Looking for someone to blame...
 

I was watching this call-in show on MSNBC last night while riding the bike. I heard two calls about the financial crisis. The first involved this guy that had just graduated from college. He claimed that he was never educated about credit card debt before college and he got his first credit card his first quarter. He promptly maxed out the $800 limit "on books" (right...). He then said that because of his lack of education regarding credit cards, the CC company kept increasing his limit until he found himself maxed out at $8000. It was almost as if the CC company had made the charges, and he was just the innocent bystander. The whole time I'm thinking, "Really? Somehow you got into college and you thought that card was just 'free money'? And you graduated from that college?" I got into a little bit of credit card debt my freshman year too, but it had nothing to do with lack of education and everything to do with lack of impulse control.

Next call...this lady who is nearing retirement claims that she's been making regular contributions to her 401k for the last 25 years "just like she's supposed to". Now she's ticked off at "the powers that be" because she's taken a 25% hit over the last few months and she doesn't think she can make it up in the next 6 years (the remaining time before retirement). Now I'm thinking: 1) your portfolio should be getting much more conservative if you're that close to retirement--you rolled the dice and lost. 2) you've been the beneficiary of some extraordinary returns the last few years--who are you blaming for that? At worst, the last six months has put you a little behind where you would have been with a constant normal return, and that should easily make up in the next six years. In truth, I suspect she's cut back her contributions because her portfolio was doing so well and now she's pissed off.

Anyway, the victim mentality in this country is just amazing.

Par for the course for MSNBC.

I worry about how you are going to survive in Obamaland. There is still time for you to escape.

I saw the same thing a couple of days ago on a political forum. I think the guy seriously wanted Obama personally to reimburse him for the 500k loss he'd taken and to take personal responsibility for the fact that he's now going to have to delay retirement. I had no hesitations about telling him what an idiot he was if he's two years from retirement and he was still in the market.