The economy: Rediscovering the value of thrift

Some good may come out of the financial meltdown yet, said Nancy Gibbs in Time. Once upon a time in America, thrift was considered a virtue, and kids were taught the value of saving and sacrifice. But that quaint notion got lost in a consumer society that increasingly came to believe that “saving was for suckers.” Today, the average American has nine credit cards carrying $17,000 in combined debt, and millions of Americans are living in homes and driving cars they can’t afford. But with credit drying up amid disorienting financial uncertainty, we have been forced to take a hard look at what we really need—and really value. “In hard times, people often rediscover the peace that prudence brings,” and that’s not a bad thing. The question is whether Americans can take any solace in the radical notion of actually living within their means.

You certainly can’t cure a “culture of debt” overnight, said Kirsten Powers in the New York Post. But “tightening credit could be just what many Americans need to get their spending back in line.” In recent years, the old drive to “keep up with the Joneses has morphed into a far more destructive form of consumption: a status-conscious effort to keep up with people who are in vastly higher income brackets.” As a result, the typical American family now spends a whopping 20 percent of its income merely servicing debt. The reckoning had to come sooner or later, said Victor Davis Hanson in National Review Online. “How odd that all those boring lessons from our grandparents turned out to be true: Save your money. Don’t borrow what you can’t pay back.”

That sounds fine in theory, said Beth Teitell in The Boston Globe. But Americans have become addicted to getting what they want, when they want it, and will “do whatever it takes”—including racking up more debt—for the sake of instant gratification. Sure, people are slashing “discretionary spending”—the problem is that for many, there’s nothing discretionary about the likes of “pricey La Mer facial cream, Lucky jeans, and Botox.” That’s because our identities are completely wrapped up in what we buy, especially those things that promise to make us look and feel younger. It’s nice to imagine that tighter money will make us appreciate the important things, such as family and community. In truth, our consumer culture is far too deeply entrenched to be upended by something as trivial as a recession.

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