Money and Fame

... and once again time has slipped away without any updates. Mostly because I'm a bit stressed out about not having a job, a re-exam in macroeconomics this friday (which I haven't study enough... or any at all) and the sociology course is coming to an end, and with it my financial backing from the state (which I try to fix with getting a public job... seems like I always will be living on society). So to take my thoughts away from this stressful situation, lets see what's out in the news...

... Apparently the topic is money which isn't that hard to grasp why, but one is interesting while one is completely ridiculous, then I will let you guess which one is what. We begin with The Forbes list of the 15 richest fictional characters. An interesting article which is a bit fun, especially if you read how they calculated some of the fortunes, like Smaugs. I recommend reading the comments, it's pretty funny how people argue that the wealth is estimated to low and some even calculate alternative estimations. That's hard core fantasy geeks (in a positive and admirable way). If we look to # 1 everyone seems to agree that Scrooge McDuck is the right person (duck?) on the spot. What most people complain with on the other hand is that either his wealth is to low (which is understandable), and then we have the swedish comment in Aftonbladet where the biggest complaint is, if McDuck is # 1, why isn't Rockerduck or Glomgold number 2 and 3 since they loses just slightly against McDuck? Valid questions in a way, but you can always argue what importance this actually has in the world.

The other one is just a swedish thing. Last week the news break that the Swedish Riksbank are scheduled to change our currency in 2013-2014 with all new motives. Of course, due to my conservative nature in these questions I'm pretty much against it. The debate anyway has reigned all week, from people arguing that the new motifs are a sign on the loss of history since every single person is from the 20th century. All kings are gone and it's only culture personalities with one exception, Dag Hammarskjöld who's mostly recognized as a diplomat. Also it's 50/50 spread on man/woman ratio and people finally got Astrid Lindgren on the 20 SEK bill. So is that enough? No,, apparently the bright head politician from the Liberal women union (or whatever it's called) started counting the value of the bills and came to the conclusion that the men had a higher value (since we have the 1000 SEK bill) and this was taken as a proof of the patriarchal domination over women. The reaction was as expected, she was labeled as a nutcase more or less. The comments also gave valid reasons for why this was pure insanity, citing that the most used bills have a women on them (seriously I have only have hold a 1000 SEK bill once in my hand), the estimated total value of the printed money will favor the women (as they have the 20, 100 and 500 SEK bills, the 20 mostly circulated and at the moment the ATM only give our 100 and 500 SEK bills). Also some counter article was published easily debunk her arguments. Those this stop her? No, she post another article, proving that she somehow lives in a world far from reality and arguing against nonsensical symbolic questions without any impact on everyday life instead of real problems.

Now, can you guess which one was the most interesting and which one which was completely ridicules? If you guessed the fictional wealth as the most interesting one as well as the widest of the two you where correct, and for those who felt that it contained to little women on that list, they also had an article describing that problem as well. See, with this we covered more fields and actually made us discuss why women doesn't even excel in fiction, instead of how this politician tried to create a debate on patriarchal evil. Also, that article about the Swedish bills will demonstrate to everyone why I don't label myself as a feminist, I prefer equality advocate since it's not as damaged by that kind of people or rhetoric. And that they appears as just plain silly in my eyes.