Inflation . . . and foreign currencies

Several weeks ago while preparing for our Southeast Asian trip, and then again, two weeks ago, while in Vietnam, I got a good sense of what major inflation looks and feels like.

If you ever plan to buy something while you're in a foreign country, it's always nice to have some idea of whether the price is at least "in the ballpark." So before we took off, I did some research about exchange rates.

You want a "general idea" of what you should be looking for.

At the time, then, I found that, for Singapore, I could make the following General/Mental Conversion:

Singapore:

1 Singapore Dollar = US$0.75 (actual/exact US$ equivalent was 0.77)

13 SGD = $10 ($10.05)

100 SGD = $75 ($77.31)

Thailand:

10 Baht = 33 cents

30 Baht = $1 ($0.99)

100 Baht = $3 ($3.29)

2000 Baht = $65 ($65.78)

Cambodia:

1,000 Riel = 1 quarter; 25 cents

4,000 Riel = $1 ($0.99)

Hong Kong:

1 Hong Kong Dollar = an eighth of a dollar; $0.125 ($0.129)

8 HKD = $1 ($1.03)

10 HKD = $1.30 ($1.29)

77.7 HKD = $10

Vietnam, however, blew me away. I've never had to deal with these kinds of numbers before, not while traveling:

20,000 Dong = $1 ($1.02; $1 = 19,400 VND)

1,000,000 VND = $50 ($51.06)

When your primary currency unit is worth about 1/20,000th of another country's primary currency unit, you can pretty well assume there has been some massive inflation! And having just done a bit of research, I confirmed the fact. According to the Vietnamese Embassy, "the inflation rate [in Vietnam] rose up to a record 774.7% [for at least a short time] in 1986." But according to Index Mundi's Vietnam Inflation rate (consumer prices), throughout the '80s Vietnam experienced high double- and triple-digit inflation:

Year	Inflation, average consumer prices	End-of-Year = 1VND on 1/1/80	Year	Inflation, average consumer prices	End-of-Year = 1VND on 1/1/80	Year	Inflation, average consumer prices	End-of-Year = 1VND on 1/1/80	Year	Inflation, average consumer prices	End-of-Year = 1VND on 1/1/80
1980	25%	1.25	1990	36%	6,298	2000	-1.768%	26,245	2010	8%	54,197
1981	70%	2.13	1991	82%	11,462	2001	-0.31%	26,163
1982	95%	4.14	1992	38%	15,818	2002	4%	27,210
1983	49%	6.17	1993	8%	17,084	2003	3%	28,026
1984	65%	10.19	1994	9%	18,621	2004	8%	30,268
1985	92%	19.56	1995	17%	21,787	2005	8%	32,690
1986	454%	108.36	1996	6%	23,094	2006	8%	35,305
1987	360%	498.46	1997	3%	23,787	2007	8%	38,129
1988	374%	2,363	1998	8%	25,690	2008	23%	46,899
1989	96%	4,631	1999	4%	26,717	2009	7%	50,182

Meanwhile, of course, the U.S. dollar has undergone some significant inflation of its own. I won't reproduce a chart and do the multiplication as I did, above. But you can find the "official" consumer price index on the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis' website (look over to the right). 

During the same period, from 1980 till today, the value of US$1 has been inflated to $2.68. 

Divide VND54,197 by US$2.68 and you should find how much "real" inflation (compared to US inflation) has occured in Vietnam. If the Vietnamese dong had been at parity with the US dollar back in 1980 (so that US$1 = VND1 in 1980), then USD1 should buy VND20,223 worth of goods today--very nearly what US$1 does purchase today (more or less, VND19,400 worth of goods or services).

While I'm on the topic, I should note that dealing with all those zeros can get confusing . . . and difficult!

When we first got into Vietnam, I realized that US dollars would likely be accepted at most places I went, but I wasn't carrying near enough dollars for my needs. (We intended to stay at a hotel one night, and we were looking for Christmas presents [for 2011] for Sonlight employees.) So I needed some dong. But not too much. (What good would they be to me--especially if Vietnam continues to inflate its currency faster than the US inflates its currency?)

Well, I figured I would need at least about US$300 to cover taxi fares for a couple of days, plus, if I wanted to pay in dong, the approximately $50 we were going to owe for our hotel room.

