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Charles Wheelan, Ph.D. The Naked Economist

Charles Wheelan, Ph.D., The Naked Economist

Instant Gratification Nation: Can We Still Sacrifice for the Future?

by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.

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Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008, 12:00AM

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers at Stanford University conducted a now-famous experiment using young children enrolled at Stanford's preschool facility. Experimenters sat the students at a table set with assorted objects that children of that age would find desirable (marshmallows, colored plastic poker chips, stick pretzels, and the like). The students were asked which of the objects they preferred.

Once that was determined, each student was offered an explicit choice that tested his or her ability to defer gratification: Get a reward now or a bigger reward later. The experimenter left the room, leaving a bell on the table in front of the student. If the student rang the bell before the experimenter returned, he or she would get a reward, albeit a less preferred one (a single marshmallow instead of two). However, if the student resisted ringing the bell until the experimenter returned (typically after 15 or 20 minutes), he or she would get something even better -- two marshmallows.

Self-Control Starts Early

The remarkable thing about the study is that a student's ability at age four to defer gratification is correlated with better outcomes much later in life, such as academic and social competence. For example, one follow-up paper found a statistically significant relationship between how long a student waited to ring the bell and -- more than a decade later -- their "ability to cope with frustration and stress in adolescence."

New York Times columnist David Brooks has cited this study and inferred that most social problems are rooted in an inability to defer gratification. He argues that for people with poor self-control "life is a parade of foolish decisions: teen pregnancy, drugs, gambling, truancy and crime." I agree. I can find no other compelling explanation for why someone would do something as utterly ridiculous as dropping out of high school, no matter how bad the school is.

But I'll see David Brooks and raise him one. I find myself asking an even bigger question: Is America as a nation losing its ability to wait for the second marshmallow? By that, I mean can we still muster the political will and personal sacrifice to make investments today that will make us richer and stronger 10, 20, or 50 years from now?

Educational Advances

I came to this question after having two experiences that were quite jarring when considered together. First, I read a chapter on the history of American education in "Handbook of the Economics of Education," a book that's only slightly less exciting than it sounds.

The chapter describes the economic impact of the two major developments that characterize American education policy over the last several centuries. First, states and communities (particularly in New England) were early to offer broad access to taxpayer-supported public education. State laws in the 18th century required towns of a certain size to support a primary school. By the beginning of the 19th century, the U.S. had the highest literacy rate in the world.

Second, the young nation was remarkably aggressive in creating public universities. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the First Morrill Act, providing 11 million acres of public land to the states to enable them to set up what are now known as the land-grant universities -- some of the preeminent research universities in the world to this day. Nearly every state joining the union after 1820 provided for a state university in its constitution.

Both of these developments (along with the later creation of high schools for the general public) help to explain America's remarkable economic performance in the 19th and 20th centuries. As a nation, we systematically set aside a lot of marshmallows so that we would become more prosperous decades, even centuries later.

Sacrificing the Future

After reading that chapter for a class I'm teaching, I had to prepare for a radio show on the economy. So I went to Barack Obama's and John McCain's Web sites to look at their economic agendas. To judge by both their plans, just about every major policy challenge can be addressed by giving some group more marshmallows now -- subsidies here, tax cuts there.

Which is nonsense. The definition of an investment, whether it's public or private, is an undertaking that requires foregoing consumption in the present in order to achieve higher consumption in the future. It's just like the marshmallows, only you get real money, or more life satisfaction, or something else worth waiting for.

I'm beginning to worry that Americans, both individually and in our collective decisions, are staring at the one marshmallow on the table for about six seconds and then stuffing it in their mouths. Not only are we sacrificing our future prosperity, in some cases we're gobbling up the marshmallows that rightfully belong to future generations.

A Bad Behavior Laundry List

Here are some of the things that strike me as worrisome:

1. Entitlements.

We've promised tons of marshmallows to the baby boomers in their retirement (and to the rest of us after that), and I have no idea where we're going to get them. If we do nothing to fix the big entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- they'll essentially grow to consume all of our federal revenues in the coming decades.

