May the odds be ever in your favor with your finances.

Wealth means power, and that power is usually power over others. When you have money there’s really no limit to what you can do. We see this in both the films In Time and The Hunger Games. In both movies, the wealthy had no worries. In In Time wealthy people had all the time in the world, and if they were running out they had ways to get it. If the people were poor, they ran out of time in the middle of the streets. In The Hunger Games, if people have money they are nothing short of extravagant. They wear bold colors and gaudy jewelry, and they watch children kill each other for sport. Needless to say, if you have money, you’re set.  

However, there’s another factor in these movies other than money: The government. In both movies, the government kept everyone in check. The wealthy stayed wealthy and the poor stayed poor. If someone stepped a toe out of line, they were taken care of. In In Time it was the Timekeepers, in The Hunger Games it was President Snow and the forces of the Capitol. They knew how to keep a good dog down.  

In situations like I pointed out above, where there’s strong force in the government, there’s always someone in the body of the poor that represents something the government usually doesn’t want: Hope. President Snow says “… why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster… Hope… It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained.” If you’ve ever seen The Hunger Games, then you know that Katniss was that spark of hope he was talking about. Though to his utter astonishment, the spark wasn’t controlled, it turned into a blazing, uncontrolled mess (see/read the other movies/books). He knew, however, that if something didn’t happen to control it, all hell would break loose.  

I think the best relationship to the readings I can make would be to Foucault's "The Subject and Power" on pages 789 to 790. In the passage that starts at the bottom of page 789, Foucault discusses power in relation to the government. I can't find a specific statement he makes that relates back to what I've discussed above due to the fact that he is somewhat hard to understand, but I know this is most likely the best comparison I came across after trying to read and understand his passage multiple times. 

Comparing these two movies to what we deal with in real life, it's hard not to see similarities. Our society is solely based on who has the most money and is not financially unstable. The people that aren’t financially unstable have the power to do what they want, and the people that are have to struggle just to make ends meet. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth.