Land: A World in a Word

story and photos by B.J. Stolbov

What is land? Land can have many different meanings. Land can mean wealth, profit, prosperity, privilege, prestige, power, control, status, accomplishment, satisfaction, success, fame, respect, honor, dignity, safety, security, stability, continuity, contentment, freedom, happiness, hope, joy, beauty, love...

Land, for most people of the world, means wealth. Wealth, like beauty and love, is in the eye of the beholder.

 

For me, land was never wealth.  Wealth was always money, money in the bank, money in a bankbook, a bankbook safely in hand or in a box in a locked drawer, money invested in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.  Land was always an illiquid asset of uncertain value with high property taxes, constant insurance, repairs, trespassers, and troubles: land is an almost completely useless investment. The only land that I ever owned was a plot: 6 feet long by 3 feet wide by 6 feet deep. 

Every person I know in the Philippines either rents or owns their property outright.  For the average Filipino, there is no mortgage system of credit. In fact, I know few people who own a credit card. The Philippines, at least in the rural Philippines where I live, is a cash-and-carry, or, more often, a barter-and-carry, economy.

This is one of the main reasons why the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for “developing” countries are often so low. GDP measures the above ground economy of wages and income; it does not measure the underground economy of cash and barter.  Particularly at a local level, GDP is a misleading number. Many of the people I know here in the Philippines live on almost nothing, except their own homegrown food, and the products that they barter for goods and services. This is how we, and most people of the world, live.

Click to read more ...

Making Sense of Centimes

by Dorty Nowak

Over the past nine years that I have lived in Paris, I’ve acquired a passable knowledge of the language and can navigate the city’s interconnected web of metros and busses with ease.  Ask me the name of a good restaurant in the Marais, or the best time to go to the Louvre (Wednesday evenings) and I have a ready answer.  

However please don’t ask me for change – I have a problem with centimes. 

Five centimes. Photo by bulbocode909 via flickr CCL

I can’t blame this on the euro conversion. After all, I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the new currency.  Granted, the French persist in showing the cost of items both in euro currency and in French francs, which may be patriotic, but as far as I’m concerned adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to any transaction. Do I need to know that an item costing five euros costs 32 francs, eighty centimes?

Or rather it would, if the franc were still an accepted currency, which it is not. 

Click to read more ...

THE TRAVEL WORM HAS TURNED

by Judith Fein

Last night, I was sitting in an auditorium, waiting for the audience to file in, and an open-hearted woman I know sat down next to me. We exchanged a little chit chat, and then she asked me where I had been lately. I told her we had started out in Tunisia, headed for central and northwestern Spain and capped our travels in northern and then southern Ireland.

“You can’t take it with you,” she said, half to herself and half to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, last year I couldn’t imagine how I could spend what was left of my money on travel. Now I’ve had a change of heart. When you’re gone, the money is of no value to you, so you may as well spend it on things you love.”

“And?” I prompted her.

“And I love travel. So I’m willing to spend my money on it.”

To the best of my knowledge, the Recession, which looks like a lot like a pre-Depression to me, isn’t over. People are losing their jobs the way folks used to lose cell phones or keys. Empty houses are growing old and weary as they get battered by the market. I haven’t been in a crowded store since autumn leaves were falling. Expensive restaurants are offering prix fixe menus that barely cover the cost of the wait and kitchen staffs. And with all of this, folks I know are taking down their suitcases from their shelves and are ready to travel again.

Click to read more ...