Look on the bright side of reports about the economy

If you only look at newspaper headlines, and don’t read between the lines, you will get depressed. And I don’t want you depressed when good things are actually happening out there in economy land.

Take this headline, for example, in Friday’s issue of The London Free Press.

The headline reads: Wal-Mart profits flat as same-store sales slip.

My gosh, if America’s flagship is flat then we must all be in trouble! Right?

Not at all. The store earned $3.44 billion in profit in the last three months, almost to the penny the same as it earned three months earlier. Profit was flat, or the same, not flattened.

Wal-Mart’s president knows what’s going on: “Overall, our customers are more disciplined in their spending,” he said. He called saving more and spending less “a new normal.”


["A new normal!"]

It’s not depressing news that people are trying to dig themselves out of debt. It’s the best news of the week. People are catching on - they can’t spend without limits as if money grows on trees.

Though the paper reports same-store sales fell at Wal-Mart and calls it a “worrisome confirmation of broad weakness in consumer spending” most of us realize it’s very good news.

Worrisome? Heck no.

We’re getting smarter. More frugal. Trying to develop and maintain a sustainable household budget.

Geez, governments should do what consumers are doing. Big businesses and newspapers should do what consumers are doing. And be happy about it.

‘Cause there’s no news like good news.

***

Know what? I think I’ll cut back on potato chips, cookies and ice cream this week (all billion dollar industries in North America, home of many of the heaviest and ‘deepest in debt’ people in the world) and save up for something healthier, like a stay-cation - with a big smile on my face.

Front page news? It should be.

“Gord Glibber Than Usual”

“Gord Gone to Lucan”

Am I onto something?

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