Maxing out your Triangle
I find that most people take on new jobs, projects and hobbies for three reasons:
1. To learn something new
2. To pay the bills
3. Because they love doing it
These three things fulfill some of our very basic needs—they give us stability, excitement, ways to contribute and opportunities to grow.
As mentioned in the morning memo, there's a new federal budget proposal out with a whopper of a deficit figure--$410 billion for 2008. To celebrate the occasion, (and his own birthday, best wishes to you, sir) Greg Mankiw writes in the New York Times that his real birthday wish is a world where we didn't bequeath large debts to our children. Being a generation younger than Mr Mankiw, I thank him for his concern.Economist.com | read article
He is absolutely correct that we face a rather troubling budget picture. Unfortunately, he misses the mark in descrbing how the situation is worse than we think, and how it is better than we think. Mr Mankiw's first great omission is in focusing his column entirely on entitlement spending. Mr Bush's budget increases defence spending by at least 7.5 percent (and one never knows what further appropriations may be required) to a total of $515 billion. That marks the 11th year in a row in which defence spending has increased. Perhaps the world has grown significantly less safe in each of the last 11 years, or perhaps it is time to discuss whether budget cutting zeal ought to be turned exclusively toward entitlements.
A collection agency tried to collect a $16.96 debt with an letter that addressed its recipient with a four-letter word for excrement.Associated press | read article
"Dear Shit," began the letter attempting to collect from an old record club membership. The word was spelled out in the letter, which arrived in an envelope addressed to "Shit Face."
"Now people are saying the [subprime lending] crisis is likely to turn into financial melt down, can that be avoided?"
"It can be avoided provided governments and central banks give up, the financial speculators back the money we've lost..."
"But isn't that rewarding greed and stupidity?"
"No.. no, its rewarding what the Prime Minister Gordon Brown called "the ingenuity of the market". And we dont want this money for ourselves, we want this money to put it back into the market so we can carry on borrowing and lending."
