“Breaking Bad” – the title is a Southern phrase for going wild – is a TV show about the world’s nutttiest midlife crisis: 50-year-old Albuquerque high-school chemistry teacher Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) finds out he has terminal lung cancer and starts making crystal meth, hoping to leave behind a nest egg for his son and pregnant wife. After teaming up with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a burnout student he once flunked, they conspire to confect the purest, most coveted meth that New Mexico has ever seen. With the death penalty of his diagnosis looming, Walt wakes from the slumber of an unfulfilling life, evolving from slothful drip to reluctant part-time criminal, then gradually to something worse: from “Mr. Chips to Scarface.”

How did he get where he is?  On this front, the show seems to be making a statement of sorts about the failed American dream.  As a teacher presumably making relatively little money, Walter had to take a second job just to provide for his family.  As a citizen, he shouldn’t have had to decide between cancer treatment and the well-being of his family. People usually deal with these obstacles in other ways, usually by racking up more debt and burdening their families. But Walt resists. He uses whatever agency he has to die on his own terms. Because the stakes of drug trafficking firmly places him so far outside the status quo, because our hero is a criminal, we might ask ourselves, if playing by the rules only gets you so far, why bother? Breaking Bad dismisses the idea that your blue-collar job will provide for you, that, if needed, the State will, too, and that doing the right thing will be its own substantive reward. It  does this without moralizing or assigning blame, but it does work to disabuse us of these little fallacies.

The “Breaking Bad” story is told with elements that feel vaguely familiar to us; felonious dad copes with stress of work and family, cue the complications.  It features an anti-hero, moral ambiguity, and themes related to the economic collapse. The show has a dark wit and a cast of characters who are somehow both realistic and cartoonish, and certainly unpredictable. On the surface, the show is about drugs, and about organized crime, and, of course, about money. But the deeper you get (and Walter takes us very very deep) the more the series began to feels less a story about thugs than one about intellectual arrogance. Walter wants to be the best: he doesn’t care what he’s the best at, he just wants to be the best (a very rare thing, as he once says to Jessie)  And Walter’s pretty good at a lot of bad things: betraying his partners, lying to his friends, and—of course—making the country’s finest crystal meth. His pride in being the perfect meth cook seems more important to him than the money (or the violence). And if anyone ever questions his credentials, he has the stacks of dirty money and the ridiculously pure product to prove his superiority.

Walter’s interest in money isn’t about actual value anway; it’s the validation that the money represents that he craves so badly. It seems obvious to say that an aspiring drug kingpin who says he’s in the “empire business” is interested in making a lot of money, and there are many funny scenes of Walter parsing the details of percentages and cuts etc.. Currency defines each of Walter’s relationships, from his unsuccessful attempt to bribe Jesse, to the money laundering that has turned his marriage into an unpleasant business partnership, even to his problematic relationship with his son, which he attempts to fix….with money.  If it’s not about money, what is it about?

So the arc of the story is Walter progressing from unassuming shlub to opportunistic gangster, and as he does so, the show seems to be daring us to excuse him, or find a moral line that we deem a point of no return (and there are a lot of moral lines drawn.)  When your lead character has a terminal illness, then gets ushered into the criminal underworld and embroiled in ever bolder and more ambitious criminal plans…well, then you have a lead character rushing headlong toward the ultimate change – from being alive to being dead.  As the seasons progress, Walt makes more and more unjustifiable choices, each one changing him, with healthy dollops of his abundant arrogance and egotism thrown in.

But can you just go from being a law-abiding chemistry teacher to an underground meth cooker? Can Walter just start breaking the law after living a life in which laws were always obeyed, and embrace a criminal lifestyle like he’s joining a club? Breaking Bad plays to the craving in every “good” man for a secret life (although it doesn’t make Walt a mere rule-breaker, highlighting instead his more repulsive qualities: his coldness, egotism, and self-pity). The show seems to be saying yes, yes you can, that someone can simply decide to morph from a good person into a bad person, that your basic nature won’t stop you, that completing this conversion is eminently doable. You can just “break bad”,  because goodness and badness are simply choices, complicated ones to be sure, but no different than anything else.

‘Dollar bills, pound notes, they’re suicide notes. Money is a suicide note.’ So says John Self, the “hero” of Money: A Suicide Note, and what he apparently means is that money is destroying him. Self-destruction (along with several of its closest hyphenated pals: indulgence, interest, loathing) has become Self’s hobby, what he does in his spare time, and what he spends his money on. It’s money’s fault, too, that this is what he spends his money on. It’s money’s fault that he hasn’t got anything better to do with his spare time.

