Chewing the fat

Lunchtime. Chewing the fat. My buddy is complaining about the way management treats people. "They don't give you credit for anything," he says. I know what he means. We like to think we're valuable. The boss likes to think we could be easily replaced. It's like that everywhere, I think. They don't give you credit for anything.

I know what he means. But my mind captures the phrase and turns it. If they start giving us recognition -- "credit" -- then pretty soon we'll be expecting more money -- another kind of credit.

My mind skips along the surface of that word and I suddenly realize I don't have any trouble equating the words "money" and "credit". I do some work for you, you give me some money... I do some work for you, you "credit my account". Something like that.

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That book Walden II that I read back in college... fiction about commune life. They didn't use "money" but they got "credits" for working. That's ridiculous. If you got paid for doing work, the stuff they paid you was money. If you can earn it, and if you can spend it, it is money. "Medium of exchange," remember?

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I say things like this:

Essentially our economy did not change, except that money was suppressed and credit-use was encouraged and we found ourselves using less money and more credit.

I distinguish money from credit.

That drives some people crazy, people who say money and credit are the same. Their ability to understand what I'm saying seems to shut down completely at that point.

That's because we have different focus. Foci. Those other people, they want me to know that money came from somewhere. It was issued by the government, I think they're saying, and it is a government obligation, and every time I spend a dollar something happens at the central bank.

I don't know why they dwell on that crap.

When I use the word "credit" I do it to distinguish money I have to pay interest on, from money I don't have to pay interest on.

If I earn a dollar, receive it as a gift or transfer payment, or pick it up off the sidewalk, that's a dollar I don't have to pay interest on. If I borrow a dollar, I have to pay interest on it. My focus is the cost difference.