money making

During reading block today, I read a story to my students entitled Pig Pig Gets a Job that was a cute story about a little pig who wanted to make money.  The mother pig asked him why he wanted to make money and he said he wanted to buy something.  His mother then asked him what he wanted to buy to which he replied he didn't know but just knew he wanted to have the money to either save or buy something.

It got me to thinking of how much we are like that little pig in the story.  What reason do we give kids for staying in school?  So they can get a good job.  And why would they want to get a good job?  So they can have money to buy stuff.  This is all well and good, until you probe a little deeper.  I downloaded a sample of a book about money secrets from the Amish that starts out saying the Amish were about the only people group in the USA not effected by the financial crisis.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book, but basically it seems like they're very good with their money.  We need to make our kids ask why it's important to make money in the first place.  Maybe why is it important to work is a more appropriate question.

In the past I've been accused of being idealistic for questioning the basis of capitalism.  In my limited understanding of capitalism, it's an economic system based on everyone looking out for their own needs and making money to meet those needs.  Furthermore, it's very profit driven particularly when you get to a purer sense of capitalism and closer to globalization.  I just bought another book called Small is Beautiful with the subtitle of 'Economics as if People Mattered.'  From what I can tell it proposes the idea of local economies of scale as being better for everyone involved.  Anyways, I've been called idealistic for questioning how wise a system is if it's built around the necessity of profit-making as opposed to pursuing the common good.  What about people who want to live for the benefit of others?  You can do both at the same time of course, but does making money pollute the purity of working for others?

Lately, I've looked for some creative ideas for making some extra money on the side.  I started tutoring after school one day a week, I've started renting out a bedroom through AirBNB, and I've signed up to run ads on this blog which I'm still waiting on them to get back to me about.  AirBNB has been of particular enjoyment as it's essentially the same as couchsurfing only there's the exchange of money involved.  People actually pay me to stay at my house.  Now, I'm willing to host people for free of course like I already do for couchsurfing, but if people want to pay me to stay here who am I to say no?  :)  It helps me too aside from the money because I've found myself being a lot more conscientious as a host to make my guests feel at home and welcome.  Perhaps it's because I haven't gotten hardly any reviews so far and want to make sure I leave a good impression, who knows?  Or maybe it's because they're paying me and so I feel a little more obligated to provide a really good experience for them.

There's two sides to the coin, isn't there?  On the one side not everything should be done for money, because it can easily cause dilution of the purity of an objective.  On the other side, if everything is free, then people don't take ownership of things and keep them nice and take care of them.  Take government housing as a prime example.  You essentially give people free housing and after a few years the places are run down and dilapidated.  Than there are people who spend way too much on a house and spend a ridiculous amount on their mortgage and furthermore on endlessly fixing it up.  Is it Lowe's or Home Depot that has a commercial that says 'Never Stop Improving'?  How much money can people spend on remodeling their homes?  Of course, a house is an investment and as such should be improved somewhat to make money back on your original investment.  It's just a tough pill to swallow when so many people in this country are homeless, ya know?  

So what's the way forward?  I don't know to be honest, but I have a feeling it somehow revolves around Jesus and His ways.  Some of the Christian leaders in finance that I listen to talk about how the Bible talks about money and how to handle it.  Most of the time I agree with them but sometimes I wonder if we're all missing the point and what the New Testament says about money and economics.  The first Church provided for everyone's needs, they ended poverty in a very real way.  Not to mention some of Christ's teaching on money.  He tells a parable about one guy building barns which sounds an awful lot like our modern day ideas of retirement, He tells His disciples in another place that a poor widow who threw in her mite threw in more than all the Pharisees who were giving much bigger amounts.  Food for thought, anyways.