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“Personal Responsibility” Means Nothing Anymore
Today Walter Williams in his syndicated column reminded me (like I needed to be reminded) that people simply don’t care about personal responsibility anymore. He gives a number examples of how the culture has changed, and writes about companies that advertise the ways people can get out of their debt. They promote steps people can take to “quickly be debt free.” Essentially, because someone carelessly and thoughtlessly used a credit card to satisfy their materialistic needs, the companies are paying for it. Even Dave Ramsey, a financial expert and person of high moral values whom I greatly admire, encourages people to negotiate with companies to lower their debt, and for a fraction of what they owe.
Then we have the Federal Student Aid program, which provides a means for students to have their loans forgiven, canceled, or discharged. At first, when looking at the requirements, I thought that the criteria made sense; then I realized how any creative person could play with those guidelines:
- Your school falsely certified your eligibility to receive the loan based on your ability to benefit from its training, and you did not meet the ability-to-benefit student eligibility requirements (for example, you did not have a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate).
- Your eligibility to receive a loan was falsely certified because you were a victim of identity theft.
- The school certified your eligibility, but because of a physical or mental condition, age, criminal record, or other reason, you would not meet state requirements for employment in the occupation in which you were being trained.
- The school signed your name on the application or promissory note without your authorization, or the school endorsed your loan check or signed your authorization for electronic funds transfer without your knowledge, unless the loan money was given to you or applied to charges that you owed to the school.
On second review, I realized that almost anyone who wants to qualify for this program could do so easily. For example, on bullet point three, how difficult would it be to incriminate the school? And why should a school be responsible for your poor decision in choosing a study major for a job that doesn’t exist? Or one that’s hard to find?
Then there is the Mortgage Forgiveness and Debt Relief Act, which was renewed for 2017, but as far as I can tell, is in limbo in Congress at this time. This law protected mortgage holders who were underwater when they lost their homes from having to pay unpaid income taxes on those homes, up to $2 million. I realize that some people lost their homes due to losing a job, but there are also many who insisted on buying homes which they could ill-afford. The reasons a person loses a home have no relevance to whether a person can take advantage of this program. A limit of $2 million protection for a tax bill is a pretty hefty forgiveness.
There are other ways that people have been able to cut back on or eliminate their debt. In almost every case, somebody else pays for those losses. People want to point to the “rich businesses” who can afford it, or to the government. Or they simply believe they are entitled to get help. Well, I have news for them. We are the ones paying their debts: the business customers and the American taxpayers.
But even that isn’t what bothers me the most. It’s the lack of personal responsibility. The other day as I was loading my groceries into my car, I saw a bag of green onions that had slipped out of sight and not been checked through. For a moment I thought about just throwing it in one of my grocery bags. But I didn’t. I plodded back into the store and paid the $.99. Did that make a difference to anyone—to another customer? To the store? I don’t know. But it made a difference to me.
Personal responsibility is part of my make-up. If I take on a task, I finish it. If I make a commitment, I fulfill it. If I incur a debt, I pay it. If it is hard to complete my responsibilities, I have no one to blame but myself, and I look to no one else to bail me out.
I think we have lost this precious and important value, this commitment to ourselves, our families, our communities, our country.
No one cares about personal responsibility anymore.
Published in Culture
That’s an awesome story, @stad –going back to pay the debtors. I do think it is a moral issue, even if it legal, which is why Dave Ramsey’s plans work. I doubt that he would say that negotiating debt is morally appropriate.
I’m sure Dave would say (or has said) there’s a moral responsibility to repay, even if there isn’t a legal obligation.
We certainly don’t believe in crediting agencies having to take responsibility for giving out stupid loans.
Or colleges/universities jacking up prices to ludicrous heights because “everyone should go to college” and loans are nearly guaranteed.
I paid off my $50-60k loans for a degree tthat no longer exists at my alma mater because they chose repeatedly not to invest in it, so my degree is weak and a masters will require retaking bacherlor courses. So I have taken personal responsibility here.
