By Steve Knowles
There has been so much talk about the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ faced by the US this past week, and it got me thinking about the movie ‘Miracle on 34th Street’, watched every Christmas in our house.
Let me remind you of the premise of the story… It revolves around the question of whether Father Christmas exists or not, and culminates in a court case in which the basis of the argument is faith. A quote from the movie is…
“Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to.”
During the proceedings the defense brings out a dollar bill and shows the court the wording thereon: ‘In God we Trust’. The argument being that we can’t see God but we believe he exists, and the USA bases it currency on Him, therefore, why can’t that faith be applied to Santa?
My thoughts then turned to the UK currency and the fact that we have on our bills: ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of twenty pounds’, or whatever denomination it may be. This, in fact, means our whole economy is based on faith. We believe, or rather trust, that the person or business we hand our piece of paper to will supply goods and services to the value of that paper. It isn’t actually worth anything unless the promise is kept.
In the modern world actually this trust is in an electrical impulse on a hard drive on a server somewhere, anywhere in the world. Let’s hope nobody turns the switch off!
Related articles:
