Cheap Lee Dot Com

Do you avoid trying to save money or invest for retirement because you think the world is coming to an end? Do you think you are wasting your efforts with frugal living? Is this bailout and stock market crash a sign of things to come? The truth is we never know what tomorrow brings.

But every time I think about the world coming to an end, I think of that crazy guy with the large signs of death, destruction and the apocalypse straddled to his body. He may be crazy or just drank too much beer, but do you think he may be too far off the mark? Now, I am not talking damnation or a Mad Max post-radioactive world. I think we are just headed in the wrong direction.

When you look at it, most every great society through human history has been wiped out at one time or another by their own doing. Rome fell because of lack of resources. The Mongolian Empire, the largest empire that ever existed, fell because of lack of proper succession management. The Ottomans, the Greeks, even the Egyptians fell for one egocentric reason or another. It’s easy to believe that our day is coming, but should history necessarily repeat itself?

Sure, we may be more technologically advanced, but that doesn’t make us wiser. We are still motivated by the main form of trade - MONEY! We still have a desire for possession, power and control. So has anything really changed?

• Communication!?! Because we have the luxury to communicate on a global scale, why are we still facing many of the problems that we had 20 years ago? What is preventing us from creating the solutions? 

• Trade!?! We are now more economically dependent on each other, making each other’s economy more dependent on the success of trade. No one wants to be the losing country on that piece.

• Civility!?! Driving Porsches and eating with Crate + Barrel utensils does not make us like each other more. We have become arrogant, pretentious and selfish, as we become tied to the constraints and standards we think life obligates us to.

If that’s not enough, we now face problems at an unprecedented level. Funny, you wouldn’t think that we were so progressive (wink, wink!). From over population, to shrinking resources, to uneven standards of education and the pressures of capitalism, we have squeezed every last ounce of energy into a robotic path that perpetuates our problems.

What the heck happened?

It seems that we took our problems of yesterday and multiplied by 10. Maybe we let society control us instead of us determining society’s path. Unfortunately no matter how technologically advanced we become, we still can’t get over our own individual desires of greed, sloth, waste or apathy. Now I know not everyone is like this, but many happen to be monetarily tied into tolerating such behavior in order to make ends meet. Let’s face it….

We need help!

Of the problems we face today, half of them weren’t on the “Rules for Global Domination” list even a century ago.

• Looming Financial Crisis
• Global Warming
• Overpopulation
• Oil, Food and Resource Shortages
• Growing Clean Water Deficiencies
• Weak global standards for the spreading of infectious diseases
• Burgeoning Debt (both government and personal)

Won’t technology fix it?

That is what people hope will happen. Could it happen? Surprisingly, we currently have the technology to fix some of these problems. But that doesn’t help since practical common sense could have solved most of these problems decades ago without too much effort. Now we are forced to rely on adapting new technologies, which happen to have a major drawback in a capitalist world. Unfortunately, businesses tend to be small, resource limited and money motivated. Even if such technology is the right thing to do, it is often more costly and we wind up dragging our feet in adopting the right solutions.

Are we close to a tipping point?

You never know for sure until you are already there. By that time, it’s too late. Technology may miraculously save us, but that, too, is a big bet. So should we stop saving money for the future or avoid building an investment plan. Like I suggested, we never know what tomorrow brings. But where will you be financially if things ended up turning out all right? That is also a big bet.

Action to take

Strangely enough, the decision (as it always has) comes down to us as whether the end is near or not. Once we decide we need to take action, we must act!

Here are a couple of points to consider:

• Educate yourself – understand the issues and what is at stake. The magazine racks at the local library and book stores have magazine covers and articles dedicated to this stuff
• Take action – use what you have learned, not just talk about it. Alter your lifestyle by using fewer resources, driving smaller cars, and stretching what you have until it breaks (then recycle it.) You are not being thrifty to be cheap, but you are actively saving the planet.
• Vote for the most critical issues – while gay rights or gun control are important to some, these issues take a back seat to our biggest problems facing us today. Focus and vote on what’s critical to securing our future to come.
• Personally make it happen – get involved with programs that actively focus on these large scale issues

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