So Broke We Can't Even Pay Attention ...

That's what we used to say back in the dark ages (the late 1960s when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, and color TV had just recently been invented). I'm so broke I can't even pay attention. Funny, we don't hear that phrase from the White House these days. After all, the US government is accumulating debt like a teenager on a drunken spree with dad's credit cards. So much for the fiscal conservatism of the current crop of politicians in power, eh?

I am struggling financially, and can't imagine what it would be like if I had any credit card debt. I don't have credit cards...I only have my mortgage and utilities and food and such -- no car payment. (Credit is the road to slavery ... ask me later if you're interested in talking more about this).

I still feel the crunch of the debt that's being passed down from the federal level -- $8 Trillion ... that's TRILLION DOLLARS -- to state to county to me. even so. It's in your grocery bill, and sundry and unsundry other things. The personal IS political where YOUR money and your debt load is concerned.

Now add to the $8 Trillion ... yes ... that's $8 Trillion of national debt, another estimated $2 Trillion in what they cutely call "consumer debt" ... and I'm sure both those numbers are parsed to the max in the media. I'm not an economist -- merely a skeptical brat when it comes to numbers coming to us from the Feds via their "courtly" scribes, um... stenographers.

From the Fear Factor Files, some articles on our cute and cuddly consumer debt: here, here, here and here.

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend" - The annoying Polonius to his hot-headed son Laertes in Shakespeare's Hamlet.