On CNN today, I heard Suze Orman answer the following question: "We have no money and considerable credit card debt. Should we dip into our paltry emergency fund to pay for Christmas for the kids?"
What a sad commentary on our culture. No, you should not spend money you might need for food on a transformer. How do we live in a society where this is even a question?
I have no doubt that that parent is miserably thinking about how her kids will feel when all their classmates have new Christmas presents, and they have nothing to show. What makes me mad is that we've created an environment where the most magical thing that can happen to a child is to be given a few pieces of plastic glued together in China.
I know that my parents expended a lot of precious money and time on my Christmas gifts. But with a few exceptions (a certain Raggedy Ann and Andy Pen and Pencil Set comes to mind, along with my very own Beach Boys "Endless Summer" casette"), what I remember about Christmases is not what I was given, but the non-material traditions: the food, the family, the snow angels and crackling fires. This is true of basically everyone I know. So why do we continue to think that the gifts are the most important part?
The only good thing that I can possibly think of about this financial crisis is that it may break the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption, which has surrounded most Americans with nice things that don't really make them happy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying whatever you want, when you have the money to afford it. But when you start thinking that you need toys and television sets to have a happy life, we're all in trouble.
Update: Dr. Boli, as always, for the save.
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I understand your sentiment, but I can't resist nitpicking. I don't think Christmas food counts as a non-material tradition.
I don't know if you are talking about the same show, but I saw Suzy on Larry King recently and she was asked a very similar question. Of course it was sad, but she gave the right answer. No.
You remember those things because you got presents. If you didn't get presents, you would remember it as the Christmas where you didn't get presents, and those other memories would have faded. You would still have other things - that Christmas taught me blah blah about Christmas, etc. But you would still remember it as the Christmas where you didn't get presents.
I have a few favorite Christmas presents over the years, but most of them are family treasures. My Great-Great Grandmother's childhood doll was given to me when I was 9 and I loved it. Although when I was 10 I desperately wanted a down vest that had a rainbow on it. It matched my rainbow leg warmeres.
Shut-up! I was 10!
Mostly, aside from the traditions, I remember the best Christmas presents were the creative things I gave out as a child. It can be very disappointing not to get what you want, but there are little things that kids want which are affordable and otherwise Christmas can be about the family making things for each other.
"So why do we continue to think that the gifts are the most important part?"
We continue to think like that, because gifts are very important part of holiday season, and we are smarter than your little sanctimonious rants.
Christmas with the Who's this year!
Don't get me wrong, I remember the non-material traditions quite well, and they're important to me, but I've got some vivid recollections of getting some sweet toys--mostly GI Joe related--mixed in there, too. Maybe that makes me shallow and self-absorbed, but I also think it means Hasbro made some pretty kick ass toys, once upon a time.
My point is, let's keep a little perspective on the cultural hand-wringing. Buying stuff might not make us all "happy," in a broad, encompassing, existential sense of the word, but it's still damn fun to get gifts a few days a year.
Also: stupidity seems to largely transcend cultural barriers, and it also seems to frequently coalesce around cable television call-in shows. Let's not get all Rod Dreher-y here. One of him on the internet is more than enough, thank you.
the questioner should dip into that emergency fund to buy her kids 50th anniversary editions of Atlas Shrugged.
i promise, it will be the best Christmas gift ever.
A transformer? Is this post from twenty years ago?
I am surprised her answer wasn't "Divorce your husband". Suzy loves to advise divorce whenever possible.
I am of two minds on this. If someone is in credit card debt but is on the way out, then I can see buying some presents. Remember, $20 now is $10 6-9 years ago, and $3-$5 in most of our childhoods. Even the poorest of us probably got $3-$5 presents. Now, that's no excuse for Nintendo Wiis or such, but some Star Wars figures under the tree aren't that big a deal. Parents, go on an austerity budget and buy a couple of small things, or hit Goodwill.
The Packrat household intends to keep Christmas from going on the card with a sale-paper diet (side effect: no holiday spare tire...) and judicious (read: blatant :) regifting of gift cards and money given to us by the rest of the family. Our kids actually enjoy using their Christmas money to buy gifts after Christmas, so that helps. Cutting $50 from the phone and Internet will also pay for a lot.
Giving toys makes the parents happy. By not giving any toys, the result is that you miss a precious, never-to-be-recovered Christmas of your little ones getting excited and opening presents. It is not what the child remembers, but the parent.
I really can't say how intellectually lazy it is to assume that the sentiment of one caller questioning Suze Ormon (who, by the way has been on record making statements that suggest she is an economic illiterate) is representative of "our society". Do you think that reckless behavior is representative only of the availability of credit? In addition, is anecdotal evidence of this sort suffice for such hand wringing? Does it occur to anyone that our large credit debt is largely representative of people rich enough to charge thousands upon thousands of dollars on their cards and then pay that amount back promptly when these samples are taken? No, because out of context these numbers are useful to make the kinds of gross generalizations about "society" and "American consumerism" that amount to nothing more than neo-puritanical scolding.
That mother is asking the question she asks because she is an irresponsible boob. She would have been 300 years ago in China, and she would be if she had all the money in the world. Let's ease up on society, and let people take the blame for their own incompetence ... isn't it about time they did?
Gotta go with bcg on this one. When you're eight, toys are huge. (And that CD player I got in my teens was awesome.) It's the adult perspective that makes us realize those things weren't all that important. Besides, gifts don't have the same impact when you have a job and can buy things for yourself.
The only good thing that I can possibly think of about this financial crisis is that it may break the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption, which has surrounded most Americans with nice things that don't really make them happy.
It's the only way out, I suspect. The way to save America's middle class identity isn't to try to keep people at the unsustainable level they were living before but to redefine down what it means to be middle class. I'm all for it.
If you're the "growth is everything" type of political thinker, though, you're in for rough times ahead, methinks.
I hate the whole gift-giving thing. It's exceedingly rare that I get anything I want, rare that I can think of anything good for anyone else, and irritating to encourage materialism in children.
But as for bits of made-in-China plastic, my son will get books, perhaps games we can play together, and a $12 wooden boat kit that we can assemble together and run on my mother's pool. I'm struggling to discourage susceptibility to merchandising.
