A pervasive mood of fear and gloom has settled over the nation. More to the point, the various government bailout deals represent a short-term fix.  Despite the staggering multibillion dollar price-tag for buying up bad debt and infusing cash into the banking system, these emergency measures cannot produce the long-term change that is needed to restore public confidence and put families and the nation back on a secure path.  At best, they buy us a bit of time.  But if we are to solve the longer-term problem, we need to abandon the unsustainable culture of debt that has led to this crisis and to build a new sustainable culture of thrift.

For decades, Americans have been living beyond their means on easy credit.  We’ve bought more stuff than we needed.  We’ve used plastic to finance our everyday wants and needs.  We treated our single most important asset – our homes – as piggy banks, draining home equity lines of credit for everything from high-end granite-countered kitchens to fully-loaded SUVs.   We’ve been willfully or naively blind to subprime mortgage and credit card offers that are too good to be true.  As a consequence, we have built up a mountain of consumer debt – including $937.5 billion in credit card debt alone last year -  and produced a savings rate that hovers close to zero.  [At the height of World War II, Americans saved about 25 percent of their income.]

But as we now know, the American consumer isn’t solely to blame for the economic chaos.  Powerful and trusted Wall Street institutions have been caught up in the unchecked addiction to high-risk debt. Likewise, our public institutions have been part of the culture of debt.  The federal deficit has reached a half trillion dollars, a figure so stratospheric as to be inconceivable to most of us.   It will be left to our children and grandchildren to grasp the full meaning of federal debt as it eats up more than five percent of our GDP and shortchanges their futures. Meanwhile, as the federal debt balloons, forty-two states and the District of Columbia have gone about the task of aggressively expanding the state-owned and operated lotteries – a public institution that turns many citizens who might be regular savers into habitual bettors. 

This brings us to the current moment.  We stand at a historic watershed:  The debt culture has failed.  The entire institutional edifice of debt, built over several decades of wild profligacy and greed, has collapsed almost overnight.  Foreclosures, bankruptcies, and broken dreams are all that is left from our borrowing-and-spending binge.

The path out of the failed debt culture will not be fast or easy, but its main direction is clear.  It points toward the greater freedom and security rooted in the value and practice of thrift.

Thrift is one of the oldest and most durable American values but its reputation has suffered during the decades of a debt culture. For many people today, thrift carries the musty odor of the attic and the canning cellar.  Some hear the word “thrift” and think of the painful Depression Era privation of their parents and grandparents.  Others think of tight-fisted stinginess and joyless self-denial.  Still others believe that the practice of thrift is destructive of the economy itself.  Thrift, properly understood, is none of these things. 

Here’s what thrift is:  First, thrift is rooted in a broad social philosophy of human flourishing.  It unites two classic themes in American life:  self-help and mutual aid.  Thrift says that everyone who can master the habit of thrift can save.  At the same time, thrift rejects the radically individualistic notion of “do-it-by-yourself.”  It holds that people can be thriftier together than they can be on their own.  Thus, thrift encourages an institutional culture based on cooperation, associational bonds, and mutual aid.  For three centuries, thrift has been the animating value behind mutual savings banks, buying cooperatives, public libraries, community gardens, environmental movements, faith-based credit unions and philanthropic thrift shops.  

Second, thrift is generous.  Yes, thrift says we should save more but it rejects the idea of hoarding or scrimping for its own sake.  Indeed, thrift sees greedy acquisitiveness as a form of idolatry.  Thrift is about taking care of our material and natural resources so that there will be enough left to enrich the lives of future generations. 

Finally, thrift is a source of pleasure.  The practice of thrift leads to an abundance of good things to savor in life.  As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Wealth is not his who has it but his who enjoys it.”  In addition, thrift liberates us from the anxiety of overindebtedness, the competition of keeping up with the Joneses, and the envy of others’ good fortune.  Thrift makes us grateful for what we have achieved on our own, and what has been given to us from others.  And last of all, thrift says that it is more fun to give than to get.

So how do we rebuild a culture of thrift?  No one has the complete blueprint but we can begin with two goals in mind:  first, we must create alternatives to the anti-thrift institutions that undermine the ability to save; and second, we must build an institutional infrastructure that will make it easier for more people to practice thrift.   To advance the two-pronged strategy, here are five promising ideas that are already underway:

1. Repurpose the lottery:  The average person spends $184 a year on the lottery and households earning under $12,400 spend a whopping $645.  States could provide a government savings bond option linked to the lottery, similar to the successful “prize bond” programs in Britain. FDIC head, Sheila Bair, has asked her staff to explore this idea, first proposed in the Institute for American Values report, For A New Thrift.
   
