Top 5 Things that might fix the Economy / Top 5 things I think about when I'm sick

So both of these subjects have been weighing heavily on my mind as of late. One because I am sick. 'So what' You may say, we all get sick. Well I don't. Let me rephrase that. It's rare that I do get sick. Rarer still that I'm sick enough that I must take a sick day or some such nonsense. So when I am sick it really brings to relief what's going on that is making everyone else sick, the Economy.

I majored in Economics. This of course means that I will never use that subject in real life except in a very Trivial Pursuit kind of fashion. There are a lot of theories floating around about how to 'fix' the economy. We say fix the same way a child says to fix the TV when the signal goes out. We aren't really sure how the problem started, and we don't like it's outcome, but we are very much certain that we would like to continue watching TV again. We just want the economy to be like it was, flush and full of jobs. I will try to cover this subject without being TOO political. If you don't like that then merry Xmas and there is a really funny video on U-tube about cats. Please enjoy

For those of you that have remained...sorry, this is probably going to be boring

10. I wonder what if humans didn't have mouths, would a head cold be a fatal illness? - As I sit with my congestion I wonder that very thought. In fact I wondered it for the first time when I had a bad cold in Arkansas and was so packed up that I just knew that if I closed my mouth I would suffocate. I tried it for like 30 seconds and yup, I would be dead right now D-E-A-D. Stupid cold.











9. Bailouts?! - Ok, this isn't my answer to fix the economy, but rather it's my answer to what WON'T fix it. Lets reduce this to something we can all understand. That goofy family member that never quite figures out life. You know the one. They are always sponging off of one family member or another and they usually are involved with at least one if not several 'DEALS' that are going to make them 'Set for life' *sigh* So like idiots, we buy some of their lotions, we let them use our house to host a party because we'd like them to succeed. Well they've been doing this for a while and somehow this person actually has a spouse and family to support, but it hasn't changed their life habits. Now financial tragedy X hits them. How do we help them?! So the parent gets in touch with all of the brothers and sisters and suggests that they put together an 'AID' package. Mom says,3 children only need to donate say 10k to help the wayward family member. I think you see where I'm going with this. It's really not enough to help them because they are destitute and stupid, but it IS enough to really put a big dent in the rest of the family finances. Unless that sibling is willing to change the way they deal with life, NO AMOUNT OF HELP WILL HELP. The Banks and the Car Companies are our errant siblings in this overplayed metaphor, and the Government is playing the parents that live with one of us that want to help the problem child because 'they just need another chance'. BAH! (lets make this metaphor just a little sweeter. AFTER the wayward family gets the help money, they go out and buy MOM a really nice dinner for helping them out. AWWWWWWW isn't that precious? I'm still waiting for MY dinner.)

8. Convince yourself you don't have a cold - I go through this ritual because for me it actually seems to work. Either that or I don't really get very sick anyway and so the cold never really takes hold. Either way, when you get that sore throat, you pop a couple of cough drops and ask people if the air is bad because you've really been noticing it lately. It won't work. Those little germs are taking hold and soon they will have you in their power!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!







7. More Government Regulations will help - NOT! More regulation isn't really the answer if we can't actually regulate what we've already said we would. Unfortunately public opinion is like a kid with the thermostat. If you turn up the heat to 79 and you still don't feel warm immediately, then you turn it up to 89 because you actually think that you are making the furnace hamsters run even faster in their little wheels and so you will feel warm faster. Maybe if you turn it up to 129 degrees you will make your furnace super nova until you feel warm. So we will go WAY overboard in regulating things with methods we can't really employ. I say, lets just make sure all of the methods we have in place are actually being checked. if not, CHECK THEM. Once that is good, then we can start talking about what to stop.






