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“Life’s about choices,” said a college professor of mine. He taught finance and would impart to my classmates and me the importance of the decisions we all have as to how we use our money, time and resources. It was his mantra and something that he passed on, not only to his students, but his children as well.
For instance, he recalled an experience when his 8-year-old daughter and him were going on a walk around the neighborhood. He had told her to take her jacket because it was cold outside. “No, I don’t need it,” she proclaimed. He explained to her that she would get cold if she didn’t have her jacket, yet she still insisted she didn’t need it. “O.K.,” he said and they went on the walk.
A few blocks in she began grumbling about how cold it was and rubbing her arms. What did my professor do? Did he cut the walk off short? Did he take off his jacket and lovingly place it around his daughter? No, he made her walk the rest of the way home freezing her butt off. “Life’s about choices,” he explained to his daughter.
60 years ago people reading this article would say of this example, “Well done, he taught his daughter a valuable lesson.” But today, many reading this would cry, “Child Abuse!” “It was the father’s fault for not making her take her jacket!” “You can’t blame the daughter, she didn’t know, she can’t be held responsible!”
This is what’s wrong with our society. We’ve become a people that hold everyone responsible, but ourselves.
Never before have I seen so much blame being placed on everyone but the person in the mirror. People waving angry fingers at big oil companies for high gas prices rather than blaming themselves for owning two S.U.V.’s and a boat. They completely ignore the law of supply and demand expecting that somehow prices will remain stagnant as consumption drastically increases.
This is like writing an angry letter to Hostess snack foods complaining about your recent weight gain while shoving 30 Twinkies in your gullet. Life’s about choices.
Or how about the debt-ridden homeowner’s shouting about the foul play of mortgage lenders who “deceived them” (code for I didn’t do my homework) and gave them their houses much too easily then DEMANDING government bail out for a house they had no business purchasing in the first place. Since when is your poor financial planning and decision making the government’s problem?
As Justice Casey Percell said, “It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself.“ You made a poor choice, take your lumps and move on.
Is the economy in a slump? Yes. But, who is really to blame? “Most of our economic wounds are self-inflicted, stemming from our inability to live within our means,” says Knight Kiplinger, Editor in Chief of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.
Many Americans live in a house — and drive a car — that eats up too much of their monthly budget. They dine out when they could be eating at home, and they indulge their children with trendy clothes. They mistake wants for needs.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love America. I believe in America and what it stands for. This is why something needs to change - and instead of demanding it from everyone else it has to start with us. Government bailout is not the answer, it will only prolong and maybe even exacerbate the problem.
As Herbert Spencer aptly spoke, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
Punishing corporations for their profits is not the answer, this will only send the message that in America you can try to be successful, but if you are too successful we’ll start taking your money. The answer lies in doing our homework and making the right choices. After all, at the end of the day it’s about taking a coat when it looks like it’s chilly outside. You can choose not to, it’s true, but don’t whine when you get cold. Life’s about choices.
Blame everyone but yourself! Bad childhood, hung with the wrong crowd, born on the 'wrong side of the tracks', abusive parents, get up in the getto, black, brown, addicted to drugs, addicteed to sex, addicted to porn, poor, etc. (excuse de'jour). Pick your posion, pick anyone, any situation but remember that every time you point a finger, three are pointing back at you!
GenY looks like it is growing up. Welcome to Adulthood, Cameron.
Fantastic post, I couldn't agree more.
This also reminds me a lot about the criticism of popular clothing brands for marketing a certain image to young people, which supposedly "causes" anorexia and self-hate. It seems to be driven by the whole "Buying what they're selling" mentality. But what I think most people miss is:
Businesses SELL WHAT YOU BUY.
A lot of people seem to think that corporations just sit around thinking up of ways to manipulate people into buying things, when in actuality their primary purpose is to give you what YOU WANT.
If people didn't like deathly skinny models, they wouldn't buy brands that plastered them all over magazines. If we didn't love our SUVs so much, they would never have been sold successfully. It's all our own fault.
Some people don't have bootstraps. And coming from a poor community, I saw that first hand. People try to say to me: you succeeded, why can't others? And I remind them that I had a stable two parent home, a history of college attendance in my family, and tons of support. It was nothing new. So the fact that at one time my parents lived in a bad neighborhood was not the defining factor. Say that to someone whose parent was a drug addict (as was the case with a classmate) and often left her to fend for herself when we were in 3rd grade (she ate at my house a lot), and I think it is an accomplishment that she finished school and takes good care of her two children.
It is possible for you to make a hundred million dollars tomorrow. Possible but not probable. It is great and all that Americans believe in this spirit of possibility, but socio-economic status and the power of the status quo around you are undeniable forces. It is a demonstrated fact that people who grow up around success are more successful. Anything else is the exception but not the rule. And for the inverse, a family of poverty produces children who grow up and stay around the same socioeconomic status. The possibility, as likely as becoming a multi-millionaire tomorrow, is there, but would you like to stake your life on those odds?
On the other hand, I totally agree about the mortgage situation. I would go further, though, as I think it was a stupid decision to bail out Bear Stearns, and to provide all this credit to companies that made mistakes as dumb as the consumers. If the government will be truly supportive of the market's power, and force people to live with their mistakes, then EVERYONE should live with those mistakes.
