One person, one vote

I had a thought the other day about campaign contributions.  If you give $10, or $10,000 to Candidate X, haven’t you cast a figurative ballot for that candidate?  Wouldn’t that mean that if you then cast an actual ballot for them on Election Day that you’ve … voted twice?  Casting a ballot for a candidate doesn’t guarantee that candidate will win, but you hope they do.  Giving a candidate money doesn’t guarantee they win, but you hope they do. 

Money is the blood of a political campaign.  It isn’t always the case, but the candidate with the most money is usually the one able to convince the most people to vote for them.  How many people who vote for a candidate also gave them money?  Why is this … double voting allowed?

What if we made a law that you can either donate money to a candidate, or you could vote for them in the election.  How would that work?  Well, the candidates with the backing of the super wealthy would be most likely to win.  One billionaire can only cast one vote, but with a few million dollar donations they can convince thousands to vote the way they want.  How many qualified candidates not only don’t get votes but never get a second glance because they don’t have the backing of a billionaire?  Maybe we should put some more thought into publicly funded elections.

How old does a coin need to be before you collect it?

When I was in high school and college, if I ever found a coin minted in 1976 – my birth year – I would keep it.  And if I found a Wheat Penny, or any coin minted during WWII, I’d be overjoyed.  But after college, my nascent coin collecting died down.  I know my first couple of years of State Quarters went to doing laundry. 

For the last couple of years I’ve had a retail job to pay the bills.  The worst aspect of it is having to stand behind a register for hours at a time dealing with customers.  But it has allowed me to see some old coins.  Now if I see a 1976 quarter, I treat it just like a regular quarter.  And if I see a Wheat Penny, I’ll probably set it aside, but only to give it out as change to an older customer or perhaps a kid.  Someone who might get a kick out of it.  Even coins that I happen to see are from the 1940’s don’t elicit a reaction. 

What prompted this post was that last week, just after starting my shift, I saw something odd in the nickels.  At first I thought it was a foreign coin which I collect as long as they’re from someplace exotic, meaning not Canada.  The reason I thought it was foreign was because it had a big “V” on the back of it.  But when I picked it up, I could read “United States of America.” Turning it over I saw that it was a 1912 Liberty Head Nickel.  A 106 year old coin?  That’s mine.  (Don’t worry, I didn’t steal it.  I traded it for a 1997 nickel.) 

This got me wondering.  When I was in my teens and earlier twenties, was I excited by a fifty year old coin because it was “super” old?  Like, does a coin have to be more than twice your current age to be worth collecting?  Because if I found a 1934 coin – making it 84 years old, or twice my current age – it would be cool, but I don’t know if I’d go gaga over it.  But a coin from the 1920’s or earlier, yeah.  I never thought about it before, but I wonder if anyone else has come up with a similar rule of thumb.

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I have two side notes from this.  The first is that I also once found a 1934 $10 “Silver Certificate.” I had one of the managers set it aside – I only had like $5 in my wallet that day – and I exchanged a modern $10 bill for it the next day.  I wanted it just for the “Silver Certificate” not because it just so happens to be twice my current age.  (Actually, I think I found it last year, so it would have been more than twice my previous age.)

Anyway, the one thing I’m wondering is, “Who is spending these old coins?” I mean, my Liberty Head Nickel might be worth a couple of bucks if I cared enough to try to sell it, but I’d never spend it as … a nickel.  I almost wonder if it’s someone who hated their dad – perhaps he spent more time with his coin collection than at their ballgames – and so after he died they’re spending them just as a giant middle finger to him.  Fortunately, I don’t have any kids.  My nieces and nephews will get to fight over – or spend – my meager collection.

Working fewer hours in a better world

I’m not a parent, but something we always hear in regards to parenting is that parents want their kids to do better than they did.  So if Generation 1 is able to pay for a house, car, whatever else by working 40 hours a week, wouldn’t they want Generation 2 to be able to do all of that by working only 35 hours a week?  They would have five additional hours a week to spend with their families.  Wouldn’t that count as being better?

But then, wouldn’t Generation 2 want Generation 3 to do all of that by working only 30 hours a week?  Eventually, shouldn’t there be a Generation that can have a house, and car, and whatever without having to work?  Before you start screaming “socialist fantasy,” or whatever, I’m using “work” to mean doing something you really don’t want to do for money, from flipping burgers to sitting in a cubical all day entering billing information.  If your heart is really set on building handcrafted furniture or writing sonnets, I’m not calling that work.  But those things don’t always pay that well.

How many people now hate their work?  Why should that still be a thing in a better world?  If the “Better World” we see for future generations looks a lot like the world we have now, it just means we lack imagination.

Should we take “In God We Trust” off our money?

Regardless of whatever you think, in all likelihood it doesn’t matter.  I, for one, doubt that physical currency will survive this century.  Everything will be done electronically.  How many billions of dollars does the government spend each year to make dollars?  All the ink, machine upkeep, salaries.  Yes a lot of stuff will have to be adapted to electronic currency, and the government will still have to hire people to make sure people don’t hack the system, but I’d say an electronic monetary system would be cheaper than what we have now.  It’s possible that you could set things up so that there would be a comment section with every transaction with the message, “Jesus saves,” but somebody else could set one up that says, “Hail Hydra!”