Monday, May 24, 2010

You Mean We Have to Grow Up and Be Adults

Seriously, this article should be titled, "Europe realizes it has to grow up and become an adult."

I grow so tired of trying to explain the simple concept that in order to have such luxurious benefits a country must produce an insane amount of wealth and production in order to have the tax base to raise such a infantile-dream level of benefits. I then get enraged when I hear not only people my age (35) but people who should know better (50 year olds) dismiss it as "right wing talk" as well as dismiss all my research and experience and a triffle with youth and a cute childish experiment in economics. But then I have to tell myself;

"Cappy, Cappy, now come on now. You told yourself you were going to ignore this and just hunt fossils and go fishing and play Bio Shock 2 and purposely force yourself to enjoy life. You can't let the ignorant people of the country get you down. Besides, you don't have any kids and you are not encumbered by any real financial obligation. And even though becoming the world's next best and highly paid economist will be a never-realized dream, the next best option is to barely work and head out to North Dakota and Wyoming on multiple fossil hunting expeditions. Nobody is going to listen to you now. Nobody is going to listen to you tomorrow. But someday, when they've slaved away, socking hundreds of thousands of dollars into an IRA account, only to have it confiscated by the government they voted into office, you will bit sitting there pretty with over 4 decades of fishing, fossil hunting and video gaming under your belt asking them the ultimate question in economics;

"Did you spend your finite time on this planet wisely?"

I shall now go ride my motorcycle and NOT contribute to GDP today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What, you mean people don't listen to economists???

;-)

I get the same frustration when I watch how things develop here in Europe. Let's see the positive side: Europe may grow up before America does.

Let us hope for change ;-)

Norm said...

Nations are no different than individuals. High spenders keep on spending hoping something (death of a rich relative, lottery win, etc.) will bail them out. Finally no one will lend them another buck and, volia!, they move into the crappy one bedroom apartment, take the bus to work and eat potatos and beeferoni.