David W. Miller, Director of Princeton’s Faith & Work Initiative, attempted to tackle the monumental job of “civilizing” the economy. No small task for anyone let alone the unusually courageous and innovative Miller. Formerly the Executive Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, Miller also taught a popular course in the Management School, “Business Ethics: Succeeding without Selling Your Soul.”

The ebullient Miller holds a M.Div. and Ph.D in ethics from Princeton Theological Seminary and combines that with prior experience as a senior partner in a London Private Equity firm. Among his many achievements (he looks much too young to have done all these things), Miller also held a top executive position in the securities services and global custody division at HSBC. His combination of banking, academic, and theological expertise made him the perfect host for the one day business and spirituality conference dubbed, “Civilizing the Economy: A New Way of Understanding Business Enterprise?”

Miller gathered inspirational leaders from academic, civic, religious, and business fields to discuss Pope Benedict XVI’s social justice encyclical, Charity in Truth – Caritas in Veritate and how it can be applied to the practical material world of business and economics. The conference was presented from the differing perspectives of economics, theology, employees & shareholders, and CEOs. The only downside was that there was not time to attend every panel and breakout session.

The “Economist’s Perspective” was moderated by George Enderle, Professor of International Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame, and presented by Leonardo Becchetti, Faculty of Economics, University of Rome II, Charles Wilbur, Emeritus Professor of Economics from Notre Dame, and Paul Oslington, Professor of Economics from Australian Catholic University.

The charismatic Becchetti spoke of the important roles of trust and charity in daily business and referred to the solidarity principle of banking in his native Rome—one of the reasons he cited for the Italian banking industry’s relative stability throughout the economic crisis. His personal roles as economics professor, banking industry board member, and head of an active NGO allow him to develop a deeper understanding of how all three disciplines interconnect.

Moderator George Enderle, a world-renowned business ethics expert, conducts research on the ethical challenges of international business and corporate decision making. When this journalist asked the panel how to bridge the gap between economic theory and every economic reality, Enderle replied that one of the first approaches begins with teaching enlightened business practices in business school. “Everything emanates from social thought,” he said.

The panelists were full of innovative and practical insights in economic and spiritual dilemmas. One of the highlights of the economics breakout session was the wise words of the impressive Charles Wilbur, Enderle colleague and Notre Dame professor. Wilbur is currently researching moral values and the economy and has written several books and articles on ethics and economics. Wilbur gave a brief, but fascinating talk on how economics is often predicated upon “patching it up when things go bad” or “cleaning up the mess” left behind by economic failure. Wilbur stated that “economic decisions are moral decisions.” He urged economists to become more proactive in preventing crises, because “economic institutions and policies impact personal lives.” Wilbur referred to an article he wrote in September 2009 for America Magazine on how industry economists fell in love with the elegant math of their formulas and neglected the human application of its original purpose. In his powerful and brilliant article, Misleading Indicators: How U.S. Economists Missed the Great Recession, he wrote of the need to apply theory to human reality.

His words were so sincere and compelling they inspired me to do some research on the professor. To my delight I discovered that Charles Wilbur is one of the prime thought leaders on “social economics”- the humanizing of economic theory with real life. Wilbur wrote that mainstream economics is based on “soulless consumerism.” Social economics places the individual human experience at the center of economic theory – not simply as “economic actors,” but as “persons that live in community.”

The premise of social economics according to Wilbur’s paper is:

“The person is the basic unit of the economy…who acts freely but within certain limits, self-interestedly but often with regard for others, and calculatedly but at times impulsively, whimsically, or altruistically, in a self-regulating economy which from time to time must be constrained deliberately in order to serve the common good and to protect the weak and the needy…

Social Economics “is not reducible to economic calculus because it rests squarely on the conviction that humans have a worth and dignity beyond measure.” (Ed O’Boyle, pp. 1-2 )

Okay I love this guy – the retired professor that is! Here I thought that the concept of intersecting economic theory with the economic reality of everyday people was new and cutting edge and apparently (according to Wilbur’s website) it was first developed in 1941 (The Association of Social Economics). The panel led to a wonderful discovery of the like-minded scholarly field of research similar to the “better world business” work we are currently focused on at GoodB.

The one sour note of the breakout session was the oddly inappropriate words of panelist Oslington who said among other uninspired utterings that, “Protestant social ethics should disappear from the face of the earth.” He recalled in his one year teaching at Princeton in 2006-07 of being dragged to a Presbyterian Church to listen to boring old social ethics doctrine. “They had no expertise. There were no theologians or economists present,” he remarked revealing his clear disdain for these “non-experts.” The oddity escalates when realizing that one of the key presenters of the conference was Kirk O.Hanson Professor of Social Ethics at Santa Clara University in California. Also, several social ethicists identified themselves subsequently in the lecture hall. However, since “experts and non-experts” make up the economic system, it seems clear that we would all benefit from a free exchange of ideas.

But no matter – the discussion and exchange of ideas on the moral and material fusion of business and society rocked the Ivy League Halls of the old patrician bastion. This was not your daddy’s or granddaddy’s Princeton get-together, this conference set the tone for 21^st century “New Economics” and the socially responsible quest for moral money. Something Harvard, U Penn, Cornell, and Stanford have been doing for a few years already has finally caught hold of Old Nassau thanks to David Miller.

