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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >Don, I've read this man's commentary before, maybe on nationalreview.com 
> or backwoodshome.com, I don't remember.  But, one thing in that blurb that 
> you 
> quoted he mentioned 'squirreling you money away".  That is good, except 
> most 
> people's money today is digital.

Bob, when I read the article, the thought that kept going through my head was 
, 'Now, who does this remind me of ...."

On another forum there has beem the discussion of the LOA (Law Of Attraction) 
how you are supposed to sort of lure money to yourself by your attitude and 
actions.  The image I offered was the difference between one of those giant 
electro-magnets that lifts tanks and rail cars and rubbing a comb over a 
sweater 
to pick up bits of paper.  That is, the LOA works much better when you aren't 
trying to attract so much.

Like that, the lifestyle being described doesn't involve much money.  If a 
person needs $2000 a month for a mortgage payment, $800 a month for a car 
payment, $500 in utilities, $300 in insurances, $1000 for purchased 
groceries, and 
$1200 for continuous medical expenses then this squirreling away of money 
isn't 
going to work out very well.  The amount of money we are talking about 
needing to live in this semi-transparent mode you could carry around in your 
wallet.

We (Americans) are so used to living large and thinking anything else but 
living large is the same thing as failure, the notion of how content life can 
be 
living small escapes us (collectively).  Obama even mentioned some of this in 
his pre-election speeches and it was either completely ignored or else hit 
upon as some sort of defeatism.

One manifestation of this is alternate electric power.  All you have to do is 
cut back to the level of power use you'd have if you only had solar and wind 
and then it wouldn't matter where the power came from.

Another is alluding to Brazil and how they are energy indepedent.  Sure they 
are, there the rate of automobile ownership is less than one family in 
twenty. 
 If we had that same rate of ownership, we would be a net oil exporting 
country.

The lesson I have learned is that as you make your life and lifestyle more 
and more modest, the problems you were worried about solving begin to 
evaporate. 
 The squirreling away of money is a very good example.  How are you going to 
convert those tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) into anything you 
can effectively and safely store??  As you approach the type of lifestyle 
being 
described, it isn't a problem.


James