold. There was so much of it in fact, that it had to be kept very, very safe in a fort. However, gold was a beautiful currency but impractical. To drag around a few pounds of gold when you went to buy a car or some milk weighed very heavily in anyone’s pocket – especially an Emperor’s when he went to purchase bigger items like battleships – so it was agreed that the most practical way of transporting money was to let pieces of paper with beautiful inscriptions represent the value of a certain amount of gold. Yes, there was always a connection between those pieces of paper and the gold in the bank vault so if you had one of those pieces of paper, a bank note, then you could go to the bank and exchange it for a real lump of gold. It felt comforting that that was so.

Again, over time, things changed. After many nations on the globe had abandoned gold in favour of the paper money and the money needs of governments were used to stroke their electorates along the bristles and not the other way had really become standard practice, then the original connection between paper money and real work or tangible assets had been lost. Not completely, mind you, but to an extent that had real impacts on the value of the paper money. Yes, there was a continuous drop in what the Empire’s bank notes would buy in the real world, so over time more and more of those bank notes had to be printed to keep up with the inflated values of this and that and also the needs of not only the Emperor, his courtiers and the Empire’s lords, but also of the common knaves. Exchanging those bank notes for gold eventually went out of style.

About a century ago, a group of very rich people, richer than the Emperor himself, had a party. Well, it was actually a very secret meeting on a very secluded island off the coast of the Empire. Those rich people, which all seven were owners of the biggest banks, had wisely assumed or perhaps had simply taken for granted, that it was unnecessary to compete that much with each other. Owning a bank was risky business in those days when governments were uninterested in guaranteeing the well-being of any bank. So, why compete? Wise decision to not compete, those seven thought. They knew what they were doing those crafty bankers, but somehow they didn’t trust the government and above all they weren’t quite on the same page of parchment as the millions of ordinary knaves that were working away producing real stuff in real factories, mines or on farms and boats. So the seven just went ahead and formed their union. Well, it was actually more like a cartel that was going to be kept secret, but after a few years a certain Emperor by the name of Woodrow got wind of the scheme and liked it. So he fixed things up for the bankers’ cartel and gave them a government charter. Other countries had a central bank that governed their private banks, but the Empire had to have something far superior. It was blessed with a powerful private central bank that was staffed with servants loyal to the seven founders whose banks now could do their bank business without worrying much about other upstart banks. So there was simply less competition in total. After about 18 years in the business, the secret of the new bank gathering was slowly leaked out to the ordinary knaves. But no one said boo about it, since it had been given such an official sounding name with both a word that most knaves would think was a comforting government thing,  which was “Federal”, and then also a second word that would make most ordinary knaves think that there were tons and huge piles of extra money stored for an empire-wide rainy day and that word was “Reserve”.

Well, things worked out pretty good anyway. The people in the new bank cartel got along well with the Emperor’s men and the Emperor could direct the cartel to print more money when he needed some for his government. The funny thing was that the cartel charged the Emperor’s government money for doing this, but the Emperor was OK with that. After all, what could the Emperor do? Go somewhere else to get some money? There was nowhere else. At least not for a good long while. Not until the Empire got in hock to a Far East empire, anyway.

In the meanwhile, the Empire grew and so did its need of money, especially such money that was used for the protection of both the lords and the knaves. Yes, there were an awful lot of new horses and boats and cannons and flying machines purchased for the protection of the Empire. Over the years, that kind of security with all that fine weaponry, the people in the Empire fell in love with shooting, not only at home, but above all in far off lands, where there were more countries to be conquered and immense riches to be brought home. There was a special variant of gold out there, so-called black gold. It was a liquid asset of the best kind. Yes, it was both liquid and black and was commonly called oil and there were immense pools of it under the ground in some countries. So, the Emperor was asked from time to time to let his soldiers go out into the world and mostly by their very presence, they could make countries give up their slippery black gold for a very decent price, which kind of lubricated all the Empire’s wheels and motors.

The people that looked after the black gold often jumped up and down with joy when the smelly substance came to their distilleries where gasoline was made out of it. It meant not bagfuls of money for the black gold people, no, it meant wagon loads. Earlier, there were black gold pools found under the ground at home in the Empire too, but those pools were not so plentiful any more, but had nevertheless made the slippery oil people very rich already. It so happened that there was more of the black gold in pristine and beautiful corners of the Empire, but those places were held to be of such artful value that drilling for black oil there was originally not allowed. So, what did the oil vassals do? They went to the Emperor’s friends and gave them lots of money, too, and asked those friends to have a little talk with the Emperor and his government. After a while, everything was arranged and the Emperor and his people got a little richer by virtue of the gifts that the black gold people gave to them, which made the Emperor think that “OK, I love the beauty of the land where this black oil is, but I think I love the money more. Besides, I don’t like some of the propositions from the black gold people of being removed from my throne if I don’t let them have their way.”