Money is a satire that blasts away at our consumer culture, a monument to eighties excess.  It’s a novel set in the summer of 1981 – the royal wedding plays out in the background – and John Self is an obscenely successful director of TV commercials who jets between London and New York. His first feature film, loosely autobiographical, is in development. Having made a small fortune from using images of scantily clad women to sell junk food, Self now plans to make a large fortune on the big screen, under the guidance of his producer.  Martin Amis’s narrator is obese, junk-guzzling, alcoholic, chainsmoking, pill-popping, and has rotting teeth, tinnitus and a sketchy heart. His appetites know no bounds and he has no self-control. When in New York, he divides his free time between strip joints, brothels, bars, computer game arcades and fast-food outlets. In London, it’s the pub or the kebab shop or the porn emporium or the bookie’s. He’s the embodiment of 1980s greed, when monetary value was the only value.

So overall, he is pretty intolerable company, both to the other characters in the novel and to us, its dear readers. But John Self has one redeeming feature: he’s funny. Funny enough to explain why people would spend time with him (though he thinks it’s because of his money), and funny enough to make his ranting and raving against everyone and everything, his tales of depravity and humiliation….not enjoyable, exactly, but compulsive reading.  Yeah….I can’t say Money was a pleasure to read, any more than i could say that John Self seems to get any real pleasure out of his massive intake of smoke, food and drink.  Wait, i forgot to mention masterbation.

So that’s the book, really.  We have John Self, admitted loser, with nothing much to like about him, an irresponsible buffoon with an addiction to porn and prostitutes. Buuuuut….again, he’s got money, and as he waits for the financing of his next film to come together, he makes London and New York his sinful playgrounds,  leaving a shambled trail of self-destruction in his wake. Over the course of his bizarre journey, John shares his thoughts and philosophy on the intricacies of life: life according to John Self, a drunk shithead with money: whoopee. Really, any semblance of plot or story plays second fiddle to his reflections, which propel the story from one mishap to the next.

Did I say plot?  Probably not intentionally. The, uh, “plot” is about Self’s efforts to get a movie made, a movie based on his life (oh wait i did mention that) but at about page ten, you just knoooow that movie’s never gonna get made. The first hundred or so pages can easily be skipped without missing anything of significance. The characters are all stereotypes, phonies, and it’s not that necessary to keep track of the names.  Then, about halfway through the book, an odd thing happens. The protagonist changes from being an utterly disgusting drunk to a somewhat sympathetic drunk (but he still manages to offend everyone.) There are subplots of a mysterious death threat against him and even a hit contract taken out on him, but neither of those threads eventually amount to much. After progressing at a snail’s pace with frequent descriptions of the sky, the plot suddenly thickens in a jumble, then drags on for too long. Will he kill himself or not? Enough already.

It was an effort to read this book. It’s witty, it’s dark, sometimes funny, often disturbing, definitely well-written. Amis is writer who paints scenes with remarkable clarity. But a tedious violent drunk is a tedious violent drunk, whether that’s in real life, on a screen or on a page, and John Self just did a number on me. And that’s the problem with Money. The first hundred pages of the novel depict him getting drunk and being an oaf over and over, pretty much dispensing with a plot in favor of – what? analysis? – but Self getting trashed and being as offensive as imaginable, then doing the same thing again and again through 363 pages of threadbare plot, provides no great insight into character. There’s a running joke about pigs, but I, uh, already got it. He’s a pig.

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Hieronymus Bosch (1450 – 1516), a Dutch artist of the Late Gothic style known as the northern counterpart of the Early Renaissance, was a painter who depicted religious motifs, with a strong inclination towards satire, pessimistic comment and the torments of hell.  Death and the Miser, as lighthearted as it sounds, is the inside of the right panel of a divided triptych that Bosch painted in 1490, an oil on panel measuring three feet by one foot. It is constructed using muted tones that give the composition a look almost like grisaille, a method of painting in gray monochrome typically used to imitate sculpture; browns, greens and reds with, curiously, some of the underdrawing still visible (in the form of perspective lines.) A depiction of the inevitability of death, Death  is a moral tale and a warning to anyone who has grabbed at life’s pleasures without being sufficiently detached and prepared  to die.  It belongs in general to the tradition of the memento mori, works that remind the viewer of death and that are intended to help Christians choose Christ over sinful pleasures; in particular the scenes here reflect a popular fifteenth-century devotional work, the Ars Moriendi or Craft of Dying. This curious little handbook describes how a dying man is exposed to a series of temptations by demons clustered around his bed and how, each time, an angel consoles him and strengthens him in his final agony.  In the book, the angel is ultimately successful and the soul is carried victoriously to Heaven as the devils howl in despair below.  In Bosch’s painting the resolution of the struggle is far from certain. An opened money chest can be seen at the foot of the bed, where an elderly man, perhaps the miser at a younger age, places a gold piece into a bag held by a demon. He seems little concerned with the rosary hanging from his waist. As Death looms, the miser, on his bed and unable to resist worldly temptations, reaches for a bag of gold offered by a demon, even while his guardian angel tries to draw his attention to a crucifix from which a slender beam of light descends.