Quick! How much money--in dong--do you want to take out of your bank account back in the US via the ATM in Vietnam? You want enough but not too much. And, of course, if you take out too little, you are likely going to be able to find another ATM to get a bit more.

The ATM offered several standard withdrawal numbers, including a maximum listed withdrawal of VND2,000,000 . . . plus, of course, the option to enter your own value in increments of VND50,000 or 100,000. . . . And every withdrawal would incur a VND20,000 service charge on top.

I decided to go for VND5,000,000.

Didn't work.

Oh, no! Was my card being blocked by my bank back in the US? Did I enter a digit wrong?

Tried again. No success.

Is my total too high? The machine doesn't have enough dong?

I tried VND3,000,000.

No success.

Use the standard maximum?

VND2,000,000.

Success!

Hmmm. But that's only about US$100. It won't get me very far with my taxi driver.

Maybe I should try it again.

Success!

So I finally withdrew VND5,500,000--dispensed in VND100,000 notes. 

I feel so foolish for not having taken any photos of the beautiful (but largely worthless) currency!

********

A few additional stories about money from our trip.

One about standing at an ATM. I think it was in Cambodia, though it might have been in Vietnam.

The taxi brought me to a two-ATM location. 

When I walked up, both machines were being used, and a man was standing to the side at the left one--not behind the person, but kind of in front of and to the left side of the person at the machine.

It appeared obvious to me that he was waiting. But he wasn't "in line."

When "his" machine came free, I motioned for him to do his business. Which he happily did.

Meanwhile, the machine on the right remained occupied.

When that guy finally began to move out of the way, stepping slightly to the right and turning away, I moved toward the spot. But a woman came from behind me on my right and stepped up to the machine!

!!!!

Then she turned slightly to the right to give herself room to rummage in her purse to find her card.

I figured two could play the game of "jumping" in line.

I quickly leapt to her side--now, actually, behind her, on her left--reached across and slid my card into the machine.

She muttered something indecipherable under her breath--I don't have any idea whether it was something to the effect of "Well played!" or, "*&^@%#! foreigner!"--and stepped away.

*******

When on cruises, you meet all kinds of people.

I found myself in conversation with a man from Holland. Somehow, we got into a conversation about money. Maybe it was because I asked him about his family, and he told me his son is working in Indonesia, and his daughter is looking for work in Australia: "There is no future for them in Holland," he said. "Taxes run between 80 and 90 percent. And the Euro has no future."

Then he told me: "Joining the Eurozone was one of the biggest mistakes Holland ever made."

"Why?"

"The guilder was a stable currency.

"Just before the conversion was made in January 2002, 1 guilder [the former Dutch unit of currency] purchased a cup of coffee. When the conversion was made, we received 44 cents Euro for every guilder. So our wealth was immediately reduced by a factor of more than two--we had less than half what we did the day before.

"At the time the conversion was made, a cup of coffee cost 1 Euro--effectively 2.2 times what it cost immediately before the conversion.

"Now, a cup of coffee costs EUR2.50."

Do the math: 2.2*2.5 = 5.5. That's pretty severe inflation--450%--for a period of nine years!

And what did the Dutch people gain for their troubles?

Similar stories could be told by West Germans, too, I'm sure, as they were first called upon to help the East Germans catch up after half a century of Communist rule, and now they are being called upon to bail out and support the "poor" French workers who want to retire with full pensions at 60 rather than 62 (!!!) . . . or the Italians and Portuguese, Greeks and Spanish. . . .

******

Okay. Enough financial stories for one day.

How rich are you?

I was reading a thread on the Sonlight Curriculum forums yesterday about the demise of the middle class. I will confess, I was dismayed to read about how little some of these people are getting by on each year. But then I did a little research this morning using a tool Sarita brought to my attention earlier this week: The Global Rich List.

As the people who that site together explained in a recent blog post,

[T]he Global Rich List, launched in 2003, continues to surprise people with their unexpected financial ranking in the world - which makes them feel instantly better about their income, and in turn puts them in a much happier place to think about giving some of it to a good cause.

 Where do you stand? I think you'll be surprised!

Wisdom of the ages -- about money

I've been frustrated.

