Non-POM and the Rich

So do you have any problems? Well, maybe one or two.

Does anyone else want your money? You bet they do. What are they willing to do to get your money? Anything they can think of. They will lie, cheat, steal, murder, and worse (if you can think of worse). You can't really trust (safely) any of your many employees. They are all exposed to temptation. So you can't rest easy because your vast wealth is not safe.

Is your fortune safe? Perhaps not. If your money is in money the value of that money can change. Inflation is a great fear. So you need to have parts of your wealth in a variety of currencies around the world. Even then banks can fail and inflation that strikes in one nation's economy tends to affect other nations' economies as well. If your money is invested in corporations their value may drop as we have recently seen on Wall Street. Even some of the most well-respected firms have gone bankrupt in the last year. You could lose money in the market. If you are in a nation with an unstable government, the government might simply confiscate your assets as was the case in Russia and China in the 20th century.

But you will always have your family, right? I'm not so sure. For one thing, your fortune is a great temptation to kidnappers. No matter who you may hire to guard your loved ones, the guards may be bribed or may go into kidnapping for themselves. Your family is always at risk because you have such great wealth.

Your family will want your money as well. Just because you have made them wealthy in their own right doesn't mean that they have all they want. They just might want it all. They just might want your position. And of course your wife married you because she loved you. Her affections were not affected at all by your wealth. Or were they? How can you tell? Do you have friends? Are they really your friends or only people who like your wealth and power? Do they really tell you the truth about yourself or do they say just what they think you want to hear?

What about your reputation? What do people really think of you? Do they think you earned and deserve your wealth and power? Do people think you must have been doing illegal and immoral things to get so much money?

The Bible has several stories about wealthy men. One gets the impression that rich people are not likely to get into heaven. If you are very rich, how can that sit with your conscience? How can you have all that money while there are so many poor people suffering and dying that you could save and have chosen not to do so?

How would things be different for you if you were just as rich but the society and economy of which you were a part was using a money which was not a Physical Object Money, a POM? So let's start with whether other people want your money. Since a non-POM money cannot be transferred from one person to another, there is no way they could get your money. They may envy your wealth or even be jealous of your wealth but they can't get your money so they won't even try. That means you don't have to worry that any of the people you work with has designs on your money. Your family cannot inherit your money so they want you to live a long time and continue to give them presents. Your fellow man in a non-POM economy will have no temptation to do you harm because that would cost them money.

Is your fortune safe in a non-POM economy? It is as safe as the continued existence of the society. Short of some disaster which destroys the productive capacity of the nation (a meteorite or a super-volcano, perhaps) your money will have a constant buying power. It will never suffer from inflation and there will always be lots of luxuries for you to buy. You can't lose any of it to the courts since not even judges can have the numbers in your account decreased. Your money can only buy luxuries so the failure of the enterprises in which you participate cannot reduce your money.

Is your family safe? We there is always the possibility of accident or illness but no one would want to kidnap them since you can't pay a ransom. There is no way their being kidnapped could benefit others. Also, preventing their kidnapping would earn those who prevented it quite a bit of money. Should you hire body guards for them anyway, there would be no way to bribe them using the non-POM since it can't be transferred.

Since you can give people expensive gifts I cannot promise that people would be honest with you about how they really felt. In that regard things would still be the same. That is just a price you pay for having so much wealth.

Your reputation would rise with your account balance. Anyone in a non-POM economy who is rich has done things which greatly benefited many other people. Your wealth is silent testimony that you have been a great benefactor. Others will respect your goodness as well as your capacity to do good. They will be eager to cooperate with you in whatever enterprise you choose to pursue. They will believe in you and will "obey" you in the sense that if you tell them to do something they will likely do it in the expectation that it will make a lot of money for them. Your power would be unrestrained. There would be no laws restricting that power. There would be no person opposing that power. All would support and encourage the exercise of that power. Your power would be safe.

The conscience of a wealthy man could rest easy about having a lot of money. Rather than being a sign of having ignored the needs of others, such wealth indicates that one had done great works for others. It would be a sign that so far as man can determine, the rich man is, indeed, on his way to heaven.