A transformer? Is this post from twenty years ago?
There was a Transformers movie a year or two back. I presume they were not so foolish as to miss the opportunity for tie-in toys.
A transformer? Is this post from twenty years ago?
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/morning/story.aspx?storyid=94459&catid=25
Note #5
When I was a child, I asked for a particular Star Wars toy once. My parents, who always saved diligently, gave me a tiny die cast model of it. A neighbor of mine got, a child a few years younger than me, got an enormous version of the same toy. His parents always spent liberally on presents and other stuff, even though their financial situation wasn't very secure. Several years later, the neighbor's parents got into serious financial difficulties -- I never learned the exact details, but it was bad enough that the neighbor's father killed himself as a result. I think of that when I think of gaudy toys.
Your culture, not mine. But besides that point, yes America is in trouble from its drive to consume and keep up with an entire industry of overpaid spoiled "celebrities," not to mention their neighbor next door who probably just has more credit cards to borrow against.
Christmas is year around now, see it buy it no restraint.
NOW MOMMY NOW!
My sympathy is low. Sorry.
Really, does a kid understand the concept of money being tight? Especially if he or she still believes in Santa? All the kid will know is that his friends got presents and he didn't, and he'll feel crushed.
You don't have to buy the kid a Wii, for crying out loud. Five-dollar toy robots, Hot Wheels tracks bought for 50 percent off on Christmas Eve, rubber creepy-crawlers and dinosaurs, books from those fly-by-night remainder stores that crop up this time of year...you could make a pretty decent pile of loot for under $20, and the kid won't know how cheap it was. Then, when his friends who got Wiis get bored with them in a month, they'll come over to play with the Hot Wheels and rubber dinosaurs.
I have tried to remember my Christmas and birthday presents from childhood. I can remember only two, and one of those was shared with my brother. Bah humbug.
At least the question wasn't weather they should go further into debt to buy gifts.
Megan,
I agree with your anit-materialism POV. However, let me offer an explanation for the vapidity of the middle-class. Imagine you had little in the way of social and/or intellectual capital to pass on to your children. One thing you could give to your kids is "stuff."
When you look at it this way, materialism seems intractable, because there will always be large swaths (a majority?) of people who have very little to offer their children outside of love and presents.
I'm not sure if "giving up the rat race" is a great idea.
America is a diverse country, with different religions, culutres, beliefs, etc..
What glues it all together: our desire to seek material wealth. It's a healthy thing. No other society on earth assimilates outsiders better. And it's reliant on our desire for material success.
Meanwhile, I, and I suspect, millions of middle-class people get on loving our families, being happy with our simple lives, and not getting caught up in the spending at all. What kind of person really CAN'T do without the overpriced gifts and actually enjoys Christmas for materialist reasons only?
Some strawman, somewhere. Sigh.
Insult us some more, please!
Freddie: "The way to save America's middle class identity isn't to try to keep people at the unsustainable level they were living before but to redefine down what it means to be middle class."
The left won't like this, since it will involve acknowledging that most "poor" people are really middle class, and that poverty has been nearly eliminated in the US.
Rob Lyman: There was a Transformers movie a year or two back. I presume they were not so foolish as to miss the opportunity for tie-in toys.
Oh, they didn't. Just ask my 4 year old.
The idea of dipping into the emergency fund for toys is totally silly, but frankly so is thinking you have to forego gifts for the children because you are essentially insolvent. Yes, you have to forgo the Wii, but the idea that the choice is spending serious (or even noticeable) bucks and having no presents for the kids is ridiculous. And I'm not just talking about the old "what ever happended to giving each other precious rubbings of fall leaves and handprints in plaster" gifts, though I would be happy enough to see a resurgence of those.
Scrape together $10-20 and you can pick up a bunch of toys and books in new or excellent condition on eBay. And there's thrift stores - I give all toys my kids have outgrown (without damage) to local charity or thrift stores exactly so that people having hard times can find things for their kids, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. (Anyhow, if they're old enough to know that they want this specific toy or exactly the right style of jeans: you, uncool old parent person, aren't going to get it right anyway, not even when issued specific instructions, so that's a waste of money whether you have it or not.)
Back in the land of hand-drawn cards and homemade ashtrays and the wonderful, wonderful non-commercial values that of course WE all remember that we had when we were young and writing charming letters to Santa asking only that he have a nice holiday (harumph), I've discovered that children being told to save and pay for their own gifts (to give to cousins, friends, teacher, each other, etc.) has the amazing effect of suddenly putting what they do get into perspective. And kids may be overexposed to advertising and want whatever is the brand spanking new full-price hot thing on TV this year, but learning that you don't get everything you want is a useful gift in itself, as is being grateful for whatever you do get, even if you hate it - even if it's a REINDEER SWEATER!
And (while I'm on a roll) make them write those thank-you notes to grandma. There's a Christmas ritual that should see a major comeback.
I think I'm with MTS. It's going to hurt the kids terribly if there are no presents at all, but there's no need to spend major buckage.
One suggestion I'm surprised I don't see here. Unless the kids have outrageous expectations, an extra $100 or so will solve the whole issue. That's two Saturday afternoons at minimum wage. What's wrong with doing a little work on the side?
I have a good job and am (thankfully) having no difficulty meeting my bills at the moment, but I still pick up extra money doing piecework, mostly as a Web designer. My Mom hung sheetrock and wallpapered back in the day. Several friends sling code or do landscaping for a little extra cash. None of us would care to try to live on what we make, but it's awful nice to have some extra-budgetary green that comes 100% debt-free.
I'm told that seasonal retail gigs are thin on the ground this year. However, those pay a thousand or two over the course of the season, which is more than what's needed for a few Christmas presents. I may be missing something, but what?
We no longer live in a capitalist society, but a consumerist society.
There's a big difference.
Let me offer that Christmas is the Christian Sabbath. The Sabbath is that day that man lives in the image of God. Now the Jewish g-d, being kind of old, likes to walk around and rest but for the little Christian it involves playing with toys which have no other purpose than to delight. As part of Christmas, it would be nice if spouses were encouraged to consider their Neanderthal mates as human, just seasonally for crying out loud, and kind of see that they have a voice in the spending. This might cut down on those post holiday depressions.
