SHIRTSLEEVE ECONOMIST VISITS SLOPE

(Who’s on First National Bank Release — April 25, 2015)

Financial sage and best selling author Harry Skekels was in Montrose Friday to undress the dwindling Full Optimist Club of the Uncompahgre Flood Plain and honored guests from the Disappointment Valley.
In an upbeat pep talk Skekels succeeded in rousing the audience, spilling his tomato soup and almost swallowing a gavel left behind by the Unwed Mothers of the American Revolution. Somehow he persevered, getting a very heavy message across to the assembled coherent.
“The key to a grassroots economic recovery is a bulging bank account,” explained the moneyman. “It is true enlightenment in evening clothes.”
Skekels then asked those still moving for their ideas on where their money goes each month, generating snickers into the Jell-O salad and warmed up coffee.
“How?” he bellowed, seriously infringing on the slumber of the assembled. “By refraining from payments, reimbursements, retributions, and the general overhead of daily living. In short, chided Skekels, “continue to rob Peter, as has been the custom, just don’t pay Paul.”
Skekels then went into a lengthy scenario where a family of four stopped going to the grocery, stopped purchasing gasoline, halted payment of utility bills, avoided buying clothing and became real life non-consumers in a mega-consumer culture. He promised his audience that the family saved $53,000 per year on unnecessary expenditures.
“I’m not much on all this hungry romance with the non-essential while ignoring the elements of basic survival,” he smiled. “In more specific terms, we all may have to develop a taste for the scenery.”
Skekels will tour several leading banks today then head off to speak in Paradox on April 31.