American Doodie

Was talking to Matt this weekend, during all of our errand running and was thinking about how much money we spent this weekend.
It wasn't a crazy amount. Average really - some stuff we needed, some stuff we merely wanted.
I told Matt a story about how one of my more conservative friends went shopping with me one day a few years back. He scoffed at me and what I was buying and said, "You're such a consumer."
Is that a bad thing?
Aren't I supporting our economy? Isn't money the circulation system of our country?
As soon as money starts to dry up, our economy goes into the shitter, people get pissed off because the companies they work for aren't making as much money as they had been because no one's buying anything, so they lay people off.
So, the way I see it, we're being patriotic and doing what we can to keep this economy going - SPENDING!!! Its way more fun than saving. And yeah - I save, quite a bit actually.
But when we spend money - we get to bring home cool stuff or we get mailed a box full of cool stuff and its like Xmas on delivery day. When we save money - we get mail. An envelope full of papers to file in an overflowing disorganized filing cabinet we never pay any attention to because it holds completely boring paperwork.
Just because I'm not saving every single zippy bag, washing it out, and re-using it so that I've had the same box of zippy bags since the 70s, doesn't make me a bad person. Some where out there, someone needed the $2.50 I spent on buying a new box of zippy bags so that they didn't have to lay someone off at the zippy bag company.
We recycle everything that's recyclable, we give to charities, we donate the crap we've accumulated and don't need anymore.
We do our doodie as American citizens and I don't think that being a "consumer" is a bad thing.
We spend money so people can make money and keep their jobs and feed their families. We spend money so not only can we maintain a pretty kick ass lifestyle, but also so we can share it with our friends and our families.