   
2. Provide alternatives to payday lenders
   Payday lenders serve up  “fast cash” and “free money” to 15 million strapped wage-earners every month at interest rates ranging from 300-500 percent APR.  But there is a better way.  Many credit unions now provide emergency short-term loans to members on more reasonable terms with incentives to save.  Cleveland’s Faith Community Credit Union, for example, offers Grace Loans and Amazing Grace Loans to church and community members.
   
   
3. Launch a public education effort to promote thrift
   Americans are most successful at saving when there are large-scale efforts to encourage everybody to save.  A pro-thrift saving campaign would blanket the media with ads on the benefit of savings, much as the lottery blankets the media with pro-gambling ads.  Such a campaign –expanded from the current small-scale effort by the Treasury Department -  would target younger Americans who, research shows, are more likely to save if they learn to practice thrift early on.

4. Create an American Savings and Investment Plan with mandated automatic enrollment
   The government’s Thrift Savings Plan, created in 1987 and enrolling 3.8 million participants, could be expanded to help all workers save.  The plan would put contributions into a few diversified, conservative investments and would allow withdrawals for any purpose, though there would be incentives to encourage people to leave their money in accounts for longer-term goals, such as college education, home purchases, business start-ups and retirement.  

5. Establish matched savings accounts for low income adults
   Each year, the federal government spends about $110 billion on tax incentives to encourage people to put money into IRAs, 401Ks, and other retirement savings plans.  Yet because these incentives come in the form of forgiven taxes, they disproportionately benefit wealthier Americans.  However, a bipartisan Congressional initiative, now in the works, proposes to establish matched savings accounts for low income people which would grow tax-free, be partially matched or subsidized and could be withdrawn only for specified purposes. 

The Happy Theologian vs. The Grumpy ‘Agnostic’

Last Thursday evening an eager crowd of 500 gathered in the 15th floor ballroom of the Merchant Exchange Building in San Francisco’s financial district. What was the draw that rallied the largely young professional assembly? No, it wasn’t a political conference, a swanky happy hour, or an expert analyzing the state of the economy. The main event of the night was “A Good God? A Dialogue about the Problem of Suffering and Evil,” sponsored by Socrates in San Francisco.

Renowned New Testament scholar, author of Evil and the Justice of God, and Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright stepped into the ring representing the theists. Self styled “happy agnostic,” ex-theist professor, author of God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Questions—Why We Suffer, and chair of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bart Ehrman weighed in at the opposing corner.

Wright’s approach was as deep, thoughtful, and calm as his disposition and gentlemanly demeanor. Without denying the atrocities and horrors we encounter in this world, he framed the problem with nuance: We live in a fallen world where God does not just sweep in to intervene now and then. He is ever-present, endowing humanity with the dignity of being essential, chosen agents of His “sorting things out” for the time being here on earth. To say we can “solve the problem of evil” is to buy into a sophist’s game. Wanting to “explain away evil” is seeking an excuse not to worry about or wrestle with the reality of suffering.

Ehrman was a true contrast to his adversary, and to his reputation that preceded him. His laments and struggles recounted throughout the evening belied his “happy” chosen persona. The former pastor tackled the night’s theme from a personal point of view: the suffering I see is just “too much for me” to believe in a good God! His rationale was cut and dried (perhaps I should say drawn and quartered given its baleful delivery): If God is both all-powerful and loving; suffering should be out of the question, by definition. If he is so capable and concerned, then “Why doesn’t it appear as if God is intervening?” Ehrman’s troubled answer: “There is no God. There is no justice.” So you should enjoy what you can while you can (but if others are suffering this ought to somehow cancel out your enjoyment).

Wright responded earnestly, with an appreciation for the reality of evil, and pointed out some flaws in the emotion-driven railing against the transcendent. As for the alleged contradiction implied by the simultaneous existence of suffering and a good God, he pointed out that dismissing God on these terms is cavalier at best. This oft-repeated argument stands on shaky definitional soil, lacking a genuine treatment of the essential meaning of “omnipotence, love, and God.” Is the person of Jesus not the utter subversion of our long-held, imperial picture of power; is the resurrection not the most radical redefinition of sacrificial love as the greatest assertion of strength?

