What is being an adult all about?
Doesn’t maturity have to do with taking responsibility for your life, for your decisions?
Of course, it is often appropriate to ask for help, to underwrite dreams or salvage the shipwrecks of them when we screw up.
But even when seeking help, you do it like a grown-up rather than, say, a whining child. You ask for the help. Politely. As opposed to assuming that other people just owe it to you, to heck with their own circumstances and priorities.
Yet government now subsidizes every big-ticket project on our every wish list, hurling more money at us when we botch the job. It’s as if they’re paying us to be irresponsible.
No shock, then, when people do in fact act irresponsibly, buying homes or making loans they can’t really afford.
Ford, GM, and Chrysler — the Big Three of American automakers — now ask for a $50 billion low-interest loan from the U.S. government. Why? So they can modernize their plants to make more efficient cars. What, just $50 billion?
What about me? I need to re-shingle my roof. Please, government, give me a million. Just take it from my neighbors, no problem.
You know, if Chrysler had been allowed to fail back in Iaccoca days, GM and Ford may have learned a lesson — grown up — and wouldn’t think to ask for handouts today. Or need to.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “When Do We Become Adults?”
Chrysler was a totally different proposition. The government did not hand Chrysler one red cent.
Government did act as the guarantor of Chrysler’s loans. And, as Iacocca announced, every last cent was paid back.
Our nation is in a era of “I want, I need, and need it now.” I have a friend who sold three homes to buy a home he could not afford and is loosing it. His response: I will survive even though I must live under a bridge. His wife’s response: Honey, this can’t happen, do something … and BTW I need a new Lexus my old one’s lease is up. She is the one who found the loan for the big house on the hill. He was dumb enough to not read the contract.
Isn’t this the obvious difference between left and right? MoveOn.org and http://www.GrowUp.org
Bob is wrong about Chrysler. If the investment was so sound, why was the intervention of government needed? Obviously, the loan pulled dollars away from other economic activity that may have been more productive. And if Chrysler had been allowed to go under, maybe the American auto industry would have adopted better, more competitive practices – and not be in such a weak position today.