First of all, Miss Cheapist is so happy that Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. She will take a tremendous risk and say that her faith in democracy is restored, and she looks to the future reconnected with her own past idealism. The news of his victory also marked the end of her two- month long period of writer’s block, and she was finally able to finish this post.
With the stock market seeming to fall to the same odds as tugging the slot machines in AC and the profitability of real estate debunked, Miss Cheapist feels more confidently than ever that inheriting money is the only reliable way to get rich. However, acceptance of family money can also bring with it certain obligations and complicity, and as a result, cannot be over-analyzed or relied upon. If anything, the current financial crisis confirms that being really rich requires the exploitation of others, in effect, rendering all big money (old or new) somewhat dirty. Regardless, family money always will be highly valued and worth discussing because its influence (and absence) remains with us always; it begins with childhood narratives, evolves into adult hang-ups and with time, shapes retirement realities.
Miss Cheapist has noticed that in every family, children are given a certain message about money. More often than not, it is shrouded in mystery, and parents present themselves as either richer or poorer than they really are, with the hopes that it will cultivate a certain work ethic in their child. Those who fear that their children will become spoiled may lecture about how they must struggle to carve out a middle class existence and can still barely afford anything; all the while hiding the truth that they are indeed the ‘millionaires next door.’ Such parents promote anti-materialism and austerity plans, even charging market-value rent when a 30-something moves back home. Others, fearing their children will become anxious among peers with more spending power, reassure them that the coffers are well maintained, buy everything that “other kids have,” and promise that money will flow freely for generations to come—even when such security may not really exist. As time passes, new messages about money can emerge, depending upon what seems to motivate the descendant. Money is only doled out as an incentive or reward, while for others, the lesson of doing things just for the sake of contributing is emphasized, and as a result, material rewards are withheld. Some self-made parents may simply create distance between their own wealth and that of their children, taking greater pride in the possibility that their own tenacity and “tough love” will create another generation of Horatio Algers, and not complacent pleasure seeking parasites of the trust fund ilk. To Miss Cheapist, these are all different versions of the same mind-fuck that persists in the parent-child relationship, where control trumps all else, even when tinged with good intentions. Perhaps in a Part II installation of this post, she can bore you with various anecdotes about family money and the lessons learned--from Tori Spelling to her own peers who have inherited money as a result of family tragedy, the stories are far too extensive to tell here.
While an elite group of Gordon Geckos and their reptiles in training have sacked the country with 700 billion plus dollars of bad investments, the rest of us must wait helplessly to witness the true impact of this nasty “correction.” Is this really what we wanted? Will New York become affordable for ordinary working people, or does our reliance on these scions of industry now force us to tumble down with them? Will socialism reign supreme? Sadly it seems that the classes are so economically intertwined that a sort of family drama is playing itself out on a national scale: the fallen paternal figure and a second generation that must suffer the consequences. Seems many of us have become infantilized by the paternal negligence of a free market, and as we outgrow our illusion of rugged individualism, it’s very possible that our collective inheritance will drift even farther from reach.
