2.3 You Can Count on Me - Capital and income

Referencing
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=CA

God Bless the Child by Billie Holiday

The Bible Matthew chapter 25 & Luke chapter 8

Value(s) Building a Better World for All by Mark Carney

https://www.riacanada.ca/

https://institute.smartprosperity.ca/

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman

Script prepared before recording & editing

Chorus

This is Something Different This Way Comes, the You Can Count On Me edition

And that is the chorus of the song I wrote for you

You’ll get the rest after the theme song

And the intro & some Billie Holiday

I’ve been preparing this week to spend an evening talking 

to a class at Lakehead University.

about money 

Something Different This Way Comes

 I have been talking about money as a Financial Planner every day now for over a decade, 

but this was an invitation from a friend - she teaches the class - to give the Big Picture, 

the essentials. 

And the more I prepare this boiling down, this clear summing up

The more I knew I needed to share this with you

Because money and the systems that organize them are important

They shape things, they have impact

And right now, in broad strokes

we are so much wealthier than even the wealthiest of generations past.

And yet we are so insecure.

Because of our current systems

Not because of some vast, evil plan.

It is more a cumulative, insidious series of unfortunate decisions 

But money is entirely up to us. It is 100% human

we can’t change the laws of physics but we can change this

And frankly, things are due for a change.

Something Different This Way Comes

Let’s start with where we’re at - 

You are likely to live to eighty. That’s our average life span now adays.

You probably know an 80 year old. 

When that 80 year old was born, their life expectancy was under 65.

Which is important - we were building solutions with assumptions that proved wrong

 even as we built upon them.

Since that 80 year old was born in 1942

The year the Second World War ended,

 government policies were introduced here in Canada 

to help people be financially okay.

Government Health insurance: OHIP

Registered investment accounts like RRSPs, RESPs and TFSAs

The government pension plans CPP and OAS

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and a whole whack of workers rights

A whole shopping list of tax incentives 

Employment Insurance started in Canada in 1940, so two years before our 80 year old was born, but was really made what it is the year I was born, in 1971

And on the private side, insurance & investments made changes too

In those past eight decades

to help fill the gaps they leave that people - like me - can lose sleep over.

Because there are gaps

Ones that have so many people I work with worried

Even the ones who have lucked into missing most of the potholes

And have what they need to be fine pretty much no matter what

But they are scared and worried about all the people they care about

What if they get sick, disabled, lose a spouse, need an expensive medication

And with so much wealth, we have a lot of insecurity to worry about.

In those eighty years you now start with about 25 years of dependance on your parents.

Starting with childcare and after school activities

Which really add up, particularly now that kids don’t just walk home

And play in the neighbourhood until dark

But continuing into early adulthood where Canadians depend on their families

As a safety net:  help with paying for an education or your first home

Or getting your first job, advising you as you face your first big decisions

Help that makes such a difference, 

When your family can’t help you get that start, you have a significant disadvantage

So that’s where money bites into our first quarter century as Canadians

Now I should mention that 80 is the average life span, 

including infant death and premature death into the equation. 

The life expectancy of someone who has already lived to 65, is closer to 90.

And if you want to be financially secure through that final 25 year era in your life, 

you need to finance that mostly yourself.

So we have -about - 25 years of depending on your family, 

Then forty years of earning, 

which might include being responsible for kids, 

and should include investing enough of those earnings to finance the final 25 years of your life,

Then a quarter century of living on whatever your retirement treasury adds up to be.

What could possibly go wrong?

Don’t all those government measures mean everyone, pretty much, is okay?

In short - no. 

There are holes in those programs and measures,

Some of which are have grown bigger over time

And they never actually aimed to make sure everyone is okay.

They only aim to help.

There’s that Billie Holiday song I promised you

My theme song today for what has got to change

The assumption of these helpful programs is that we all do a lot on our own.

Which frankly, is a surprise to many of us, 

something we wish we understood sooner when finally it all adds up.

I think often of a certain night in my late thirties when it all added up for me

A sleepless night.

Here’s the basic math:

Old Age Security covers about 10% of the average persons salary. 

