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Years ago
I had the pleasure of hearing Don Aslett, lecturer
and owner of Varsity Contractors, talk about the clutter in our lives. As the
owner of one of the largest facility services firms in the United States, he
has witnessed firsthand that a cluttered house can be almost impossible to
clean. He went on to say that we have not only cluttered our homes with stuff
but that we have cluttered our lives with stuff as well. Anyone
interested in reading more about Mr. Aslett should
seek out one of his classic books, including my favorite, Clutter’s
Last Stand. In this book, he takes a look at the clutter in our homes and
our lives and tells us how to get rid of it.
Years ago,
late comedian George Carlin did a colorful routine in which he poked fun at
our stuff. In the routine, he said that a marriage is a union of two
people’s shuff. It was funnier the way
he said it, but it rang true.
All of us
here in the United States love our stuff. From recent sales figures it seems
that most of us like to buy our stuff at Walmart.
Unfortunately, Walmart seems to get lots of its
stuff from China. (Disclaimer: this is not an article to bash China. On the
contrary, I wish the country well in its move towards a free market economy.
The recent history - comprised merely of China’s past 300 years - is a
fascinating one. Anyone interested in learning a little about how China
arrived in its current state would do well to read Clavell’s
books Tai-Pan and Noble House. While they are good fiction,
they are based on factual events. They examine the political upheavals that
helped to shape modern China.)
Back to
our stuff. The United States has been called “The Mouth”
of the world. We consume more than anyone else on the planet. Please
don’t get me wrong; I am all for reasonable consumption and a high
standard of living. The problem, however, is that we are borrowing from our
poor overseas cousins by having them continue to prop up the dollar and our
national debt so we will be able to continue to purchase our stuff, most of
which we do not even need. Only in the United States would someone charge an
ugly sweater that no one will ever wear on his or her Visa card and then
finance it for the next 10 years - long after it has been donated to
Goodwill!
I believe
a person or a country can spend his, her or its money any way he, she or it
sees fit to do so. I just think that a person, or a country, is far down the
road to ruin whenever it has to borrow money from others to buy useless stuff
that it cannot afford to pay for out of its own wallet. How many of us have
seen ATMs in fast food restaurants and movie theaters that allow the customer
to get a cash advance from their Visa card to pay for their purchase? If you
do not have the cash in your wallet to afford the burger or movie then
perhaps you would be better off staying home and eating a sandwich and
reading a book. There is good debt and bad debt, and almost all stuff
purchased on credit is bad debt.
The U.S.
even gave birth to a multinational e-commerce platform, eBay, to deal with
our surplus of stuff, and eBay has made quite a business out of recycling our
stuff. As a matter of fact, if you have any stuff you are not using, then
snap a photo of it and start selling it on eBay! Turn the clutter in your
life that is going unused into family capital and become a capitalist.
After
9/11, we were told it was patriotic to continue spending and consuming. We
were informed that if we cut back on our spending, we were letting the
terrorists win. Some of my friends certainly tried their best to be
“patriotic” during that period. While it is not my intent to bore
everyone with a discussion of the velocity of money and how it impacts the
economy, it is fair to say that consumer spending is only a part of the
equation. We cannot consume our way into prosperity with borrowed money
used to buy foreign-made goods. The ultimate result of that policy is
a falling U.S. dollar and a lower standard of living.
In order
for the United States to become a great country once again, we must
save capital and reduce debt. Capital is used to build new factories that
increase our productivity and allow us all to live better. The first part of
saving capital is to stop borrowing money. The next step is to pay off debt.
Finally, we must live below our means so that we can save capital for
investment. Unfortunately there are no television commercials encouraging us
to save capital. Commercials only promote consumption - and we are doing that
just fine without additional help from Madison Avenue.
During the
Christmas season we are bombarded with commercials luring us to spend more
than we can afford. Before you go shopping, look around your house at all the
stuff you already have and do not use. I have told my wife that she
cannot bring anything else home until I measure and weigh it at the door. We
will then have to go inside and find something of equal size and weight to
dispose of before she can bring the new item inside. Without this precaution,
the walls might explode.
I do not
recall reading anything in the Bible about exchanging gifts during Christmas.
Only the gifts of the three Wise Men are mentioned. Perhaps we should follow
their example and limit our gifts to those given to God. It is His birthday,
after all. And I am pretty sure that He does not want anything that you can
charge on a credit card.
Larry LaBorde,
Larry sells
precious metals at the Silver Trading Company, LLC. Visit us at www.silvertrading.net . Worried about storage issues? Ask us and maybe we can help.
Contact Larry LaBorde Llabord@aol.com
Owner of Silver Trading Company:
Silver Trading Company is committed to providing silver and gold at the
most reasonable price directly to our customers. We strive to do this by
keeping our overhead low and our volume high.
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