Both Oars In I love my Job!

Mar 27, 2009

I really intended to leave the whole money, debt and politics scene alone this week. I was all set to write about water. That was until I ran across Barbara Kiviat’s article titled "Jobs Are the New Assets" in the TIME [March 23] magazine I picked up at the airport on my way to Haiti. I’ll cover water next week. I am sure a few days in the hot sun will only intensify my commitment to the subject.

According to Kiviat, having been failed by our home equity, investment portfolios and credit cards, we once again value our jobs, maybe even love them. Making money by actually earning it, not borrowing it out of our houses or skimming it from our IRA, is back in vogue. It seems that discussing personal budgets and coupon deals has replaced bragging about real estate appreciation and investment returns at the water cooler. It’s the fifties all over again.

Kiviat’s report that "the job is making a roaring comeback" reminds me of a great quote from Pope John Paul II: "man’s principal resource is man himself." He made this claim in the midst of demonstrating how work is "the origin of individual property." Even though he did not own a home, the Pope knew that work, i.e. earnings, leads to real estate, not vice versa. We are the real asset, not what we own.

Kiviat’s description of how spending and personal saving habits have changed over the past five decades, complete with Daddy’s Knows Best era pictures, also made me realize why my dad and I have had so much to talk about lately. He has the answers to my economic problems, not Geithner.

When my dad started his career in plastics in the 1950’s, the personal savings rate was four times higher than in 2008 when my generation’s "spend it forward" party ended. Kiviat’s article underscores the simple wisdom that kept my dad and his contemporaries from losing their homes and cars in the past two recessions: "Back in those days, we saved then bought."

That "earn and save" approach to life is the cure for what ails us today. That’s the genius Mr. Obama should tap! My dad ought to be Secretary of the Treasury. And, so should your dad or mom if they were born in the 1930’s and worked to create their personal wealth, paycheck by paycheck.

Having learned my lesson the hard way, I have insisted that my oldest son save half his lawn care earnings. He complained mightily at first about putting half his hard earned money into bank CDs instead of music CDs and electronics. But when I borrowed $1,900 from him to cover some family expenses while between jobs, I think he got the picture. It is probably no accident that he is named after my father.

On the other hand, his younger brother is a stubborn "spend and earn" man—or at least "borrow and spend." When I suggest that he help out his brother on a job to earn a few dollars, he finds it hard to be as motivated as his older brother. Somehow, earning back the fifteen dollars he owes his mother is not as motivating as walking away from a job with money to spend. To get him moving, I point out that he’d be foolish to default on his mother. Grudgingly, he heads out the door.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? My younger son’s quagmire explains the malaise we are feeling today. Debt is a burden, not a motivator. "I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go" is a dirge, not a cheer. And, the only way to get that song out of our heads is to earn, live within our means, and save. No wonder we forty-somethings are finally starting to value our paychecks again.

I only have one question for Kiviat. If we finally get it, as the personal savings rate’s spike in January to 5% (the highest in a decade) suggests, why the outcry over Governor Sanford’s request to use 25% of the stimulus windfall to payoff debts? Certainly, we realize that working to pay the tax man down the road will not be any more fun for us than it is for my son to work to repay his mother—maybe less.