Dave Barry's Money Secrets Read Free Page A

determine whether he can see his shadow. In this respect, he is similar to the professional groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, although as we see in the photographs below, there are distinct physical differences between the two:

    Photography Credits

    After he has looked around, Greenspan makes an ambiguous remark, and everybody tries to figure out what it means. This is not easy, because Greenspan is crafty in his choice of words. For example, two years ago, in a speech before the Economics Council of London, Greenspan said: “What has one foot on each side and one in the middle?” This remark sent shock waves throughout the world economy. Investors lost more than $14 trillion in the resulting stock market plunge, and several hundred corporations went bankrupt, with a resulting loss of millions of jobs. It wasn’t until nearly a month later that economists figured out that the answer to Greenspan’s question was: a yardstick. But by then the damage had been done.
    Sometimes these misunderstandings aren’t really Greenspan’s fault. The stock market crash of 1987 resulted from an incident at a luncheon when he was simply trying to tell the waiter that he wanted ranch dressing instead of vinaigrette.
    If the economy appears to be heading for real trouble, Greenspan will raise or lower the prime rate. This is a very important economic thing, but unfortunately I was unable to attend the specific classes in which it was discussed.
    The United States also engages in international trade with other nations, wherein we buy things that they produce such as cars, computers, televisions, clothing, furniture, steel, cell phones, and pretty much everything else, and in return they buy things that we produce, such as Starbucks franchises and movies starring Adam Sandler. If they fail to buy enough things from us, we have a trade deficit, and if it gets really bad, we have to remind everybody that in addition to Adam Sandler we have a lot of nuclear missiles.
    Whew! It has been a lot of work, explaining the entire U.S. economy, but now that I’m done, you know as much about how it works as the people who are actually running it. You probably think I’m kidding.

3
    MANAGING YOUR PERSONAL FINANCES
    R EMEMBER THE FABLE of the grasshopper and the ant?
    The industrious ant worked hard all summer long, harvesting pieces of food dropped on the sidewalk in front of a Taco Bell. But the lazy grasshopper spent the summer frolicking and downloading Internet porn.
    When fall came, the ant was snug in his anthill with a wad of rancid salsa the size of a volleyball. But the grasshopper had nothing to eat. He went to the ant’s nest and said, “I’m starving! Can I have some
. . . YUCK!
What’s that
smell
?”
    “That’s my food supply!” said the ant, who was a generous ant, “and I will gladly share it with y . . .”
    FWOOSH
    At that moment they were both burned alive, because the ant had built his nest in a playground frequented by inquisitive young boys with access to lighter fluid.
    What financial lesson does this fable teach us? It teaches us that, in selecting real estate, the three most important factors are: location, location, location. But this chapter is not about real estate. This chapter is about managing your personal finances.
    Do you have a good “handle” on where your money goes? To find out, ask yourself if the following statements describe you:

    •                  You’d
like
to save money for the future, but it seems there’s never any left over after you pay your bills.
    •                  You have several credit cards, and you can never quite get the balances down to zero.
    •                  You make large purchases on impulse.
    •                  When you buy things, you often receive pennies in change, and you put these in a jar or some other container. Over the years you have accumulated roughly 17,000 loose pennies. At one point,