Click here if the file above doesn't work. h/t to Eugene Cho.
Speaking of stuff and our wanton buying and wasting of massive amounts of ultimately and quickly disposable crap, I was thinking of what to do with that Jumpstart-the-Economy check that most of us will be getting in about a month or so and what to do with it. The design of this waste of taxpayers' future selves (and, yes, our children's and grandchildren's too) is to give us more money so that we may spend more money, so that our businesses will once again flourish and again, us with them. That would make a lot of sense... if you had a third grade education.
But neither our economy, nor businesses, nor international corporations work as simple as that anymore - if they ever did. But this is not the time nor the place to launch into another tirade about how our "goods" are manufactured overseas and how such a disproportionate percentage of the profits from the purchase of said "goods" goes to a small percentage of overly-wealthy executives who most likely won't funnel the money back to the US either. Yeah, not the time.
But this is what I suggest that we do (and I'm hoping to persuade my wife of this. Not that she'd be against it. I just haven't brought it up yet [the worst way to blog, btw]): Use those 600, 1200 or so dollars and start climbing ourselves out of debt. Because the money that is being thrown away on debt is really a cornerstone issue of why we are in so much financial trouble to begin with. Not only is our economy based on the theory and practices of consumption, but it has become a victim of consumption. Our monies and resources are being used up and spit out into the great flaming garbage piles of the world.
So, maybe, while we're waiting for that little bonus check to come in (really, a parody of what a losing CEO of a Fortune 500 would get in a dreadful year) we should contemplate how we can begin consuming (and throwing away, and polluting, and destroying our economy and thinking) less and how we can contribute more to a more sustainable (right, the buzz word right now) way of living and doing things.
My God, I'm starting to sound like a hippie.
I totally agree! I must be a hippie too... Except that I just got all my hair cut off.
ReplyDeleteI've been operating under the assumption for years that I somehow am an undercover hippie... I couldn't agree more with your idea. However we will probably do with it what we do with our tax return every year; add it to our savings. I know that's not the status quo thing to do - every commercial on tv & radio wants to tell me how to spend it - but it makes more sense in our situation to just save it. We're not over our heads in debt - we do pretty good, but maybe one day something will change. At least if that happens, we will have something to fall back on at least for a little while. Maybe it's a bad plan - but that's what we're doing regardless.
ReplyDeletei can't be a real hippie. i shower nearly every day. and the days i don't... well, it's not b/c i want to conserve water. it's more about conserving energy. my own.
ReplyDeleteas far as debt, well, we're in it. half of it was for college (my own, as yet unpaid) and much of the rest was for emergency times last year and into this year when we were living below the belt. but, to be honest, much of that was consumerist debt. and i think that hurt us badly - our old habits.
and adding it to your savings isn't a bad idea at all. and it certainly isn't a bad plan. we do need something to fall back on. (we certainly needed ours. and we've been using our tax return as a buffer for the next trying time. hopefully, it won't come.)
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