Money Has Magically Disappeared

We Americans, longtime world leaders in money-squandering, have been outdoing ourselves lately. We’ve been spending more and saving less than ever.

Economists explain this phenomenon by saying that the stock market has made us all feel wealthy. We no longer feel compelled to save for a rainy day because rain has been banished from the forecast. This is an excellent theory, despite the fact that it is, to use the Italian spelling, bologna.

I know the true reason we spend more: Money no longer exists.

Haven’t you noticed this? Money is not real anymore. Money is merely an electronic number that is generated somewhere in the ether, or more likely in some Mother ATM, which is probably in a 7-Eleven Store or maybe a Zip Trip. Money is theoretical, virtual, existing strictly on receipts and ATM slips, so that means we can spend and borrow as much as we want and it doesn’t make any difference. It sure works for me, and I’ll bet it works for you, too.

I, personally, have not seen any actual cash money since July 13, 1999. That was the day I had my car’s emissions tested. The Emissions Testing Facility takes nothing but cash, on the grounds that checks and credit cards might be convenient to taxpayers. So they are now the only entity in the entire U.S. that operates on a cash basis, except of course, crack dealers.

Everybody else operates the way I do, on Magic Money.

I have tracked my Magic Money through a typical month, and here’s how it works:

* I work at a job that does not pay me real money, but instead routes Magic Money into my bank account through something called direct deposit.

* When I want to buy groceries, I swipe my Magic Money Card (also known as an ATM/Debit/ACCEL/ Exchange/Interlink/PLUS/Cash Card) through the Magic Money box next to the check stand. That’s all I have to do. Then they give me a bunch of groceries. Theoretically, they are trading their groceries for some of my Magic Money, but no one really knows for sure.

* When I want to buy some necessities at The Bon, such as underwear labeled with each day of the week (so dressing myself won’t be so complicated), all I have to do is whip out my Magic Money VISA card. In essence, The Bon is trading their shorts for my - well, for nothing actually. For the promise that someday I will pay them some of my Magic Money.

* When I want to buy CDs the modern way, over the Internet, I don’t even need to show anyone my Magic Money VISA. I just have to type in the number of the card, and the expiration date. I always give them my real number and expiration date, but frankly, I have the feeling they don’t care. If they don’t get their Magic Money from me, they’ll get it from whoever’s number I randomly type in, and, let’s face it, it’s not like we’re talking about real money anyway.

* Then, when it comes time to pay my monthly bills, I merely have to authorize it through my electronic bill-paying program. The bank, or the Mother ATM, takes some of my pretend money out of my account and deposits it into the utility company’s pretend electronic account. If I don’t have enough Magic Money to pay my bills, who cares? I’ll just borrow against my Personal Line of Credit, or against my Home Equity account, or easiest of all, against my Magic Money VISA. They don’t even want me to pay that off.

Some of you might think this sounds too good to be true, but it actually works. I was talking to my broker this weekend - doesn’t everybody have a broker, or at least an e-broker, these days? - and I expressed some concern that I was spending more money than I actually have in my brokerage account. Wouldn’t that make me, to use an old-fashioned term, broke?

“No,” he said. “You’re just buying on margin.”

So I authorized him to spend even more money that I didn’t have because “buying on margin” sounded like a canny financial “play.”

Since the demise of real money, several exciting new categories of pretend money have sprung up, including one called the “stock option.” Many workers in the New Economy receive these in lieu of real money, or even in lieu of Magic Money, but it all works out the same. If you have a lot of “stock options,” then you are loaded with “paper wealth,” which is the only kind of wealth anybody has anyway.

I have known for years now that money had entered the realm of the mystical, but it came home to me with finality last week when I got a phone call from my mother in Colorado. After discussing the weather and the Colorado Rockies’ spring-training roster, she casually mentioned that she had just received “an overdraft notice for $18,000.”

I was alarmed, briefly, but after discussing it (“Mom, have you purchased any cars or trucks this week? Any yachts? None? Are you sure?”) I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t $18,000 of real money. It was just $18,000 of crazy electronic money in some wacky data bank, and it wasn’t a problem.

Sure enough, when the banks opened on Monday, she got the whole thing straightened out. The $18,000 had been incorrectly charged to her account and the bank even waived her $15 overdraft fee. They said it was an “electronic error.”

So where did that $18,000 in Magic Money come from? Where did it go? Who did it belong to? I’ll bet it didn’t belong to anyone at all. Yet somewhere in the financial ether, somewhere in this booming economy of ours, some American is spending that $18,000 anyway.

It’s Magic Money, for crying out loud. That’s what it’s for.