Money is a defence...that can fail

Gen 47:15  And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth.

Solomon said that money is a defence (Ecc.7:12) and that money answereth all things (Ecc.10:19), but there are times when money failed (Gen.47:15).

Gen 47:13  And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. 

Gen 47:14  And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. 

Gen 47:15  And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. 

Gen 47:16  And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. 

Gen 47:17  And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. 

Gen 47:18  When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: 

Gen 47:19  Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. 

Gen 47:20  And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's.

 

1)      The first thing that failed the people in the story was money: (liquid) currency.

2)      The second thing that failed was cattle: (working) assets (tangible, movable, tradeable).

(Money, typically stable in value, became insufficient to meet basic needs, forcing a shift to barter and the exchange of tangible assets).

3)      The third thing that failed was the land: real estate.

4)      The fourth (and last) thing that failed was the body: labour.

 

Keep in mind the Financial Crisis of 2008 as you read what follows by renowned British historian Niall Ferguson:

"At the time the class of 2007 graduated it certainly seemed as if nothing could halt the rise and rise of global Finance. Not terrorist attacks on New York and London. Not raging war in the Middle East. Certainly not global climate change. Despite the destruction of the World Trade Center, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the spike in extreme meteorological events, the period from late 2001 until mid-2007 was characterized by sustained financial expansion. True, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the Dow Jones Industrial Average had declined by as much as 14%. Within just over 2 months, however, it had regained its pre-9/11 level. Moreover, although 2002 was a disappointing year for US equity investors, the market surged ahead thereafter, exceeding its previous peak (at the height of the ‘dot com’ mania) in the autumn of 2006. By early October 2007 the Dow stood at nearly double the level it had reached in the trough of five years before. Nor was the US Stock market’s performance exceptional in the five years to 31 July 2007, all but two of the world's equity markets delivered double-digit returns on an annualized basis. Emerging market bonds also rose strongly and real estate markets, especially in the English-speaking world, saw remarkable capital appreciation. Whether they put their money into commodities, works of art, vintage wine or exotic asset-backed securities, investors made money. How are these wonders to be explained? According to one school of thought, the latest financial innovations had brought about a fundamental improvement in the efficiency of the global capital market, allowing risk to be allocated to those best able to bear it. Enthusiasts spoke of the death of volatility. Self-satisfied bankers held conferences with titles like ‘The Evolution of Excellence’. In November 2006 I found myself at one such conference in the characteristically luxurious venue of Lyford Cay in the Bahamas. The theme of my speech was that it would not take much to cause a drastic decline in the liquidity that was then cascading through the global financial system and that we should be cautious about expecting the good times to last indefinitely. My audience was distinctly unimpressed. I was dismissed as an alarmist. One of the most experienced investors there went so far as to suggest to the organizers that they disperse altogether with an outside speaker next year, and instead offer a screening of Mary Poppins. Yet the mention of Mary Poppins stirred a childhood memory in me. Julie Andrews fans may recall that the plot of the evergreen musical revolves around the financial event which, when the film was made in the 1960s, already seemed quaint: a bank run -  that is, a rush by depositors to withdraw their money - something not seen in London since 1866.

[...]

The ‘masters of the universe’ also paid far too little heed to the lessons of the past, preferring to pin their hopes on elaborate mathematical models that prove to be false gods.”[1]

[1] Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money (Penguin Books, 2018), pp.6-7, 12-13.