"I, Breadwinner? - View of Debt from the Left"

Your dad had a job, a wife, a house. You've got loans and fear of commitment. Hello, manhood. December 21st, 2004 11:55 AM.

Don't worry about the loans. I'm doing good, Dad, and it's gonna stay that way. Bud Fox [Charlie Sheen] in Oliver Stone's Wall Street.

When I started college, I needed and wanted funds—for an apartment, a car, a girlfriend, alcohol, and of course, tuition. Conveniently, the dorms and lecture halls were strewn with credit card applications, which are as much a part of the university experience as Wednesday-morning hangovers. The plastic loan sharks beckoned with low monthly payments and generous credit lines. It was an offer few of us could refuse.

Naturally, credit cards, with their usurious interest rates, were just the start. Student loans, a fact of life for nearly every red-blooded (as opposed to blue-blooded) American, were a much bigger deal. And the bonus was you could begin paying them back after graduation or, at any rate, in the distant future. It wasn't my problem, I reasoned. It was the problem of some future version of myself. Screw him.

Thus was a Matterhorn of debt created. But as I morphed from a twentysomething into a thirty-nothing, the realization began to dawn: Will the supersized student loans and maxed-out credit cards stay with me until the bitter end? Will I spend the rest of my life barely making rent, forever beholden to myriad creditors? Will I be able to purchase a home? Will I be solvent enough to provide, God help me, for a family? Will, in other words, there be consequences to an early life of profligate borrowing?

Well, yeah. "As a group, young adults underestimate how long it will take to repay the debt," said Jill Norvilitis, an associate professor of psychology at Buffalo State University, who has studied collegiate debt.

For many young men beginning their stroll through adulthood, debilitating indebtedness spawns a problem that goes beyond the figures on a bank statement. It's the growing sense that you won't be able to live the kind of life you hoped, the kind of life you grew up expecting. "It's incredibly depressing," said Paula Langguth Ryan, an author and lecturer on bankruptcy. "It's emasculating. They wonder, 'How did my parents do this? I can't possibly do this. How can I tell my father that I'm so far over my head I can't buy any presents this Christmas?'

"You get onto that roller coaster of paying off the debt, but it still keeps going up," Ryan added. "You're just spinning your wheels and huge frustration mounts. 'How can I tell the person I am dating that I am this far in debt?' "

Eric Heidt, 33, a Manhattan architect, just refinanced his student loans. Now the payments are manageable, but they're also eternal. "It's going to take me a lifetime to take care of it."

Heidt is living out an economic reality that his father might scarcely recognize. "Buying a house is pretty much out of reach," he said. "My parents had a bunch of kids, they bought houses, and here I am living in a 12-by-16 room with a stranger and I'm not saving any money. There's something wrong."

The lives of young adults, male and female, have changed over the past few decades. For one, fewer of us are getting married in our twenties and even thirties. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey show that, among 30- to 34-year-olds, the marriage rate in 2003 was four times lower than it was in 1970. Among 20- to 24-year-olds, 75 percent of women had never been married—compared to 36 percent in 1970—and 86 percent of men had never been married—compared to 55 percent in 1970. It's just not an essential part of how young men see their post-graduation life these days.

According to a 2002 Rutgers University study, young men are reluctant to marry for several reasons—they think it will require too many changes and compromises; they aren't confronted with social pressures to make the leap; they can just as easily live with a woman as marry her; and, to put it quite simply, they would rather enjoy the single life for as long as humanly possible. "Some of these men have spent a good part of their early adult years living with parents, roommates, or alone," the study's authors wrote. "They have become accustomed to their own space and routines. They enjoy the freedom of not having to be responsible to anyone else."

But the study also cites several financial reasons for putting off the marriage decision. Young men fear divorce and the financial risks it would bring, including child support. And most would like to purchase a house before taking the vows.

It's clear that young people aren't buying homes at the same rate as previous generations. Even though interest rates have plummeted to historic lows in recent years, causing a surge in home ownership across the country, the number of home buyers under 45 has remained steady nationwide since 1980. In New York City, only the lucky few can afford to purchase property. The white picket fence carries an entirely too costly price tag. We are a far more transitory generation, picking up and moving from apartment to apartment, job to job, relationship to relationship, city to city—all while being followed by the black cloud of the financial choices of our late teens and early twenties.