It's not sustainable. Is either political candidate talking about this

2. Flat college and high school completion rates.

The economic benefits to education (and to skills in general) are huge and growing. Or, as Johnny Cochran might have said, "Those who learn will earn." For example, the wage gap between high school and college graduates is much larger than it was 30 years ago. That's a problem when our collective human capital is basically stalled. College completion rates for men are actually falling slightly.

3. America's near-zero savings rate.

We're basically spending everything that we make. (Ironically, economists used to say this wasn't much of a problem because home equity doesn't count in the official savings figures; this argument is now a fair bit weaker.)

This would appear to be a private problem; if you don't save for retirement, why should I care? But we now know from the mortgage meltdown that stupid private behavior can come back to bite us all in the rear end.

4. Chronic federal budget deficits.

This is simply the government version of the private savings problem. Most of the states are equally profligate as well. This is particularly unforgivable since the last decade has been a time of reasonable economic prosperity.

What excuse do we have for buying ourselves extra marshmallows and then leaving the bill for our kids? I think it's inexcusable that we haven't asked ourselves to pay for the Iraq War. We've asked volunteers to do the fighting, and we'll leave the bill for others, too.

5. A lack of vision for how ambitious collective endeavors can change the trajectory of our lives.

Where is our Manhattan Project? Our land-grant colleges? Instead, we get tax cuts. There are some good things about that, but we seem to have forgotten that tax cuts can't do anything that requires a major collective investment by society. Tax cuts could never have built the Interstate Highway System, one of the great public investments of all time.

Adventures in Nostalgia

I'll fully admit that this column may be a form of public policy nostalgia. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln's Web page was also full of subsidies and tax cuts, and it was only once in office that he dropped the land-grant-university bomb on an unsuspecting public (rather than, say, selling that land off to timber companies or to housing developers).

But it's worth thinking about. One of the follow-up studies using data from the Stanford marshmallow experiment begins, "To be able to delay immediate satisfaction for the sake of future consequences has long been considered an essential achievement of human development."

Can we still do that?

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242 Comments

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  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, July 30, 2008, 10:01PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Entitlements are a giant looming mess. What's worse - we seem to continue to put off until to tomorrow the bullet we should bite today. Has anyone given any thought to the effect of letting people keep houses they clearly cannot afford. We make it so they are able to (barely) afford their home, but it still leaves them in the poorhouse. They can't stash away a spare dime for retirement, their kids' education or anything else. Fast forward 20-30 years. The Boomers have pillaged the ss and medicare system and taxes are through the roof to pay for that. We passed legislation that cut benefits for future generations but not Boomers because that was all that was politically feasible. Now the very people who had nothing left to save early in life are going to be destitute in old age...and the saga continues.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, July 30, 2008, 1:58PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Article is OK, but the following statement is stupid and elitist "I can find no other compelling explanation for why someone would do something as utterly ridiculous as dropping out of high school". Does the unfortunate circumstance of being born into an abusive home life for which one has to flee in order to survive qualify as a compelling explanation?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 10:44PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I hope that you did not start a copywriting business because your grammar is horrible. "Your" shows possession. "You're" is a contraction that means "You are." You're in serious need of remedial English.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, July 28, 2008, 7:59PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Love the comments, 10 times better than the article. This guy was born with a silver spoon. My advice is start your own company, while your working in a cubicle. I made my fortune 500 company pay for my office expenses. I use to say 1 hour for them, 1 for me. It was a great day when I could finally leave. If you don't become your own boss your doomed!

  • Darknesses - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 5:39AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I believe that this article was very insightful and really hit home on a serious issue that faces our nation. When was the last time you heard in the news, something that we did as a nation to benefit our future. Delayed gratification is in very short supply. With our ability to purchase at the click of our keyboard and the nations gross lack of financial responsibility, I believe that our future is indeed in trouble. I feel that it is not just the governments responsibility to attempt to bail us out of this situation, but our own. We as a nation, appear to have forgot the fundamental values that made us great in the first place. Politics aside, when will we as a people work together to once again realize the American Dream.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 7:59PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Delayed gratification only works if you will get more by delaying gratification - for instance, if you buy stock and it goes down by 20% over the next year, then it would have been better to have just bought something with that cash. For a lot of people, if they work harder at their job, that doesn't mean they will get paid more. A lot of people could work twice as hard as their coworkers and get paid the same (store clerks, government workers, etc.) In such an environment it's rational not to work harder, unless you want to be exploited. Delayed gratification isn't always such a great thing, a lot of times it leads to things like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety, and otherwise everyone should be monks or nuns because they practice delayed gratification more then anyone else. The invisible hand forces delayed gratification, people would like to buy Tesla cars and yachts and country estates and all sorts of other things that they can't afford.

