| 摘要 | For some years now my wife and I have been involved in some fairly “shady” financial deals. The result, as is so often the case with transactions of this ilk, is that we are deeper into debt than we could ever have imagined. No matter how much or how often we pay, there seems no end to our indebtedness. Our creditors hound us relentlessly. Most disturbing is that these creditors, unlike loan officers, collection agents or, heck, even mafia loan sharks, live with us in our house. They are, in fact, our very own children.
In what sense, you might ask, could monetary dealings with innocent children, beloved offspring no less, be considered suspect? Think about it. Financial interactions with our children have characteristics that could make members of the Accounting Standards Board wake up screaming. There are no written records: everything is word-of-mouth. Payments are generally made in cash. A typical transaction with my 11-year-old could take place in a face-to-face meeting at a crowded public place, say a sporting event, where it draws no attention—just as you might see on an episode of The Sopranos:
“Dad, can I have money for a hot dog?”
“Why can’t you buy it with your own money?”
“I gave you your allowance yesterday.”
“No, that was for two weeks ago when you forgot to pay me; you still owe me allowance for this week.”
Did I actually forget to pay him his allowance two weeks ago? It cannot be ruled out. I am in my mid-fifties and would barely remember if, two weeks ago, the United States had declared war on France. In any case, my children know that their own recollection of events will rarely face a serious challenge from mine. This leaves me quite vulnerable in any negotiation. Imagine: it’s as if your bank could demand a payment at any time unless you could prove in court that it hadn’t loaned you money.
Another dubious aspect of these transactions is how much discretion my creditors enjoy in re-categorizing payments and fees.
“Yeah, but we never had lunch, so I figured that was just my lunch. So now I need my allowance.”
As veterans of the Enron debacle can attest, when transactions are moved off-the-books so that they suddenly don’t count anymore, chaos ensues.
Speaking of Enron: if we accept the media’s claim that much of their accounting was “creative”, then I must be raising child prodigies—the Beethovens of bookkeeping; the Mozarts of money management. Observe, for example, how easily my 15-year-old son can convert thin air into accounts receivable.
“Dad, can I have money for a hot dog?”
“Use your allowance. And don’t say you didn’t get it, Mom videotaped me handing you the money.”
“Ok, take it out what you owe me from my birthday.”
“Birthday? I already gave you a present.”
“Yeah, but you gave me World of Witchcraft which costs 59 dollars, and I exchanged it for Zombie Cars which cost 35 dollars, and I never got back the other 14 dollars.”
I hear you, gracious reader, muttering: “You’re the parent, just tell him you’re not going to pay him!” In principle, that makes sense. But kids are smart, they are fully aware that grownups regard time as money, and they know how to whittle down any benefits we might enjoy from occasionally showing a little backbone. I don’t want to be too technical here, but with regard to the $14 dollars I might save by saying “no” to my son, consider the following mathematical relationship:
My son understands that with enough insistence on his part, my savings-per-hour will fall below the federally-mandated minimum wage.
My final example of dubious transactions with my children belongs more in the retail than the financial sector. It’s a version of the technically-true-but-misleading-statement scam: you know, like “Free gift with every purchase,” “No interest payments until 2009,” or in this case “Incredible money saving offer!” My eldest child moved off campus last semester to live with some friends, promising that her living expenses (payable, of course, by us) would fall precipitously. This was a welcome change because college room and board costs had been rising steadily for the last several years. Only later did we realize that those room and board bills from the college, high as they were, had several features for which we are now deeply nostalgic:
a) they never included unexpected surcharges for items like “new desk lamp for my bedroom,” b) during our Midwestern winters, bills from the college did not vary inversely with the daily high temperature, and c) if a romantic crisis drove one student out of the dorm, the bills did not go up for those who remained.
One could argue, of course, that all of the problems I’ve described here are pretty trivial as a share of our family budget. True enough, but that misses the point. My concern is less about what this behavior costs me than about what this behavior implies for my children’s future. Will they become the Ken Lays and Jeffrey Skillings of tomorrow? If so: Will they make enough money to buy us a retirement home before they go to prison? Even as I am haunted by these questions, I am engaged in delicate negotiations with my youngest, structuring a transaction that should lead, in theory, to my lawn being mowed. I fully expect him to make me an offer I can’t refuse.
Mark Montgomery is a professor of economics at Grinnell College. |