On the one hand, Sarita and I have been urged to make plans for what wealth we have accumulated so that it (the wealth) will go where we [think God might] want it to go. On the other hand, it seems as if ever since we received that counsel and began acting upon it, the funds we have put aside have been devastated by the stock market crash and the ongoing inability of even "the best" advisors to avoid handing us losses in today's investment climate.

I just received another reminder last night as our investment advisor sent us a bunch of performance statements and, once again, every account suffered losses this past month. . . .

So today I was reading in Proverbs and noticed something that had never caught my eye before:

Do not toil to acquire wealth;
     be discerning enough to desist. (Prov. 23:4)

I took that to be saying (in the context of so much else that the writers of the Proverbs say), "Work hard and long enough to meet your and your family's needs (cf, for example, Prov. 16:26), but don't try to pile up wealth. It's not worth the trouble.

What "the trouble" may entail includes strife and discord (see, for example, Prov. 15:16; 16:8, 19; 17:1; 19:1; 21:9 & 19; 25:24; etc.--all of which generally add up to, "Better to have little--and peace and quiet, than to have much accompanied with yelling and strife"), but "the trouble" may also entail "simple" loss and/or emptiness, or what Solomon called a "chasing after the wind" (ubiquitous in the Book of Ecclesiastes). In Proverbs 23, where I began this meditation, the author follows his admonition about desisting from the pursuit of wealth with this explanation:

Do not toil to acquire wealth;
     be discerning enough to desist.
[Because w]hen your eyes light on it, it is gone,
     for suddenly it sprouts wings,
     flying like an eagle toward heaven. (Prov. 23:4-5)

And all of this together, for some reason, is reminding me of Jesus' words of wisdom in Matthew 6:19-34 (NIV):

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . . .

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The financial future of the United States

Last Saturday evening, Sarita and I went out to dinner with some old friends. He works at a major aerospace company. Whenever we talk with this couple, I know I have to be careful about touching on subjects that could be touchy from a security/secrets perspective.

At some point in the conversation, we got talking about the state of American technology and infrastructure. He mentioned that his group is doing very little truly transformative, new development but is, instead, always having to write code to work around equipment that is breaking down.

????!!!!????

I didn't understand. It didn't make sense to me.

"Wait a second. You're saying the equipment--computer processors--are breaking down? Why wouldn't your clients either get new equipment or fix what they already have? I mean, computing power is getting less and less expensive. . . ."

"But suppose we can't get to the equipment . . . ," he suggested.

????

"Suppose, for example, that we're talking about, say, a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. . . ."

"Yes . . . "

"Well, you can't get to it."

"Why not?"

"It's out about 26,000 miles."

"So? . . . I mean, the Earth is only--what?--about 18,000 miles around the equator. So it's not that far. . . ."

So we got talking about the space station and the Hubble Telescope--which are only a couple hundred miles above the Earth's surface--and how difficult and expensive it is for us to get to them to make fixes and adjustments.

Now push that distance out by a factor of 130 times.

The conversation drifted pretty quickly, then, to other subjects, including, for some reason, the interstate highway system: Could the United States possibly do, today, what it did in the mid-50s and through the very early '70s?

We all agreed that such exploits would be virtually impossible.

We could not build another interstate highway system. We could not send a mission to the Moon beginning from scratch (the way the U.S. did back in the '60s). . . .

As Sarita and I were driving home, we drove along a small portion of an interstate highway and the road was pretty broken up.

As we drove across a bumpy section of soaring interstate bridge, I got thinking about the crumbling infrastructure of the United States--how so many hundreds of bridges in the U.S. are in serious need of maintenance, repair, or replacement.

I realized the U.S. can't afford to maintain, repair or replace these roads or bridges, partially because it has never fully paid off the original costs of these bridges . . . since it borrowed money to buy the roads and bridges in teh first place.

But/and now it's 40 or 50 years later, and the U.S. government is like the family that bought a car beyond its means, hoping and praying it would be able not only to pay it off before they figured they would need a new car in five or seven or 10 years, but, perhaps, they would even be able to lay aside some money to have a bit of extra cash on hand to pay for the next vehicle.

Too bad for the family: Having signed up for a $17,000 loan when they first bought the vehicle 17 years ago, they have never really paid it off. Oh, yes, the original debt instrument is no more. But in order to finish their payments, they "simply" bought more of their then-current food, clothing, furniture, toys, etc., etc., on credit (using their credit cards) and used the cash that had thus been "freed up" to pay off the vehicle.

