PlanPutnam’s
Holiday Buying Guide
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the 2008 Holiday Buying Guide!
There are only 63 shopping
days left until Christmas and with the economy in the tank and
money short all around, you can do
your part to help set things straight. It’s going to be hard,
but here’s the deal:
1. Spend no more than $20 on a gift.
2. Buy nothing from China.
3. Buy locally.
While the first is going
to be tough, especially if you’re
a mush and give your kids whatever they demand, the second is going
to be more difficult since not only do the Chinese own our personal
and national debt, they also own our retail spaces, your hearts
and your minds.
(And remember,
you’ve
just been saddled with another $1 TRILLION in debt, courtesy
of Congress, Wall Street and the Corporations
who own you.)
As to the first, now
is the time to sit down with your children and explain the realities
of the economy to them - no matter how
young they are. Don’t promise them something more “valuable” in
the future in order to get over this hurdle, just let them know
that you are not, under any circumstances, going to use a credit
card or borrow one dime this year or put off a payment for something
else, and that you must live within a budget.
Ask them: Do you want to eat? Do you want heat this winter? Then
let them know that the alternative is to play with their Star-Spangled
Barbie Limo or the Lego Action Set while your children are wrapped
in newspaper, living in a cardboard box over a steam grate.
If they respond with
a child version of a “pshaw!”,
take their coat, give them the Sunday Journal News and send them
out into the yard for an hour or so. They’ll get the idea.
If understanding is
still not achieved, put them on a budget. Give them $10 on Monday
and tell them that for the rest of the
week they’re going to have to ‘pay’ for whatever
it is they get in the house. Fifty cents per half hour of TV Time.
A dollar for a Meal. Twenty-five cents for each three minute phone
call. Forty cents a day for heat and hot water. Twenty-five cents
for each extra dessert. Thirty cents for each hour of Internet
time. All these things cost you money that your kids never see
and they should share in the decision process by deciding what’s
important to them. If they opt for the TV and the net, do not -
under any circumstances - feed them when they run out of money
on Wednesday afternoon. They can go hungry until Saturday… trust
me. And if they head over to the neighbor to bum a meal, they’ll
at least be learning a valuable trade and a high art. Bumming is
hard work. Just ask anyone who’s done it.
To be sure, they’ll cry and moan and say their friends
have better parents and maybe even run away from home. (If they
actually do the latter, you’ll save the $20 bucks right off!)
In the end, they will learn the value of “gifting” and
the fallacy of “expensive = love”. And, if they call
Social Services to turn you in, just send the social worker my
way. The law does not require you to pander to your children, you
only need provide the basics. Bread and water. (And at the price
of bread these days they’ll be running a deficit by Thursday.)
Perhaps plan a “gift making party” with them in the
near future where with odds and ends found around the house or
at the local recycling center they can create hand-made gifts for
family members and perhaps even for each other. Okay, that’s
just an idea, but you get the drift of where that’s going…
As for not buying anything
from China, aye, that’s even
harder. Thanks to our spending and purchasing habits, Wal*Mart,
Congress, and our ineffectual unions, pretty much everything is
made in China these days. However, if you buy nothing from the
Chinese, we’ll come in with a national surplus which can
go towards paying down the hundreds of billions of dollars of our
debt they own… your grand children’s debt, by the way.
I really can’t point you too many places where Made in
China isn’t going to be on the label but I can tell you this:
Stay out of the malls. Especially, stay away from Kay-Bee Toys,
Wal*Mart and Toys R Us. Even walking in the door supports the Chinese
and worsens our collective debt. And, before you lay that American
Express card down…. remember, AMEX is the devil. Honest.
They will possess you. They, MBNA and the rest of the banking industry
wrote the personal debt laws and you know they didn’t write
them with fairness or economy in mind.
Instead, what we can
do is what we’ve done here at PlanPutnam
over the past 6 holiday seasons: If you own a small business which
hand crafts goods or sells locally or regionally made items, let
us know and we’ll advertise for you in these pages until
the Holiday has come and gone. You just need to offer quality gifts
for under $20 for anyone you’d buy a gift for. Children,
adults, neighbors, grandparents, and me.
In this way, perhaps we can achieve several things: One, teach
our children the value of money. Two, lessen our own personal debt.
Three, affect in the positive the trade balance between the United
States and the dictatorial regime in Communist China and, Fourth,
support local, regionally based businesses that are the backbone
of our national economy.
And besides, do you really want a mall in your backyard? If not,
why would you encourage them?
Jeff |
