I blame Lee Iacocca. Fifty plus years ago, when he was at Ford, he introduced the idea of paying for cars through an extended payment plan. That allowed management to raise the price of their cars much higher than they could have otherwise. Then they could give in to union demands, forgo strikes, spend money they wouldn’t otherwise have and generally get real lazy. That worked until they faced real competition. They’ve been trying to work their way out of that ever since.

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.