Currently about $600/month

And that is the only thing that everyone gets.

Everyone Canadian enough to qualify at least - 

$600/m from Old Age Security starting they are 65.

An age - I will remind you - below Canadian’s life expectancy when this was introduced

CPP aims to add another 25% or so of your average income to your post-65 income. 

Your average income - it is based on you, specifically.

The average income right now is about $55,000

So if you earned that, You would get the maximum, currently about $1,200 a month

But most of us end up with a little over half of the maximum CPP, or $700/mo

So together, your income from CPP and OAS would be about 65% less 

than what you earned on average while you were working.

If you had been earning $55,000 until you retired

And only had CPP and OAS in retirement

You’d go from taking home about $4,000/mo

To living off of $1,800/mo

Not easy

But CPP & OAS never aimed to be enough.

The assumption of the system is that you are not just saving but investing while you work.

That’s what a lot of those tax incentives and registered investment accounts aim to support.

But let’s go back to our working years then, and talk about holes

Some are exclusions: mental health care, dental care, physical therapies, childcare

Others are barricaded and burdened with limitations and controls 

that make them both more expensive

And less effective

For instance, if you don’t increase an income by as much as inflation has increased costs,

Which is commonly done, for public income programs even more than for regular wages

That shortfall compounds over time

Let us take a moment to think about compounding interest

Because it is counter-intuitive to us, as humans - it boggles our brains

We need a moment to wrap our heads around it.

Let me give you an image to help.

If you are as old as me perhaps you remember a commercial for a shampoo

That had someone urging you to tell two friends, and the image shifts from one box with a face in it,

To three boxes each with a face it in

Then they tell two friends: four more boxes

Who tell two friends: eight more boxes

Until the screen was crowded with boxes full of heads of shiny, clean hair.

It takes time for interest to compound like that, longer than we like to think

So between you telling two friends, and you finding out they told two friends who in turn told friends

You might think nothing much happened

Until suddenly everyone you know has been told, and plenty of people you haven’t met yet.

And you can’t see the hair, not even the heads, your screen is so crowded with little boxes.

In short, the compounding effect of not increasing incomes like disability insurance

Or welfare

Has turned what started as help, into more of a punishment

One that is very expensive to run not because the people running it earn too much

But because so much work is required to administer all the limitations

All the oversight, all the paperwork 

proving everything now required was done as required

So that no one gets too much

Controlling things at great expense.

Not just in dollars, but in dignity

All this monitoring and limiting is demeaning - 

no one gets disabled so they can make money without earning

Okay, maybe the odd hurting soul or psychopath, 

But people are hard wired to want to work

To do things that are valued, to contribute, to help

Think of retirees who just can’t retire until they have something to do in retirement

Grandchildren to care for, volunteer work, a big renovation project, 

That book to write

There is this seed at the heart of our emergency income programs that assumes the worst of us

And it is not only wrong, it is expensive.

There has been compounding interest eating away at that starting place

Survivors of the Second World War set out from

When they transformed our country through that alphabet soup 

Of Government initiatives

We as a country invested in affordable housing then

So that one young man, any young man, can afford a house with a car and a yard

Their wife need never work again

Their kids go to University

And unlike their parents who moved in with family when they could no longer manage on their own, the grandma in the kitchen, the handicapped uncle on the porch

From now on it was decided that people should remain independent, 

never have to reply on their kids financially

Compound interest and a series of unfortunate decisions 

Has slipped that rug out from under us over our 80 year old friend’s lifetime

Those houses that government subsidies made affordable 80 years ago 

Have grown so expensive the young cannot afford them without family help

And even then end up house poor, unable to do anything but pay the mortgage & groceries

And hope things change because they can’t afford to save for retirement too

The old too who held onto that house since it was affordable, 

now often cannot afford to maintain it, 

And so many of the middle aged rely on the cheap debt their house secures for them 

so much that they go into retirement with a mortgage, if they can afford to retire.

