An Interview with Jacob Needleman

JB: So, if its not wealth, what does money represent?
JN: What is money? It's nothing and its everything at the same time.

This line in the interview has made me think. After some thinking, I feel that this particular answer by Jacob Needleman is very true. Money for some people, it is all that they can think about. For example, some people leave behind their family, never go home to their family, working so hard just to earn money that they forget that family and time is more important than money.

Genius of money post 2

Genius of Money Part 2 Chapter 6

The writer said that gift usually has increased value when it is received. I think that this is very true. This is because whenever we receive a gift from someone, we will feel happier. Thus, sometime people get happier when they give something. This made both the giver and the receiver both happier, making the value of the item itself increased.  

The writer also mention that with every gift, there is an intention hidden behind it. For me, this particular reason is very true. There will always be an intention behind every gift whether it is intentional or unintentional. When we give something to anyone, we expect them to be happier when they receive our gift. We also sometimes expect people to give us on a particular occasion so we also give them gifts. This reason that the writer gives I feel is most true. 

Chapter 1&13

In chapter 1, the writer begin by writing the story about the time Peter was confronted by a tax collector. Then the story continues to Jesus's encounter with Caesar, where Jesus said "render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's". I think this shows that God wants us to give back what we owe to others. The phrase things that are God's, however I feel that all the things in this world is given to us by God, hence making all we have His. I think what he meant when he said this things is to give him our time and to praise Him to give him what is His. 

Then the writer introduces William Stafford’s “Deciding”, which wrote the same thing from a modern and less doctrinal point of view. In Stafford’s poem, he adds American consciousness beyond the spiritual level. Additionally, the context of currency—gold and money also show up in his poem, which presents the deep curse in religion’s point of view. It is genius for Stafford to combine the spiritual God with the physical world in the figure of gold. At the end of the chapter, the author concludes that the money is both material and spiritual, as Stafford points out, so the task of this book is to find third position of money that integrate the realities.

In chapter 13, the author talks about how money affects people mentally, the importance of money. People nowadays think of people who are rich as powerful and people who have a lot of control in society. 

I think what this book talked about is very true in our real life. Nowadays in countries that are less developed people who don't have a lot of money don't have a lot of say in what is happening in the world. For example, in Indonesia where I was born and raise, everything is corrupt. The police in Indonesia can be bribed and the government too. This just show how much power money has in our community now.