Things to Ponder

Benjamin Franklin, who wrote an astonishingly transparent biography for the eighteenth century (he was a...er, cosmopolitan young man), also wrote a practical book of money wisdom called "Poor Richard's Almanac". This contained such nuggets as "Early to bed and early to rise/Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" and "A penny saved is a penny earned." He was one of fourteen children and turned out in the world to support himself at an early age, so he should have known something about economics. All the things in his book are about personal habits. I don't remember the exact year the almanac was written, but the fledgling federal government of the USA was not even sure it had the right to charge income tax, so that should tell you something about non-interventionist policy. (As a bonus, if you read the book, you will discover that the word "fart" meant the same thing in the eighteenth century that it does in the twenty-first.)

All of which is a lead-up to: I saw an article on a news site this morning that said, "Can Barack Obama Fix the Economy?" I didn't read the article, but I can answer the question for you:

NO.

(Though he may possibly fufill the campaign expectations of some of his supporters and make sure every American gets a new puppy for Christmas.) And John McCain couldn't either, if he'd been elected.

Think about things like this, my version of Poor Richard:

Why do we buy labor-saving devices and also exercise machines?

Why do we watch five hours of TV a day but then say we don't have time to cook from scratch?

Why do we, when we need to lose weight, pay extra for "diet" food instead of just eating less food and therby saving money?

Why are we currently (or at least the media is) bemoaning the fact that people, when faced with a recession, are spending less this holiday season instead of more? Isn't that the smart thing to do when you have less money?

Things to ponder indeed.

You can probably guess what Breanna's prescription for economic health is. It's as simple as the Cave Man Diet. ("Don't Eat Too Much.") My prescription is: spend less than you make. "The economy" is one of those things like "society". It's easy to talk in generalizations, but in the long run neither the economy nor society is something that happens to us, it's something we do.

Which can be seen as discouraging, but can also be encouraging. Because if the economy is something I do, then spending less on stuff at Christmas will enable me to spend more time doing things that matter with my family. Spending less on food and cooking more will automatically improve our health. If gasoline is expensive and I have to walk to the store, score double points for exericse AND fewer trips to a place where I spend money.

So just do what you can with what you have, and remember, you never had more control over the economy than Miss Boo does anyway. :)

Ciao,

Breanna