Neither a borrower nor a lender be… Nov. 2008
I live in this country by choice. I am a resident alien hailing from Canada. I’ve spent the last few years getting my BA and pursuing my own version of the American dream. It’s a dream that I just recently woke up from.
I came back to America after spending four months in Africa with two concrete concepts firmly entrenched in my thoughts: a renewed appreciation of the lands I can call home, mainly for the nigh-limitless opportunities provided herein, and an acute awareness that I owe, another luxury afforded me by the ample sustenance of first-world living. We do not realize it, but our capacity to owe is a luxury in and of itself, which we are in immediate danger of losing, perhaps to all of our gain.
The talk of the town, and by town I mean New York, and by New York I mean America, and I include Canada because most of what Canada discusses is America, is debt. Like most luxuries, we took debt for granted, and now it’s time to pay. What is to be done? Individuals owe. Families owe. Now some of the biggest corporations and even financial institutions in America owe! And all of these are relying on a government, that’s done nothing but owe since its inception, for salvation to the tune of $700,000,000,000.00.
On average Americans save a negative figure of what they earn. Based on that information, having been driven into a culture of debt, where we’re encouraged to build credit, use credit, and die with more stuff still in the wrapper than we could have ever used in life, banks thought it profitable that they should provide loans to America, without any proof of income, or assets, to anyone who asked, honestly thinking that an over-inflated housing market could bear the burden of the costs of living of an under-paid, under-employed, populace. Now they need help?
Even after the 700 Billion dollar magic wand was waved the problem remains. Average Americans (read political buzz word: “Main Street”) are still feeling the walls closing in. Not just the fragile walls of their homes, but the once sturdy edifices of their financial institutions, the walls of their cubicles (provided they haven’t already squeezed them out) and the walls of their Street Journals, harboring gloom and doom in spite of prospective political saviors’ sound bites.
There’s one solution to this problem. It’s one few want to talk about, perhaps because it’s such a revolutionary approach to financial workings, perhaps because it’s uncommon sense, I don’t know. I last heard it from an Englishman in Africa when this was still a predicted crisis, and not the full-blown catastrophe it has become. If I remember my Hamlet, he could in fact be borrowing from another Englishman, a Bard, nevertheless, I’m going to paraphrase, as I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it went something like this:
STOP SPENDING MONEY THAT YOU DON’T HAVE!
What do you think? Perhaps we should give it a try.
B.F. Burden
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