Other highlights of the conference included Christine Firer Hinze, Professor of Theology at Fordham and Geoffrey T. Boisi, Chairman and CEO of Roundtable Investment Partners, and senior partner from the old partnership days of Goldman Sachs pre-1999 when they traded and risked their own money. Ahh, the good old days…

David Miller remarked in the morning that while the conference was attended and presented by top CEOs and market makers from global corporations, we should never forget the small business people who make up much of the world’s markets and the innovative entrepreneurs who create new and cutting edge businesses every day. Here, here.

One last note on the conference … if I could improve anything, I would do one thing – make it longer. My only regret there just was not enough time to hear all of the presentations and speakers. Yet, the passionate focus on the common good left participants with renewed hope for a more civilized economy. We can only hope that this conference is the beginning of a fine new Princeton tradition.

Reported by:

Monika Mitchell - Executive Director Good Business International    editor@goodb.net

©2010 – All Rights Reserved

Maverick thinkers have warned of the perils of unbridled greed for centuries, yet few were listening. Not until the world turned dark on September 15, 2008 with the perfect financial storm did the rest of society take notice.

That was a day of economic infamy-the day Wall Street investment banking died. Lehman Brothers, one of the most respected and powerful financial institutions in the U.S., came crashing down in an economic shock heard round the world. With its demise, the remaining investment banks went on life support resuscitated only by woeful government rescues.

With the crash of the credit and securities markets in 2008, the relationship between business and the public irrevocably changed. No longer is the old adage, “it’s not personal, it’s business” an acceptable view. The crisis resulting from the misbehavior of bankers at the expense of ordinary folks unequivocally reveals that everything we do in business is indeed personal to someone.

The official theme of this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland is “Rethink, Redesign, and Rebuild.” The unofficial theme could be called, “Greed is Ugly.” We traveled a long hard road to get here from the Ivan Boesky days of last century. With it, we endured a lot of economic pain. Yet as human beings we rarely change when things are comfortable. It is the advent of crisis, either personal or public, that forces us to reexamine our values and reinvent ourselves.

The Economic Crisis of 2008 has brought forth the Economic Epiphany of 2010. The sentiments last week among the world’s business leaders echoed the urgent need for a moral economic framework. Out of the halls of darkness comes the light. Mercy, mercy, hallelujah.

For all those skeptics out there, the 2010 Davos Forum focus on values signifies an enormous change for the year ahead. People are mad as hell and they don’t want to take it anymore.

Yet these are not ordinary angry mortals, like Joe the Plumber or moose shooting hockey moms. The outraged include the banking and business elite themselves. Members of a once admired fraternity hold errant colleagues responsible for destroying the good business model. Barclays’ President Robert Diamond said, “Those who stayed strong are angry at those who had poor management.”

Trust is your bread and butter in business. Banking is a respectable and honored profession when used to serve the community. Not a roulette wheel spun with the chips of pension-less factory workers, ninety-year-old widows, and the working poor. Where did common good values go?

Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman complained to the Davos crowd, “We should stop the blame game,” and “start looking forward.” His remarks were directed against the inevitable new taxes and industry regulation favored by those present. Ackerman did not realize that regulating banks is looking forward-toward creating a system that works for all, not just a self-serving few.

The German banking chief acknowledged the importance of public opinion. “If you lose the support of society, you are not going to realize your corporate objectives in the long run.” (A belief that seems not to be shared by some colleagues.)

As WEF’s official theme reveals, the new paradigm is to “rethink and redesign” the global economy to include world interest with self-interest. It is no longer okay to create suffering for others in the savage quest for more. French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that for “those who create jobs and wealth” to “earn a lot of money is not shocking. But those who contribute to destroying jobs and wealth and also earn a lot of money (it) is morally indefensible.”

Survival-of-the-fittest naysayers have become like dinosaurs on the verge of extinction. The only ones who don’t know that seem to be employed by bailed out banks.

Yet “blame”, as distasteful as that might be on most WEF participant lips, is not altogether fruitless. If the perpetrators of this colossal calamity continue to ignore their personal responsibility, then the world will continue to point fingers and tighten the strings. Call it blame if you must, but the post-crisis behavior of unrestrained banker bonuses looks greedy to those looking on. And greed no longer looks good.

Mexico’s ex-banking chief pointed out that banks have “misjudged the deep feelings of the public.” The Wall Street Journal reported that banks returned to a “culture of high-risk-taking and lavish pay as soon as they were out of intensive care” and brought the anger on themselves.

The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, claimed bankers changed the game by using taxpayer money “to guarantee loans at banks…a gigantic amount” and could no longer dictate the new rules.

Sarkozy summed up the general sentiment of the conference stating that “indecent behavior will no longer be tolerated.” He claimed that capitalism could only be saved “by restoring its moral dimension.”

That morality is being discussed at all in the setting of the formally “greed is good” culture of Davos is extraordinary. Continuing global economic hardship is yielding remarkable changes in profit perspectives. Glimmers of hope are emerging from the depths of despair.

New economic thought has shifted to a world that cares for the poor, voiceless, and forgotten. The official message of the conference proclaims, “Now is the moment to rethink values as we rebuild prosperity. The interrelated fights against unemployment, global poverty and climate change are not just noble struggles: they are essential for long-term recovery and avoidance of future crises.”

