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One
You go Tanta - woot!
um, who's the moral scold in this picture?
Tanta, you are bright and very articulate. You are also hopelessly self-righteous.
To say there hasn't been a change in attitudes toward debt in this country over most of our lifetimes is ridiculous. Brooks may be an empty suit, but this is a simple, obvious fact.
I will now turn things over to the sycophantasy...
Some of us can have grave concerns about consumerist culture and excessive household debt without telling ourselves that "capitalism" is about to erase a couple hundred years of history and bring back Puritanism.
Let's not forget though that the Puritans actually managed to survive in Early America when everybody else was dropping dead like flies from disease and infighting.
This is precisely why this type of thinking tends to come and go with the good and the bad times historically -- there's good evidence that more conservative types of thinking are actually adaptations to harsh environments (e.g. hard times).
I think Jared Diamond addresses the subject in a number of his books.
Brooks is the type of writer who likes to "speak for" the suburban middle class while privately deploring the demise of sumptuary laws.
Is this how you really feel and it's right. I use to love those ads about keeping up with Jones and the other assorted Madison Ave crap that the mass bought in to. If it's to good to be true well you know the rest.
jo6pac
The race to the bottom continues.
AC
You're right Jared does cover why we might not make it, as so many before haven't.
Bob_in_MA,
Check. That this country was once a net creditor and is now the world's largest debtor is a fact. Something has obviously changed.
Cheers,
When I finally got around to viewing the video (I almost never do the multimedia thing on my PC--Unless it involves underdressed people or kitschy 1980s rock videos) I was astounded at the disconnect between the two narratives--GM and DM. Brooks sees the same thing in the comments section (I had no idea he possessed such acute observational skills), but fails to reconcile the differences.
I'm not so sure I can do it myself--but I think somewhere in there is the strong suggestion of class differences--just as Tanta noticed in Her comments the other day. Really, though, the diffeerences boil down to perception and little else. If the lot of us can ever get around to understanding our perceptions, we might have a path out of suffering.
Nonetheless, I am shorting enlightenment and going long on rabble rousing.
Homerun Tanta! There seems to be this "corporatist" bias in the media. It is mot right versus left anymore, but rich versus poor.
Or the "thinks they will be rich" versus "knows they will end up poor". With the latter smart enough to keep a safety net around lest they fall too.
To say there hasn't been a change in attitudes toward debt in this country over most of our lifetimes is ridiculous
Indeed it would be, had anyone said such a thing.
Although I find Morgenson less insufferable than you do, Tanta, this brilliant skewering of Brooks raised my pulse a notch! Bravo.
Not to mention that Mr. Brooks hails from Bethesda-Beside-The-Beltway, which is the DC epicenter of over-leveraged, consumption-based, service economy living. Just sayin'.
Tantra's rants are tedious in the extreme. She needs to stick to writing articles on mortgage mechanics.
yours in Christ,
Isamu
Medical emergencies have knocked people into the poorhouse between the moment the poorhouse was invented and the moment the national health service was; and before that, they knocked people into the grave.
Moral scolds have been around since the old testament. Their self righteous droning may be boring but their often right.
Per usual, Brooks positions himself as the sensible middle, cutting through the squabbles of the "right' & "left". A man of reason in his own mind.
At the end though, he slips up:
'And now the reckoning has come. The turn in the market punishes many of those seduced by financial temptations. .......
Meanwhile, social institutions are trying to re-right the norms. The government is sending some messages. The Treasury and the Fed are trying to stabilize the system while still ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain.'
How can you argue with that?
And the hangovers from excessive consumer spending have been around for along time too. People in the 20s and 30s regarded "remittance men" buying on credit with the same ire as is currently reserved for credit card companies. My grandfather ran the company store for the coal company, and the people who "owed their soul to the company store," were largely the same people who today fall behind on their CC payments, a hard to sort mixture of the profligate and the unlucky.
There will ALWAYS be people willing to borrow their way to the poor house, just as there will ALWAYS be people who save for the future. There will ALWAYS be those with their health and solid jobs, and there will ALWAYS be those who have health crisses or lose their jobs. The changes in willingness to lend is much greater than changes in willingness to borrow. In other words, the supply of credit varies more than demand.