I know you're probably right in essence, and that in my twenties I probably would have agreed with you, at least in principle. But as a parent of two young children, I can tell you that I'd do whatever it took to make sure my kids had some gifts under the tree even if meant doing without things I needed or (gasp) charging up that emergency credit card. I wouldn't go crazy, but they'd have something.
And maybe that's buying into consumerism, but people who are broke-ass shouldn't really pick Christmas morning to start teaching their kids about rejecting excessive materialism. The lesson probably goes over better when you skip buying stuff because you want to, not because you have to.
Perhaps the mother should get into some sort of "Adopt a Family" scam. My wife who is generous to a fault (really, it's a fault, ask my checkbook) got the wishlist of a family who have three daughters and are in an "Adopt a Family" "program." My wife got the Girl Scout troop to donate about $160 total for the three girls which they spent on gifts. And the sad part is that I think the daughters will be disappointed as you should have seen the original wishlist. Sorry, I don't know if this really has any bearing on point of the original blog, but I had to rant somewhere in the opposite direction of my wife.
Nothing makes me feel bad about having money. Nothing, that is, except all the useless crap toys that my kids never play with. Every birthday party, 10-20 kids invited to Pump it Up or some such place, 10-20 gifts, one or two of which will be played with. Every Christmas, a dozen more from the grandparents and from us.
I think holiday gift giving is largely an anachronism, from the time when we didn't have a lot of stuff, and a gift really meant something. I know for poorer people it's still like that, but for the middle-class on up, a lot of adults and kids have pretty much everything they need AND want, and it becomes a silly chore to come up with gift ideas.
Last December, my brother, who works at a staffing company, was talking to a woman he was placing, and she mentioned that times were tough and she didn't have anything to put under the tree for her son. My brother took her out to his car, opened the trunk full of toys for his kids, and said, "Pick something."
Last week I bought a book at B&N. At the checkout they're asking people if they want to buy a book for a foster kid for Christmas. I don't usually go for the "$1 for breast cancer research?" stuff, but I went in for three books.
When we adopted our daughter from China, we and all the other parents talked about how we hoped they used some of the money we gave them to get the kids some toys. Formula, sure, nicer beds, yeah, but toys too, ok?
My son just got rid of a really cool magnetic calendar he had outgrown; he passed it on to his cousin. The little guy was so happy he made his grandmother call my son so he could thank him.
Last week a coworker came by for dinner and brought his daughter who just had a baby. No dad, not much money. We gave her a ton of stuff, mostly toys and stuffed animals. For the next day my wife and I kept thinking about how glad WE were that we could give the stuff to someone who really needed it.
I don't know why this stuff gets to me. I'm a free-marketer, libertarian-leaning, critical rationalist. But I look at all the toys my kids have and I want them to be in a house that doesn't have so many. Some of them will get handed down, some will go to the Salvation Army, some place like that. I don't know what kind of thing matters to kids who don't have much, so I can't say for sure, but I bet they'd like a toy or two. Maybe their parents can get hooked up with Toys for Tots, or they can swing by our place. If all the ridiculous, wasteful consumerism of the holidays has a good side, it's that kids get some stuff to make them feel special and loved. So get your kids a couple cheap toys (and then start paying off your credit cards, you jackasses).
Meghan,
Your parents aren't failures.
Think of how it must feel to know you parents had every opertunity in life - a free house, $100,000 in 1974 cash, and they managed to squander it all.
If your parents can't buy you presents it means that have failed at life, and that is a very hard thing to deal with indeed.
If you can't buy presents for your children it means you've f**ked up big time, you've chosen the wrong career, chosen the wrong major, chosen to get high rather than go to class, etc. You are a giant failure.
Can you even imagine what it must have been like to grow up with parents who were f**k-ups?
A lump of clean coal in every stocking, boys and girls!
Andthenandthenandthen instead of caroling this year we can head down the local homeless shelter and regale the revelers with the tale of how allowing minorities to buy homes created a series of perverse incentives that led them to believe that they should own a home too. Suckers! And then we can remind them that they lost their job not because of a smoke and mirrors economy that rewards accounting fraud over work, but because of the imminent 3-percent increase on the top capital gains tax rate by their false messiah Hitler Hussein Shabbaz!
Ho ho ho!
> my very own Beach Boys "Endless
> Summer" casette
IIRC, "Endless Summer" is the one with "All Summer Long", an excusable indulgence
The kids need presents of some kind. It's not a "consumerist" thing as much as a tradition thing or a "stay sane in the midst of poverty" thing.
When I was very little my parents were quite poor. As in one Thanksgiving my Mom had to shape Spam into a turkey, some meals consisted of "rice and strawberries", and our only water came from a well. This was rural Northwest Arkansas. We still had presents though. Dad had learned carpentry so could make some toys and Mom could sew together something. We also had Uncles and Aunts that would contribute more "store bought" type presents. (Sometimes those got listed as "the ones from Santa")
Granted many parents these days have no real skills like that or the kids wouldn't accept it if they did. Still there's the Aunt/Uncle option. Possibly that wouldn't work either as so many people now have no siblings or don't like their siblings. Even taking that into account there should be some kind of "Dollar Store" or something.
"If you can't buy presents for your children it means you've f**ked up big time"
TR: Some might say my parents "f'd up" by having and keeping me. The medical bills for my condition was a big part of what made them poor. I don't agree that keeping me, rather than dumping me in an institution, was a mistake. Then again I'm a decidedly non-libertarian Christian conservative type ie a wacko.
Thomas - could they have made different career/educational choices that would have made it well within their means to provide for you?
What choices did they make that put them in such a difficult postion?
I find it odd how many of those commenting seem to be going out of their way to twist Megan's words to mean something different from what she said. Not dipping into savings to buy a lavish Christmas when a family is already up to their eyeballs in hock does not mean coal in the stockings and cold gruel for dinner. Rather, I think any rational interpretation translates that into a frugal holiday celebration. Instead of spending $200 on gifts per child you spend maybe $20, instead of spending lots of money on gifts for adults (e.g. gifts the spouses buy each other) you give a card or something more modest, instead of a fancy tree you have a cheaper tree or no tree, instead of buy a pie and candies from the store (as many people do) you cook more modest fare at home. If you have children who are too spoiled to deal with a frugal Christmas, then you have an entirely different set of problems completely unrelated to family finances.
