Be a patriot: spend more, save less
Apparently you and I are guilty of treason. Our frugal habits are destroying the already ailing American economy. If we don't change our ways, we may be driven underground. I can just see it now:
"Psst...Amanda. You wanna go CVSing this weekend? I've got some hot tips. Can't tell you my source. Just tell your mom you're at Nordstrom's. "
"No, that wasn't me coming out of the thrift store. No, wait! Don't tell them! They won't understand. I'm sorry, really. I'm trying to stop, I just can't help it once in a while. Please don't tell?"
You can listen to the whole story here, or just take my word for it. David Weasel - er, Wessel, economic editor of the Wall Street Journal really believes that the American people as a whole are harming the economy by spending less and saving more. Even though he recognizes that too much borrowing and spending and not enough saving are what got us into this mess, he asserts that the very same thing will get us out of it. Apparently the cure bears remarkable likeness to the cause of the illness.
Mr. Wessel believes that if we the people won't spend enough to lift our economy out of the current recession, the government will have to spend more instead. He even goes so far as to state that this is basic textbook economics. Apparently, unselfish and educated people should know better than to be frugal when the economy is falling apart around them.
The hard lesson is, we need to spend more now as a country and we need to save more later as a country, and that's a very hard message to get. Because people are saving more, the government is giving them money and begging them to spend it. That's what the stimulus is all about, and it's a very confusing mixed message.
The reporter asks, "Can we get out of the recession if everyone decides that this is the day to borrow less and save more?" Mr. Wessel replies:
No. If everyone decides that it's in their best interest to borrow less and save more, every day the recession will get worse and worse and worse. That's one of the lessons in economic textbooks, that sometimes what's good for every individual family is not good for society as a whole, and that's the argument for having the government do some spending. In effect, the government is going to borrow more and spend more to compensate for the fact that the rest of us are doing just the opposite.
So if our taxes go up, we can blame those selfish, ignorant frugalites who didn't have the sense to spend and borrow every dime they could.
Is your blood boiling yet?
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17 Responses to “Be a patriot: spend more, save less”
March 12th, 2009 at 10:47 am
This is the kind of thing that irritates me. If people were buying like they had sense to begin with instead of trying to keep up with the Jones’s we wouldn’t be in this situation.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I can’t believe that an apparently educated man actually believes that, wow. It’s not as if saving money means throwing it down a well. It’s still out there earning money and producing revenue because the banks are able to invest it. If no one saved any money, wouldn’t the banking system collapse? Gah, sorry, I just deleted a paragraph of ranting.
Let me just say I completely agree with you!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:47 am
FYI…the link to listen appears to be broken.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Nathan,
Thank you. It should work now.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
YH,
I agree. Mr. Wessel’s way of thinking stands in stark contrast to the SNL skit, Don’t Buy What You Can’t Afford. It was posted here on Frugal Hacks just a few days ago – take a look if you missed it. Maybe Mr. Wessel needs to see it too…
March 12th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Laura,
I think you brought up a great point:
“If no one saved any money, wouldn’t the banking system collapse?”
Isn’t that very close to what first tipped the whole row of dominos?
March 12th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Here’s how I’m dealing with this issue in our family. If I’m going to spend, I’m going to spend on NEEDS not WANTS. If I’m going to spend above and beyond my normal practices, I’m going to choose spending that benefits my neighbor, not a mega-corp.
I’m not going to clutch my money tight just because the economy might get worse, but neither am I going to fling it on the wind just because someone tells me to.
After all, we’ll be paying twice–first when we stimulate by spending, and second when we are taxed to pay for the government spending that will surely follow.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The situation our country is in now has so many culprits: corporate leaders who sent so many jobs overseas (and undercut our own country’s manufacturing capabilities); bankers and Wall St. thugs who manipulated the “free market” economy for maximum profit, ethics be damned; a medical industry that seeks to price itself out of most people’s reach; and people who bought, bought, bought beyond their means.