I agree in the lost notion of personal responsibility, but I think you're article makes it a little black and white when the truth is a bit more grey.
For example, I don't think taxing corporate profits is a good idea either, but I can't hold them blameless for spending billions of dollars annually trying to reverse engineer people's impulses to get them to buy things. It just doesn't feel right to put 100% of blame on individuals knowing that there are entire industries and fields of study devoted to persuading them into somethign they otherwise wouldn't do.
Again, I certainly think people should own up for themselves more often, but I can't in good faith give them all the blame.
The personal responsibility argument sounds magnificently wonderful. Do your homework, work hard, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
In America, we socialize the risk and privatize the profits. We bail out Bear Sterns and tell the Average Joe to take a hike.
@Scott
Have you ever been black and on the "other side of the tracks"? People do make it out of "the hood" but I'd venture to say that the successful exit rate is lower than Harvard's admission rate.
Personal responsibility is good- but too often conservatives think its application can solve any problem an individual can have.
Example: if you use your link card to buy M&Ms for your 6 kids rather than lettuce, you've obviously abusing the right.
However, there are instances when people are affected by forces larger than them. Americans should generally exercise more personal responsibility, because we have so many options available. But you can't say that a kid born in Baltimore to a single mother earning less than 20,000 dollars a year should pick himself up by his bootstraps, study hard, and get into an ivy league school to make something of himself. It's just not realistic.
@Sean
You make a good point, but not the whole point. Yes, companies will only sell what you buy, but they're also spending billions of dollars on marketing to influence what that is.
And if you think that they're not going to be doing their damnedest to influence it to higher margin products (SUV's/pickups, etc.), or frequently replacing the purchases you've already made, then you're kidding yourself.
This doesn't absolve people of their personal responsibility, but it also doesn't mean that the companies are neutral in the market either.
@ Tim,
There is no doubt that some people start out in life with many more opportunities than others and with many more choices. It stinks, but it's reality.
However, there are too many amazing stories throughout history of people overcoming less than desirable beginnings to make something of themselves.
Harder, yes. Unrealistic, no.
Cameron,
GREAT article! Well done!
A respectable post.
@ david wynn
what's wrong wwith finding ways to get people to buy your wares. it's how the world works and we are better for the process.
@ Adam,
Fair enough, I realize that was pretty one-sided of me. I think in most cases it comes down to the individual product.
In the case of SUVs and things like it, I think you're right--companies have a legitimate motivation to persuade people to like them, because they yield higher profit than the alternatives.
But other things, such as the body type of models...I'm not so sure there's really a greater profit for one over the other, outside of what the public likes. Products like that might just come down to personal taste. But now we're getting way off-subject :)
@Jeremiah:
I would agree that increased information availability, edging towards what economisits call perfect information, is a good thing for everyone.
In an ideal world, companies would make products, people would know about them, and they would rationally pick the best ones for them, maximizing societal happiness. That's the layman's version of the economics behind your statement.
However, "finding ways to get people to buy your wares" in the real world involves a great deal of claims that are incredibly shady or are outright lies for people who aren't thinking things through, and sometimes are hardly thinking about them at all. In this situation, there's no guarentee that freedom to advertise will maximize social welfare.
Again, I don't think advertising is evil, but I can't lay the blame entirely at the feet of individuals for not living within their means. I think a good deal of it probably goes there, but not all of it.
Call me crazy, but I think truth tends to come in shades of grey like that.
Aaahhhhhhh, a refreshing post. Thank you.
Demanding to be taken care of and constantly blaming others are classic signs of immaturity. In this growing Age of Entitlement, it's nice to hear a voice of sanity about good values, smart choices and taking responsibility.
@ Tim - do you need to be Ivy-League educated to stay off food stamps? I don't think so.
My husband and I both lived through hardships. He grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in our metro area, with two parents that hadn't attended college (his mother went to school when he was a kid and eventually got her degree - she's also a success story here) and somehow managed to put himself through college and medical school. His parents moved from Puerto Rico to Ohio in the 70's and had to begin their life from square one. He managed to attend college and medical school through student loans and is just starting in private practice.
I had a good home life in a decent neighborhood, until my father (breadwinner) died when I was in high school. My mother couldn't pay for school, she had three other kids ages 7-14 and she hadn't gone to college herself, so she didn't know how to help me. Somehow I managed to go to a state school, worked through school and graduated. Was it Ivy League? No. But, I am the Marketing Director for a nonprofit only two years out of graduation, making a pretty decent wage.
The fact of the matter is, is that people feel entitled. The poster here is 100% correct.
I also say Bologna when it comes to the "marketing voodoo" arguments given above. Ever notice how there are some frugal people who will never bow to the almighty advertising influence? People who don't need to have the hottest clothes, who don't walk around with a closet full of Hollister and who don't need name brand items to feel good?
Well, I'm one of them. If average people can't stave off the tantalizing marketing messages, then that really says something about personal responsibility - we have none.
What a refreshing perspective! I'm a huge believer in personal responsibility and agree that life is about choices. So many peole do mistake wants for needs and therein rob themselves of the freedom to make choices.
This is why I'm so counfounded when people in our generation (Gen Y) are so willing to pay more taxes in return for government assistance. It's not the government's job to help you afford your lifestyle.
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