Friday, May 16, 2008

How did you spend your rebate?

I thought it was kind of serendipitous that my $600 rebate and my $650 fuel oil bill arrived on the same day. Easy come, easy go.

Today, though, I bought an immense heap of pork chops, a gigantic jug of laundry detergent, and a huge package of frozen breakfast sandwiches at Costco. I think I'd have bought those anyway, since no matter how bad the economy gets I will endeavor to continue eating and wearing clean clothes. (By the way, the frozen sandwiches cost no more than they would cost if I made them myself. Granted, they don't taste as good as homemade, but they also don't leave me with a greasy frying pan to wash.)

Okay, I also stopped at the music store and picked up a new harmonica holder, but I'm really trying to economize where I can. It's not because my income is down -- I recently started collecting Social Security, so my income is up quite a bit. Just the same, every time I pull into a gas station or shop at a super market, I feel my new income being drained away -- and I feel really fortunate to have that new income. What are other people doing?

In the meanwhile, though, the President, Wall Street, and most of the mainstream economists are talking as if the alleged "stimulus package" is about to deliver us from evil. I don't see it. I see virtually all the stimulus money going to the oil companies and agribusiness, and a good chunk of the agribusiness money going to the oil companies. In other words, the main thing I see the stimulus payments stimulating is the demand for oil.

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