Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [59]
Being broke is a terrible feeling but it’s probably an experience everyone ought to have once in a lifetime. If you’ve never been really broke, you can’t possibly understand how nice it is to have a little money in the bank.
A Cash Standard 125 A Cash Standard
T here’s something about having a thick stack of money in your pocket that gives you a feeling of wellbeing. I smile more when I have money in my pocket. Even too much change will do it for me if the change is mostly in quarters and quite heavy.
It occurs to me to mention this today because I’ve noticed that the more money I make, the less I use. I’m talking about actual cash, green paper money. Earlier in the week I took an overnight trip from New York to Washington. Before I left, I cashed a check for a hundred and fifty dollars. When I got back to New York late the next afternoon, I still had more than a hundred dollars. The surprising thing was that I had that little left because I hadn’t really paid for anything. The fifty dollars went out in petty cash for tips, taxis and newspapers. I charged my airfare, my hotel room and my meals.
Like most people, when I sign for something on my credit card I consider it to be free. Paying for the item is postponed to some indefinite time in the future. The bill will come in a lump sum and will bear no relationship in my mind to any service or goods that I actually got for that amount.
The trouble with doing all these things with numbers instead of with real money is that it takes the fun and the satisfaction out of the exchange process. What’s rewarding is to work hard to make money and then to take that money and buy something with it that makes life pleasant or easier.
There used to be a joke about a wealthy recluse who went to his bank once a week and made them show him his money. He wanted to make sure it was still there.
We all know our money isn’t really in the bank, it’s in the bookkeeping machinery, but I feel the way that old guy did. I’d like to see my money in real life once in a while. Those numbers they send me aren’t any fun at all.
I can’t get over how little I see of my money these days. One summer when I was in college I worked at a paper mill for forty dollars a week. Every Friday afternoon they gave me my pay in an envelope and I’ve never made money that was as satisfying to me as that. I don’t care how big my check is, it can’t match that forty dollars I got in cold cash.
Today the company mails my check directly to the bank. After a while, the bank mails me a slip of paper saying the check has been deposited. When I owe someone something, I write out a check and my bank deducts that from my account. It’s all terribly unsatisfactory. Collecting money or paying it out can be a rewarding experience but bookkeeping is no fun at all. If I had my way, I’d have every penny I earned turned over to me in cash and I’d pay most of the people I owe with the money in my pocket.
I understand perfectly well that it wouldn’t be practical sometimes but it would be more satisfactory and, furthermore, if the federal government handled its accounts in cash, there’d be a lot less waste. It’s one thing for a government official to sign his name to a piece of paper transferring a billion dollars from one place to another, but it would be quite different if he had to show up with the actual money in dollar bills and hand it over. Just counting it would make everyone think twice and there’d surely be cameras around to record the event.
Money ought to be more tangible than it is today, not less. We’re treating it too lightly because we can’t see it. I don’t understand the ramifications of a return to the gold standard but I have a feeling pennies ought to be copper, dimes ought to be silver and it wouldn’t do any harm if we had some little fifty- or hundred-dollar gold coins in circulation. We need money that’s really worth something.
The money game is being played with