Money Money Money

For reasons known only to myself, I had to withdraw and exchange quite a lot of cash over the past few days. It is surprising how bulky real money is. I suppose only post office and bank workers, shop cashiers and bank robbers really have experience of large amounts of cash money, the rest being electronic or plastic and therefore not real money at all (as any banker knows). So here is a picture of just over £2000

"I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of XX pounds". In what, it does not say
And this what it looks like in $$$$$

"This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private". "In God we trust" (no-one else is going to help you out)

And it makes your hands smell (new or used), which is possibly a comment on the capitalist system.
And of course, even cash like this has no real value if there is no confidence in the system.

In brass it might look about 4 times this

Or even a proportion of this

It's whatever people will accept in exchange for goods and services.

We have just had the results of Job Evaluation (see picture above), a supposedly rational and objective assessment of jobs not people. Except some evaluations are 2 years out of date, some seem totally irrational (mine, for instance), some have cut (or increased)people's salaries by nearly 1/3. What it hasn't done is improve morale: aside from those who have done well, there are many who, although staying on the same band, and therefore appearing neutral, have moved down (or up, to be fair) several points on the scale, which can amount to a couple of 1000s a year. And the people at the very top have a different system of evaluation altogether which involves only "know how", "problem solving", "accountability", and "bluffing"(apparently) above point 58 which is stratospheric from where I stand. Well there's a surprise. It's all going to end in tears