It was not good to be a banker at the World Economic Forum this year. The chairman of Morgan Stanley Europe compared their social status to that of “terrorists.” The comparison is humorous until one thinks about the havoc reeked by what economist Joseph Stiglitz calls “negative value”. Traders, underwriters, lenders, analysts, salesmen bought and sold securities, loan products, and swaps that were based on mortgages that could/would never be repaid.

American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as a “state of fear and submission.” Considering the submission of millions of families to banks who took their homes and millions more who lost their incomes through no fault of their own, the fear gripping those facing foreclosure and unemployment, and the millions of investors who face uncertain retirement, the subprime mortgage debacle could undoubtedly be viewed as economic terrorism.

As we begin the second month of the year 2010, it seems clear that greed, defined as the accumulation of wealth and profit at the expense of others, is no longer ”good” to most of those observing. That is a great relief.

The outrage expressed by pillars of the global economy in Davos, as well as the general public, reflects that the new “good” is as much about serving the common good as anything else.  I would call that an epiphany!

About the Author:

Monika Mitchell is the Executive Director and Editor-in-chief of Good Business International, Inc. (GoodB). She founded GoodB in response to the growing need to unify and support the global good business community.

GoodB is happy to report that Google continues to be one of the best models for Good Business around. No, we are not sipping Kool-Aid! As most of you know, Google, the internet search giant, has challenged one of its biggest clients, the money machine of the 21^st century Communist China, on the subject of free speech and ethics.

In all the hullabaloo this past year as the financial crisis enfolded and China stepped in to lend America piles of cash against a future of debt, little was mentioned about the communist government of China. People like brilliant policy shaper Tom Friedman waxed rhapsodic at the wonders of China with green-eyed envy. China had become the flat world’s wunderkind.

I marveled at the hypnotic affects of China’s “capitalism” in the past decade over respected and innovative thinkers. Friedman in “The World is Flat” listed China as a welcome addition to the global economy, a great commercial giant leveling the playing field.

In the U.S. love affair with China, as the Big O (and George Dubbya before him) shake their hands and money tree, otherwise smart people seemed to forget who our benefactor really is. It’s the Big Bad Wolf, folks and we are on our way to Grandma’s house.

For all the Red Scare of the 50’s through 80’s, the Soviet Union was the wolf. Russia continues to be vilified in the press and Public Square. The message is repeatedly clear. They are a communist dictatorship and do not value American-style freedom. They can’t be trusted.  Okay…so how did China slip through the cracks to become one of the most admired economies by the western world?

The affair with Big Red began with the smell of money. Back in the mid 1990s, top execs at Goldman Sachs were scouting the world for new opportunities. The economic neutron bomb, hedge fund Long Term Capital, had exploded and with it the Russian market.

All eyes turned to the East. CEO Hank Paulson turned for help to Goldman pal, Robert Rubin, who sat comfortably in the U.S. Treasury seat. President Clinton signed on and the stars aligned. China was open for business.

The belief in the early 21^st century among many of the “best” economic minds of the day (including Alan Greenspan) was that communism through capitalism would slowly transform into democracy.  Ahh, we were so young and foolish back then. We believed so many fanciful things, like capitalism actually has anything to do with democracy!

In the lust for profits in the developing nation of China, American businessmen and policy makers seemed to forget – they kill people there! They round up “dissidents” (anyone who does not agree with The Party), force them into kangaroo courts, torture them behind closed doors, break their spirits, and whisk them away forever. And we think Iran’s government is ”bad?” I guess they are not our trading partner, so we can afford to be preachy. As soon as China became a primary source of revenue we were up the creek without a paddle….

(Just a quick note, if the financial crisis had occurred in China, what do you think would have happened to the subprime mortgage industry titans who took the money and ran? It is doubtful a Chinese Wall Street could have run too far. Guess there are perks to living with the Green-Reds after all.)

I have not understood for the past decade how the U.S. government can crow loudly about the violations of individual freedom in parts of the Middle East and somehow remain non-committal on the ongoing human cruelty in China.

Last month, outspoken Chinese dissident and well-known member of the American civil rights group PEN, Liu Xiaobo, was convicted of “inciting subversion” for calling forth “greater human rights” in China and the end of one-party rule. He was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum security prison. His wife was held in house arrest by the Chinese police during the trial. So much for democracy, even worse, forget about basic human rights.

These are the people with whom we willingly do business. These are the folks whose fortunes are made by Walmart shoppers. These are the folks who now own the future of America. Isn’t business supposed to be based on trust?

Google’s recent challenge to the Chinese government’s hacking of private email accounts reveals the struggle between Chinese and American style commerce. When it comes to “free enterprise” in a non-free society, the limitations of capitalism are plain to see. In America, capitalism trumped democracy once again this year. In China, communism will always have the upper hand. 

China and Google have butted heads over user privacy and censorship before. In my book, Spiritual Capitalism, I detailed the complex ethical issues between Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Chinese authorities. In 2006, all three tech companies succumbed to pressure to remove any blog or website critical of the Chinese government. Yahoo shockingly turned a political activist’s email identity over to officials. He was never seen nor heard from again.

Google and Microsoft chose to allow censorship, yet refused to reveal private identities and moved all email accounts offshore. All three U.S. companies were summoned before a Congressional panel and summarily chastised for their actions. More than one congressman compared their actions to Nazi complicity.

