My sister dropped my youngest neice off at 8:30 this morning. We met one of my friends and her 4 year daughter at Village Inn for breakfast/lunch at 10:30. Spent $13.67

Then she drove us to the North Pole. The North Pole is in Divide, Colorado up in the mountains. It's an amusement park with a xmas theme. Many of the rides are geared towards very small children so it's really great for them. I had coupons for both of us for buy one admission get one free, so I spent $15.95 for me and my niece. We went on all the rides and walked through the park. Both kids had a great time and it was really fun watching them enjoy themselves. Plus my friend and I got to spend time visiting while they were on the rides. We got some ice cream in the park and I bought a quarter lb of peanut butter fudge for both of my nieces. Spent another $9.73 on that.

Afterwards we split up and I took my niece to dinner at Red Robin. Spent $14.97.

I was exhausted by the time I dropped her off back at home.

Total spent so far this month = $93.60

I finished reading the library book The Overspent American by Juliet B. Schor. Interesting book, but I don't agree that the government is the best choice for any social solution. She feels the government should impose consumption taxes on people to make them spend less. I believe it's up to individuals to decide how to spend their money, even if they are messing it up and going into debt to buy toys or whatever, it's still their choice and it's not up to the government to regulate their spending.

She also wants the stop the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income. Which would mean everyone gets the same amount of money regardless of how much work they do or how much their work is worth. Which would require taxing the so-called 'rich' and giving that money to the so-called 'poor'. This is wrong on so many levels I can't even start to discuss it. But the main issue is who defines rich and who defines poor and who deals with the underlining issues of why people are poor. The most basic description of being poor is lack of money, but giving the poor money rarely solves the problem of their being poor for the long term. People are poor for many more reasons than just not having enough money, such as not having an education, not having work skills, not having financial skills and a whole host of other issues including cultural ones. And while I am willing to contribute to causes that I believe will help allievate poverty I don't want to be required to give to those causes just because someone in the government has decided that I earn too much money and that they should take it away from me and give it to whoever they think should have it, which will most likely be government programs adminstering to the poor rather than to the actual poor.