What's Wrong with Us?

I'm so stinking frustrated with what I'm seeing these days.  It seems if you're dishonest, greedy, or a 'victim', you make out well in our country today.  If you live within your means, save for a rainy day, and try to take responsibility for yourself, then you get stepped on.

This article in the Irvine Housing Blog made me sick this morning.  Now that everyone's made--and spent--a fortune getting way over their head in mortgages they knew they couldn't afford, they're lining up to have these loans written down so they won't have to pay them back.  Executives and stock-holders in these major financial institutions reaped huge windfalls during the rise of the bubble, and now they come with hat in hand expecting taxpayers to bail them out?  Most houses featured daily in IHB are the result of people spending all the equity in their appreciating home 'value' over the past few years on cars, vacations--consumer 'stuff'--and now are leaving the banks holding up to 1/4 million dollars each while they walk away with a slap on the wrist, having lost nothing but their credit rating because they were $0 down loans.

Meanwhile, my parents have lived a modest lifestyle well within their means for 40+ years they've been working.  They bought a modest home (which they actually paid off), drove used cards, and never took extravagant vacations.  We always had food on the table and clothes to wear, but you would have been hard-pressed to find designer labels or name-brand appliances in our house growing up.  No boats, campers, or RVs sat in our driveway.  My parents paid their taxes, gave to charity, and managed to help me get through college in spite of having little or no retirement savings to pull from.

My parents are part of the forgotten generation as far as retirement goes; they didn't retire soon enough to have a traditional pension plan, yet they haven't worked long enough since the advent of the 401k to have enough saved there for retirement.  The companies that they spent the biggest part of their lives working for managed to somehow legally pay them a pittance for their pensions, and now the sagging stock market is eating up what little they've managed to put away after the last few years of rising gas, home heating, and food costs have taken larger slices of their budget.  Is anyone offering them help?  Nope.  They'll pay more taxes to help pay the bills that the deadbeat mortgage holders leave on the bank's doorstep.

This afternoon the transmission on my car went out.  As I drove home from Wal-Mart in second gear the whole way, I wondered why I shouldn't play the same game.  Why shouldn't I go to a dealership, sign a loan for the most expensive car I can qualify for, and just never pay it back?  Sure, they'd come get the car eventually, but I'm guessing with some legal maneuvering and outright lying I could manage to drive a new car for free for six months or so.  (I'm sure I could put all of the maintenance and fuel costs on a credit card...and just not pay it back either.)  Don't I deserve to drive the nicest car, regardless of what I can afford?  Isn't that the new American way?

I used to be amazed that some of the students I knew simply could not see themselves as accountable for the decisions they made.  Now I understand why they couldn't...I'm guessing they've never seen anyone really held responsible.  I'm afraid we're missing a great chance to do exactly that.