People today: ruder than ever?

Sometimes you hear something so much that it simply starts to seem true: something like cultural brainwashing.  I often wonder if that’s true for the premise that people today have somehow taken lack of civility to a new extreme.

It’s easy to see how such brainwashing could occur. I walk around the city on a busy day and see some woman illegally parked and blocking an entire line of traffic–when people honk at her she yells at them.  It’s rather like watching Jerry Springer in French.  Ugly.  And it sticks in my mind, regardless of all the other days I’ve spend wandering the city and never seeing anyone behave like such a cretin.

Later, I run into one of those people in a café and get an earful about how ‘people these days’ don’t know how to act.  A vivid (if anomalous) experience plus a little ranting start to create an impression that I have a hard time fighting: people start to seem pretty rude.

I wouldn’t really know if ‘people these days’ have managed to pull of new feats of rudeness since I’ve only been an adult on the lookout for these things for about 10-15 years. Before that, I was simply a rude teenager   So what about people in the know?  People who’ve been mature adults now for decade upon decade?

Do the more experienced, my elders, have some window into the truth or are they just rehashing some old line–a line that may have originated during, say the barbarian invasions in Europe.  I can see someone coming up with the term ‘people these days‘ at a time where villages were being sacked and pillaged right and left. What a sheer lack of respect!

Those who argue the world is ruder today:

I see a number of people arguing this point.  Some of them, certainly, fall within the ranks of the old and the bitter–you know, the folks who always need to rant about something.  But also . . .

• (some) teachers and professors–if you’ve ever worked in education, you’ll stumble upon many  a conversation about how young people have attained new heights of incivility.  It goes with the trade.  As a high school and middle school teacher, I certainly found myself shocked at times–can’t say that a decade or two ago things were different?
• (some) customer service representatives–salespeople, bankers, hotel owners have oft filled my ear about the increasing disrespect they face at the hands of customers who feel increasingly entitled and who use yelling and insults more than ever as a means for getting what they want.  Once again–I’m sure being yelled at at and insulted at work would curl my hair and stick out in my mind.  I might even be likely to bring it up more later, but does it really happen more now than ever?
• ??? Anyone else feel they’ve seen an increase in incivility in their line of work?

What is rude, anyway?

Many times, when I note a person’s behavior as rude, shocking, uncivilized, It’s because they’ve broken some social rule that I believe in. I often find myself wondering, “Who do you think you are!?”

People argue that adolescents (and even children) no longer  ‘respect’ their teachers or elders, harking back to the ‘good old days’ when you could just smack a kid–and if the parents found out they’d smack them again at home. Would we all just be better off –somehow more respectful–if we started smacking the young and impudent again? Or was the ‘respect’ you may have once seen on the part of the young under such conditions simply balanced out by disrespect on the part of the person doing the corporal punishment?

Perhaps not all relationships have changed so drastically as the teacher/student relationship. I’m sure that hotel owners were never in the habit of smacking potential clients who demanded too much or acted too rudely.  However, I don’t have any real difficulty imagining acts of rudeness taking place during the 17th century–for example.  A wealthy customer walks in the door, insults the hotel owner. . .it seems a fairly believable scenario to me.

However–being disrespectful to someone within the confines of social hierarchy often goes unpunished and unnoticed. I can very easily imagine a a noble insulting a serf with impunity–or for a more typically American historical reference–a white person disrespecting a black person back in the Jim Crow days.  I wonder if folks shook their heads at that kind of behavior thinking, “Ugh, people these days are so rude,” or if they perhaps failed to notice the insults and injuries because they fell into a social order that had already been accepted.

One thing is sure, insults and disrespect flowing up the food chain would no doubt have resulted in someone asking the question, “Who do you think you are?”  And then most likely dolling some very tangible consequences for the breach in the social order.

