{"id":345046,"date":"2021-05-28T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T20:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=345046"},"modified":"2021-05-28T06:00:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T20:00:21","slug":"virtues-and-vices-cost-and-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/virtues-and-vices-cost-and-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtues and Vices: Cost and Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Frugality is the Mother of All Virtues<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cMake no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e.\u00a0waste nothing.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Benjamin Franklin, The Thirteen Virtues<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nIn Latin \u2018frugalis\u2019 means virtuous, in French \u2018thrifty\u2019<br \/>\nwise man Lao Tzu said frugality makes one generous\u00a0<br \/>\nspend a dollar less a day in two months it\u2019ll be fifty<br \/>\ncutting coupons is neither miserly nor onerous<br \/>\nbeing frugal is not a reason to be ashamed<br \/>\nfigure out how to be a poor man with lots of money<br \/>\neating a frugal meal keeps you in good health<br \/>\nthen gout from rich foods cannot be blamed<br \/>\nChinese say frugality will bring moderate wealth<br \/>\nfrugal living can assure many days will stay sunny<br \/>\nmaintain a strong stance on staying with quality<br \/>\navoid banality and inequality face fiscal reality<br \/>\nPlato said long before Nero picked up his fiddle,<br \/>\n\u201cthe greatest wealth is to live content with little.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Wasteful Wastrel<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nA wandering wastrel I, a thing of bling dispatches<br \/>\nhere there and everywhere I spend all my money<br \/>\nmy buddy spends every bit of spare change he catches<br \/>\nmoney flows in and out on rainy days and sunny<br \/>\nI lost plenty on a riverboat between Cairo and Natchez<br \/>\nthen went bankrupt and came up short and bet my car<br \/>\nborrowed more and lost all on eight cockfight matches<br \/>\ntwo days ahead who knows what tomorrow may bring<br \/>\nhow does that old saying go? eat drink and be merry\u2026<br \/>\nfortune may bring windfall profits and plenty of bling<br \/>\nI keep spending and see what burden of debt I can carry<br \/>\nusing credit lines and savings forget the penny pinching<br \/>\na penniless spendthrift, a profligate, pecuniary prodigal<br \/>\na life of luxury, extravagance both wanton and wasteful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frugality is the Mother of All Virtues \u00a0 \u201cMake no expense but to do good&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":322001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,23672,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-345046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-lvnv","tag-nola","tag-pepe-batbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}