These are likely references to dichotomous modes of life. The thin ray of light directed down to the bottom of the large room (from the only, small window) perhaps indicates that God has not yet forsaken the miser and still offers him the promise of salvation if he would but abandon his attachment to transitory wealth.  A second demon, holding an ember, lurks over the dying man, waiting for his hour. Death is dressed in flowing robes that may be a subtle allusion to a prostitute’s garb. The arrow he holds is aimed at the miser’s groin, which indicates that the dying man suffers from a venereal disease, which itself may be associated with a love of earthly pleasures.

In the foreground, Bosch possibly depicts the miser as he was previously, in full health, storing gold in his money chest while clutching his rosary. Symbols of worldly power such as a helmet, sword and shield allude to earthly follies — and hint at the station held by this man during his life, though his final struggle is one he must undergo naked, without arms or armor. The depiction of such still-life objects to symbolize earthly vanity, transience or decay would become a genre in itself among 17th-century Flemish artists. Whether or not the miser, in his last moments, will embrace the salvation offered by Christ or cling to his worldly riches, is left uncertain.The battle of angels and devils for the soul of the dying man goes on.

Good times! This work is infused with all the fragrant fear of hell that haunted the medieval mind. We’re here to witness the dying moments in the life of this miser, and it’s crunch time clearly: eternal peace or avarice?  Again, skeletal death, with lancing arrow, has just entered stage left, but the naked man, the miser on the bed, persists in his foolishness, even at the moment of his death.  For the love of money….

In September of 2009, 14.4% of all outstanding U.S. mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure. Today, the picture is considerably different and considerably brighter. Figures released in May indicate that only   6.08% of mortgages were delinquent and 3.05% of mortgages in foreclosure, down from 4.12% in May 2012. This gives a total of 9.13% delinquent or in foreclosure, or a total of ​​4,469,000, down again from 5,605,000 the previous year, and the national delinquency rate continued to fall in May, marking the largest year-to-date drop since 2002.  In large part, this is due to the continuing decline in new problem loans — as fewer problem loans are coming into the system, the existing inventories are working their way through the pipeline. New problem loan rates are now at just 0.73 percent, which is right about on par with the annual averages during 2005 and 2006, and extremely close to the 0.55 percent average for the 2000-2004 period preceding. So, on most counts, the housing market is in much better shape than it was four years ago. Prices have stabilized, as the huge decline in home prices, a virtual freefall, that started in the middle of the last decade has now arrested. Homeownership affordability has improved, because even though prices are nearly back to their January 2009 level, mortgage rates have fallen.  Vacancies and inventory are also getting back to normal; back then, there were too many vacant homes and way too much inventory – thanks to the surplus of new homes that were built but not sold during the bubble and the lack of buyers during the recession. Since 2009, this glut of available, vacant homes has been absorbed, as fewer newly constructed homes have come onto the market and fewer foreclosed homes are waiting to be sold. Lastly, delinquencies have slowed, even though foreclosures remain high. As the job market picks up, fewer people are falling behind on their mortgages.  Having said all that, big challenges and questions remain, but the situation is markedly improved from 2009.

Familiar elements of the housing crisis will now be briefly explained:

The Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP):  A government program created for the establishment and management of a Treasury fund, in an attempt to curb the ongoing financial crisis of 2007-2008. The TARP gives the U.S. Treasury purchasing power of $700 billion to buy up mortgage backed securities from institutions across the country, in an attempt to create liquidity and un-seize the money markets.

Adjustable-rate mortgage: A type of mortgage in which the interest rate paid on the outstanding balance varies according to a specific benchmark. The initial interest rate is normally fixed for a period of time after which it is reset periodically, often every month. The interest rate paid by the borrower will be based on a benchmark plus an additional spread, called an ARM margin.

Subprime Mortgage: A type of mortgage that is normally made out to borrowers with lower credit ratings. As a result of the borrower’s lowered credit rating, a conventional mortgage is not offered because the lender views the borrower as having a larger-than-average risk of defaulting on the loan. Lending institutions often charge interest on subprime mortgages at a rate that is higher than a conventional mortgage in order to compensate themselves for carrying more risk.

