The Financial Responsibility of the 99%: Time to Put Your Big Boy & Girl Money Pants On!

There is a shared responsibility for the financial condition of the world. The 1% need to share their money more equitably. The 99% need to educate themselves about money and take their power back, or perhaps develop a sense of financial power for the first time. There’s something I realized this year and that’s how ignorant most of us are about our relationship with money. I came to this ah-ha while going through a five month training to become a Certified Money Coach.

Now that I can see more clearly, because my financial blinders have been partially removed, I get how little the collective us really understands about money. What does money really mean to you? Fill in this blank. To me money means________.*  Most people say freedom or security. I like to add FUN. As a therapist/coach/business owner I’ve been interested in making more money, and read at least 50 books about money – how to make it, and make more of it, keep it, save it and manage it.  But there's a deeper meaning to money that remains hidden for most of us.

The anger that the 99% feel toward the wealthy 1% can be a positive anger if it gets channeled in healthy ways. Yes, legislation that favors the 1% disproportionately needs to be changed. But, the 99% also need to take financial responsibility for their money ignorance and lack of power. We need to educate ourselves and there’s no excuse not to because the information is available. In the last ten years, not only do we have books available about the nuts & bolts of money (budgets, making more $$, etc), but most importantly how to change our emotional relationship with money. That’s where the real juice is.

I gave a presentation about Turning Financial Stress into Freedom to a group of multi-level marketers last week. It was really fun. These are folks that still believe in the American Dream and who are hard workers, and goal and success oriented. But, they will only be able to achieve their financial dreams if they understand and begin to transform their understanding of how they emotionally react and respond to money.

Here are 3 things I shared with them that may help you:

1) Raise your money consciousness by knowing how much money YOU need (not your parents, your spouse, your kids, your best friend) to make you happy. Write down that number________.

Research shows most believe that to be between $50-70K a year.

2) What is your earliest money memory?** __________ How does that memory affect your adult relationship with money today?

One woman at the talk shared that as a child she would ask her parents for money and they always gave it to her. Now, as a sales person she has no problem asking for the sale or the check.

3) How did your parents feel, talk about or behave with money? How do the thoughts, feelings & beliefs you developed in your family affect you today? "Your relationship with money is not just about money, it's about everything. Everything you eat, drink, fear & buy." David Krueger

*David Krueger The Secret Language of Money ** Deborah Price Money Magic

Financial Inequality & the 1% - Where Did All the Money Go?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...," wrote Charles Dickens in the 1800s. The same could be said now. Apparently for the top 1% of America it's the best of times. One of my questions since the crash of 2008 has been "Where has all the money gone?" According to the Congressional Budget Office the top 1% of U.S. households almost tripled their after-tax income from 1979 to 2007. For us middle class folks, after-tax income grew 40% and the lower end of the economic scale increased also, but only by 18%.(Modesto Bee 10-27-11 Rich getting richer more quickly)

But let's wait a minute. Hasn't wealth in America (& the world) always been unequally distributed? Yes and let's start by looking at what the definition of 1% really consists of.  First, according to Joyce Apleby, emeritus professor of history at UCLA, there's income and there's wealth. To be a one-percenter you have to earn more than $700,000 a year (income) and have assets (wealth) of more than $9 million.

Ok, now we understand the basics of 1% economics. What's the economic truth for the rest of us? Have we middle class Americans been operating from an illusion that we could become rich? Yes and no. "From 1776 to the present, the bottom 60% of the U.S. population has never had more than 11% of the country's wealth." Hmm...Of course if you've done the math this 60% doesn't account for 39% of us.

Back to the question of, "Where did all the money go?" Well, well we know the banks got a lot of money. The investment bankers and hedge fund guys that is. But, I don't really think there's a simple answer to this question. We have a dream in America that hard work, luck and opportunity opens the door to fortune. That dream is a good one because it creates HOPE and in every generation the dream becomes true for a few. This "worst of times" economic recession is a wake-up call to look at the economic inequalities that have always been present, for the 99% to to keep the hope, the hard work and to hold the 1% accountable to a financially more equitable system for all. 

Money Doesn't Just Talk - It Screams

“Money doesn’t just talk, it screams.”  Bob Dylan

Americans are waking up to the fact that the super-wealthy have been ripping off the other 99% of us.  Now that we’ve noticed, we’re pretty angry about it. Hence, all the Occupy Wall Street factions. Before this realization we were blaming ourselves for our money problems or in denial, or waiting for things to turn around. But there’s something about all those millions of folks losing their homes and jobs that has finally got our attention.

I don’t know if America is still the land of the free and home of the brave. But we certainly are an economically unequal society. Quite. According to the CIA reported in the NY Times, *“the U.S. is more unequal a society than Tunisia or Egypt.” Ow!

Did you know that the *400 wealthiest Americans have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 150 million Americans?  That from 2002 to 2007, 65% of the economic gains went to the richest 1%?

Financial stress is affecting 75% of Americans according to the American Psychology Association. But, inequality is not just stressful, it’s bad for business. A study shows that of 65 industrial nations, the less equal countries experience slower growth.* That’s us folks. From the 40s to the 70s equality and growth were strong in America. Since the 70s a downward spiral.

I’m hopeful though. When Americans finally wake up – remember the 60s – we WAKE UP. It’s time to take the anger we’re experiencing at the banks and corporations and channel it into options for the greater food, and I don’t mean stock. Anger can fuel creativity, action and massive changes. After all, our collective scream got B of A’s attention.

(*NY Times, Oct 16, 2011, America’s Primal Scream)