Live rich to get rich?

MP Dunleavey's column in today's New York Times sheds light on why the national savings rate is a disgrace while the national spending rate is out of sight. Many Americans expect to be rich. And most of those optimists seem to believe that spending will make it so. Not saving and investing. Spending.

"The danger in buying into the idea is that you're going to be rich," Dunleavey notes, " is that you'll spend accordingly - regardless of the impact on your personal financial health. "

Yup, lots of folks would rather live rich than get rich. That doesn't bode well for the future of the wealth-management business. How can you help your clients teach their children to build a little wealth instead of more debt?

By the way, I asked Google about MB Dunleavey and learned that she used to be a dark-haired young woman who wrote about single life for Lifetime. Now she's a blond married woman and a financial columnist for MSN. Check out the archive of her columns.