Today, they are still driving the car they bought 17 years ago; it is in truly horrible condition. They have have $35,000 in credit card debt, a $247,000 home mortgage, and . . . well . . . the screws are tightening.

That's the U.S. Most especially at the federal government level.

The U.S. federal government hasn't paid off a lick of debt in 80 years.

And its acknowledged debt obligations amount to almost $13 trillion. Add in all the unfunded Social Security promises it has made (in case you are unaware: the government has saved absolutely nothing for Social Security; it has absolutely no investments set aside to make its promised payments), and the unfunded Medicare and Medicaid promises, and the retirement payment promises it has made to federal employees (who, on average, as wage-earners, earn twice what people in the private sector make), and the . . . well, let's not go into all the details . . . --But if we add in all the unfunded promises the federal government has made--promises to pay that no private company would be permitted to make if it hadn't set aside resources to pay them: the federal government is well over $110 trillion underfunded and/or in debt as we speak.

And who is going to pay these bills?

You and me? People over 40? Not likely!

It's our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who will, somehow, have to shoulder the burden. Oh, and some Boomers and X-ers as well, I imagine, as we, who have failed to make preparations for ourselves, will find the government cannot fulfill its promises in any form we might expect based on the government largesse of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s.

A Parable for Our Day

I happened to locate an article yesterday that placed what I had already begun to feel into stark, concrete, historical terms. It's sub-titled Your Future of Blackouts and Shortages as the U.S. Becomes a Third World Country. James Dale Davidson, the author, lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and, he says, "There is perhaps no better place on earth to contemplate economic decline than in" Buenos Aires.

In essence, he says, beginning in the late 19th century, and up until 1929, Argentina was a very wealthy country. One of its great advantages: It was in close relationship to Great Britain.

Following WWI, however, with the decline of the British Empire, it didn't fare so well. Still, many analysts believe that, even in 1929, Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita. It was certainly ahead of Germany, France and, of course, Japan (since Japan was still a backward "developing" economy at the time).

In the meantime, however, Argentina has fallen hard. It is now far behind Europe, North America and Japan. The United States ought to look to Argentina as an object lesson for what will happen if we follow the siren song of government salvation.

Human nature being what it is, however, I'm afraid we are going to follow Argentina's path to destruction.

Like the US today, Argentina entered the Great Depression in 1929 heavily dependent on foreign capital, with highly unequal income dispersion, wide political resentments and lots of what would become bad debts in the banking system.

The path Argentina took out of depression led from bank bailouts to runaway budget deficits, hyperinflation and decades of negative compound growth.

An open, free economy was replaced by a closed system, hobbled by intervention and inward-looking strategies after the Great Depression.

Argentine economist Mauricio Rojas writes in his book, The Sorrows of Carmencita (p. 89), “The [Argentine] government couldn’t pay its bills, so it tried to inflate them away. The rise in prices between 1976 and April 1991 was an incomprehensible 2.1 billion times. During approximately the same period, per capita income sank by over 25% and the poverty rate among Argentine households soared from 5% to 27%.”

Argentine pesos worth a billion dollars in 1976 were worth only 47 cents 15 years later. And this was the result of ongoing government deficits averaging only 14% of GDP. Sound familiar?

Of course, it was not merely government borrowing that got Argentina into trouble. It was also government policies.

To illustrate his thesis, Davidson summarizes the sad story of Unión Telefónica del Río de la Plata Ltd., the British-owned Argentine telephone company that operated efficiently and profitably far into the 20th century . . . until the Argentine government under Perón bought it, renamed it Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (ENTel), and drove it into the ground. (By 1990, Davidson says, ENTel's service was "arguably the worst in the world, even worse than the poorest African countries. Argentines had to wait as long as 15 years to obtain a phone line, and then installation cost as much as $1,500.")

Davidson also describes the Huemul Project--a government program that was supposed to produce nuclear fusion. Energy produced by the process, Perón believed, would be able to be delivered in milk-bottle sized containers for use in airplanes and other vehicles. "Success was proclaimed; but no proof was given. When independent scientists investigated Perón’s Huemul Project to provide nuclear fusion in milk bottles, they revealed the project was a fraud."

