I’d just finished listening to today’s Planet Money podcast. One of their stories details two public service announcements regarding piggy banks. If you’re a US citizen/resident, then you’ve probably seen one of them. It’s basically exhorts the audience to “feed the pig”. If you have not seen it, then all it amounts to is for everyone to put money away in their “piggy” bank. I can’t seem to take away anything from this commercial but for the question why there was nothing resembling this type of exhortation of austerity while we were flying high on credit and spending.
I can’t give you an answer, but I can tell you a story that may shine a light on the whole situation. There was this period when I was a newly minted engineer working on my first job where every problem I worked on would find its solution in the last problem I solved. Never mind that the last solution wasn’t always the most appropriate solution for the current problem. I see that now very plainly in the way many people operate. There doesn’t seem to be a holistic approach to resolving things.
I would estimate the average memory span of a collective society to be roughly one generation prior. If your parents lived through the Great Depression, then that would probably be the one most strongly imprinted. And so it goes for every generation and it’s forebear. So decisions are always made based on the last problem faced, and not inconsideration of any other problems before and after.
What should you take out of this? I’ve no idea. I can only say that you should take the whole of your experience into consideration when you make a decision. I’ve found that the decisions I least regret over time are the ones that took the past, present and future into consideration. Of course, there are times when one can only choose the lesser of the bad options, but that’s another post altogether.