Land of the Handouts – Home of the Broke

Okay I am a little worked up today so try to keep up. I recently read some study results performed by the department of psychology at San Diego State University regarding high school students' level of confidence. The study results, published in the November issue of Psychological Science, asked high school students to answer thirteen questions about their self-esteem and confidence levels, and then compared responses between students in 1975 to students in 2006. The findings were a bit disturbing, at least to me.

The study found that students in 2006 are far more likely to believe that they will be better workers, spouses, and parents than teens in the 1970s. The study also found that students today are far more likely to respond that they are "A" students with high IQs. The final piece of this study that really stuck out to me is that 75% of teens responded that they believed they would be more successful than their peers. Jean Twenge, co-author of the study reported that we "…may be producing a generation of kids with expectations that are out of sync with the challenges of the real world. High school students' responses have crossed over into a really unrealistic realm, with three-fourths of them expecting performance that's effectively in the top 20 percent…"

Where am I going with all this? I see this study and a general societal attitude of entitlement linked. I think that we need to be reminded that the constitution states that we are entitled to "…certain unalienable rights… life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness." Notice that happiness is not guaranteed, just the pursuit of it. With the recent "bailout" legislation some people have lost their damn minds. We have Fortune 500 CEOs flying to DC in their corporate jets to plead poverty, 700 billion dollars in bailout money going to Wall Street, and once again, the government meddling in financial markets.

Perhaps our lawmakers should be, um, making laws instead of meddling in financial markets. Lawmakers' meddling is what sped this economic crisis along and further meddling is only going to cause us problems later down the road. Let's skip the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac argument; I just don't want to hear the whining in my email. Let's go right to the Clinton administration and Alan Greenspan. I used to think Greenspan walked on water, but if he didn't see this coming he should be arrested for incompetence. The Clinton administration deregulated the banks and the Democrats in general made sub-prime lending attractive to banks so that we can say "look at all the poor minorities that are now homeowners." (I will come back to this point later) When the proverbial shit started to hit the fan, the Bush administration expanded the banks' ability to lend FORTY TIMES their assets instead of the eight times they were able loan previously. So the banks continue to lend money to people that can't pay it back and plead ignorance when they run out of money.

How are these two issues linked you are asking? It seems that many people today are expecting someone to hand them something, a house, a car, a solid education, and a good job. I blame the American Dream campaign of a chicken in every pot and car in every driveway. If you would like a chicken in your pot, go work for it. If you would like a car in your driveway, go work for it. The problem is that we got off track somewhere and the statement became if you want a car in your driveway, get on your knees and plead poverty until someone gives it to you.

America: you are broke and living well beyond your means, which is not the bank's fault (directly), it is yours. If you are struggling to pay your bills, you don't need to go out to the bar on Friday, eat out for lunch every day, or buy a new car every year.

Allow me to digress for a moment, before my inbox starts to overflow with angry emails. In Larry Winget's book, You're Broke Because You Want To Be, he differentiates between "broke" and "poor." I will borrow his definitions because they were put so eloquently. Poor is a condition in which people have limited or no opportunities for advancement and it takes everything they have just to survive. Broke is condition in which people find themselves overspending or under-earning, in today's society, the latter is typically the case.

I will happily hand the banks their share of the blame for this situation. They should not be loaning someone the amount of their annual salary to buy a car with, but the borrower needs bear the lion's share of the blame. Furthermore, if you choose to borrow the amount of your annual salary and go buy a car, and can't afford to pay it back, the bank should liquidate your belongings until the debt is repaid. The best part about the bad situation outlined above? You are still free to PURSUE your happiness.

I know that there are people out there in the US that are poor. People that have limited opportunities for advancement; that are working their fingers to the bone just to return home to find they still can't afford to put dinner on their table. My heart goes out to these people and I do what I can to help them, but I can't change the world alone.

We are now stuck in a real pickle and things are going to get worse before they get better. The question now is how long are things going to be bad for? If the government continues to meddle we may turn back around faster, only to find that they have caused another crappy situation that we are going to pay for later (Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac anyone?).

Where I am going is that we need to stop "kid-proofing" the world and allow our kids to learn some lessons through humility. If someone is always allowed to succeed and never allowed to fail, they don't learn anything. I know this is overplayed, but teach our kids to fish instead of just dropping a truckload of fish at their door. If they are never tested, how will they know the limits to what they can achieve? Monkey Lips asked me the other day, what would I change if I could go back fifteen years? My response was "nothing." I had advantages that many did not, but I still struggled. My parents were not rich; in fact you might say that they were broke. At some point though, I made the decision that I was going to do better. I failed at some things, I succeeded at others, but all in all, it made me stronger and more confident with my strengths and limitations.

Until we as a society allow our children to fail sometimes, we will perpetuate our approval of this attitude of entitlement. You are entitled to pursue happiness any way you see fit, but if your pursuit fails for one reason or another, you are only entitled to start again, nothing more. Americans are among some of the most charitable people in the world. If you stumble and need some help we will gladly help you get back on your feet, but grow weary of continually supporting those that are perfectly able to work and provide for themselves.

My bottom line is to stop expecting that good things will come your way and go work for them. Pursue your happiness, whatever that means, but know that it is not automatic nor guaranteed.