If the president can admit to making a mistake, the least I can do is to come clean.
I am the reason the American economy is faltering. It's my fault.
It started out innocently enough. My wife and I were just sitting there looking at the bills and the paycheck and the four kids under 10. That's when we cooked up the scheme.
Diabolical: We would avoid debt.
We didn't get a mortgage. We bought used cars. We did rummage sales. We only charged what we could pay off at the end of the month.
Instead of spending ,we saved for the kids' college. We set aside $14.75 from each paycheck for retirement. Every year we squeaked by on the skin of our teeth.
Some are saying right now that this kind of economic behavior is un-American, but we were just trying to get by. We didn't know it would break the economy.
In the current American case, we have an economic philosophy which is faulty by design.
The idea was to ignore rational thought about thrift, about buying locally, about buying American. The idea was to develop a global mind set, so we would buy low, sell high, and who cares if we end up sacrificing American jobs -- we're enjoying the fruits of Globalism.
As long as everybody kept spending in America it might have worked. But we quit recycling the benefits and the profits were siphoned off to other places. Pretty soon the jobs began to vanish and now the spending is slowing.
Maybe it's time to create a new definition of economy.
This economic philosophy would not presume a benign or friendly Globalism. Instead, we'd realize that other nations might consider preying upon us economically in the same way, in the name of globalism, we have done to them.
Given this playing field, perhaps there would be greater long- term profit if we bought American products made by American workers who lived in America and paid taxes in America. Maybe those American workers would put their money in American banks which would lend money to American families to send kids to college and help them buy American houses and American automobiles.
Yes, it would cost more. But it would pay for more than what we have now from buying cheaply global.
Fixing the economy means more than spending without discernment. It means designing an economic system that works for America.
Walter Betz lives in Kwigillingok.
By WALTER BETZ