I don’t know about you, but I find the whole Gulf spill to be very overwhelming. Crabs in oil, boats in oil, the entire southeastern United States in oil. A friend recently posted an app that super-imposes the current dimensions of the oil slick over any region of the US. It’s crazy, seeing a black shadow stretch from Philadelphia to Boston. It provides perspective of the disaster that continues to unfold, and it brings home the devastation.

But then again . . . .  It’s nothing. I’m sorry, but just think about the numbers with me. There are, on the high side, twenty thousand barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf every day. Terrible! Insane. A certified disaster of historic proportions. And we consume, in the United States alone, twenty MILLION barrels of oil . . . a day. At the current rate of discharge, the broken well would have to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 2.7 years, just to provide for one single day of America’s consumption. That may be more horrifying than the ever-spreading oil slick that is clinging to Florida like hot Saran Wrap.

Well, first off let me just say that I am far from an economist, but lately I have been having a difficult time with all of the stimulus.  I thought I would post a few random thoughts, and see what you all thought.  Perhaps I and others can be enlightened:

1)  How does the government stimulate the economy by pumping billions into it in a variety of ways, when this is money that we don't have?  Where does it come from?  If this is only serving to increase our national debt, this seems a bit counterproductive.  How in the world do we have this debt, and to whom is it indebted?  

2)  Why is it OK for us to have this stimulus package that most people are skeptical will work?  I have talked to very few people who think this thing will work.  Most people I know who live in my similar demographic plan on taking any money/benefits they receive and putting it back into their own debt or saving it.  They will not simply go right out and buy a new TV.