On the Mountain - June 20, 2012
We are home for a second week and have anxiety about it. Still, we are glad after a fine RV voyage to Michigan and the Great Lakes area. Anne filled in last week for the physician couple in Gettysburg and diligently exercised her practice skills. I too worked on a small project for my former employer. We also do house and rv chores and work on my Dad's probate. Today I travel to York with a dozen packages for my mother to sign and send to banks and mutual funds to change title and address. Much work made a bit easier by the Internet. Anne stays home with the laundry.
Cherokee beckons and we look forward to that but have lots to do before we leave. The sale of my mother's house has been delayed. We hope the sale closes this week or next and does not fall through. Ugh.
We bought tickets to Italy yesterday. No bargain, the prices have stayed flat so far and we dared not wait any longer for sales. We hope that having waited this long the flights will not be changed, as they so often are when you buy far in advance. My study of Italian goes well. Interesting language that seems to have segregated from Spanish before they were written languages. My Spanish helps with the Italian, but I'm sure I will sound stupid speaking Italian with a Spanish twist. But, as usual, I hope not to be an expert, just to get by. Uno, due, tre, ecco.
I don't want to seem a curmudgeon, but am coming to find news irrelevant. Sure I've become more conservative with age and have always been a skeptic. I'm still registered Democratic, but I voted against the current president. My problem is that most of what is printed or broadcast as news seems irrelevant, and much expert opinion is downright silly. Current thinking about economics is naive. To me, the globe seems like a space ship skirting a black hole. Slipping away, the ship must risk burning out its systems to escape and the crew debates the suggestion that it would be easier on the ship to continue the slide into oblivion.
I think simple examples work best in economics. The following conversation seems to parallel what is going on everywhere. I wonder if the borrowing and loaning of money should be outlawed. Perhaps it is immoral. Is the borrowing of money different from theft?
Dear, we have a problem.
What my love?
The Visa card bill this month is too high.
Oh, that is a problem. Did you forget to charge the vacation to Master Card?
No, I did that, but you forget we put last year’s vacation on Visa and there was a big grocery trip when we got back last month. The interest charges almost equal our payments.
Oh. Well, I guess we must make a decision.
Must we choose austerity?
No, no. This is not our problem. It is the fault of the banks. The interest rates are too high.
So, should we cut back and start paying down the debt?
No, that would be bad for the economy, and for our level of comfort. We have cable TV, four cell phones, and a case of micro-brewery stout to buy each month. It just won’t do to have to fuss with the antenna, walk to the land-line, and sip Budweiser.
So, what are we to do?
Didn’t we get another credit card offer this month?
Yes, but the interest rate was awful.
Damn bankers. Get it anyway. I heard on the radio that if you have ten thousand dollars in credit card bills some outfit can get it reduced to hundreds.
People can’t expect you to pay when the rates are this high.
Right, right. It is not fair.
What if the bank won’t give us another card.
They have to. If they won’t give us more credit we won’t be able to pay our bills and they won’t get paid. It’s like the Greeks and the Germans. If the Germans don’t give the Greeks the money the Greeks won’t pay their debts to the Germans.
But the Germans don’t want to loan the Greeks more money.
Yes, and the newsmen are saying how stupid the Germans are. The Germans are going to cause the collapse of the Euro.
Yes, and the pigs seem irritated that the Greeks want more money.
Yes, and the Greeks rightly blame the Germans for their problem. If they had not loaned them the money, they would not have spent it.
How can people be so stupid?
Don’t know. Look at our government. It will spend about a trillion more than it takes in this year and people are loaning it money for peanuts. Boy, are they gonna get screwed.
They got no choice. If people stop loaning money to the feds, the government will just print it. Inflation will eat into people’s savings.
Serves them right for saving.
I wish we could print money.
It sure would make budgeting easier.
Yeah, but next year I think we should vacation closer to home.
That’s OK, but with the price of everything going up, we may not save that much.
Damn government, allowing inflation and all that! OK, let’s just take a cruise. What good are savings when you die.
The tea party folks say we should worry about the kids.
That’s their problem. It’s all the fault of the banks. The government should make them loan us more money.
It’s not our problem.
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