Recession Anyone?

I am not much of a newsie, but I keep hearing reports that the US economy sucks. Okay, gas is freakin' expensive. Okay, it is so expensive that I probably should have said "fuckin' expensive." That is expensive. And I hear that food is getting more expensive. Okay, I am not sure food is more expensive. I mean, I can't really tell with fruits and vegetables; I mean, sometimes food gets more or less expensive due to the season. And I am eating more organic stuff, so it is hard to judge based solely on the grocery bills.

I do know the price of our home has decreased in value over the last year. Fallen like a stone. Someone on our street is selling a house and has dropped the price twice in the last month. Holy crap.

So all of this stuff – the stuff in the media, I am talking about – makes me think that I am not doing so well financially. I mean, I have not lost a job, and I got my cost-of-living increase. Okay, it was called a raise, which is technically true. Actually, a cost of living increase would have been a heck-of-a-lot more, considering the price of gas and groceries and vibrator batteries.

I read last week that there are certain recession-proof things. Professional sports is one of them. People will not give up their season tickets. That sort of surprises me. I mean, in economics, we learned that booze is recession-proof, and some suggest that hookers are also recession-proof. During hard economic times, people need a way to escape. Not sure if there is a rise in illegal drugs, but based on other things I know, it would not surprise me.

My grandparents were children of the Great Depression, and it really affected how they viewed the world. I had a grandmother who was very well off, and she would wash out Ziploc bags. Several times. My mom did the same thing. And I started doing it as well. You know, clothespin them to the curtains in the kitchen to dry. That was just part of how I lived my life. Then several years ago, I thought about how much Ziploc backs actually cost. One fewer stop at a Starbucks could fund my "not reusing Ziploc bags" fund for a month. Sure, there is also an environmental impact as well. Sometimes I don't like having a conscience.

But you know, I re-use tubs from my spread (not really margarine) and other packaging. It makes good containers for leftovers, and I throw them out when they acquire a smell. I know what you are thinking: it would be more environmentally sensitive for me to churn my own butter, but then I would have really bulgy arms. And I would have to buy different dresses, I am sure, to accomidate my new Eastern-European weightlifters on steroids look. And that would be worse for the environment. The world is a complicated place.

I talk to my friends, and they are cutting back on stuff as well. Not that they are making less money, but they feel poorer. At what point are we psyching ourselves into this recession?

I am no economist – I have far too much common sense for that – but it seems to me that when people spend less, companies make less, they lay off more people, and so on. What is sort of messed up is when times are good, our government still spends all the money it receives in taxes (and then some). So when times are rough, the deficit spending just increases.

I saw an article the other day about spending money. The congressman who was proposing some $4 Billion dollar program defended it because "$4 Billion really is not a lot of money when the total budget is about $3 Trillion." That's like me telling my husband that I bought a $500 dress because, in the grand scheme of things, it is not really all that much compared with our annual budget. And these are the sorts of guys that are deciding on how to spend the Federal budget. Yikes.

So we have a bunch of people in office who are fiscally irresponsible, we have a media who tells us how bad things are economically, and we spend less money. I know who we need to blame: President Bush. He is an easy target.

A recent Bushism: "Let me start off by saying that in 2000 I said, 'Vote for me. I'm an agent of change.' In 2004, I said, 'I'm not interested in change --I want to continue as president.' Every candidate has got to say 'change.' That's what the American people expect." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 5, 2008