So there's an article in the NY Times today, entitled, "Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn". It's mostly a pretty serious and sobering discussion of the economic pain people around here are feeling, but this part just made me laugh out loud:

Paychecks are diminishing just as millions of Americans are finding their access to credit constricted as well. Borrowing against the value of real estate — a crucial artery of household finance in recent years — has been pared back as home prices have plummeted and as banks have tightened lending standards in the aftermath of the collapse of the housing bubble.

“At this point, those avenues are blocked,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “Consumption going forward is going to be in large part a good old-fashioned function of paychecks and incomes.”

Well, duh. Ya think?

Now, I am no senior-level economist, and I am the last person to claim superior money-management skills . . . but I can clearly remember Uncle Gene delivering his economic advice, and it consisted of two pieces of advice - No, one piece of advice: Don't spend more than you earn. It sounded so backward when he said it . . . and I can't claim always to have followed his advice, but at least when I haven't, I've known I was wrong. The more I read about the U.S. economy, the more it seems that lots of people - from Wall Street on down to Podunk Avenue, coulda used a bit of Uncle Gene growing up . . .