This wasn't what our parents had in mind for us. Many young men grew up hearing their fathers lecture on the importance of financial stability, business success, and home ownership. The thrust of these soliloquies was that if you make the right choices you won't have any problems. If I did it, so can you, son. But there was a caveat: Don't be stupid with your cash. (Also: You'll get none from me.) Implicit in all this was the suggestion that foolishness with money equals weakness. Debt was a moral deficiency. It's not the way a man conducts himself.

Easy for them to say, we thought. They didn't grow up in the age of easy credit. The credit card is just 40 years old, and it wasn't until the 1980s that a young person could get one without a signature from a parent. They didn't have to struggle to pay for an education. College is now hugely expensive—and a required step on the pathway of American citizenship. Avoid the university, we are told, and you'll wind up as a telemarketer. (You probably will anyway.) They didn't have to carry debt. We do. It's part of our life today.

"You have to remember, in the past, credit wasn't in common use," said Ryan. "You didn't have people slipping a credit application into the books you are buying at the college bookstore. Back then, nobody borrowed on credit. Bankruptcy carried a huge stigma. You would literally sell everything you had of value to repay your debts. You often knew your creditor—it was the butcher or the plumber. Now creditors are faceless."

The average man doesn't think about the problems of debt until the first bad credit report prevents him from buying a car or obtaining a mortgage (both of which, of course, would grant him the luxury of more debt). That's when he feels the sting. That's when his life begins to feel ill-considered and wasteful. He curses himself for taking that trip to Jim Morrison's grave on collegiate plastic. He kicks himself for enrolling in two semesters of Hungarian instruction, a beautiful language no doubt, but about as useful to him today as a hole in the cranium. Indeed, at times like these his entire college education looks like a waste of money.

"It's painful," said Barry Glassman, a certified financial planner who counsels law students. "If you don't make those monthly interest payments, you get a horrible credit rating and it goes on your permanent record. It's part of that anchor that is dragging you down. I see it with law students who I think would be great in the public sector. But they can't afford it. As a financial planner I can't see the numbers working. It forces people to take jobs they wouldn't normally take.

"It's tough to think long-term when there are so many pressing issues month to month," he said. "You cannot fathom buying a house when you are trying to make a $400 payment every month."

The problem is heightened if you have trouble finding a job in this time of fewer opportunities. "It's especially hard on people who are trying to get established, trying to get their foot in the door," said Gregory Kuhlman, director of the personal counseling program at Brooklyn College. "If you already have a decent job, you might be nervous, but it doesn't hit you like it does if you are pounding the pavement for six months."

At this point in the saga, the typical young person might feel a little resentment, particularly when he reviews his parents' history and decides that they had it easy. They had no trouble finding decent work and buying that first home. The system then in place was designed to give them a good chance to achieve a chunk of the American dream, however they defined it. The system now in place rewards those wise folks among us who at age 19 had the foresight to worry about how their financial statement would look at age 30. All 10 of them.

The solution is to begin chipping away at your debt burden. "The only way to empower yourself and take the power away from the debt is to face up to it," said Ryan. And quit charging—anything. Chuck your cards out the window, she suggested. Detach yourself from a way of living that depends on the "drug" of easy credit, said Ryan.

In my experience, I saw that things have a way of improving over time. I slowly dug myself out of the hole. I was aided by the fact that I wasn't able to accumulate more debt, even if I wanted to. Incremental increases in my salary enabled me to pay off my early-college credit cards. I made peace with the banks that issued my student loans and began paying restitution to them. In short, I figured out a way to manage my debt, which is, after all, the most any of us can hope for in the worker's paradise of 21st-century America. Like Michael Jordan on the basketball court, the average American's debt cannot be stopped; it can only, with luck and fortitude, be contained.

Yes,The Plaza is anachronistic now.But the Waldorf is too and that hotel never fell on hard times,as The Plaza did.Better management!

"GIANT" is a terrible film,agreed,and I concur on Rebel and EOD.

For some,unknown to me,reason,many people today not only don't know how to throw a party today,nor how to behave at one.Maybe I should go into business and run classes on that. LOL

Waldorf has larger, better run banquet rooms and have made that something of a specialty. A company can bring in 300 sales people from the midwest and they get wined/dined in reasonable style. Like Vegas, where the guy in the $200 suit from J.C. Penney can walk through the lobby and feel like James Bond, and get treated with the same amount of respect as the playboy son of a Hong Kong banker dropping $3,000 a night for a suite. The Plaza was never any good at that kind of thing. The banquet rooms are smaller and they consider professionally dispensed disdain both a required skill set and a much valued perk.

