Painful Pleasures

 I spent time today thinking about painful pleasures.

My wife’s grandma Jensen loved increasing her family by sharing it. She had a lifetime habit of a community family dinner each Sunday. Anyone she could rope in at church was likely to be there.

But that was yesterday’s idea. Today I am thinking of a favorite poem she memorized in school. She recited, "Love is that still small voice deep in your heart, when you can’t sleep for the pain nor the pleasure in it."

There are things we do that are pleasant and things we do that are painful. Raising kids. You know, I worked very hard to provide for my kids. We worked really hard to redo our trailer. It was painful the money we spent, the time, the effort. It was such a pleasure. To look at the boards coming off and the new paint going on. It was all joy. 100% fun. It was so much work. All pain. 100% torture.

Paying for three kids college was like that too. A painful pleasure. The money! Oh, the fun stuff I could have bought with all that money. Oh, but when Benjamin came home to tell us what a fistulated cow was we were amazed. Then the story of how they tenderize hams in what amounts to a big front-loading washing machine! Worth every penny to see the fascination move from his eyes to ours.
Our daughter’s have been wonderful students too. Worth every penny of the pain and the pleasure, the love of it.

Yesterday, I talked to a customer about our doors and windows and he mentioned his new furnace. His experience is a fine example of what is wrong with government meddling in private economic transactions of it’s citizens. Just wrong. He said, the furnace company salesman came to his house and described the new 95% efficient furnace they sell for $2,200. After the 30% tax credit and rebate from the local power company it was $1400. Ah, but you could save $400 by buying their older 80% efficient model which is only $1800……but, of course you don’t get the rebates and credits so the worse furnace winds up costing $400 MORE than the better one. Now, what are they going to do with those old furnaces? The worst part of all this is that in January 2011 the energy tax credits run out. Anyone want to bet what furnace sales will look like next year? Get ready for our economy to go right back where it’s been two years ago. Housing is having a terrible year. Why? Well, the $8,000 tax credit for new buyers ran out.

This is what is wrong with government mucking things up between individual consumers and producers. It de-rationalizes the market so that bad furnaces are more expensive and people who can’t afford houses get to buy them. Our economy is in deep trouble. I don’t see much real improvement for years and years. It is just too fouled up by government bureaucrats and bribed politicians.