Ann Leach

IS FRUGALITY BAD FOR THE ECONOMY? This topic comes up fairly regularly in certain frugal circles I'm in, and there is a fair amount of debate about it. So  this evening when I came across this article in Amy Dacyczyn's book "The Tightwad Gazette II" I was inspired to share. I'm sort of a politics/economics junkie. Every weeknight I forgo Wheel of Fortune to tune into The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS. The show's format includes a panel of experts on a given topic--who sharply disagree. When the topic is the recession, typically you can see a professor of economics from Harvard Business School duke it out with some guy who won the Nobel Prize for economics. Though I'm not an "expert," one question I have been asked to comment on it "If I'm frugal, isn't that bad for the economy?" It's true that plenty of economists believe we need to get that American consumer confident and spending again. This thinking, that w...