Have a fearless Christmas

A parliamentary crisis, a looming recession, 100,000 stranded tourists in Thailand, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and Britney Spears is making a comback. There is so much depressing news to comment on.
I listened to a CBC radio debate the other day about whether or not it was one's patriotic duty to go out and spend money to support the collapsing economy. Arguments were made on both sides. Opinions varied from "I owe it to my family not to spend and make our situation worse" to "You might as well spend the money and have something concrete in your hand when the whole country goes down the tube." I eventually formed my own opinion based not so much on any particular view that I had just heard, but the fact that the opinions were so diverse. No one knows what is going to happen in the world economy. The pundits don't have a clue, the politicians are all dithering, we know the financial movers and shakers who started it are obviously devoid of any reliable insight. So without anyone having the slightest idea of how things will turn out, what is it that forms our opinions on what course of action we should take? Fear, of course. Old Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right.
After that occurred to me, I started to become annoyed. Here I was, worried about my income, my property values, my pension, all because that gang of myopic, money grubbing, Wall Street mega-crooks had allowed their own swollen greed to displace not only all moral and ethical values but even all rational thought. They had made me fearful, and I resented it. In the past I have commented on the Americans use of fear as a motivator in elections, in the marketplace and in foreign affairs. The idea that their financial incompetence was now making me fearful, made me angry.
I have decided not to restrict my spending habits. It isn't that I have a particularly rosie view of the future, but I've decided that I 'm not going to be afraid. The idiots who invented the financial instruments that allowed the unrestricted packaging and trading of sub-prime mortgages, they can have my fear of financial loss instead. And while their lifestyles will no doubt hardly suffer at all, one can always hope.
Meanwhile, I will buy my Christmas presents in stores around town, go to the pub a couple of times a month as usual, and accompany my wife to the Christmas craft fairs. It is a good time of year to not be afraid.