Time Magazine ran a cover story in February 2006, “Can you trust Google with your secrets?” as the commitment of the tech giant to its mantra, Don’t Be Evil, was called into question. A Google spokesman stated the company was not “ashamed” of its action, but “not proud.”  Better to have limited Internet rather than none, he explained. The response never sat quite right with the rest of Free Speech America.

The current situation involves more than suppression of First Amendment values. The Chinese government stands accused of “hacking” into private email accounts of political dissidents. Hacking is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering. The issue at stake is the very essence of Google core values. It’s good to know that when Big Brother is watching you, your other Big Brother has got your back.

Google is considering pulling their search engine out of China – a country of 1.3 billion people, four times the population in the United States. An amazing action for any hugely profitable publicly traded company. The threat alone would make shareholders shudder and competitors gloat. It also can make their largest client, the People’s Republic of China, mad as a hatter.

Yet they are willing to put their money where their ethics are, potentially risking enormous profits, and raising the bar of corporate social responsibility to a new level most of us will have to leap to follow.

This week Google profits are down 13%. The toll of the recession and the threat of Chinese action are already weighing heavily on the tech giant. Yet Google stated in their 2004 IPO that they wanted to be a different kind of company, one that did not sacrifice their core values for short-term profits.

That is a tough call for any for-profit company. Business leaders meet ethical challenges daily. Little in the world of money is black and white. There is always a grey area where profits must be considered against human needs. This is what doing good business demands of us. Asking questions like, “How do you stay in business, answer to the bottom line, and still maintain the soul of who you are?”

These are the dilemmas faced by modern business -big, small, and everything in between. Wall Street has been called on the carpet in recent months. So far they have failed miserably to balance two essential values: profits and the human bottom line.

The key for managers and companies faced with difficult decisions is to have a clear foundation of principles from which to act. Like valuing quality of life and placing the welfare of people and planet before profits. That is a hard lesson for business. Yet it remains the fundamental test of good business for 21^st century enterprise.

However this issue rolls out, Google has made a profound statement with its current stance. Sergey, Brin, and all the Googlicans are saying simply, some things are more important than money- principles and people. In the process, they have renewed our faith in ethically responsible capitalism.

This year, we watched incredulously as one profitable firm after another justified reprehensible breeches of ethics as the cost of doing business.  Google’s actions set them apart from the pack by drawing a distinct line in the sand. They are in business to profit, but they refuse to sell their soul to do it. The search king reveals once again that trust in business is not a PR slogan, but an absolutely essential component in any contemporary business model. 

Just goes to show, there are some things in life you can still count on. It is good to know that Google is one of them.

What is the point of all your great efforts these past few years you may be asking? In 2009, it was enough to just hold on, keep your business or income afloat, and try to make it through each month. There wasn’t a whole lot of growing to do unless you were one of the firms that grabbed onto the government’s life line to be pulled out of the hole you put yourself in. For the rest of us, we are left to our own devices to pull ourselves out of the hole others left behind.

All the progress made in 2008 by motivated entrepreneurs and optimistic working folk was flushed down the old porcelain convenience post Lehman Brothers’ collapse. 2009 was the year to hang on for dear life and hope you made it through. It was like standing on the Titanic watching all the Big Banks jump into the lifeboats leaving you two choices: sink or swim.  If you managed to swim in 2009 and not get pulled down with the ship, you might be asking, what do I do now?

The New Year 2010 has begun and with it green shoots of Hope have sprung in the hearts of the resilient. Larry Summers, President O’s Chief Economic Advisor, swears that “everyone agrees that the recession is over.” Those words ring false for the millions upon millions whose incomes have been cut in half or completely wiped out, for the tens of millions more whose net worth is a fraction of 2007 values.  For the millions of jobless or financially devastated who feel abandoned or forgotten, these words inspire rage and despair. Those left to their own resources without lifeboats over the past 16 months do not agree, Mr. Summers – the recession is not over, not for ordinary folks, not by a long shot.

So what is it all about, Alfie? What was the point of all that? Where do we go from here?

We muddle through the day to day financial stress trying to make sense of the senseless and nothing rings true – except for old truths. We read about the need for financial regulation, the methods for resurrecting incomes, the possibilities of official guidance or support and all of it really means nothing in the face of the bigger truths. For all the menial, trivial, and hard reality of paying the bills, and creating value to stay alive, it all comes back to one thing: what is the meaning to your life?

Why are you or any of us here? What is this whole thing – life, liberty, financial ruin – all about? These are the questions for millennia; these are the questions for the moment at hand.

I don’t know the meaning to life if it is not to help others as we help ourselves – to serve a higher purpose by making the world a better place. While that may be a deep truth, it will not necessarily pay the bills.

The question for 2010 then is how to do we make the world a better place, a world where human beings care for each other more than their wallets, where common folk are not left on the curb as “fat cats” step over their writhing bodies, where ordinary heroes rise up to take back the world they create every day in every way. When will the values of ordinary people who do the “right” thing consistently and without prompting reap earthly rewards for their humanity? Must we always be trumped by the overwhelming self-serving indifferent powers that be? How can we take the reins and ride our own way to freedom?

I ask all these questions of you, because I have been asking these of myself.

It can get pretty hopeless out here in the wasteland of the devastated American economy. I look around and see great misery and suffering, some of which the rest of the world has always known, but for my generation is new. What do I tell them, how do I bring them hope for a better future?

