Entitlement Mentality Runs Amok (Gwen Moritz Commentary)

Jeff Hankins, the publisher of Arkansas Business, clearly struck a nerve with his recent columns about young professionals in a hurry to have the affluent lifestyle traditionally associated with decades of hard work (or the good fortune of inherited wealth).

The civil lawsuits against 30-somethings Warren Overton and John Atwood clearly inspired Jeff, although he’s nicer than I am and didn’t name names.

That Overton loaded up his fabulous house near the Country Club of Little Rock with more debt than it could carry or he could repay is well established. Whether Atwood really embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from his employer, U.S.A. Drug, has yet to be proven.

There is an entitlement mentality among too many young adults who don’t have a realistic idea of their true value in the work force or the limits of what they can afford. But greed can and does overwhelm moral values in people who are old enough to know better. Bernie Ebbers was convicted on nine federal counts of fraud for his role in cooking the books at Worldcom Inc. — he is 63. As one observer said, the “CEO as dupe” defense he was selling wasn’t something the jury was buying — a bad omen for Richard M. Scrushy of HealthSouth Corp. and Kenneth Lay of Enron, who are using variations of the same defense.

Here at home, we’ve seen former state Sen. Nick Wilson, D-Pocahontas, and accountant Jack Frost sent up for greed-related crimes, and they weren’t anything like juvenile offenders.

Lawyer Keith Moser is awaiting sentencing for fraud and money laundering, and he is getting close to 50. He did, however, seem to be a carrier of the youthful entitlement mentality. He gave his daughters BMWs on their 16th birthdays and built his pretty young wife, Valerie, a $750,000 house with money he stole from clients. Valerie Moser insisted that the equity in that house should still be hers to keep. Federal prosecutors disagreed.

The case that first brought Moser to the attention of federal law enforcement officials was a kickback scam he was helping a client run in Michigan. The client, Dan F. Whitt of Maumelle, was old enough to have a 35-year-old son — and to get him mixed up in the crime. Both were sentenced to federal prison.

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I come from a different kind of family.

My dad’s aunt and uncle had something over a million dollars in passbook savings accounts, money saved from their Postal Service salaries and pensions. Yet my uncle fired the young woman he had hired to help his crippled wife with housework. “She wanted $4 an hour,” he said. “I’m not going to pay that kind of money.”

My mother buys whatever she wants, mostly by mail order, but she is a master at working the system to make sure she doesn’t pay a penny more than necessary. She charges everything she can on a credit card that refunds 1 percent of her total charges (and she never carries a balance).

I am a great proponent of personal financial responsibility. I stuck fliers in my young co-workers’ mailboxes encouraging them to watch the recent Suze Orman special on AETN called “Young, Fabulous and Broke.” I’ve been a Junior Achievement volunteer teaching eighth-graders about household finance. If I were as disciplined about my diet as I am about my checkbook, I’d be a knockout.

Still, I am squeamish about the stricter new bankruptcy law. I know that bankruptcy can be and is abused, and I know that many of the people who wind up there are guilty of gross irresponsibility. But the credit card companies that lobbied for relief from these deadbeats are like bartenders who have poured a dozen drinks for the same customer and are then disgusted to find he is drunk and can’t pay his tab. Lending money is risky, and lending money injudiciously is especially risky. Should corporations not be similarly responsible for their business decisions?

Congress apparently thinks not.

(Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business in Little Rock and may be reached at [email protected].)