  • USA P - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 2:57AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    3 starts for pointing some of the symptoms of the long term outlook of America's economy. As some other posts mention, the author offers no solution nor does he point out how this is all happening. I would like to suggest the root cause is the Federal Reserve Banking system and central economic planning. This system gives god-like monopoly power to a small secretive family owned bankers, putting America in debt and illegally taxing people on their labor. This system also encourages other monopolies to grow around the people, such as the oil cartel. This system centralizes power to the federal government having the entire nation dependent on bureaucratic departments such as department of education. Why does a sovereign nation have to borrow in the first place, when the US Constitution authorizes Congress to coin money? To whom do we owe money to? Why is the country in constant welfare/warfare state since the conception of the fed? How can capitalism thrive in a credit system and savings are being wiped out either through direct fraud or hyper-inflation? Until we our heads out of the gutter, we call news, and starting asking REAL questions, we will never solve our economic woes.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 11:51PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    This article is good in identifying the problems this country is facing but this is stuff we have known for years. Its nothing new. First off, stop relying on thinking the government is going to bail you out and pay for your retirement. I dont feel bad for the baby boomers because the baby boomers hold most of the wealth in this country. I dont care if they have no money in savings because a closer look at their finances will reveal they own their house, if not houses, outright, paid in full. And the personal savings rate? Americans do save its just the way our government reports it. Its all skewed like every other number and it gives a false reading that we dont save. Look at inflation. Its really running at least 7% but they say its under 3%. They lie on every number. Heres the deal. The days of working for a company for 40 years, grabbing a pension, and saying im retired are gone for good. Americans are going to have to become entrepeneurs and very innovative. We are turning into a survival of the fittest society. Your kids should speak at least 3 languages and be very astute in finance. People are going to have to learn to control their financial destiny by learning about how the stock market operates and about business. I laugh when I hear all the doom and gloom. People, did you honestly think housing was going to go up forever? I honestly think the true survivors in this country are not people who waste money on a useless college degree that teaches you nothing, but on young entrepreneurs who take risks and start businesses. People who think outside the box and are innovative. So everyone stop complaining how this economy sucks and how bush sucks and how obama sucks and how everything sucks. Get off your butt and do something about it. Only you can help yourself. And if you are sitting on tons of credit card debt. You got yourself into that mess. Learn from it.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 11:21PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    As much misery as it would cause for such a large number of Americans, I really believe that the best thing for our country at this point is a repeat of the Great Depression. Few of us can ever truly appreciate what we have if we have never experienced what it is like to be without. One of the primary causes of the sad mess we are in with the savings rate and ballooning consumer debt is that the government has been dead set on a policy for decades to punish those who save and reward those who bury themselves in debt. They've successfully accomplished this by putting the printing press into overdrive and causing inflation to explode as a result. Inflation renders the efforts of savers meaningless and pats the debtors on the back for being irresponsible with their money and futures by making their owed debt less costly. Government bailouts of big financial firms, courtesy of printing green backs. States mandating ethanol additives to our gas, causing huge price jumps in our food. An interest rate lowering, inflation promoting, policy designed to try to hold up the house made of debt that our country has become. Sometimes, I almost wonder if those irresponsible people who are spending every dime they get from their paychecks aren't so foolish after all.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 6:29PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Good article. Trouble is, consumption is addicting. It's like modem versus broadband, going back is very difficult -- we become accustomed to a lifestyle and perhaps even feel entitled to it.

