MICRO economics in Belmont

It has been a long and dispiriting spring followed by a dismal summer that saw long time stores shutter up all around my little corner of the world. The Auto Parts guy in Cushing Square is in the process of pulling his spark plugs -- the EVERYTHING MUST GO sign screams across Common Street. No more can a soul buy fudge down Trapelo Road, and the print shop one passes on the way has run out of ink -- the building is now forlorn and for sale. An electrician has moved into the storefront that was once a takeout chicken joint: "I don't need a store front," he told me, "but the price was right." The old bookstore in the center of town

Of all the shuttered businesses about, the one that is most surprising is my maid: she stopped coming in June. For the better part of ten years, she had been mopping and wiping the the ne'er-do-well issue of my life, finding shoes I have left scattered about, washing dishes, putting the glow on my hardwoods, vacuuming out of the rug the evidence of my retreating hairline, and in general working her skill on those things and utilities about which modesty forbids description.

I did some "jungle drum" research into the woebegone circumstances...it appears she was illegal, I have been told. She was a regular traveller to and back from Brazil. As far As I can guess, she did the trip one too many times. I have been visited by at least seven "new" Brazilians, all claiming to be the extension of my maid's business. I have chosen none of them.

If the dismal summer taught me anything, it was a real lesson in MACROeconomics by way of the MICRO. You see, I have been sweeping the floors myself, mopping, putting away my shoes, and what nots, and doing exactly all the things I should have been doing in the first place. My home is tidy, fit for me, if not for a king, AND I am saving 63 smackers a week -- that's 63 bucks staying inside the US economy, yup 63 bucks a week that I will use here -- maybe an extra Trombone lesson for the kid, or maybe, after a year, well let us see -- that is almost $3,300 dollars! That is the down payment on that new Chevy Cruze that is going to be the hot car of 2011!

They say that illegals are doing jobs WE do not want to do. I say, they are doing jobs that need NOT be done. We are overly conspicuous in our consumption. We do not need some of the services we buy. As a cleaner, I am doing just fine, thank you...a few minutes a day here and there and I am at one with my home. I have reconnected with the nooks and crannies (and found things I should have discarded years ago not to mention things I should have held closer to my thoughts, but instead dumped behind the file cabinets). And, of course, there is the exercise; I am feeling fit and trim as I putter about the halls of the castle, deep-kneeing my way into the closets and squatting to swipe the dust from under the futon.

And I have begun to think -- what if we all cleaned our own homes, mowed our lawn lawns, did our own nails? In my corner of the world, the landscaper's truck and trailer is longer than the street frontage of many homes...do we really need their services? Are we so busy at the gym that we cannot find 15 minutes and get our exercise pushing the rotaries across the grass?

For me, I see a win win...my apparently illegal maid has left the country, a situation that most folks feel needs to be replicated 10 million more times...and I have a new stash of cash in my pocket. What to do with it?...a great economic question, stay tuned.