Rudeness without the social stratification:

Could it be that these days, you don’t have to be in a position that commands respect or authority to mouth off and say something rude? I’m certain that being the object of rudeness or disrespect doesn’t feel any better today than it ever did.  But I suspect that a great deal of disrespect went unnoticed and unpunished in the past because it was socially accepted.  Our social hierarchy has weakened since, so we now have an equal opportunity for disrespect.

Perhaps what we need to do is decide whether or not we really want to exercise our new-found ‘right’ to be rude–what do you think?

Technology and entertainment making us unhappy?

A friend recently recounted over dinner in our home that he could remember sitting around with family late into the evening, soaking up long, rambling conversations with a clay roofing tile on his leg and a hammer in his hand–shelling walnuts.  For him, this was a happy memory.  And then he pointed out,

Try taking away my grand daughter’s cell phone and making her sit up with the old folks all night shelling walnuts.  We’ll just see what happens . . .

Times have certainly changed.   Every day, I hear people questioning whether the global economy will allow us to sustain our love affair with cable, 24-hour TV, cell phones, internet. . .and whether we wouldn’t be better off without them.

Gadgets, toys and disposable income–inversely related to connections with people?

Are we, as Putnam once argued in Bowling Alone, experiencing a loss in ’social capital’ due to the various opportunities to ‘plug in’ to some form of technology or entertainment? Putnam’s book of course, focused on a predicament in the US, fretting over the lack of people involved in social organizations.   Notably, that book was written from a US perspective, still, I hear people worrying in France about the same issues.

Can technologies and gadgets actually connect people? Think of the last time you saw a teenager free to use his/her cellphone at will.  It’s almost as if they’ve created a means in which they can stay in constant contact with others.  Internet can be used in much the same way.  Look at blogging, for example!  Here I am, typing up my ideas and engaging others out there in a conversation.  I ‘meet’ people all over the world, read what they have to say, get to know their way of thinking and their perspective on life, jump into discussions.  I may not be seeing these people face to face, but you cannot argue with the social nature of this media.

Is our disposable income and our use of technology taking away from real relationships? It’s hard for me to say.  I can certainly think of some examples of people I know for whom this is true.  They come home from work and turn on the TV or log into a video game and don’t look up again.  This hardly teaches a person to relate to others.  It hardly forges connections.  Then again, use of technology hardly has to mean avoiding social situations to the kind of extremes I’ve just mentioned. . .

Would a reduction in standard of living break our addiction to technology, making us . . .happier??

Would a sudden drop in income lead you to abandon some of your technological pastimes? In our recent discussion on where to cut back in a pinch, many people pointed to cable, cell phones and other ‘gadgets’ as their first line of cuts.  So I suppose a sudden decline in standard of living might limit purchase and use of these technological commodities.
Would a sudden drop in time spend with electronics and entertainment make you a happier person? I must admit that I actually dread my cell phone.  I can’t really get used to it.  I have no desire to be in constant contact with people who are not actually with me.  I also have grown shockingly weary of social media like Facebook–I initially enjoyed it as a way to keep in touch with friends while living abroad, but really I find myself unable to keep up with the Vampire Wars and the virtual lives of others.  Still, I enjoy the internet and am addicted to the fact that if a strange question pops into my mind, I can dig around and find an answer.  And I do enjoy blogging and reading blogs.

But with the suddenly beautiful weather and springtime in the Alps, I’m reminded that I can be happy for days on end without technology.

What do you think?

Do you think we will be forced to cut back on consumption of technology and entertainment in days to come?  Will it make us better, happier people??

Weekly Post Picks:

I may be a little behind in my posting, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few great blog posts to share with you this week.  Enjoy:

On Funny about Money: an interesting article on unemployment, political polarization as major threats to the US economy in United We Stand

Consciously Frugal asks Are you Wealthy? and gives us a Global Perspective.

On Canadian Dream: Free at 45, Dave wonders whether gambling on sports team would be a better bet than Playing the Stock Market.

From Laura at Move to Portugal, we get a budget primer in How we work that: budget.

