A family member and I shared some emails about our sagging economy and how to jumpstart it.

Her tip for braving the recession is to pretend you can spend, but you choose not to. If this makes you feel affluent, go for it, I say. But that's not going to help the economy much.

What we need, given our economy is so prone to manic-depression based on consumer sentiment, is some good, old-fashioned, spending sprees.

Folks need to hustle out to those malls before they all disappear. Forget clunker rebates. Just slip behind the wheel of your favorite gas miser and roll!

We cannot save our way to prosperity, despite the fact that personal savings accounts do help to finance construction and business expansion-in the long term.

Short term we need a big, ongoing stimulus. After all, the government can only do so much spending for us. We need to spend our part.

This is a great time to do it, with back to school needs, soccer team parties, Halloween, and of course the greatest bingeing rationale ever, Christmas. Moms everywhere, we're looking to you to lead the way, to haunt the retailing aisles, to max out what credit lines you have remaining.

Spending is important because it sends positive signals throughout the economy. Factories gear up production, jobs are created, layoffs diminish, incomes creep up, and we have exactly what we need: INFLATION.

You read that right. We need some good, old-fashioned inflation to prime the pump, to make those dollars flow. Of course, each dollar will diminish in purchasing power, long term, but long term is not our concern.

Not yet.

We can always use the Fed to raise interest rates, sell bonds, and do the other tricks that will pare inflation back, after it has done its job.

Dale Carnegie, building on the psychology of William James, said, "Act enthusiastic, and you'll be enthusiastic!"

Insert the words, "employed" or "affluent" or "rich" and see what happens.

Anyway, as a mood enhancer, spending works much better than worrying!