Does Michelle Obama need financial planning lessons?
Michelle Obama can use some financial planning lessons. At least it looks that way. After all, she has supposedly hired more staff than any other first lady in history, bar none - and by a huge amount. I received a couple of emails referencing an article in a Canadian publication as well as a U.S. publication. Both compared the First Lady to Laura Bush, who was said to have hired only 1 staff person during her time as First Lady.
Outrageous! (Or so you might think.) Here we are in the midst of a recession, with millions of American unemployed, and the First Lady spends our hard-earned tax dollars this way.
Given the fact that the U.S. government is broke, and runs it's finances with a budget deficit over a $1 trillion (it's either $1.4 trillion, $1.9 trillion, or $2.5 trillion, depending on your source), perhaps Ms. Obama should be given some basic financial planning lessons, starting with a session on personal budgeting.
Fortunately, before I had a stroke, I took a step back (a good habit when you're reading anything published in the media) and inquired about the source of this shocking information. A good place to go (if you're not familiar with it) when you read something that sounds outrageous, dubious, shocking or just plain strange, is Snopes.com.
(Snopes.com specializes in exposing "urban legends" - stories that you may get sent to you by email from a friend that might warn you of some impending disaster that turns out to be entirely - or mostly - made up. For example, the story that telemarketers have just obtained a list of everyone's cell phone number and if you don't have your cell phone registered with the DNC - "Do Not Call" - list, you will soon be flooded with telelmarketing calls, all of which will run up your cell minutes. Can you think of a worst disaster? Fortunately, it's not true.)
Anyway, there is an entry in Snopes and it pretty even-handedly explains that, in fact, the numbers of staffers assigned to the First Lady is pretty much in line with previous First Ladies (at least in the last 30 years or so). So Michelle Obama has probably not done anything different than recent First Ladies.
Now, having breathed a sigh of relief that our current First Lady has not single-handedly put the U.S. into deficit after all, the next thought occurs: I should feel good about this?
The fact that previous First Ladies had a staff somewhere between 15 - 25 people working for them strikes me as a bit off the wall. We're not talking about Queen Elizabeth here. What do these people do?
The sad fact is, the days of the old American Republic are long gone. We've been functioning as an "Imperial" power for a long time now. And Ms. Obama's staff requirements simply reflect that harsh reality.
So it's not the First Lady who needs the financial planning lessons after all. As for personal budgeting, I suggest you do your own and not wait for government to set a good example for you - certainly not the folks in Washington.
Outrageous! (Or so you might think.) Here we are in the midst of a recession, with millions of American unemployed, and the First Lady spends our hard-earned tax dollars this way.
Given the fact that the U.S. government is broke, and runs it's finances with a budget deficit over a $1 trillion (it's either $1.4 trillion, $1.9 trillion, or $2.5 trillion, depending on your source), perhaps Ms. Obama should be given some basic financial planning lessons, starting with a session on personal budgeting.
Fortunately, before I had a stroke, I took a step back (a good habit when you're reading anything published in the media) and inquired about the source of this shocking information. A good place to go (if you're not familiar with it) when you read something that sounds outrageous, dubious, shocking or just plain strange, is Snopes.com.
(Snopes.com specializes in exposing "urban legends" - stories that you may get sent to you by email from a friend that might warn you of some impending disaster that turns out to be entirely - or mostly - made up. For example, the story that telemarketers have just obtained a list of everyone's cell phone number and if you don't have your cell phone registered with the DNC - "Do Not Call" - list, you will soon be flooded with telelmarketing calls, all of which will run up your cell minutes. Can you think of a worst disaster? Fortunately, it's not true.)
Anyway, there is an entry in Snopes and it pretty even-handedly explains that, in fact, the numbers of staffers assigned to the First Lady is pretty much in line with previous First Ladies (at least in the last 30 years or so). So Michelle Obama has probably not done anything different than recent First Ladies.
Now, having breathed a sigh of relief that our current First Lady has not single-handedly put the U.S. into deficit after all, the next thought occurs: I should feel good about this?
The fact that previous First Ladies had a staff somewhere between 15 - 25 people working for them strikes me as a bit off the wall. We're not talking about Queen Elizabeth here. What do these people do?
The sad fact is, the days of the old American Republic are long gone. We've been functioning as an "Imperial" power for a long time now. And Ms. Obama's staff requirements simply reflect that harsh reality.
So it's not the First Lady who needs the financial planning lessons after all. As for personal budgeting, I suggest you do your own and not wait for government to set a good example for you - certainly not the folks in Washington.
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