Dear Mister President,
I wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I am doing my part to get the economy moving again. No applause is necessary to commend me for doing my civic duty, but I want you to know that spending – not saving, goes against everything I learned growing up. That said, here’s my contribution to avoiding the global financial meltdown:
Like too few Americans, I bought an American made car. Well, let me clarify that. Its nameplate is American as it was actually assembled in Canada from parts made in Europe and Asia, but I digress. My American nameplated car informed me in no uncertain terms last Friday, that I should check my engine and check my brakes. The little light indicator on my dashboard told me about the engine and the horrible sound of crunching metal told me about my brakes. My heart was in my throat, as you can imagine, as I realized that I was about to make a mortgage payment or pay an A.I.G. executive bonus to some lucky person this weekend as I attempted to get both of these mechanical failures corrected. Fortunately for me, the check engine light, which had the potential to be the most expensive, turned out to be the easiest thing to fix. The light came on because I didn’t have my gas cap tighten sufficiently on my car. That’s it. It was that simple. And yet, you cannot imagine the relief I felt because the check engine light could indicate something as simple as a gas cap or something as expensive as a catalytic converter. Anyway, after tightening up the gas cap and driving a couple miles the light went out and I was relieved. Now, I was off to get the crunching metal sound fixed. There are all kinds of auto repair chains and companies that work on brakes, so it was easy for me to find one. Bottom line is that at the end of the day, I had new brakes on my car, my wallet was lighter and the economy was improved.
As you may not be aware, Mr. President, I have installed Microsoft Vista on my Dell computers (again American nameplate, parts made in China). For the most part, I am more than satisfied with this operating system, but there are times when it really irritates me. Let me relate to you how this irritation improved the economy. Among the printers we have in my house is a Brother All-In-One printer capable of faxing, scanning, copying and printing. I’m sure you had something similar when you were a community organizer. But I digress. I had budget documents I needed to work on and my plan was to scan the document and using the OCR application that came with the printer, edit the work. The alternative would be for me to retype tens of pages of documents and that was simply not a player. Cutting to the chase, it was then that I discovered my current OCR software wouldn’t work with Vista. I was going to have to either buy the OCR software upgrade or I was going to have to buy a new printer. Many years ago, I would not even have considered buying a new printer for a software fix, but most printer manufacturers now use what I think is frequently referred to as the HP model. That is, the printer, the hardware itself, is now inexpensive and consumables (the inks) are expensive and where these companies make their real profit. The bottom line is that it would cost more to buy the OCR software upgrade for Vista than to entirely replace the printer and get new software compatible with Vista. So I bought another printer with new software and it works just great. I gave the old printer to my son, but again, Mr. President, I did my part to improve the economy.
Just thought you should know, sir, that some of us are doing our part even when it really goes against our gut feelings. And some like me really don’t mind despite our protest to the contrary.
Very respectfully,
Bill
Your sacrifices will not go unnoticed.