Monopoly – Game Over

Here’s a personal interest question: How many of you have ever played Monopoly to the very end of the game? I’m currently running a poll to find out just how many people have ever done so. If you have never done so, here’s how it works.

Everyone gets allotted the same amount of money at the beginning of the game, and a token to represent themselves. You then roll the dice, cruise around the board, buy up as much property/assets as you can, proceed to build on it, screw the next guy who lands on it with rents that keep going up and up until people can’t afford to stay on your property. They then go into debt, mortgage off their properties, until they are totally out of money, at which time they auction off what’s left, pay what they can on the debt, and are declared bankrupt and leave the game.

No, really – this is a GAME, and it’s called MONOPOLY…it is not, in fact, a brief run-down on American economics.

While I am supportive to an extent of the protests on Wall Street, might I make a gentle suggestion that you pack up your torches and tents and go home? We really need to think about this.

Travel with me, if you will…way out into space and time and take a good, hard, objective view of what has happened here. It’s all been a grand game of Monopoly. The whole American Landscape is littered with the slums of

Baltic Avenue

and the opulence of Boardwalk and

Park Place

. You have all the properties in between, including the Utilities.  Despite the fact that you are not supposed to get anything on the “Free Parking” space, we have integrated a Lottery into the mix, too! Keeps you in the game a bit longer, that’s for sure!

Sound familiar? Now bump it up a notch or two – fast-forward and guess where we are sitting? Yup – close to GAME OVER. Look around the American Monopoly Board.  There are the haves – the few left playing the game. I believe they are referred to as the 1%? And even though the banker (The Fed) has had the freedom to print the money they are playing with, the fact is, when someone has ALL the money, then the game is over. And according to popular statistic, we are down to 1%. That means 99% of us are now the have-nots; out of the game, sitting on the sidelines with nothing to show for our efforts but debt.

So what happens next? Well, you tell me? What DOES happen next? I’ve played Monopoly to the end many times. Sometimes I’ve won it all. Sometimes I’m out of the game fairly early. But I do stay and watch, having a morbid fascination with it. But here’s what happens next: The Game ends.

The money only had value as we were squabbling over it. As soon as we were all out of the game, Uncly Pennybags ended up with all the money and suddenly, it was worthless.

Yes, imagine that! After all the cut-throat wheeling-and-dealing, now that someone managed to get a hold of everything on the board…no one wants to play anymore. We want to put the paper bills and tokens back into the box, put it on the shelf, and walk away from the debt that was so important an hour ago, and enjoy the rest of our evening.

I have realized this by sitting down, looking at my financial life closing up over me and swallowing me whole. Holy Shit! I feel like DeCaprio on the Titanic as she goes down for the last time…”THIS IS IT!!”. Wise instructions follow in the monolog: Take a deep breath, hold it, keep on kicking, and don’t let go of my hand.

So, say it with me: Money only has the value that WE ASSIGN TO IT, both collectively and individually. Think about that for a minute. Supply and demand. When everybody WANTS it, the value rockets up. Think Cabbage Patch Dolls. When nobody wants it anymore, watch the value plummet to the point where you can’t give it away. Think Beanie Babies. Imagine 99% of us not wanting the paper dollar anymore. Just imagine that.

Survey Says 1% of the folks have most the money. Why the hell do the 99% still want it? At this point there are surely more of us who have been evicted from the game – our lives, actually – and yet still place value on this paper shit? Why? Isn’t it about time we start a new game, with a different valuation system? Perhaps one which is a better reflection of the 99%?

I know – (all too well) – the immediate “whys”, like I’m kind of fond of living in a home, with heat and electric and eating food…little things like that. Things which we are all trained to believe we have to pay for…rather than do for ourselves, like our grandparents only a few generations removed had to do.

But realize this! Do you see the freedom in being let go from the game? You don’t have to play it anymore. You don’t have to think about it anymore. It’s no mystery to those who have filed bankruptcy in real life – the relief is palpable.

But what if 99% of us just decided that we don’t WANT that version of money to have VALUE? What if we just said, “Fuck it…you want it - you keep it. I quit.”  What should we do instead? What would we place that VALUE ENERGY into, rather than money? Why wouldn’t we invest it into PEOPLE?  Into PLACES for people?

I submit to you that as we approach GAME OVER, we can either change the platform we are standing on right now, or it will be changed for us when the game ends – and from the looks of things, it’s not going to end well either way.

Face it – 99% versus 1%?  Great if you are 1% with a chance of winning the game. Not so great if the losers are pissed off. And trust me, 1% - they are very, very pissed off. And when the game is over, and your money is found to be Monopoly money – there’s a bunch of very disgruntled 99%ers who have not realized it was all a Game in History, and they will be gunning for your ass. Cover it well, my 1% friend...cover it well.

While this Food For Thought has been abbreviated to the very core and lacks detail, please ponder it. And while this may seem overly simplistic, to pursue such an objective is no more pie-in-the-sky than picketing Wall Street thinking that it will change the way things are.

While watching my boat sink into the cold waters of the North Atlantic of the American Dysfunctional Economy, I have had lots and lots of time to think about the nuts and bolts of how we can rebuild what will be left of this fragile nation once the gold turns to ashes. I’m not about the throw my ideas about it out there like pearls before swine. What I’m looking for is people who see this for what it is – and have something inside their very soul that says, yes…let’s do something about this. I am looking for those who understand that we need to think of a new “Game” to play – one that ends financial competition, and brings the inhabitants of this planet together in concrete, intelligent and tangible ways. A game in which all men are indeed created equal, and they maintain equality through the mutual respect which is fostered in a reciprocating, need-meeting energy system.