BCT Editorial – 3/12/07

This page was last updated on March 12, 2007.

Debtor nation; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 12, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“It’s not the federal government that keeps going deeper into debt with each passing years.

“The American people are just as profligate.

“Michelle Singletary, a business columnist for The Washington Post, reports that revolving credit card debt, the amount people don’t pay off every month, increased 6 percent from $827 billion to $876 billion in 2006.

“Low- and middle-income households have, on average, $8,650 in credit card debt, she reported.

“On the flip side, personal savings have virtually vanished. The Commerce Department reports personal savings was negative 1 percent in 2006, the worst since the Great Depression.

“Americans obviously believe that a penny saved is a penny wasted. Our children will pay for our profligacy. We’re eating their seed corn.”

[RWC] For the sake of argument, let’s assume the facts stated above are true. My problem with the editorial is it doesn’t explore potential causes.

For example, the editorial doesn’t address how long this has been going on. Is it just us or do/did our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, et cetera behave in a similar manner?

If this behavior has not existed for generations, when did it begin and what triggered it?

Until you explore the reasons for a problem, you have no chance of solving it.