(1) W--I take your point re: the fat in nuts being part of a whole food, but I still think it's odd that they got lumped in as a protein.
(2) Ernessa--on an unrelated note, I went to Borders a while back and looked for "32 Candles," but they didn't have it, so it's on my Amazon list and I'm waiting to get up to the amount I need for free shipping, and then I'm ordering.
(3) Ernessa--so much to say in response to your comment, and yet, I can't speak as freely as I like because I'm very careful about work-related issues. One thought that popped into mind: I don't remember whether I linked to this NYT real estate piece on what $700,000 will buy you in various places, one of which was DC (hint: a lot less than in the other locations featured). Two friends of mine actually own a very similar house (I'd say the layout is identical, which is not uncommon within DC-area row houses) in that neighborhood, and it is a beautiful house. But it costs a lot more than mine, and yet, the property taxes are about half of what I pay. And yet, I am not complaining, because I'd much rather pay taxes and get Alexandria's stellar services in return, where the District's services are pathetic.
Very much agreed--based on the information out there, not just on my personal opinion--about financial illiteracy and the lack of budgeting, as well as the ignorance with regard to how the government spends money. I know I've linked to a few pieces on this over the last month or so. I don't understand how anyone doesn't budget. I don't stick to a very firm budget, but I definitely keep track of what comes in and how much I should generally spend in whatever areas. That's partly because I have some expensive tastes that are very important to me (travel, theater, donations, living alone), and I pay for them by foregoing or cutting back on expensive things that are less important to me (electronics, expensive clothes, restaurant meals). I don't love not spending a lot of money on clothes--I'd be more willing to pay full price if more of the money went to the people making the clothes in Bangladesh rather than the corporate offices of Ann Taylor. I would be more willing to pay for an iPhone if more of the price went to the people thinking about jumping off the roofs of their factories in Shenzhen than the shareholders of Apple. But that's another issue.
From the perspective you laid out, families are more to blame than the government in terms of balancing their own budgets, because they don't have to contend with external political considerations. But yes, the balancing income and outgo is lost on many people, and they're unwilling to make difficult trade-offs. For many, it is just truly difficult to make it work on their incomes (you've seen the recent articles on the poverty level). For others, they're unwilling to acknowledge that they can't have everything. A friend and I were just talking about Suze Orman. I think her advice is of limited utility because she doesn't teach people about tradeoffs; she just tells them what to do. Wouldn't it be more helpful--rather than 'you can't afford that car'--to say, 'if you want that car so badly, think about what you're willing to forgo to get it.'
The public's complacency in the budget mess is a different issue, one tied in with our collective ignorance of and apathy with regard to how the government works. The issue with Congress isn't not knowing how to budget; it's ideological battles about the role of government. And that's where the constituents are the problem (which is pretty much what you're saying)--not because we don't know how to budget, though, but because we neglect to appreciate that the services we depend on cost money. Food safety costs money. If you leave it to the industry to self-police, it's not going to happen. Regulation costs money, and if you leave it to BP, well, you know what happened.
One thing I will say for my mother is that she puts her money, or at least her services, where her mouth is. She recently had a knee replacement operation and was offered all sorts of options, paid for by Medicare, for post-operation assistance. She turned it down because she didn't need it.
Here's the other thing I'll say: everyone I work with is taking the likely shutdown in stride. Most people are frustrated that they can't work for free, because they have so much work to do and they want to do it. Most of us are talking about how we're not thrilled about a missed paycheck but we'll deal, but we're concerned about people who have more to lose.
On a lighter note, check out the cover of today's Express for a completely blameless casualty of the shutdown.
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2 comments:
I don't think families are more to blame than government. But it should be noted that Congress doesn't exist in a vacuum. In many ways they are a reflection of current American values. Defunding Planned Parenthood w/o thought to where millions of women without insurance will get birth control and gyno exams and yes, abortions, is not just poor moral reasoning, it's extremely poor financial reasoning. My main point is that every member of Congress grew up and got elected in this country. The fact that we don't have health care basics and many of the benefits that Europe has is more on us than I'd say it's on our government, which at the end of the day, is a reflection of us.
We are living within a system where it's assumed that America won't go to pot if we allow Americans to keep their money as opposed to heavily taxing them. Though we receive little to no financial education from our school systems or our parents, there is this magical thought that we will somehow spend and budget our own money better than big government would when that simply isn't true. I believe that if I were more heavily taxed by my state, then we'd have a better metro system, and we'd have a better education system (which would save me money b/c I wouldn't have to move into a "better" neighborhood or send my daughter to private school), and we'd have better resources for our daunting homeless population.
But all the time out here, I hear people in the same income bracket as me on the radio and IRL complaining about the cost of housing, complaining about the schools, complaining about the homeless population without making the connection between their unwillingness to come off of tax dollars and the state our state is in. I don't want to get too mean here, but it's like, "Stop talking. The majority of you are idiots. Unless, you are willing to say, 'Okay, we're in a fiscal crisis, go ahead and raise my taxes, so we can get more social services and protect ourselves from future financial crisis,' then stfu about how much trouble our own state has with balancing the budget."
But any elected person that puts up a solution that involves raising taxes gets shouted down or voted out, so actually yes, I guess I am saying that this is more our fault that the government's. Because at this point it's like everyone wants to weigh in on this situation without paying any dues or making any sacrifices themselves.
It makes me very tired, especially b/c I realize that I'm part of the problem. It's not enough for me to point this out. I should be having more IRL conversations about this, donating to more charities that put financial education in the classroom, trying to figure out how to encourage our middle class to budget so that those effects trickle down. But I'm a mom who didn't figure all of this out my own dang self until my late 20s. That's why I'm passive in this current debacle. I mean what is there to say or do that would actually help or make any kind of dent and at the end of the day, who has the energy?
Oh, and I also want to say that there's all sorts of things that my insurance offers that I turn down b/c I don't need them. That's one of the great benefits of having terrific and dependable (in all areas but infertility) unionized insurance . You don't have to take advantage of everything you can get, b/c you know those services are there. Also, if my husband gets laid off, it takes a really long time for us to lose our benefits. He'd basically have to quit the business all together for us to really take a hit. I have no idea why people would actually vote against having this kind of insurance. It blows my mind that everyone doesn't want that kind of peace of mind for everyone else, to know that if you put years into a job, your insurance won't go away within 30 days of losing that job.
Sadly, I don't think we care enough about the quality of things in this country. It's like Wal-Mart has invaded every area of lives. People don't realize that for just a few dollars more they could get way more quality at Target and for a few more dollars more than that they could get the best quality. Right now I'm in a holding pattern of not being able to buy any new clothes b/c I'm hoping to get pregnant. My H&M stuff is just falling apart. My Target stuff is faded. My designer jeans and Anthropologie remains in perfect condition. I now realize that I should have just gotten the expensive T-shirt in the first place. I'd have less clothes, but I'd be happier with my entire wardrobe. Though to your points, I realize that even the quality stuff probably isn't all that ethical. But that's another argument for another day.
My main point is that we as a country have low-quality financial values for ourselves and for our government and I'm not quite sure how to go about fixing that. We settle for more from Wal-Mart when we should be paying for less from Anthropologie.
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