13TMND : FEARS AND WORRIES

FEARS AND WORRIES

What do you spend time worrying about? Are your concerns congruent with wealth accumulation? Or do you spend time thinking about issues that are impediments to becoming affluent? How do PAWs and UAWSs differ in regard to their fears and concerns? In simple terms, UAWs worry more than PAWs. PAWs and UAWS also worry about different issues. Overall, PAWs have significantly fewer concerns and fears than their counterparts.

What if you spend much of your time thinking about a lot of issues that concern you? You will spend less time taking action to solve these problems. And what if your fears provide a foundation for increased spending? You may be a member of the UAW group.

Fears and concerns can be both a cause for becoming a UAW as well as a result. Will a person who constantly worries about earning more money to enhance his lifestyle become wealthy? Probably not. Dr. South is not wealthy, in part because he concerns himself with such issues. Dr. North is wealthy today because he placed much less priority on standard-of-living issues than did Dr. South.

Dr. South told us that nineteen issues were of high or moderate concern to him (see Table 3-1). Dr. North was concerned with only about seven issues. Thus, it’s only logical to conclude that the Dr. Norths of this country have more time and energy to devote to wealth-enhancing activities. Let’s examine how these doctors’ fears and worries—or lack of them—have affected their lives.

The Souths have four children. Two are adults. Dr. South has serious, well- founded concerns about their future. UAWs tend to produce children who eventually become UAWs themselves. What is expected of children who are exposed to a household environment predicated upon very high consumption, few—if any—economic constraints, little planning or budgeting, no discipline, and pandering to every product-related desire? Like their UAW parents, as adults, these children are often addicted to an undisciplined, high-consumption lifestyle.

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Further, these children typically will never earn the incomes necessary to support the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed.

Certainly Dr. South’s parents’ indulgent lifestyle contributed to his becoming a UAW. And he learned so well. His lifestyle is even more consumption-oriented than that of his mother and father. His upper-middle-class lifestyle was never interrupted even when he was in graduate school and medical school. His parents paid for his home and all other expenses. They provided him with substantial gifts of cash each year. In essence, he never really had to change his consumption habits or standard of living after leaving home. Fortunately for him, he has the income to support his addiction to consumption. But what about his children? They have lived in a high-consumption environment that would be extremely difficult to replicate on their own. The curtain is coming down on the third generation. Dr. South indicated in our interviews with us that he believed his children would never generate even a fraction of the income he currently earns.

In comparison, Dr. North’s adult children are demonstrating more independence and discipline, in part because they have been exposed to a much more frugal, well-planned, and disciplined lifestyle. As we noted, the Norths consume at a level that is more congruent with a household earning less than one-third of their income. This living below their means is precisely why PAWs throughout the income spectrum tend to produce children who are economically disciplined and self-sufficient adults. PAWs tend to produce children who become PAWs.

Dr. South, as indicated, has accumulated considerably less wealth than Dr. North. He is significantly less able than Dr. North to support the economic outpatient care of his adult children. But ironically it is Dr. South who is burdened by having economically dependent adult children.

We questioned both Dr. South and Dr. North about their fears and worries concerning their children. As you may have already predicted, Dr. South is much more concerned about this issue. He specifically expressed fears of

1. having adult children who think his wealth is their income.

2. having to support his adult children financially.

Imagine how disconcerting it is for someone like Dr. South to face the prospect of supporting his extended family. Chapters 5 and 6 will explore the implications of “economic outpatient care” in great detail. However, there is an important point to note at this time: Having adult children who are UAWs greatly reduces the probability that their parents will ever become wealthy!

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Dr. South wonders where his children got the idea that their parents would provide them with substantial economic outpatient care. He worries that he will not have the resources to provide his children with all the subsidies his parents gave him. There is yet another fear Dr. South must face. He is becoming more and more worried that his children will not get along with each other. Much of this concern is rooted in their need for economic support from their parents. Dr. North does not worry about such issues.

We asked both doctors about these types of concerns. Dr. South worried that

1. his family/children will fight over his estate.

2. he will be accused of financially favoring one adult child over another.

Are Dr. South’s fears justified? Ask yourself this question: What is the greatest fear of the thirty-year-old sons and daughters of the Dr. Souths of America? That the economic outpatient care they receive from their parents will stop. Many “thirty-something” UAWs cannot maintain anywhere near the lifestyle they had while living with Dad and Mom. In fact, many are unable to purchase even a modest home without financial subsidies from their parents. It is not unusual for these “rich kids” to receive substantial cash and other financial gifts until they are in their late forties or even early fifties. Often these adult UAWSs compete with each other for their parents’ wealth. What would you do if your economic subsidy was being threatened by the presence of your equally dependent brothers and sisters?

Dr. South is not only worried about his problems; he is also worried about his children’s problems. Consider for a moment the legacy he is leaving them. What are the ramifications of being an economically dependent adult? How much insecurity and fear will they have to deal with in the future? How will they be able to have harmonious, loving relationships with each other? These are among the issues Dr. South spends more and more time contemplating.

Dr. North is much less concerned with such problems. His adult children are accustomed to living in a much more frugal and disciplined environment. They are less likely to have a perceived need for major doses of economic outpatient care.

TAXES, GOVERNMENT, AND GOVERNMENT

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