Divorce compounds that one man, one house math dramatically, in one fell swoop

Today - this moment in time - is like that time of transformative change

That post war era 80 years ago

We will change the world as profoundly

As we shift our habits and systems and communities away from fossil fuel dependence

Towards wild weather resilience

And care for the compounding numbers of Wild Weather Refugees

We will change this world again

That is a global transformation that is in our hands. 

Billie Holiday wrote God Bless the Child in 1941

It was a hit the year our 80 year old was born:

Those that got shall get.

Those that not shall lose

So the Bible says and it still is news

Mama may have, Papa may have, but God bless the Child who”s got his own.

Where in the Bible does it say that?

Two places - first:

Matthew 25:29 Parable of the Talents.

For unto everyone that hath shall be given

But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

Ooh - sounds harsh, sounds scary.

And it is. Faith is not easy or comfortable. Life is not easy or comfortable.

But like everything, this sentence needs its context

With apologies that this is how this teaching speaks to my heart

I am no theologian nor scholar, just a woman with a Bible on her shelf

So - this is from when Matthew is sharing the stories Jesus told people

As he walked all over the place, trusting that people will feed and shelter him

And his disciples

These are the stories Jesus used to teach those who asked to be taught.

Jesus was asked - what signs of the end of the world should we look for 

and how can we be among those who live forever. 

Because the Bible promised that those who believe will have eternal life

Even after their death.

And Jesus tells many stories that Matthew shares here one after the other

That to me add up to: 

How to do right by God is not something you can learn and consider learned, 

it takes constant vigilance and work. 

Again, big as our brains and hearts are, they are not big enough to fully understand this

The temptation is great to boil it down to a hard & fast rule or fact, 

Or consider a good habit a battle won

but Jesus warns against that.

If you are too certain, or smug, or feel yourself safe and certain of redemption, 

that is when you are least safe. 

Because both your heart and your head are just not big enough to grasp it all. 

So you have to have faith, keep working, and be humble.

Anyway, the parable of the talents - as I would retell it to Ben & Sam - 

A Lord was traveling and stopped in a place new to him. 

He told three of his servants to stay there while he traveled on, 

gave them each some money, which are called here talents

and said he would be back, though he was not sure when. 

He did not give them each equal amounts of money

But each according to how well he thought they could use them

Four to one, two to another, and only one to the third.

The first two went out and spent this money, buying and trading, 

looking to see what was needed and was valued 

and participating in the community that they were visiting in. 

But the third servant was afraid of losing the money trusted to him, 

He kept thinking of the times his boss has judged those around him 

in ways he did not understand

And thought to himself: 

The Boss is a tough man, reaping harvest where he has not sowed the seeds

and gathering food where he has not cared for the harvest.

This guy was more worried about losing that money, 

than willing to risk spending it to help someone start a business 

or buy something he figured someone else would be happy to buy 

And expect to profit by that participation in the community he found himself in. 

Because he could not be sure those ventures would work out.

So he buried it so it would be safe. 

It turned out the master was gone for a long time, 

and when he returned, the two who had spent and traded the money left with them 

had double the amount initially entrusted to them. 

Their boss was delighted, he gave them promotions and praise, 

He let them keep the money and gave them more besides. 

And the careful guy, he ran out and dug up his talent to give back to his boss

Safe and Sound

But the boss was not happy to get his money back.

He was furious with the one who had buried the money in order to be sure to protect it. 

He fired him, he shamed him,

He took that once buried money and gave it to the other two and said:

for unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; 

but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

Then that’s got shall get, them’s that’s not shall lose

So the Bible says, and it still is news.

