Valetine’s Day, a.k.a. Let’s Pump-Prime the Economy Day!

Today is Valentine’s Day, as many of you readers know.  If is often express as a day of love, as a day of affection, as a day of closeness and togetherness, as a day of romanticism.  Why else would everything in sight be shaped like a heart, colored red or pink, with silly little romantic phrases printed all over?

Now, let’s be real here for a second – I am no educated economist.  I do not have a degree in economics from some schmancy higher place of education such as Harvard or Brown or anything like that.  I am not a seasoned politics with lots of knowledge about economics.  I don’t even watch the news every day.  And yet even I know that Valentine’s Day is a complete and utter fabrication of the United States economic system, created for the sole purpose of pump-priming the economy with the spending money of millions upon millions of hopeless romantics.

Let’s say you have a little puppy.  The doctors say that your puppy should get a surgery done; this surgery is not critical to the puppy’s life, but will improve the quality.  We  shall assume that you want the best for your puppy, and are considering getting the surgery.  The dilemma is that this surgery will cost you upwards of one hundred thousand dollars (let’s also say you make about sixty thousand a year).  You decide to pay for the surgery.  Your puppy lives healthily and you  live happily ever after – except that you have no money in your pockets, your house is almost into foreclosure, and, now that you think about it, you’re really beginning to miss that one hundred thousand dollars that you used to have on your person.

Now, think about buying candy and goodies for your “loved ones” on Valetine’s Day.  Let’s say you spend ten dollars on roses and thirty dollars on a fancy box of chocolates for your significant other.  You give the stuff to them, they smile, and they say, “Awww, I love you, sweetie!”, and you smile and say, “I love you, too”.  Sure, you may really truly love this other person (I’m not saying you shouldn’t love people, that’s just ridiculous) – but, when you think about it, couldn’t that forty dollars have been spent on something…better?  How in the world are flowers and chocolate going to symbolize your allegedly endless love for one another?  Those flowers may smile nice right now, but give ’em a few weeks, and they’ll be in the trash dump.  Oh, and those chocolates, give ’em about twelve hours, and your significant other will be releasing them out of their lower end into the almighty porcelain god.

So, what to do on this wonderful day?  Don’t buy anything.  Chocolates and flowers are completely devoid in romantic meaning – unless your goal is to provide your significant other with a pump-primed, consumer-based economy.