First of all, I want to remind everyone, even those facing homelessness and bankruptcy, it is never just about money. There is always a bigger picture.

Money makes the world go around only to a degree. It buys us food, shelter, clothing, perhaps medical care and education. Things we need to survive. But we already know it does not buy us love, nor does it buy us compassion, or sensitivity to the pain of others, nor relief from apathy. That comes from the heart. That comes from a greater place than cannot be explained easily in words.

So while you are going through your great financial challenges and hoping to pull yourself up from the boot straps for 2010, remember one thing: there is always a greater plan. This too shall pass and you will be once again back on your feet having learned important lessons along the way.

Remember too: it’s only money. Money pays for your lifestyle, keeps you in your home and in the mainstream of the living. But it does not say who you are, no matter how much you have or don’t. More importantly it does not reveal how you are inside, your heart, your mind, your soul. No matter what, you always have that.

Sometimes we think, I am so good, why is this happening to me? Haven’t I done so much for so many, shouldn’t I be rewarded for that? Yes, absolutely. And so we are rewarded every day for our good deeds in the warmth and support we give and receive from others. Not necessarily in monetary terms.

What does all of this have to do with Good Business and earning a living? Everything. That is what we cannot forget. We are not our bank books, portfolios, or careers. We are living breathing souls with Goodness on our side and a greater plan guiding us through it all. We can’t forget that. The good don’t always die young; sometimes they live to be very old like Desmond Tutu or Mother Teresa. Financial reward is not necessarily in the picture.

So make your money and make your living, but don’t let it define you. Don’t let it determine your mood or your self esteem. Don’t fall into the trap that got our society in the current bind of materialism it finds itself:  that money determines any part of our value other than numbers on a computer screen. Our deepest most valuable assets are our hearts and minds. We have those no matter what. These are the assets we are remembered for; these will be the things that we remember ourselves and others for. How do we treat others in our climb to the top or our quest for more? How do create our living in relationship to others? How do we view ourselves – as numbers or as souls?

Don’t forget to ask what your greater purpose in life might be. It isn’t money. It is never money. It is always how you make your money that counts the most, not whether you do. How do you maneuver through the tough times to make you proud and confident?

As you navigate through the maze of making ends meet this year and working towards growing your business or income back to prosperous levels, you may have to lay people off; you may have to look for a job, you may not be able to pay all your bills.

Put these circumstances in perspective by remembering that these are ordinary realities of the human condition. There is no need to confuse them with greater meaning in your life or to let economic difficulties obscure the core of who you are.

Wishing you the best in the New Year.

About the author:

Monika Mitchell is the Executive Director and Editor-in-chief of Good Business International, Inc. (GoodB). She founded GoodB in response to the growing need to unify and support the global good business community 

“The whopping rate increase is First Premier’s way of complying with the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. Among other provisions, that law prohibits fees of more than 25% above a card’s credit limit. First Premier has been offering an account with a $250 limit and annual fees of $256. By law the latter figure must come down to $75. To compensate for the lost $181 in fees, the bank is raising the rate by 70% of $250, or $175, a year.”

As the anonymous author points out,

“Banks can’t be expected to give money away, even if Congress is in the habit of doing just that. Unlike lawmakers, banks and other businesses can collect revenues only by offering something of value in return.”    

Hmmm…. To whom does Congress habitually give money away? Certainly not ordinary citizens. Why, banks of course – banks like First Premier. Deposit-taking interest-charging banks want their cake and to eat it too. And they won’t stop there – they also want yours.

Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you food, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare – all the basics of living a good life that free market capitalism can offer. So what is the price of freedom? 79%.

First Premier, aka “America’s vulture creditor,” is there to help anyone desperate enough for credit to put the final nail in their financial coffin.  One consumer states, “The only difference between First Premier Bank and Jesse James was he did it with a gun. They advertise as trying to help people with bad credit, but really they are just taking advantage of the poor people and lining their pockets.”

To be truly “free” in America, you need access to credit for almost everything. The ordinary citizen-borrower is caught in a trap.  How free are you when you can’t have your phone turned on, apply for job, or buy a car to get to work without “good credit?”

“Freedom” in America’s credit-trapped economy comes at a very high price. Thus some folks go for the 79% as a last resort. Hungry banks sit in wait, ready to pick at the bones of the economically wounded. For a price, credit card companies will happily devour you alive – legally and with impunity. Like good ole’ WSJ reports, they can’t be expected to do it for nothing – that is strictly the job of the Federal Reserve.

The discount window at the Federal Reserve is “giving money away” for “nothing” – not to you or me of course, but to banks.  The current rate for loans from the Fed is 0%, ZERO, nada, nichts, njet!  The same banks that get their money for free lend it to you for 24-79%.

(Riddle #1: What is the difference between banking in 2010 United States and loan sharking? One is legal and the other is not.)

The Fed lending rate gives you a clue on how Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo managed to “repay” the government while continuing to swim in billions of dollars of unpaid debt.                                                                                

In addition to “borrowing” at zero percent, banks are legally allowed to move “toxic assets” (money-losing debts) “off  balance sheet.” This would be akin to calculating your net worth by ignoring your entire loan, credit, and mortgage debt and counting only assets. In the dualistic system created since TARP, somehow you are in the red and your bank is in the black. 

