I'm having trouble getting worked up over this debt/default debacle.

[TheCowsCameHome]

My wife and I went out to lunch with my mom earlier this week. She will be 96 years old next month. We only get together every six weeks or so because she lives three hours away.

As we were enjoying our afternoon together I began to think of all the awful events she must have dealt with in her lifetime. World War I, the Great Depression, World War II - with blackouts and rationing, the Korean War, Russia's nuke threats in the early 60's, VietNam, Red China's on and off sabre-rattling, Watergate and the Nixon years, 911, Iran and their craziness,.....various recessions mixed in, including the 50's when my dad lost his job with four small kids to support, - dozens of other bad situations along the way, the list by no means complete.

In spite of this, she's still as happy as ever, and faces each new day with a smile and a positive attitude.

And here we are today with a supposedly intelligent bunch of people in Washington that can't agree whether it's day or night, playing games because their bloated egos have disabled their ability to think straight.

After thinking about what my mom has lived through, this manufactured "crisis" looks like something you'd expect to see in a cheap carnival.

I doubt there will be a default, and certainly hope there won't, but in the meantime I think our current troubles, manufactured or otherwise, pale in comparison to what she, and so many others, have lived through. This can potential mess can be averted, unlike so many other situations in the past that were beyond our control.

Just my .02

[Speck Tater]

1. You've always had everything you needed to survive.

The proof is simply that you are here today. If at any time in the past you lacked what you needed to survive, you wouldn't have survived.

It follows that no matter how bad things might have seemed in the past, they were always good enough. OR to Quote Lao Tze "He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

[snagglepuss]

2. Great quote.

:thumbsup:

[jwirr]

3. I like Lao Tze's quote but I don't think he was talking about food and

water, shelter and medical care - basic needs. I have always understood him to be addressing greed and materialism not survival.

[Speck Tater]

6. Which is why he said "enough". If you have enough, that's enough.

If you don't have enough, that's a different problem entirely. But the fact that we are alive today proves we've always had enough.

[NashVegas]

4. I'm Okay With a Default

We pay off SS, Medicare, Medicaid.

We pay off China and any other foreign nation creditor that can dance on us.

Wall Street clients who buy treasury bonds can wait. After all, these people would be the first ones to walk away from an underwater mortgage and justify it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Ask her about the Great Depression...

please do...

My two cents...

[jwirr]

7. In fact ask her if you can tape her story for all future members of your

family. Working as an archivist for a historical society this was a project I worked with. It is well worth it.