Stanley Bing, Fortune's resident last page columnist, has a new column out regarding the state of our economy. The gist of his argument is, and I'm paraphrasing, life on earth has always been tough, so we might as well spend more money now, because, why not? You can read the more thorough version here.
Apparently, the root of our economic trouble is the fact that CNBC has a 24 hour news scroll and bloggers are the 21st century version of malcontents. It's not like the country's top lending institutions have been just completely screwing the little guy. It's not like car companies have resisted mile-per-gallon improvements for years, and when oil prices suddenly shoot up because of increased worldwide demand, the American driver takes a bath. No, it's clearly the fault of the news media, and the consumer who watches it. It's never big business's fault.
Well, as Stan pointed out, it could be worse. We could be living with the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets. We could be living during the time of the Crusades. Tell that to someone who could be only days away from losing his/her house or job. You can console their homelessness with the fact that at least they won't have to go to the Middle East and try and take back Jerusalem.
Comrade Bing suggests ignorance. Only watch 45 minutes of news a day. Don't read blogs. Take a soma holiday. This is exactly the type of thought process that got us into our current financial situation in the first place.
Just one more thing before I sign off here, Stanley says that "Three-quarters of our economy is built upon our willingness to part with our money in exchange for goods and services." What I'm still trying to figure out is, what's the other quarter based on?
So, "Get out there every goddamn weekend and pump as much money as you can back into the economy." Too bad it's money that you probably don't have to begin with.
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