Another Book You Shouldn’t Bother Buying-- Strapped: Why America’s 20-and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead

This will make the second “anti” book review I’ve written—Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich was the first, and here’s a snippet of what I said about it:

“I just left Amazon.com, and I won’t be adding to my Barbara Ehrenreich collection—her newest tome Bait And Switch isn’t fit for my bookshelves.

The writing quality is still there, and Barbara’s undercover expose’ style is still there, but I don’t like the tone of her book—victimization. Her books have been referred to as “poverty writing” by other authors, and I have to agree.

Yes, it’s a shame what’s happening to white-collar workers these days, and any other colored collar as well. Yes, it’s also a shame that low-paid workers are sharing a hotel room or sleep in their own vehicle just to have a “place.” But she irritates me by taking the victimization angle of all these plights. Instead of trying to help the situation, she instead spotlights it and it’s hapless victims.

The writing quality is still there, and Barbara’s undercover expose’ style is still there, but I don’t like the tone of her book—victimization. Her books have been referred to as “poverty writing” by other authors, and I have to agree.

I’d rather read books from Daniel Pink, the duo of Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine, and Richard Koch on how to handle unemployment in a positive light rather than wallow in what could have been. All Barbara managed to do for her readers is march them down the path of misery. Did she bother to explore what can be done to secure a white-collar job, or what NEEDS to be done by the job-seeker to bend and hone skills to meet the current need, rather than trying to sugar-coat and sell outmoded skills? No.”

Well, I’ll be saying pretty much the same thing about Strapped by Tamara Draut—the full title is ‘Strapped: Why America’s 20-and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead.” On the inside flap of this book, the only place where I could find some actual content about the insides, asked and answered it’s own question, rendering the whole premise for writing this book moot.

On the inside front flap: “Strapped offers a groundbreaking look art the new obstacle course facing young adults—the under-35 crowd—as they try to build careers, buy homes, and start families. As Tamara explains, getting ahead is getting harder. A college degree is the new high school diploma—but now it costs a fortune to get that degree, and students graduate with crippling debts. Good jobs are scarcer thanks to stagnant wages and disappearing benefits. And the cost of everything—a starter home, health coverage, child care—keeps going up and up. Budding families, even those with two incomes, struggle to pay the bills, while Visa and MasterCard have become the new safety net. Young adults are starting out behind the financial eight ball—borrowing their way into adulthood and wondering whatever happened to the American Dream.”

Note the bold text above, and how it kills the whole premise for the contents of this book.

Again, I’ll repeat the last paragraph of what I said about the LAST victimization-slash-entitlement tome to try to temp my purchase: I’d rather read books from Daniel Pink, the duo of Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine, and Richard Koch on how to handle unemployment—and all other manner of life disappointments-- in a positive light rather than wallow in what could have been. All Barbara and Tamara managed to do for their readers is march them down the path of misery. Did either of these women bother to explore what can be done to secure a white-collar job, or what NEEDS to be done by the job-seeker to bend and hone skills to meet the current need, rather than trying to sugar-coat and sell outmoded skills? No. How about life skills? No.

In fact, Tamara goes so far as to project that wanting it all is NORMAL, and trying to get it all is NECESSARY to function in this world. We have to face reality, folks, and teach our kids that there is such a thing as “excess”, and that it isn’t good to want or get more than we can afford to pay for NOW—not sometime in the future through Visa and MasterPlastic. Kids think that the level of comfort they had at home should be their own starting point, even though it may have taken Mom & Dad upwards of 20 years to accumulate it all—the kids don’t see the scrimping, saving, and agonizing going on behind their backs and in the wee hours of the morning.

My question to the 20-and 30-something “woe is me” crowd, as well as their parents: Whatever happened to good old-fashioned WORK? You know—summer jobs, scholarships to college, part time work at night, and so on? Your kids are starting out strapped because they haven’t been taught how to fend for themselves properly because YOU were so busy working your tail off trying to keep a roof over their heads!

For the smarter, strategizing, planning, and achieving crowd: don’t bother with this book—it was written in 2005, and doesn’t present anything new or earth-shattering to us frugal freethinkers. It didn’t present anything new when it was written either, in my opinion.

To end her debt-porn book, Tamara has a final chapter called “Changing Course: An Agenda for Reform.” You can just tell where she’s going with this, and I looked: she carefully describes how young people should band together and work to change the system, but not themselves—change from without, not within. Frugality isn’t mentioned at all in this chapter, not is the use of budgeting or careful shopping and spending. In other words, this is a Boomer Locust writing to Boomer children about how to keep those Locust balls in the air (through entitlement expansion), and to avoid facing the crushing reality of the costs of living—and ALL the work that goes into living. I guess this generation is saving the "frugal living" talk for retirement, when they'll continue to bemoan the lack of institutional servitude in their favor (otherwise known as "entitlements"). the kids get taught how to spend and beg Uncle Sam for more freebies, but not one word on how to save for the coming life bill.

Honestly--what else can we expect from yet another Boomer trying to fill out her meager retirement account before it’s too late? Avoid this book, even if it’s given to you—and keep it away from your kids, too.