Doesn’t mean I can’t recognize predatory practices that target vulnerable people who are poorly informed by crappy guidance counselors and uninformed parents.
I don’t want people to think that I’m being self-righteous here. My husband and I made a couple of very poor investments, both with the same person. She was recommended to us, and you would have sworn that she was totally above board. Both investments were real, but one made us nearly nothing; the other was for a development in Orlando (before we moved to Florida). We lost thousands when the developer ran out of money. The financial person disappeared from sight. Fortunately we only lost our own money, not someone else’s, but it was still deeply disappointing.
And well we should. For example, I subscribe to PCGamer magazine. In this month’s issue, they feature a multipage sequence of ads for colleges with courses and degrees in computer games. In the top 25, the magazine lists percent of graduates who get jobs, and their starting salary. On the downside, the stats don’t say if the jobs are in the degree field, and if the salaries cited are average or highest. Furthermore, not every school listed has a complete set of stats.
If colleges would just keep track of graduates’ first job stats and publish them, students and parents could make rational decisions for a major.
But it’s all a result of policy choices, with a dash of “chicken or egg first” thrown in.
Because “everybody should go to college”, loans are made available, and colleges are responding to the economic incentives to capture as much of that available revenue as possible. Because it’s expensive, politicians are incented to make money available to students.
Because “everybody can go to college”, jobs that otherwise would never require a degree now are updated to require that degree. This pushes more people to go to college. Because college is expensive, they demand government programs to help offset the cost.
Stop making the money available, and watch the educational-industrial complex crash.
My approach has always been to offer limited help. My guideline is when someone needs help in a way we can and should provide is to do for them what they cannot do for themselves as they do what they can. I’m seeking to not just remedy the current crisis but to improve their chances for future success which I believe involves helping them to both learn from their mistakes (I have made plenty of those!) and become more confident in their own ability to recover and improve their ability and desire to succeed.
This approach is why I think it is tragic that charity has been too much subsumed by government largess. The government cannot, because its mandate is properly justice not mercy, apply the same conditions as private charities and private citizens can when providing needed help to get someone back on their feet. Unless the conditions applied to the help offered are both realistic and real they cannot be effective motivators.
Government officials are constrained because justice demands that what is available to one must be available to all. That is the reasonable and correct application of principles of justice but it prevents providing the help most needed which is helping one learn how not to get into the same mess all over again. That is certainly something that people could learn on their own but good advice along with the removal of overwhelming anxiety in a crunch makes it more palatable and increases the chances of good outcomes. Either aspect without the other cannot be as successful a formula for incentivizing personal growth and responsibility.
Individuals, churches and other private organizations are free to apply this approach because by operating under the principles of mercy (charity) they have the right to withhold or limit assistance based on attitude and compliance by the recipient which I see as serving the greatest need of those needing help as it serves to foster growth and maturity.
The colleges are not neutral parties. The administrative bloat (required in part to wrangle unfunded federal mandates) is paid for by student loan money, as are all the departments offering XXX Studies (whose graduates’ best chance for employment is in NGOs and government agencies promoting that aspect of the social justice agenda) and their professors, the generally unionized employees that staff them (the administration of all that requires managers and staff, too.)
Glenn Reynolds thinks it all looks like a bubble about to burst:
The other two ways are
1. providing employers with a weeding tool that won’t produce civil rights lawsuits the way an IQ test would.
2. connecting the graduate with a social network that can provide jobs and opportunities later.
Reynolds adds:
Although much howling occurred, requiring work from those who collected welfare was so important! I’m glad to see some states re-instating those programs. How can others not see how important it is for people to appreciate the hand-up and working, too; obviously few of those on the Left value giving the opportunity to gain self-respect and self-reliance; they prefer dependency.
If we could only get people to realize that there are other way to get the education and skills they need, starting with two-year degrees and vocational schools. Maybe you can’t become a lawyer, but a person can receive an excellent education outside of any ivy league school. There’s a fortune to be made if those kinds of schools can be created, although it will be a tough political slog to make that happen.