[Will the United States endure similar frauds under the ever-louder siren call of research projects "needing" to be funded by the government in order to meet the legislated deadlines of alternative energy? Davidson asks.]

As decision-making power here in the United States becomes ever more centralized, I think Davidson is correct: We can expect greater and greater inefficiency, greater corruption, more and more serious repercussions from every decision that is made.

• The "punitive cap-and-trade carbon taxes" being urged by certain big-government environmentalists, "will make Al Gore richer," Davidson suggests (see this article and this one, too, for some perspective on Gore's expected windfall); but will it make you and me poorer? (Hate to say it, but I think most likely!)
   
• "When Perón took office, Argentina had the world’s second largest gold reserves. But these were soon squandered nationalizing industries and funding politicized investments, like the Huemal Project." (Kind of off-subject, here, but I think it's interesting: I just read that in 1940, when paper dollars were actually redeemable for silver (the face of a silver certificate said, "This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of the United States of America one dollar in silver payable to the bearer on demand."), the United States government held 6 billion ounces of silver--to fulfill its promise. Today, with the "dollar" meaning, really, nothing more than a sheet of paper with printing on it that declares "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private," the government holds no silver. None. Nada. . . . As for gold, it holds just over a quarter of a billion ounces. . . . A lot of people will say: "Who cares? No one--well, no one who counts--thinks money needs to be tied to precious metals. There are other ways to value currencies" . . . and they will mention land, labor, energy, and other things of value [how about, "a force-backed claim on . . . the productive power and wealth-producing capacity of the sovereign economy on the whole"--i.e., a government's ability to extract wealth from its subjects?] that might be pledged as the foundation for the currency's intrinsic worth. And maybe they are correct. Though it sure feels crazy that an entity like the Federal Reserve can create "money" out of nothing whenever the U.S. government asks. . . .
  
  But while we're on the subject, let me note that, while a quarter billion ounces of gold sounds like a lot, it's really not. At today's prices [just over $1,000 per ounce], that amounts to only slightly more than a quarter of a trillion dollars: "nothing more than pocket change on the Federal balance sheet," the equivalent of little more than "a rounding error . . . and irrelevant to overall governmental finances," according to Bill Zielinski.)
   
• "As the US follows the same policy path as Argentina," Davidson suggests, "it will obtain similar results. Perverse policies will destroy prosperity and inspire thinking people to get out, and/or get their money out." ("This is already happening," says Davidson. "In 2008, more than two million Americans emigrated, marking the first time that net legal and illegal migration . . . reduced the population of the US.")
   
• As more people seek escape, Davidson suggests, the federal government will do what Perón's government did: impose exchange controls. Moreover, "Soon after, the government will demand that people who had the foresight to take their money out bring it back."
   
• "Although the U.S. government will resort to draconian measures to tax the 'rich,' . . . destructive economic policies will diminish tax revenues even as government spending runs amok."
  
  "Diminish tax revenue"? Davidson notes that,
  

  Among other consequences of runaway budget deficits and hyperinflation was the virtual disappearance of the income tax in Argentina. It shrank to just 1% of GDP as the value of the previous year’s income became pocket change by the time taxes were due.

   
• Next consequence? Wage and price controls.
   
• . . . And so on and so forth.

In sum: As the government's true bankruptcy becomes more and more obvious, the U.S. will not be a pleasant place in which to live. And, I might add, it will be especially unpleasant for those of us who grew up here because so few of us have ever lived with any real deprivation. We are not used to the kind of basic living arrangements that so many people around the world experience. We "expect" better. We "demand" better. The government--at least many of us seem to believe--"owes" us better. Y'know, it "owes" us things like free health care.
*******

For more on the subject of the economic future of the United States, I recommend the following articles I discovered in the midst of researching and writing the above:

• What you must know about bankruptcy of the United States--an interesting and, I dare say, informative analogy between the federal government today and General Motors three years ago, before it went bust.
   
• For a brief, crisp summary of Argentina's demise, see Stephen Cox's review of Rojas' The Sorrows of Carmencita: Once a Great Nation.
   
• 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover--a concise, and graphically-rich summary of significant economic data.
   