What a lot of people here are missing is that here-and-now, kids are INUNDATED with Christmas advertising for two months before the Big Day. My mother used to run a nursery school, and she told me that the sheer greed-high a lot of her kids got on was enough to make her sick..."by Christmas, I don't think Ringling Brothers would have satisfied them!"
If you're hurting for money, keeping the kids AWAY from the teevee from about mid-October till January ("hey, the cable's broken---it'll get fixed eventually") would help. As for me, I get so sick of Christmas by the time it comes that I want to defect to Albania.
There's been a lot of good stuff upthread. I think part of the pain of adulthood is that presents aren't fun anymore. As an adult, you have money of your own and well-developed tastes, and it's more than likely that if you really wanted something, you would have already bought it. The odds are that you're going to get stuff you don't want or like. (Let's not even talk about gifts from in-laws.) If I were queen for a day, I'd abolish Christmas presents for adults--it's such a wasteful practice. Little kids are in a completely different position, though.
I have two kids, now 6 and 3. I had very little as a child, and for a number of years after the kids were born, I was on a spree. However, eventually I noticed some things: 1) nearly all new toys quickly fall out of favor and on an average day, 95% of the kids' toys are untouched 2) each kids' toy consists of dozens of pieces that have to be organized and stored and hurt when you step on them 3) if I bought enough new toys to keep the kids interested all the time, we'd go broke 4) the darlings are very wasteful with the art supplies that I buy. 5) the grandmas will buy more than enough toys all by themselves 6) the kids get so much stuff for Christmas and birthdays that they can't even open it all by themselves
So, I stopped buying the kids toys except for Christmas and birthdays, and I don't spend a lot even for those special occasions. I allot about $60 a month to a program where they can earn money or points (from going potty, cleaning their rooms or doing workbooks) to buy stuff. They buy their own art supplies--paper plates, colored paper, coloring books, tape, etc. (Today I just sold my oldest a roll of Scotch tape, and my youngest earned a stuffed dragon with his potty-training points.) It's amazing how modest their desires are when they are using their own earnings. If they see something they like (from $1-$15 usually), I buy it, put it in my closet, and then sell it to them when they have enough points or dollars. Thanks to this, I don't hear a lot of whining at the store.
But what to do about Christmas? I mostly let the grandmas do the heavy lifting, and just keep an eye out for small special items that the kids will appreciate. I just bought a laminated US map (for my oldest to track our travels) and a really college mascot hat for my youngest.
With regard to the Suze Orman caller, there's nothing wrong with spending money on Christmas when you're in debt, but it needs to be cash, and not from an emergency fund. When we were getting out of debt last year, we spent around $400-500 when we stayed home, celebrated together, and mailed gifts to our extended family on the West Coast, but that covered tree, Christmas cards, postage, fancy groceries, the whole deal.
Hard to have a serious discussion about this. That a person drowning in debt feels a need to confer with Suze Orman about whether she should spend money on kids' toys is, well, ludicrous.
I would like to see a requirement that one have a minimum IQ before procreating.
All together now: if your monthly expenses are in excess of your monthly after-tax cash flows you are handling your finances irresponsibly.
In case you didn't get that: if your monthly expenses are in excess of your monthly after-tax cash flows you are handling your finances irresponsibly.
Paul Celan holds you in doubt.
poverty has been nearly eliminated in the US.
Why don't you live on the income of the 1% for a year, and get back to us on all that.
Jews, Muslims and Atheist children don't get presents on Christmas either. They won't be alone.
If they're religious they can focus on the giving and non-materialistic side of Christianity. And if they're not, then Christmas isn't that important anyway, right?
And maybe that's buying into consumerism, but people who are broke-ass shouldn't really pick Christmas morning to start teaching their kids about rejecting excessive materialism. The lesson probably goes over better when you skip buying stuff because you want to, not because you have to.
Yep. Books are cheap on eBay or at thrift stores and generally 'age' pretty well. Blocks and Legos, ditto (Legos are *obscene* if you buy them new, though!). Do a craft project with them for presents for other people-- it'll save you money, and relatives will love something handmade from the little darling, or at least not be able to complain about it.
And get a plastic tree with the lights in on sale at the department store. It will save you a lot of money and time in the long run. I don't care if it isn't "authentic." Bethlehem didn't have any friggin' pine trees.
My wife works with the local underclass. After Christmas she will be hearing from women who are desperately searching for money to pay their rent because they spent hundreds of dollars on toys for their kids. Giving toys is a way of showing love. It is also a way of saying, "I am a good parent." She says that there are few if any kids in these often dysfunctional families who have no toys-- having toys is very important to them. From years of hearing about her dealings with those in financial distress, I conclude that the situation described in Ms McArdle's post is fairly common.
Have you ever worked at or be involved with residents of a group home? These are the 1%, mentally and physically disabled and reliant on SSI and other benefits.
I can assure you that they have a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, medical care, and with all that is provided to them, I can't really say that they are in poverty.
"But when you start thinking that you need toys and television sets to have a happy life, we're all in trouble."
Thank you, Megan.
I am sixty-seven. Do I remember particular gifts? No, just as Megan says, I remember the atmosphere. Need I stress it? The family atmosphere.
I remember choosing the tree. I remember decorating it, including using the we-made-them-one-year ornaments. I remember the neighborhood, with the lighted trees in the windows. I remember the fire in the fireplace.
Yes the gifts were a part, and my family was relatively well off. But would 2x the gifts have produced 2x the pleasure? Heck no -- are you really counting? Or are you looking at the smiling 'thank you' faces and appreciating the feeling of renewed bonds? If you are counting, I really feel sorry for you.
Hard to have a serious discussion about this. That a person drowning in debt feels a need to confer with Suze Orman about whether she should spend money on kids' toys is, well, ludicrous.
The above paragraph is the hot knife that cuts through the butter of the thread's underlying premise. The Christmas reminiscing and discussion about materialism is certainly interesting in its own right, but it doesn't change the fact that we all, Megan included, have been flatly trolled.
