Fernhout's Law of Money

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Paul D. Fernhout

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May 12, 2008, 1:19:08 PM5/12/08
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Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> I'd rather not having to worry about ending up like this poor guy managing
> money for IT staff and server farms (again, seriously):
> http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/
>
> "Money is a sign of poverty." -- Iain Banks
>
> So my corollary is: "Needing to handle money shows a lack of imagination,
> skill, freedom, and community."? :-) Well, someday. Not quite there yet.
> :-)

Let me refine my corollary to Iain Banks' statement:
"Money is a sign of poverty"
into a living proportionality so you AP Calculus fans can differentiate and
integrate it over time, just for fun. :-)

Fernhout's Law of Money: "The degree to which money (or ration units) needs
to be handled in an organization (or a society) is inversely proportional to
the degree of imagination, skill, freedom, and community present."

Or in mathematical notation: :-)
M = 1 / I * S * F * C

No doubt if I looked hard I might find something similar already here: :-)
http://www.textfiles.com/humor/JOKES/laws.lst
or somewhere else.

This one sounds vaguely related:
"Mark's Law of Monetary Equalization: A fool and your money are soon
partners." :-)

Or this:
"Todd's First Two Political Principles:
1. No matter what they're telling you, they're not telling you the whole
truth.
2. No matter what they're talking about, they're talking about money." :-)

Of course that is all easy to joke about when my freedom is purchased in
part by my wife's "unfreedom" part-time. Ursula K, Le Guin talks about that
theme of "one person's freedom bought by another's unfreedom" in several
essays and stories. So I need to be very thankful to my wife. To be fair to
myself, it is also true in some ways our roles were reversed for a time many
years ago working on our Garden Simulator when I put on the suit and tie
full-time (though to an extent the GS felt like unfreedom to her too
sometimes). But that doesn't make things easier for her right now during the
times when she wants to do a better job and impossible deadlines and strict
hierarchies get in the way. She tries anyway, of course.

--Paul Fernhout

Paul D. Fernhout

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May 12, 2008, 3:16:38 PM5/12/08
to openv...@googlegroups.com
I'm realizing this law should have a better name. :-)

I could probably add in "effort" too, and mention abundance. And streamline
out the parenthetical bits by picking one.

So, it is now this:

Banks' Observation on Money: "Money is a sign of poverty."

Fernhout's Corollary to Banks' Observation on Money: "The degree to which
money needs to be handled in a society is inversely proportional to the
abundance of imagination, skill, freedom, effort, and community present."

And mathematically:
M = 1 / I * S * F * E * C

--Paul Fernhout

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