Maybe Our Country Needed a Recession?

I was reading an article on the Miami Herald’s website this morning entitled “Personal Wealth Drops 1.3 Trillion”, now the headline is all gloomy sounding but the article contained some rather uplifting news that I’d like to concentrate on.

First off as the title suggests Americans did see a significant drop in personal wealth in the first quarter. The good news though is how its affecting people. Its said that we can learn a whole lot more from hard times than we can when things are going great, and I believe that holds true here.

Even if things improve, such a dramatic evaporation of wealth will probably make Americans more thrifty down the road, said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody’s Economy.com.

”The bulk of consumers alive today have not experienced declines in wealth like this,” Hoyt said. “They are already turning thrifty, and it will stay that way beyond the short term. This has been a significant learning experience.”

Americans’ personal savings rate zoomed to 5.7 percent in April, the highest since 1995. And the amount in savings — $620.2 billion — was the most on record dating to January 1959.

I think this is a very good thing. If any good can come out of these hard times than the recession can maybe been seen in the future as something that was needed. Spending in our country was getting out of hand in my eyes. People were living well beyond their means and spending money they didn’t have. This is not responsible behavior. If it never came back to bite anyone in the ass, how would we ever learn.

I know that in my personal life, I’ve learned a whole lot more from my failures than I have from my successes. I’m sure most savvy people would agree. Now if you learn from these failures, then they aren’t really failures anymore are they?

I really like this part where they talking with Maurie Boler, a 53 year old management consultant:

Even if the economy recovers and starts to thrive again, he said he probably won’t break out the credit cards again. ”It’s really not about stuff,” he said. “Stuff is nice, but life is not about how much more stuff can we get.”

He’s 100% right. I only wish that it didn’t take a recession to learn this lesson. That’s really the only way that I learn though and I know it. If there are never any negative consequences then there is no reason to ever change your behavior.

Our country had become way too materialistic. The whole accumulation of stuff and he who dies  with the most toys wins, attitude is not a way to go through life.

Sure times are tough now. A whole lot of people are struggling. I myself am one of them, but if this can initiate an entire improved attitude change for our country then maybe its worth it. If these ways of financial responsibility can be then passed on to our children, I think our country will be stronger for it in the long run.