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We live in a world of paradoxes and in order for us to be creative with our thinking and behaviour we must understand the paradoxes we face every day. In the field of economics, for example, we know that the fundamental role of money is the exchange for goods and services, on the other hand we also use money to make money and in so doing we create 'bubbles' or distortions in the economic system with the related changing of values of our stocks in the financial markets.

Our traditional economists state that these bubbles are engines for economic growth, but our new economists purport that knowledge has become a better engine for economic growth. Where is the truth? I don't know, but I tell my sons "get your freedom through education" and you are going to be at peace with yourselves. And in one way I tell them "don't make a gamble of your life, just create your own life."

Where does all the money go today? I just want you to think that since 1980, according to a McKinsey study, the financial assets of the world's largest economies have been growing at two to three times the rate of growth in gross domestic product(1).

Understanding money is important, but people's lives are more important than making money out of money.

Endnotes

1. The Difference Between Money &Wealth. How out-of-control speculation is destroying real wealth, by David Korten http://iisd.ca/pcdf/1999/wealth.htm