In his usual hackish fashion, Brooks blames the schools but complete fails to mention the influence of the profit-driven media and advertizing industries. Oh, and the fact that Bush told the country to go shopping after 9-11.
As if the country we're only founded by Puritans. The Loosey Goosey DFHs (relatively speaking) in PA/RI seemed to manage too. Not to mention the hoards of non-Puritans that had managed to survive here prior to the Black Hats. Please.
Die-hard Conservative types can dig themselves into dead-ends just as fast as Relentless Innovators can. The difference in who survives depends partly on the context of the situation at hand. Situations don't always conveniently provide the same exit.
As a Tanta sycophanatic, I am compelled to comment that I love this post...as usual. Sorry, Bob_in_MA.
Collapsing the history of America into a lost golden age of thrift contrasted to a degenerate present of consumption excess is a reliable sign you're in the presence of ideology.
I think I lol'd right about there. Bril! Thanks, T!!
the puritans also cancelled christmass and overthrew a government, sponsored witch hunts and were promptly sent fleeing for thier lives when the 'ungrateful masses' decided at least a king wont' decide to hang you for having salt on your food some random day, or reading a play by shakespear, because we all know any word not in the bible was simply a one way ticket to death and sin.
and once they got kicked out of holland, they manged to torture and kill a couple dozen people because some board alienated bitch decided she didn't like her nanny.
but, y'know, they were savers.
(i'm not a monarchist, but the Puritans are the very model of the modern major religious right theocratic fucktards)
The moral aspect is, as always, irritating and irrelevant. Strikingly clear however is the self defeating behaviour of the middleclass. I bet there are all kinds of socialist blame games and neocon justifications for these ever repeating patterns. Getting a bit old though, dontchathink.
Die-hard Conservative types can dig themselves into dead-ends just as fast as Relentless Innovators can.
Well see that's the thing -- people seem to think of these ideologies as ways of life rather than strategies fit for one situation or the other.
Maybe we just don't have the gray matter for that kind of flexibility in programming.
leFou writes:
The moral aspect is, as always, irritating and irrelevant. Strikingly clear however is the self defeating behaviour of the middleclass. I bet there are all kinds of socialist blame games and neocon justifications for these ever repeating patterns. Getting a bit old though, dontchathink.
not if you're one of those neocons who's beenifited for the past few decades of convincing the middleclass to fist it's self in the name of 'capitalism
david brooks is a complete wanker but not the total wanker that tom freidman is.
both should be avoided at all costs.
And Sumptuary laws go millenia beyond Adam Smith.
Brooks doesn't really ever do thinking. He's just a physical tool of conservative sources. He's their water spigot; he flips on and allows their fluid to run through him. For this he makes a good living. If there were fewer other sources of conservative sources, he could almost be valuable in this role.
Amen!
Re. pharniel
Quite true. I don't trust people too concerned with the morals of others though, especially when they make tons of money critisizing it.
I confess to a predisposition about Brooks. He seems to be such a pantywaist to me that I can only read his stuff with that filter on, so it is unfair.
I really like Tanta's "rants". Probably says a lot about me. At any rate, I find the "who do they think they are?" tone from the pundit class disgusting.
They (the lower classes) pay all of their bills, fight their wars, buy their crap, watch their mind-numbing "entertainment" and "news" shows, stand in line to hand over their money, actually trust their government with their freedoms for the sake of the defense of the homeland and then, are expected to take the brunt of all the "structural adjustments" by dealing with their shortcomings in 12 step programs to improve their morality.
Not to make all of us out to be victims, I think there is more than a casual connection between the unrelenting onslaught of sugestive messaging we have to put up with all the time. The fact that our extractive economy has been dominated by a consistent drumbeat from the marketing folks that whatever we have is inferior to the "new" " Improved" "Latest" model, version, color, has bred a couple of generations that may lack the fundamental ability to ever experience satiety.
It is amazing that I expect to "get by" with anyting less than a 24 cu ft side by side with in the door water and ice dispenser and home management flat screen mounted so I can catch each and every commercial...sheesh.
So yeah, we are screwed because there is No More Money. Imagine that?
