An Experiment in Scotch

I lis­ten to WRR on my daily com­mute and Smith Bar­ney cur­rently has a com­mer­cial out with some woman appar­ently whin­ing about how she and her hus­band don’t know how to talk to their kids about money. They can talk about sex, drugs, smok­ing but money? Not a clue. The ad tries to con­vince you that you need a Smith Bar­ney rep to help you talk to your kids about money. The com­mer­cial is part of a big­ger series on Work­ing Wealth, what­ever the hell that is.

I know it’s a com­mer­cial but it dri­ves me insane. On one hand, it makes it dis­turbingly clear why so many peo­ple make hor­ri­ble deci­sions when it comes to their money (ARMs, home equity loans, cars that cost as much as they make in 6 months, etc). But on the other hand, are we really a nation now that doesn’t know how to teach kids about money? Christ, it’s not that hard.

When I was grow­ing up, I had a set of chores and if I did those chores, I got an allowance. Also, if I got straight A’s, I got a bonus. I saved money for things I wanted. Pay for per­for­mance. Objec­tive results, objec­tive rewards. Wel­come to the real world. Instead, this woman says her speech basi­cally goes “well if you get good grades and help out around the house, we’ll talk about it.” Sub­jec­tiv­ity doesn’t cut it if you’re going to reward some­one. Any­one who has ever had to give an employee review knows this.

I know it’s prob­a­bly a stretch but to me, this is an exten­sion of the pro­gres­sive move­ment in Amer­ica basi­cally say­ing “You’re ok, I’m ok.” Rel­a­tivism becomes main­stream. What are good grades? Good for me might be D’s but no sane per­son would think objec­tively that D’s are good. Some things just aren’t rel­a­tive. How you make money and save money are things that aren’t relative.