A false sense of abundance

If there is one thing we are good at here in the U.S. it is making ourselves feel like we have more than we really do. Some of it comes from a strong sense of national pride. This is the United States, since WW II we have been on top of the world, an economic powerhouse of growth and prosperity. Now we are possibly heading into a prolonged recession or a maybe a depression. Where we are in technical terms is less important than the mentality that is out there which is that this is the worst its been in 70 years. While on the one hand there is a lot of gloom in the economic forecast I struggle to feel that this can really be compared to 70 years ago. I was raised with stories from my grandparents about what it was like growing up around that time. The Great Depression created a perception of scarcity and conservation that we do not have today. As I was listening to MPR yesterday I heard someone commenting on one of the shows about the bailout package and how the government had given Citibank all this money and yet now they were dramatically raising their interest rates on credit cards. Their comment was that by raising the rates we were punishing the people who likely needed the money the most. Now I am opposed to predatory lending practices, in particular business that will do the loan until your next paycheck. I find their rates and practices to be exploitive. That being said I also think we need to find a way to make an adjustment here in the U.S. I think we make it too easy for people to simply accrue more debt. We as a culture do not think about what we can afford now, we think about what we can afford later. We also have a higher expectation of what we need to survive. Now, there are a number of people who are in very great need and I do not mean to lessen that. At the same time I see so many people with cell phones and other accessories that are struggling to stay ahead. We create this perception that we need all these things and in doing so only increase the amount we have to spend just to stay afloat. I like having a cell phone and as a pastor I could potentially argue I need it for my job, but I do not think I should hav a cell phone if I am struggling to pay the mortgage. A cell phone is not worth going into debt over, neither is my cable television, my high speed Internet, or many other luxuries I enjoy. This Thanksgiving I think we need to look at our abundance and be truly thankful for what we have but we also need to look at what we have an question whether we should really have it all. Is this perception of abundance worth the debt that we as a society are accruing to have it? I think if we stopped seeing credit cards as a solution we might have a better sense of our current abundance or lack thereof.