When I was in my early twenties I worked in a group home for retarded senior citizens. They actually had a pretty decent quality of life, all things considered, and got plenty of medical care. Every week, we'd drive them to one specialist or another, and any ailment, however minor, was diligently treated. E.g., if the podiatrist prescribed some cream to be rubbed on a resident's feet 2x per day, that was done and noted in a journal; same with pills, vitamins, food supplements, etc. As a result, the group home residents were probably healthier than non-retarded seniors in the same age cohort.
"I can assure you that they have a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, medical care, and with all that is provided to them, I can't really say that they are in poverty." jmo
TR: It's not necessarily common, but there is actual poverty in America. Go to an American Indian reservation or rural Mississippi. I know it's a libertarian cliche that "no one's really poor and if they are it's their fault", but that doesn't make it actually true.
I'm kind of conservative, but I don't pretend poverty doesn't exist. I just don't believe it can ever be entirely eliminated. You can reduce it to nearly nothing, perhaps, but not actually nothing. Even Sweden and Denmark have some poor people.
It's odd that you remember this, but not also about Suze's on-air testimony that credit-card companies are slamming people with 30%+ rates, dropping credit card limits (which involuntarily affects an individual's black-box FICO score), etc.
So, I'll ask, "What a sad commentary on our culture. ... How do we live in a society where this is even a [possibility]?
Why don't you live on the income of the 1% for a year, and get back to us on all that.
I was curious, so I went and added up my finances for a year(May 07-April 08). I spent about $19,000 Canadian(1 CAD=about 0.80 USD), and of that about $6000 was university costs. I lived comfortably on $13,000 CAD in actual living costs, and I wasn't particularly frugal about it, either - that year included three political conventions(with fees, travel expenses, and hotel bills) and my usual exorbitant spending on restaurant food, plus having $800 stolen from me. I didn't exactly wallow in luxury, but I never really felt impoverished either. It's hard to be poor as a single person - a full-time minimum wage job(about $15000 after taxes) keeps you in food and entertainment fairly easily as long as you don't spend too much on rent. A family of three living on that income would legitimately be poor, but it doesn't actually cost as much as most people think to live.
I don't know if that's quite "the 1%", but it seems like a decent approximation.
Ah, Megan the Grinch, with a heart two sizes too small.
You're absolutely right, McCardle. Young children are absolutely too spoiled in today's materialistic society. They should all experience your own childhood, which was doubtlessly humble and unemcumbered by plastic superficialities of any sort.
--Lou
Growing up Jewish, I obviously never received Christmas presents (and don't tell me we get Chanukah presents as compensation - most kids don't get anything more than candy and dreidels). I was jealous of my friends NOT because of the presents - that was a minor aspect. I was jealous of the WEEKS of tree-decorating, stocking-making, caroling, and the entire cultural shmorgasboard of merry christmasness. Instead, the parents work and the kids visit nursing homes and eat Chinese food on Christmas. But guess what - it didn't ruin my childhood.
These kids will be fine if the parents establish an expectation of no presents, rather than spring the shock on them Christmas morning. From my perspective, they still get 99% of the holiday.
Not everyone who subsists on SSI lives in a group home. When I was working in social services I knew a number of people (all of whom I believe to have been legitimately disabled) who were paying rent (often Section 8, but not always) and surviving on SSI, which in 2002 was $545 a month, along with a few bucks in food stamps and whatever they could scrounge in terms of food boxes and the like.
Me: "poverty has been nearly eliminated in the US."
Freddie: "Why don't you live on the income of the 1% for a year, and get back to us on all that."
I said "nearly eliminated". I'm sure there are a few truly poor people living out in rural West Virginia. But the majority of people classified as "poor" by the left (and the government) are not poor by any reasonable standard.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
So I suspect your idea to "redefine down what it means to be middle class" is a non-starter. The left doesn't want to lose their talking points on poverty.
During the bailout debate, McArdle wrote some of the smartest things out of anyone in the blogs - basically, that there were a lot of problematic issues, but unlike what a lot of people on both the left were saying at that there was no glory in depression and forced austerity. That it was better to have a job, keep the job, and have money to afford to live.
Now, she's basically saying the exact opposite, and in fact if consumption drops catastrophically, we'll have an even worse economic state.
I started reading this blog because it included the libertarian view on the economy, tempered with a dose of healthy pragmatism. Now it's just reaction to anecdotes and typical armchair punditry - and worst of all, it's basically self-contradictory - and not in an intelligent, reflective way where the author/blogger actually says, okay, here's how I've changed my mind and why. As they say, YMMV, but this flavor of commentary ceases to be useful.
1976. A Morey Boggieboard. Handmade in Southern California and cost $50.
Best. Christmas. Ever.
25 years ago the nieces were in a frenzy of "I want Barbies!!" and "more games for the game console!!" While we weren't poor back in the 50s and 60s we weren't rolling in dough either. Sitting around with the cousins we remembered that most of the fun of Christmas was opening the presents and finding some bauble that was interesting. . . So the nieces that year got medium sized bags of silly stuff from Woolworth's and the dollar store. Yep they were disappointed when the first one wasn't a Barbie and a little less disappointed that the second one wasn't a game but by the third one they were looking forward to the fourth present. Last year the big hit was Flarp - the noisy putty! from the dollar store. .. though it's a bit disturbing that people in their late 20s and early 30s are looking forward to cheap shit from the dollar store...
The kids can have Christmas presents, it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest from all the TV ads they have been watching. But some of it has to be fun. Lots of fun things at the dollar stores and the discount retailers - the dollar bins and the two dollar bins have all sorts of things, that are fun.
I have two nephews who receive exactly one present, worth no more than about 20 bucks each, from their parents each Christmas, who have informed me to give them nothing but a gift card from a book retailer each year. They live in a lakefront house without a mortgage, because the parents have largely avoided debt like the Ebola virus their entire lives, and thus started building the home about ten years after they purchased the land with borrowed money. They mostly built the home with their own labor, and a small amount donated by relatives like me (none of us are in the building trades), while renting a two bedroom apartment in a relatively inexpensive suburb.
