Opus 2025-586: GIGO Grows Up

Most of the younger generation would understand the concept of GIGO.  For those of you who are not involved at all with computers it still makes sense:  Garbage In; Garbage Out.  It’s no big mystery.  You can’t make bread with rancid flour, rotten eggs, and expired yeast.  Well, you might be able to make it, but no one would buy it or eat it.  That is GIGO.

Why it is that they don’t seem to be able to make the transition to another acronym, I don’t know.  What acronym?  EIRO.  I assume you’ve never heard this one before because I just made it up, but you your gut know it:  Effort In; Results Out.  I have a really hard time believing that intelligent young people who enrolled in college with a major in, say, womens’ studies, partied for four years, borrowed a lot of money believed they were somehow going to go out into the workforce and make enough to fulfill all their dreams right out of the gate.

I understand that there are exceptions to the basic rules of life.  In times of high unemployment and few opportunities there are always going to be a few who will rise to the top and excel.  In times of great opportunity and employers going out and trying to drag people off the street, there will always be people who will sit around saying they can’t find a job.  Those are the exceptions.  Most of us fit into that massive clump of humanity in between.

One of the mantras I’ve been hearing recently is about the average age for buying your first home.  I can’t remember right off what the actual number is but it’s much higher than it theoretically was during our youth or our parents generation.  Every time I hear that I go back in my memory and remind myself that I was 40 years old with two children before I bought my first home.  We had it paid off by the time I retired with my wife as a stay at home mom.  I kind of scratch my head and wonder what are they griping about.

One of the principles of economics is supply and demand.  One of the principles that I heard in a advertisement when I was young was “You get what you pay for.”  That’s true in life generally.  If you want to take the easy road and party on the way then don’t expect to have a mansion waiting for you at the end of the day.  If you want to borrow through the nose assuming that you will either make so much money paying it back will be easy or else the government will do it for you, you deserve whatever poverty you end up in.  If you are buying expensive phones, eating out at expensive restaurants, having food delivered to your door and expecting your checking account to balance, I have a bridge in New York I would like to sell you.  The problem with that is you couldn’t afford it.

Are times hard?  Yes.  But you forget the times have always been hard.  No one can expect to move out into adulthood and immediately start living at the standard which your parents provided when you moved out.  They went through hard times, or at least most of them did.  They grew in the process.  Hopefully they learned the magic of delayed gratification.  And unless they’ve done something really silly, they’re probably going to be OK in retirement.  The same principles will apply to the younger generation.  The one thing they don’t want to consider is that it doesn’t happen overnight.  Another thing they don’t want to consider is that the world does not owe them a living especially in the style to which they want to become accustomed.

Tighten your belt.  Put off buying that new phone.  Drive your old car for a couple more years.  Fix meals at home.  Use the public library.  The results may astound you.

homo unius libri