gnucash 1.6.1 questions

[Robert A. Uhl]

On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 07:17:04AM -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
> 

> I don't use a new feature, and just wanted to know how to avoid
> it. So the discussion of why we should or should not use that new
> feature must be OT for the list, as interesting (to me, at least),
> as it may be.

To avoid it, just dump all your expenses into one account.  I disagree
that the why of using it is off-topic; accounting is a science, and
double-entry one of its tools.  I think that there is a definite
benefit to the user of realising why exactly it is such a valuable
tool, and why the effort to learn it pays off very quickly.

> The gist of what I've been suggesting as I enter these off list
> dialogs is that the feature implies a particular model of behavior
> that I tried to suggest was not universal, but rather associated with
> the so-called "middle class" and capitalist ideology. But I don't even
> think much of the middle class actually behaves in terms of such a
> model.

The manner of thinking is, as you suggest, most definitely _not_
universal.  But perhaps it should be.  There are cultures in the South
Pacific which have not yet figured out that sex leads to children;
likewise, there are many people who do not recognise that money is a
resource, that their own labour is a resource, and that they sell one
for the other on a daily basis.

As I pointed out in a private email, the Rennaissance was fueled in
great part by the invention of double-entry bookkeeping.  The sudden
burst of resources thereby realised made possible one of the greatest
outpourings of art, poetry, literature, sculpture and culture in
mankind's history.  In my own adventures I have found that double
entry has had a beneficial effect on my finances.  There have been
other factors--such as a great job--but even when I was a poorly-paid
work study student (minimum wage for no more than 10 hours a week), I
somehow managed to struggle through.

> The issue is not whether or not we try to be sensible about how we
> spend money, but whether we as individuals define our needs or whether
> it is our peers that define them; also, are the needs individual, or
> are they really social objectives? While there are no simple answers
> to such questions, and they have been debated now in Western circles
> for two centuries, it is the implicit behavioral model associated with
> categories of income and expenditure necessary to achive optimal
> economic outcomes that implies a rigid behavioral model that
> unrealistic for most people.

It is also important to recognise that which has _not_ been recognised
by many folks who believe themselves financially able; you touch on it
here.  What _is_ an optimal economic outcome?  There's an optimal
financial outcome: one lives in the absolute cheapest part of town,
buys only at thrift stores, begs for money in one's off-hours,
rummages for food in dumpsters &c.  But this not an optimal overall
outcome.  It's important to recognise that we all place a value on the
things we have.  I might decide to trade some sum of money for mroe
free time.  I might even spend more money in that free time.  While
financially foolish, this might be an excellent outcome for me.  The
hidden part of any economic equation is personal evaluation.  I am
willing to allocate 1.2% of my expenditures to pipes & pipe tobacco
because they're worth it to me.  My father wouldn't allocate as much
as .00001% to them.

We as individuals _do_ define our needs; our peers may only suggest.
Some of us do without cars--I cannot imagine living without one.  Some
of us do without cable, as I do--my friends find this unimaginable.

The point is that one cannot allow others to define one's needs.

If anything, I doubt that the middle class _does_ as a matter of
course watch its finances that closely.  I imagine that most people
see it as a simple income/expense matter.  It's the folks who delve
more deeply into matters who end up joining the upper class.

-- 
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>

The power of Satan is as nothing before the might of the Lord, so don't
go getting any ideas.                             --I Abyssinians 20:20