An Ode to Shopping

There was a funny episode of South Park the other night in which the economic crisis was parodied in a send-up of the Easter story—the economy equaled God, roughly, and Jesus was preaching the gospel of spending money. (See a synopsis here.) It was a little sacrilegious—well, okay, a LOT sacrilegious—but the point was something like this: You have to believe in a strong economy in order for it to exist.

A lot of people have lost their jobs, home values are in the shitter, our retirement funds are dwindling—it all sucks, I get it. But the thing is, unless you personall, have lost your job, you still have cash. There's a good chance that your situation hasn't changed a whole lot in the past year (unless you make the unwise move of looking at your 401K balance). But here's the thing: if you're still contributing to that 401K and you're at least a little ways from retirement, you're picking up stocks for cheap right now, and your balance will bounce back in the coming years. In the meantime, you're okay, and you could be part of the solution—so spend some damn money.

Of course it's a good idea to create a solid nest egg, but I feel like I'm doing a good thing by going out to eat and making regular small purchases, because a lot of economic experts are saying that it's our fear of a bad economy that is causing this thing to spiral out of control. The more we all sit on our little cash heaps, the more screwed we're going to be. Yeah, Americans in general need to learn to live within their means and not rely on credit so much. So don't buy a McMansion you can't afford. Don't buy a car you can't afford. Try to only spend cash—but do spend it!

Megan likes shopping. The economy likes shopping. Everyone's happy.