And Lean Life Coach from Eliminate the Muda ponders the topic of alternative Retirement Dwellings in this interesting economy.

Where would you pinch pennies if you had to?

What if your income suddenly shrank a few sizes? Do you have any clearly identified luxuries that would be first on your list of items to go?  Or would you have to scour an already streamlined budget to get by?

I’ve been asking myself these questions lately as the French media and the French population mull over various ways the government could control its debt. In recent light of the Greek crisis, responsible solutions promoted usually involve cutting spending (raising costs to average people) or raising taxes income and sales tax. . . or both.  Of course, there will be squabbling about where to make cuts and plenty of political battles, yet one thing seems certain: here in France, spending power looks like its going to go down–again.

I’m curious to know if the mood in the States is the same–if people are resigned to pinching pennies to help pay down the government debt. I follow US news, but I haven’t noticed the same ruminations about a coming “tightening of the belts.”  Perhaps Stateside, people are holding out hope that a nice upshift in the economy will shrink the government debt.  Or perhaps its the knowledge that the dollar is easier to deflate if needed than the Euro.

What can you live without?

While a cost of living increase or a decrease in income are never a welcome prospect, I’m optimistic about my abilities to keep living a happy life. After all, most of us in the blogosphere have a higher standard of living than many, many people around the world.  And we also have a higher standard of living than people of most other time periods as well.  It’s always hard to take a pay cut, or to stop indulging in certain habitual luxuries . . . at first.  But I’ve seen numerous examples of people living quite happily on far less than we spend each month.

My strategy for pinching pennies if needed:

Although I don’t know exactly when/if cuts to our income could be coming, I have already started to look over our situation to figure out the possibilities.  Here are my steps:

1. Take a look over our monthly expense spreadsheets and see if I can spot any ‘leaks’ in the budget.
2. In our case, I’d say our grocery bill is a little high–ahem 300-400 euros for two per month.  We’re lucky actually to have such an easy area to streamline.   We could probably save 75 euros a month easily here.
   
3. I’ve also got to admit that I’d be targeting our ‘fun’ category. Likely spots for cutting would be my pottery classes (sniff!) as well as a little pinching in the area of wine tasting. . .um, yes, that’s part of our budget actually.  Here, we could save about 50 euros a month without causing ourselves too much pain.
   
4. If I wanted to be even bolder, I could make plans to lower our rent.  We splurged on a very nice apartment last year in a rather pricey location, but we certainly have the option of taking a lower-rent place–without getting ourselves into trouble as we did in Marseilles!  We’d probably stand to save at least 100 euros a month by accepting a slightly smaller place.
   
5. Cutting commute distances is another way we could potentially save, assuming my husband doesn’t mind teaching in the same town he lives in–he sometimes gets picky about this.  I can’t completely blame him Still, living closer to DH’s work would cut our living expenses by close to 50 euros a month.
   

Well, that’s 275 euros a month.  Considering our living expenses are currently at about 2000 a month, that’s a little over 10% of our budget.  If you have a bigger budget, you might be thinking that 275 euros is just a drop in the bucket–to which I’d argue that you might have an even easier time pinching pennies.  If you’re used to living on 4-10,000 a month, you most likely have even more leeway than we do.

So how would you pinch your pennies?

Maybe you have no need to tweak your budget at all. . . or maybe you’re considering changing jobs and taking a lower income or even facing a layoff. Regardless of the situation, I’m curious to know how you’d go about losing the ‘fat’ in your budget if you found you needed to.  Where could you cut painlessly? Where would cuts take a little more creativity?

What are your favorite simple or frugal sports?

Everyone needs a good dose of exercise and sunshine, and seeking to lead a simple life, save money or consume less shouldn’t mean cutting back on basic needs.  In fact, I’d argue that when a sport or athletic pastime is a passion, it just might qualify as a frugal luxury.

As always, I’m curious to know what you think.  How do you save on sports?  When do you splurge?

