Amid talks of the Federal Reserve lowering subprime interest rates you have to ask yourself, “what message are we sending?” If you get in over your head, don’t worry. You will get bailed out. Be irresponsible with your spending, have no emergency fund, and a shaky adjustable rate loan that was targeted at you because your credit wasn’t that great to begin with. That’s all fine and good because if enough of you do that at the same time and are about to lose those homes we will bail you out no questions asked. Let’s not worry about the devaluation of the dollar in overseas markets. Don’t be concerned that people may never learn to spend less than they make, to save, and most importantly to be good stewards of their finances. We have already been sending that message for years through the different types of bankruptcy we have in the U.S. Not to mention what the devaluation of the dollar is doing to our missionaries who are having to stretch each dollar as far as they can because the dollar just doesn’t buy what it used to. Why? Because people are losing faith in our markets in part due to our misuse of credit and moves like this from the Fed.
What happens if you cannot pay your credit card bill. Does your interest rate go up or down? Up, up, and up some more. Of course they do that to make a profit and not in the interest of the consumer. When people cannot handle the interest rates (that they agreed to be responsible for!) what does the Fed do? They bring them down, down, down with no apparent concern for the long term effects on our markets and on inflation.
The root problem of all of this is that Americans have an unrealistic expectation of what their lifestyle should be like that is probably rooted in the media culture we are submerged in. The result is like wild barbarians we get what we want without concern if we can actually pay for it. We are looting stores, malls, ebay, and the rest by selling our and our children’s future. It is killing people financially, socially, mentally, and I would say even spiritually.
I apologize for venting this here. I just had to get it off my chest.
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Great points, Matt. I remember a lady driving up to our church building three or four months after the storm. She was driving a Jaguar. When questioned about it, she said, “I wouldn’t drive anything else.” Get this, she was there to ask for groceries. Free groceries to a lady driving a Jag? We told her that her priorities were out of order.
Sounds harsh but then look at the really needy people that you are able to give that food to.
I can hardly stand to watch TV or read magazines anymore. This message that your life is only going to be good when you have all these things … ugh!
I got a flyer mailed to me the other day from Dell: “Wish For Everything.” You know what, I think I’ve gotten over that, thank you very much! (shouldn’t we grow out of that with childhood?)
I hate those Visa commercials where there are thousands of people in a huge shopping center and everyone is going so smoothly through the line UNTIL someone actually dares to pay with CASH!! Oh my!!
As you can see, I feel the need to vent too! 🙂 Especially this time of year, I can see it in even close friends and family members — not many seem to realize just how much more we have than we need, and how wasteful and maybe even sinful it is.
It’s really frightening how much so many people are in debt. The borrower really servant to the lender.