I would like to present David Brooks from 2004 arguing against David Brooks in 2008. From his NY Times article on suburbia, which has to be read to be believed:
These criticisms don't get suburbia right. They don't get America right. The criticisms tend to come enshrouded in predictions of decline or cultural catastrophe. Yet somehow imperial decline never comes, and the social catastrophe never materializes. American standards of living surpassed those in Europe around 1740. For more than 260 years, in other words, Americans have been rich, money-mad, vulgar, materialistic and complacent people. And yet somehow America became and continues to be the most powerful nation on earth and the most productive. Religion flourishes. Universities flourish. Crime rates drop, teen pregnancy declines, teen-suicide rates fall, along with divorce rates. Despite all the problems that plague this country, social healing takes place. If we're so great, can we really be that shallow?
The internet really does make it easy to show what idiots these people are.
READY
10 PPRINT "DAVID BROOKS IS AN IDIOT"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
If I were catholic I would have to go to confession to plead to the sin of enjoying a TANTA post every morning with a cup of coffee!!!
12th pct. - some darn fine Internetin', that.
The gorwing divide between rich(er) and poor(er) in the US, often mentioned in the media, is not a function of predatory lenders, government mismanagment, marketing and advertizers, or any other outside influence. The problem stems from the increasing lack of family and personal responsibility. Families that take the time to teach their children about the benefits of disciplined personal finance and model the same through their actions, are getting richer due to, suprise, saving money and living within their means. So long as the blowhards in the media preach the victim mentality and the politicians support their position via legislation, our country is doomed to continue down the path of negative national savings rates and the publicization of personal/private losses due to financial negligence.
A consumption based tax (I prefer a VAT)coupled with repealing the taxation on cap gains, interest, and dividends, would be an excellent start towards encouaging saving amongst citizens. As for how to fix the government's spending problem...kick anyone in office over 12 years out, enact term limits and fire Bernanke. Maybe Paulson too...
"McLeod and the lenders were not only shaped by deteriorating norms, they helped degrade them. "
Kinda like The Beatles?
I think bemoaning the decline and fall of family discipline hit the historical record just slightly before the first sumptuary law.
Bravo 12th Percentile! You've got mad intertube skillz.
And Bravo Tanta, of course.
I really like Tanta's "rants". Probably says a lot about me.
It says you're a self-righteous bore.
David Brooks is a twat, there is absolutely no argument there. But there are better and funnier ways to say it, e.g:.:
. . . David Brooks's Bobos in Paradise, a "social history" I reviewed last year. Bobos is simply a booklength rim job on the "bourgeois bohemians" who love to read about themselves in The New Yorker, where their loathsome shopping habits are teased into 5,000-word massages . . .
Ugh, how they love to be stroked, the Bobos! It's like that scene in Dune where the Baron's doctor, draining his monstrous master's pustules, pauses to whisper, "How beautiful you are, my Baron! Your diseases -- love to me!"
Of course its ironic that Brooks wrote an entire book about upper-middle class consumerism and now preaches asceticism.
Note to Tanta: stick to boring, dispassionate topics.
When the village idiot says go shopping to save the nation YOU MUST!
"Let's not forget though that the Puritans actually managed to survive in Early America when everybody else was dropping dead like flies from disease and infighting."
The Puritans survived by cutting deals with the natives, who were kinder than those to the south. And then the Puritans killed them, but that's another story. Also, Mass was missing the malaria that afflicted the colonists to the south, thanks to the harder winters.
The Puritans' freakish, regressive, fanatical, fundamentalist views had nothing demonstrable to do with their survival. Stop pushing the myth.
Ah, and there are still those who fail to see the importance of hard labor, pain and suffering.
Importance? They may be side effects of attaining some other goal but they're not usually goals in and of themselves. Unless you're into that kind of thing. Do tell.