So, over the years, most of the Emperors wished to stay Emperors and went along with the black gold people’s wishes.

But there were other nobles of another kind out there, too. These were smart and very rich people and most of them were descended from or of the same ilk as the original seven that over a century ago had started the Empire’s central bank that wasn’t really a central bank. And those people were equally eager to make sure their ideas about money were respected by the Emperors. So those money lords engaged many of their friends to make sure the Emperors and their governments behaved in such a way that money could be handled the way the money lords wanted. And the Emperors by and large went along with any requests of that kind. There had been two or three Emperors that were, should we say, a bit obstinate, and they were let go. Well, another one met with some kind of accident and died when a projectile hit him when he was joyfully riding along with his wife in the southern part of the Empire. And so it goes. Modern day Emperors are usually smart enough to accommodate any wishes from both the black gold people and the money lords.

When those money lords went about making money off money, they would rent it out to various lesser citizens. Never mind that the money could be created more or less at will in the banks. Notations in the banks’ ledgers were entered to create the necessary piles of money. That was so simple it seemed like magic. It was money the bankers didn’t really own, but who would care when it worked the same as real, earned money. Most often the renters of money were people that wanted to produce something or sell something they imported from far off lands to the ordinary knaves. Or the renters might just be ordinary knaves that wanted to buy something, a house for their family, for example. Those kinds of needs were great sources of income for the money lords and being quite daring, those money lords hired smart people with wrinkled foreheads that conversed with newfangled contraptions called computers. And those wrinkled forehead people were the ones that really could think and came up with the very best ideas, actually money inventions that went by strange names like CDOs and CDSs, and which those wrinkled forehead people could use at certain times to multiply the money or send it off to far corners of the Empire with a push of a button on one of those modern thinking machines they called computers. Thus, much extra money that just didn’t exist before was created. And that was all well and fine. The money lords got richer and the borrowers also got some money. All this became so very popular that the money the Emperor had in the government vault was tiny compared to what the money lords could create with those modern thinking machines. For a while everyone was very happy. More and more money was created and sent off to satisfy the various needs in the Empire. The money just kept multiplying and it was truly magical that money could be so easily created without anyone really working very hard or at all to do that. It was like the money was coming out of a printing press at lightning speed. But, alas, the newly created money was not really printed at all. No, it just existed as a notation in one of those wonderful computer machines much like it had been done before by thousands of clerks in bank ledgers.

The money lent out this way to merchants and makers of this and that were reasonably happy even if the cost of borrowing was quite steep, but they found ways to put the money to even better use by sending the money abroad where there were a great many people that were willing to work for very little, which made the borrowed money go much further. The happiest borrower of all was the Emperor and his government, which now had a wonderful way of keeping his knaves content in many ways. There were all manners of help for the sick, food for the starving and help to those that couldn’t or wouldn’t work.

When this wonderful life had gone on for many moons, there was now however a slight problem. Those little notations in the bank computers were growing like topsy and the sums that were owed by the government and the knaves were growing by the second. The merchants and the makers of this and that were for the most part pretty good about paying back the invented money, while the Emperor and his government didn’t care at all about paying anything back and many of the knaves were simply very worried. That is how it all went for a while. Until, one day, when many of the ordinary knaves found that a lot of the work they formerly had been so busy with and made good money off, had been shipped off to distant lands in the Far East. So, the large group of knaves in the Empire now had lower income than before and they feared that the houses and vehicles they so dearly loved would need to be given back to the money lords. There wasn’t much they could do about that. At the same time, in other distant lands, there were really smart people who had it both in their hands and heads how to make things more or less with a lot less knave help. Those smart people had gone through much schooling and many other teaching processes and using an idea called automation, they certainly knew how to make complicated things really fast for much less money. And they were well paid for their efforts, which was very contrary to what the knaves in the Empire now were paid for their slow ways of working using old machinery.

So, there was a problem. At first, what was happening wasn’t much noticed or perhaps the formerly so self-assured people in the Empire didn’t want to see it that way. No, there was no problem. Of course not. If there was a problem, it was only temporary and the Empire, which was the greatest on Earth, would soon go back to being just that. From all points of view.

There was a young knave who had traveled other parts of the world and who had seen what was going on here and there. He compared what he had seen with the happenings in the Empire and pretty soon saw that there was a great problem with the whole setup. The formerly so busy knaves were now in rags and some of them lived in their cars or in the same kind of tenements there were in the very poor nations in other parts of the world. Strange, he thought. He made noises about this and was immediately rebuked. No, his reading of the statistics were wrong. No, this was only temporary poverty. No, everything was going to be OK as soon as the new Emperor was elected. And the new candidate Emperor in the election just around the corner made loud noises about how he would create jobs for all by just fiddling with the money. Somehow. Yes, somehow he was going to make those very rich lords start to employ people again. There was much talk about boot straps and how those should be pulled up and the Empire now ruled by a new Emperor was going to work itself out of the poverty mess. Yes, they were all going to get back to work using the same old ways and machines as before to make things in the Empire well again. Strangely, there was no talk of being as smart or smarter than those other knaves in other countries that had gone through much schooling and were now making things cheaper and faster than the knaves in the Empire could. The young traveller rolled his eyes when he saw all this and wanted to shout so all the lords and knaves in the Empire would hear:

“Do you remember the little boy in H.C. Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes? Take heed, you idiots!”  