Why sports and exercise are frugal:

Free fun, social time and entertainment! While many sports require some equipment, after an initial investment, you can participate in a number of sports for absolutely nothing.  Have a pair of tennis shoes?  A bike?  Then you’re set to ride or run anytime on your own or with a social organization.  I find that physical hobbies ‘compete’ with time and energy for more expensive and consumer oriented ones.  If I know there are only so many hours in my weekend and I want to ride my bike with a friend or head out with my hiking group, then dinner and a movie get pushed to the back burner.  And shopping for ‘fun?’  There’s no time in my schedule.

Health benefits: The readers of this blog are an educated bunch, so I’m sure you’re aware that staying in decent athletic condition will keep you healthier and with fewer aches and pains.  We had our own personal reminder of the health benefits of exercise this year as DH was recovering from his car accident.  Several of his physical therapists and doctors told him that he could thank at least a part of his relatively speedy progress to the fact that he was in excellent physical condition to begin with.

Sports and exercise on a budget:

Obviously, some sports cost more than others.  One of my favorite sports for a long time, running, cost me one pair of good running shoes a year.  I occasionally splurged on a rain jacket for runs or the entry fee for a race, but generally, running cost me next to nothing, required no real storage of equipment and was completely portable.  Some other great (and potentially frugal sports):

Extremely Frugal Sports:

• Any free social sport–I’ve seen people have a blast being on soccer teams, softball teams or showing up for pick up basketball games, dodge-ball, ultimate Frisbee or even splendid Frisbee. . .if you don’t already have friends involved in local activities, it’s not hard to start up your own group of enthusiasts using meetup, craigslist or, here in France, by starting and listing an association with the town hall.
• Individual sports with low equipment requirements–once again, running, hiking, swimming (provided you have access to a low-cost neighborhood pool or the ocean).

Sports that can be as frugal as you make them:

• High equipment sports: As long as you don’t fall into the trap of constantly buying more or confuse being well-equipped with having a good time, you can do a number of equipment heavy sports without murdering your budget.  If you’re just starting out, you can almost always find used gear online or through a local exchange or garage sale: bikes, hockey sticks, surfboards–the sky is the limit really.  If you find that you’re really smitten with an athletic activity and you want to splurge on some high quality gear, I’d argue that it’s still a frugal choice if you intend to make the gear last 10-20 years.

• Activities you can learn on your own with books, podcasts or videos. Back when I lived in Seattle, I had a friend who would force me to do Tae Bo with her in time with a video in an apartment.  Quite frankly, it is such a ridiculous process that half the workout came from the belly laughing, but on a rainy day (or for six months straight of rainy days), a cheap indoor workout can be a lifesaver.  No gym membership required!  Yoga is a similar athletic pastime that can cost a pretty penny. . .but that doesn’t have to.  You can pay for expensive yoga classes that will run you 7-20 dollars per class depending upon where you live or you can learn yoga from books, videos, and podcasts.

Your favorite sports and how you keep them frugal:

I know that a number of you are already engaged in a variety of frugal athletic activities as well as a few that would qualify more as frugal luxuries.  I’d love to hear your tips and ideas on the topic.

Can you be more frugal in town or in the country?

Local pastry shop--one of the temptations of city life.

If you’ve read my recent guest post at Well-Heeled Blog, then you know that DH and I have decided to settle in a much more rural area here in France.  Our decision to skip out of the biggest population centers pivoted largely on the fact that the cost of housing there seemed to negate the added monetary benefit of my career potential in a larger city.  But we’ve still got a fairly big decision to make: do we live in a small city (about 50,000 people) or do we live in small town or village (around 1000 people).

Financial considerations of city versus country living.

Why living in a city is frugal:

• You may be able to park the car and save on gas and maintenance. . .you may even be able to live without a car!  (The city we’re looking at has free bus service).
• You’re close to most services and shopping–which can make it easier to find savings and comparison shop.  Some of the villages around here don’t even have a single shop–not a bakery, not a grocery stop, nothing!  In such small areas, you can easily find yourself subject to a ‘convenience’ tax when you are forced to do your errands close to home.
• You may find more jobs.  I wouldn’t exactly say that the small city we’re considering is a mecca of career opportunities for me, but at the same time, it looks like I’d have quite a few more options for work than if we lived out in the boonies.

