Greedy Americans
January 29, 2016
ANGELA writes:
Do you get tired of the insinuation that our country’s economic problems are a result of the individual greed of Americans? What is wrong with having a house and a car and an occasional vacation? I found that even a camping trip is very expensive! Would someone say a person was greedy because he went camping for a week? And yet that can amount to more than a thousand dollars if you have a family and want to go somewhere nice. Why should any American want to live in an unsafe house and drive a broken down car? In the end, the price is often still very high! I do not think it is greed to want a new couch or to remodel your house.
There was a man from Europe who visited us once who said all he heard back home was how greedy Americans were. Yet after being here awhile, all he saw was how hard they worked, and how polite they were compared to his country. He said even the women at home were always on their feet, working.
Everyone I know who is in debt is not so because they were greedy. They became victims of the variable interest rates and the payments on their houses went up and up until they could not make a full payment. There is also the problem that it is almost impossible to buy a house or even have a house built without a bank loan. Are these people greedy because they want a house built to their family needs?
I keep hearing how greedy we all are, but I don’t know anyone who got in debt from greed. My son-in-law was conscientious about paying off a $60,000 student loan (law degree) and so he refinanced the family vehicle and paid off a big chunk of it. However, someone at church told him that if you have children under 20 you can delay making any payments on a student loan til the youngest is 20. After that, you still do not have to make payments if you want to “take a hit on your income tax.” I think that means you do not get any money returned. If he had known about this, he would never have refinanced their car.
I read somewhere a few years ago that the financiers who run this country would shift the blame of debt and high taxes on the average American, and call them greedy. They would make life so difficult with usury that Americans would seek relief through entertainment, vacations, shopping, and more comforts at home. They would use our desire for life improvement against us.
There is nothing noble about not having a house of your own. It does not make any personal economic sense to rent, but we are becoming a nation of landlords and renters. The renters get no equity from all their payments, as they would from a house.
I know someone whose fridge and stove and washer and dryer needed to be replaced. She got new ones on credit and the interest for one year was $600.00. There was no way they could have functioned without these appliances, as its illegal and dangerous to build a fire and boil a kettle of water on your front lawn.
We are all stuck in a way of life that requires new appliances. Most men I know think it is non-caring and unloving to make life hard for their wives by putting up with broken down appliances. People are more needy than greedy and that forces them into debt. They have to make payments on used cars, so why not make payments on a new one that works better?
— Comments —
A reader writes:
Your correspondent Angela must have unusually moral and righteous friends, for, alas, I know many greedy and irresponsible people. Notably, they all attended Ivy League colleges or places like Stanford and MIT.
Paul writes:
I expect I am out of touch with the daily financial problems of most Americans because it has been a long time since I dealt with the problems. But there is an element of greed (or perhaps it is a sense of entitlement) in our society. Based on how my parents and I got out of financial problems (though my mother and I never lost the insecurity she acquired as a child and passed on to me as we are like a tuning fork), a few observations might go a long way to helping working families with financial problems.
People need to pay themselves first, that is, they should always save something, no matter how small. I used to save pennies as a child (when a candy bar was a nickel), and I still pick up a penny lying on the ground. But I did not buy the candy bar with my pennies. I saved them. The savings should be made to work at all times, that is, invested using asset allocation, that is, diversification, so that when stocks are down (as they will certainly be from time to time), bonds, fixed income, and real estate are still there.
There are banes to median income families, and the families should avoid them. Trucks, boats, and new cars. My family did not buy a new car until I was about twenty. I did not start buying new cars until I could pay cash for them; and then I drive them for at least ten years and only buy a new one to get the updated safety devices.
I daily travel behind new vehicles, trucks, and SUVs with boat hitches in a parking garage where the people are seeking free healthcare because they can’t afford private care.
And student debt is mostly avoidable. Young people can attend in state colleges, which are far cheaper than private colleges. They can live at home or stay with relatives if the daily commute is impractical. But for the great majority of our urban society, the students can live at home. And they should be helpful to their family for this privilege, which most parents love to provide. If things are really tough, the prospective student can live at home and get a part time job or take 1-3 years to work fulltime and save his money. It is what I did before going to law school.
Hurricane Betsy writes:
Many people are complaining about the financial difficulties (e.g., debt) brought about by having to repair appliances and cars, or buy new ones, etc.
At some point you have to be realistic. It is simply a matter of priorities: If people who complain about this were to live in a smaller house with cheaper or older and out-of-fashion furniture and buy their clothes at charity stores (and there is some nice clothing to be had in these places), then when the appliances or the cars – these are necessities – break down, they will have money to purchase these things for cash. In plain English: make some sacrifices and save for a rainy day. Unless you have 10 kids and are working for minimum wage, it can be done.
I have relatives where the husband has a very well-paying job, the wife stays home, there are 2 kids, and they live in a 700-square foot house (that includes a partly finished basement), whereas most folks with their income have a McMansion in the burbs. It is true. They do not buy on credit. They are not wearing rags, they get to take vacations, their food is good – but it is all made possible by that one major sacrifice: a relatively small, well maintained house.
But we are in love with nice things and so when the necessities break down, we whine like babies.
