For decades, we Americans have focused on the basic belief that MORE = HAPPINESS. People everywhere say, “If we could only get more, we’d be so much happier. A bigger house, closets of designer clothes, dining out every night, and giving our kids everything we didn’t have. All these things would make life better, right? We’ll have the American dream!”

It didn’t work. The more we got, the more we wanted. We started buying based on the assumption that in the future, everything goes up. Real estate values grow, our incomes rise, the stock market steadily climbs, and we have an endless ability to get more credit when ever we want it.

As you probably read in my last post (if not, go to 5 Advantages of Blaming first), there are lots of advantages to laying the blame for our current economic collapse on everyone and everything from banks to people with bad credit to government to the neighbor's dog.  But stop to consider - there are two sides to everything, and where there are advantages there are also disadvantages.  Let's explore the downside to pointing an accusing finger at just about anyone we can think of...

Here are some disadvantages of blaming:

• It camouflages our real problem, our personal relationship with money

It's easy to get caught up in the day to day drama of the current American economy and start pointing the finger. For instance, we could blame the media for inciting so much fear, or we could blame the banks and other financial institutions for making so many bad credit loans.  We could blame the bleeding-heart liberal democrats, or the ultra-conservative republicans, or whatever part of the federal government we are angry with!  Better yet, we could blame President Bush for single handedly causing everything in every market everywhere in the world to collapse.