What Do the Lost Billions Mean?

Every day now we hear bad financial news. We hear about the need to spend a billion here and there, like we understand what a billion dollars really means or how the government spending it will eventually affect all of us. To me, the lost billions have become an abstraction, a torrent of muddy water rushing away from us, cleansing us of past sins.

Maybe it's for the best. After all, we still have our family, friends, health, and faith. The stock market is the merest illusion, encouraging us to spend thoughtlessly in good times, shocking us into mental depression in hard times. But we should see through this illusion -- the market is, after all, obeying simple laws of mathematics.

In the end, I know that the billions will be spent, and billions will be wasted, and eventually, when the future seems less threatening (for whatever reason), we will feel normal again. But maybe, the real road to feeling normal does not require spending billions, but instead just needs us to spend a minute, think about the people around us, lend each other a helping hand, and realize that in the end, that's what really matters. Just maybe...