So those who had not just money - which they call talent in the this parable

But they also had faith enough to risk trying to figure out what they could do with it

That would be valued in the community

Not even their community, but one they were visiting for a while, they could not know how long

That faith they showed, that courage and initiative, 

that got them back returns of  more trust, more money

I think that is how community is built

On faith in one another, on courage to propose a welcome change and invest in it

And the road to hell is paved with caution

Those growing holes in our systems of care and support

Healthcare, income protection, education, home and food security

Those are rooted in efforts to not lose what we have

To increase disability income by less than inflation year after year

And invest in expensive measures and systems to make sure those receiving that support

Really are disabled and living within a growing list of disabling requirements

I think the same evil temptation to be cautious,

Is at the root of our decision to make shelter and food and healthcare 

more of a commodity than a right

To not dare lend money to people who have no other way to start a business 

or get through a tight stretch

But only lend to those who have savings enough to be able to pay for it themselves

So then you make the interest rate low enough that they will borrow anyways

I’m not saying we invented these money-grasping, fear-based ways

I am saying we can change them

Science shows that most human communities

Not colonial ones, which have invaded and overwhelmed many other cultures over time

But mostly when we organize ourselves

Food, shelter, healthcare and education for everyone

That is the community’s number one priority

No matter what else happens, that happens first

And think of how we react when a calamity sweeps away homes

Threatens lives

We leap in to save people, their possessions or status doesn’t matter, really

Get everyone shelter, food, care, information, a new start

That is how we know we should do things

The theme of this season is What Good Looks Like

Good Looks Like making sure everyone is okay

Even before calamity sweeps all our possessions away.

There is a seed of bounty in that goal.

Science shows that when people are trusted and secure

They innovate, they share, they care for others.

Basic income trials and programs thus far prove this over and over

CERBs proved this, as so many used that stability of income to not only stay home

As asked

But to get an education, or help care for someone, or both

Micro-loans - loans to people who have no security, no house you can possess and sell

If the mortgage is foreclosed

Micro-loans are becoming a thing even in big investment firms

The proof is just too compelling that such a little bit of money, with no credit score 

or net worth in the borrower to safely predict their success based on past performance

Is such a low risk

People not only pay it back, they grow that seed of faith into great businesses

That serve and help their community, and become economic wellsprings

Even the distant money-managers on Bay Street are having a hard time ignoring this

As the evidence keeps piling up

Any yet

We make it hard to qualify for welfare or so many incomes that are not being actively earned,

But are essential help in a time of need

We are punitively hard

And then don’t increase that tiny income enough to keep up with inflation

So in effect the punishment gets more severe year by year

What are we saying, what are we demonstrating, by these decisions

No wonder depression and mental illness so often follow disability or income loss

We act as if needing needs to be punished and shamed

That has got to change.

Them that’s Got shall Get

Them that’s Not shall lose

So the Bible says, and it still is news

The words are almost eerily the same in the book of St Luke chapter 8, verse 18: 

for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; 

and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.

Only here Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower, 

where in the Spring a farmer threw seed hither and yon, 

in rich, warm earth in which it sprang up green and strong, 

and on dry, bare rocks where it did not germinate at all,

 and even some on thin soil where the young plants sprout but soon die out 

because they have no roots to sustain them through long hot days or sharp cold nights. 

And he said the seeds of faith are words, 

and not everyone can hear those words or hear them right or keep on living by them 

as life’s temptations calls them astray.

So he says: Take heed therefore how you hear: 

for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; 

and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have

You could read these verses as permission to punish the sick for their illness, 

or judge the poor for their poverty, 

or scorn the uneducated for their lack of scholarship. 

But I understand it as a call to do exactly the opposite. 

To listen closely to what good looks like, to hear it, and live by it

To make changes when you can see that you have drifted off course

To have faith, to dare to trust and support our communities, 

to be humble and generous and kind,

 always listening to learn and better understand the grace that surrounds us, 

despite the sins, sorrows and sacrifices that boggle us, 

that we just can’t wrap our heads or hearts around. 

Yes, in a sinful world it is easy to condemn those who have less, 

and to hoard that which we have for fear of losing it. 

But my Christian faith boils down to believing that the best way to ensure we have enough 

is to share generously, to trust and include everyone. 

To distrust fear and judgment, to seek opportunities to love.

That is the touchstone of my faith: 

Further on in that same book of Matthew Chapter 25, verse 34

says that those who are most blessed in the end are those most burdened in life. 

And when we care, when we help share our food so none are hungry, 

heal our sick and wounded so none are alone or forgotten, 

To visit and respect the imprisoned and the judged, 

To welcome strangers into our home and community, 

To give them our clothes to wear and shelter them, 

Then we are walking in the grace of God.