Such fact-free appeals to a nonexistent golden age are stock in trade of apologists like Brooks. His cultural definitions are always reliably expedient toward explaining why the guys in charge should stay in charge. For example, the credit crisis is product of moral decay of the public at large, but there's no mention of the handsome profits made by those who encouraged the profligacy. While decrying consumerism and lack of thrift, he conveniently forgets his own politically expedient exhaltation of "Red Lobster" exurban culture over the "elitism" and "moral scolding" of urbanites abd their obsessions with such thrifty concepts as mass transit. Oh, yeah, and I wouldn't expect Brooks to be pining for the heavy taxation of wealth of those good ol' days. In other words, he's just another one of the "fuck you, I got mine" crowd that fills the media these days.
The gorwing divide between rich(er) and poor(er) in the US, often mentioned in the media, is not a function of predatory lenders, government mismanagment, marketing and advertizers, or any other outside influence. The problem stems from the increasing lack of family and personal responsibility
It's always useful to have yet another example of fact-free, irrational ideological drivel for comparative purposes.
The Puritans' freakish, regressive, fanatical, fundamentalist views had nothing demonstrable to do with their survival. Stop pushing the myth.
Well that myth was originally pushed on me by college history professor who would have fit in just fine at Berkley. We read books on the subject that supported the notion and I really don't think there was any sort of agenda being preached here (the guy was very well known and respected within a fairly liberal history department).
Furthermore if you read more generally about history you find that religion and morality don't conveniently go away for some reason despite all the "backward thinking" arguments.
Even if the Puritan argument is invalid or based on a bad interpretation of facts there's plenty of other examples in history of people surviving through apparently regressive, fanatical thinking.
I'm not necessarily supporting it, merely suggesting it's foolish to dismiss something and assume it's going away because you find it intellectually unappealing.
All those adjectives you just used are commonly used to describe the populations and ideologies that are growing most rapidly in the world today.
Why is that?
Listening to HUD secretary this am on CSPAN , a caller from Philly stated that minority people will suffer, and what will happen to the people?
What i dont get was these "folks" were not homeless to begin with, this is why God made apartments.
Ah yes, our "thrifty" days as Americans.
Tell that to Thorstein Veblen. If we ever had a culture of thrift, it was lost long before the "thrifty fifties."
David Brooks recites the version of American history presented in high school history texts. The US was a debtor nation through most of the 19th century and American firms regularly defaulted on the loans. See
PeonInChief: Silliness
I don't mean to pile on in such a disgusting, fanboy way, but fantastic post, Tanta. I've only read a couple of his columns, but they were enough to remind me of a few "conservative intellectuals" I knew in New Haven, and I had to stop. (Full disclosure, I'm a Republican.)
DB is a boob. Too much of a pantywaist to succeed in the real world, yet not hardcore enough to be a scholar and make a real contribution, he wastes whatever "talent" he possess or "intelligence" he's picked up along the way writing forgettable books and columns that regurgitate conventional wisdom and call attention to his own brilliance. Totally pointless.
Brooks is a really smart guy. He's also got a cap on column inches, just like anyone writing for a newspaper. Blog writers face no such restrictions, so there's never any need for them to condense their points or shoehorn big ideas into a few words (right, Tanta?). Anyway, I think Brooks is generally right about the progressive glorification of materialism over thrift, and a simple comparison of the US savings rates of 2000's vs 1950's offers empirical evidence that backs Brooks's point.
Remember Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper? Why do so many people know that fable? Why has that fable survived for thousands of years? Because the people who practiced the lesson of thrift in that fable fared better than the people who didn't. The people who saved and worried about hard times flourished over those who didn't. Is there any statistical backing for this? No. But anyone arguing that Aesop's fable doesn't have any value because it cannot be statistically proven probably needs to go read Origin of the Species again.
Nice work, Markel. Mencken would be proud.
WHDW,
sometimes it's just innocent timing.
Seems i have always gone against the flow of things whether by practice or accident. 2002-present was a case of "if its too good...it probably is" mixed with "i shot my wad on credit in the late 90's and its been 7 years"
People in the 20s and 30s regarded "remittance men" buying on credit with the same ire as is currently reserved for credit card companies.
No to mention the fact that pawnbrokers were much more prevalent and reviled even though they served as working-class banks in some regard.
I'll agree with Brooks that people have a much more cavalier attitude towards debt than say 100 years ago, but most of that is due to the changes in the banking/monetary system. People have a much more cavalier attitude towards taxation than those of say 100 years ago, but Brooks won't scolding us on that topic.
