.jpg)
Today I came home from a hard day at work and my wife hit me with a bombshell, she wanted a new credit card AmeriKan ExPress.
We are $140,000 in debt, we have two mortgages on the house, the roof is leaking and the eaves are sagging. My car burns oil, her car needs a new radiator, but we did install a new sound system that cost $900 and it sounds great. I had to take a pay cut because the company had a fire and didn’t have insurance.
My kids need to see the dentist, but without dental coverage in the insurance plan, we decided to put it off until next year. Tomorrow we pick up our new 68 inch flat panel LCD and we are giving the old 58 inch to our son, who is in the local private college rather than the public university down the street.
Our credit is shot and I had to get a new cell phone to avoid the collection agencies that are constantly calling me. But I did get a new MePhone that had a $50 rebate off the list price of $600; the best part is it has a lightsaber application that only cost $.99. What a bargain.
So I signed the application and the card should be here in a couple of days. I am so happy, that will give us some more much needed wiggle room in the future, plus we to register the boat.
An economist created a term called “Conspicuous Consumption” and I would modify his definition slightly.
Buying things, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t know. Thorstein Veblen (italicized words added by author)
The Congress and President seem to have the same delusional reality as this fictional character, except the amounts are much higher and the spending even more ridiculous.
Neither will be able to get out of the mess that they created unless they stop increasing their spending, create a budget that shrinks the spending levels, and then have the courage to stick to it regardless of the sacrifices that must be made by the family.
A man cannot be free when he stands
in the shadow of the looming monster named debt.
