It Sticks In My Craw

John Q. Public isn't held accountable for his actions anymore.

"It's not my fault I signed the mortgage papers for payments I knew I couldn't afford. The bank made me do it!"

Really? So you get absolved of all responsibility to say "NO, I can't afford that, let's look at what I really can afford." because the bank told you could?

I remember looking for a new car 6 years ago and carefully determining the highest amount I could afford in monthly payments and still be able to put gas in the damn thing.

When the dealership told me I could afford more car than I was looking for and tried to convince me I could afford a higher payment for this WAY nicer car, I politely said no. Then I firmly said No. Then I told the saleslady "NO" in no uncertain terms and told her to find a car in my budget range or I was going elsewhere.

After that she calmed down and worked really nicely with me on determining different options, how much my payments would be with this much down, how much for a car without a sunroof, how much with a higher amount down, etc etc. I must have had her go over my different options a thousand times before I settled on my best choice.

Ultimately, I'm happy with my decision and it worked out nicely. But if I had caved to her insistent pestering and my own desires for a shiny, new, larger-than-I-needed car? I'd probably have lost it by now. And that's with maintaining a steady job and experiencing very little financial hardship that was out of my control.

What makes me so angry nowadays is that the public (and I'm being very broad here, there are plenty of you good people who pay their bills without fussing) thinks they can throw a temper tantrum and get rewarded for their bad behavior by having their debt wiped clean, or Big Business punished for it.

I'm not saying some of the evil empire corporations didn't deserve it. Many did. But when do we stop pointing the finger at Big Business and start pointing it at ourselves?!?

This economic mess couldn't have happened without the efforts of everyone involved, including We, the People.

This rant brought to you by a situation that came across my desk at work.

A lady deposits counterfeit and forged endorsement checks into her account. Probably knowing they were too good to be true but she did it anyways. Five years later, she now wants to buy a house or get a loan and she can't because she owes thousands of dollars from bad decisions she made earlier in her life.

Should she be punished forever for bad decision making? No. But should she have to pay the consequences of bad decisions? YES!

Why is it that instead of owning up to her terrible choices and applying herself to resolving her own problems, she instead devotes a lot of effort into throwing a temper tantrum that is ultimately rewarded by having all the big, bad, nasty debt go away?

If that's the case, can I throw my own hissy fit and complain to the Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, the OCC, and the governing bodies of student loans to make my credit card debt and student loans "magically disappear"?

Murphy's Law says that if I tried, I'd only get the smackdown harder. That's okay though, because while it's a tough slog to pay off your debt the hard way, ultimately my sense of worth and accomplishment will be greater and I'll be a better person, confident in my ability to take the tough road and survive.

But talk to me in 10 years when I'm still paying off these loans...I may have changed my tune by then!