Time and money have been living together, and we all know it. We see them together everywhere. We time work by the hour and pay for it with money. We time rent, interest, and taxes and pay them with money. And we talk about them together: "Time and money."
Unmarried, money is unreasonable. In 1995 the president of President Casinos, Inc. was paid $17.8 million. At $50,000 a year (which is more than most people make), it would have taken 356 years, from 1639 (the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620) until 1995 for him to receive $17.8 million. Instead he received it in one year. That same year in the U.S. there were 36 million persons living below the poverty level of $15,556 for a family of four. There are many examples of unreasonably large and unreasonably small incomes.
Time has natural limits. There are only 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 365 days in a year, 100 years in a long life. Married, time would help us keep money within reasonable limits.
Time money would be denominated in hours. Countries could use their national name for money preceded by "Hour." So we would have "Hour Dollars," "Hour Yen," "Hour Pesos," and so on for all monies in the world.
Worldwide everyone would understand what money says when money talks.
"This money certifies that the number of hours shown on its face were spent in productive work, earning the bearer the right to goods or services that required an equal amount of productive work time to produce."
Henceforward, fair exchange would mean exchanging the product of one person's hour of work for the product of another person's hour of work - an hour for an hour.
With prices brought within reasonable limits, we could have economic peace as never before. Unreasonable disparities in income - some people becoming millionaires while others cannot make a decent living, annual strikes over salaries and wages, and inflation - would become things of the past, historical oddities.
Today, prices are set by trial and error. Because dollar means different things to different people, no one knows what is a fair price and a fair wage. So we waste time disputing minimum wages and annual raises.
Today, our economic lives are needlessly filled with stress, time stress and money stress. We never have enough time and never have enough money.
With the marriage of time and money, with money disciplined by time, we will be able to live as stress free over money matters as we live with measures of length, weight, and volume.
Every successful unit of measure is married to an objectively calibrated measuring instrument. Yards and meters are married to yardsticks and meter sticks. Gallons and liters are married to standardized containers. Pounds and grams are married to strictly calibrated scales. So disputes over lengths, volumes, and weights rarely occur. When they do, they are resolved wisely, efficiently, and amicably by applying their respective objectively standardized measuring instruments.
We expect people to work by the hour. We need to pay them by the same standard.
Time and money live together in every country, but their national names hide their cohabitation. Work time explains more than 80 percent of the exchange value of currencies in use in the world today.
Hour money is already being used in many communities. Back to Bob's Home Page