It’s time to start doing things differently

Listen to this article

If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

Versions of this adage have been around for generations, and I am as much a creature of habit as anyone, but in this season of new beginnings, is it time to look into the mirror of today’s “new normal” and seriously ask “Are we getting what we really want?”

From retailers to sports heroes, and from politicians to paid spokespersons, I am constantly told the American economy demands consumer spending.  Isn’t everyone supposed to buy a new coat, an e-reader, the latest and greatest entertainment center and take a second honeymoon this holiday season to help America dig out of its funk?

America invented credit cards and home equity loans. Surely, those were good ideas and, surely, if we keep doing what we‘ve always done, we will get what we want? Or will we?

Isn’t doing what we’ve always done what actually got us into this mess?

As I review rental applications each day, I notice at least two trends. A recently noted trend is that bigger houses filled with pretty clothes, new cars, electronics and toys galore coupled with credit cards, home equity loans and excessive consumption are changing America’s homeowners back into America’s tenants. Rental occupancy is up, while homeownership is down for the sixth straight year.

An older trend is that most tenants still have no savings. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 37 percent of Americans are tenants and, according to The Harris Poll, 27 percent of Americans have no savings. In many cases, the same households are included in both of these groups and, when their overtime is cut or their car breaks down or a sick child requires a visit to the doctor, they do not have the money.

While in my business, I am ecstatic about today’s occupancy rates, I am pretty sure living in a rental home forever is not what today’s 30- or 40- or 50-something Americans have always dreamed of. More importantly, I fear many of today’s tenants may never have a down payment or tuition or retirement savings.

If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we will keep not getting what we have not always gotten.

Not everyone spends like Americans. In 2010, the personal savings rate was 10 to 13 percent in France, Belgium and Germany, because they have a much more balanced approach to saving and spending than we do.

As Sheldon Garon, the Princeton University professor known as the world’s leading historian on household saving, recently wrote, “European reformers and governments in the 19th century, during and after World War II as well as today, were and remain preoccupied with creating prudent, thrifty citizens.”  On our side of the Atlantic, our savings rate last year was 5.8 percent, which means both the dream of homeownership and a culture of socking away for a rainy day have taken back seats to other priorities.

I want my son to have a better life than I have, and he wants my grandson to have a better life than either of us has. We want to live in a safe, stable neighborhood in a strong, successful America that we can be proud of.

In addition, we want to be masters of our own destinies. I do not want to depend on government for my food, my shelter, my health care nor my retirement, except in dire emergencies. As long as I am able, I am willing to pay my own way.

I am not an expert in public policy, nor how Congress works, but I am convinced mistakes have been made. Yet like water over a dam, I do not care to dwell on the past or point fingers. I am tired and I just want America fixed.

Except for this column, I am generally part of what Richard Nixon first labeled the “great silent majority” or a “quiet, troubled voice” as Bill Clinton called us. I believe there is something wrong with America, and I am looking for fresh ideas and different ways of getting there. I do not want to keep doing things the way we have always done them.

It almost sounds un-American, but Americans are not always right. Maybe a near-term emphasis on more consumer spending is not what we really want.

Maybe lower homeownership rates will not mean stronger, more stable communities for our great-grandchildren to grow up in. Maybe a culture lacking balance between savings and spending will not secure the blessings of liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

I do not want to keep getting the same things my country has been getting.

Lawing is president of T.R. Lawing Realty in Charlotte.