Getting Our House in Order

The other night at my daughter’s opening show with her youth theater group, while manning the booth at the concession stand with my wife and some of the other moms who were volunteering that night, the conversation turned as it does so often these days to the economy, specifically the housing and stock markets. While wolfing down my fish tacos and rice and black beans before intermission and the rush of patrons that would need tending to, I was able to catch bits and pieces of the conversation. My hearing is pretty much shot by now, I suppose from years of listening to loud music as I’m doing while writing this (a Chicago CD I kited off my mom by the way, if you’re reading this mom I’ll get it back to you next time you’re out) so I can’t really say I heard all that was said, but what I lack in auditory sensation I generally more than make up for with a pretty strong sense of perception.

So best as I can tell, the conversation went something like this:

1st mom: We just moved here a few months ago (the here in this case I should note is Anthem, AZ which is a nice little master planned community in the exurbs of Phoenix that is home to the well-off and those who pretend to be) and we are so upside-down in our house. I don’t see how we’re ever going to be able to move.

2nd mom: I hear you, with all that my husband lost in the stock market that only makes it worse, but you know, I really think this will all be over in about six months or so and things will be back to normal.

3rd mom: (Who also happens to be a local realtor) You know I sure hope so, I don’t even watch the news anymore it’s sooo depressing. All the houses I sell anymore are foreclosures.

Me: (in my head as I dig into the black beans) These beans are kinda bland. Oh, sorry I’m supposed to be pretending that I am sympathetic to their plight. Sure to a point I am, these are all nice gals and I in no way wish any ill toward them or their families. But they are sooo indicative of our society today. We’re all sitting up here in Anthem, living a life that 98% of the world’s population would kill for, we still have a roof over our heads, nice cars to drive, designer jeans on our backsides, the whole nine yards, but we are whining about the predicament we are in. We are complaining because we can’t go shopping the way we used to, and maybe we’ll have to keep our SUV’s for longer than the standard two years, our $400 Coach purses will have to last longer than two years as well, sigh, it’s all so depressing.

Well I’m here to say, that while I certainly sympathize with people to an extent, nobody likes to have to make downward adjustments in their lifestyle, my true thought is a favorite line that my best friend’s grandma blurted out one time as kids when we did or said something that offended her. “Ahhh, bullshit!” It really says it quite nicely, and sometimes I would love to just interject in such a conversation, at just the right moment when there is a brief pause and silence while the participants mull in their minds the next thing they should complain about, “Ahhh bullshit!” Then go right back to finishing up my rice and beans, which were a little bland by the way in case I forgot to mention, but the fish tacos were decent although the corn tortilla fell apart on the second one, leaving my palm to serve as a fish taco backstop while I tried to maintain a small level of decorum yet still not let the good sauce that had dripped onto my hand go to waste in a napkin.

Look, it’s quite simple really, and at the heart of it is what is suggested in the title of this column, we need to get our house in order. We have put ourselves in this situation that we are in, not George Bush, not China, not France, not Muslims, or Osama bin Laden, or gay people that want to get married, or poor Mexicans crossing the desert in search of jobs, or any of the other usual scapegoats we like to pin our problems on.

Nobody put a gun to our heads and made us take out expensive mortgages on oversized and overpriced houses, or to buy or lease cars that could transport an entire Indian family in Bombay, or to buy flat screen TV’s and I-Phones and expensive jeans and whatever else our hearts desired. We’re all in on this to varying degrees, and we’re all responsible for getting ourselves out of this. To a large degree, our society, and my generation in particular, has become decadent and bloated, and it’s time to suck it up and make some changes, lest we go down in history as the Weakest Generation, a book that hopefully Tom Brokaw never has to write.

So while I feel sympathy and a certain level of empathy for what people are going through, being upside-down in their two biggest assets, their house and their cars, and with a stock portfolio and savings that aren’t offering much solace, I also feel a certain sense I am seeing that people are getting what has been coming to them for quite some time. I would equate it to the way I feel when I see a fat guy, I feel bad for him and for having to live with the physical and social consequences of being overweight, but I also know firsthand that it is based on choices that he has made, on poor judgment, and on a lack of discipline pure and simple. And just like the fat guy can decide to get himself together and get into shape, so can we as a society.

To get ourselves financially fit, not to mention ethically and morally right, we need to first realize and acknowledge that we have a problem. We need to look in the mirror with no clothes on, nothing to hide the rolls and stretch marks we have developed over the last few decades, and take stock of the decisions that we have made that got us to this point. Things like our gross consumption of material goods and natural resources with no thought to the long term, the economic equivalent of frequenting the drive through at a fast food burger joint. You eat enough of that crap and it’s gonna get you sooner or later. You spend enough on crap you don’t need and it’s gonna get you too.

Secondly we need to be willing to sweat and sacrifice, then we need to actually do it. We need to strap on the running shoes and get out on the road, as painful as the first steps will be, the end result is worth the initial sacrifice. We need to stop our bad habits, not only in our personal habits but in the type of political rhetoric we buy into and the policies we support. The next time our government tries to sell us some bullshit war or a bogus bailout we need to step and up and just say no. We need to demand accountability from corporate America as well, as their inequitable and unjust system of pay is largely responsible for where we are, and many of us have gone along willingly because we think that we’ll be on the long end of the stick someday, but we need to wake up and realize that all of us peasants are in this thing together. You ever notice that the only people who complain about class warfare are the rich and those that think they will be? The truth is that the war has been going on for decades, and quite frankly the working and middle classes have been getting their assess kicked for far too long. If you don’t believe me try finding a paycheck from a few years ago, the longer back the better, and compare it to what you are making now. Then think about the cost of the food you buy and the clothes that you wear and think about what doesn’t add up here.

Finally, we need to persevere, we need to stick to the plan, lest we become the equivalent of Oprah, bouncing back and forth, up and down constantly. We need to become more austere and this needs to be a permanent thing, a way of life that we establish for ourselves and a set of values that we leave behind for future generations to follow. We can’t go back to driving big gas guzzlers just because the price of gas has come down, and we can’t go back to our old ways of consumption and inequality during the next economic boom period. To keep the weight off and maintain your fitness you need to exercise nearly every day and eat healthy, if you stop strapping on the running shoes and start frequenting the drive through windows you’ll end up right back where you started, usually worse. We likewise need to maintain a sense of sacrifice and discipline in order to keep the gains that we will get from changing our habits as a society. We also need to figure out a way to make a corn tortilla that doesn’t collapse on you while eating your fish taco, but I suppose we can deal with that one later, and besides the spillage made those dang beans a little less bland.