Bankruptcy Rates An Indicator Of Bad Government?

If you have seen the news at least once in the last five years chances are you have heard about the rising and astronomical numbers of bankruptcy in Utah. The same could be said of any other state in the country as well. So the question has to be asked, is this a sign of bad government, uneducated adults with regards to money matters, undisciplined adults, money hungry credit card companies or none of the above?

Certainly the consumer has to take some of the blame. The consumer is the one who makes decisions on where and how to spend the money, but there are many circumstances that are beyond the control of the consumer. For example, a consumer may be doing well and spending well within their budget, but then a layoff comes and suddenly they are not able to pay the bills and in fact run up more debt because they have no other option to live while they are looking for a new job.

Some would say that the government has to accept some of the blame on this one. Certainly, there are a lot of arguments that could be made to support that case. If the best leaders lead by example then the government has given us a horrible example. They cannot spend within a budget to save their lives. They spend far beyond their own funding. In addition to giving us a poor example, one could certainly argue that their lack of intervention in a market that was headed straight to a crash has caused the high unemployment rates and the housing market crash, which in turn has led many to have to declare bankruptcy in Utah.

In the end, while it could certainly be argued that the government did not help the situation and in fact made life more difficult for us, the blame needs to lie with the consumer. Certainly the credit card companies have lent their credit recklessly and that has not helped either. However, in the end the consumer needs to take responsibility for their own actions and circumstances. That does not mean that there are not situations that were well beyond the control of the consumer, but even in those cases, there is no blame to be placed. It is simply a hard fact of life. The more consumers that take the stance of responsibility for their own actions and finances the better off this country will be and the better our economy will be.