Extra Credit

The painting Soldiers playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats) by Valentin de Boulogne is in the same room as Saint Sebastian by Tanzio Da Varallo and The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew by Juesepe De Ribera.  All three paintings have lights shining from above, as if it’s coming from the heavens.  Also, through the color choice, you can tell that the paintings are from the same period.  Five people are in Soldiers, four are in Bartholomew and three are in Sebastian.

The most important part of the paintings are the eyes.  Their eyes clearly have religious intention.  The Da Varallo and De Ribera paintings depict the figures, in the paintings, staring at the skies and the heavens.  Obviously these figures are supposed to represent good.  The Boulogne painting on the other hand shows every person looking down as if they are looking down into Hell.  This was a common way, from paintings in this era, to depict money as an evil.  My painting that I chose for the earlier essay, The Moneylender and His Wife, depicted a similar thing: money is an evil that threatens religion.

In the painting by de Boulogne, two men are playing cards, two men are playing dice and one man is observing the card game.  The four men that are playing the games are only immersed in themselves and their activity, while the observer is immersed in the card game.

YouTube Video-Tim of America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmbXx8_myeg

A Review of a Suicide Note-Paper 5

What would you do if you had all the money in the world?  Would you donate it?  Invest it?  Buy a nice car or house?  Or would you live a life of extravagance like John Self, the embodiment of every vice that money can afford.  The lifestyle, the drinking, the smoking, the sex.  Would you live this way?  I’m sure quite a few more people would if they had the money.    

The novel Money, is a first-person account of the overindulging John Self, a 35 year old director of “controversial TV ads for smoking, drinking, junk food and nude magazines” (78), who finds himself living the life of his ads.  This entire novel is a quick overview of his overindulging lifestyle, all of which requires money.  Lots of money.  And it’s about how he uses this money, or rather “suicide note” (112).

There are certainly people in society who reflect John Self in most, if not all, shapes of life.  We see it in celebrities like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan.  They binge on clubbing, drinking, sex and cocaine.  And there are others who are similar in this out of control lifestyle.  But this not the lifestyle of most people.  Of course, had Martin Amis targeted this book at the few people in society like John Self, it wouldn’t have been a very successful novel.  Or rather novelized suicide note.

Instead, this novel is an exaggeration of those urges which every human has.  Money, albeit an exaggeration, is an interpretation of what humans think, feel and desire.  Those urges to spend money on anything, drink alcohol, do drugs or have sex with as many women/men as possible, are in all of us.  These vices are in all of us. The difference between us and John, is that we can control ourselves.   

            One of the biggest things that money buys for John, is sex pornography.  Throughout the book, John fantasizes of sex or pornography, “whew, the stuff that hot fox was giving out, all miming so fluently with the pornography still fresh in my head” (51).  John’s pornography habit consisted of “three-mag-a-week and at-least-one-movie habit to sustain” (44).  Most people would probably say, in public, that this is disgraceful and untasteful.  Sure it may be untasteful, but reality is, most people have seen a pornography video at some point in their life.  And despite all the free pornography online today, it’s still a booming industry that makes billions of dollars.  So John is once again an exaggerated reflection of society and our urges and desires.  We might not be as open or flamboyant as John Self, but to say you’ve never done or wanted to do some of the things he’s done, would be an outright lie.

            One contention I had with this novel, was the confusing way in which this story was written as a “suicide note”.  The letter by John, along with the notification at the beginning of the novel just confused the hell out of me.  The notification at the beginning says that the novel “is a suicide note” and that “by the time you lay it aside, John Self will no longer exist”.  This was written in September 1981.  Yet right before the end, John writes a letter during the winter of 1981/1982 saying “I fucking nearly killed myself the other day” (351).  So he clearly hadn’t killed himself and he continued to exist in September 1981.

            This just leads to confusion to the status of John Self.  From the final letter, we realize that he has a more optimistic outlook on life, his new girlfriend and his new dad.  But this book is supposed to be one giant suicide note.  These contradictions are rather confusing and blurs the ending.  Maybe I missed something or I didn’t get the right message from the book.  But what I do not like from this book, was the ending.

            The ending of this novel should have been rewritten to better improve the meaning of the book.  As I mentioned earlier, I found the ending to be contradictory and downright confusing.  If the ending was more concrete, I believe the message that money was a facilitator of vices could have been stronger.  For instance, if he had committed suicide as a result of his downfall, the message would have been considerably stronger because of what it would imply: money, if misused and abused can bite you in the ass. 

            Despite the ending, though, I still think the book did an adequate job of reflecting society’s obsession with money and the vices in this world.  Everybody has the desires and urges.  Sex and drugs aren’t just for rock and roll stars or people with a lot of money.  We indulge in these things as well.  Just not as often or as open.  John Self represents people as they are with their deepest desires.  And even though the ending was a minor draw back, the book accurately portrays what we desire and how money facilitates these desires every step of the way.