In his closing remarks Ehrman put out a disclaimer: “I’m not always in a bad mood. My life is fantastic.” Apparently showcasing the world’s suffering is a lucrative enough gig, and Ehrman doesn’t deny that he feels a nagging hole in moments of gratitude—a deep-seated longing to thank the source of the good he encounters. He even acknowledges that the evils described in his heart-tugging refrains seem to him to be beyond natural actions and simple human bad behavior. He is haunted by a lingering sense of “powers and principalities” that won’t seem to fade no matter how many ways he linguistically deconstructs Biblical texts, trying to unravel and deny its unified meaning. I suppose Wright would gently point out that this is not altogether surprising.

Julia Thompson

http://www.parablesofaprodigalworld.com/2008/10/audio-nt-wright-and-bart-ehrman-on.html

'No God' Ads to Hit London Buses

London buses may soon be plastered with ads proclaiming “There’s probably no God,” if a British atheist group has its way. Among the campaign’s supporters is well-known atheist activist Richard Dawkins, who promised to match BHA’s goal of raising $9,000 for the ads

But the group has now raised $59,000 on its own.

“Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children,” Dawkins told BBC.

“This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion,” he claimed.

BHA will use the funds to purchase four weeks worth of bus-long ad space on the outside of two sets of 30 Bendy buses.

The complete slogan reads: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Because more funds were raised than anticipated, BHA will also run posters inside the buses. The group is also considering to expand the campaign to other British cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

"We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air,” said Hanne Stinson, chief executive of BHA.

Christian Post

http://christianpost.com/article/20081022/-no-god-ads-to-hit-london-buses.htm

Thrift: In Search of the Art of Living Well

When it comes to thrift, Benjamin Franklin is surely, to borrow a phrase from the magnificent boxer Muhammad Ali, “The Greatest of All Time.” At the same time, with winning modesty, Franklin said that he took all his ideas about “industry and frugality” from others. This statement raises the question: Which others?

Two main answers are the Puritans and Quakers. Remember, Franklin grew up in Puritan Boston and lived much of his life in Quaker Philadelphia. And each of these great religious dissenting movements – the Puritanism that arose in England in the sixteenth century with the goal of “purifying” the Church of England of any traces of Catholicism, and the Quakers who broke away from the Puritans in the mid-seventeenth century to form their own religious practice and community – had much to say about the meaning and purpose of thrift in human affairs. In this body of religious thought, hard work, sobriety and stewardship of the fruits of one’s labor were directed to the glory of God and the public good. Franklin took these religious ideas, dropped much of the theological context, and transformed thrift into a secular social philosophy. But the roots of American thrift remain strongly tied to the Protestant ethic of stewardship. The following quotations from John Wesley, William Penn and Cotton Mather are cast in old-fashioned language, but their claims remain a familiar and enduring part of the American tradition of service and stewardship:

Gain all you can... Save all you can... Then give all you can... employ whatever God has entrusted you with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree to the household of faith, to all men! This is no small part of the “wisdom of the just.”

- John Wesley, The Use of Money, 1760

Frugality is good, if Liberality be join’d with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last bestowing them to the Benefit of others that need.

- William Penn, Who in 1682 Founded the Colony of Pennsylvania as a Safe Place for Quakers to Live and Practice Their Faith, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

This may be said of all our estates: what God gives us, is not given us for ourselves, but, ‘for the Lord.’”

- Cotton Mather, Essays to Do Good, 1710

From Thrift: A Cyclopedia by David Blankenhorn (West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008)

"For many people today, thrift carries the musty odor of the attic and the canning cellar. Some hear the word “thrift” and think of the painful Depression Era privation of their parents and grandparents. Others think of tight-fisted stinginess and joyless self-denial. Still others believe that the practice of thrift is destructive of the economy itself. Thrift, properly understood, is none of these things."

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

"Put most simply, thrift is the moral discipline of wisest use. It suggests a set of principles and ethical guidelines intended to orient us toward the best use of our resources. Thrift concerns not only the material world—the world of material goods and the money to buy them—but also the natural, spiritual, and aesthetic worlds."

Thrift: A Traveling Exhibit

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