I agree. Humans are pack-rats (not just money). I have a lot of crap that I don’t need an won’t ever need, but I feel compelled to save it since I have room. Maybe it’s a spillover from the hunter-gatherer days, but it seems to be human nature to hoard things.

Look at what the Chinese people do. They save like crazy because they know that it’s up to them to provide for their future. They can’t just spend it all with the knowledge that govt will provide a backstop.

But that is of course why we couldn’t keep our mitts off of any bit of saved money/capital in the country over the last couple of decades. There was always going to be more in the future. On every level we scraped everything bit of money from every corner and leveraged it up. Party on.

Now that we’ve crashed the thing maybe we’ll actually be able to save again, delaying gratification and actually planning ahead. One can only hope that the lesson can stick. God knows we’re fighting it.

Indeed we need to actually go back to some anti-cyclical thinking and economic planning. But you do have to guard against those who are eying the treasure that sits just begging to be pilfered and spent.

What you suggest goes against human nature. I know it goes against my nature.

These states with their balanced budget mandates is just about the most asinine economic policy one can imagine. There are all sorts of unintended consequences. In good times, there’s a tendency for the state to not save anything…there’s a tendency for state programs (i.e. education) to spend whatever they get. There’s a “use it or lose it” aspect to some of these budgets, so various departments just engage in wasteful spending because “they might as well.”

Now, with the current depression, nothing can get funded, no matter how useful or good the idea may be.

Ah, OK. I was confoosed. ;)