April 18
The Great Seduction
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 10, 2008
The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality. Millions of parents, preachers, newspaper editors and teachers expounded the message. The result was quite remarkable. The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal. Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money. Sixty-two scholars have signed on to a report by the Institute for American Values and other think tanks called, “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture,” examining the results of all this. This may be damning with faint praise, but it’s one of the most important think-tank reports you’ll read this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=458&MId=20 ____________________________ Commentary By Richard B. Wagner, JD, CFP® I recommend you read both the article and the report. They each represent good work and they will help you understand what is happening.Loved this? Spread the word
TranscriptionJoseph: Okay. I will give my perception, my perspective of what the book is about. The book … a little bit of the history of financial planning and, I guess, to me a conceptual framework of how financial timing has evolved, what was delivered. So the way I read it was, you start from people
Read MorePodcast Commentary“It’s funny, the thing I keep thinking about after the fact is how the brain is simply a part of the body. It’s so obvious, yet somehow so buried. I’m someone who’s long been interested in the body and its wisdom, yet I really never thought about it like that. I think the financial
Read MoreA Week In Our Lives By Richard B. Wagner, JD, CFP® October 9, 2008., followed by October 10, 2008, today, and preceded by a week of gut wrenching negativity. All of these days are all “one of those days” for people in financial services. The belly hurts. Friends hurt. Clients hurt. It is scary out
Read MoreSummaryIn this episode of the “What is Finology” Podcast, host Natalie Wagner-Willis talks with guest Hannah Moore (A Certified Financial Planner™, a Certified Financial Transitions™ expert, a longtime Finology Fellow as well as the owner of Guiding Wealth). Hannah talks about the power of language, shame, and shares some incidents highlighting how powerful language is.
Read More