Thursday, September 27, 2012

Blog #3


Oh Ben, where are you?



I don’t know about the rest of you, but the main message I got from the Ben Franklin readings is that we are all a bunch of lazy bums! How far from the truth is this though? If you ask me, I would guess that Franklin is rolling over in his grave at the state of our country today. I am just as guilty as the next person, so I’m talking to myself too, but the fact of the matter is that the country as a whole seems to have become very lazy. According to Forbes.com, even though the unemployment rate for the nation is down to 8.1%, which is still nothing to write home about, the reasons are due to a lack in labor force participation and the size of the labor force in general.[1] People aren’t looking for work! What were some of the first points Franklin made in the story about the old man preaching to the angry crowd? Don’t waste time, work hard, and don’t be a slacker. Yeah right! Not the good old U.S.A., we want the government to support us. Not only do we not want to work, we don’t want to manage our finances the way Franklin says we should either. CreditCards.com states that the average amount of credit card debt per household in America is almost $16,000.[2] This is just credit card debt people! Big brother isn’t exactly setting the example for us though, as the current national debt is a little over sixteen trillion dollars. If you want your mind blown, check out The National Debt Clock Maybe the one we need to be visiting is Feed The Pig. We've all heard the commercials on the radio about learning how to save money and plan for the future, but they actually have some good information. So where were we, oh ya, 0 for 2 so far. Ben was right, we suck!



[1] Shaefer, Steve. ""Dear President Obama, The Unemployment Rate Is Falling For All The Wrong Reasons"." Forbes.com. n.p., 9/07/2012. Web. 9/26/2012. 
[2] Woolsey, Ben and Schulz, Matt. "Credit card statistics, industry facts, debt statistics."CreditCards.com. n.p., n.d. Web. 9/26/2012.

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