Maybe the reason people go into debt like crazy is because the inflationary policies of the central bank, and the punitive income tax code, make traditional savings a sucker's bet.
I like Kevin Phillips, but he is definitely one of the scolds you allude to here, he has frequently maligned some Americans from time to time for conspicuous consumption and even promiscuity, usually, curiously enough, within a class context.
"Let's not forget though that the Puritans actually managed to survive in Early America when everybody else was dropping dead like flies from disease and infighting."
An anthrpologist remark that such was the natural abundance of the "New World" that an arriving neolithic tribe would have enjoyed rising living standards for a number of generations.
Richard,
remeber talking with Mr. Philips discussing his book "the politcs of rich and poor" To which i think you are alluding. Yes, within a class concept and very much from a left looking condescending to the right as if being democrat meant you didnt consume.
No, Origin of Species isn't going to really help you. If anything, your view of evolution verges on Lamarkian. Worried and careful people end up TU in the ER too. They also end up in the bankruptcy court. Maybe statistically less often but it's no gilded guarantee of success. Furthermore, Conservative fish probably wouldn't have crawled out of the ocean (actually, the ocean probably moved away from them, but blah blah blah, it's an analogy.) Darwinian Evolution is largely powered by sheer chance operating on variation - furthermore, it is not an optimizing system, but a satisfying one.
Fun thing about fables is there's usually one that takes exactly the opposite position - Jack and beanstalk might fit the ticket here, but there are no doubt hallowed Greek equivalents that demonstrate the importance of taking that leap into the unknown based on faith.
"during the great moral awakening of the Reagan years"
lol.
I will definitely buy the book you publish...books, I hope.
Fun thing about fables is there's usually one that takes exactly the opposite position - Jack and beanstalk might fit the ticket here, but there are no doubt hallowed Greek equivalents that demonstrate the importance of taking that leap into the unknown based on faith.
Maybe you want the parable of the talents from the book of Matthew, where the good servant is the one who takes risk with money and therefore earns a profit, and the bad servant is the one who fears risk, buries the money out in the backyard, and therefore has nothing to return to his master except his original principal.
1950-1932=18
Try a different calculation
1950-1938=12
or 1950-1938-4=8
2000-1950=50
Funny arithmetic
Your arithmetic may vary
MMMMM?
Tanta,
Any thoughts on the "young couple" that GM profiled? They extended themselves too much to buy their house, but their narrative seemed to me to be primarily about not having steady employment. In my area, MSFT ushered in the era of contract work (you must take off 3 months after one year of work so that you don't get the idea that you're a permanent employee) and I think it is fairly common for younger people to have this type of inconsistent employment. If these young people had come from more affluent circumstance, they may have had parents or relatives who would have helped them get past the bump. GM's story here, that the mortgage servicer was not interested in helping them get back on track and added fees that kept making it more difficult, seems more in line with what the folks are saying about themselves. I only watched this once so am not at your level of analysis, but I felt that it was too bad that their story didn't get any discussion.
On another note, I really love how you deconstruct these stories. You rock!
First off, Brooks is a cocktail-weenie-chomping idiot of the first water whose only job is to protect the current royal court in DC and therefore his own overprivileged ass.
Worried and careful people end up TU in the ER too. They also end up in the bankruptcy court.
This has been the big story of the last few decades: the constant dumping of risk onto Joe Consumer, who is incapable of dealing with it. Corporate America got a little too good at it in the financial realm, and now have got themselves caught in the blast radius. Nice job there, guys.
It's so wonderful to wake up to an article like this, Tanta. And kudos to 12th Percentile as well - that is just an awesome find.
Tanta,
A well-deserved spanking of David "smarmy" Brooks. Could never stand that guy.
David Brooks has been one of Bush's most fervent apologists. He still will not publicly recognise what his former idol has perpetrated on the US. Perhaps he should follow C Hitchens and get waterboarded.
Worried and careful people end up TU in the ER too. They also end up in the bankruptcy court.
I have a good friend who was predicting an impending armageddon for the U.S. economy back in late '05 and '06. He sold his condo for a tidy profit in spring of '06.
