As the webmaster of ovfarmersmarket.org, I thought that it would be fitting for me to write our first blog. I am not really a "web master;" I used a website building for dummies program to put together the site, but it serves it's purpose. What I do normally is stay-at-home with my three daughters, ages three in under, work part-time as a youth director and part-time as a math instructor. I also manage my home - that's full-time! So why would take time out of my busy life to build a website for a little (but mighty) farmers' market who can't afford to pay me very well?
Well, that has more to do with who I am. I am not a liberal; I am not a conservative. I am a mathematician. My world revolves around analyzing things. Why does it work? Why doesn't it work? Why? Who? What? When? Where? And why again?
I am not an economist. So in my under-educated, simplistic, yet analytical way of understanding what is going on in our country right now, I start with what I know.
I know how to play Monopoly. But when I step back and analyze the game, this is the basic concept of it: the bank puts money into play; the players buy, sell, and trade things, all while the bank is putting more money into play; the more that is play the more things cost and more the players spend; eventually, though, one person loses all their money; all the remaining players add up their money and whoever has the most wins. But what does the person win? The game is over.
To get a little more sophisticated, I envision the economy as a flow-chart. A harmonous, flowing, transitioning of currency (appropriate name, huh?) from the hands of one person to another. So where is the kink? What makes it go wrong? (Again, this stems from the mind of an analytical, not educated, person). But, I can see at least two things that can go wrong. The first being that one or more persons takes money and doesn't recirculate it. The second being that there is a hole in the flow. In other words, envision something spinning, all is good as long as it stays in it's orbit, but what happens when the thing breaks from the orbit?
I then think about a store like Walmart. It's mind-boggling to try to grasp how such a huge corporation works when you're trying to understand the concept of flowing money, so again, I simplify. What if for every one dollar that a store like Walmart makes one penny goes to the country that produced the product? That doesn't sound like a big deal, but what if Walmart sells $1,000,000 worth of products in one day? That's $10,000 that goes to another country. $3.65 million in one year. Multiply that by a lot because Walmart does a lot more than $1 million in sales each day, then factor in all the other stores out there. In other words, millions upon billions of dollars are flowing out of our orbit every year into the orbits of other countries.
A lot of people think a global economy will work. In a perfect world, it might. But think about this. Envision that for every one of you there are three Chinese people. Do you think those three Chinese people buy as many things that say "MADE in USA" as you do "MADE in CHINA?" If you think no . . . then you must embrace the idea that money is flowing out of our orbit into their orbit and not coming back.
I think a lot of times in the current economic crisis, we can start to feel overwhelmed. Like we can't control any of it anyway, right? Sure, the banks are kinking our flow by hoarding money. Sure, the government is interfering with our flow by pumping in more money (which in turn causes inflation). But WHAT IF WE STOPPED kinking our flow by keeping our money in play?
Ask yourself: Am I in this game to win? Or am I in this game to play?
So back to my first question: Why build this site? I built this site because I want to help the market. I want to help the market because they are a group of people trying to make a living in our country, in our states, in our communities, and in our neighborhoods. I built this site because I like to play the game.
Kendra Kendle, OVFM Webmaster, Bellaire, OH
Well, that has more to do with who I am. I am not a liberal; I am not a conservative. I am a mathematician. My world revolves around analyzing things. Why does it work? Why doesn't it work? Why? Who? What? When? Where? And why again?
I am not an economist. So in my under-educated, simplistic, yet analytical way of understanding what is going on in our country right now, I start with what I know.
I know how to play Monopoly. But when I step back and analyze the game, this is the basic concept of it: the bank puts money into play; the players buy, sell, and trade things, all while the bank is putting more money into play; the more that is play the more things cost and more the players spend; eventually, though, one person loses all their money; all the remaining players add up their money and whoever has the most wins. But what does the person win? The game is over.
To get a little more sophisticated, I envision the economy as a flow-chart. A harmonous, flowing, transitioning of currency (appropriate name, huh?) from the hands of one person to another. So where is the kink? What makes it go wrong? (Again, this stems from the mind of an analytical, not educated, person). But, I can see at least two things that can go wrong. The first being that one or more persons takes money and doesn't recirculate it. The second being that there is a hole in the flow. In other words, envision something spinning, all is good as long as it stays in it's orbit, but what happens when the thing breaks from the orbit?
I then think about a store like Walmart. It's mind-boggling to try to grasp how such a huge corporation works when you're trying to understand the concept of flowing money, so again, I simplify. What if for every one dollar that a store like Walmart makes one penny goes to the country that produced the product? That doesn't sound like a big deal, but what if Walmart sells $1,000,000 worth of products in one day? That's $10,000 that goes to another country. $3.65 million in one year. Multiply that by a lot because Walmart does a lot more than $1 million in sales each day, then factor in all the other stores out there. In other words, millions upon billions of dollars are flowing out of our orbit every year into the orbits of other countries.
A lot of people think a global economy will work. In a perfect world, it might. But think about this. Envision that for every one of you there are three Chinese people. Do you think those three Chinese people buy as many things that say "MADE in USA" as you do "MADE in CHINA?" If you think no . . . then you must embrace the idea that money is flowing out of our orbit into their orbit and not coming back.
I think a lot of times in the current economic crisis, we can start to feel overwhelmed. Like we can't control any of it anyway, right? Sure, the banks are kinking our flow by hoarding money. Sure, the government is interfering with our flow by pumping in more money (which in turn causes inflation). But WHAT IF WE STOPPED kinking our flow by keeping our money in play?
Ask yourself: Am I in this game to win? Or am I in this game to play?
So back to my first question: Why build this site? I built this site because I want to help the market. I want to help the market because they are a group of people trying to make a living in our country, in our states, in our communities, and in our neighborhoods. I built this site because I like to play the game.
Kendra Kendle, OVFM Webmaster, Bellaire, OH
