Corn nut economics

There are a lot of things I don’t understand. Like Lady Gaga, for example. I don’t get it. And NASCAR (Hello? Left turns?). And “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” — who are these people and why should I be keeping up with them? And I don’t have the least idea why a respectable publishing house would choose to publish a book and then do absolutely nothing to promote it (not that I’m bitter or anything). So it should come as no surprise that I was completely befuddled the other day. I was flipping through the TV channels and heard different experts on different cable channels explaining our current economic situation in this country. According to one expert who really seemed to know what he was talking about, we are in this situation because we don’t tax the very wealthy enough. But according to a different expert on a different channel who was equally adamant and convincing and who was wearing a bow tie (and doesn’t a bow tie just scream “Listen to me because I am really, really smart?”), we are in trouble because we tax the wealthy way too much. I kept channel-hopping in search of an expert who could explain to me how two similarly smart professionals could look at the same set of facts and figures and reach polar opposite conclusions. I want my economic reports to be like the weather. I mean, hurricanes always bring wind and rain, don’t they? Isn’t that just the nature of hurricanes? Wind and rain - you can count on it. You don’t turn on the Weather Channel and see some erstwhile reporter getting battered by wind and rain on South Beach, and then flip over to CNN and see another correspondent on South Beach reporting blue skies and balmy temperatures. If there’s a hurricane out there, everybody is going to be reporting on wind and rain - except maybe Fox News, which is going to be trying to find some way to blame the hurricane on President Obama. I want to see the same thing when it comes to reporting on the economy. I want all of the smart people to agree that this happened and then this happened and so this happened. Like a mathematical equation: A plus B equals C. That’s the way it’s supposed to work with numbers, isn’t it? I know that’s the way things work in our check book (at least, this is what Anita tells me, and she’s the only one who can make sense out of what’s going on in there). If I spend too much on pistachios, we don’t have enough to pay the bills. So I buy corn nuts instead, and everyone gets paid and we remain solvent for another month. See what I mean? Simple, basic, corn nut economics. I can understand that. But all of this talk of debt ceilings and taxing the rich and recessions and bulls and bears on Wall St. leaves me.. confused. I don’t get it any better than I get Lady Gaga. And no matter how hard I try to understand, I’m probably not going to get it. Ever. And you know what? I’m OK with that. While I try to be well-informed on the issues of the day, I’ve come to the conclusion at this point in my life that I’m not going to be able to completely understand everything that is happening in this complicated - and sometimes convoluted - world in which we live. So I’ll leave it to others to figure out if we’re taxing the rich too much or not enough. I’ll pray for those who are making decisions in my behalf - economically and otherwise - and then I’ll focus my attention on the things I am capable of understanding, and can do something about. Now, tell me again about these Kardashians...