Those who are NOT to blame: responsible citizens who buy wisely and save everything else.
This economy doesn’t make me any more likely to save, but it does make me want to pull my money out of the banks. Because some days I don’t really care if they fail. The Earth won’t implode if they do fail, and we might actually see a sea change in how this country operates.
/rant
March 12th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I do think we’re each entitled to our opinion and I can see the longterm ramifications for less spending more saving.
So, the only logical conclusion should be the Mr. Weasel should continue spending, the rest of us can continue saving. I hope he he deep pockets – he needs to make up for all of us frugal free-thinkers.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I’m biting my tongue… owww!
Okay, so I’m 100% behind you. After all, aren’t we supposed to learn from history? What happened after the GD? We all started saving EVERYTHING!! (Yes, I was there when we cleaned out my great-grandparents house. They had butter containers and used foil stored in every nook and cranny!) We spent little, scrimped a LOT, and put every last penny into savings so if the financial world crashed again, at least we’d be able to buy bread!
My husband loves to watch these guys on TV making idiots of themselves, and while I will laugh at them once in a great while, I can’t believe that they are seriously telling us to go deeper in debt, that it will solve all of our problems! ARRRGG!!! Now we know how we got here in the first place… thanks super smart Wall Street dudes!
March 13th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Meredith,
We’re doing something very similar. We don’t have a lot to spend, but we have friends with less than us. They are self-employed doing odd jobs, and we have a few jobs for them. We *could* save some money and do the work ourselves, but hiring them helps both our family and our friends.
Annie,
I like the way you think! I’m feeling a bit better about Mr. Weasel’s opinion now, although I do hope he doesn’t land a position in Obama’s cabinet any time soon.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
mr. weasel is spouting pure “BS”. and because of people like him, the recovery of our national economy could take a very long time…personally, i think that every polititian and big spender that voted yes to the bailouts and the omnibus spending bill should all be hung for treason! Now that I have vented, let me remind all frugalites that “we are not alone” as Glen Beck would say. there are more of us than there are of them and it is up to us to make ourselves heard.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:06 am
I think the issue is less how much we spend as it is where we chose to spend it. I admit that I am not as frugal as most here, and one of those reasons is balancing ideology with finance.
I think the bigger problem is that we’ve become obsessed with having more stuff, borrowing to buy it and buying cheap, outsourced stuff so we could have more. I think the question we need to be asking now is where do we want our dollars to go?
Personally, I’d rather spend twice as much to get a skirt that is sewn by a local craftsperson who makes a living wage from her work. Is that particularly frugal? Probably not (though I am starting to do a lot of bartering in this arena, which is definitely frugal and fun!) but it also means making the choice to own less things.
We should be borrowing less, but we should also be looking at our priorities when we decide where and how to spend the money we do have.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Ok, I went to college too…just 4 years mind you but took my share of economics. I believe the rule of a free market society is to let it work itself out…cuz it will. It just may take longer than we like. But this gov’t borrowing more and more money is just hurting our kids, even if it appears like it helps us in the short term.
Now I think I’ll go have a piece of chocolate cake and forget the fact that it’s not healthy and doesn’t go with my long term goals…isn’t that the American way?
All said…still say…God Bless America!
March 18th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
How much Mr. Wessel has stashed away himself?Anybody bother to ask him that? The best way to stop these kind of people is to take their own arguments and justifications to their own door step. This stops them dead…………..
March 18th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
@unmotivated,
I don’t know if you meant for this to be funny, but I can’t help smile at the look Mr. Wessel would be wearing if somebody asked him that question. Wouldn’t you love to see him squirm when his own theories are applied like that?
March 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Thanks for reading and commenting. Though I would like to say I was joking, I have too much anger against self-righteous people who advice and not follow. I try to constantly examining myself against hypocrisy but people who spout advice publicly must be held accountable for their words. Otherwise anybody gets away with speaking anything. I am constantly amazed at how easily a public person can turn round and speak against the something they advocated before. Free country yes but not irresponsible country I hope……
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