Just to get us rolling let's think about this quote:

"The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket." - Kim Hubbard

The sentiment here is certainly that if you don't spend it, you save it. That's personal finance 101, a lesson I fear too many of us, particularly in America, have failed to teach our children. The result is larger personal debt levels held by each new generation that create the facade of success but which all too often are in reality the cause of stress and financial downfall.

On a macro level we watch the Obama Administration crush this concept with their irrisponsible spending that will leave all of our children with unheard of levels of national debt that will ultimately compromise their very national security.

Do people realize what is going on? We certainly all understand that we shouldn't go to Ruth's Chris and buy a $150 steak dinner using a credit card when we know we won't have the $150 in our checking account to pay the credit card bill when it arrives in 30 days. So please someone explain to me how our country spending $1.8 Trillion Dollars (or whatever the figure is today) can be a wise decision...knowing exactly what we are doing....spending money we don't have in the bank....spending money our children will have to pay back (and what lessons are we leaving behind for them?). To make matters more serious, we aren't paying back the domestic credit card company (where we have the choice to file bankruptcy when we don't feel like living up to our legal and moral obligations), we have to pay back other countries. Our children are the not-so-proud benificiaries of our indebtness to the People's Republic of China, among others.

To make matters worse, because the Obama administration doesn't understand that spending money we don't have isn't the answer, Obama will in fact create a situation where the quote above is untrue. It will be untrue in that saving your money and "putting it in your pocket" will also prove unwise. By all means, do NOT take your money out of the banks and out of the markets and stash it in your personal safe. Ask any educated economist and they'll tell you what the next obstacle will be for our economy as it recovers (and it will) - inflation.

Thus, save your money today (don't be afraid to spend responsibly as you live for today with an eye on the future), but what you save, save it wisely to protect it against inflation. Because if you put your $150 under your mattress, it won't cover the cost of that Ruth's Chris steak dinner in 3 years...it'll probably just buy you a side of mashed potatos.