A personal quibble

NYT ran a piece on austerity’s toll on the suddenly-thinner social safety net in Europe. I enjoyed the article, but I found it pretty hard to concentrate once I realized I was being asked to empathize with a Spanish couple who earn a combined $3200/month, have one child already and another on the way and now are going to have to scale back their budget because they just can’t afford things like trips to Russia and China, flat screen TVs, a bigger car and home renovations anymore. Seriously? I know plenty of people who earn much more than $3200/month and don’t treat themselves to things like that. It would be nice if we could make all of our dreams come true on $3200/month, but it’s not realistic and it would probably destroy a lot of work ethics if it was. Both Europe and America need a heavy dose of realism right now as we start to fight back against this budgetary flabbiness.

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