From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon May 27 2002 - 11:52:06 MDT
On 5/26/02 9:23 PM, "Samantha Atkins" <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
>
> Data please. The great majority of parents of college age kids
> are in debt up to their eyeballs and have almost no savings
> except maybe 401K.
In the vast majority of cases, the only reason this is true at all is that
the parents are incompetent at managing their finances and practice very
questionable and irresponsible consumption behaviors. The rest of the
population shouldn't be footing the bill merely because some people want to
spend excessive quantities of money on frivolous consumerism, as that will
only encourage it.
At least in the US, equity building and saving behaviors seem to vary quite
a bit from generation to generation. My grandparent's generation has always
seemed pretty smart about saving money, particularly in regard to not
spending money on frivolous consumption. I'm relieved to see that my
generation (Gen X) appear to be fairly good about accumulating savings as
well. My parent's generation on the other hand seem to be about the worst
living generation in that regard. The Baby Boomers are in their 50's now,
and a large percentage of them (including my parents) do not have two red
cents to rub together.
As harsh as it sounds, in many ways it is important that people who do not
save should suffer the consequences. If you steal part of the savings of
the younger generation to pay for the consumerism of the older generation,
it will only encourage a lack of savings on the part of the younger
generation's children as they see their parents get burned for saving. That
house of cards collapses eventually. If the younger generation is
effectively rewarded for smart saving behavior and the older generation
suffers from their relative lack of it, then the younger generation's
children will also be more likely to learn good financial behavior.
I know that for myself and many other people, some of the greatest
influences on our financial behavior was the observation of our parent's
financial behaviors and the consequences of it. Many financial choices I
made, especially in my early years, were made with the specific intent of
not ending up in the financial situation that my parents and many people of
their generation were in.
Cheers,
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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