Why living in the country is frugal:

• You can (usually) afford a better home for your money.  In our case, this would mean a 3-bedroom house rather than a 3-bedroom apartment.
• If you have land around your home or are close to some land you can use, you can start your own garden–a frugal exploit in it’s own right.
  

  Raw milk for sale in a small village.

• You may be able to have a shed or workshop allowing you to work on projects you wouldn’t work on in an apartment (repairs, soap-making . . .)
• You avoid the constant temptations to spend that you find in the city.  I certainly noticed this when living in our village recently–there were no shops to window-gaze, and you can only go to the same café so many times before it gets old.
• You can occasionally buy products like vegetables, meat, milk and cheese directly from the producers.
• You are (usually) closer to nature and hence free entertainment.  We love to hike and bike, so finding a location where you can do so without ‘leaving town’ appeals to us a great deal.
• Property taxes are far lower (if the township has its act together!!).

City or country, which makes the best money sense?

What do you think makes more sense money-wise?  Did you ultimately make your decisions based on being smart with money or did other factors come into play when you chose your home?

Passing the French Driving Test–and weekly post picks.

Regular readers may have noticed that my blogging has been a bit erratic lately.  This is in large part due to the fact that I got a sudden opportunity to take the driving test last week. I took several refresher courses with the local auto ecole to make sure that I was not to rusty with a stick shift (or with the treacherous right of way rules!!).  Seeing as I am a rather. . .anxious person, I was a nervous wreck leading up to the test and in the days that followed.

Strangely, here in France, you receive the results of your driver’s test by mail–apparently, this is due to some altercations and fisticuffs that had begun to occur as people failed their driving tests.  I struggle to imagine it at the local DMV back in California.  The DMV generally scares me (or demoralizes me) into submission–how about you?

I got 26 of the 30 possible points–20 is passing.  Even though at one point about five errant dogs blocked my path for several minutes, making me want to honk and swear, although it was technically illegal in an area with houses nearby.  In true French fashion, the driving ‘inspector’ honked and yelled profanities in my place.  I won’t say I passed with flying colors, but I don’t really care.  I’m done jumping through one of the sets of hoops that comes with living in a foreign country.  Now for that pesky nationality request. . .

I hope to get back to a more predictable posting schedule now that I have all that driving business behind me.  In the meantime, you can check out my recent guest post on Well-Heeled Blog: Biggest Money Conflict Ever: is my career worth it? It discusses my (controversial?) decision that my former teaching career just isn’t worth it here in France.

A few more fun posts this week:

Could Bartering Replace Currency? at Frugal Zeitgeist

Is Greece the End of  a Fiat Currency? at Money Energy

Line Drying the Laundry at Funny about Money

Pushing your agenda: good or bad? at Stress Warrior

And a few carnivals for your consideration:

Best of Money Carnival-the mother’s day edition at Eliminate the Muda!

Yakezi Carnifal–the travel edition at 151 days off.

The Festival of Frugality–the peer pressure edition at Live Real Now.

Do you need a financial makeover?

When do you know it’s time for a change financially?  It’s not like you suddenly look in the mirror and see that your haircut has grown out or put on a pair of pants and find that they now struggle to contain your new (ahem) curves.  As I was reading Health and Dollars: A challenge at Funny about Money, I realized:  It’s hard not to see the signs of neglect to your body, but financial problems?  Easier to miss, if not willfully ignore. And ‘flabby finances’ can make it difficult to pinch pennies should the need suddenly arise–much like poor physical condition can make it all but impossible to join into an pickup game or go for a jog. . .

