It has long been observed that when folks have no clue how something works it is indistinguishable from magic. This is even true of things someone may know how to operate, like a car or a computer or a cellphone. Both the number of things and the number of people that describes is growing faster than the universe is expanding.
One area of concern is the deep ignorance around money, what it is and how it works. Once upon a time money was needed to buy goods and services. Now credit, accessed on cards, cellphones and computers, has so abstracted money that it is intangible, reduced to an ephemeral concept. Similarly, money as a reward for work or services has not only been reduced to a concept, the bond between work delivered and monetary compensation has been obliterated. Pay, or whatever it should now be called, is an entitlement, a divine right, like cable TV. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the expanding corps of government employees, and within that cohort none are more bedazzled about all things money than teachers.
This isn't just about teachers who whine about low pay and demand raises. It is more than an intellectual moat between the concept of work for hire, it is complete, perhaps willful ignorance of what money actually is, how it is created, how it is managed and how it serves the economy and the greater good. Instead, they put their faith in Froggy's magic twanger.
They demand raises about as often as they exhale with the money plunking down by magic. A couple more plunks on the magic twanger and all DCSD HVAC systems are not only brand spanking new they are upgraded with the latest anti-virus technology. Plunk again and foam-in, foam-out hand wash stations appear as if by magic. For these folk money has always been an abstraction. Their pay is based on endurance, not accomplishment explaining why merit is never even measured. The more they inhale, the more they exhale, the more they expect to be paid. They cannot comprehend a world where a raise is earned because it is not a world they have ever encountered. And they've never worked for an organization that had to compete for customers' money, so it may be excused as trickle-down entitlement.
But there is no Froggy. There is no magic twanger. And money doesn't just "plunk" into your account and it doesn't matter if that account is held by an individual or an organization. There is really no magic.
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