Nathan Scandella (personal)

The Blame Game

While we're dishing out blame to Wall Street, and the federal government, let's remember that society-at-large is highly culpable in our current economic crisis. The core problem in this country is that Americans buy what they think they deserve, and not what they can afford. That holds true for the poorest, as well as the middle-class that's received so much attention from the Obama team.

I saw a statistic once that cited an amazing number of Americans, who are living "below the poverty line", that own cars, have mobile phones, and cable television. I found it amazing then, and telling now. What happened to buying things with money that you actually have? Just because your neighbor has a toy, shouldn't mean you need one, too. We have to get away from the rampant materialism that's been fueling our prosperity since the 80s, and is now partly to blame for our crisis.

I think the holiday season is a perfect time to think about this. Rather than trying to outdo one another, buying more expensive and equally useless material goods, why not spend less money, and more thought buying (or making) gifts that have some actual value? There's a whole industry built on making garbage that can only be sold to people who are buying for someone else. I'm not saying that this is to blame for Americans buying more house than they can afford, but it's a way to start small, making changes in our materialistic culture.

For goodness sake, don't borrow money from your credit card to buy holiday gifts. If your friends and family can't respect you for being responsible with your dwindling money, they're not worth much. Getting more frugal isn't going to save the economy in the short term (quite the opposite, I'm afraid), but it will help us correct our excesses in the long term, and arrive at a sustainable level of wealth. Our prosperity has been skyrocketing for decades, with no ceiling in sight. Unfortunately, we're now close to the ceiling, so if we don't level off, we'll find our rocket ship stuck in a ceiling tile ... which probably contains asbestos :)

Posted at 03:42PM Nov 25, 2008 by Nathan in Economics  |  Comments[0]