Editorials

If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it September 26, 2008 - No reporter cited

Ever wish you could get paid for doing dumb things. I do. I do so many dumb things that I would be a multi-millionarie by now.

I see people getting paid big bucks to hang upside down for, what is it, something like 60 hours straight and then let someone cut the rope that you’re dangling from. What a genius.

- People making large sums of money by causing physical pain to themselves. Johnny Knoxville and his cronnies remind me of college students sitting around
the dorm, daring one another to see who will flinch first.

- Daredevils doing death-defying stunts at the X-Games and, yes, I watched and could not look away when bodies bounced off the pavement, ramp or bicycle bar.

I even watched the skateboarding event from a resturant in Branson on my honeymoon. But, hey, my new bride couldn’t stop watching the carnage either. What a great woman.

So why does it surprise us that men and women are working for high powered financial companies and making insane amounts of money, all the while making some of the dumbest decisions known to man.

We act as if we have never heard of such terrible things.

But how many times have we made bad financial decisions.

Have you ever made a bad choice? Have you ever gone “partying” before making sure all your bills were paid? Have you ever purchased something and then realized after it was too late that you could not afford the payments?

Probably.

We just didn’t get paid a huge amount of money for making that decision.

People make bad choices. I have. But, I don’t remember the government ever stepping in to bail me out or forgiving my transgressions.

I understand we are talking about the economy of our nation, but isn’t it part of the problem that no one in Washington understands the concept of good money management, and this includes both McCain and Obama.

For some reason, everyone who gets elected believes that money grows on trees. And that may be the reason politicans call tax payers ‘pine trees.’ (Yes, I made that part up.) But they seem to think that there is this an unlimited amount of money that the American public can pay to fix everyone else’s mistakes, sort of like all those pine cones.

I don’t mind helping the economy for the public, but the only people that this bail out seems to be helping are the wealthy folks that ran those companies into the ground to begin with.

Maybe they just need to hire some of us more finanically savy people to run those companies, like a mother that can feed a family of four on less that $100 a week.

Or a small business owner who pays their employees well and maintains a healthy profit for themselves and their families.

I don’t mind someone getting paid for doing a good job. People should be compensated for quality work. But when you make a bad decision, you don’t deserve a large bonus for holding a particular title.

I make bad choices all the time… no one pays me for those choices.

I don’t get a pat on the back… instead I receive a swift kick in the seat of my pants.

I am not for bailing out people that make bad decisions if they are going to get to keep the job that allows them to make more bad decisions.

But that is just my view from the canopy of the Jungle.

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