An Economic Fix

By Shawn Ambrosino

As some of you may or may not know, for most of the past 16 years of my life I’ve made a career as a professional wrestler. You don’t need to be a detective to deduce from that statement that I am, by no means, a small man. At 6’2” and tipping the scales at the moment at 285 (50 pounds lighter than my peak weight, but still pretty sizeable)…

That size can be intimidating to those that don’t know me. But to those that do, they know that I wouldn’t, quite literally, hurt a fly – let alone another human, well,  at least for real. I’ve been described as the proverbial gentle giant…

But lately, I find myself having to use my size and intimidation factor with friends and acquaintances. What could bring this on? What could turn this professed gentle giant into an angry juggernaut? Three words…

“In this economy…”

Just the sound of it sends shivers up my spine, and not the “I’m scared,” kind of shivers, but the “I’m angry enough to spit,” variety. That’s right…  Just those 3 little words can work me into a rage or even worse, get me standing on my soap box. Why?Because there isn’t a problem with the economy.  As a matter of fact…

There’s no such thing as an “economy” – it’s truly a figment of our imaginations.

It lives in the realm of unicorns and leprechauns…It can’t be photographed, it can’t be caught and it certainly can’t be fixed by throwing billions of dollars at it. That would be like me trying to fix my car by gluing dimes to the bumper…

It just sounds ridiculous, right?

Do you want to fix the mess we’re in? Then we need to address the real problem. Attitudes…

Before we go any further, let me explain what an attitude is…

According to Mr. Webster and his dictionary…

• at-ti-tude
  Pronunciation [at-i-tood, -tyood]
  –noun
  1. manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes.

Now, I know that you already no know the meaning of the word. Hell, you’re probably smarter than I am…But there’s a reason I showed this to you, and I want you to pay special attention to the last three entries.

“esp. of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes” – because this is exactly what we’re dealing with:

The negative group attitude of the collective mind.

The current administration is NOT going to fix a thing. They’re going to keep hurting our situation. You can’t expect to keep printing money out of thin air without consequences. Sever consequences, and they keep digging the hole deeper with ever quantitative easing they push forward.  Besides, we can’t keep expecting the government to step in and save the day…That’s not the government’s job. The government’s job is to collect taxes, maintain the armed forces and regulate the currency. That’s it.

The problem isn’t the economy” – any more than there is a diplomatic disagreement between elves and fairies. Let’s start changing attitudes, shall we? Let’s begin with our biggest problem, welfare.

It doesn’t take a degree in economics to figure out that you can’t pay people for doing nothing. You can’t hand out money because somebody can’t find work. Necessity is the mother of invention…

If these people want a place to sleep, food in their bellies and clothes on their back – they’ll find work fast enough. The Good Book says it best, “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he never goes hungry.” We need to teach our people how to fish.

And we don’t need the so called “experts” telling us what is best for the country – well, at least the ones that agree with cutting spending in areas like defense, and increasing it in others like social programs.  Predicting an economic “outlook” is the same thing as predicting where the next tornado is going to hit – only it’s more dangerous. These financial gurus don’t own a crystal ball that can see into the future…

Nor do they own a time machine, they’re just people putting a lot of stock in trends of the past – and think it can predict the future. What makes these “outlooks” dangerous is people believe them…

“Oh, I saw it on CNN and CNBC… so it must be true.”

Wrong.

These people can no more predict the economic outlook as I can this Wednesday’s lottery numbers. If we really want to change this mess we’re in, we need to change attitudes. Here’s how I’ve been going about doing that:

Any time a friend or an acquaintance says in any combination, “In this economy” or “The government should…” – I pinch them, and I pinch them hard. It’s called negative reinforcement.

Unless, that is, the words they say are, “The government should just get the hell out of the way.” They not only get a pass on that…They might even get a hug.

But the pinching bit – that’s for those who tell people to not spend, yet are all for the government handouts that abound throughout our country. If they get mad, explain you’re trying to help them, that you’re just trying to fix their attitude towards spending money…

Explain that you’re trying to fix the economy, one pinch at a time. If people think they’re going to fix their own financial well-being by pinching their wallets or asking Uncle Sam for some cash – why not take that idea a step further. Illustrate the point in the real world. Of course, all of your conservative friends will wonder why you’re going around pinching liberals…

But I’m here to tell you, it’s incredibly satisfying.