Friday, August 1, 1997
Give Me da Rok,
Baby!
by
TMF Weekly
There's a particular word in the English language that I love to say and hear -- "wealth." It just sounds good rolling off the tongue. Unfortunately for me, I can only say the word as opposed to feeling it, but I plan to get there, steadily and Foolishly.
A few days ago, however, I started thinking about all the money in the world. Yes, and how I could make it all mine, but that's not the point of this Fribble. Or is it? Bill Gates is worth approximately (clicking furiously on Windows 95 calculator) a bazillion dollars. But where did all that wealth come from? Not his per se, but where did the world all of a sudden get all of this money? Bill Gates himself has more money than the entire world claimed in the year 1000. Is this just progress?
Economists and historians have developed a method to mitigate this seeming explosion of money -- we speak in terms of "year" dollars. For example, 75 cents today can buy a Hershey bar; that 75 cents is actually worth 25 cents in 1977 dollars because that's what I could have bought a Hershey bar for when I was a kid. It's magic. And what's ironic is that a 1977 Hershey bar is now worth more than a 1997 one. Well, okay, maybe not an actual Hershey bar, but other items have gained in value as the years roll along. Only money seems to work in the opposite way.
So, Bill Gates is really worth only one-third of a bazillion in 1977 dollars. Now, that doesn't seem so bad.
But what happens if you go even further back? I mean waaaaaaay back.
At some point, probably before you were born, one Cro-Magnon (C-M) man [hey, let's face it; women's lib wasn't a hot topic back then] owned all the known wealth in the world. He called it, "Rok," C-M's choosing to forego the use of double constants. That C-M was the richest man in the history of the planet. Compared to this guy, Bill Gates looks like, well, like me compared to Bill Gates. Instead of spending large amounts of his time deciding the best way to use his Rok -- CDs, the Market, IRAs, 401 (k)s and more -- our C-M simply put it in his pocket and carried it around with him. Sure, he didn't gain any interest on his Rok (except for curious children who thought the man walking around with a Rok was funny), but he didn't need any interest -- he already owned all the wealth.
Eventually, though, the Rok had to be divided among other C-M's to pay for goods and services (or tech services if you had trouble with your Iomega Zip-rock drive). Thus, from a simple Rok, the distribution of wealth began and has continued to this day. Eventually, the Rok was replaced by metals, then precious metals, then paper and now plastic. The future seems to indicate that plastic will be replaced by fiber-optic blips.
But it all started with that Rok. As the title of this Fribble states, Give me da Rok, baby!
Todd M Lidh