THEY

I was at Starbucks about a month ago and saw a guy come in and ask for a free cup of coffee.  He looked like he might be homeless, but not so far gone that he really was living on the streets for any length of time, more a panhandler than someone really in need.  The Barista said, “I’ve told you before, you can’t come in here and get free coffee and you aren’t allowed to ask customers for money.  You can have water, but that’s all.”  He gave the guy a cup of water and the panhandler said, “What, no ice?,” as he walked out the door.  A female customer at the cash register started castigating the barista. 

“Why couldn’t you just give him a cup of coffee?, she asked, “Why did you have to be such a jerk about it?”  She continued to harangue him about how Starbucks can afford to give away coffee because they make so much money.  Why should the barrista care if they lost a few cents giving away one cup of coffee?

I wondered at the irony of her situation.  Here she was castigating Starbucks for being rich and not being as generous as she thought they should be, but she, who was standing there waiting to pay $5 to Starbucks, never once offered to buy the homeless guy a cup of coffee. 

It’s so much easier to blame They than to blame ‘I’.

They are mysterious. 

They are aloof. 

They are different from us. 

They are faceless. 

They cause all the problems.

They are to blame.

They don’t care. 

Government.  Politicians.  Corporate fat cats.  Banks.  Investment Companies.  They.

As if some alien species came to earth in the last few decades (during the Bush years if you are a Democrat or during Obama’s administration if you are  a Republican), suddenly, there is this ober-class of people who are to blame for all that’s wrong in this country.

Any serious student of history can tell you that it’s always been this way.  J.P. Morgan.  Leland Stanford.  John Jacob Astor.  Dale Carnegie.  Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Charles Schwab. Fisk. Duke. Plant. Ford. Seligman. Frick.  The Rockefellers.  The Kennedys.  The Du Ponts. The Lehmans. Many of these names we recognize as street names and product names.  Many are responsible for some of the greatest acts of philanthropy in our nation’s history.  Many are also responsible for terrible depredations on their workers, the environment, and on consumers.

It’s no different today. 

There are rich people like Steve Jobs, so lately lamented, but known specifically for his lack of generosity and his cutthroat business decisions and tyrant management style.. Or perhaps Bill Gates, also known for cutthroat business, but also known for enormous acts of charity and generous donations. 

It sure is easy to blame those rich people for our problems.  It’s even easier to blame the anonymous banks and big corporations.  If there is no person’s name attached, they become an even easier target for our ire. 

 “How dare they have billions of dollars when I struggle to pay my mortgage, my car loans, my student loans, and my credit cards?!?!?,” we demand with righteous indignation! 

“What’s up with these politicians, why do they keep screwing us so badly with laws that don’t help the little guy?!?!?!,” we yell out with all the moral anger we can muster.

Good questions.

No.  Not really a good questions.  Actually, quite bad ones.

Perhaps we should rephrase them:  “How dare I complain about faceless bankers when I keep using their money so poorly?” and, “Why do I keep voting for the same people just so my party stays in control, with little or no consideration to the best choices for the country?”

The problem with our nation comes down to 308, 600,000 individuals (give or take a million) who need to start taking personal responsibility and quit blaming the unnamed They for our problems.

We need to swear off debt.  Quit borrowing from Bank of America and suddenly that BOA constrictor loses its power.  Don’t like that they are charging a fee for debit transactions… Vote with your feet.  Don’t spend another dime with them.  Period.

Upset that hedge funds, junk bonds, and mortgage securities were at the heart of our current economic recession?  Maybe it’s time to reconsider the idea that everyone should own their own home, including people who cannot afford one or people incapable of paying their bills on time.  Perhaps it is time to take personal responsibility for wisely purchasing just enough home for what we need and not overburdening ourselves with large houses just because, at the top of the market, we could convince a bank to give us that much.  Perhaps it’s time for families to live together again, supporting mom and pop or giving the kids a chance to save up for a better start.  Perhaps it’s time for us to educate ourselves on mortgages before we take whatever product the realtor, banker, and broker convince us to take.  Perhaps it’s time to go back to the idea of saving up a huge down payment, learning discipline in the process, and then paying off that mortgage as fast as we can.

Don’t like that partisanship in politics?  Quit voting your party line and take the time to educate yourself on the individuals on both sides.  Consider that there are people on both sides of the issue and perhaps we need to give a little credence to the other side and the middle too.  Perhaps, instead of complaining about gridlock, we should stop listening to soundbites and recognize that a nation of 308 million people are actually going to have different points of view from you and perhaps that’s a healthy thing.

