The blame for the current financial market crisis can certainly be spread to a number of people, policies and events. The wealthy bundlers of sub-prime mortgage loans, who sold the risky financial products to people who could not pay them back, certainly have one of the larger burdens. The members of Congress who failed to act on the White House's vocal concerns about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also have to take some of the blame. Of course, as America waits for both presidential candidates and other national leaders to provide a clear and sober solution to problems our economy faces, Americans need more than macro solutions.

At last week's vice-presidential debate, Republican candidate Sarah Palin offered a nugget of common sense desperately needed in this time of uncertainty: "Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means."

At the heart of all of the economic problems our nation faces is the inability for many Americans - on Wall Street, on Main Street and on Capitol Hill - to live and work within their means. Investment firms decided to ride a get-rich-quick wave and buy bad loans. Individuals and families purchase loans they cannot afford and charge luxury items to a credit card they cannot pay off. Politicians in Washington spend taxpayer's money and borrow the rest to finance a litany of government programs - with the national debt spiraling out of control.
Clearly, the message of frugality is not being heard.

College students stand right at the precipice before the big leap out into the real world of student loan payments, car payments, rent or mortgage payments, taxes, insurance premiums and a whole host of other financial obligations that await us. It is up to this generation to do what generations in the past have known but recently have failed to adhere to - live within our means.

This generation needs to hold its government responsible for its out of control spending. This generation needs to write the newspaper articles that uncover the next sub-prime type of scheme. This generation needs to sound the alarm from within the investment banks, the real estate companies and the halls of government that encouraging reckless financial behavior for individuals is wrong and dangerous. This generation needs to spend the money it has, and only the money it has, in order to restore faith in credit and financial markets.

What we have seen from the baby boomers in these regards has not been exemplary. It is their self-centered, "buy-it-if-you-want-it" mentality that has placed us into this mess, so we can hardly look to them for answers. Fittingly, the two presidential candidates seem to fall just outside of this generation, but neither has yet to field a plausible solution to either the immediate crisis or the long-term failure of Americans to live within their means.

We need to do better than this. The larger problem needs a leader with clarity of vision. Our generation can deliver this leader, if and only if we start recognizing the need to return to that age-old aphorism: Live within our means.