Investment Banks: A specific division of banking related to the creation of capital for other companies. Investment banks underwrite new debt and equity securities for all types of corporations. Investment banks also provide guidance to issuers regarding the issue and placement of stock.

Collateralized Debt Obligations: Investment-grade securities backed by a pool of bonds, loans and other assets. A financial institution, such as a bank, will purchase these CDOs and divide them into tranches, or pieces of the CDO that are grouped according to risk and are available for purchase. Tranches are then sold to investors based on their desired amount of risk, with a higher risk tranche paying out a higher premium.

Credit Default Swaps: A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties. A credit default swap is also referred to as a credit derivative contract, where the purchaser of the swap makes payments up until the maturity date of a contract. Payments are made to the seller of the swap. In return, the seller agrees to pay off a third party debt if this party defaults on the loan. A CDS is considered insurance against non-payment, as a buyer of a CDS might be speculating on the possibility that the third party will indeed default.

In interviewing ten people about money my first question was when was money invented, and it quickly became clear that nobody, uh, knows, including members of my family who possess advanced degrees.  Which is not to say that I didn’t get some educated guesses, because educated people are loathe to admit that they don’t know something.  Most answered, sensibly enough, that money was invented by the ancient romans, greeks, or chinese, and that it probably evolved from peoples annoyance with the whole exchanging of goods thing.  But nobody had a clue when it was invented. Similarly, when I asked what turns an object into money – and to a person they all picked up the object closest to them, held it out and repeated the question as if that would help them make sense of it (right!) the almost universal answer was that what turns an object into money is the value attached to it.  And who assigns the value?  Blank stares.  Ummm….society?  Ok let’s move on.  As for the question do they imagine a time in which people might not believe in money, I received quizzical looks, but several respondents tentatively said well, haven’t there been several instances in recent times when you could posit that (if i understand your question).  They cited, for just one example, the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 (and I’ll fill in the details now) which reduced, for one, the Indonesian rupiah’s value by over 80% in a few months (and was a major factor in the overthrow of President Suharto’s government). The rupiah had traded at about 2000–3000 rupiah per 1 USD, but reached a low of 16,800 rupiah per dollar in June 1998. The currency, which had been relatively stable in prior years, had its value destroyed. The government did not take any action to demonetise or revalue the banknotes. Others pointed to citizens of formerly communist countries, which required that all means of production be controlled by the state and no one could own his own business or produce his own goods, because the state owned everything.  So the belief in the value of money was probably not a prevalent one.  And the rest answered no, no of course not…..dumbass.  (Since nobody could answer the first question – I will!   After ancient people got past that annoying bartering and commodities thing, metal objects were introduced as money around 5000 B.C. By 700 BC, the Lydians (who?) became the first in the Western world to make coins. Countries were soon minting their own series of coins with specific values. Metal was used because it was readily available, easy to work with and could be recycled. Since coins were given a certain value, it became easier to compare the cost of items people wanted. Some of the earliest known paper money dates back to China, where the issue of paper money became common from about AD 960 onwards.  There now you know.

The first of my own questions, and I asked because this is something I’ve considered many times over the  years, is what would you do if you woke up one morning and there was $100 million (just seems like the perfect goldilocks number, not too warm not too cold)  in your bank account?  The answers were all a variation on the theme of separating yourself from society at large, creating distance and barriers, constructing a virtual moat so, basically, you don’t have to put up with anybody’s s–t anymore. Quit your job, cloister yourelf in that huge house on the hill, rent the private rooms at the clubs….and of course fly first class everywhere.  Richard Seaford points out in Money and the Early Greek Mind that money transformed social relations and contributed to the individual becoming alienated from his own kin and from the gods, as found in tragedy.  He mentions similar effects of money when he says that its possession renders unnecessary in principle all pre-monetary forms of social relationship: reciprocity, redistribution, kinship, ritual, and so on. Money “allows you to fulfill all your needs. It provides the power to increase itself. And it tends to promote predatory isolation. Hence the focus of much Athenian tragedy on the extreme isolation of the individual.”  Am I really stretching this analogy?  Yes I am.

The other question, and it’s an obvious one, is what does money mean to you.  Again the answers mostly revolved around the themes of freedom, security, independence, the usual bourgeois drivel, with nobody mentioning the obvious answers of power, respect, or for that matter, happiness (i mean who’s gonna admit that money makes them happy?)   I delved deeper into their answers by asking what is important about freedom, security, etc…what that freedom and security means to them, what it allows them to do, whereby discovering what that person’s values are and what matters most to them in life.