At the heart of this is individual responsibility.  Let’s not enable those who are occupying Wall Street now and blocking real working people from their jobs.  Let’s encourage them to occupy themselves with working.  .  If you have large amounts of student loans to get a degree in art history, perhaps it’s time to learn a hard lesson about the real world.  Get a job.  If there aren’t jobs there, create something new.  Start a new business or create a new product.  Maybe, consider moving to a place where there are jobs.  This is the American way and it is this innovation, stick-to-it-iveness, and willingness to work that have made us such a leader among nations.  Most of those rich people that we covered above didn’t start out that way. 

Finally, let’s not lose sight of the fact that we are the richest people in the world.  As the richest 4% or so of the entire world, let’s try to keep a clear focus on the fact that there are billions of people who would be willing to tell us, in a multitude of languages, where we can stick our pre-printed 99% signs.  In one loud and raucous voice, they would shout together in Hindi, Farsi, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, and a hundred other languages that they would be more than willing to take our jobs and work without complaining, that they would gladly accept our educations and put them to work, that they would give anything to have won the cosmic lottery that is a U.S. citizenship.

For those who are occupying Wall Street and other locations – I respect your voice that times are hard.  I don’t respect mob control and I certainly do not respect the politicians who are trying to make political hay out of this.  Clean up your mess.  Put down the signs.  Ditch the ridiculous hyperbolic rhetoric of, “hitler’s bankers,” “crimes against humanity,” “enslaved.”  Grow up and join the real world.

Yes, times are hard.  Yes, the Economy is rough.  Yes, corruption has happened.

But, stop blaming “They” and start saying, “I will take responsibility for myself.”

* For the record, I spent more than a decade working for banks and mortgage brokers, including at least half that time at Bank of America.  As a corporate culture, they are not a good company to work for.  They have led the charge on almost every fee that could be charged to their customers.  They regularly reorganized, right-sized, downsized, rif’ed, and every other pseudonym for messing with their employees lives in the interest of increasing stock-holder profits.  I always wondered at what point someone would realize that you can cut a pie a hundred ways and still have the same amount of pie, just much messier.  I don’t bank with them and I don’t recommend anyone bank with them.  If A.P. Giannini truly was the man that they said he was, who built his bank by working with the common working man, then I am absolutely sure he is spinning like a dervish in his grave at the company that Bank of America has become.  Let me take advantage of this blog to recommend that you never work for, borrow from, deposit money with, invest money in, or even walk too slowly past Bank of America or any of the other large banks.  Use small local banks and credit unions for deposits, and live debt free.  If enough of us do that, then real change can occur in that industry.

Dear Mr. Advice Columnist

Dear Mr. Advice Columnist,

I have a family member in trouble and hope you can help.   It’s affecting our whole family.  My uncle is out of control and I am not sure how to deal with it.    He may be senile or possibly suffering from dementia.  He used to be a likeable guy, very popular, and really had his life together.   Don’t get me wrong, he made mistakes, but he was a better guy than most people.  He was extremely frugal and built up quite a large amount of wealth.  That’s where the problem begins.  He started giving money away, to the point that he cannot pay his own bills.  He gives it to family members, strangers on the street, and even people in other places he doesn’t even know.  He buys them all sorts of things they don’t really need or that they could buy for themselves.  He has been supporting many of them, buying groceries and even paying their bills for them.  I don’t mind him helping the ones who are really in trouble, but most of them could pay these things themselves with a little financial responsibility and realistic budgeting.  But, with him paying for so much, they aren’t learning how to take care of themselves; they just keep taking from him.

I wouldn’t mind so much, but we all live together on the same piece of land that we inherited from my great-grandparents.  And, since we all share title, his financial choices are affecting us all.  What’s more, we have a joint checking account and every time I get a little money, he takes half of it and gives it away to other people.  He has actually run out of money himself and has been borrowing great amounts of credit to keep giving money away.  I’ve tried talking to my family about all of this, but since so many of them receive money from him, they don’t seem to care that we are living on borrowed time.  My cousins all think it’s no big deal.  They say that by the time the money runs out from all the credit cards and bank loans that they’ll all be dead anyway.  They don’t seem to care that their children will be horribly affected by my uncle’s mistakes and they really don’t care that it is affecting those of us that are trying to pay our own way.

What can I do?