The two kids have been so psychologically damaged by their austere Christmas experiences that the eighth grader is happily taking college-level calculus on-line from Stanford, and the other is a gifted pianist, and rarely needs to be encouraged to practice.
Many kids definitely do NOT need expensive Christmas presents to be extremely happy human beings.
Like some, my initial reaction to this post was, "duh." Who needs to be told that necessities > luxuries, and that there need to be limits on consumerism.
Then I read the comment thread, and learned not only that "our desire to seek material wealth" is what glues our country together, but that this is "healthy." Maybe it's because I'm reading Bacevich right now, but I guess there is a debate about whether it's a bad thing to borrow-and-spend ourselves to death.
I don't know -- I'm starting to suspect that I've been doing it wrong all these years.
In our 20-plus years of marriage, my wife and I have always worked hard to live within our means. We set financial goals, saved religiously, and would frequently forgo even modest luxuries.
We kept our debt low -- rarely carrying a balance on our credit cards -- and frequently paid cash for the things we bought. When we wanted something, we saved up (saving up, what a concept -- does anyone remember saving up?).
When our children were young, we shopped at consignment stores for kids' clothing. We bought base-model cars (usually used) and drove them until the wheels fell off. Appliances, tvs, computers, stereos -- we used them until they broke and where no longer repairable.
We paid 20 percent down payments on our homes, and never took on a mortgage worth more than three times our annual income.
Vacations were usually trips to visit relatives -- every couple years, we'd treat ourselves to a beach rental, which we would split with my brother-in-law and his family. Twice, we took the kids to Disney World (again, we saved up and paid cash).
In the meantime, we watched our friends and neighbors buy the bigger houses, the newer cars, the fancy flat-panel tvs, and the luxury cruises -- racking up all kinds of consumer debt in the process.
Now, the investments we put our savings in are in the tank, and we're scrambling to find the cash to pay for spring tuition (two kids in college). We'll be fine, I think, but it's going to be a lean Christmas at our house.
Bail-outs for the banks, bail-outs for the car companies, bail-outs for the irresponsible homeowners who borrowed over their heads -- I guess I'll be paying for those too.
Once things turn around, I think I'm going make a few adjustments -- spend a little more for Christmas, buy a flashier car, take on a little more consumer debt. And the next time things go in the dumper, perhaps someone can bail me out.
Atheist children don't get presents on Christmas either.
Who the hell ever told you that tripe?
"NOW MOMMY NOW!"
With the lessons kids learned from the Wall Street and Automaker bailouts, why do you ask them to be any different?
Jeebus, Instapundit is getting shameless. He's linking to this post and then using it to send people to Amazon: But what’s really nice about today’s world is that lots of things that were luxuries a few years ago are cheap — flat-screen HDTVs for under $500, for example
That sentence contains an affiliate link, meaning he gets money if people then buy something from Amazon.
If he's put as much energy as he does milking his site into defeating BHO, McCain might have won.
Megan M: So why do we continue to think that the gifts are the most important part?
The gifts provide a concrete reality to children of the gift of Christ, and also of the gifts of the Magi to the child Jesus. Children think in concrete terms. I remember feeling joyful on Christmas morning simply because my parents "thought" of me and thought I was special enough to do something fun with and for. Perhaps that was the best part, but I remember having poor parents, and soon enough I realized that they had given up something in order to give it to me. And I was grateful.
But no, excessive gifts (or thoughtless ones) are not nice. They ought to be something that the parents thought about when they think about what their child can use or enjoy. I remember getting things like a camera, or a coat, or a doll. It was only once a year. Surely parents can provide something to their child once a year.
Jesus: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"
I think my entire family agrees that our best Christmas was the time no one got a single present. It was the non-material things that made it special: the whole family together, the tropical sun, the beaches and reefs of St. Thomas. Plastic toys are soon broken or forgotten; 1500 gallons of jet fuel, though burned in a day, can create memories that last a lifetime.
And who said Libertarians were heartless people with barren wombs who don't understand the joys of family or the demands of reciprocity in a social system?
""You remember those things because you got presents. If you didn't get presents, you would remember it as the Christmas where you didn't get presents, and those other memories would have faded.""
So clearly our choice is binary: five-digit, credit-born Presentapolooza or Ritz crackers and coal in the stocking.
When it comes to sophistic bashing of Megan McArdle, there can be no middle ground. I come here just to see why a nuclear war wouldn't be all bad. I mean, how can you argue with a post that asserts "Americans are too materialistic and focused on spending extra money on presents that their kids won't remember"? If Megan made a post about the sun setting in the west, people would call her a directional-fundamentalist and an idiot.
Voros McCracken! First Nate Silver and now this.
MARVELOUS post. I'm going to share this with some folks. Thanks!
It's true that the thought counts, but part of that thought is in finding a way to give a little something. You don't have to spend $1000 though.
In my family, a lot of the time the box under the tree contained a note to go find a box somewhere else. Of course, everyone had to be there before you could open the next present, so once you opened something you were either off on the hunt or left to actually look at what you'd just opened while someone else was. This paced things nicely so that unwrapping lasted a fair while instead of there being one big unwrapping frenzy followed by staring at the pile of stuff.
Fortunately, while times were lean they were never that lean - there was usually at least one nice present. But most of the gifts were small - things like batteries or a new matchbox car - and the fun was in the opening. I imagine with a well planned Christmas morning, you could do quite a bit with $20 at the dollar store. At any rate, it would be a lot better than Christmas morning being the moment you decided to teach an economics lesson.
To inject some numbers, the average person spent $800 last year for the holidays. Dude, that's nuts.
So would selling my kids into indentured servitude fit the GOP meme?
And to the "commenter" who recommends "Atlas Shrugged" as a childs gift, I'd prefer a lump of coal to that drivel.
Tbogg slaps stupid Megan across the face with this post:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/11/23/thems-that-got-shall-get-thems-that-not-are-screwed/
Why The Atlantic pays that woman anything to write her drivel is beyond me. Lowell, Emerson, the Senior Holmes and Harriet B. Stowe are all spinning in their graves at McArdle's vapidness and shallowness. She is an embarrassment to a fine tradition.
