i was listening to planet money this morning, and they mentioned a finnish facebook group called feed the recession, which was created in response to the bob helsinki ad campaign to stop you from feeding the pig.ok, if you read that previous sentence, it was probably pretty confusing unless you followed all the links. basically, it boils down to this:

• we’re in a recession (true almost everywhere in the world right now)
• some people think we can spend our way out of it; others disagree.
• so they created a pseud0-public service campaign to advertise spending. they show a demonic piggy bank that should scare you from putting money into it or saving money.
• a bunch of finnish facebook members popped up to form a group opposed to that idea.
• i also disagree. i think saving is important right now. my response to those who think we have to keep spending at current levels to sustain is that we should not sustain what we have right now. we collectively were probably living beyond our means. i didn’t take part in that. for instance, when home values were insane in northern virginia, we stayed in the house we bought in 1999. we did some work on it and we did re-finance, but only within our means to pay the mortgage.
• and my other comment is this – maintaining spending will not force us to examine the underlying problems. i think we have to feel the pain, even more than now, in order for us to make fundamental changes that we will need in the future. i see this often in business as well. people always want to stop the bleeding quickly, without hitting bottom, and that rarely lets you make the changes you need to fix your company.