Failure™ Magazine

Consumer Spending Retort

Borrow-and-spend isn’t sustainable, says “Ultimate Cheapskate” Jeff Yeager.

Written by Jeff Yeager   Filed under Business, Life

Jeff Yeager, author of “The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches.” Photo courtesy of Jeff Yeager.

Gosh, I feel just awful about it. I didn’t mean to destroy the U.S. economy and trigger a worldwide recession. In fact, I feel so guilty, maybe I should pick up the tab for the economic stimulus package. Come to think of it, as a U.S. taxpayer, I guess I am.

All I was trying to do, though, was to lead a simpler life, spend a little less money, live lighter on the planet, and not work quite as hard. But darn it if those of us who subscribe to the simple living movement didn’t end up causing this economic implosion. What’s worse, we haven’t accepted the error of our ways. We’re still living in the same reckless manner and—to add insult to injury—using the current economic crisis as an opportunity to encourage others to join us. Have we no shame?

I’ve noticed that as the months drag on and the economic slowdown continues, the blame is definitely shifting away from those responsible at the outset, and now consumers are being fingered as the culprits for this whole mess. The message is that we need to spend our way back to prosperity.

Well, as you can probably guess, I’m not willing to accept as gospel the idea that we can consume our way to never-ending prosperity. I’m not willing to accept that living beyond our means, on borrowed money, is the way to fix the problem, especially since that kind of behavior created the problem in the first place. And most of all, I’m not willing to accept the idea that we need to spend all of our time earning money so we can buy things we don’t need (and probably don’t even want), simply to keep the system going.

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