Steve, you said that finances, or money, influences what happens in politics.

Absolutely.

Explain exactly what you mean.

Well, it’s a tricky answer. I liken it to squeezing fish. There’s corruption everywhere. It’s all over. It’s up and down. It’s as far away as the other side of the world and as close as your newspaper. And you start to squeeze the fish and some of them start popping out, but in fact all the fish are slimy and it’s just luck as to which one you’re going to try to scrutinize at that moment.

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You seem to have a basic assumption that money and corruption, wealth and corruption go hand in hand, that anybody who has money will influence the political process in a somewhat corrupt way, for his own benefit.

Yeah. I mean that is why we have money. It helps us insulate ourselves from the world. I mean it allows us to build houses, build walls, build governments; and just keep ourselves in a safe position. That seems to me an honest statement.

But what makes you think that everybody with money is corrupt?

I don’t think that they’re any more corrupt than anyone else is; but the more money you have the more corruption you’re able to do. So everybody is kind of on a downward spiral nowadays, but the wealthy people can really bring us down… I mean the way we’re spending our money nowadays is not beneficial to the planet. We’re just not consuming in a sensible way…. It’s just human nature to want to do this, and the trick is is to change human nature so we can actually get by with less. All of us. We can learn to just have more joy with less stuff. And I think that those two kind of go hand-in-hand anyways.

Yeah, but the only person who will ever say that is somebody who has less. Somebody who has built a life for themselves, an affluent lifestyle, will never make that statement. It’s easy to say when you don’t have money.

Well I’m constantly trying – and I know people too who are trying – to just have less stuff in their lives. And who knows, maybe I could be more successful, maybe there’s a way that I’m not tapping in to; but I don’t think I really want it sometimes. A lot of times I just don’t want to have, you know, all that stuff flowing through me. I don’t mind minimalism. I don’t mind having less.

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Contrary to popular slogans, money can, to a certain degree, buy happiness…

What they want more than money is security. I think that that’s more important to them.

Well, you’re taking the words right out of my mouth, Steve. I like having money because it gives me security. Money, to me, means I don’t have to worry about money.

And it also means that you don’t have to worry about a sloppy government.