time for money, money for time

I have two kids, 16 and 20 years old. My third child will see the light of the world in December this year. My oldest boy currently took a year of, went to Japan and currently lives in Australia. He ask me, what to do after graduate school. I told him, to find a job, which is currently complicated for robots to take off. My youngest girl still has three years in school, but she is also thinking about the time after graduation.

As they think about their future, I think about what kind of world I will leave for them.

Every being has a limited amount of time on this planet. Time is the only true currency, we have in our lives. As we think of currency we often hear the sentence.

Time is money.

I think the opposite is also true.

Money is time.

Let’s take a few thoughts.

In the first days of humanity, a human bridges long distances by foot. Formerly we used horse-drawn carriages, later on cars, trains and planes. We became comfortable over the time.

I sold my car in 2002. Since then, I used public transport and my bicycle. In 2016, I bought a navigation device, which recorded my kilometers over time. I cycled about 6800 kilometers since recording.

In my thoughts, being physical active, means more time on this planet for me. A human body should be in motion as much as possible, so that the body is healthy till the old age. Of course, a motorist can also get old, but the quality of live is greater in a healthy body.

So what I did in fact is to spend money on a bicycle and get time in the end.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, work is still hard. The mortality rate has decreased but is still at a high rate. Labour unions have helped to shape working life as we know it today. But how does the working live looks like in a few decades?

In the industrialized world, many workers have a 40 hours week with a weekend off. They change time for money. They use this money for their daily live. They pay their rent, buy their food, pay for child care or going on vacation. At the end of the day there is some money left, to save for bad times. After a hard working live you get your well-erned pension.

This is how it works today, but the world is in motion.

The automation rate grows at an exponential growth. There is less work for the whole population. Less workers means less people who funds the current pensions. So, who buys all the stuff, which the companies are producing? If the automation rate grows at the current rate, this will become a social problem. The richer are becoming richer, and the poorer are becoming poorer. The middle class is shrinking and it is a matter of time, until the system will collapse.

Today I pay into the pension fund. My father and other pensioners get paid from it. I doubt, that this will work for me, when I come into the pensioners age, although my children and other people children will pay into it. How can I tell my children, they will have a good live, when I doubt so? How can I change my money back into time? What needs to be changed so that my children have a future again?

Becoming rich isn’t a solution, because the system will collapse at some time. Working all day long will let your body collapse at some point.

What is a fair exchange for money and time? What is fair for descendants?

I think it’s a global problem, so there has to be a global solution. As it is often so, there exists more than one solution.

What will be yours?