Economic woes are a result of personal irresponsibility

Nobody questions that economies throughout the world are currently in frail states.
It is amazing that a country as small as Greece is threatening massive disruption throughout the entire European Union.

At this point in time, the U.S. and its growing national debt finally appears to be the stable point in the world's economy again — though the country's stability is arguably volatile-at-best on any given day.

I want to take the time to reflect upon how the strongest nation in the world woke up in the summer of 2008 to a market in turmoil (compelling warning signs of the collapses in 2008 began materializing in 2007). Before anyone could react the stock market had begun its fall from an all-time high to roughly half that value in nine short months. There had to be an explanation, but what was it?

Mainstream media would like you to think that greedy corporations were simply in search of profit without regard to who may be affected.

Banks and credit agencies were engaged in activities that were designed to exploit their customers. Credit was available for people who had no business borrowing a dime. Clearly, corporations have a laundry list of reasons as to why they caused the financial situation the world now faces.

Or are corporations to blame? Were they breaking laws through the activities they were profiting from? Yes, some companies were breaking a few laws, but the vast majority were not. They were abiding by the regulations and laws in place most of the time.

One needs to ask legislators why laws and regulations were not in place to prohibit these supposedly wrong issues. Whether corporations were wrong or not in their practices becomes a question of ethics.     When issuing subprime loans, were they hurting anyone? Did they know that millions of people would be affected because of loose credit terms? I would argue that they believed some may be hurt, but that the vast majority of people would benefit.

So corporations are partially to blame, in my view, along with Congress not restricting the activities of banking institutions. The country has continued to blame only the corporations for well over a year now — the same corporations that have almost all paid back their T.A.R.P. loans.

The fact that the U.S. is looking at getting ALL T.A.R.P. money back WITH substantial interest has been swept under the table by the media. A vast majority of news services will still blame corporations almost entirely.

I would like to offer another alternative though. I can remember the five years leading up to the financial crisis vividly.

Everywhere I looked I saw friends, family, and others buying new cars, bigger houses, and taking vacations. Either everyone had doubled their salaries or they were living a life outside of their salaries — my bet was on the latter.

I argue that the GREED of the average American wanting items that were unaffordable contributed as much to the financial meltdown as any corporation or lawmaker. The concept of saving money hardly exists in society today; credit is king. Yes, the banks waived money at people. But people need to be smart enough and intelligent enough not to stretch their wallets and live paycheck to paycheck.

We will emerge from this financial mess, but I believe we will emerge more quickly if fingers of blame are put down. The people who gave money are as much to blame as the ones who took that money and the ones who regulated the transactions. We all need to take responsibility for our actions and remember to make responsible decisions in life. n

Jared Meskimen is a senior at Gonzaga