Or, to turn the the tables on you Emily, one could be moved by such stories of 'stoic' self-sacrifice, if they weren't confined to a few anecdotes about a group of deluded, over-privileged folk spinning their wheels in the reality of life.

Let's see, have HELOC abuser mother-in-law move back in with the family to continue her lifestyle? That will really help, especially since hubby has been giving his mother financial advice since he was 10 years old (that has obviously really worked out well, and by the way, please fix that typo Emily, since a 10-year-old mother getting financial advice from her infant son is truly a troubling concept). I assume she isn't old enough for social security? If she is under 65 she could still work, if she is over 65, SSI will pay her a couple of grand a month -- which is a lot in Reno. I assume that no retirement savings are at hand? Didn't think so.

Deluded upper-middle class Dad spending their last dimes on Gatsby-like family gatherings? Sure subsidize them on the side. They aren't too proud to take the money, obviously. Retirement savings? I guess not. Too busy paying for private school for little Ashley.

What all of these idiots have in common is a child raised in privilege, one that who can't believe that her parents, having ridden the wave of late 20th century American financial ease, are now subject to the law of economic gravity, and who responds to this situation by facilitating further parental stupidity. The parents, having screwed up their own lives, are, to misquote Malcolm X in a different context, coming home to roost, and screw up the lives of their 'special' kids. The real psychologic issue here is that all these young folks, whose parents cossetted and spent on them for years, now realize that THEY, TOO, might be economically vulnerable. Waking up to reality is painful, I guess. What a terrible shock to find out that the world does not owe them a private school education, a home in Seattle, or two cars. If they do wake up -- it won't be a moment too soon. Welcome to the real world, and thanks for growing up.

Emily, try expanding your social circle a bit. Maybe you will meet some people who have really had some difficulty, not of their own making.

While I agree with much of what you wrote, rethink the Social Security bit. I worked for most of my life -- now I'm 65 and still working part time -- but no couple of grand from SSI. More like $900 per month. Hard to live on if I had to. And I'm still paying into the system.

Tell the kid private school is out. No money. Live with it.. No big parties, either. Times change.

this is the best damn rant i've read on slate in awhile. what he said!!!!

maybe they should have sacrificed some back then and the pain wouldn't be so bad now.

Thank you for the correction, SoMerry. I think there is actually a fixed and a variable component to Social Security, so the actual amount one receives can vary.

I find FreeTrader's "rant" obnoxious. My sister and I are subsidizing our parents right now--and wer'e happy we can do that--because of the money they lost in their IRAs and company-stock-funded pension plans. They should suck it up? Probably, but it turns out that, even with all that sucking, $18,000 a year doesn't go that far, especially with any kind of medical expenses factored in. (They're lucky that they do have great medical coverage, thanks to my mother's union--but don't expect that to be the case for our generation.) As for the mother-in-law with the condo in Reno--hey, it stinks to be her kid, for sure. But it doesn't seem to me that she, or my parents, were alone in not understanding the financial implications of some of their decisions. Turns out the big boys with the MBAs on Wall Street didn't know what they were doing either.

yeah. the rant is obnoxious because of the wops anecdotal evidence about his loser parents.

I'm sorry you find my 'rant' obnoxious -- but you may want to re-read it. I think it is fine that you support your parents, you have every right and perhaps even some obligation to do that, up to a point. I buy things for my folks, who are of very modest means, all the time. My points were: 1.) don't let yourself become a facilitator of destructive behavior (condo Mom) or simple foolishness (Gatsby Dad), 2.) don't think yourself a hero for doing so if you do, and 3.) don't expect me to feel sorry for someone raised in privilege who then finds out it is all a lie.

I don't mean to make this personal at all, but I am always a little amazed when I read of people "losing everything" through IRAs and stock-funded pension plans. Unless you work at Enron and foolishly put all of your retirement in Enron stock, it would be almost impossible to be wiped out by a movement of the share market. You may not have as much money as you wanted or expected to have, certainly, but that's why they call it 'risk'. At any rate, hopefully your parents aren't blowing the money on paying for a country club or private school in order to continue 'acting' rich.

As far as the big boys on Wall Street are concerned, I am sure they are all fine, since they probably followed good portfolio management theory with their own investments. The fact that they didn't with their own job responsibilities is a great example of what is known as 'agency risk' -- they were rewarded for taking risks that they would not have taken if their own money had been at stake. As far as you are concerned, I wish you the best, as I know how difficult it can be helping out family members when one is barely scraping by oneself.