Lately, I’ve been thinking I need a financial makeover of sorts.  It’s taken a long time to notice because bank accounts don’t come with noticeably pale cheeks and retirement accounts don’t have bellies that hang over their jeans.  Still, my finances are a bit sloppy lately.  How about you?  Are your finances in good shape, or could they use a gym membership. . .or a diet?

Five ways to tell if you need a financial makeover:

I’m guilty of at least three of these lately.   Maybe you have some other tell-tale signs of a need for serious financial change.  Please feel free to share them below.

1.  Emergency fund issues!

I’d argue the emergency fund is one of the most important parts of the financial picture.  There could be lots of problems with an emergency fund.  It could be underfunded (or non-existent).  It could also be saved in an inappropriate form. . . which is our case.  Right now, a large part of our ‘emergency fund,’ roughly 17% of our net worth is sitting in checking accounts.  Not too smart.  The money we have in the US would be better off in laddered CD’s–here in France, we’re better off putting it into a variety of savings options offered by banks.  A little interest would be nice, eh?

2. Unorganized Accounts, account holders and beneficiaries:

DH and I are on most of our accounts together, however, since his car accident, we realized that there were a few accounts on which I was not even named.  This meant that when one of the accounts ran out of money and DH was in the hospital, I actually couldn’t make a transfer to bring up the balance.  Now there’s  a mess waiting to happen!  In recent weeks, we’ve been trying to right this and have taken the following steps:

• Making sure both of us are on all accounts in case of another health emergency.
  
• Making sure beneficiaries of accounts (especially retirement accounts) are updated.
  
• Making sure all account records are accessible to both of us in the same place!  Since we’re an international couple and since we married once many of these accounts were already in place, we’re still getting our act together on this.
  

3. Investments/placement of money that doesn’t make sense:

Do your finances have any of the following mistakes?   (Once again, I’m guilty of a few of these myself!)

• Money you intend to spend soon in a high-risk investment.
• Money you intend to invest long term in an investment with returns that are too low (yes, perhaps also too low of risk).  Yes, I actually recently discovered that some of my retirement savings are set to earn 2%. . .probably not a wise way to guard against inflation for the next 30-40 years!
• Large amounts of money placed in accounts that charge a fee and aren’t paying  interest!
• Too much of the emergency fund stored in the wrong currency.  Um, this may be a personal problem and to an extent it’s intentional, but the last thing we need is to be forced to put our funds through a currency exchange at an inopportune time–and is it just me, or do emergencies always seem to happen at inopportune times?
• Excessive non-emergency savings stored at low interest while you have higher interest debt in another place.

4.  More money going out than coming in (or worse, you don’t actually know!)

Seeing as DH and I enjoy the challenge of being cheapskates much of the time, we don’t currently have this problem;) But in my humble opinion, spending more than you earn each month (or just plain old not knowing!) is a recipe for disaster.  I may be busy right now, but I am still keeping tabs of our cash flow by tracking our expenses.

5.  Unbridled and unexamined accumulation of debt:

Ever been in this situation? you don’t have the money, you need something, you cringe and slap it on your credit card. . .and then you don’t even want to look at the card later!  I mention this because I’ve seen it happen (and frankly, I’ve lived through periods like this myself).  I can remember thinking, “Oh, it’s bad, ok!  I’m not going to look.” But frankly, being familiar with your debt, how fast it is growing and your options for repayment is essential to recovery.

Do you have any financial makeover plans?

I’d be curious to hear if anyone else is working on getting his/her financial house in order–or if you’re simply much more organized than I am.  Feel free to add any of your own goals or tips! I intend to work on our account organization and documentation, while also making sure that our different funds (emergency, down payment, retirement) are invested in the right place.  What are your financial plans?

Learn the local language, travel on the cheap

Wanderlust anyone?  You may be planning a trip abroad or just fantasizing about one, but don’t forget to include a little language learning in your preparations–if you want to save money, that is.

How speaking the language will save you . . . click here to view my full guest post at Young and Thrifty.

