Don’t Shoot the Messenger

I knew Wednesday’s essay would strike a nerve.

But I wasn’t prepared for the flood of outrage.

Some accused me of blaming people for “being poor.” Others said I was out of touch.

Neither one of those things is true.

I know what it’s like to be financially trapped, not because of laziness or bad luck, but because of the beliefs instilled in you before you even had a choice.

I remember being a child, maybe seven or eight, sitting at the dinner table as my father spoke about the future. Except for my parents, there wasn’t one.

“The end is near,” he would say with complete conviction. Not metaphorically...literally.

We didn’t talk about savings or investing. Why would we? Long-term planning becomes pointless when you believe the world is on the verge of ending.

Retirement accounts, homeownership, and financial security were concerns for people who didn’t understand the bigger picture. We lived for today because tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.

It wasn’t recklessness. It was the religion I happened to be born into. And I absorbed every bit of it. I believed it to my core.

Fast forward to adulthood, and I carried that same mentality, but in a new form.

I was never taught to think about my “future self.” The idea of building for tomorrow was foreign and nonexistent. My childhood was filled with messages that glorified living for a new paradise that’s not of this Earth.

And while I no longer followed that religion, a new sort of religion replaced it: consumerism.

When the world told me that happiness was a bigger house, a fancier car, and endless entertainment on credit, I didn’t just listen. I absorbed it. I chased it. I let it shape my decisions.

I took on debt, convinced that luxury - no matter the cost - equated to success.

I ignored savings, believing that my next paycheck, my next raise, my next financial windfall would take care of future me. Because that’s what everyone else was doing. And if everyone else is doing it, how could it be wrong?

I worked to consume. I bought into the idea that as long as I had the means to afford the monthly payment, I was “winning.” In fact, if you’ve ever sold cars, houses, or any other big-ticket item, then you know you’re trained to have people focus on the monthly payment as a measure of affordability.

One of my closest friends, a brilliant guy, once pointed something out to me that I’ll never forget:

“We live in a consumer society. If consumption stops, the entire economy goes down in flames and the country is doomed.”

Saving?! How unpatriotic!

Capitalism is about capital accumulation. It’s about taking resources, investing them wisely, and growing real wealth over time.

But what we live in today is a twisted version of that. It’s a system where people are programmed to spend, borrow, and work, not to build wealth but to fuel an economic machine that only functions when consumption never stops.

Think about it. The moment people stop spending—whether by choice or necessity—the entire system starts shaking.

Businesses panic. Politicians scramble to pump more dollars into the system. The media runs headlines about an impending recession.

That’s because we don’t have an economy built on true wealth creation. We have an economy addicted to spending.

And like any addiction, it demands more and more to keep going, even as it destroys the very people it feeds on.

The incentives are broken.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The Real Problem Isn’t Capitalism