The Wrong Wish

Do you know what is the most common thing people usually wish? It is that they wish they have a lot of money. Well, fair enough isn't it. Who ever would not wish that kind of thing anyway. A lot of us would wish about it. We would like to say that if only I had a lot of money, I could buy the things I want to buy or the things I need. If I had money, I could date a girl, travel around the world and buy some fansy stuffs. If I had more money, I could go into business or join the stock trading industry. If I had more money, I could enroll to a prestigious university. Everyone wishes to have lots of money and it is inherent in our nature as human beings.
This phenomena is apparent in some of the noon shows in the Philippines. We can see in Wowowee that people who join in their game show wish to have lots of money. Money that they could use for their own with their own reasons behind it. It is also present in Eat Bulaga. We see charismatic personalities who wish to give lots of money to these participants without any burden. They would just ask a very simple and common and general question, even a child who is grade one in the elementary could answer their questions. Some game shows give money by using your luck like the Whammy; and a little induction to be used during when the participant would decide whether to continue or not. Either of these game shows mentioned, the idea is they give money to people and it brings joy to them, the giver and the receiver.
This is quite troubling for some people like myself. I say this is the wrong wish. Why can't we wish that commodities, goods and services will become cheaper so that despite we have few money in our pockets, we could still buy the stuffs that we need and want. This wouldn't sound selfish compare to a wish of having lots of money. Essentially, I am saying that let the value of money increase. We know for a fact that cash like our coins and paper bills will remain the same. Their figure won't change. A hundred peso bill is still a hundred peso bill in the future. But what changes is the value of that one hundred peso bill. Today, a hundred peso is value only at around 40. That's why we have to give more cash when we buy stuffs. And it is so burdensome in our family. I mention family here because it is the basic social and economical status in a nation. We can apparently see the burden when we go down to the family level.
There are many factors that would increase or decrease the value of money. One of which is the policies of our government with regards to inflation and the other is the strategy that suppliers do. We know that the value of our money is everyone's concern. We all want to have a strong value of money so that we our money will have a strong purchasing power. But is it not everyone's task. This is not like global warming/climate change that it is both our concern and task. Environmentalists would say to throw our garbage properly or don't burn plastics. But when we talk about the value of money, yes it is our concern but as individual we can't do anything about it except to our government officials and the producers or suppliers of commodities, goods and services.
Inflation is one of the cause why money value changes. Usually it brings prices up and the purchasing power of money down. Do you know why inflation happens? It is because there are less supply of the all the commodities, goods and services than the demand of these commodities, goods and services. We know in economics that whenever quantity supplied is low and quantity demanded is high, prices increases. So, who are we to blame? Roughly our selves because perhaps we voted the wrong government officials during election. I am saying that, in order to combat inflation we need to have better policies. Some government officials make policies that aren't beneficial to the majority and when it happens, usually it is the consumers who are burden. And what if the consumer has no income? Well, we can't say that he'll die because there are charismatic people who are willing to do humanitarian act to help these people. But in essence, this kind of consumer will eventually die, not physical but socially because he will become attached to the philanthropist. We can blame also the supplier and well, it still boils down to the government for lack of policy impose to these suppliers. Some suppliers go for profiteering in such a way that they intentionally produce low supply in order to gain profits. This is bad again because as I told you, the burden part goes to the consumers. It is not our task to combat inflation but we are roughly the one to be blamed. So, from now on, let's start to be critical in voting our government officials.
There is also a social implication when we wished for lots of money. And that is we become more concern of having more money in order to push a program, dream, goal, etc. It becomes embedded in our heads that we can't work unless we have money instead of properly budgetting our resources. We don't become cost-conscious, instead we keep on spending. We can observe this in the national, regional, local and even school levels. In schools or universities, we see lots of contributions in order to be enrolled. We can see the breakdown of these contributions and we reluctantly pay for it. I appreciate that projects, programs and activities need money in order to become successful, meaning money fuels this things but what I am against about is wanting to have money in order to make successful. And that wanting to have more money to be successful is embedded already in our lives because of our wishful thinking of having lots of money. And I say, that is wrong. We don't need lots of money in order to succeed, instead we just need enough and a better policy and a well-budgetted, cost-conscious and cost-efficient projects, programs and activities.
So, last word, if someone asks you to treat him or her with a cheeseburger, give him or her this response, "yeah, i will when cheeseburger becomes cheaper."