"Build it (at any cost) and they will come"

American BeheMouth's "Lake of Dreams" parallels the Kevin Costner film "Field of Dreams" in a couple ways. The themes are still the same, except now, following the housing bubble and other economic turmoil, Americans need to look at wild expenditures a little more carefully. Do we really need a $1.3 BILLION dollar stadium to replace a perfectly good stadium? Do we really want to fire teachers in Santa Clara County, California? The county says "no" but some people still say "yes, we want our new stadium--that's OUR money." The city of Stockton, California is going bankrupt, the biggest city to go bankrupt in American history. Are we headed in the same direction in other cities and in the entire state?

In a couple of places, including the book American BeheMouth, I reference people who have taken the equity out of their houses at peak prices in order to do something like become a professional tournament fisherman, or to build an addition, or (even worse) to build a baseball field in the backyard. I don't need to say why a move like this is stupid and leads to American bankruptcies. In American BeheMouth, the protagonist, Jay, does the same thing in building his lake, going into credit card debt to finance the "dream."

We have to start living within our means. I am afraid we are going to discover more economic bubbles with some of these dumb moves in professional sports, as well as in our cities, states, and federal government.

Read the book, American BeheMouth, in paperback.

Read the EBook.