Affluenza
Aug 11I was honored to be the keynote speaker last Friday at the Phi Theta Kappa honors seminar at TCC west campus. The two day conference dealt with a very heady topic of affluence and the choices and consequences of these actions. The sessions dealt with what happens when citizens get in over their head trying to “keep up with the Jones’.”
I titled my speech “Seven Effects of Highly Habitual People”, a play on a similarly titled book from the best seller list a few years ago. I tried to talk about how the habits we have can sometimes lead us to over-extension of our own and our government’s ability to pay.
Two of the examples I used were the garbage service offered to Tulsa residents and my personal household habit of over-purchasing because we think we are saving money.
Most areas of Tulsa have had twice-a-week- trash service for almost three decades while most of the country has once-a-week service. The national average generation is about four and a half pounds of trash per person per day while the Tulsa average is almost six pounds of trash per person per day. The solid waste authority tried to get citizens to switch to once-a-week by offering free recycling and a small price break, but so many people are in the habit of two trash days a week that they rallied city hall and convinced councilors to hold off on making any changes.
The second example I used in the speech was about how my wife buys things on sale. She is a professional, often saving 90% off retail. It reminds me of the old Henny Youngman joke, “My wife will buy anything marked down. Last night, she bought an escalator.” It is hard to complain when she saves so much money, but I now have a garage so full of stuff that I can’t park my vehicle in it. Often we end up just donating the stuff to charity.
These two examples may be minor, but Tulsans have to pay thousands of dollars more each month to collect and dispose of all this extra trash and I have to have a bigger house and garage than necessary to store what is often more than we really need. These choices and the consequences of them could be with us for years to come. They are both habits we can live without.
