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No Need To Thank Me

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Although it’s clear that I have no formal direct influence over the economic policies of the State of Minnesota, I would still like to take full credit for yesterday’s prediction that the state will have an 876 million dollar surplus at the end of the next two years.

My reasons are simple. Nobody knows what really made this thing that hasn’t happened yet happen, yet everyone else is taking credit too. So why not grab some of the premature glory before it disappears?

So, how will I did it?

Easy! When even tougher future economic times were about to hit, I attacked consumer debt by cutting way back on my projected spending. A lot of people panic and focus on their actual spending, but changing that can be difficult and painful. Projected activity is easier to control, because it’s all about making assumptions. Once you get the assumptions right, solving future problems becomes simple!

I merely assumed I would start smoking next year, which made my personal deficit balloon. Then I predicted that I would quit the filthy habit shortly after starting, and instantly saved a boatload of money in the process. I then imagined that I would use the extra money to buy a small retail shop of some sort in a fantasized perfect location where it is predictably impossible to go broke, and conjured a rare midwestern typhoon with an extremely selective footprint that wiped out all my competitors. I then envisioned myself as a wealthy and beloved pillar of the community, hiring many deserving local people who I expected to be both highly enthusiastic about my strangely undefined business and intensely grateful to me for employing them.

Viola! Surplus time! Happy Days Are Here Again!

How have you saved the future economy from continued disaster?

48 thoughts on “No Need To Thank Me”

  2. Good morning to all. It will be discovered that my lack of skill at earning a lot of money is actually a good thing. Some great economist will study my history of low economic gain and find that it is actually a good thing. This will be very suprising to me because I always wanted to earn more money. However, it will turn out that by leaving all the high paying jobs open for others I have advanced the economy. The economist will recomend that more people do as I did and it will open up the economy in some way only understood by the great economist who will develop this new economic plan from his studying of my history of low achievement.

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  3. in order to anticipate the coming fiscal picture i have put together a business plan outlining the goals, anticipated shortfalls and possible roadbocks that may be in the path of my road to leading the state to the megamargins that we all anticipate in our biennium under my guidince.
    the outcome will likely leave the state in such a state of over abundance that they will grant me personal tax immunity as a show of thanks for saving the economy single handedly and they will procliam the new economic position minnesota will be in , the best of all possible worlds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPClzIsYxvA

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    1. Wait, isn’t this like frozen orange juice concentrate futures in “Trading Places,” if that’s the name of the movie. So I’ll make a movie, or maybe the key thing to being least influential is to not make the movie, anyway, a move about how T-Paw and I do not trade places and do not save the economy. I’ll call it “Staying Putz.”

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    2. Field Trip: my wife and I are going to the capital city for the day, see what’s shaking and moving, having a sit-down with anyone who looks powerful.
      Have fun today, children, and play nasty.

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  5. Rise and Spend Baboons!

    Like Dale, I might be up to this task! I love to take credit where none is due. (But how did Spin Williams miss this opportunity to SHINE?). I think several things might warrant bragging rights:

    *I have a new dog so we are again buying dog food, treats, and dog-walking shoes.
    *I’ve been Christmas shopping. I could be persuaded to over-do this a bit. Especially if I can buy gifts for myself. Does this count?
    *As a Thank You gift to my dear husband for all his help and assistance setting up my work expansion site, I PERSONALLY PURCHASED AN E-READER FOR HIM. This should significantly up the state’s GNP–OK GSP.
    *We always attend a Christmas show somewhere during the season. Our tip alone should add to the state’s well-being. All Baboons who have met Lou and I know we live large!
    *I’m starting to qualify for Senior Discount Days at various stores, which will really up my spending.
    *The end of the tax year is coming quickly, so I have to execute some last minute spending (iPad for work) and charitable contributions to credit to 2011.

    That’s all for now. But I know I can save Minnesota, the state I love. I’ll be sure to vote for the generous Republican state legislators, too. That ought to finish us off in fine style.

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    1. I also have a new dog. Jacque, we might be in the lead on creating a dog based stimulus for the economy. I’m sure that by becoming dog owners we are somehow creating the right condictions for advancing the economy. Taking the responsiblity for the care of a dog will prepare us to do the right things to take care of our economy.

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  6. I have brought forth Daughter into the world. I have encouraged Creative Thinking, Problem Solving, and that Science/Math/Engineering is Fun (the kid cries if she can’t get her math homework done on the first night ‘cuz she likes it so much – clearly she is learning her lessons well). Through her superior smarts and inventive imagination she will develop an Amazing Widget that is destined to change the way we live and work. This Amazing Widget will boost the economy by creating demand in the market (Jacque, get your check card ready), jobs in Our Fair State (which, in turn, will create more spendable income to buy the Amazing Widget), and will have a ripple effect through other companies and industries as they collaborate with Daughter’s company on the Amazing Widget and find efficiencies of their own (thereby freeing up additional money for more spending – which we now know drives the economy) by using the Amazing Widget. So you see, it’s not so much that I wanted to be a Mom, it’s that I’m saving the future economy by creating and developing an inventor.

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  7. Our fiscal future looks much brighter since daughter got a job and then decided that one job wasn’t enough and got another one. Now I don’t have to give her any spending money. She works as a barista after school and on Saturdays, and then goes to a night job at the movie theatre. She gets to go to movies for free now, another perk of her second job. (She gets one free drink of her choosing every shift at the coffee shop.) She has yet to get her drivers license so we have to haul her around town a lot, but that just stimulates gas and oil exploration in the region. She also is helping the national economy by working and paying taxes.