  • JTurn - Friday, July 25, 2008, 6:02PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    I'm giving only 4 points this time because you raise a lot of questions, but offer no solutions - and most of this is fairly well-known stuff. To your question about retirement savings: "This would appear to be a private problem; if you don't save for retirement, why should I care?" The answer is because at some point, we're going to have to cut Social Security benefits to people who have other sources of income - and if you're no saving, you won't have any. Think about Social Security: John McCain is a sitting US Senator. He makes $152,000 per year in that job, plus lots of perks. He has a military pension. And is wife is worth $600 million. So tell me, WHY is he also drawing Social Security? Warren Buffett, one of the richest men on the planet, gets a Social Security check for $1900 every month. WHY? I agree that the ability to delay gratification is one aspect of adulthood that seems to have fallen by the wayside. I have one credit card, I pay it off every month. I have a home equity line of credit, and all I ever use it for is home improvements: increasing the value of the asset upon which it is based. One of the reasons that our government doesn't plan for the long-term is that they are too busy spending money in the short term to buy votes - no Congressman on Capitol Hill thinks farther ahead than the next election. Nor do Presidents, I suspect. Businesses are all about the next quarterly report, not long-term growth. CEOs are worried about their jobs TODAY, not ten years from now. It's a common problem that runs all up and down our society. In our financial markets, we have a very get-rich-quick attitude: that's what drove the dot-com bubble, oil prices, and the current housing crisis - people all trying to get rich in a hurry by investing in tech companies that didn't even have a business plan, or buying real estate with the thought that prices will only go up. It think it's about time that we had a credit crunch in this country - and we should start be limiting how much credit Congress can use. We need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, we need tighter rules on credit and credit cards, we need to plan for long-term median growth instead of quick spurts followed by even quicker crashes. And finally, we need to start investing in our future - education, technology, infrastructure, research, and renewable energy, with an eye to making it all sustainable in the long term. There is a story (probably urban myth) about a man who interviewed the President of one of the Japanese car companies in the 1980s. He asked how far the company's business plan extended, and the President answered, 200 years. The interviewer asked, What does it take to be able to make a 200-year business plan? The answer: Patience.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 3:45PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Wheelan is spot on. This Instant gratification goes right along with the general dumbing down of America. Robbing our future to pay for our latte. In general, a lack of long-term thinking has already been identified as a problem in today's workforce. Employers say their young new hires lack the perseverence to see long projects through to the end. They need constant reassurance that they are doing a good job. Attention spans have been shortening as well. The politicians from long ago, set up many programs to help us today. Today's politicians are only setting themselves up for the next 4 years. Unfortunately, our kids and grandkids are going to be inheriting a very different country than we did.

  • 2006 - Friday, July 25, 2008, 1:36PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    ben bernanke will be remembered as the biggest financial failure of usa history