6. I need to drink more orange juice - Too late bozo. Besides, orange juice is not that great anyway. Just look at all of the things that have more vitamin C than an orange. Pineapples, Tomatoes even Potatoes I think. If you are only drinking crappy pop or not getting enough sleep or smoking or any of the myriad things you can do to drop your immune defenses, then a glass of orange juice too late isn't going to do you a lot of good, and it hurts your throat. On the other hand maybe downing a bunch of energy drinks might help it zoom through your system, but i doubt it










5. Invest in something new - Stimulus, Bailout, Hand up not a Hand out. it's all the same. money from pocket A to pocket B. We want to distribute the wealth. But lets do it the smart way this time. Giving discretionary money to people you just took it from is like giving quarters to a 6 year old that you took out of their piggy bank. That's going straight into the gumball machine at the grocery store. Well that helps business right? Sure it does, but what helps even more is helping small business owners get a leg up by the government giving them low cost loans so they can employ more people. Then we can employ the very poor, well you've heard this angle before I'm sure. Well shouldn't the American people own a part of that business if they make money from these low interest loans?! Yes and we already do. They pay taxes like everyone else and we WANT them to be successful. They will employ other people and make good on the American dream. We've given too many perks to Giant business and not enough to small/medium business. If we invest in new technologies and smaller businesses we will be ahead in the long run.

4. I wonder what I could get out of...- If I'm sick long enough I start wondering if I can get out of church, work, meetings, anything that I'm not particularly fond of attending. If I'm going to suffer, I can guarantee you I want to figure out a way to make it useful somehow. Since it's the Holidays, there are usually a few events that I could really do without.












3. Quit listening to BOO HOO sob stories - I listened to a story about a guy that got caught up in a pyramid scheme and lost 7 million dollars. 7!!! MILLION!!! This is how much he lost to this scheister. Here's the funny part, he want's to sue the government for the money because the government didn't catch him the bad investment guy. Lets see. Something tells me this jerk wasn't ready to tell the government anything when he was getting 15% returns in a 3% returns market. HEY! maybe that should have been his first clue. When someone tells you they will sell you a diamond for 10% of market value, do you really believe it's a diamond? This guy was just plain greedy. Now some peoples answer is that the government shouldn't have let him invest his retirement that way or something. Government can do all they want, but they can NEVER legislate wisdom or intelligence. In America, people are allowed to be as stupid as they want to because we also have the opportunity to be as smart as we want to. If we listen to all the individual tales of woe that these people WILLINGLY PUT THEMSELVES INTO we will loose our focus and start being worried about things that make no long term sense and help very few. I fear this is a trap we as a country will eagerly fall into.

2. I wonder if THAT works - Once you've confirmed that you are in fact SICK. The first thing you do is go to the doctor. *BZZZZZZ* Wrong answer (WARNING! the following answer I give as it pertains to me it should NOT be constituted as Medical advice from a Medical professional only as anecdotal advice from a part time lunatic). The only thing they will do at the doctors office is take a strep test and then tell you to drink plenty of fluids and get lots of rest. That's been my experience, so...Don't even bother. Go to the website linked HERE and buy yourself a box of 25 strep tests. Test yourself, save the trouble and co-pay and then you can go to the doctor if you actually have strep because you will need antibiotics for that. If you don't have something that is curable by standard antibiotics, you will start looking at those 'other' remedies. you know, Cold Eze, Xycam, The list is as long as your grocers shelf. They say it will reduce the length and intensity of the common cold. Great. Except that you don't know from cold to cold how intense they will be. So you could be treating a sore throat that wasn't going to be anything more than a sore throat in the first place and you are going to give Cold Eze the credit. On the other hand, It probably can't hurt because it's mostly sugar anyway.

1. Wait - Yes, that's what I said, wait. Just like my cold, there is really nothing we can do to help me get over it until the cold is over. Sure we can check to see if there is Strep and I can take an antibiotic that clears up any infections of that nature. But if it isn't and it's just something going through my system that I will eventually build an immunity to, then all I am doing in buying these goofy remedies is helping some people relieve me of my money. There is no really verifiable method of saying whether or not what I'm doing is successful. With the economy there are statistics and there are trends. I will be VERY surprised if we see any statistics that differ from the norm when compared to the trend after we have bought our VERY expensive cold remedy (and yes, it's just a cold, It's uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, but we will survive it as a nation.). On the other hand, if we as a country decide to continue to live our lives and spend money we will be helping the economy much more than anything the government can do on our behalf. The Government is not good at many things and is very slow to do much of anything. I guess we can leave it in their capable hands. at least we are DOING something...after all we are just throwing money at it, so it couldn't hurt.


*sigh* I hate being sick.

Thanks for reading, and Special thanks for the fans of my blog that keep reading no matter what goofy subjects I cough up. And thanks Tracy for 1/2 of this blog, I caught the cold on my own.