Published: July 04, 2008 12:23 am            

ALBATYS: Looking for grandpa’s values in candidates

My grandparents were immigrants. They didn’t wade across a river or float over on an overloaded boat. They didn’t sneak in under the cover of darkness. They came from Eastern Europe — via Ellis Island — to settle in a small town in western Massachusetts. They learned the language, found jobs and started a family.

They came here with the hope of finding a better life. They brought with them a hundred dollars, a strong work ethic and a willingness to adapt to the culture of their new home.

They also brought with them a practical nature that bordered on frugality. They lived modestly. My grandparents both worked in a paper mill and saved their money. They bought a small house near the mill. They had four children. One died young. Of the others, their two sons served in World War II and graduated from college, while their daughter became a beautician and a homemaker.

Their story in not unlike countless other American families. They worked hard, raised their families and made their money count. Theirs was a time when you lived within your means. You bought what you needed, not everything you wanted. Furniture was repaired, clothes were mended and very little was wasted. Sunday’s ham became Tuesday’s ham salad and the bone flavored Thursday’s beans.

My grandfather was not a miserly man, nor did he cling to the ways of the past. In fact, he liked technology. He was the first on his street to have electricity. He bought a radio in the 1920s and a TV in the late 1950s. Yet, I doubt that he ever had more than two suits and a handful of shirts at any one time in his life.

Like most Americans, that lived through the Great Depression, he tried to save a little from each paycheck. He avoided debt at all costs. He never made a lot of money, but he paid his bills on time. Granddad thought long and hard before he spent his money. His was the mindset of most Americans of the day.

Now, with the fear of recession on everyone’s mind, it might be time for all of us to do a little soul searching as to how we got to this point.

By the 1970s and 80s most of the lessons of the Great Depression had been lost. Consumers adopted a “live for today” attitude. We bought bigger homes and fancier cars. We became more self indulgent than ever. We created lifestyles that were very expensive to maintain.

We also stopped saving, in the old sense of the word. We relied on our 401(k) plans and the seemingly endless increases in the value of our homes. Even well-intentioned investors are finding out that their 401ks are vulnerable to changes in the stock market and to mismanagement by the firms that invest their money. While our homes remain most peoples best investment, the market seems to be making a needed correction. Simply put, too many people, based their home buying decisions on their anticipated monthly payment rather than the value of the home they were buying. Variable rates, balloon payments and home equity loans all took their toll.

The banks need to shoulder their share of the blame. They handed out credit cards like there was no tomorrow. Millions of dollars worth of unsecured credit boosted consumer spending to unprecedented levels. Even today, most of us can’t go two or three days without finding a pre-approved credit application in our mailbox.

While the banks made it easy, we can’t change the fact that we spent the money. The American Bankers Association estimates that the average family has nearly $8,000 in credit card debt.

By the 1990s the home mortgage business became more competitive than ever. Mortgage brokers shopped for a lender for your home loan. Now, it seems, that some mortgage companies often turned a blind eye to what they knew were questionable loan applications. Sadly, they weren’t at much risk because they were selling these loans to mutual funds and pension plans. With foreclosure rates at an all time high, we are all going to pay for these poor choices.

The government didn’t help matters when they changed the laws that regulated where banks could do business. Years ago, banks primarily were restricted to doing business in the individual state in which they were chartered. More often than not, bankers knew their customers and their market. I’ll never forget what an old banker once told me. “Sometimes the best thing your banker can do for you is to say no.”

The changes in the banking laws created a handful of “mega banks.” These conglomerates swallowed up the local banks all across America. Now you were dealing with a bank headquartered a thousand miles away instead of in your own home town. And the failure of one of these “mega banks,” which is not out of the realm of possibility, would be catastrophic.

I can only imagine what my Granddad would think, if he was alive today. I know he would, in his quiet way, ask me if I was putting a little money back. He would remind me that “you never know what might happen.” He would like my DVD player but would surely wonder why my wife and I need three TVs. He would look at my 3-acre yard and ask why I don’t have a garden or maybe a few chickens.

This fall, I think I want to vote for somebody like my Grandfather.

Andrew J. Albatys is a Henryville resident. He can be reached via e-mail at douglassloop@aol.com.

        

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