Tatoo Tuesday: Reviving the Concept of Personal Responsibility

Tuesdays are dedicated to the "tatoo," Tatuaje cigars that is. Tonight I fired up my last Tatuaje RC184, that hard to find 7.25 x 57 mammoth perfecto from Pete Johnson and Pepin Garcia. I find it a helpful companion as I peruse the various political and economic articles out on Real Clear Politics.com and Real Clear Markets.com.

Our country would be so much stronger if people would take responsibility for their actions. I sent a letter to our congressman, Michael Burgess, Sunday a week ago asking him to encourage Congress to handle the problems in the financial markets responsibly, laying aside partisan finger-pointing and leveraging economic experts to uncover the underlying issues that need to be addressed. I do not favor a financial bail out or any form of government interference in the markets. I do favor reforming government policies that contributed to the problems.

Overall I continue to believe the fundamentals of the economy are fine and the markets are functioning the way they should, despite the fact I'm personally down 25% this year. The markets go up. The markets go down. Long live the markets!

So, I spotted two articles that report what I have believed to be true written much more skillfully than I could ever dream. First, Jonah Goldberg writes on how both political parties contributed to the present problems in an article entitled "No one's clean in this mess." We need more balanced reporting like Goldberg provides.

My favorite article of the evening though comments on something no one is willing to talk about, personal responsibility. Written by Michael Graham, "Bear market for personal responsibility" lays the blame squarely at the feet of all those people who chose to walk away from their financial obligations. He points out the ever-growing pattern of people walking away from their responsibilities whether its their marriage, their bills, their children's education, or their lack of attentiveness. Walking away from their home mortgages is just another part of the pattern.

He writes:

"America is experiencing a collapse of the ethics market. Belief in the notion that people should be responsible for their own actions, or pay their own bills or keep their promises has plummeted. It’s time to pump moral and ethical capital into the idea of individual responsibility."

He concludes:

"This isn’t a failure of finances. It’s a failure of character."

Too bad we and our political leaders cannot show the same level of personal responsibility leading this country as Pete and Pepin show making great cigars.