East vs. West - Saving Money
A long time ago, a friend of mine once told me a joke that I’ve since taken to heart. She asked me, “How is money just like food, water, air, and sex? To that, as is natural for my personality, I came up with a long, drawn-out, and historically-illustrative thesis, to which she replied, “…uh…yeah all that too…but besides that, it only means something to you when you’re not gettin’ any.”. That was the better answer I thought. And that is the punch-line I use when I tell people this joke myself. (My answer wasn’t very funny and it takes too long to regurgitate).
The funny thing is though, right now, we as a Americans are getting a lot of it, (actually, more than anyone else on Earth), but it still means more to us than ever. Why? Because we don’t know how to save it. One of the biggest differences that one notices between Western (in particular American) financial habits and those of Easterners, is that for the most part, people in the East are really really good at saving money. Although I would imagine that there are also some cultural factors that help to facilitate that difference, (such as an emphasis on putting the family first instead of one’s own individual wants and desires), insomuch as I know, the biggest reason for that is due to the different set ups of the government. The Japanese economy and the particular style of Capitalism they developed, (which, in the past few decades has come to be the model for a multitude of other Asian countries) seems to have been set up such that it would be financed by the savings of it’s citizens. As a function of that, things were laid out in such a way, (such as needing cash up front to move or buy homes, or a lack of general social ’safety nets’) to instill in those citizens that in order to survive they needed to learn to save.
In the States however, given our particular position in the world, this is a policy that we’ve very much been raised without. As a function of the fact that 1) everyone else is still using the US dollar as the international standard for currency, and 2) we, as contemporary citizens have had the advantage of being in the richest place on Earth for as long as we, our parents, (and more than likely, our grandparents) have ever been alive, we’ve become accustomed to idea that having debt is natural and unavoidable, when in actuality, it’s neither. At least it isn’t for so many Japanese who wonder why it is that so many foreigners who come here can’t seem to get themselves together financially. I should know; I was certainly one of them. In that respect, having learned how to save money on my own out here, I wish that more Americans could step outside of the system that we live in to see this, and the myriad of other advantages of doing things differently. Particularly since knowledge gained is certainly something that can always be brought home (I know my financial survival skills certainly will be).
And given the fact that even our government can't seem to balance it’s own books lately, I think that in the future, it won’t just be an advantage, but a necessity.
Good reads how to save money:
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley
The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason
The funny thing is though, right now, we as a Americans are getting a lot of it, (actually, more than anyone else on Earth), but it still means more to us than ever. Why? Because we don’t know how to save it. One of the biggest differences that one notices between Western (in particular American) financial habits and those of Easterners, is that for the most part, people in the East are really really good at saving money. Although I would imagine that there are also some cultural factors that help to facilitate that difference, (such as an emphasis on putting the family first instead of one’s own individual wants and desires), insomuch as I know, the biggest reason for that is due to the different set ups of the government. The Japanese economy and the particular style of Capitalism they developed, (which, in the past few decades has come to be the model for a multitude of other Asian countries) seems to have been set up such that it would be financed by the savings of it’s citizens. As a function of that, things were laid out in such a way, (such as needing cash up front to move or buy homes, or a lack of general social ’safety nets’) to instill in those citizens that in order to survive they needed to learn to save.
In the States however, given our particular position in the world, this is a policy that we’ve very much been raised without. As a function of the fact that 1) everyone else is still using the US dollar as the international standard for currency, and 2) we, as contemporary citizens have had the advantage of being in the richest place on Earth for as long as we, our parents, (and more than likely, our grandparents) have ever been alive, we’ve become accustomed to idea that having debt is natural and unavoidable, when in actuality, it’s neither. At least it isn’t for so many Japanese who wonder why it is that so many foreigners who come here can’t seem to get themselves together financially. I should know; I was certainly one of them. In that respect, having learned how to save money on my own out here, I wish that more Americans could step outside of the system that we live in to see this, and the myriad of other advantages of doing things differently. Particularly since knowledge gained is certainly something that can always be brought home (I know my financial survival skills certainly will be).
And given the fact that even our government can't seem to balance it’s own books lately, I think that in the future, it won’t just be an advantage, but a necessity.
Good reads how to save money:
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley
The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason
posted by Chuck at 10:48 PM
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