In an economic crisis such as ours, a lot of people are talking about what you can do to survive in your financial life.  On CNBC there is a woman named Susy Orman who, in addition to being annoying, is a woman.  Suzy is able to draw upon her experience as woman to help other women be better investors in the women’s economy, which apparently exists aside from the regular economy.  Orman is popular, because apparently, some women find being patronized by fellow female better than having to listen to regular investing advice from men. 

A popular segment from Orman’s show is called “Can I afford it”, and is a bit that women would find totally offensive if conducted by a man, but where, as the name suggests, a women named Donna might call in to ask Suzy whether or not she can afford a Bichon Frise puppy.  Donna says the puppy costs $400 and is worried that if she buys the dog she will be unable to put her children through college.  Suzy’s first step is to remind Donna that the cost of a puppy doesn't stop at $400.  Next, she performs the difficult math of adding up food costs and veterinary bills and telling Donna that if she can afford $300 a year, she can “probably” afford the dog as long as her husband doesn’t lose his job. 

Another thing experts love to talk about is the “flight to quality” which is a term financial experts give to the fact that when corporate stock is doing poorly, people buy gold because it has "intrinsic" value.  Mostly, though, people buy gold when things go badly because that’s what their grandfather told them to do.  I suppose the theory behind this notion is that if the rest of the economy went up in smoke and we had roaming gangs and 40% unemployment, you could trade some gold for a rolling pin, which you could use as a weapon.
 
In fact, gold's obvious lack of intrinsic value has played out so frequently through history that its downsides should not be hard to understand.  Anyone who’s been through the 12^th grade remembers how a gold-centric view of the world served the Spaniards, who spent most of the 17^th century making sure they would go from being greatest power on the planet to basically irrelevant except for making excellent ham and being home to several bars that claim to be Hemingway’s favorite place to drink.

History suggests that the Spaniards’ grandfathers might have told them about the flight to quality in the 14th century, and that the Spaniards took them seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that they started wanting gold even when times were good, and eventually traded guns and things that could be made into guns in exchange for gold.  Also they stole gold, and acquired gold through some small-pox related dealings.  When push came to shove, however, the people with guns were surprisingly, able to defeat the Spaniards, whose strategy was mostly weaving tapestries out of gold and riding around on horses that were covered in 2,000 pounds of armor.

It probably isn’t fair to blame Spain’s precipitous drop in world standing upon its thirst for gold, because they also got involved in some notable religious wars.  It’s also worth pointing out that they were, for some reason, under the rule of inbreds from Austria who had enormous lips and thought that Spaniards would have great success fighting with their neighbors which was not a good idea at the time because people still hadn’t realized the French were sissies.

Many of the experts that write and talk on the subject of financial matters in a bad economy tend to focus on being responsible.  In Boston there is a guy named Rick Shafer who for some reason, has his own radio show even though he has a voice for coal mining.  Rick’s idea of responsibility includes owning a Hyudai, which he can’t pronounce, and saving between 30% and 80% of one’s income, depending upon how little one likes one’s children.  Rick's cleverest idea, however, is to keep a savings account with a mere 6 months of expenses just in case something goes wrong, like for example, being broke every month like just about all of his listeners. 

Assuming the Worst Case Scenario, it would be hard to say which approach is correct.  In fact, there's a part of me that thinks the best idea is to buy another puppy; if only Suzy took calls from men.