Amusing look at socio-economics

It seems that all of the presidential hopefuls are promising to help the "middle class". I've heard promises of Tax cuts, relief, and new jobs for the "middle class". The problem is that there seems to be a little bit of confusion about who the "middle class" is.
Depending on who you ask, there are many ways to determine if you are in the middle class. You add up your household income and if it's more than this and less than that and if you have more than so many people in your house, etc, etc.
I have a very simple test to determine your socio-economic status. Gather up your receipts from shopping for the last month. Now, look at the top of those receipts. If it says, "Wal-mart" at the top, you are most likely "Blue collar" or "Working class". If it says, "Neiman Marcus" at the top, you are most likely, "Upper class". What you are looking for is the bullseye. If the top of your receipts has a bullseye and says "Target", you are most likely "middle class".
Although I wrote this for entertainment value alone, there may be some truth to it. Socio-economic status should not be determined mostly by income, it should be determined by the way you spend money. While there is no such thing as "extra money", I believe that how you value a dollar is a good indicator of what economic classification you believe that you are a part of.

The Economy

It seems that all we are hearing about lately is the economy and what is wrong with it. What is wrong with the economy? Interest rates are the lowest they have been in years, property is affordable and it hasn't been a better time to buy a home in years, so what is missing?
The answer is "Consumer confidence". We have several presidential hopefuls making their bid for the white house and they all have the same message, "The economy is bad and I can fix it". This makes people scared and sets them in the "Wait and see" mood. As long as that is going on, money will not change hands and the economy will remain stagnant.
We went down this road before during the first Gulf war, the other Bush was president and the news was constantly reporting that there was a recession. President Bush lowered the interest rates to stimulate the economy. What that means is stimulate people to borrow money to get money changing hands, flowing, trickling down. However, with the news creating fear of recession and an election coming up, people waited. It wasn't until Clinton took office that people decided that they better act before rates go back up. Before you knew it, America was singing praises of President Clinton for getting us out of the recession. The truth of the matter is that it was actually Bush who did the work Clinton just restored "Consumer confidence".
Here we are again, in the same situation, interest rates are low, housing is affordable and an election is on the horizon. It really doesn't matter who takes office, people will know that it is now the time to start borrowing and spending money and the economy will recover.

Time is money

The economy isn't what it used to be. Many people are struggling just to get by right now. A friend called me and told me that it breaks his heart that he can't afford to buy his little girl the toy that she wants at walmart.
I told him, "Don't take her to Walmart, take her fishing or to the park. Play a game with her or color or watch a movie together". When we look back at our childhood, our fondest memories are not of the things that our parents bought us from the store, it is the moments that we spent together.
This past weekend, there was a lot that I could not afford to buy my kids. But we had a lot of fun spending time making candy sushi and watching movies. And while the toybox may not have gotten more full, the photo album and memories did increase.