And if you’re unfamiliar with Young and Thrifty, you may want to browse the site a bit.   It’s not everyday you run into a Personal Finance blog that is not only reader-friendly but also has the goal of “saving generation Y.”  Of course, I’ll be reading and taking part in the discussion at Young and Thrifty, should you chose to comment there.

Your Favorite DIY’s–frugal? entertaining? both?

Do it yourself and simple/frugal go hand in hand.

I’ve found that every 10 hours I cut off my work week has changed my outlook on time and money

Sourdough starter

drastically. When I worked 70 hours a week, I would not have even contemplated making homemade bread, designing my own makeshift closet, making a thermal cooker or learning to do pottery, for example.  I counted my minutes out like a miser counts his pennies.  No way was I going to spend my precious time watching yeast do its thing!  And if I could spend $20 to buy back a few hours of my time from chores, cooking, financial planning or working–the money would fly. Likewise, reducing the time spent working freed up time to do money-saving activities. . .

The simple act of cutting back to 50-60 hours a week felt like some kind of revolution for me. Suddenly, I had the patience to call and argue about a mistake on a bill, or plant potted herbs and lettuce on my balcony.  Some of these activities, I even found I enjoyed–once spending the time no longer meant sacrificing my sleep or my health.

DIY–saving money while having fun.

My recent foray into unemployment has lead me to contemplate DIY projects in an entirely different manner.  I find that I do things myself for a variety of reasons:

• To save money (baking bread and most cooking fall under this category for me)
  

  Homemade bread--a favorite DIY.

• Higher quality (any food item, home grown vegetables and fruits and potentially homemade clothing)
• Entertainment, a sense of mastery and fun! (pottery-making, for example)
• Satisfaction–that I don’t have to rely on a specific manufacturer, grocery store etc for what I want or need: (shampoo alternatives, homemade deodorant and my makeshift closet fall under this category)

DIY and ‘What do you do all day?’

People have the most amusing ideas about being bored without their jobs and paid entertainment. I’ve been unemployed for coming up on a year (not on purpose, but hey!).  I’ve never been bored mainly because given a little spare time to work with my mind rattles off all kinds of oddball ideas. . .what if I could make my own soap?  What if I built an insulating window-covering?  What if I grew my own sourdough starter? Some save more money than others, but the creating and learning process certainly keeps me entertained.

in progress--tomato seedlings

What are your favorite DIY activities and why?

I certainly don’t think that money is the only purpose for engaging in a DIY project.  I’m curious to know what your favorite DIY projects/activities are.  Do you chose activities for enjoyment or because they save money?  Is there a new DIY activity that you’re particularly proud of or one that you hope to take on sometime soon?

Greeks, Goldman Sachs, US Goverment–whose mess is it?

Note: this post was inspired by a lively back and forth between the authors of the Monevator and Money Energy on the issues surrounding the Goldman Sachs scandals, the responsibilities of various nations involved and the economic differences between the US and Greece.  You can see those posts and threads here and here.

Watching the Goldman Sachs scandals unfold as a US citizen and resident of France has been an interesting journey to say the least. To me, Goldman Sach’s entanglements with Greece felt to me like an act of war on the European Union. I wondered what the US government would have to say about all this and discovered, to my mystification, that all of Goldman Sach’s questionable behavior both in Europe and the US appeared (mostly!) legal.  See this great Newshour report for a summary of how this is possible if, like me, you still struggle to fathom it–this explanation is for Goldman Sachs’ shenanigans in the US, but the basic principles are the same as with the Greek fiasco.

Blaming Goldman Sachs? Too easy, I’m afraid.

Goldman Sachs did what any an amoral(immoral) corporation would: make money by any means legally possible. They make an easy target for hatred, especially when you see the contents of their personal emails splashed about the news (who are these people?!?) or watch their representatives being vilified by congress (Newshour coverage).  Here’s a gem from Senator John Ensign of Nevada during recent Senate hearings:

I think most people in Las Vegas would take offense at having Wall Street compared to Las Vegas, because, in Las Vegas, actually, people know that the odds are against them. They play anyway. On Wall Street, they manipulate the odds while you’re playing the game.