Here is the whole song, from an era I think we are ready

To leave that much more behind

From 1941, by Billie Holiday:

The title of today”s show is “Capital and Income”

And so far I have talked mostly about Social Capital

And Socially supported income

Now let’s talk about Capital and income

Capitalism is a button word, it triggers a bunch of emotional responses

It kind of shuts down our brain

And it is used as a catch-all, in many circles, for how profit can trump people

In really terrible ways

Capital is something we have that we value

And in Capitalism it is something we value because it generates income for us

How is that possible? 

If you’ve ever read a 19th century novel set among the wealthy

Like a Jane Austen  or even Tolstoy

They talk about how much income a person has, and they are not talking salary

They are talking profit from that person’s property, from their capital

Likely land, maybe factories or mills

Places they own, the profits of which they use to pay the people that work there

And anything more that is netted, any profit, is their income

The capital is the farm and the factory and the flour mill

The income is their profit as owner

Capital that generates that kind of profit takes a while to build up

That is why most people who have it, inherited it

Compare that to your income in retirement

That 65% drop from what you make while working, 

To what government pensions pay for that last quarter century of your life

If you tried to save enough, in jars in the back yard for example

Over 40 years to last those 25 years

You’d need to save half of what you make

Maybe more - 25 is more than half of 40 after all

And that is without considering inflation, things will cost more over those 25 years

Investing allows you to keep up with inflation without having to out smart it

Because you are buying capital that is generating income

You get to become an owner of an established business that is already generating a profit

Bit by bit as you earn more you can buy more

You get a share of your Capital’s profits

As a shareholder, or a bond holder, 

or even an ETF holder if you really want to distance yourself from what you own

And as it is those companies and their profits that is driving inflation

Your wealth and income should keep up, no problem

And if you go back to that shampoo commercial

If instead of spending that income your capital is earning for you

You reinvest it and buy more capital

You send your two friends back into the market to make two  more new friends each

At first it won’t look like much

Until suddenly your investments have made you more than you ever invested

You’ve doubled your money, and if you keep doing that long enough it will double again

And suddenly you can manage to finance that quarter century by investing

Only 18 or 20 per cent of what you earn over your 40 years of earning income

Instead of half

But let’s go back to those 19th century novels

Jane Austen in particular comes to mind

In the set up for how the Dashwood family went from plenty to poverty 

As the brother and his wife talk themselves into keeping so much of their inheritance

And sharing so little with his father’s second wife and four daughters

Think of those farms and mills and factories whose profit equals their owners income

The temptation to minimize costs like maintenance, safety measures and salaries

To maximize profits - its there

The tendency to think of those farmers and workers more as costs and risks

Than as people just like you, with ideas, expertise, and inherent worth

That is the rot at the heart of Capitalism

And when it comes to investing, there is a sea change going on

As people figure out how to track and value a company

Not just by the profits it pays its owners,

But by the way it does business

And a big part of what is fueling this sea change is science

Showing how much more you get in the long run

When you don”t skinch in the short run

Well paid, secure workers, investments in research and development

Investing in greater energy efficiency, in sustainable operations

These diminish profitability in the short term, but more than make up for it

With greater profits in the long term

And those that pinch the penny to maximize the profits in the short-term

Tend to pay for that chinciness in pretty short order

Although the when of the crash is hard to precisely predict, it is predictable

I reference here Mark Carney’s book Values

The work of the Smart Prosperity Instutite at the University of Ottawa

The Responsible Investing Association of Canada

I could go on - this is a rabbit hole I fall into regularly - but will instead sum it up to say

This shit is real

The darkness at the heart of our current economic systems is not capital

It is Colonialism

Business, Companies - that is key to our happiness and success

I have to talk about the tragedy of the commons

Which is not so much something that happened, 

but a parable that was invented by a British economist at the height of the British empire

Trying to illustrate why he thought people could not and should not be trusted to manage their own commons

