Sabra wins but do we?

So You Think You Can Dance ended Thursday with the big surprise being that neither Lacey nor Danny nor outside chance Neal won. Sabra did. All of them deserved to win somehow but that ain't the way competitions work, right? One person wins and everyone else is second. But the real winner was we viewers, anyway, so why quibble about the one that ended up with the $250,000?

I quibble because I can. Terri and I were talking on the way to work today about her difficulty in staffing the market she manages. She can't find help. The high schooler's all want to take vacations even after they sign on and the college age kids aren't even applying. She points out that if you look around you'll see that all the businesses seem to be hiring - counter help, barristas, clerks, cashiers - the signs are everywhere and have been all summer. Meanwhile, the LA Times reports that the state of California lost over 8,600 jobs in the month of July.

My response to T. was that in a culture that popularizes reality tv shows where you can pursue your dream and win millions just for opening the right suitcase, where the lottery and sports betting and Indian gambling casino signs flash from every freeway what we are seeing is what we should expect. VISA is a way of life right? Don't slow down the purchase line with cash. Don't slow down at all. Run those red lights, yellow lights, push yourself forward and grab for all your worth. Who knows, you might come up with a new show idea.

Meanwhile, the fed is being forced to lower the interest rate to save CountryWide or the government from having to bail out CountryWide and we get to sit on the edge of our seats and see how it all plays out. Hmmm, maybe we will all get to apply those frugality lessons our great grandparents used during their great depression after all, instead of the whoopee isn't this fun of doing it by choice way we seem to be adopting here in Personal Finance land?