And Tbogg's commenters to that post are quite good, too...
Megan hopes for 'breaking the cycle of the constantly ratching consumerism', also know as the end capitalism.
SOCIALIST!
-GSD
I have seen some cold, self-centered, born-on-third-base smug-nosed posturing in my time but this comes close to taking the biscuit. Ms McArdle, as a parent I find you an appalling, heartless cow. Those parents did not create the tradition of gift giving. Even supposing--as I am sure you do, your worldview having no room for any other scenario--that the parents are responsible for their own financial plight, do you not have the slightest shred of consideration for what children would feel about a Christmas barren of gifts of any kind?
Note, please, that the original note to Ms Orman does not mention toys--that is your assumption. The family could well be wondering what kind of food and "crackling fires" they can afford, too. A person with some smidgen of empathetic imagination would post that the parents would be better off with handmade gifts, or scouring thrift stores and second-hand sites, or creating certificates for things like "mommy time." Instead you sniff, from your cozy office at one of America's oldest magazines, that happy memories like yours (no doubt you had many snow-angel-only holidays?) should suffice. Indeed, memories of a barren Christmas would be lifelong, as bcg and some other posters are trying to point out.
What are you going to do for an encore, Megan? From your Iphone, will you post that Toys for Tots should cease operations for fear of perpetuating this "the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption"?
If Megan made a post about the sun setting in the west, people would call her a directional-fundamentalist and an idiot.
Megan would never say something that could be subject to empirical evidence. She would instead argue that those with east-facing windows are socially preferable for their lack of afternoon glare.
If Megan made a post about the sun setting in the west...
Lemme know when that happens. Thanks in advance.
Oh, and tbogg does, in fact, totally rule.
Are there no workhouses? Have the organ banks shuttered their doors?
The children whose parent queried Orman should have their ears sold for coasters on which Megan McArdle can rest her Series III Tivo.
Megan might want to consider disabling comments as Douthat did. Yeah I criticized what she said a little, but sheesh some people here seem to personally hate on her a great deal.
"...some people here seem to personally hate on her a great deal."
Yep. When commenters go into great detail about how much they hate you and what a bad person you are and seem much more interested in hating you than in changing your mind, it's time to pull the plug.
I think one thing that hasn't got enough attention in this thread is how willing parents (especially mothers) are to beggar themselves and endanger their family's security to pay for the perfect Christmas. The impulse to give your kids more than you had is actually pretty heroic and self-sacrificing, but somebody close to them needs to ask those mothers the question--"What will your kids remember most vividly, the great presents or the foreclosure and bankruptcy?" It's helpful, rather than mean, to ask that question. One of the most loving things that parents can do for their kids is to have at least the beginnings of an emergency fund. During good times, you don't hear nearly enough about this. They certainly don't run ads on TV about how great it is to have an emergency fund or be debt-free.
Another issue is that if your extended family does a big holiday extravaganza, it can be really hard to pull out of it and be the Grinch who says, we can't buy presents for 30 people this year--can we draw names instead? Relatives can be really bad about pushing family trips that just aren't realistic. My extended family does a trip once a year. There isn't any guilt-tripping, but the hotel and expenses involved would be really crippling for the young couples and families, and it would be a lot better if the trip were shorter and at a less swanky location. I wish I could take the kids on the big family ski trip, but it just isn't realistic right now.
I don't know, but I don't think small children are going to understand "Our family is in bad financial straits so we are forgoing Christmas presents this year." What they are going to hear is: "No Christmas presents this year."
Seriously. You don't have to buy the kid a Wii. Perhaps the problem is not that we give presents, but that we have conditioned kids to expect expensive presents. (I have helped out with Angel Trees some years - funding gifts for kids whose parents are in prison or are otherwise unable to provide gifts. Some of the children ask for very simple stuff - a football, some art supplies - but others seem to have accepted the entitlement mentality that so many people have and ask for things like iPods.)
Look, I'm nearly 40 and I would be a little disappointed if there were nothing at all under the tree for me - it doesn't have to be an iPod or some fancy kitchen gadget. It could be a box of the kind of tea I like. Or a little box of embroidery floss (one of my hobbies). Or a book I've not read yet.
I think the problem is too many people see this as a dichotomy: either "the economy sucks and therefore NO GIFTS AT ALL" or "We are too materialistic already, and therefore NO GIFTS AT ALL."
Maybe I am materialistic, but having a box or two to open on Christmas morning IS fun and nice and all that. And I love being able to pick out gifts for the people that I love.
And honestly - if you're in bad financial straits? Perhaps there is something around the house you are not using, that could be sold to fund Christmas? Even taking a bunch of used books down to the used-book store would net enough to fill stockings, I bet.
I am growing a bit tired of the "Yay! Everyone's broke! Now life will be better because people will stop indulging in luxuries!" meme. It's just like the people who got all happy when gas skyrocketed, or who said that expensive food was good because it would make people "think more" about what and how they ate. No, it only makes people who are already guilt-ridden over-thinking Bobos "think more" or hie themselves to an organic local farmer's market. The average Joe (who doesn't live within 40 miles of an organic local farmer's market) is just going to complain that food got more expensive.
Another by product of hard times...
The mega-church I play guitar at in Los Angeles has seen incredible growth in the last few weeks. Nary an empty seat in all five of it's services. And people of all walks coming down to get baptized in every service (30 in the 10 A.M. service alone today!). It's said there are no atheists in foxholes. Apparently not in recessions either.
There will be hundreds more people in Los Angeles who care more about their fellow man this Christmas than what gifts they get, or if they get that new car, or that big screen TV...
There are more important things in life than things. And thirty people at 10 A.M. this morning found that out.
Update: Dr. Boli, as always, for the save.
Let's review:
tbogg = Funny
Dr. Boli does not = Funny
And I know Funny.
Oh, and blasts from the past:
and
One also can't help but wonder how Jane Galt responded to George Bush, Jr.'s suggestion that the proper response to 9-11 (which happened on Junior's watch) was to shop more.
Yep. When commenters go into great detail about how much they hate you and what a bad person you are and seem much more interested in hating you than in changing your mind, it's time to pull the plug.
