Letters & Opinion

How much is too much?

Image of Carlton Ishmael
By Carlton Ishmael

Without any monies falling from the sky or any new-found wealth through natural resources or economic means, or all salaries being increased across-the-board, still there is a national craze that seems to suggest that ‘We the People’ do have money.

Every service and commodity have seen the costs gone up. Maybe that is only a general perception since there are so many vehicles on the road, we are building bigger houses or spending more lavishly on material things. As a result, maybe there also seems to be a buzz to raise the price of everything.

To go to an entertainment show now costs $80-plus, so nobody wants to be paid by the day. It’s all about having a contract and or charging for the job. There are consultants’ fees for everything, legal fees, medical fees, license fees — everything has a price and every service provider is trying to make a hefty profit.

Every other person is now a businessman, everything is on sale, every street corner has a stall, every basement is a shop or supplier of some sort and despite all the services provided, the price is high on everything. So, if we want more to get more, we must either peddle something, or bluff someone, or deceive another — because that is how we’ve got to be.

So basically, the question is, where did that notion come from that we have more to spend? Is it just because banks are talking about making millions in profit annually and every other day is a new company opening, churches springing-up everywhere, new-and-old tire shops — and the city of Castries has 200 or more vendors every Saturday, people are buying and selling online and the buying and selling and dealing is having everyone pursuing wealth, nobody has enough and everybody wants more — and For the Love of Money and acquired wealth, people will do anything.

Some will kill for it, steal it or steal for it, lie for it, do whatever it takes to get more, just to have more — and plenty of people get shafted in the process.

Discontentment is now a chronic disease with which everybody is infected, the Rat Race has intensified, those at the top are bleeding those at the bottom — and the bottom half is striving desperately to get to the top.

In that process, the weak get trumped upon, the old get walked upon and the uneducated get a six-for-a-nine, so the quest is to get more by all means, regardless who you step on, as you seek to have more and head to the top.

At the very top, leaders are trying to get more, police make more arrests because the state needs more funds, more taxes are required so add it to the fuel price and call it a road tax, pay new insurance policies for medical needs, school children need to pay for all services, the bus drivers are looking for higher fees, the City Council is charging for pissing and parking and they are always looking for new cash-making methods.

We need more money for everything, and everyone wants more in their pockets and bank accounts.

But the biggest question of all is: When will we have enough and how much is enough? For some of us the more we have, the more we want, while others who just need enough to survive just cannot even get that little bit.

There is no easy answer because for some there is never enough and for others enough is only when there is no more to get. But if we consider just how dangerous it is to think that we can just continue like this, we will soon realize we are driving at full speed towards a dead end, so we have to pull brakes and watch where we’re going and how fast we are moving.

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