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 1:21PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Basically this article is basically a great example of this countrie's time honored tradition of "Fiscal Masturbation." First lets look at his "Bad behavior list." ENTITLEMENTS: I once was on welfare myself, and didn't get the "riches" that the Wealthy Whiners say I would get. However, when this country basically has no emphasis of pushing people to work from welfare it shouldn't be surprised what the system looks like. Also, when this country has greedy mentality and values money over ones livelihood, it shouldn't surprise anyone that in a economy that is based on 70% consumer spending, that it takes some government welfare programs to keep going (after all...it's your duty to god and country to spend, spend, spend for the good of your nation..) FLAT COLLEGE COMPLETION RATES: Well unless you are rich like Dr. Whelan, and not dumb, lazy and stupid, this is not your problem. However if you have to scrimp every penny just to get a two year degree, your chances towards completion can be rather tricky in this economy, and worse, there may not be a job at the end of it (I am a living proof), and if you get sick and worn out from all the work it took, then you are in worse shape than before. AMERICA'S NEAR ZERO SAVINGS RATE: After my two years in college, I worked as a Personal Banker, and what I found was really amazing, was the number of people for whom I was closing accounts, because they maxed out their bank accounts. Chief reasons are that our economy is built around 70% consumer spending (duh), and that banks don't like people putting their money into savings accounts. The bank I worked for wanted people with $5,000 or more to see a Investments Services Rep, to put that money into fixed annuities. Basically, better to gamble & spend than save for the future. Then they pushed this stupidity further, by having people use their homes as a Personal Automatic Teller Machine, and take out equity loans, to spend, and in some cases...to play the stock market....a nice mess you have gotten us into. CHRONIC FEDERAL DEFICITS: This idea that all our problems is built around pork-barrelled projects that McCain laments is really stupid. After all, if it weren't for such projects in everyones Congressional District is money supporting local economies. Yet we seem to forget that the biggest Pork Barrell Spending called the Iraq War, where George Jr. and Uncle Dick in the White House bamboozled the voting masses into a war that has rung up $20 billion a month (some being unaccounted in the Enchanted Lands of Iraq), that has gotten the Iranians angry at us, and done nothing to help out the war north of there in Afghanistan. Also, while this war is being fought via loans from the Communists in China (because a large number of Instant Gratification people wanted their Bush Tax Cuts), the day will come when the Commies will come to collect (and a sad day for the Red White & Blue that will be..) and thus Federal Spending is a joke! A LACK OF VISION: This country is built on quick, and easy wealth. That is why people flocked to by oil on the commodities market, and helped destroy the economy. Just a few clicks on the keyboard, will make you wealthy as you suck down your $7 Frappacino from Starbucks: IN CONCLUSION: To blame the poor for entitlements is a joke, when it's our duty to SPEND ourselves into the good times is a joke. To blame the Democrats in Congress for pork barrel spending while we pump $20 billion into Iraq, while generation of U.S. men/woman gets maimed or killed for nothing is a great hypocracy on Federal Spending, and blame the people who bought into the Banking industries false hopes for wealth by using your spending to bet on the economy is highway robbery at it's best. It is a time for a change in Washington (and isn't the GOP), It's time for people to wake up and realize only hard work can get us out of this mess, and a Government that cares more for this country and less of the world it's in!

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 12:50PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Excellent. Solid. Insightful. Yahoo should get Wheelan to give some lessons on financial column writing to Kiyosaki.

  • Leslie - Friday, July 25, 2008, 12:48PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I wonder if easily obtained credit cards have lowered our tolerance for delayed gratification. When I was a teenager and in college I would set money aside for monthes before I bought something. I agree that a college education has gotten really expensive and is contributing to massive debt for young people. But consumer goods are often treated as necessities when they are really luxuries.

  • mleona - Friday, July 25, 2008, 12:22PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Very informative!

  • Wise One - Friday, July 25, 2008, 11:13AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Wow, I am in awe. These are the most intelligent comments I have ever read following an article !! If the majority of Americans were this wise, we would be in very fine shape.

  • infidel - Friday, July 25, 2008, 7:40AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Excellent article and right on. The American public is in a stupor and shows no sign of wakung up. We can't have everything and not want to pay for it (even though we already are). The vote in November will speak to where our future lies.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 5:29AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    The writer of this blog has a lot of wisdom no doubt, but he fails to point out any of the root causes of this problem when adults with credit cards and HELs act like children and go out spend like crazy buying new toys they either don't need at all or should at least put off purchasing until they have some money (real money, not credit) in their wallets. The root cause is the very free enterprise system that we all support and wish it to succeed to improve the so called economy. Consider millions of ads the public has been subjected to and hypnotized by to purchase things they just don't need. This planet has limited resources. It cannot sustain itself when everyone feels and act as if they're entitled to having everything they want, and I dare to say, they need. Even if you need something, it still doesn't mean you should really have it -- let alone feeling entitled to owning all things that you desire and attaining them with fake money (i.e. loans and damned credits of all kinds). I was at the Starbucks (I've been there only 3-4 times since this chain opened and I am a relatively a rich person) when I noticed that people buying $7 Frapicino or whatever it's called (it's nothing more than a lot of ice, sugar, and oridinary coffee mixed in a blender) -- only to take a sip out of it and throwing it in the trash can outside the shop. Shocked as I was I went out and in front of everyone digged into the trash can because I was extremely curious to find out if that was just one person doing it or others might have done the same. I found 5-6 other containers still 60% full in that one trash bin! This was back in 2005. I've not been there since. I suppose people's behavior may have changed now that the era of easy money is over, but I don't know for sure. This is just one example. People are doing the same with Cars, Boats, Home appliances, books they never read beyond the first chapter, clothing, you name it. Nothing has any value to them because they never worked for it -- they just charged it to their credit card. The wonders of a cashless society built on consumer debt! Keep on spending and buying over-priced houses. It's good for the economy. Once in trouble unable to pay those debts, don't worry. Uncle Sam will come to your rescue with bail outs and stimulous checks stolen from those who cared to save and spend wisely.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 11:52PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Somebody complained about trying to buy groceries with a maxxed out credit card. The question is what other garbage he put on that card before heading to the food store. Did he blow his stimulus check on new clothes rather than pay down debt? I don't think that a Starbucks latte should be considered a grocery either.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 11:05PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    To the user who maxed out the credit card on groceries...how are you affording the Internet and why would you choose another medium of advertisement/blatant consumerism/time wasting over food?