Trouble is, he wanted to invest his money somehow and all he could think of to do was to short the market. Between summer of '06 and the end of '07 he lost over a hundred grand and gave up.
He's really no better off than the subprimers.
Very fun post Tanta and bravo to 12th Percentile.
Dilbert Dogbert, please connect the dots for me because I suspect you're making an important point but I haven't figured out what it is.
Did history or even US history begin in 1950? Why are so many people comparing the 50s to this decade? Is it just because we are all boomers? (I am.)
Citing an Aesop's fable certainly does not lend support to Brooks' argument. Instead it reminds us that this battle has been raging at least since the ancient Greeks.
As a (relatively speaking) fan of Mr. Brooks, who I find the only voice of reason at the Times most of the time (unless Paul Krugman is discussing forex markets rather than embarrassing himself as a pundit), I think you're being a bti tough on the guy.
I doubt he'd deny that media and advertiser breathlessness is part and parcel to the developed consumer culture in the United States. But his milieu is specifically denouncing Chicken Little, whether the Chicken Little in question is Tammy Faye Bakker or her descendants, or Al Gore.
It is nice to hear a (Burkean) conservative preaching that everything really will be all right every now and again, especially when every other (movement) conservative is shouting about Armageddon.
And especially when all the liberals (Roubini, Krugman, etc.) are crying armageddon too.
I don't excuse Brooks' 2008 piece entirely; he's oversimplifying and off message. But I think his 2004 writing was pretty much on target and ought to be required reading for those about to say "the sky is falling".
"The people who saved and worried about hard times flourished over those who didn't. Is there any statistical backing for this? No. But anyone arguing that Aesop's fable doesn't have any value because it cannot be statistically proven probably needs to go read Origin of the Species again."
If there is no evidence, then why are you bothering us with this drivel? I suspect, and similar to the many other Cotton Mather wannabes on this blog, that such advice giving is mostly a exercise in self congratulation, a rationalization that you provide to yourself and to others to justify the the choices you have made and the seeming success of those choices.
The odds have it, based on the statistical evidence, that you simply lucked out my friend, born at a time and in a place characterized by unprecedented wealth and stability. Hence, all of this blather about your moral propriety, and apparently that of your gene pool (a truly amusing notion, is just that, blather.
Tanta complains that Brooks is stuck in ideology, but goes on to say that Reagan years were a "great moral awakening".
Or was she being sarcastic??
obviously sarcastic
great post tanta
I was kinda musing over some previous Tanta posts the other night and thought this whole "crisis" reminds me of a lot of people waking up after a six year binge. We are all looking for the magic hangover cure that Jeeves provides.
Some of us are discovering "oh my gosh, I'm pregnant and I don't know by whom," some of us are saying, (village idiot for example) "Dude, party on!", some, "never again," and some (not me), "huh, what party, why wasn't I invited?"
Tanta complains that Brooks is stuck in ideology, but goes on to say that Reagan years were a "great moral awakening".
IMO if anything you could say that the Reagan years saw the awakening of a gross financial immorality. The 80s really seem to be the genesis of the idea that you can borrow all you want an everything will be fine.
glad to be of service.
I really recommend reading that article. I honestly couldn't believe it when it was printed and thus when I read his latest piece of crap I immediately thought to take a look back at it for some choice bits. It was too easy. But it normally is with people like Brooks.
They don't believe anything they say, but it pays well (Exhibit A: Rush Limpaugh). And since they are just in it for the money, they inevitably end up contradicting themselves.
The world would be a far better place if Tanta had a regular column in the Times and Brooks was working the salad bar at Applebees.
I'm usually not in agreement with most things CR, but this post nailed some very important points. It's an interesting question: Where to draw the line between personal and systemic responsibility for our current economic situation?
However, the other half of me wonders if this is nothing more than mental masturbation -- can we really analyze our society at this high of a level? Maybe all morals should be local.
Great post, Tanta. I wonder if the American people are going to enjoy being lectured to about their immorality by the "conservatives" that brought our nation to this place.
People don't seem to widely understand that being conservative in your private life may well be a virtue, but that your government is not your family. You cannot simply translate your personal conduct to politics. It doesn't scale. Being conservative is a personal characteristic, NOT a political body of thought.
