After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, a few world leaders encouraged their populace to keep spending. George Bush, the president of the United States at the time urged Americans to “get on the airlines, get about the business of America”. The prime minister of Canada told his country “Don't cancel your plans ... we have to keep the travel and tourism industry alive. It is the way to fight back." And many other officials declared a trip to the mall as being patriotic. Many people believed that that was the way to rebound from the terrorist attacks and to keep the economy alive. Please see the following link for an article written by Jill Vardy on September 28, 2001 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0929-04.htm.
While I agree with our nations leaders to some extent, I believe that this topic also revolves around a personal financial stand point. I used to rationalize spending money I didn’t have because I was putting what I made back into other peoples jobs, so they could put what they made into my job. It made perfect sense to me. However, as of late I have come to change my opinion on the subject.
The average house hold in America has 8 thousand dollars just in credit card debt. That doesn’t include back taxes, back rent, student loans, personal loans or any other kind of debt there is. The national average for personal debt is estimated somewhere around 2 trillion dollars, and its growing. Roughly 43% of American family’s spend more than they make every year. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/savinganddebt/p70581.asp
I believe for those families who can afford to spend money without increasing the amount of debt they have, should spend money. I still stand by the idea that it is patriotic to spend money, but only if you can afford it. For those families who are in debt, and who are living outside their means, I believe they are killing the economy. If we could eliminate debt on an individual level, I believe we would see less businesses sink, more jobs open up, and even a reduction in the national deficit, which is now upwards of 9 trillion dollars. Just to give you an idea of how big that is that would be 9,000,000,000,000$, I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to fully comprehend that much money. And by 2019, the debt is estimated to reach 18.4 trillion dollars (that’s 18,400,000,000,000$) However, to bring that debt back down to the 250 million (that’s 250,000,000, roughly 36,000 times less than what the deficit is now) like it was in 1940 would be more patriotic than continuing to spend and increase the national debt. Click the following link for charts showing the increase of the deficit over the last 50 years. http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html
Having said all that, I say it is patriotic to shop. We need to keep our economy flowing. Any money that sits still is like sitting water. It attracts mosquitoes and gets moldy. It’s bad for the country. But I say it’s even more patriotic to adjust our spending habits and to eliminate personal debt, which will enable us to put even more into our ever growing economy.