They prefer the power of having many voting clients to competing for the votes of free citizens (now doesn’t that phrase sound old fashioned.)
I would have paid the $0.99 next week.
Israel, I would have forgotten by then, or been obsessed with trying to remember! It was only a one-minute walk back into the store –done! ;-)
If the government got completely out of the student debt issue, repealed Dodd Frank and other things it does to keep the financial sector from functioning as it ought to for depositors, borrowers and stockholders instead of managers and lending officers, these issues would sort themselves out. Freed of really stupid fearful bureaucrats and dumb law markets work wonders. Of course kids who borrowed a hundred grand or so for gender studies or the equivalent, will just have to go bankrupt, which is suitable for people who started out that way intellectually.
I agree that college is a looming bubble. It’s why I refuse to invest in conventional college savings accounts for my kids.
I think employers will or have begun tentatively rejecting degrees as an employment filter as the crop that benefits from grade inflation and pass/fail for anti-racist ideology becomes more prevalent in the hiring pool.
Kaplan had a great interview on a podcast sometime last month on this subject that is worth a listen.
Could it be that’s why the Left calls them clients?
During the campaigning, Marco Rubio made a big push for vocational schools. I don’t know where that stands now.
Probably the same place everything else Republicans campaigned on…
***I just started looking at the comments, here.***
Fed and government policy does two things: it induces good people to be irresponsible or take bad risks sometimes. It forces you to play defense i.e. “I better buy a house or I’ll get priced out or overpay for education” etc.
It’s not uncomplicated to figure out who is really behaving badly many times.
Remember that “ownership society” garbage that the Bush administration was pushing 15 years ago? This means that the way to survive is buy a house two or three decades ago. ACORN was at the signing ceremony. I am not making that up. Well why in the hell is the cost-of-living so high that this is your best option? Effectively speculating on shelter so you can be a good citizen.
How did this happen? The Fed was too easy, Alan Greenspan, and congress has no idea how to regulate finance. So swallow opioids, get on SSI, and vote for Bernie or Trump.
This cannot go on. We will get a Ron Paul world the hard way. I take no pleasure in saying that.
That is the way I see it. Now I will read the rest of the comments.
WHAT?
The government is the enemy. The media are all statists. Act accordingly.
We’re Living in the Age of Capital Consumption
Be sure to vote. Your vote counts.
There is too much inflation in the system, both CPI and asset inflation. It is killing prosperity and people’s character.
Too much Fed easy money. Bad finance regulation.
This is the right way to view it.
They hijacked the “job signaling” function for their own graft.
You can’t argue with this.
Also it is common practice for those business owners who are putting a company into bankruptcy, to take advantage of Golden Parachute clauses so they walk away with a lot of wealth, just by cashing out.
Since the people who hold the company in receivorship pay the accounts payable debts first, many workers end up losing their retirement funds. But at least the workers don’t have to lie awake at night wondering how their old bosses are doing, because those men and women are doing fine.
@amyschley
I was told way way back in 1978 that it was not possible to declare bankruptcy to rid oneself of one’s student loan debt. Spouse was told same thing when he returned to college in 1997. So I would agree with Amy Schley that it is damn near impossible to have one’s student loans forgiven.
If anyone thinks otherwise, it would so smart for them to take a week off away from typing for free at Ricochet, put together the pamphlet or book describing the “Ten Easy Ways to Discharge Your Student Loans” put together a youtube to promote said book, and watch the money pour in. (Assuming that the methods described are actual and not imaginary methods.)
Big Finance is a menace. I’m not going to say who this person is, but there is a lawyer associated with this place that spouts nonsense on twitter related to this stuff. This lawyer facilitates very similar things and doesn’t want to hear the other side.
Discretionary central banking and bad finance regulation is killing this country. It’s empowering the progressives.
But why would educators ever tell the students applying for student loans how bad a decision it was for them, as without that loan money, the college for whom the counselors and educators work for would not have so much tuition monies? The whole situation is a conflict of interest.