It's not a big deal unless you don't have enough. This past weekend I visited SouthPoint for the first time. I'm not a big mall person, but I spent enough money to make me cry inwardly. I will not divulge where I spent such money, however.

So my query is: why is everything so improbably expensive? Books, clothing, electronics. All of these apparently necessary items for today's life styles cost exorbitant amounts of much needed dinero.

This may be coming from the part of me that paid attention to the Marx I recently had to read for another class, but profit and "surplus value", as Marx called it, are getting out of hand. Now, don't consider me a Communist or any other derogatory terms simply because I have to agree with him on this point.

For us college students, money is something we have precious little of. We no longer can pad our wallets by smiling at Mom and Dad, and this hits some harder than others. As for myself, I can't spend money for the next month, at least.