The Real Problem

Politicians, economists, Tv personalities and everyday Americans have been banging their heads against the wall all week to try and wrap their heads around this financial crisis. All of the options that have been proposed to try and stop a financial meltdown have ups and downs, and could probably all delay the problem from getting any worse. However, there is something far more important and far more dangerous that is at the heart of this recession and without it being fixed this country will never fully recover.

For the past 20 years this country has transformed from a country of consumers to a country of over-consumers. We are a country that is bombarded on a hourly basis with advertisements, slogans, and programs that reinforce the fact that you need to own not anything you can afford, but just plain old anything and everything. 20 years ago people weren't using credit cards or store cards for everything under the sun, they would use them for large purchases in lieu of large amounts of cash. Banks, credit card companies, and stores are more than willing to supply any joe six penny with a driver's license a line of credit just so they can end up charging them and interest rate of 30%. (This is absolutely criminal, but I'll save that for a later post)

TV is the greatest example. Ever since "reality shows" made their loud painful debut on television the American public is always shown how the better side lives and how we should want and try to live just like them. This encourages people to extend themselves outside their means and end up in a downward spiral of debt and depression. People with more than $10000 in credit card debt used to be frowned upon, but now someone with that much debt is seen as someone who needs to extend their credit limit.

The best way to solve this crisis is to really look at the heart of the problem. Banks, stores, and the heartless, guiltless, conscience-less credit card companies need to stop lending out money to just any consumer. Banks need to really look at the people who are trying to borrow and do a comprehensive job of finding out if they can really afford to process this loan. Bankers are too often just trying to make their customers happy instead of actually telling them that they can't afford this loan.

It's time to just bring people back down to reality and get this over-consuming done with. If this problem is not addresses the crisis will never really be averted...just postponed.