Oddly enough this arrangement is loosely called the “free market.”  Although there is nothing “free” about being forced to pay unlimited interest rates—especially not if the scales are tilted unfairly in one direction. Banks don’t have to pay their debts, but they sure as hell expect you to pay yours.

Credit in ancient times, according to historian Paul Millet, began as “a process of neighborly reciprocity in rural societies.” Long before “consumer societies” or money itself was invented, there was credit.  Citizens traded their own labor (as well as that of their children and spouses) and their land to have access to credit, becoming enslaved and impoverished in the desperate effort to survive. Sound familiar?

Even Ancient Babylon had more consumer protections than we currently do. The first recorded laws in human history, Hammurabi’s code, stipulated interest rate limits of 20% on silver-based loans and 33% on grain loans.

In 1763 B.C. in the Ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, only a few years and few miles away from King Hammurabi, Dumuzi-gamil “the grain supplier to the King” acted as an ancient banker. 

The Temple under the King Rim-Sin collected rents (modern equivalent of taxes) from all citizens. Clay tablets written in cuneiform reveal that Dumuzi-gamil borrowed 250 grams of silver minas from the Temple and promised to repay 297.3 grams in five years – an annual interest rate of 3.78%.  Over the five year period, Dumuzi made a personal fortune by lending at rates as much as 20% per month to distressed farmers and fisherman unable to pay Temple rents or to feed their families.

Very quickly, the situation for ordinary citizens became unbearable and a severe credit crisis ensued as more citizens were shackled under the burden of debt.  The King felt there was no way to relieve the crisis other than cancel all debts. Thus King Rim-Sin created the first official act of “debt forgiveness” on record, nearly 1200 years before the Athenian Solon did the same.

The system of gouging blood money out of distressed borrowers is primitive and stealthy, worthy only of those without the moral or creative resources to generate profit in a non-predatory way. There is no honor in the exploitation of the desperate. It is not good business – no matter what the powers that be might claim. Perhaps it was in the second millennium B.C. however, not in the second millennium A.D. 

People are “free to choose” to borrow or not – in theory. However, in practice there is really no choice. We are enslaved in a system of credit and debt that has terrorized humanity for 4,000 years.

In this new year of 2010, as the banks that created the credit crisis for ordinary folks continue to rape and pillage the society they feed on, something must be done to turn the tide of vulture credit.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois introduced a bill to limit interest rates to 36% (3% more than Ancient Babylon) in 2009. It was shot down. Democrat and Republican Senators, in the pockets of powerful credit card lobbyists like the “Financial Services Roundtable,” wanted no limits on interest rates.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced another bill to limit credit card interest to 15%. It was defeated in a landslide of 33 votes for and 60 against.  Senator Sanders said, “When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available. They are engaged in loan-sharking.”

(Riddle # 2: What is the difference between mafia loan sharks, ancient lenders, and the present state of U.S. banking credit? The mafia takes your life; the ancients owned your life; modern banks destroy your life.)

The same distorted system of predatory lending that ended in financial collapse in 2008, echoing the Ancient world, continues with unlimited interest rates that prey on the poor and desperate. Perhaps 2010 will bring a more enlightened system of credit to modern finance – one that allows all debtors the same protections and opportunities given to vulture creditors – true freedom of choice.

Haven’t we waited long enough?

About the author:

Monika Mitchell is the Executive Director and Editor-in-chief of Good Business International, Inc. (GoodB). She founded GoodB in response to the growing need to unify and support the global good business community.

Something miraculous happened on the way to the White House this holiday week. Sixty privileged and pampered U.S. senators dragged themselves out on Christmas Eve in the wee hours of the morning to push through historic health care reform.

Many Americans are against the reforms in the current health care bill either because they hold too much or too little change. Yet the miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue is so much more than the bill itself; the debate on healthcare reform represents a shift of consciousness from exclusive self-interest to inclusive world-interest.

Healthcare is an economic issue as we know in America. It costs too much for too little. The only people who benefit from the high costs of care are pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, those who pad the bills to Medicaid and Medicare, and their investors. Everyone else is out on a limb to pay for the outrageously expensive cost of maintaining our bodies.

The healthcare debate has revealed a clear dividing line in the consciousness of the public. The debate cuts across economic classes, genders, ethnicity, and social stratas. We are no longer separated in a battle between haves, have nots or have mores. The debate reveals a clarion call raging through society: The ancient struggle of self-service versus common-good.

Given the painful lessons of the last year, the mood of the nation seems to be shifting from a “what’s in it for me” cultural ethic to a newly emerging ethos of “If I flourish, so should you.” Battle lines are drawn between those afraid to lose what they have and those willing to share their fortune with others. A new day is dawning in America, because compassion for others has won a decisive victory—at least for the moment.

We are good people in this country; kind people, generous perhaps even to a “fault.” Yet fear of suffering can make even the gentlest of souls selfish and indifferent. A newly minted senior citizen, a woman of 65, is adamantly against health care reform. She states her objection to expanding care, “I don’t want a 45 year old to get my MRI.” The sentiment sounds petty and insensitive coming from someone receiving taxpayer supported Medicare. Yet her concerns are real. Would she get the required care needed or would she have to sacrifice her own health for another’s?

Some don’t want to see their already costly healthcare premiums increase. Others don’t want to pay tax on top level care. Still others fear their healthcare will be compromised in service to others. All these are real concerns for ordinary Americans. Some working, some not—all are understandably worried whether their survival and comfort will be threatened by “reform.”

