Marketplace: Whom can you trust? Yourself

Julia Anderson

With the shock of last year's financial meltdown wearing off and the new economic reality taking hold, the bothersome question we have is who can we trust?

Turns out we couldn't trust federal watchdog agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission to watch over the U.S. banking industry, hedge funds or investment firms. We couldn't trust lenders to do the right thing by borrowers who couldn't afford loans they were given. We couldn't trust brokers who told us to buy instead of sell and who failed to recognize a bubble.

We couldn't trust the Federal Reserve to moderate out-of-control consumer spending or ride herd on credit card companies who handed out cards like candy.

Everyone wanted a piece of the American consumer. But guess what? We're out of money, out of patience and frankly fed up with lies and liars.

So who can we trust? How can we bring honesty back to government, back to business and to society?

A recent article by Martha Beck in Oprah Winfrey's "O" magazine offers guidance. Beck suggests that trust must start with each of us.

OK, I admit it, I've occasionally abdicated. I've trusted without verifying. I've trusted without doing my homework. I've trusted without holding myself accountable.

I've made investment decisions on gut feeling rather than knowledge. I've given money to family members without discussing outcomes. I've gone along to get along.

In her "Who's Never Going to Let Me Down?," piece, Beck suggests that we all need a "trust-o-meter."

Trust-o-meter step one: Be trustworthy toward yourself. If you lie to yourself, Beck says, your relationships and life situations won't work. She offers a 30-question quiz at www.oprah.com/survey/omagazine/200903_omag_trust_test to help determine if you are fooling yourself. Only then can you recalibrate. Only then can you deal with the discomfort of being honest with yourself and with others who might be asking for your money or your love or both.

Step two: Using a set of questions at oprah.com, rate the people in your life on a 1-to-5 scale. Does this person show up on time? When this person says something is going to happen, does it usually happen? Have you ever witnessed this person doing something (lying, cheating) that he or she would condemn if another person did it?

Step three: Trust everyone and everything. In other words, trust people to go on doing what they do. Addicts can be trusted to lie. And people who reliably do their best, whose stories check out against your own observations, can be trusted to stay relatively honest and stable.

"Life," says Beck, "is one big wilderness." But she says, "you were born for this wilderness, and you have the instruments to negotiate it safely. You can trust yourself and by doing so you will really know how to live."

My plan is to embrace Beck's trust-o-meter formula, apply it to myself and others. If we all do this maybe our family and friends, our elected officials, our government regulators, our banks, lenders and financial advisers will also become more honest. We won't tolerate anything less, will we?

Julia Anderson is The Columbian's business editor. Reach her at 360-735-4509.