Hne yorku

$ Making Money $

Professor David Koffman

koffman@yorku.ca

Today’s Session:

About me

Mini-Lecture:

Do I Make Money or Does Money Make Me?

Go Over the Syllabus

Turn to the person next to you and discuss:

Do we live in a rich world

or a poor world?

“Rich” and “Poor” are also metaphors:

Poor: without, low quality, substandard, deficient, deserving of pity (poor Jack broke his arm). from Middle English Pauper

Rich: abundance (of wealth, but also immaterial possessions or qualities), often power, rare, prized, valuable, deep, warm, full, nourishing, good or large quantity or quality, from Old English and Germanic: powerful, wealthy.

TURN OFF YOUR PHONES

1. About Me.

My background

This course

My early memories about $

2. Do I make Money or Does Money Make Me?

People are shaped by ideas about money:

From childhood

From culture & society

We are far from perfectly rational about money

Money is personal, intensely intimate, as well as abstract

Traditional Definition of $

medium of exchange

unit of account

store of value

This describes function of money, not what it is. It doesn’t account for interpretation of meaning

To the basic definition, we’ll add (#4):

Money is a symbol of value:

Represents something else

Abstraction from the thing that is represents

Value is importance, worth

Your readings on “Moneygrams”

deeply subconscious scripts about money and the world, your relationship to it…

and the impact of these scripts on your adult behavior:

A psychological study based on over 500 people doing 2 interviews, one on childhood memories of parental beliefs, a second on money pathologies.

Findings: chief factor was about “money secrecy”:

the less your parents told you about it – what they earned, if they were in debt, etc., the more likely you are to exhibit a money pathology in adulthood.

Curiously: for women, higher family secrecy, more likely to compensate with hoarding.

In the mind, money as:

report card on life (not unlike grades)

measure of your self-worth as a person

tool for exercising power over others

source of safety

site of respectability: how much they have, whether it’s earned or inherited, etc..

3 Money Disorders

1. Money Avoidance Disorders

Financial Denial

Financial Rejection

Overspending

Excessive Risk Aversion

2. Money-Worshiping Disorders

Hoarding

Compulsive Buying

Pathological Gambling

Workaholism

3. Relational Money Disorders

Financial Infidelity

Financial Enabling

Financial Incest

Do you have a “money disorder”?

www.YourMentalWealth.com

use code: mind over money

The Constituencies of Identity:

Class

Ethnicity

Religion

Gender

Age

SYLLBUS

$

Your TAs, Tutorials. Starting this afternoon

Basic Argument of the Course:

See money as something alive, changing, adapting, being born, dying, used by humans.

Money shapes all aspects of our lives.

Shapes our relationships

Money shapes all aspects of our societies.

MONEY IS NOT A SINGLE “THING”

Aims of the Course:

Intellectual growth

Skill development

Acclimate to University life

Tutorials:

Thursdays 2:30 – 3:30

1. Kevin Guertin MC 101 kguertin@yorku.ca 4 – 5pm, Vari Hall 2187

2. Golaleh Pashmforoosh FC 202 golaleh@yorku.ca 12:40-1:40pm, Vari Hall 2195

3. Jason Chartrand: FC 114 jason127@yorku.ca 1 – 2pm, Vari Hall 2187

4. Patrice Allen: R S801 pallen10@yorku.ca 12:30-1:30pm, 321 York Lanes.

5. Chris Vogel: VC 107A cdvogel@yorku.ca 1 - 2pm, Vari Hall 2187

6. Alex Hughes: TEL1004 hughesa@yorku.ca 4 – 5pm, Vari Hall 2195

Thursdays 5:30 – 6:50:

7. Kevin Guertin: R S801 kguertin@yorku.ca 4 – 5 pm, Vari Hall 2187

8. Golaleh Pashmforoosh: HNE 104 golaleh@yorku.ca 12:40-1:40, Vari Hall 2195

9. Jason Chartrand: MC101 jason127@yorku.ca 1 – 2pm, Vari Hall 2187

10. Patrice Allen: HNE B11 pallen10@yorku.ca 12:30-1:30pm, 321 York Lanes.

11. Chris Vogel: TEL 0011 cdvogel@yorku.ca 1 - 2pm, Vari Hall 2187

12. Alex Hughes: VH 3005 hughesa@yorku.ca 4 – 5pm, Vari Hall 2195