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  8. ..”how will i did it?”
    love it, Dale.

    i will call a farm retreat in which we will vision stuff. then the next meeting will be a strategic planning session – at least 9 hours long. then we’ll need to do branding discussions/brain storming. then revamp the farm logo and identify our market for next year. during these times we will need donuts – many donuts – from Biggs’ donuts in Moose Lake. Biggs will flourish and pay more taxes.

    also, i overpaid my Mom’s state tax last year and didn’t bother to re-do it, so there’s at least $3oo of the surplus.

    off to find more/better hay – another boost to the economy.

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    1. BiB, What do you look for in goat hay? Grass? Alfalfa? Mix? How fussy are you about their hay?
      (I don’t have any, just curious).

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      1. oh, Ben – only the Girls know what they like and they usually don’t tell me until i’ve bought 300 bales (they have tried one, and loved it and then decided once the hay is in the barn that they HATE it). now i know they love novelty so i wait.
        what they really love is red clover/weedy mix which is really hard to get this year. (not the weeds, the red clover was winter-killed last year and that’s why i am so hoping it snows soon!) and if i could find someone who had a clover field that had a bunch of redtwig dogwood in it (then bale the whole bunch up into twiggy, clovery bales) they’d be in heaven. oh, they’re not fussy 🙂 ha. ha. that old saying that a goat will eat anything is absolutely false.

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  10. Morning all – I just read through the last couple of days – sorry I wasn’t online. Yesterday was right up my alley – except that there are NO holiday traditions that I’m willing to forego. I have to work hard not to add MORE every year.

    CG – so sorry to hear about the Dowager Empress, but glad that she went peacefully at home.

    Steve – sad news that you’re not having visitors this week. Any possibility you can go to them before February?

    At this time of year I never feel like I am adding to the economy – and that’s on purpose. Teenager and I make our own gifts and cards and about the only money we spend (besides the usual) is for the cookies and then the party we have later in the month. Wish I could muster up some bad feeling about this, but I can’t!

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  11. Greetings! I have done my part, working hard all these years, paying outrageous Minnesota state taxes, property taxes, being a good citizen, etc. You’re very welcome.

    Now I’m livin’ large on the dole, sitting home in my pajamas, fuzzy slippers, uncombed hair while collecting unemployment and any other social services I can wangle. And just to make sure I’m living la vida loca, I’ve started to smoke the most expensive cigarettes, eating expensive chocolate bon bons while watching abysmal daytime TV and living on frozen TV dinners. Naturally, doing all this trashy stuff means I’m going to need a lot of expensive health care. I plan to use every red cent and more of what I put into the system. Thank you very much! 8) (Note: I assume you all recognize the extreme irony in this post.)

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  12. When I send our our annual Christmas letter, I do two things. First, I use the address labels that I continue to receive from all kinds of charities. Since I haven’t seen a decline in the number of labels I get each year, even from charities I don’t support, I’m speculating that this practice somehow encourages them to send more labels. This not only keeps the printers of the labels in business, but it also ensures that the postal service has work to do. Second, I often put on more than the postage required to get my letter from point A to B, especially the letters I send to Europe, since I’m keep forgetting what the going rate is and also don’t have a scale to weigh my letters. So I err on the side of extra postage. Also, I have purchased a significant number of those “forever stamps” that don’t have a value printed on them. Some of these are from the postage increase prior to the most recent one. Since I can’t keep track of which ones are from which era, I put a couple on each letter just to be on the safe side. I’m figuring that the extra postage offsets in some small measure the federal deficit.

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    1. PJ — I unabashedly use these labels as well, going on the assumption that my throwing the labels away won’t help anybody’s cause! Although I have to admit I use them mostly on bills — the holidays labels are a whole `nother story!

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  13. This week alone I’ve spent a bunch at Michael’s Crafts, a couple of thrift shops, and I’ll be paying the City of Mpls $42 for a parking ticket where I mis-read a meter. Yesterday I wrote out all those donation checks that have been piling up. I spent more to mail a birthday present to granddaughter in Calif. than the gift was worth, and bought Christmas stamps. I will continue to spend more than usual this month, and I’m thinking of foregoing my senior discount. 🙂

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  14. My holiday expenditures will be modest this year, but I am taking care of a little elective surgery before the new year begins (and I have to start over on the deductible). Moving a little cash from the insurance company to the hospital might achieve a stimulative effect of some sort, and if I follow Molly’s lead and ask for some wonderful drugs to take home afterwards the pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders will be happy.

    Off the Trail for a couple of days – see you all next week.

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    2. hope all goes well. nice to save a buck on the deductible but someone once told me the difference between major surgery and minor surgery is that major surgery is when it happens to me.

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  16. I feel that I should make another attempt to come up with a way to save the future economy because things are not looking too good. As an old hippie, I should have some persective on this situation. Is it time to blow up the TV, move to the country, and find god on our own? Why not? Nothing else looks too good. Well, I guess I am not ready to do that, but it may be coming. Perhaps those people occupying various public grounds will lead the way and start setting up camps in the country. Before long more people with join them and soon a whole new economy will be developed. what do you think? Have I finally completely lost it?

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    1. think that sounds like the end of the trail retirement community. liiking around hutchenson currently but there is still time to relocate it to just about anywhere. what happens at the end of the trail stays at the end of the trail

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