The Desire For Money-Paper 4

Money.  Money is the driving force in the television series Breaking Bad.  Money is one of the most common themes in the series.  Walter needs money to pay his medical bills, initially.  Jesse needs money because… well he needs it.  This driving force for money, this need for money is a reflection of society and the decisions we make. 

            Money is the driving force for many of our decisions.  We choose to get a job, in order to make money.  The reason most of us college students are in college, is to be able to acquire higher paying jobs.  I can personally say that I’m not in college to hang up a degree on my wall that says that I double majored in Government and History.  I’m in college to try and get a higher paying job when I get out.  My decision to go to college, is fuelled by my desire to receive decently sized, if not large, paychecks.  I’m in college to make money.  Walter and Jesse are in the drug business to make money.  Our end goals are the same.  Our method of getting there is difference.  That’s the only difference between me and Walter or Jesse.

            In the first episode we see Walter get diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.  He has one to two years at the most to live.  So he decides to enter the meth business as a way of making money.  His desires, though, as to why he enters the drug business is a mystery.  He is closed and does not divulge much, if anything, of what he’s thinking.  The show leaves you puzzled as to why a high school chemistry teacher would just suddenly turn to a life of crime.  In later episodes, you begin to see that “too much money, ain’t enough money” for Walter.  The business gets riskier and bigger, he puts his own family in jeopardy.  But he’s willing to do it all for the money.

            Money is the driving force behind this series.  It is the driving force behind the main characters’ decisions.  This is how Jesse and Walter are just like me and probably everybody else in the class.  This is the economic issue at large.  We desire money.  It’s a fact of life.

The Moneylender and His Wife (1514)-Paper 3

The piece of art I chose to analyze for this assignment is the Flemish painting The Moneylender and His Wife created by Quentin Matsys, in 1514, during the heart of the Northern Renaissance.  This piece of art depicts a man counting his money and his jewels while sitting with his clearly distracted wife.  The proportions in the painting are accurate.  Nothing is oversized or undersized.  The painting has darker shaded colors, giving a realistic feel.  The shadows and the mirror create contrast in the painting.  The mirror allows the viewer to realize that the light source is the sun.  The proportions, color and contrast clearly give a Renaissance feel.  The three-dimensional balance of the artwork is a result of the historical background in the Renaissance.

There are two large indicators that this is a piece of Renaissance art.  First, is the use of three- dimensions.  During the Middle Ages, art was two dimensional.  There was three dimensional art before the fall of Rome, but the knowledge and understanding of geometry was lost as a result of the fall of Rome.  But this is clearly not a Classical Era artwork as you can tell by the clothing of the individuals.  The second indicator that this is a Renaissance piece of art is the usage of religion.  The apple directly above the man’s head is probably a symbol of Original Sin.  This specific symbolization of Original Sin was common in Renaissance art.  The second piece of religion in the painting is the book.  The book depicts a painting of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  It is through this book, that this painting depicts concerns about money.

The painting depicts a man counting his money and jewels sitting with his clearly distracted wife.  She is distracted from studying religion.  This is the biggest concern the Matsys tried to depict in his artwork.  Money has the potential to engulf people’s lives.  The woman, in the painting, is clearly more interested in the pearls than she is in her religious studies.  You could probably replace that book of religion with any book of knowledge and she’d still be focusing on the pearls.  Money is beginning to take over her life as it has her husband’s. 

Foreclosed-Paper 2

Believe it or not, the housing market is improving.  In September 2009, 14.4% of all outstanding mortgages were either in delinquency or in foreclosure.  Delinquency is the step before foreclosure in which a borrower has failed to pay back the loans.  So 14.4% of all homeowners already had, or were just about to lose their home.  This number has fallen by 3.1% to 10.3%[1].  More people are now paying their loans on time.

The largest contributor to the housing crisis were subprime mortgages.  Rather than give only giving out loans to people with good credit or whom could make a down payment, banks began giving loans to risky customers (the young, poor credit, not much money in the bank) and these customers were not able to pay their mortgages, setting off what has become known as the U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis.  The book The Greatest Trade Ever is about a hedge-fund manager’s prediction and investment against these subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations.

  When the housing bubble finally burst in 2007, John Paulson became an instant billionaire.  The way he invested against the subprime mortgages was through the purchase of Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which are “instruments that rise in value as the risk of default increases”[2].  Similar to the subprime mortgages were the adjustable rate mortgages.  Interest rates were initially set up at a rate people could afford and the interest rate often “adjusted” to where people couldn’t afford the mortgage anymore.

