Totally agree about the save/spend psychology going on. Again, sad.

I also believe a lot of our behavior as a society comes from the way we were brought up. My parents didn’t buy anything they couldn’t pay cash for. We’re trying to instill that kind of sound financial thinking in our
kids–that’s why we’re raising them in the San Diego (La Jolla) area rather than LA–a little less “la-la landish,” but not much.

Many of our friends in the Hollywood biz live in Malibu.
We were up there over the weekend, and one guy we know just gave his 16-year old boy a Maserati. My 15-year old boy said he’d like one for his 16th birthday. Fat chance.

I told him that, when we got home, I would show him, on paper, exactly how much he’d have to earn to pay for it, and how many years it would take him to do so. We have things like this come up a lot, and it just takes some time, on the part of parents, to give their kids the values they will take with them through life.

Future generations will bear a terrible burden for the excesses of the present generations, so they’d better be ready to cope with that harsh reality.