It is time for the great American financial powwow

Constance puts Reinarman’s point in a different context when he says that the United States is “psychological, not a sociological nation.” What he means is that we will always hold the individual responsible over the group, blaming the drug addict instead of investigating the environment in which he grew up, and (conversely) celebrating the quarterback above the team following a win.

I read that this weekend in Nick Reding’s Methland; I highlighted it with brackets and put an exclamation point next to it in the outside margin. A few lines down I bracketed the term “instinct to insulate,” which Reding uses to describe Americans’ tendency to dissociate themselves with the social ills and problems of our country. Both, I thought, were applicable to the fiscal crisis we created and the consequences we joyfully baited.

So Standard & Poor’s downgraded US credit to AA+, sending ripples through global market already reeling from fears about the euro zone debt crisis. Despite the fact the credit/risk calculating geniuses at S&P apparently got the math regarding our federal deficit wrong, is the downgrade warranted based on what Ezra Klein of the Washington Post calls “the weakness and unpredictability of American political institutions”? As someone who pays his credit card bill (yes: the singular “bill”) on time and in full every month, paid off his student loans, and tries as best as he can to make decisions using rational foresight, it is probably impossible for me to argue not.

While growing up, I remember the financial powwows my parents held monthly in our kitchen. They sat at the table, staring blankly at the papers spread between them. At the time I had no clue what was going on, but I eventually realized they were making the hard decisions necessary to keep our house and provide for my sister and I. For a time, my dad got off work, picked up my sister and I from school, and took us to one of Iowa City’s newest subdivisions, where he freelanced as a carpenter for a friend. (I remember playing in the piles of excavated dirt and building miniature cities with discarded boards and blocks. My sister, who has never been as adept at self-entertainment, was probably bored out of her mind.) After working two part-time jobs at the university, my mom came home, ate dinner, and then transcribed medical dictations for a company based in Davenport. My parents worked their asses off to get by. We were not poor, and I never remember going without necessities, but we were not comfortably situated. There were priorities and sacrifices; there was no room for extravagance and recklessness.

My parents instilled in me this financial responsibility and the credo that one cannot have what one cannot afford. This is what gives our federal deficit and, now, credit crisis, and the theater of demagoguery accompanying it, a particularly bad taste to me. The whole situation is embarrassing, especially in light of the supposedly stellar responsibility of our forebearers that gave the United States such a shining global reputation. Even worse is the fact no one wants to take responsibility for it. The red Republicrats are using their usual scapegoat — “this president” — and the blue Republicrats are saying “this president” inherited the woeful economic situation from his predecessor. Congressmen and women love heaping all the blame on the executive branch, which, as I have said before, everyone seems to present as an all-powerful totalitarian regime. Voters blame politicians. In response, politicians blame voters for being hypocrites. (“So, you do not want to pay for this but want all its benefits. Gotcha.”) In a way, I suppose everyone is right in one sense, and that is we are all responsible. We are all to blame, and the burden of consequence is ours to shoulder.

Having listened to the analysis and commentary on NPR, I got the impression there is an easy fix. Theoretically, I suppose there is — and it is exactly what my parents decided on: prioritization, austerity, and extra income. How we do that, I guess, is a matter to discuss over our bills at the kitchen table.