In regards to parties, NYC has a reputation and proud tradition of including its demi monde at the "free eats." And their quality has deteriorated over the years. As for the legitimate people, well, they have become more corporate conduct themselves like scared and diplomatic rats in very nice clothing. The art world is no better.

It's all business now, even among friends. That's the subtext of most of the parties I've attended over the past year. People are very fearful and nobody seems particularly comfortable in their own skin. I take this to be a bad sign for the economy.

I will give you a more amusing example. A fairly successful guy I met recently said he'd just moved to New York after a divorce. He's late 40s to early 50s, somewhat overweight, but highly educated and near the top in his field. He says to me, "I moved here from XXXXXX and I thought this would be a target rich environment for women my own age, maybe a little younger. But all I'm finding are 28 year olds with tattoos who want me to set them up in an apartment with a credit card...do you know any successful women?"

OK, my first reaction is, "What stupid parents! What kind of idiot just lets their kid grown into a bum? How the Hell does that happen?? I mean, weren't they paying attention!!?? Where was the mentoring their child into something better???"

Now, my second reaction is to simply ask, how did that happen? It seems you are most likely responsible people who probably did pay attention. So I ask, with all due repsect, how did it happen? I am very curious to now as I have a good friend in the same situation, and that is a circumstance for which I don't have an answer.

My parents took the road of, "Make you own choices and live with them." Unfortunately, my siblings didn't make very good choices.

My parents, BTW, were career military, never making much, but we always had plenty. They aways had great credit and we were never broke.

Well, you know, my thinking on that situation mostly concerned the older guy who is in a tough spot. That's assuming you weren't talking about his parents, etc. And for the record, he's not a "bum." He's a pretty good guy.

Regarding the younger women. I can't speak to their psychological make-up, though I know a few of them. Basically they're from the midwest, southwest, etc. etc. They hit town and get a job, usually in upscale retail with vague plans for acting, singing, photography, etc. etc. and they just kind of slip into the "kept woman" thing. Typically they don't see it or admit to what it is and sometimes the stories end badly and sometimes they end well. From my casual observation, the break on that is about 60/40.

If I had to venture a guess as to the psychological aspects, I'd say that being around wealthy people makes them crazy. The average median income in America is now $28,000 and change. Figure that's what her parents earned. If their first boyfriend in NYC is a semi-successful stockbroker, he'll spend that much on her on a two week vacation to Mustique or Aspen.

As you probably very well know -- people come to NYC to succeed or to fail in a spectacular manner. To live here for any length of time you have to have your wits about you.

" I suspect that the best women over 28 are married. "

I would say usually, but I married a greta lady when she was 35 and I was 32. Neither of us was married before.

Sometime great women are professionally minded and they are too busy until 30 getting their education and careers started.

Congrats. With that attitude, you're well on your way to financial independance and a much lower level of stress in your later years. Granted, there are things that could come your way that you cannot control, but you are handling the things you can control in an exemplary way.

We got us a 1170 square, 1956er, single pane original windows, original "contemporary" bathroom ("Ey, correctomundo" said da Fonz) but we do have a major luxury - the previous owner installed a nice central heating system. Etc.

There is a guy along my road to work - crew cab pickup with all the trimmings, boat, Porsche, remodeled house twice the size of mine, etc. Vanity plate = "LIV42DAY." Gee, I wonder if he has a second mortgage (he asked naively .... )? :P

Good article. Lots to mull over. Debt is the bane of my existence, and I am proud to say that my only debt is my mortgage, and that's very manageable, and still a tax deduction. If that ends, I will cash in and down-size and have no debt at all.

A good read that shows you what NOT to do if you're a working couple or a single mom or dad is "The Two-Income Trap" by mother and daughter team Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi.

Family law has become, significantly, Napoleanic in nature. It goes against the principles of the Rights of Englishmen, upon which our Legal System was based at the time of our Founding. There will be Hell to pay for this rebellion against Founding Principles.

In regards to funding liberal arts majors, I tend to think that most of them find niches somewhere. Either they go into sales of some kind or take jobs in bookstores. Do they need a BA to do these jobs? No. But I'm of the mind that no education is ever wasted.

Most liberal arts majors know how to write fairly well, and if you can write fairly well, I guarantee you'll always have a job in corporate America. Because business people can't write for sheee-yot.

I not an attorney, and I don't play one on TV, but I suspect marriage is one of the few contracts in the world where one side can simply decide the contract no longer fits their needs and can just drop out, no future responsibility, have the other side pay for everything even though they were opposed to voiding the agreement. Pure evil is a good way to put it.

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