Liberal ideology specifically advocates concrete ideas such as individual liberty, freedom of speech and minority rights. Liberal government holds to the ideals of transparency, rule of law and divided political power--for very, very practical reasons.
Conservatism is sheep's clothing to fool those who are personally conservative into believing a government can be made "conservative" just like them. But if politically conservative ideas work so well, why haven't they ever?
Personal conservatism (ie, thriftiness) may be desirable, but political conservatism is a vapory path to destruction.
"Credit crunches and economic crises are bad enough, without having to put up with the endless cheap moralizing that always seems to accompany them."
Great thought. There is a really odd dynamic that goes on around here, in that comment section on these posts abounds in blame/moralizing.
Brooks is an op ed regular which I feel is more about entertainment then journalism. Occasionally Brooks gets it right and I enjoyed Bobos.
I don't think any serious person that has lived through any era that becomes a reference point as a "golden age" can take most of these generalizations seriously.
I can remember the "paradox of thrift" Paradox of thrift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
from an early chapter of an old Samuleson intro to eocn. I notice (from Wikipedia) that it is still in there.
To say there hasn't been a change in attitudes toward debt in this country over most of our lifetimes is ridiculous. Brooks may be an empty suit, but this is a simple, obvious fact.
True, but I would argue that it isn't human nature that changed but rather:
(1) The availability of much more credit and
(2) The prevailing attitude, very much nurtured by the sumptuous and political classes, that using this credit was a good and wise thing. Stretch yourself to buy a more expensive house to leverage your way to wealth. Borrow $100,000 to get an education so you can be rich. Build your credit by getting credit cards and using them regularly. Start your own business using a home equity loan. Maybe these uses of credit are wise or not wise (I've done several of them myself), but they certainly open the door to cheerfully borrowing a lot of money without feeling like it is very risky.
People don't seem to widely understand that being conservative in your private life may well be a virtue, but that your government is not your family.
There are the terms "conservative" and "liberal", which JR described very well, that are nowhere near opposites. You can easily be both. Then there are the terms "Conservative" and "Liberal", which are shorthand labels for rather unwieldy sets of political positions created by historical accident and intraparty compromise. Anyone who equates "conservative" with "Conservative" and "liberal" with "Liberal" is necessarily completely confused about what goes on in this country.
ericblair, or any other country either! Great comment, and we should always keep in mind that these are labels, and that even the individual is likewise "a rather unwieldy set of political positions created by historical accident and (interpersonal?) compromise. As Jane Austen wrote, "We are none of us consistent."
Those of you who like to think in terms of biology might want to reflect on the r and K strategies, i.e., have lots of offspring with little parental care, have few offspring with lots of care,...both are utilized successfully,...neither is necessarily better or more successful.
Want to know when the current culture of consumption started? Go back and see when and under what circumstances the terms Yuppie and DINK (dual income - no kids) came into common usage.
Jim
Emma Jane - strikeout #2 and you got it.
NC Jim - Thank the equal opportunity movement for the rise of DINKs. That, and improvements in birth control technologies.
Huzzah Tanta... well said, I saw this Brooks article today too and penned an email to a friend... my complaint is that Brooks and his GOP friends were revelling in how government should give back to people so they can get that "invisible hand" going,how free market capitalism was a wonder (much like the gooey eyed Globalization is good mantral ala Tom Friedman) it was the media and guys like Brooks that, as Tanta notes, helped to form the "living large on credit" as the basis of much of our culture...( I still laugh at the home improvement channel and its treacly nonsense) and now they bemoan how ahistorical is this non-frugality in the American character. What a putrid bunch of tripe.
Thanks for this post.
I must say over time that I have gained some respect for Brooks tho not his Bushiness. He is a very cool writer in that you have to work over what he writes.
This I feel is his topic:
"This third position begins with the notion that people are driven by the desire to earn the respect of their fellows. Individuals dont build their lives from scratch. They absorb the patterns and norms of the world around them.
Decision-making whether its taking out a loan or deciding whom to marry isnt a coldly rational, self-conscious act. Instead, decision-making is a long chain of processes, most of which happen beneath the level of awareness. We absorb a way of perceiving the world from parents and neighbors. We mimic the behavior around us. Only at the end of the process is there self-conscious oversight."
