Sorry, Kids, We've Acted Like a Bull in a China Closet With Our Borrowing

I owe my grandkids an apology, and an explanation:
* The apology is for breaking into their piggy banks (before a couple of them even have piggy banks) — to the tune of damnnear 40 grand apiece.
* The explanation is to clue them in as to why they might see a TV commercial that features U.S. kids pledging allegiance to China, of all places on Earth.
Before I offer up either, five lads and a lassie, I’ll note that, as Sonny and Cher used to sing, “You’d better sit down, kids … ” because this is staggering news.
Now, the apology: I’m sorry that our government’s financial fog obscured the borrowing quagmire it would plunge into in a vain attempt to remain afloat. That’s why, at this writing, when you are 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 8 years, and 16 years old, each of you owes the tidy sum of $38,519.22 (and rising) in taxes to cover our national deficit of at least $9 trillion. (Some estimates suggest it's closing in on $12 trillion.)
Don’t even think about trying to tap your parents for a loan to bail you out of your taxation for our government’s bailout. They also are on the hook for $38,519.22 apiece, as am I.
At your young ages, you justifiably might want to wail, “We’re victims of taxation without representation,” and our Founding Fathers would come back from the dead to argue your case.
The Obama administration is taking the brunt of criticism because its unbridled spending plans have escalated the borrowing, but I must confess that we all — Democrats, Republicans, Independents, No-Parties, Reds, Blues, and Purples — share the blame.
We also share the shame for the commercial in which children are pledging allegiance to China. Oh, we didn’t create the commercial, which I regard as a rather novel illustration of the ramifications of our government’s escalating borrowing.
The schoolchildren, you see, are pledging allegiance not only to acknowledge our towering debt to China but also to lament the volcanic ramifications to their own financial futures:
"I pledge allegiance to America's debt . . . and to the Chinese government that lends us money . . . And to the interest . . . for which we pay . . . Compoundable . . . with higher taxes . . . and lower pay . . . until the day we die."

Check out the commercial:



Credit (as in accolades, not a credit card, although it IS a priceless piece of work) for the commercial goes to the Employment Policies Institute, which recently launched a multimillion-dollar ad blitz to decry the peril of unsustainable borrowing and spending. The nonprofit research institution's campaign aims to marshal sentiment to reverse the government's multitrillion-dollar deficit spending.
Ironically, China was a joke when granddad was a lad, because it seemed as if everything cheap was labeled “Made in China.” Although Chinese products continue to wreak havoc because of health hazards to us in recent years, the Asian country is getting the last laugh — because it’s cheap no longer.
Indeed, it’s so wealthy that we’re groveling to borrow money "Made in China," and it has become one of our major creditors. Less ironically, the Employment Policies Institute’s ad effort kicked off even as the Office of Management and Budget issued its own estimate of more than $9 trillion in deficit spending.
"This campaign is all about getting people to understand the frightening reality of the massive federal deficit," says Richard Berman, the institute’s executive director. "People do not realize just how much $9 trillion is and what it will take for our country to get out from under that level of debt.”
The ad campaign aims to provide perspective on how mammoth the mountain of debt is, according to the institute.
“Americans also don't realize how much money we now owe to foreign governments and just how unsustainable our current level of spending is,” Berman says. “We have to do something to defeat the debt NOW, or we will live to regret it."
Uh-OH, grandkids, I hate to admit it, but our shameless pickpocketing from the future obviously has reached a shameful point. We have done something that not only we will live to regret, but you will, too.
What an embarrassing legacy to leave you.
As Liza and Joel sang in “Cabaret,” money makes the world go round.



These days, the world's economy is on a slow boat to China.

When Life Gives You a Lemonade Stand, Make MONEY

Alan Jackson might turn to Jimmy Buffett for advice on what to do around 5 o’clock, but grandson Jack appears to lean more toward another Buffett for counsel. Indeed, I suspect that Jack might have uncovered a secret that The Oracle of Omaha himself has kept close to the vest as he has accumulated billions over the decades.
Make no mistake about it, 5-year-old Jack loves to have fun, and I fully expect him to take a trip to Margaritaville some day. And even though I might be long gone by then, I can envision his impish grin and mischievous shrug as he intones: “Well, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”



Sooo, even though I’m positive that all work and no play could make Jack a dull boy, he took a serious entrepreneurial turn the other day when he decided to set up a lemonade stand. He took to the task resolutely, ignoring the intimidating element (Warren) Buffett’s Coca-Cola holdings might have offered to a one-stand man.
In that respect, Jack’s venture reminded me of one of (Warren) Buffett’s guiding principles: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”



Jack's version of the slogan: Be greedy when others fear that they might go thirsty.
Even though Jack’s was a solo venture, he had a firm business plan: 8-year-old brother Vincent made the sign, and Jack assigned him, as the taller of the two, to hold it aloft as a business magnet. Meanwhile, Jack the real business magnate, perched himself on a little stool, all the better to reach the money box he had decorated with lemons and dollar signs.
Although Jack allowed Mom to brew a mess of lemonade, he banished her to the sidelines thereafter. “If they see my mom,” he explained to her, “they’d think I’m a kid, and I want them to think I’m an adult.”
Ahhhhhh, deceptive advertising, banking on the fact that passersby wouldn’t guess that a lad a tad over 3 feet was a full-fledged adult, with arrested development, perhaps.
Times being what they are, and Mom being who she is, she didn’t want to leave her charges standing in the driveway with the potential of perfect strangers casing the juice joint. So she busied herself in the background, pretending to do yard work and such so she could keep an eye on them at the same time.
So there you have it: What would Warren Buffett do? The secret to success, the basic rule of Business 101, the capitalist mainstay: Don’t let your mom stand next to you if you want people to take you seriously as an adult and let you make scads of money.
And I bet — I just BET — that little Warren Buffett might have told his mommy, lo these many years ago, to go inside their humble Nebraska house so people would think he was an adult. Oh, I know, you’ve never heard that before, but you don’t expect him to reveal the real secret to his success do you?
Well, let me ask you this, then: Have you ever seen Warren Buffett’s mom lurking in the background around Berkshire Hathaway ventures?
I rest my case: The Sage of Omaha quite possibly dreamed up his slogan about greed and fear to hide the REAL secret behind his success: untying himself from mom’s apron strings.
Of course, Melissa rarely, if ever, wears an apron, but the gist is the same.
By the way, Jack and his assistant collected $6.95 in the lemon- and dollar-decorated money box.
Look out Warren Buffett; and move over, Jimmy Buffett. Jack, the Sage of Suburban Palm Beach County just might edge out W on the Forbes list and just might buy Margaritaville right out from under J.