Over the last 2 days I heard a few stories. Quite stunning, I should say – either I am too old or the newer generation of people think completely differently from what I think. Let me narrate them.

The first is a fine example of why the Americans are in a financial mess. There is this guy who is 51 years of age – and believes he has 14 years of service left. I am not sure whether this will happen – he has no great qualification to boot!. He lives on a day to day basis – and now he has borrowed $ 15,000 (yes, 15 thousand) to buy a cat.

Another story is that of a 24 year old Indian American kid WHO HAS REFUSED to accept a credit card – he has seen too many tombstones perhaps of credit card holders.

One story is of a woman working as an administrative assistant in a private hospital – no great qualification to fall back either. She earns about 21k per month. Spends about 19k. Now she wants to BORROW and spend Rs. 500,000 on a trip to Europe.

One story is of a man working in a software company as an engineer. Has a take home salary of 21k, HAS EMIs of 19k. This Emi is for a house, 2-wheeler, and all his overspending. If you ask me how he lives, he borrows from colleagues, friends, company gives him sodexho passes!

When I heard all the 4 stories, I had no clue on what to say. I keep wondering how long will the HUMAN RESOURCE managers of companies keep pretending that “Personal finance is not a HR problem”

To me the alcohol problem is less – it is easily visible, the money problem has to be addressed. IT IS FAR, FAR, FAR more serious.