Photo Credits

Gold vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – Wikimedia Public Domain

Official Presidential portrait of Woodrow Wilson – Wikimedia Public Domain

Black Gold – Wikimedia Public Domain

Digital Money  – FamZoo Staff on flickr – some rights reserved

Guest Author Bio
Per Akermalm

Per lives on Vancouver Island with his wife Lisse. He divides his time between practical work around the house and writing stories, short and long ones. He started writing in high school, first as a wonderful escape from the usual world, but later with a stronger connection to the reality of the present. There were occasional short articles in some newspapers in “the old country” – Sweden – and later more serious attempts to write longer stories. His mind was however of two kinds: The writer’s mind, but also the curious mind that likes to investigate the intricacies of science, which led him to become a P. Eng., start businesses, the last one being a company that wrote manuals for automation and robotics. In retrospect – after retiring – that was the most interesting insight into the future.

Photo Credit

Photo courtesy of Ryan Christopher

Guest Author Bio
Ryan Christopher

Ryan Christopher is managing editor for No Identity Theft. After having his identity stolen, he created a blog about identity theft protection so others could learn from his mistakes.

When humans first began living off the land, there was no need for money. We would simply find the food and shelter we needed and then move on once we had bled dry those natural resources. We only owned what we could carry and there was very little reason to trade.

The Birth of Money

Most likely, trade would have begun around the same time that agriculture was born. This was the first time in human history that we began owning land and livestock and that we had more ‘belongings’ than we could carry.

In fact, agriculture is responsible for much of what we consider ‘modern life’ for better or for worse. Some people even describe agriculture as ‘domesticating’ the human race.

Greek drachma of Aegina. Obverse: Land turtle / Reverse: ΑΙΓ(INA) and dolphin. The oldest turtle coin dates 700 BC.

Once you introduce agriculture, you now have motivation to trade things like grains, animals and even land. Likewise, you could also trade services and time – you might for example offer to tend someone’s sheep in exchange for some feed. (Here you also have the basis for employment!)

Abstraction

Early on, items such as cowry shells, beads and other ‘attractive’ items were used for trade. This is where coins began to fall into use.

The initial ‘precious material’ might well have been obsidian. This material was used for creating stone tools and was in high demand. As early as 9000 BC, it began to be used in organized trade.

Obsidian artifacts excavated at Takalik Abaj, Retalhuleu, Guatemala. Prismatic blades and obsidian cores.

The need for money likely arose as tasks and challenges became more complex. As we became more proficient at catering to our basic needs, we were be able to take on more challenging goals and thus was born a need for a more advanced form of trade. If you wanted to ‘hire’ someone to work towards building you a dam, you would want to pay them with something that represents material value. This way, someone could use that form of trade over a longer period.

As Socrates put it:

When the inhabitants of one country became more dependent on those of another, and they imported what they needed, and exported what they had too much of, money necessarily came into use.

Gold would eventually become the standard for currency owing to its scarcity.
Scarcity = value, while abundance causes inflation.

Money Today

Of course money has changed a lot since those early days. As carrying around gold coins is not that convenient, gold would eventually be kept in one place while copper coins and notes could be used to represent it.

These days, money more often takes the form of ‘credits’ stored digitally on a card and recognized by the banks.

But what about the future? What will money look like in the next 10, 20 or 50 years?

Many people believe that money will eventually become entirely digital with no need for gold to be involved at all. Indeed, we’re already moving toward this end point with the introduction of Bitcoins.

Likewise, expert financial institutions such as the trading site Binary Uno have gone on record as saying that cash will soon be obsolete with all money eventually becoming digital.

What’s also interesting is that we’re currently moving back towards a ‘sharing economy’. Sites like Airbnb and Freecycle are beginning to introduce the idea of trading value and services directly rather than involving money. Meanwhile, industries including record labels and publishers are being undermined by the digitization of their products.

Watch this space… the story of money has just begun!

Photo Credits

Ancient coins – Wikimedia Creative Commons

Obsidian – Wikimedia Creative Commons

Guest Author Bio

Lauren Gask
Lauren Gask is a senior historian and anthropologist who works as a research assistant in a leading institute which aims to better the world economy, especially in developing countries. Lauren’s expertise is focused on modern economies and digital global trade.