Random Musings

- went to the mall yesterday. 3pm, parking lot packed. 5:30pm, still packed.

- a relatively large display of sub $200 North Face winter jackets (same price range even for the teenager sizes). Impressive foot traffic.

Prosperity is back. (not sure if it's an "exclamation mark" or a "question mark." I will leave it neutral as a "period" for now.)

- E-Z pass makes life easy but it makes rate increases easy too. A random check of the statement a few weeks ago revealed that a $2.15 charge used-to-be (don't know how long ago) is now over $6. Thought a second, sort of making sense (not economically but for the sake of clerical processing errors), since the standard fare of Garden State Parkway is now $1.50 instead of an easy quarter and a dime.

- my parents came over the weekend. My dad told me that the charge for the luggage cart is now, guess how much, a whopping $5 at JFK.

When the ATM is now dishing out $20s and $50s instead of $10s and $20s, you can tell that inflation is not just lurking around the corner. It's here.

So, low interest rate, easy credit, creeping inflation, persisting high unemployment, those are signs of time. I admire the unsuppressible optimism of our people, but the big question remains, "have we learned from our mistakes that led to the credit crisis?" The pains seemed fading fast in the rear-view mirror and into distant memory.

IS the prosperity truly back?

p.s. Btw, the Christmas gift giving and exchange has become a custom that I found increasingly hard to understand:

- when all things equalized and cancelled out, you end up buying a bunch of stuff for yourself.

- it's not an efficient way of buying either. You are paying someone to guess and get what you really want. Go figure how that will go! The long return line, maybe.

Not being cynical, holiday is a happy time. I am all for spending more than a few hard earned bucks to have some well deserved fun. But keeping boxes of gifts in storage is not one of those grand ideas.

On that note, here is my view of a bargain:

No matter how much of a discount it is, if it's something that you don't really need, a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. It's not a bargain except for the rush or the excitement of the bargain hunting process.

One last word of wisdom, on dealing with the clutter at home, I had this idea for a long while: that is, for everything you get new, you have to get rid of something old. A new pair of pants for an old one ... the list goes on. Pretty straightforward idea but never had the discipline to enforce.

Now, in the weekend's Chinese speech contest, my friend's view, "exposed" by his son's speech, reinforced my idea. A true bargain is:

"Buy one and get rid of one free."

Then you know you are really get what you need and your money has been wisely spent.

Have a happy holiday season!

Note: Originally posted to Facebook on Dec 3, 2012, with some minor touch-ups.