Free:

Pretty much required Enron employees to buy Enron stock.

"foolishly put all of your retirement in Enron stock"

Actually, they didn't. The company did grant its employees lots of options and discounted Enron shares, but no one was 'required' to put their retirement in Enron stock. They did so willingly because they drank the cool-aid that everyone else was drinking -- the stock kept going up, so why invest it in something safe? The primary reason that Enron Chairman Ken Lay was convicted was because he very publicly urged all of his employees to keep their Enron shares and not diversify out, even though he must have known that something was very wrong at the time he made that entreaty. Any high-school economics student could tell you that diversification reduces risk, but people have a tendency to not do that when the asset they hold -- be it Enron shares or California real estate -- seems to just keep going up and up, in defiance of the iron laws of economics.

you have to understand something when dealing with this person. this person has a worldview that everyone is a helpless victim, including him.

Free:

You have a nice top post, so lets set that aside.

The issue here was not about econ 101, it was about whether 401k particpants were locked in or not. Granted they could diversify their portion of the 401k contibution; but, Enron's portion was locked into Enron stocks until the participant was age 50 and there was pressure to have them invest more into the ponzi scheme called Enron. When the bottom dropped out of Enron, the entire 401K was under a lock down from late October till early November and some claim this lock down was enforced as early as late September. There was a change of 401k management.

"Some of the highlights: On October 16, it announced that it had to take a $1.1 billion charge for bad investments. On October 22, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a probe of Enron. On October 29, Moody's downgraded Enron's credit ratings. On October 31, the SEC upped its probe to a full-fledged investigation. On November 8, Enron reduced its claim for net income since 1997 by 20 percent."

This is down from a high of $90 in August, which if the lockdown occured in Sepember, they couldn't bail out. Too bad we will never know the complete story as the defunct AAA did their job well by shredding documents.

Run

I don't think we really disagree about the facts. There was a sort of inertia at work that led people to keep their 401k invetments in Enron shares -- and there were some criminal head fakes on the part of Enron's management to talk up the company and hide its problems. But, at the end of the day, the investment decisions were still the responsibility of the account holders. An account that was invested in Enron stock for several years, and had a balance of, say, $3,000,000, would probably have been worth $300,000 if it had been properly diversified and invested over the same period in the broader market. The account owners had years to get out Enron shares, and people being the way they are, many of them chose to believe that the company would just keep making them richer. So, if they chose to hang in there through late November -- and hell, even I knew that Enron was in trouble by then -- they got their accounts locked down and they ended up losing everything. It is not a question of Enron management's criminality, but of just being careful with one's retirement. Perhaps, Run, the philisophical question at stake here is this: should we allow people to be responsible for their own retirement or not?

By the way, Arthur Andersen was absolved of all criminal wrong doing several years ago. It was too late for them though -- they had already been tried, convicted, and executed in the court of public opinion.

The "privileged whining" irks me, too. These people who "lost everything" in the downturn were only able to "lose" it all because ... THEY HAD IT TO BEGIN WITH! What about all the people who never rode high off the bubble and have been suffering the same economic ills as the privileged whiners all along? Personally, I don't think these "helpful" family members are doing anyone any favors by helping the privileged whiners live with their delusions. When did it become a hardship to have to live within one's means? If the extended family only shows up because you're hosting a fancy dinner and won't come if it's potluck, that should tell you something right there.

Yes, I totally agree. The examples Emily gives (and which she apparently intends for us to think of as altruists dutifullly sacrificing for their families) are simply examples of family disfunction and a lack of any "real" family values. It must be painful to find out that your parents are fools, but it is really no different from having a relative with a gambling or drug addiction; at some point, everyone who 'helps' such a person with money or moral support is guilty of encouraging the aberrant(sp?) behavior. At some point in our lives we probably all need someone to slap us (hopefully not literally) back to reality. Administering that kind of wake up call is supposed to be the job of one's parents. If the job falls to the kids, and they are not up to it, then it reflects once again on poor parenting and phoney family values.

What about all the people who never rode high off the bubble and have been suffering the same economic ills as the privileged whiners all along?

i don't know anyone who didn't use their home as an ATM machine who has foreclosure action against them. like 90% of people. they were part of the responsible 10%.

i agree with free trader. the article dripped with family tales of greed, instant gratification and the entitlement of a bunch of ignorant losers.