Yet an extraordinary change of heart is underfoot, worthy of the era we find ourselves in: the era of shared concern.

The issues of universal healthcare go far beyond any legislation debated in Congress. The fundamental issue revolves around, “What is our obligation as human beings to care for others?” “Must I sacrifice any part of my comfort or share my good fortune with you?”

The big banks have answered this question this year by plowing ahead with bonuses at the expense of the American taxpayer. If we really believe in “raw survival-of-the-fittest capitalism” we should be okay with this. Yet most of us are adamantly opposed to this inequity.

The Fed Chief states the bailout he himself engineered is “distasteful and unfair;” yet only those who benefited from his actions agree. Anyone struggling financially to survive knows how misguided and undemocratic the 2008-2009 bailout programs truly are.

We have been in an on-going struggle in America since our founding between individualism, our personal sense of freedom, and a broader sense of justice and fair play. “What is our obligation to the greater public and at what cost does that come to ourselves?” is the key question consistently argued in our two century history.

I don’t know the answer for everyone, but for me the answer can be best told through a story. Several years ago I visited an American friend in Brazil. As we sat at an outdoor churrascaria gazing at the crowded sands of Ipanema, content in all our abundant perfection, a little boy of nine or ten peered at me through the restaurant gates. His huge brown eyes hungrily took in the bounty before me. As the waiters brought more food, I said to my friend, “Can we ask him to join us?” My friend seemed annoyed by the question and explained that Rio was not like the U.S. “Orphaned street children are common here,” he said. “You can give them a few coins, but not more than that because if you do you will never get rid of them.”

The callousness of his remark shocked me. I asked, “But we have so much food, can’t we give him some? He looks like he is starving.” My friend shook his head no, made a joke about life’s inequities and detailed the Brazilian social system to me. “People are just used to it here, you can’t help them. This is just the way it is.” My friend and I began a deep discussion on indifference, civic duty, and compassion. All the time the little boy’s eyes stared at the table of food through the gate. The discussion became heated as we both stated our increasingly diverse views. As my friend kept eating and talking, the limitless supply of meats flowing, my appetite and conversation diminished. “How can you eat while this child is starving?” I asked him. He laughed and stuffed a rare piece of Filet Mignon in his mouth and said, “Like this.”

When he got up to go to the restroom I signaled to the child to come and sit down. The boy ran through the gates to the table, only to be intercepted by angry waiters who shooed him away like a fly. The head waiter scolded me harshly for inviting “street urchins” into his restaurant. My friend returned to the chaotic scene embarrassed by my social faux pas and I decided to leave, but not before asking for a “doggie bag.” The waiter refused and I scooped up the meats untouched on my plate into a napkin, handed them to the boy who grabbed them and ran off.

My companion was as repulsed by my actions as I was by his. In my youth I judged him harshly. I left to go back to the States and rarely spoke to him again. In time, I recognized the real issue between us was not as cut and dry as one might suppose- it was the differing ways we viewed the world. I felt an obligation to help those less fortunate in any way I could; he felt he had no obligation to the “world,” only to a select few. His seeming self-interest belied the fact that he was deeply generous to a handful of friends in New York and Brazil. Yet his kindness did not spill over to the greater human population. “I cannot help everyone,” he told me, “and neither can you.”

In the years since, I understand his behavior more than I once did. He was a kind man who could not express that compassion to the greater community without overwhelming himself. That “is just the way it is,” he had told me. His statement marked an apathy and acceptance I did not share. That was the major difference between us more than any innate goodness on my part or his.

He was right of course in his mature wisdom. I cannot help everyone, nor can anyone. But we can do whatever possible to help others without sacrificing ourselves. I told my friend in Rio that it might be the way it is, “but I don’t accept it.” Neither should any of us, accept a status quo of indifference and apathy, not if we hope to create a better world.

While the healthcare bill is as imperfect as we humans are, it marks an important shift from apathy and indifference to shared responsibility. Healthcare in this country is an expensive commodity reserved only for those who are fortunate enough to afford it or old enough to qualify for it.

That might be the way it is, but we don’t have to accept it, because it is just not good enough.

The new vote on Healthcare brings Hope for a less indifferent and more responsible America in the year ahead—one where the basic necessities of life are not considered luxuries meant only for a lucky few.

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Respected journals and periodicals report that “nothing” has changed over the past year on Wall Street since the financial collapse. Some make the staggering claim that it is back to “business as usual.” In other words, surprise of surprise (?), greed still exists—particularly in the world of money.

Yes, greed does exist and will continue to until a transformation of consciousness takes hold of all of us. In fact in the last year of our “Lord”—the Money God that is—a lot has changed.

Firstly, there is a growing recognition of the part that unbridled greed played in the destruction of venerable old firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns within the financial industry itself. AIG and Merrill Lynch exist in some form or other, but limp along as lifeless shadows of their former greatness.

Contrary to popular belief, most people on the Street, from top levels of high finance through the middle and bottom layers too, know that their coworkers are responsible in large part for the capitulation of a once celebrated –now vilified—free market business model. Too little, too late, they lament. We should have seen it coming.

Along with this private acknowledgement is the conviction that it won’t happen again—not on their watch anyway.

