Childhood Economics

Even as a child, I knew if I had a dime I could buy two candy bars or a comic book, but not both. All of my financial transactions involved some element of choice and deprivation, or perhaps some systematic deferral with a goal at the end, an option I was not particularly fond of.  Isn’t it funny how it all goes back to the earliest wisdom you possessed?

Years later, I took a required economics class in college and struggled. It was a basic 101 course, but its abstractions and formulae intimidated me. Although set in a world of markets and goods, its bright metallic certainty seemed divorced from human influence. It was a complicated game whose rulesI could not grasp, a little too close to math, but without math’s purity. Iusually understood the first concrete illustrations but felt lost when these meandered off into large-scale applications and brain-straining complexities.

My lack of imagination and inability to comprehend the system left me in an arrested state of economic development. I was woefully inept at financial planning and gave little thought to retirement. (Thank goodness my husband did.)B ut because I grew up poor(though not impoverished) I have always been aware of the pending fall of that other shoe, even when things were going well. Despite a weakness for books and baubles and bargains that don’t hold up, I tend to live closer to the bone than needed, taking very few risks, and generally rather boring and frugal in my spending. Money is a fickle friend and it makes me a little uneasy.

 Asa couple, my husband and I handle finances based on the old common sense understandings, but those basics seem to have served us well. Owning one house is adequate and nothing short of amazing; we were well into our forties when we made that dream real. Our vehicles are small and fuel-efficient, often pre-owned, and purchased with cash. We pay off our credit card bills each month, and our daughter managed to graduate from college last year without debt. We have deferred small portions of our income and invested with caution, and we figured our retirement years would not be flashy, but reasonably secure, though at this point, who can say?Yet even now, I feel affluent and blessed and fully aware that I live better than 99% of the world’s population, and I try to contribute what I can to help alleviate the world’s collective misery, even if the net effect is miniscule.

 AndI realize all that may sound smug and self-righteous, but it is spoken with the utmost humility and a profound awareness that the world is not a level playing field. Many people start out with incalculable disadvantages, and there are elements of luck in all outcomes. I don’t believe democracy means every man for himself, and survival of the fittest, and trusting that everything will sort itself out in the free market, the streets, or the playground.

Yes, even as a child, I knew some kids needed a hand and life wasn’t fair. I knew, too, that when the teacher left the room, there would be those who behaved and those who went wild, and we all got in trouble. It’s the way of the world. Always was.

 It’s apparent in the mess we’re in right now. A bunch of selfish jerks went wild and we’re all bracing for the punishment. I understand the need to borrow, and I know that much of our economy was built on easy available credit, and this was a sound enough practice while the economy was growing and people could pay back their loans.

Enter greed and bad judgment, with borrowers, like addicts, craving more and more and getting in over their heads, and lenders, like drug dealers, encouraging that addiction, luring them in, leveraging themselves to the hilt, offering predatory mortgages and short-sighted scams all guaranteed to backfire.

Because here’s another one of those basic facts you learn early on: bubbles burst.But the wizards of Wall Street shamelessly scrambled to maximize their own obscene wealth, and our leaders in Washington assumed a hands-off posture,‘cause they basically think greed is fine. One of the key advocates of deregulation, of course, was John McCain -- yeah, the one who wants to be our president, the one who would love to apply the same failed laissez faire principle to the shameful mess that is our health care system.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration just kept on spending, including billions for a war we didn’t need, andall on credit, of course, leaving us with a staggering unprecedented federal deficit.

Now they are asking us to trust them. To the tune of $700 billion.

Well, it wasn’t my screw-up, and it wasn’t my greed, but I still have a sense that we’re all in this together, and I figure we’re all going to have to cut corners and make some sacrifices. I’m willing. We’ve got to keep this ship afloat, oneway or another. And I believe we will get over this.

I just don’t think that a bail-out should come without accountability. To draw upon childhood economics once again, even a child knows that if you haven’t been sharing the profits of your ultra glitzy lemonade stand, it isn’t reasonable to expect others to cover your losses when it flounders, or clean up the mess. 

Risky business has its risks, and irresponsible behavior should not be rewarded.

 So let there be caveats. And payback. And accountability. And oversight.

Let the public have some ownership in the companies we are rescuing.

Let compassion extend to the poor as well as the rich.

And please, dear God, let there be change.