When I was in junior high, I desperately wanted a Grand Beach Club t-shirt. Remember? Those tie-dyed ones that were Chip 'n' Pepper knock-offs?
(I also wanted a hypercolor shirt, but even my questionable fashion sense recognized the undesirability of a shirt that changed colour wherever your body heat went up. This was junior high: my body heat was unpredictable and rather sweaty when unleashed by all those puberty hormones - why exactly I would want to advertise this pituitary craziness was beyond me.)
Having already exhausted my parent-presented clothing budget, I moped around complaining about how I didn't have enough to pay for one myself out of my babysitting earnings. I fretted to my mother, "you know, I just wish I had enough money so I could always have enough in the bank to buy something I wanted when I wanted it and not have to save up for it."
She burst out laughing and said, "honey, that's all everybody wants!"
And in that moment, it was as though a financial light bulb lit up. I realized that I wasn't alone in my wanting more than I could immediately afford. Perhaps even the proverbial Joneses didn't feel as though they had everything.
Since that day, I've become increasingly convinced that - the very rich and the very spiritual aside - people of all economic levels live with a constant sense of want. There's always something just a bit better than what they have, no matter if what they currently have is a Sapporo or a BMW. It's not necessarily a question of keeping up with those Joneses (who themselves are trying to keep up); sometimes it's a question of wanting more education, or a house, or a family vacation.
Given this sense of "if only I had [insert item here], things would be better," the current economic turmoil facing the world should not be surprising. For what could be more perfect than the ability to pay for today's pleasures with tomorrow's dollars? How fantastic, how carpe diem-ish, to be able to enjoy the gratification of desires for as long as possible?
Except that, if the never-ending thirst for more leads not to the hoped-for feeling of well-being but simply to the replacement of yesterday's want with a bigger and better coveted prize today, one ends up spending more and more of tomorrow's dollars. And if tomorrow's dollars don't materialize as planned, then one has a significant problem.
Don't get me wrong, I think credit is awesome. It's convenient, it allows me to pay bills once a month, and it is pretty much a necessity for modern life. Even my kids' daycare refuses any other form of payment.
That said, the benefits bring with them a huge responsibility. My parents rarely used their card, preferring to stick to cash and being able to "see" where the money went. I'll admit that I tend to overspend when I've got plastic in my hand, and that there are more Chipotle vegetarian bowls on the ol' Amex than I would probably have bought had I been restricted to paper money. I have to work to remind myself whenever I make that oh-so-easy "swipe 'n sign" at Target that my online account balance will be reduced by that number at some point.
Which is why I am becoming increasingly angry at the response to the current Wall Street woes. John McCain said in Wednesday's debate that Americans are "innocent victims of greed and excess on Wall Street and also in Washington, D.C." But he's not the only one casting the American public, drowning in debt, as unwitting pawns in a high-stakes, ultimately devastating game of chance played by the heavy-hitters in the financial markets.
The movie Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders attempts to portray Americans as just that - prey. Prey who fall into the traps laid carefully by lenders eager to extend easy credit to the disadvantaged and then even more eager to spring the trap of high interest rates and high-pressure tactics to squeeze money from bankrupt accounts like blood from a stone. It argues that government, with its multi-billion dollar debt, has set an example of "Do not pay until...never" and encouraged excess in its citizens who have fallen for this version of the American Dream hook, line, and sinker.
Except that people aren't fish. They're not sheep. They're not prey. They're certainly not victims.
Covetous? Yes. Desirous? Yes. Prone to instant gratification? Yes. But victims? No.
Can I sympathize with someone whose bank said oh-so-convincingly, "yes, of course you can afford this house - just look at how prices have increased over the past years!" or someone who interpreted the plethora of credit card offers as an indication of their worthiness to use that credit? Sure. Do I recognize that few could have seen this coming, and that the statement "houses will always appreciate in value" hasn't ever been questioned before? Definitely.
But I resent this complete off-loading of responsibility onto Wall Street and the so-called "predatory lenders" although they certainly do bear some responsibility, and this downturn goes way beyond bankruptcies and foreclosures and heads into some pretty murky territory of selling debt.
Nevertheless, purchasing today what you can only afford (maybe) tomorrow is risky business. And undertaking those risks without really understanding the possible downfalls is not being a victim - it's being negligent.
You want your Grand Beach Club shirt and you don't have the money today? Go ahead and put it on the plastic. Just don't blame someone else when the babysitting job falls through.
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