If you read my Townhall column, "The Credit Industry - Death of the Pie", you may identify with the notion that one must pay the consequences for making bad decisions regarding personal finances and use of credit. The point of the article is not to argue that people are entitled to anything, or that anyone should expect to live beyond their means.
The point of the column is to recognize that this economy, for better or for worse, is what it is because people are going to use credit. For mortgages, transportation, and for making purchases that are defined as "discretionary". No one working today could expect any growth in their respective field; no college student could graduate with any expectation of a job if people stopped using credit.
If everyone made the wise decision to operate on a cash only basis, this enormous economy of ours would grind to a halt. Taking as a matter of fact the reality that people are going to operate across a wide spectrum of debt to income, and ability to weather hard times, this paragraph from my column goes to the point most directly:
When “Bob” suffers a heart attack, I don’t think that a prudent EMT would decide that the best way to keep “Bob” going is to make him do a hundred pushups. A family that is experiencing a financial crisis and temporarily cannot honor their credit obligations is no different. Just as the cardiac patient would likely die if subjected to some kind of punishment for becoming ill, why would one expect anything different when a family’s finances become sick?
This is just plain common sense. Putting aside one's own success or failure in the realm of personal financial management, to stand on the basis of what should be versus what really exists at the heart of this country's economic engine, is of no more value than peeing into the wind. Sure, you feel better for having relieved yourself, but so what. You are not necessarily better off for having done it.
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