6. Foolish Spending

January is a good time to reconsider personal finances. The holiday spending is over (hopefully) and it's time to get a grasp of income and outflow. Make a better plan for a child's future college years. Or retirement (as if!). I didn't bounce any checks this holiday season, but I have a little bubble on my credit card I want to deflate. Time to eat in and enjoy the library.

It doesn't seem particularly difficult to me to live within a budget. I'm always surprised by those who get caught up in debt from their own foolish mistakes. (Totally different than those who get side-swiped by life-sudden emergencies from illness, accident, natural disaster--those can be devestating.)

It happens at more than the personal level, though. Consider CUC. According to the DOI-2006SummerInternReport , the CNMI's CUC is second only to the Virgin Islands in high utility rates. Our customer cost is more than in American Samoa, Tahiti, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Hawaii, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Guam, FSM, Marshall Islands, Palau, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and the U.S. Despite the high rates, though, our CUC is in an economic crisis because of inefficiencies in its operations.

How did this happen? And why aren't we fixing it now? I think we need leadership and help.

And as much as I favor the U.S. federalization of minimum wage and immigration, I'm not sure we can reliably trust the U.S. for leadership and fiscal responsibility.

What$1.2TrillionCanBuy

Amazing what we've allowed to happen (in the name of God and love of country). Time to re-examine what's important and how we want to spend our money.