• Another alarming article by James Dale Davidson, this one from February 2009, subtitled Why the U.S. Banking System is Toast. Davidson offers analogies to and perspectives from the bankruptcy of Iceland in October 2008 . . . and the trillion percent hyperinflation in Brazil during the '80s and '90s . . . to Japan's economic downfall in '89 (from which it has yet to recover) . . . to the Great Depression in the U.S. --To save a bit of time, begin reading from the paragraph that starts "A decade and a half ago there were few subprime mortgages."

I'll stop here. Sorry to have gone on so long.

[NOTE: If you are reading this article on Facebook and can't use links or don't see photos, please realize it originally appeared and is still available on my personal blog.]

Whither the US dollar?

I just ran across this interview between Martin Weiss and Larry Edelson. I think it is well worth your consideration.

Conducted in late October last year, it is titled "Washington's Secret War on the Dollar"--but it actually begins by noting that the U.S. government is only one among many entities that have declared war on the dollar.

Caveat Emptor! (Buyer[s of dollar] Beware!)

. . . Besides laying out the true risks associated with being invested in dollar-denominated assets, Weiss and Edelson also recommend some general--though relatively specific--guidelines for avoiding problems with dollar-denominated assets.

Legacy Planning: Family Meeting, III

I guess I'd like to make two final observations inspired by our family meeting last Saturday.

1. Luke raised a great question about "Our Money"--"family" money, or, in many ways, "John's & Sarita's money"--as opposed to "My Money"--the money that Luke (or anyone) earns himself.
   
   "I don't feel the same way about the money I get from Mom and Dad," he noted. He almost feels ashamed either to ask for it or receive it. The only money he feels good about using or spending is the money he has earned himself. . . .
   
   I thought that was a good observation and something we needed (and still need to, I'm sure) talk about: What is our attitude about money? What do we want for our kids? What do we specifically not want? . . .
2. . . . I can't remember!

Oh well. Maybe some other time. . . .

Legacy Planning: Questions, Part 1

So Sarita and I are working through this legacy planning process.

Our advisor gave us a 20-page booklet full of questions for us to answer. Some are relatively easy. But many are thought-provoking, and some cause me consternation.

I'd like to share some of the questions with you. I hope they inspire you as they have me. . . .

The questionnaire begins with "Childhood Reflections":

• Where do you fit in your family's birth order?
• Did you have your own money as a child?
• If "Yes," how did you acquire it?
• When you were growing up, who controlled the money in your household?
• As a child, what lessons did you learn about money . . . and from whom?
• What was your family's money motto?
• Name your family's greatest priorities.
• What do you think of those priorities today?
• Name what was least important to your family of origin.

There are a bunch more questions. But these--especially the fourth and following questions I've listed here--got me reminiscing pretty fiercely! And for some of the questions, I'm not sure if I'm remembering accurately or fairly.

But here's what I wrote in answer to the questions:

• Where do you fit in your family's birth order? --2nd
• Did you have your own money as a child? --Yes
• If "Yes," how did you acquire it? --Worked for it
• When you were growing up, who controlled the money in your household? --Dad (for family) . . . and me (for myself) . . . though mom made purchasing decisions within limits.
• As a child, what lessons did you learn about money . . . and from whom? --Parents: It's scarce; hard to come by; be frugal; live cheaply. Me: Money is (relatively) easy to come by if you'll work for it. It's not worth fretting over.
• What was your family's money motto? --I can't remember any real "motto" . . . unless it was the regular refrain: "We can't afford it." . . . So I guess that was "our" motto.
• Name your family's greatest priorities. -- a) Education. b) Following Jesus
• What do you think of those priorities today? --I "buy" them still, today.
• Name what was least important to your family of origin. --???

Interesting: We got talking with a couple of our kids and their spouses about "family money motto" question.

Our son and daughter--two years apart in age--"remember" very different "mottoes" even though they agreed they had not actually heard any of the "guiding words" or thoughts from us directly.

Our son-in-law confessed some anger or resentment or some such toward his parents because they had always been--or, at least, acted as if they were--so poor. . . . But as we discussed his family's living situation, it suddenly dawned on him that they had been "poor" because his parents were paying to send him and his siblings to a private Christian school! . . . And that led us all to ruminate on how parents might serve themselves and their children well if they would take the time and effort to "sell" their kids on their (the parents') values and priorities.

This particular son-in-law's parents, apparently, failed to "market" their vision to their kids . . . and, apparently, inadvertently permitted a root of bitterness to grow. . . .