We're measuring the wrong things: Or, was ANYTHING good about the Depression?

Listening to the news coverage of the economy around Christmas, I was struck at how the very fundamentals of what we measure are a perfect example of we're in such a mess.

Consumer spending is down, reporters intoned, meaning retailers suffer, tax revenues drop, and the downward spiral continues.

But past holiday buying seasons, which bolstered the economy we were used to, were based on credit card debt, and on that peculiar American brand of entitlement that's the envy and the downfall of our financial system and the world's: We DESERVE that new plasma screen TV. Our lives are deficient if we don't have the right new car! No matter what we make or how these expenses bring our spending out of kilter with our income. The right to borrow and spend more than we make is our right too.

We are measuring the wrong things.

Lurching into this recession, watching my home value plummet and my 401K waste away like everyone else, I've been trying to change my habits, to be more in line values embodied by my parents, trained by grandparents who lived through the Depression. Sensible saving, good for the long term economy and our individual and collective financial health, means Christmas retail sales drop, resulting in this hysterical (and perhaps misdirected) news coverage of how the economy continues to tank.

If I were a news editor I'd have my reporters also find out how much we are saving as a nation, whether we are paying down some debt and putting money in the bank. Include savings as a benchmark, an automatic news peg. Spending is good and needed - but so is saving, and living within your means. Where is the sweet spot where these trajectories connect for the greatest good?

Sometimes I think the Depression taught us some good things: recycle, be careful with and grateful for what we have. It's sad and touching, in a way, the implication that if only we saved enough string we'd be all right. In fact, the most maddening thing about W's response to 9/11 was that he asked nothing of us. Look at how Americans have rallied together and sacrificed in the past. If only he'd asked us to pull together then, the whole painful reversal in attitude and fortune, now beginning in the midst of a yawning crisis, could be well underway.

Listening to the news the other morning, my older daughter asked if we were going to lose our house. It's unlikely, now, I was able to tell her. And even if we did, the worst thing that would happen to us is we'd double up, maybe living in Pepere and Gradma's basement.

No problem! both girls replied.

I think the entire country is going to have to undergo this large shift in thinking. It's going to be painful and not quick.