The land a community managed in common to graze animals

Or gather food

His premise was that when left to themselves people will exhaust a shared resource

So they needed to be managed, controlled from afar, 

The people and their commons

This is an oft cited truism

But it is not true

In fact anthropologists have tried to prove this truism time after time of late

And found that the opposite is true

When people live close to the land, sharing it and using it

For food and fun and festivities

They tend to build it up, care for it so well and live with it so carefully

It grows richer and stronger for our timely and caring attention

It is an unpredictable management, it is tailored and tweaked often

As the communities notices improvements that can be made

Actively respond to differences in weather and other variables 

And yet the commons of the British Isles were over exploited and ruined

But not by the people who lived with and relied on them for generations

They were damaged first in the invasions of those came to take

What they themselves did not have in their land

And when anthropologist look at the sustainable cities and cultures

Of our planets past, many were lost not to unsustainable choices

But to invasions and destruction by neighbours whose choices

Had left their land hungry and fed their willingness to invade

But then these new owners, these colonialists

Who did not have the deep knowledge of these commons

And were led by the warriors who gave direction from a distance

They proved terrible managers

In the British Isles they enclosed the commons and gave their management

To distant owners

Those wealthy few who lived off the income from their capital

And had no need to earn their living, to work

Except through their direction, their management of those lands

Where they did not really live 

Certainly remained far from the front lines of observation, responsiveness

And interconnection

But spent the net profits and lived with other land owners

Far from the source of that wealth

The tragedy of the commons is that we have believed that invented tale

As an excuse for excessive and distant decision making

And for an extractive economy

We can’t afford to extract anymore

We need to renew, rewild, and respect our one and only planet

And we would be well advised to help

By paying attention to where we live

And weighing in with our thoughts as we respond, tailor

And adapt

Shifting from Extractive to Enriching

Imposing to collaborating

You can count on me, you can count me in

You can make my day, and give me a say

When the chips are down, know I’ll be around

Happy to lend a hand, to build a better land

I have one more wonderful, true story to share with you before I debut this episode’s song in full

I found it in another Rutger Bregman Book: Utopia for Realists

A piece of history I had never heard before, because it barely caused a ripple

But when it happened, in 1970, the predictions were dire

Life was expected to come to a standstill, when Ireland’s 7,000 bank employees

Went on strike

After all, just a few years earlier when the garbage collectors of New York City threatened to strike

Leaders scoffed, what did thost lowly workers matter

But bankers, now that is essential stuff

Well you can see where this is going

Garbage Strikes works, the essentialness of that labour is quickly clear

But the Bankers strike in Ireland barely made a ripple

It went on for months, no bank loans, no banks to cash your paycheques

And nobody  much missed it. Life went on as usual. The economy even grew

People cashed their cheques at their neighbourhood pub

Where they were known

They negotiated loans between one another within that same neighbourhood

Where they were known and had relationships they could rely on

Social capital - its our secret sauce

It is when companies start thinking of their essential parts

Their people, and the place they work in and serve

As deductions from their profits, rather than the point of everything

That is when business goes bad

It is the same sour seed at the heart of Colonialism

And it needs to change

Luckily we can do change

This is money - 100% ours to make and manage and change

And we are not wage slaves, not really

We are shareholders, we own the capital

We are citizens, we choose our leadership

We are valued workers, we inform our workplaces

I didn’t think I would write a song this week - busy week

And I already wanted to sing you Billie Holiday

But a song found me anyway

Time for its debut

You can count on me, You can count me in

You can make my day, let me have a say

When the chips are down, know I’ll be around

Happy to lend a hand, to build a better land

Better because no one is hungry

Because because no one is alone

Because because no one is homeless or unheard

Or missing the medicine they need or the care that they deserve 

No

We’re too smart for that

We’re too good for that

We know how to build our world right

Better because everyone is valued

Better because everyone is heard

Better because everyone is sheltered and cared for and fed

You can count on me, You can count me in

You can make my day, let me have a say

When the chips are down, know I’ll be around

Happy to lend a hand, to build a better land

So I think as we reboot our systems

Globally, financially

We can figure out how to support and reward small business

Minimize the tripping hazards, pool the shared needs to make them more easily met

And super charge the rebuilding of neighbourhood business hubs

Where the owner knows their customers, live among them,

can tailor their products and services to meet their specific needs

And minimize their vulnerability to our current supply chains

That are so vulnerable to transport challenges in this time of climate chaos

And bad choices rooted in our legacy of colonialism and exploitation

More local autonomy, greater regional economic and energy independence, that is the way to go

But what will we have to give up, 

to afford this broad investment in the security and happiness of every single person?

