More on that "Austerity" Thing

Several days before I wrote yesterday's article, I sent Mr. Livingston an email in hopes that I'd have a chance at a dialog on the subject of his article against austerity. When he didn't respond, I decided that the only way to carry the dialog forward was to write and post my article, and also post a comment on the Bloomberg excerpt.

The comments on Bloomberg seem to go heavily against Livingston. I'll cite some of the comments you can find on Livingston's excerpt:

"This is outright wrong...."

"The logic here is horribly flawed...."

"Austerity is bad??? Badly-wrong sentence...."

"...the idea that work is a function of what is wrong with the human condition flies in the face of not only some of the most enlightened thinkers throughout history but also most people's own feelings...."

"The more I read this the less sense it makes..."

Another Bloomberg columnist, Caroline Baum, posted a different viewpoint that also tilts against Livingston's thesis. Her piece, Mall Rats Can’t Bring About the Wealth of Nations, starts out as a comment on Black Friday and retail sales as an indicator of economic health, but necessarily turns deeper and more analytic, concluding with a definition of consumption from Webster:

"the utilization of economic goods in the satisfaction of wants ... resulting chiefly in their destruction, deterioration, or transformation."

Why harp on this? Over-spending is a bad idea, but although some people think it might be bad for the individual, I don't get the sense that they feel that it hurts society. There is the underlying assumption that an over-spender slightly hurts themselves while benefiting the rest of us by making the economy go faster. And this is absolutely incorrect. A unnecessary purchase is the opposite of a vorpal trade. Poor purchase decisions harm the economy for everyone.

I am not against spending or consumption. Several articles in Vorpal Trade have described what a good purchase might look like. This might be a good time to write down some of the characteristics of a purchase that fits the definition of a vorpal trade:

- it costs less than you budgeted

- the purchase comes at exactly the right time for the seller

- it arrives just in the nick of time

- it generates cash shortly thereafter, or significant time or cost savings

- the payback period (moment at which net benefits exceed the price) is very short

- it is elegant, beautiful, or has character in its form or function

- it lasts

- it is a good candidate for using it up, wearing it out, making it do

- it greatly empowers you professionally, artistically, or personally

- it fits in your budget

You know a vorpal trade when you see it. When you think about the all-star products you have owned in the past, or present, it is quite clear that some things were simply vastly better investments than others. Couldn't we all use a few more things like those?

Vorpal Trade: A Dramatization

Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some way over his shoulder, and began writing for him.

The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the pencil for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong for him, and at last he panted out, 'My dear! I really must get a thinner pencil. I can't manage this one a bit; it writes all manner of things that I don't intend--'

'What manner of things?' said the Queen, looking over the book (in which Alice had put 'The white knight is sliding down the poker. He balances very badly') 'That's not a memorandum of your feelings!'

There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him, and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again), she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read, '--for it's all in some language I don't know,' she said to herself.

It was like this.

YKCOWREBBAJ

sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT'

ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD

,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA

.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA

She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. 'Why, it's a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.'

This was the poem that Alice read.

JABBERWOCKY

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought--

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

'And has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) 'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate--'

'But oh!' thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, 'if I don't make haste I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I've seen what the rest of the house is like! Let's have a look at the garden first!' She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs--or, at least, it wasn't exactly running, but a new invention of hers for getting down stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if she hadn't caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a little giddy with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself walking again in the natural way.