Does Poor = Stupid? Of Course Not — But Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Posted @ 1:08 am - Filed under Financing, Market Correction, subprime

That silly question, so often these days the apparent theme hiding between the lines, was more or less outed yesterday by a Wall Street trader.

Here’s what might be my favorite line of the article:

Did it ever occur to even one of them (them = the poor) that they might pay me back by WORKING HARDER? I don’t think so.

Comment in parenthesis is mine, meant only to ensure you knew he was speaking of the poor.

He was complaining bitterly about the bad loans he’d purchased, saying it was his mistake for lending money to poor folks in the first place. I don’t mean this author in particular, but all the tears being shed on Wall Street, combined with their self righteous finger pointing, is getting old fast.

Can it be agreed up front, we all know some pretty dumb rich folks, and some relatively poor folks who can only be described as brilliant? Of course it can.

The poor = stupid concept is ridiculous on its face. We must stop mistaking poor character for low IQ.

I’ve been poor in my life, and trust me, my IQ might have changed since then, but it surely didn’t head north.

People don’t choose to be born poor. Anyone who believes that, surely rode to school on the little bus. We can get hung up on the endless debate of how people hinder their own success through blah blah blah, psycho-babble. I’m not talking about that. Moreover, poor people in their early adulthood begin to make conscious decisions about their life, much of it to do with money. Though mistakes will certainly be made, most of those who are still poor in their middle and old age, either are in fact stupid, or they chose a lifestyle with which they are content. And if that’s the case, they’re very successful people, and not poor at all.

Often, that lifestyle doesn’t include making a lot of money — but it also doesn’t mean they’re poor. If they’ve got a roof over their heads, food on the table, are responsible for any debt they may incur, and are happy, more power to them. That just makes them regular folks, just like you and me.

However, if they’re unhappy, over 25, and can’t figure things out enough to at least move up, over time, to the lower range of the middle class - they may indeed be stupid.

Stick with me here.

I don’t mean that pejoratively. Grandma harshly admonished me when I was a know-it-all teenager about looking down on folks I considered stupid. She said that most of those I judged stupid, were in fact, not. They were merely living life their way, and not mine. I was being ignorantly arrogant. However, if I was literally correct, and in fact a person was stupid, then how arrogant and compassionless was I to think poorly of them, when they were born that way, and couldn’t change genetic chance? I judge them because they can’t fit 12 ounces into a 10 ounce cup? Now who’s stupid?

Ultimately, she concluded, they were doing their level best. I should help them in any way possible. It was my obligation. She was not happy with me that day.

I think the author of the piece in question, for the most part, wasn’t referring to those who are truly stupid. I think he was talking about the fastest growing class in our country — those who think they’re entitled to everything life has to offer, by virtue of their existence. They have little or no concept of earning their way through life, and are constantly and bitterly surprised by their predictable failures.

They have inferior learning curves by choice. In that sense, they ARE stupid people, (by choice) because they have the minimum innate intelligence required to progress through life successfully, but choose paths leading to consistent failure. Since, by definition they are not stupid, they are where they are economically via all the choices they’ve made freely, and without coercion.

Less than stellar character and a demonstrated lack of intelligence are dangerous to all when one is confused for the other.

In other words, they only have themselves to blame.

The attitude of entitlement has created a new working definition of stupid — and it has very little if anything to do with IQ. And as long as we keep catering to them, instead of allowing them to live the consequences of their freely made choices — we’ll all pay the price.

I say this is the real question: Are we behaving stupidly as a nation by enabling those living their lives founded on the presumption of their right of entitlement? The more we get away from individual responsibility at all levels, the worse it’s gonna get. The sub-prime mess is only the latest illustration.

Much of the sub-prime problem was generated by bad choices, made at every point in the loan process, not just the folks on the bottom of the financial totem pole. The attitude of entitlement engenders excuses and finger pointing at every level. And the ones doing most of that these days, at least from where I sit, are the Wall Street geniuses who decided proven and prudent underwriting was getting in the way of them making billions.

‘Let everyone qualify‘ they cooed to the lenders. They got their wish. Now they’re acting like making billions in profits was their birthright, and the consequences of the risk they took by virtually throwing away safe and secure underwriting standards, should not accrue to them.

Take that kind of thinking and put it into print, then convert it into confetti by sliding it into the shredder. Now take it and spread it evenly on your front lawn, watering generously. Before long you’ll have the greenest grass in your neighborhood.

Acting as if they had the power to suspend the laws of economic physics, merely for their enrichment, is a demonstration of what’s really stupid, on what Grandma would have laughingly called, a grand scale.

Now, remind me please, who it was who put it so succinctly when he said, stupid is as stupid does.

Folks, simply put — if you jump off a roof, you ain’t gonna fall up. And the ground? She’s hard and unforgiving.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 1:08 am and is filed under Financing, Market Correction, subprime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.