No, not hate, think of us as disgruntled fans. Megan has become sort of the Detroit Lions of thinking.
Megan has become sort of the Detroit Lions of thinking.
I was thinking the Washington Generals. It works on so many levels.
I'd agree with the thinking that the expectation of expensive presents is wrong, but that the expectation of "something" is probably natural.
Maybe today's kids are brattier than my generation's, but I grew up in the 1980s which wasn't exactly an era of austerity and self-denial. I'd like to think kids can still kind of "get", or be made to understand, that things are tough and they won't get everything they want.
To get "nothing", which is what I thought McCardle said and therefore my initial reaction, seems a bit more severe. If necessary you could ask for help, make things, get Dollar Store (or Thrift store) stuff, etc.
ed wrote: And I know Funny.
One of those long-distance relationships, I take it.
Maybe there was more to the call? Based on just what McArdle wrote everyone's making huge assumptions about what Christmas is for this family. It could be far simpler than people are imagining. A thorough post with statistics on debt, income levels, consumer spending habits during the holidays--you know, real data and not instead of a single cable show call-in--that sort of post would have been interesting. And maybe it would even support McArdle's judgment on all of us (except her, I guess?)
But hey, if you need to get your bitter, mean-spirited self-righteousness on better it's here than you know, actually going and taking a dump in the Salvation Army food donation barrel at your local grocery store. Though lord knows those hungry kids deserve a healthy dose of your s**t along with a can a green beans you didn't donate.
Be sure to run a credit check before you wish someone Merry Christmas, too. They might not deserve it!
I think I would use the emergency fund to buy the kid's gift, because if I can't replace $20 to $100 in the next week to a month, then I am pretty screwed every which way to Sunday anyway.
Kids dont comprehend giving up the immediate joy of something tangible for some theoretical good.
Or they comprehend it, but still feel crappy, and then suffer when they go out to play and all their friends say, "I got the Miley Cyrus Make Out House and what did you get?"
"Oh, my mommmy Megan gave me financial austerity and a an extra portion of pumpkin flavor oatmeal".
This is probably the worst post EVER on this blog. (That's hyperbole too).
We know what people should do, but Christmas is not the time to get ubber rational and responsible when it comes to the irrational beings that are children.
Megan says:
The only good thing that I can possibly think of about this financial crisis is that it may break the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption, which has surrounded most Americans with nice things that don't really make them happy.
From Megan's I-phone to God's Blackberry!
One of those long-distance relationships, I take it.
No.
"To get "nothing", which is what I thought McCardle said and therefore my initial reaction, seems a bit more severe. If necessary you could ask for help, make things, get Dollar Store (or Thrift store) stuff, etc."
Apparently MM couldn't find her way to any one of Manhattan's numerous discount clothing stores after 9/11. I don't imagine it would occur to her to shop at a discounter for Xmas presents either.
Some Christmas presents can be necessities, or have we forgotten? I got some toys as a kid, but things like socks and pajamas and new winter clothes also turned up under the tree. I don't mean gimicky sweaters with Christmas pictures, either -- I mean regular clothes that we would actually wear until the snow melted.
One of my favorite Christmas memories was the year everyone in the family (three generations) got matching pajamas. It was hilarious.
My point is that the Christmas budget isn't free-standing. It can merge into the clothing budget or the school/carft supplies budget or something. For this to work, you do have to hold off buying everything kids need for a school year in September. But there's nothing wrong with putting their January-to-June equipment under the tree. Along with a few toys for the little ones, if possible, although plenty of larger kids actually prefer more practical presents.
I agree that the holidays most important aspects have always been the elements of food, family and faith rather than the toys...
but the few toys I remember were the ones that enhanced our sharing... the board games we played together (I remember "Nancy Drew" and "Clue" and "Candy Land" and "Monopoly" and "Risk" in particular). I learned a lot about fair (and unfair) play and how each person in my family "played the game" taught me how they viewed the world and what was acceptable (i.e. a lot about morality). The person I respected the most was always my dad even though he usually lost the games... he played to help the rest of us win...
The best memories are playing in the snow, eating a turkey feast and talking about life and ideas of what is an ideal world together.
Allow me to apologize for the harshness of my comment above. The post's coldness ticked me off, especially the way that Ms. McArdle posted her advice as a prescription rather than, say, an observation about how odd people are or a "what am I missing?" note. So, I posted out of anger, and in doing so, i was mean in a way that is really not appropriate, either for a public intellectual forum, or for Ms. McArdle personally, who almost always adheres to a high professional standard on these sorts of things.
My sincerest apologies and the best to all.
Among the many traditions of Christmas, especially for the kids, is the excitement and fun of unwrapping presents, wondering what is inside, and waking up early on Christmas morning to find out what Santa brought you. You may not remember the presents themselves, but no doubt that is part of what made the holiday so enjoyable. It's not what you got; it is the whole ritual of buying presents, wrapping and unwrapping them, giving them, writing the thank you notes. If you've created this tradition in your family, then a Christmas without would be just the same as a Christmas without family, or without snow angels, or whatever else is part of your tradition. Incomplete, and sad.
So I can feel for these families. They've bought into a tradition that is nearly universal in our society, and now they can't uphold their end of it. The kids will be sad.
The best advice might be to try and resist the culture of extensive gift-giving in the first place. Create your own personal tradition of personal gift-giving that doesn't rely on money. But it is hard to swim upstream against the common culture. We sure don't.
The next best advice would have to be to try to uphold as much of the tradition as possible, within your budget. Buy some construction paper and glue to make your own cards, have a special picnic supper in the living room, go caroling, whatever. Simple but thoughtful presents, like a box of favorite breakfast cereal in the kid's stocking. But don't pretend like you aren't missing out on part of the holiday.
What we need is for the government to provide a vehicle to solve this problem. Lets call this vehicle IRS. They will enable people in this situation to hack into other people's bank accounts and withdraw money. Oh wait we have said vehicle already. They just need to add this to their various justifications to steal from one and give to another.
and you're an economist?
70-75% of the US economy is retail sales, i.e, consumers buying stuff.
what's wrong with you? why do you hate america?
"...made in China".
That bit is irrelevant to the argument. What's its purpose?