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Commentary

By Liz Quirin

All About the Money

As a society, we tend to be reactive to what happens around us, and in the case of bad news, with shock, anger, dismay, and the typical question: “How could this happen?” or “Who would do something like that?”

Let’s review a few examples to show you what I mean: the Enron scandal, for example, was a tangled web of multi-layered scheming and thievery at the highest levels that caused many ordinary folks to lose their jobs, their savings and their retirements. Now, we’re caught in the throws of a banking scandal of almost unfathomable proportions with the government ready to help folks who have lent the John and Jane Q. Publics all or a good portion of the money they needed for a home loan — whether in fact they could afford it in the long term.

Both examples point to the greed factor and how much folks in charge can leverage for themselves before the bottom falls out of the market. Somehow these nameless and sometimes expletive-deleted money managers have sent our economy into yet another tailspin. Here come the questions: How could this happen? and Who would do something like that? Obviously we don’t know names and addresses, but these people have played on the gullibility or ignorance of people who want to believe they can own their dream in the real world, right here, right now. As is becoming painfully clear, they can’t, and we will be invited — no compelled — to bail them out. How many times will we be forced into this situation before we must become the beneficiary of some bailout? I greatly fear that it will be in the foreseeable future rather than in our dreams.

Unable to do anything directly about the present state of affairs, and carried along in this leaky boat, we need to take some kind of action to stave off the need to ask those same two questions — how could and who would — yet again by looking ahead to what the next scandal du jour might be. Unfortunately, I have a candidate for your consideration: Watch out for credit card companies to exhale their last gasps before going bankrupt. Why credit card companies? Let’s take a quick look at a few issues: Most people have more than one credit card. A great number of people receive credit card invitations in the mail — just apply for one more, and receive all the benefits. However, they never pay the bill that comes at the end of the month. Some people pay one credit card bill by getting a check from another credit card company to pay the debt. They are consolidating their debts, but the bill continues to roll in at the end of the month.

The bottom line: The people who can’t pay their mortgages will soon be saying they can’t pay their credit card bills. It seems that irresponsible and unethical behavior has become the norm. We’re becoming numb, unable to respond as one scandal piles on another. It is all about the money, isn’t it? We need to become proactive, try to staunch the flow of debt in our own homes and talk about ways to live within our means at every chance we get.