Most every night about 10 p.m. I take our dog Skippy for his walk before we all turn in. It's one-fifth mile down the driveway to the road where we exit the woods and, flanked by mailboxes, stand before an open field. Skippy sniffs whatever dogs sniff and does whatever dogs do. In the meantime, on clear nights I behold the northern and eastern sky.
It's a shocker and a delight. Thousands of stars confront me in a most pleasing peace. They coalesce into the few constellations I can identify and then I recognize that the most visible thousands of stars only hint at the millions, billions and truly trillions of heavenly bodies I am afforded by simply standing in an open field on a dark, clear night.
In between times and back at the cabin, I have been constantly introduced to other numbers: dollar numbers. Such as, the world runs on a GDP of $67 trillion; the U.S. does about $17 trillion per year. Our deficit was $500 billion until the meltdown. We're already in hock for some $8 trillion during the bailout struggle.
We're told that the way out of our economic troubles is necessary government spending. Our loose constellation of taxpayers are the spenders of last resort. Like, Roosevelt did in the 1930s. Like, the Japanese did too late in the 1990s.
We're warned that we can't keep going into debt, that we can't keep printing money, that the value of our currency is greatly at risk. We begin the bailout and stimulus with over $10 trillion in national debt. The current fiscal numbers make thousands and millions irrelevant.
Yet, most of us only make thousands of dollars per year. We're watching mere mortals, men and women very much like ourselves, tackle dollar numbers that are way beyond our every day experiences; that is, except for the stars.
Which is why I go to the mailbox nearly every night. I feel peaceful and untroubled when I look at the millions and billions of stars. It seems to me to be the only place where such numbers make sense.