Appetite for High Living Leaves Sour Taste in Mouth

America is increasingly living beyond its means. From top to bottom, - George the president to Joe the plumber - Americans have embraced a materialistic consumer culture that lives by a ‘buy now, pay later’ mantra. The U.S. is putting future generations at risk by squandering the wealth those before us worked so vigorously to create.

So it should have been no surprise that in the aftermath of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, our Commander-in-Chief asked us to make a sacrifice for our country in one way: shop. And shop we did. Spending money has been the cure of all of America’s ills recently.

The financial system is broken, you say? How about spending $700 billion?

The era of financial excess, however, may be over for good. America is traversing on an unsustainable course and must adopt a new ethic of fiscal responsibility.

Over the past eight years our national debt has nearly doubled. As of Oct. 23, the national debt totaled $10.5 trillion. When unfunded social obligations such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are taken into account the total is over $55 trillion.

Beyond these alarming figures, we are spending wealth that is not ours because we do not create anything. We simply buy. Retail activity accounts for nearly 75 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Unfortunately, we are buying products made in Taiwan, China or Singapore, but not Flint, Mich., Youngstown, Ohio or Scranton, Penn.

In 2007 the U.S.’ balance of trade deficit totaled $700 billion - money that will in turn be used to buy out vital American assets. Since 1978, America has lost 16,613 of its best wealth producing companies to foreign interests, enriched from selling their second-rate products to eager American consumers.

Individual consumers are no better with their finances than the government. Since the 1970s Americans have been saving less and less, increasingly living off credit. As a matter of fact, in the 1970s Americans saved over 10 percent of their income. Last year, average savings rates fell below 1 percent - the lowest point since the Great Depression.

Non-mortgage consumer debt for American consumers is $2.58 trillion. Americans owe another $10.54 trillion in mortgages. The average American family owes roughly $117,951 while saving a mere $392 per year.

Americans have also developed an obsession with plastic. The average family owns 13 credit cards, owing an average of $8,400 on those cards and paying $950 in credit card interest each year. Last year, Americans made over $1.5 trillion in credit card purchases.

This never-ending cycle of debt is coming back to haunt us. Our government is continually forced to borrow more and more money from nations that would love nothing more than to dethrone America as the world’s dominant economic power and they are slowly but surely gaining the capacity to do so by refinancing our debt. American consumers are guilty as well, filling the coffers of nations like China and Japan because of the need to keep up with the Joneses.

America and its citizens are in need of a reality check. We must realize that we can no longer continue to live beyond our means while simultaneously trying to give our kids a better life than we had. The two ideas are incompatible. To preserve the American Dream for future generations, America must enter into a new age of frugality.

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