  • "Jackson Cash" - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 9:15PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Bravo. I will hand it to you that there is much more that needs awakened, and reading some of the foolish feedback on this reinforces the following: We don't care, because we are unwilling to bend, and those that are offended about an article tear it up like it's the worst thing in the world simply because perspective is different. What a mess we as US citizens have coming... its no wonder the rest of the world is licking their teeth for this young Democratic "experiment" to fail... here comes nationalism.

  • Douglas - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 8:46PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    America needs to learn to live below its income level and save and invest for the future. The clock keeps ticking. What if you can't work when you are 60? We need to develop a savings habit.

  • Chris - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 8:45PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    America was founded by people who wanted to religious and economic freedoms and has turned into a vast waste land. How about the 40 to 50 percent divorce rate? That makes me sick. How about all of the children that grow up without a father? The media is rather quick to evoke negative stereotypes on religion. The first word you hear on TV after Muslims is always *radical* or *militant*. The news programs always have stories about peverted Catholic priests. The more lawsuits the Catholic churh is fighting, the less likely people are to donate money for fear they are paying court costs. They have TV clips of people clapping and singing away in African American churches to evoke even more stereotypes. The only religion that doesn't get a negative rap by the media is the inno ent Jewish religion that is always the victim of a Muslim attack. The religious types are laughed at by the elitest teachers in universities because they believe in a god. They are seen as irrational and brain washed by the pop media as if they believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. You don't ever see positive stories about religion on TV or in the newspaper. It is unbelievable for the average american to realize that people in other countries believe in God above themselves. That some people are willing to sacrafice and try and live a pious life for god. In America it is all about me me me and what handouts the government can give you. Just look at the obesity in this country for the lack of will power. This is a country grew into lazy spoiled brats and I feel that the media demonizing religion and breaking down the family unit is a huge part of it all. The media can glorify drugs, sex, and killing all they want, while Rome burns.

  • MYRON - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 7:08PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    This speaks to those of us who would think ourselves conservative. It should speak to those who fancy themselves patriots. When did it happen that "I" became more important than any larger cause "I" could be part of? What should those whose creation we consume think of us? Why should those, after us, burdened with debrie of our whims respect what we leave them?

  • Michael K - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 5:17PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    When Social Security was enacted in the 1930's,very few were to receive it with the average life span was 64 years of age. Now the boomer generation will leave nothing for the next generation. Maybe gas prices should be $6 a gallon to pay for the Iraq war and get us out of a deficit. I guess the marketers had it right about the boomer generation when they referred to them as the "ME" generation.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 5:03PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    In this global economy, we are now just a player rather than an initiator. If we continue to indulge in material goods and live way beyond our means, we are destined for failure while other countires like Russia, India, and China become more prosperous. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

  • XX - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 4:29PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    If America is going to go through tough times, we'll need a President who can inspire hope in us, not one in the same mold as the current regrettable example.

  • vince - Thursday, July 24, 2008, 2:01PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    great article

Showing comments 6-35 of 242<< PreviousNext >>
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