Economic Thoughts from a Novice

No, I'm not an economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Ok, not really, I slept in my own bed.

I'm reading all the dire economic news and I keep hearing that we need to get Americans back to work and spending again. I agree totally with the back to work part, and to some degree with the spending. But, do we really want Americans spending like drunken sailors again? I guess I was under the impression that people spending money they didn't have is what got us into this mess in the first place. Seems to me, that we need to get Americans back to saving and spending only what they can afford. We need to restore reasonableness to the American economy. Somewhere along the line, it became ok to get it debt up to our eyeballs with the expectation that things were never going to go downhill.

In a weird way, I think this economic downturn could be good for the American Economy. My generation (I'm 30) has never lived through tough economic times...in fact, we've had it pretty easy. The same can be said for the baby boomers, for the most part. Most of us grew up believing that we were entitled to the same standard of living as our parents as soon as we were on our own. When that lifestyle wasn't attainable (after all, it took our parents years to get there), many people financed their way into that lifestyle, with no eye on the repercussions should the economy take a downturn.

The last generation to really suffer hardship in this country was the World War II generation (my grandparents), and they were better for it. Tom Brokaw called them the greatest generation for a reason. I've never had this conversation with my grandparents, but my understanding is, you didn't buy something if you didn't have the money to back it up.

Now, I'm not saying there's no place for credit in this country. I think there's a balance that can be struck between saving every penny and financing up the whazoo! I'm advocating personal financial responsibility as the part of the recipe for getting this back to normal. As I said, I'm not an economist, but, common sense tells me that this type of saving and spending pattern would lead to a more sustainable growth for the economy long term, and more economic security for American citizens.