Over the last two months while I’ve been on hiatus from this blog, two things have made me wonder:
1.Why are there no economists or other great minds telling the government that it’s impossible to tax an economy to prosperity?
2.Why doesn’t anybody seem to be willing to take responsibility for their own actions?
Both of these questions have kept me up at night. I just don’t get it.
I believe that the economy is getting weaker by the day and that increased income, sales or corporate tax revenue or maybe one or two other things that I haven’t heard about yet are going to cause things to get worse. The key to getting things going again is to decrease spending and rein in the pork, not to tax people to the point of deincentivizing them to work.
I just don’t get it, but then again, who am I to question the powers that be? I’m not one of them.
It also makes no sense to me that people are still blaming Wall Street, the banks and unscrupulous mortgage brokers for all that ails the world. While I’m not going to get involved in the blame game (I’ll leave that for the folks at 60 Minutes and other “news” programs and outlets), all I’m going to say is the following: If you signed on the dotted line without reading the document you have only yourself to blame. Am I the only one thinks this way?
In the end, the lesson of the last year, as Rodney Dangerfield said in the movie Back To School is, “You’ve got to look out for Number One but don’t step on Number Two.”
Greed, you see, has been good for everyone, and while clearly Wall Street, the banks, Congress, the former Administration and others are to blame for some of the ills that have wreaked havoc on our economy, the American people are also to blame. They bought the houses, bought the cars, and used the credit cards. The American people took advantage of the easy credit and did whatever they wanted and now are demanding solutions that “only the government” can supply.
As we look to the fall and at what’s going on in the markets, one thing is for sure: The death of the hedge fund industry has been highly overstated and capitalism, while bruised, battered and broken, is not dead. While I don’t believe the economy is getting better, I think it’s exciting to see that other people believe things are righting themselves. But remember this: Just because stocks are going up doesn’t mean that the economy is getting better; it just means that stock prices are rising.
My suggestion is to talk to your friends, neighbors and even strangers and ask them if they’re spending money, making money, saving money or out of money. I’m almost positive the answers will lead you to my conclusions. If the answers do not, please email me. I could use some good news.
THINGS THAT DRIVE ME CRAZY:
I have come to the conclusion that all retailers believe both that all shoppers are stupid and that their employees aren’t worth caring about. I arrived at this conclusion recently when shopping at the Modell’s Sporting Goods Store in Watchung, N.J. The salespeople and managers there are fantastic. On a recent Sunday, they helped my wife and me find the right shoes, socks and shin guards for our kids’ soccer needs. They really worked hard for us. I was quite impressed.
Then we went to pay, and the whole system broke down. The only people to blame are management. The items we wanted, while advertised in the circular that was published that day, at one price, rang up at a higher price and it took two people and three or four tries to “override the system” to give us the advertised price.
It’s clear that management didn’t think that their shoppers are capable of reading letters and numbers and won’t notice being overcharged or maybe were to lazy to program the computers on time. It also shows how little management thinks of their employees in the front lines who have to deal with customers irate or not when things break down. Why should they care? They’re sitting in their offices – out of harm’s way – while their soldiers are at the front taking fire.
It’s a sad state of affairs consumers and retail employees unfortunately have to deal with.