And as a psychologist I think he is right on.
I don't see him pining for Puritans or disregarding the elements in our culture which push us into Consumerism.
I once read a comment by a Latin American business man who stated that in all the world he never found people as gullible as middle americans.
So we look to Oprah or Leno or the Sluts or Rap stars etc to tell us who to be. We show our individuality by wearing designer bluejeans, or outdo QueeQueg in tattoos.
Greshams Law has long-ago reached organized religion.
Part of the organization of humans into societies seems to be the need for some sort of external moral umpire. Those of you who have experienced twelve-step first or second hand may be aware of this.
Bush support did not just appear born out of Rove's ear. He was the choice and ego-ideal for many of us. A goodly majority wanted to believe the lies of Iraq and have a pre-emptive invasion.
Excepting the last comment, this is I believe what Brooks is referring to.
Credit and frugality as an American tradition? What a bunch of nonsense...
Our nation was founded on debt... one need only watch the latest HBO epic on "John Adams" to see Ben Franklin and Adams kowtowing to French and Dutch and English courts and financiers, that was largely about borrowing to finance a new country.
The fight between Hamiltonian and Jacksonian philosophy in the first half of the 19th century was essentially a fight between the Jacksonian aspiring middle and lower classes who wanted easy money and more leverage to expand, against the hard money , conservative accounting of the creditor class represented in the Northeast. (the Jacksonians won that one)
Debt and credit markets in the modern sense more likely was born after the Civil War in the industrial expansion of the USA. Creditors in the form of robber barons who rose to wealth on easy money ended up being less inclined to allow such liberal leverage to those that followed them. Remember Willian Jennings Bryan and how capitalists were out to crucify the pure middle americans and upright farmers on a "cross of Gold?"
(Granted debtor America lost that round)
The 1920's brought the first blush of liquidity and consumerism to America, but the true excesses of mass consumer leverage really only started in the 80's with the ascendancy of the Milton Friedman economics as passed thru by Reagan and the GOP.(modified slightly by Bill Clinton) Since then with a few minor modifications we have gone about gleefully outsourcing our productive capacities, mainly to Asia and China , in return for a strong dollar and creative credit mechanisms linked to borrowed money from China and Asia to help finance the media and advertising driven binge of conspicuous consumerism.
I would argue that Puritanism as some sort of profile of historical American society and culture is way way overdone. I would say the HBO series "Deadwood" and its ethos is a much more fitting description of our historical financial outlook.
Nice rant Tanta,
As others have pointed out, there never was a culture of thrift here, only a few thrifty individuals. There was however a 50 year period of time where industry decided it was good for them to have a stable work force, hence defined benefit pensions and profit sharing (see Procter and Gamble and IBM from the past for examples)and no layoffs. So two generations of folks could work hard and gain a decent retirement income in which to keep consuming. All that came apart in the 1980's as layoffs and 401Ks became the way of the world. To say that those folks were thrifty is factually wrong, only lucky to be alive at the right time for workers rights/pensions. Faddish clothing, consumer goods, and behavoir is the norm in an industrial society. To believe that one can "save" themselves into a comfortable retirement is "fools gold" as the data tells us.
Tanta,
there is no honor in defeating the weak.
Read P.T. Barnum's "Art of Money Getting" from the 1800s. It's on line as an ebook.
Yes, debt is old. Trying for appearances beyond your station is old.
But there is a new thing in developed countries (not just the US): easy and anonymous credit.
Some of you may not to like to call the result a cultural shift, but I think I felt it, as frugality became a vice in the 1990s.
Everyone was rich, but it was a kind of an open secret that houses might be interest only, that cars might be leased, that 401Ks might be emptying.
People egged each other on to spend, as they now commiserate as they save. We are a social species, and our decisions are more group than we know.
tanta: if there was one idea that is key, I think it might be "secret debt"
is that a Porsche or a HELOC?
At least Gretchen Morgenson bases her story on actual reporting. Brooks just sits on his dead butt and makes up stuff that might support the Bush/Cheney administration.