In order to prevent a massive economic collapse, the federal government passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in 2008.  This bill lent billions of dollars to corporations affected by the financial crisis in order to keep the corporations afloat.  Investment banks, banks, car manufacturers were all lent money to insure the well-being of hundreds of thousands of workers and business.  The investment banks that were covered under TARP included J.P. Morgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.  The purpose of investment banking is to assist individuals, businesses and governments in the issuance of securities. 

Much has changed since 2010.  The government has gotten most of the TARP money back, legislation has passed Congress tightening regulations and the economy is on an upswing.  The number of delinquent or foreclosed mortgages is shrinking.  But as we examine the past and we must prepare ourselves for the future.  We must learn from these trials and tribulations of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis in order to better prepare ourselves for what lies ahead.  If we don’t, we will see 14.4% again.

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[1] http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/84409.htm

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=arAno4KAi9Es

The Establishment of Money-Paper 1

           Money is important and it’s necessary.  Whether we like it or not, money drives people.  It makes people act the way they do, sometimes even act in an extreme fashion in order to obtain money.  Money is an essential part of life.  And this essay hopes to prove that.

Firstly, what turns an object into money?  I asked the same ten people this question as the previous question.  Almost everybody answered that an “object turns into money when it has value to people”.  This is the simplest and best answer anybody can give.  Because this is how currency is formed.  According to Richard Seaford, the Greeks were the first to have widespread adoption of “substance given extra and uniform value by its sign”.  The Greeks trusted that a single change of a sign on a coin can radically change its value.  This is instrumental to the development of currencies.  For instance, the cost of the material and making a $100 bill is the exact same as a $1 bill, yet the $100 bill is worth much more than the $1 bill.  Why is this?  Because humans view and value that $100 bill to be worth more than the $1 bill.  This concept of trust and value is essential to the development of currency.

Two other important questions I asked people involved how others view the necessity of currency.  The first question I asked people is whether they think “people might not believe in money”.  I only received two definitive yes’s.  What this means is that people still have faith in money.  The second question I asked is whether “money is essential to them”.  I received eight “very essential” answers and two “essential” answers.  This shows the need people have for money.  It is viewed as necessity.

My final question tested whether people would be willing to go to an extreme for a lot of money.  I used the “button in a box” scenario where the interviewee was asked whether they would be willing to push a button and kill a random person on the other side of the Earth for $100 million.  Not surprisingly, most people said no.  I had two that gave a definitive “yes” and one person said she’d probably think about it harder if the situation actually came up.  I do believe, though, that at least a couple of the “no” responders would consider pushing the button if actually put into this scenario.

What my short interview did was it looked a people’s perspective of money and the essential quality that money has.  Money is everywhere and in everything and the short interviews I did with ten people I think helped prove that.

Column1	When was money invented?	What turns an object into money?	Do you imagine a time in which people might not believe in money?	How essential is money to you?	The Box and 100 Million Dollars Question
Nick D.	Ancient-Egyptians	When an object has high value to a large amount of people	No. Never.	“I live on money so it's pretty essential”.	Yes (without hesitation).  You can so much more use to 100 million dollars than one life.
George G.	Early 1400's	Its condition and its value	Not in the United States.  Hyperinflation in other countries might lead people of those nations to not believe in money.	Very important.	Yes.  As long it was some random person.
Diane T.	Ancient-Egyptians	General Conesus recognizes something as having value	Yeah, money as a tangible item could go away.	Very essential.	No, I would feel horrible killing somebody. I would view it as blood money.
Kara S.	800 BC	When people demand a certain object	I don't think so	Very essential.	Nope
Ryan C.	1200's AD	Value to the person	No	Very essential.	No. it's not that valuable to me. I'll work for my money rather than kill someone for it.
Viviana M.	1800's AD	I guess government turns an object into money because they decide the form of currency used	No, there has always been some sort of exchange whether its goods and services or physical currency	Very, I need food, shelter and clothes	Depends, if I get to see who it is and their background or if I get to meet them definitely not but if I don't know who they are and would never find our anything about them, probably, people die every day and I could probably save a couple of lives donating some of that money.
Pete S.	Ancient Egyptians	The trust people have in it	only if the human race reverts back to a time where it is 'surviving' and not thriving	Very essential.	No, I wouldn’t push it.
Michelle F.	1840 AD	A machine	money will soon lose its value when all of our natural resources run out	I try not to think it’s essential, but it is in this time and area	No. I just don’t think a person’s life is worth a $100 million dollars
Jennie A.	600 BC	Giving value to it	No	Unfortunately, very essential	I like to think that I wouldn't but it would depend on the situation
Jim A.	5,000 BC	When something has value to it	No	Very essential.	No, I don't need $100 million.  I already make enough.