I always read the entire newsletter, but the excerpt from Eli Dorado is stellar. I support the entire list. From our home front, I can state unequivocally that we have no intention of killing our cat!
I've owned a couple cats myself, and I understand that you can get emotionally attached to them. But they aren't people, they aren't as important or as valuable as people, and while cats aren't exactly a commodity, they are replaceable. If anything, vets are a bit dishonest when they exploit people's mortality salience to get them to spend money they can't afford on their cats' futile health care. (Look up Terror Management Theory in psychology to see what I mean.)
I don't understand the negative reactions to Teresa Ghilarducci's article on Bloomberg. First of all, if a mainstream personal-finance guru like, say, Dave Ramsey gave that sort of advice to people who want to stretch their dollars in hard times, most normal people wouldn't find it objectionable.
Secondly, Virginia Postrel, the libertarian writer, years ago wrote an essay about using our overstuffed closets, where we have enough clothing and shoes to last us several years, as a kind of savings account to carry us over a recession. But no one that I know of attacked her for recommending that we stopped buying new clothes for awhile to save money for more important needs.
And thirdly, as for vegetarian diets, Seventh-Day Adventists in the United States have eaten that way for generations, and they are about the healthiest demographic in the country.
I always read the entire newsletter, but the excerpt from Eli Dorado is stellar. I support the entire list. From our home front, I can state unequivocally that we have no intention of killing our cat!
I've owned a couple cats myself, and I understand that you can get emotionally attached to them. But they aren't people, they aren't as important or as valuable as people, and while cats aren't exactly a commodity, they are replaceable. If anything, vets are a bit dishonest when they exploit people's mortality salience to get them to spend money they can't afford on their cats' futile health care. (Look up Terror Management Theory in psychology to see what I mean.)
I don't understand the negative reactions to Teresa Ghilarducci's article on Bloomberg. First of all, if a mainstream personal-finance guru like, say, Dave Ramsey gave that sort of advice to people who want to stretch their dollars in hard times, most normal people wouldn't find it objectionable.
Secondly, Virginia Postrel, the libertarian writer, years ago wrote an essay about using our overstuffed closets, where we have enough clothing and shoes to last us several years, as a kind of savings account to carry us over a recession. But no one that I know of attacked her for recommending that we stopped buying new clothes for awhile to save money for more important needs.
And thirdly, as for vegetarian diets, Seventh-Day Adventists in the United States have eaten that way for generations, and they are about the healthiest demographic in the country.