I have a suggestion

I suggest we maximize our opportunities to spend less time, money and attention on fear

On papering the file so if you get sued you won’t lose

On administering the application so only those who need it most get it, 

You know what I am talking about

The compliance and due diligence and best practice things you do that make you feel gross

Untrusted, unheard, unknown

Muzzled and shackled and boxed in.

Here’s an example, when Ben was in junior kindergarten teachers

Ben was three when he started junior kindergarten

They could not give him a hug, or snuggle him at story time

For fear of inappropriate touching scandals

He was three!

The cost of subjecting a three year old to six hours a day 

Without physical affection

Outweighs the benefit of lessening the risk of inappropriate touching

In this case

There are so many ways we invest in fear and prevention

And starve our expectations and opportunities for trust, faith and communication

Here’s another problem with investing deeply in preventative measures and systems

That any mother can tell you

Whenever you tell someone Do not do so & so

All your child hears is “do so & so”

The first word disappears between your mouth and their ear

And all they hear is the end of the sentence

The odds that they then go and do so & so just went up

Astronomically

Pay attention to the end of every sentence that starts with Don’t

So - I think all of these preventative measures

Are actually encouraging bad decisions

Are telling us that is what everyone is doing, that is what is generally done

That is what is expected of us

All these ridiculous rules can trigger us like a good challenge

And get us thinking more about how to weave around and outsmart them

Then why we might want to uphold them.

But even more than that,

I think our fear-first systems leave us discouraged,

Silenced, distrusted, diminished.

Fear makes you freeze fight or flee

None of which maximize the potential of people

And we need maximum people potential right now.

And the cost of this investment

In prevention, in policing, in compliance and proof of compliance with these fear-rooted rules

Is so much greater than is reasonable to the risk.

Call me PollyAnna, but PollyAnna got shit done

She transformed her community, one perky assumption of good intention at a time

I think expectation punches way above its weight

And preventative judgement punches way below

It doesn’t work well. In fact it works badly

And if we stopped spending so much time documenting and verifying,

Applying and reviewing and analyzing the risk

If we just stepped right over that fear-barricade and dared to trust 

Every way and opportunity we get

Dared to expect people to try their best, learn from their mistakes,

Help figure things out and make things better

I think we would reap what we sow.

We would reap so much more of people’s best,

 learn so much more,

 figure so many things out faster, 

Make so many things better

Basic income is a start

Local food production and affordable housing

Community spaces and public transit

Local energy production and storage

That is what good looks like

We can wait until a Climate Crisis Weather tragedy sweeps away what we have

Then rebuild better

Or we can own the future we see heading our way

Start packing and building, documenting what we will lose but want to cherish and remember

Learn and solve and work together

You can Count me in, You can Count on Me

You can Make my Day, and Give me a Say

When the Chips are down, know I’ll be around

Happy to lend a hand, and build a better land

Guitar

This is the Count me In Edition of Something Different This Way Comes

About Capital and income

I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I enjoyed writing, composing, recording and sharing 

this podcast

If it made you hopeful, if it made you think, and you’ll like to help me pay some of my expenses

I detail them all, and thank everyone who pitches in, on my website

www.SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca

Where you can click the Go Fund Me button to become a patron.

I also share the script - and everything I reference

And I send out a weekly newsletter too, which you can also join on the website

Next week I indulge in some deep imagining of what good might look like

Starting with an intro to owning an electric car

Right here in Thunder Bay

In conversation with local climate activist Paul Berger

Join me next Tuesday!

Music out