Issue date: 2/9/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Jordan Bryan [Click to enlarge]

A mericans love money. We are taught from birth to value money. Childhood games like Monopoly and The Game of Life determine winners by who has the most cash when the game ends. It is little wonder that when children grow up, they measure winners in life as they measured winners in the game room.

Yet money isn't found as copiously in life as it is in a game of Monopoly. Sure, the annual birthday haul resembles a trip past "Go," but beyond that, there is no Community Chest, Chance or Free Parking to fatten the wallet. To make up for this shortness of cash on hand, young Americans are increasingly handed credit cards by parents and taught to borrow money to make desirable purchases as daddy foots the bill. Our culture is one where any desire is but a small loan away.

"New car, caviar, four star daydream"

Name it; borrow for it; buy it. This is the pattern our society has developed and it can be seen everywhere from the college pocketbook to the federal government. When my friend Sam needs a new plasma TV, he walks over to Bank One down the street and asks for a loan. When Uncle Sam needs a new battleship, he walks over to Bank Wuan in China and borrows the money. Coincidentally, all of the Sams in my life are in a tremendous amount of debt.

"Don't give me that do goody-good bullshit"

There is no need to make small loans on credit every month when cash will be available to make purchases in a month. Buying a plasma TV on a 12-month payment plan is almost whimsically nonsensical for a college student struggling to find the cash for tuition at the bottom of a lint-lined pocket. Our borrowing ways simply aren't necessary.

This is where someone spouts off some "goody-good bullshit" about the value of loans when making significant life purchases. "You're going to need a loan to buy a house," Daddy Ryan always told me. Apparently, even home loans are a bad idea.

"Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today"

Thanks to some good ol' fashioned bi-partisanship in Washington in the 1990s, housing loans could be attained with no collateral or down payment; handed out to just about anybody the bank wanted to loan to without regulation. The debt of those loans was sold and traded with the illusion that payment was guaranteed.

Continued...

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