Elegant Distractions

The WSJ ran an article by Jeff Opdyke today explaining why some people shouldn't have control over their own finances: they might make bad choices! No, really! Turns out not everybody is a financial expert. Mr. Opdyke complains that his own mother is a fiscal wimp:

Allowing her to manage her account would be tantamount to encouraging her to serve as her own lawyer or dentist. She simply doesn't have the skill set. But she also may not be able to resist.

How did the government let this happen? Clearly what is needed is not private SS accounts but financial re-education camps for young and old. We can't let people walk the streets if they don't know the difference between a P&L and balance sheet. For God's sake, what if they make a mistake!

I am worried -- and, frankly, not just for her. Family members like me ultimately bear the brunt if our parents make a hash of their investments.

And we don't want to have to live with our parents mistakes. Bad enough we have siblings, now we might have to take in old people who claim to be related, just because they took decisions as if they were adults. Who do these people think they are?

But here's the point: My mom had money, and she found the expenses to match the money. Like so many people, my mother doesn't really understand money or the importance of saving for tomorrow. And, like so many people, the knowledge that there's a big unspent slug of money in your name is just too tempting to overlook when there are expenses you have in mind.

Some people spend everything that comes through their hands. This is news? Some parents spend all their money on ungrateful offspring, in a sometimes-futile attempt to make a better life for their children, instead of squirreling it away for a Caribbean cruise after retirement. Some blow it on themselves and deny anything to their kids.

Mr. Opdyke wants you and me to take care of his mother because she's a spendthrift and he doesn't want to pay for her crap as she gets older. Sorry, but I have my own struggling progenitors to deal with. I don't want his, or yours.

The problem with Social Security is that people expect it, and they expect it to absolve them from responsibility for themselves and their families. Used to be a time (only very old people will remember it -- I don't) when you took care of yourself because nobody else would. Too bad we've taught generations that they don't have to worry about the future. We will tax the hell out of people in order to save you from your own bad choices.

Parents who rear their brats absent of consequences discover quickly that their snot-nosed hellions run the roost. Now, the diaper-clad toddlers are retirees screaming for dessert after tossing their peas on the floor. How are they going to learn about consequences at this age? It may be too late.