Does that tongue-lashing make you feel better?  . . . Me either. Part of me would love to see Goldman Sachs actually face the real threat of being held legally accountable for their actions–but that would have required their actions actually being illegal.

Blaming the US congress and US voters?

I’m not particularly impressed by our members of congress at this time. Perhaps US voters should consider vilifying (and then voting out) our politicians, rather than allowing ourselves to be distracted by their silly Senate hearings about actions the implicitly appear to condone when they refuse to make them illegal.   Indeed, by sitting back and failing to act, we are also condoning such behavior. 

And what about those Greeks?

The French media are very preoccupied with the financial corruption of the Greek government, and the rampant tax evasion that occurs there. Often sited here in France as a symbol of corruption and irresponsibility, le travail au noir, or under the table work is a common source of contention.

After all, if you found yourself forced to shoulder the debts of a fellow Euro nation, wouldn’t you want to know that the citizens of that nation were at least paying their own fair share of taxes? It all starts to seem rather incredible watching people who allegedly don’t pay into their own social programs rioting in the streets when those social programs prove underfunded.

Greek Fiscal Fraud–is it justified?

Recently, I saw a most compelling article at Le Figaro, in which Catherine Schlepp, a former resident of Greece sets out to explain the rampant under-the-table work environment in Greece.  By the time I’d finished reading it, it had  me wondering whether I wouldn’t be guilty of tax evasion myself if I lived in Greece.  As Schlepp puts it:

If the Greeks cheat and refuse to pay their taxes, if fiscal fraud has become a national sport, it’s also because the role of the government is less visible than it is in France.”

She then further details failures in all areas of Greece’s public sector from education, to the hospital system and the justice system and depicts a country with relatively low social assistance for the unemployed.  Given such a track record, it’s no wonder the Greek government struggles to impose new taxes or simply collect those already in place.  The question the Greeks seem to be asking: “What have you done for me lately?”

Schlepp argues, rather convincingly, that for the Greeks tax evasion has become a “condition of survival.” Indeed, when you factor in the arrival of the Euro, the already struggling Greeks have seen their cost of living skyrocket, keeping pace with the costs in other European countries while their salaries have failed to budge.

How relevant is the Greek example to other nations today?

What has happened (over many decades) in Greece is what happens in any nation on any continent whose government becomes too corrupt and inept to help its own citizens–or to allow them to support themselves financially without cheating. To say that economically the US is better off than Greece might well be true.  Politically, however, the US government seems to be heading closer every day towards the kind of monumental political folly that got the Greeks where they are today.  I would argue that it’s a matter of degree, and perhaps time.

And here in Europe, the question of travail au noir as people attempt to make ends meet and lose faith in their governments does not seem isolated to Greece. Here in France, I hear people talking on a daily basis about the extra hours they work on a ‘cash’ basis or that contractor for home repairs paid au noir.
Lest anyone argue (fairly) that the above is mere anecdotal evidence, I present you with the fact that under-the-table wage earners doubled in France between 2003-2008. And 65% of those caught working tax-free were French nationals–not immigrants.  See full article here (in French).  I’m sure we will discover similar problems in countries (Portugal) as well in the days to come.

Is it just me or is the guilt spread around?

I’m starting to wonder if anyone is going to escape blame here–with the possible exception of the Canadians . On one hand, it’s easy to smell a rat in the Goldman Sachs escapades, although they may have been technically legal.  And these same Wall Street companies seem to only be able to do their deals when political leaders turn their heads to their ways and average citizens become greedy (as in the US) or willing break the law (as in Greece).

What are your thoughts on the legality and morality of the Goldman Sachs scandals on these two continents?  Do regular people have as much responsibility as corporations to behave ethically?  Are the Greeks behaving unethically when they refuse to fork over their legal share of taxes to their (corrupt) government?