Perhaps ironically, much of the Street feels similarly to the public in one major area: the government did not do its job to oversee and regulate the safety and protections of the marketplace.  This is undisputedly true.

In 2002, after the World Com and Enron debacles, Free Market Architect Alan Greenspan accurately stated that ”an infectious greed seemed to grip much of our business community.” He was referring, of course, to the copycat “creative accounting” rules for major shareholder companies that subsequently declared bankruptcy, bringing investors down with them.

In that same speech, the Former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve stated, ‘It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations past. It is that the avenues to express greed had grown so enormously.” In this is the key to our current economic dilemma. Alan Greenspan’s recognition of the dangers of outsized greed did not compel him to petition for change—nor did it for the rest of us. Public officials and citizens turned the other way—they know what they are doing, we thought. They know better than we, was our flawed conclusion.  

As modern societies of the 21^st century, greed should no longer shock us—nor should it numb us. Like war, murder, rape, and any of sort of human action that infringes on the individual and collective rights of society, the reality of greed and the relentless human desire to find “avenues to express it” requires constant oversight and vigilance.

Greed exists; therefore laws to protect society from it must be created and enforced. It is as simple as that. We protect society from murderers and rapists with a legal framework of punishment. Although these human calamities still exist, we acknowledge the need to inhibit these actions with severe consequences. Protection of society from the destructive forces of greed necessitates similar deterrents.

While Wall Street and its students are nailed to the wall as evil incarnate, torn apart in every print publication, trashed and abused in media events, Congressional discourse, and public forums, are they really the source of our discontent or is it the human failing of greed itself?

We ask Wall Street to make money, move the economy, create wealth and prosperity for all. When they do so, we are happy – if we win. However, if we lose, they are villains, worse – criminals who broke no laws; we turn our backs on the very people and very system we formerly embraced. Because the cultural ethic of greed has been accepted as the Holy Grail for so long, we never questioned it until it turned against us.  Only then did we cry bloody murder.

So who is really responsible for the economic burdens we continue to bear?

You, me, Wall Street, and the government officials who are charged with protecting us from ourselves.

All of us have created the monster that now devours us.

Like the Greek mythological king, Midas, for years everything we touched turned to gold. Like Midas, his good fortune inevitably becomes a curse. Midas touches food and water and turns them to gold, destroying his own sustenance. His beloved daughter turns to gold when he touches her hand. Midas grieves the loss of his daughter and begins to hate the fruits of wealth he so desired. The old king did not realize the high price he would pay for his greed.

Neither did we in America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, France, China, India, Japan, and any other partner of the raw and unrestrained capitalism that had no brakes, no limits, no protections. 

We have been betrayed by our own worship of money and wealth—by our own Greed.

The Money God, as Midas discovered, is shallow comfort in the light of real human need. We need love, family, friends, home, health, productive work, and financial security—all the things that are now threatened by our voracious appetite for more.

So despite those who gloomily despair that nothing has changed—much has changed. Our dependence on financial speculation for security for one. Our reverence for wealth as the epitome of success and accomplishment for another. Our innocence about the super human powers of money creation we endowed our former money gods with; now in the wake of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, we know better. They are no more money gods than we; their feet are made of clay just as ours are too.

Like Midas, those in government (Congress, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and others in public office before this year) that contributed directly to this colossal mess have to hide their donkey ears. Yet there is no one to blame if we are all not to blame. The society of greed we encouraged and embraced is the real source of our suffering.

We are forever changed by the events of the past two years. Regulation is surely to come down the pike in heavy doses. Personal and individual freedoms will be diminished to protect the freedom of the whole. Inevitably, officials and money men will be weeded out and more cautious men and women will replace them. They are armed with the knowledge of their predecessor’s experience.

Those that came before will be unfortunate casualties in the evolution of consciousness that is taking hold of the world of money—a world that by our very existence, we are all a part.

An evolving consciousness is seeding within the modern mind that understands, after these last challenging years, that greed does indeed know no bounds. And the primitive belief in self-interest at any cost that dovetails with it, even to the destruction of the very society that supports it, also finds itself a wounded relic of an ancient past.

As we embark on the dawn of the second decade in the new millennium, the consciousness of greed and its high and painful cost colors all that we do going forward.

From this century on, a profound and necessary change has come to capitalist America—one that accompanies the knowledge that not all things that turn to gold are desired.

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New York State of Mind

A new law on the books since last year in New York helps protect subprime mortgage holders from foreclosure. A similar bill protecting prime borrowers recently was passed by the State Legislature. The bill requires lenders to give 90 days’ warning and forces lenders into settlement conferences with borrowers before proceeding with foreclosure.

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Love Thy Neighbor

The “City of Brotherly Love” lives up to its name these days with a foreclosure prevention program that is inspiring other struggling communities to follow. Not one to wait for Washington to come through, the city made famous by America’s revolutionary founders has created a program for distressed homeowners like no other.

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Upping the Ante

The Treasury Department ordered Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and big and small lenders to Washington D.C. this week to inject a little gratitude into their blood money veins. Of the 71 participating lenders, few have accomplished significant mortgage modifications for troubled homeowners. To insure a patriotic zeal from “take the money and run” lenders, the Treasury is installing “three person SWAT teams to monitor the eight largest companies’ work and requesting twice-daily reports on their progress.”

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

– Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

- Buckminster Fuller