RSS Feed MenuWith the economy tanking, and the Dow heading to its lowest level since 1997, the country finally seems ready to tighten its collective belt.
I’m seeing it in my own part of the world; none of my friends who tend to make their own are suddenly buying store-made. Just the opposite; my friends who normally buy store-made are asking how they can make their own. They’re ready to try something new. They want to spend less because it’s clear that now is not the time to be borrowing. Now is the time to pay back what you’ve borrowed.
We all know that it’s the failure to pay back debt that started our current economic crisis. When people can’t pay back what they borrow it hurts everyone, even those not facing foreclosure and repossession. But it hurts those in debt the most.
Last summer, David Brooks wrote in the New York Times that our current debt culture was the result of a “loosening of financial inhibition.” There are many institutions to blame for that loosening, but Democrats in Congress top the list. They wanted the poor to have easier access to credit and home ownership, and created both incentives and mandates for lending institutions to ensure that happened. The resulting default crisis didn’t give the poor access to homes… for long. Instead, it’s set them even further back. What the Democrats hoped would help the poor, has ended up hurting them.
How long will Democrats keep encouraging the poorest among us to spend and consume their own wealth? Probably for as long as it seems “wise” to voters on the left. A Democrat friend, defending the stimulus, eagerly pointed out to me the wisdom of the welfare payments (disguised as refundable tax credits) because they’ll be putting money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it – the poor.
Did you get that?
Translation: “We can rely on the poor to sacrifice what they get for the good of the economy.”
My Democrat friends believe that what the economy needs right now is more spending and easier access to debt (I mean, credit), They have no concept that spending and debt is what causes poverty in the first place. They feel no obligation to teach anyone to save. No wonder they distrust capitalism; they have such a distorted view on how best to employ it.
The problem for our country is that the people ready to return to thrift – to make their own and save their money – are not poor. They’re pretty well off because they tend to behave in ways that result in their being pretty well off. And as long as the Left continues to encourage the poor to consume themselves, a greater divide will exist between these two groups. It’s time for the GOP to send a different message to voters on the left – that the poorest among us can build wealth, too. We can invite everyone to join us in thrift. All they have to do is stop draining what they have through consumption and debt just because the Democrats tell them to.
Cavosie // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:35 am
Wow. This is nearly a delusional post. Putting aside your factual inaccuracies regarding the cause of the current crisis, your portrayal of Democrats as imposing the solution “on the backs of the poor” is both wrong and repugnant. Do you have any evidence at all that the money is/will be used for anything other than subsistence living? The stimulus effect is a BYPRODUCT of assistance–of getting money to people who most NEED it.
gibberish // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:07 am
So the thrust of the article is: Let’s ban the poor from getting loans and never give them money, that’ll teach ‘em to save!
sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:53 am
Cavoisie asks: “Do you have any evidence at all that the money is/will be used for anything other than subsistence living?” I have plenty of evidence. Go into any convenience store or other place where state lottery tickets are sold. There you will see working-class folks spending their last dollar–all their lunch money and then some–to purchase state lottery tickets. I have a great way to stimulate the private sector: Let’s abolish state lotteries and let those poor folks spend their lunch money on real goods instead of pipe dreams.
gibberish // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:05 am
Now the true colors of the right are revealed! It is immoral for government to take your money or tell you what to do with it – unless you are poor in which case we insist you do what we want
fact based // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:00 pm
” There are many institutions to blame for that loosening, but Democrats in Congress top the list”
I agree, the Dems marched into the boardrooms and trading rooms on wall street and demanded:
thou shalt leverage your balance sheets 30:1
thou shalt create cdos
thou shalt coerce credit rating agencies to rate these cdos highly
thou shalt pressure unregulated mortgage lenders to churn out mortgages with lower and lower standards so you could package them and sell them
thou shalt create more and more derivatives like cds to create more leverage
thou shalt run to Secy Goldman Sachs Paulson to get the govt to bail you out
yup blame it on the dems
I can see a new contributor from the talk radio wing nut school …welcome.
Thankfully this is the old minority and if you keep this up you will never become the new majority
StarboardNow // Feb 28, 2009 at 6:39 pm
The poor are up a creek much like the middle class will be shortly, the sad fact is they have far less flexibility to change their own ‘well being’, and care much more about day-to-day matters, like food, energy, clothing. Very soon, it will be evident that they will be far worse off as the cost of common goods and energy, coupled with increases taxes breaks their backs – and it will not be pretty. The middle class is only margnally insulated. The only hope is job generation, a robust energy policy (not green per se), and lower taxes. Conservative values.