Anxious in Arizona

 - - - - - - - - - -

 Dear Anxious In Arizona,

It’s your Uncle Sam, isn’t it.  I know that guy.  Well, the bad news is, the problem will never be fixed till your family works together to get each of themselves on a budget.  Then they can begin insisting that he cut his spending and get him on a realistic budget.  But, as long as so many of them receive money from his largess and won’t choose to be financially healthy themselves, you’ll never change anything.  I wish I could give you more hope, but as long as people act for their own selfish interests and take no personal responsibility, you are stuck. 

Mr. Advice Columnist

Ten Things the Government Needs to Learn About Budgeting That I Learned From Running a Church

Here we are again. It’s crunch time and the politicians are making a big fuss about the budget. Democrats blame the Republicans, Republicans blame the Democrats, the sky is blue, grass is green… Such is life.



In the past two years, I have become the Senior Pastor at a small church here in Phoenix. As a youth pastor for years, I never had to worry much about the budget, the elders and Senior Pastor did that. Now, it’s my job and I’ve learned that it is harder than I ever realized. Running a church is really just running a small business from a financial point of view*. Running a Government is no different from running a small business, either, just a matter of scale.


I’m still trying to get my mind around all of the issues of the business side of church, but here are some lessons I’ve learned that might just help Congress.


1. It’s easy to nickel and dime your way to deficit spending.


Most of the issues I’ve encountered when it comes to going over budget aren’t about the big expenses. Yes, occasionally an AC compressor will give out in July or an irrigation accident will destroy a neighbor’s yard and require repair, but the truth is, it’s all the little expenses here and there that build up. Paper is $35 a case. Toner is $120 a cartridge. We chose to print a hundred of those posters and suddenly, we are over budget. Workday projects, repairs, and maintenance always cost twice what you expected and necessitate three trips to Home Depot. Whoops, we did it again. This is what makes budgeting so hard, because $28 here and $55 there doesn’t sound like much until you do it too many times.






2. It’s easier to spend when it’s someone else’s money


My family is all about debt-free living. We don’t use credit cards, we don’t get car loans, and we try very hard to consider our expenses so we don’t overspend. However, when it comes to making choices of what to buy or not to buy at work, it’s easier to think, “Oh, we’ll just move the money over from another area to cover it,” or, “This item is on sale and we’ll surely use it someday, so we’ll go ahead and buy it now and replenish the fund later.” The problem is: it’s much easier to be brutally realistic about finances when you are talking about paying the rent to keep the roof over your head and paying the electric bill to keep your own lights on.



3. You don’t reduce the deficit, cut it entirely and work on paying off debt.


My earliest recollection of politics comes from the budget fights of the early eighties. I remember the politicians saying, time and time again, “We must cut the deficit.” Even as a teenager, that sounded very weird. I wasn’t even good at math, but I knew that a negative is a negative whether it was $1000 or $1 billion dollars. That’s like trying to dig yourself out of a hole by using a trowel instead of a spade. Either way, you’re still digging a deeper hole. Nope, you gotta learn to live within your means and NEVER spend in the negative.






4. There’s always a bunch of good things to do with the money, but not always a bunch of money to do good things with.


Church is all about this. There’s always someone who has a ministry need. The homeless need fed. The orphans need shoes. People in Africa need medicine. People in Japan just had a natural disaster. Poor families need Christmas presents. Missionaries need sent. Tots need toys. Trees need angels. Drives need canned food. On and on and on and on. All of these are good things, and all cost money. The simple truth is we just cannot do them all. We have to say, “No,” to some of them. That hurts, that’s difficult, and that’s absolutely necessary.


5. Look at your priorities.


Yup, that’s what this comes down to. Prioritizing. Sounds easy, right? List all your bills in order of urgency. Begin dividing up your money to pay for those. Then, create a rainy day fund and put a good percentage of money into that account to cover unforeseen problems. Then, if (IF) there is money left over, begin adding those things you want to do in priority order. Parcel out any remaining funds for those items until you run out of money. Then, say, “I’m Sorry,” to the rest of the items.






6. Consider other options to pay for things.


So, there are good things leftover from your list (see items 4 & 5 above). Gosh, there is one of them that you really, really want to do. It’s such a good idea, but we just don’t have the money in the budget for it. Great. Let’s do it. Here’s how: go to the people and sell it to them. Tell them what a great idea it is and why we should do it. If they’re on board, then they’ll help pay for it. If not, then back to the drawing board. What other ways might we fundraise for this? Who else can we get behind this idea that might help? Where else can we cut or where else can we earn the money to make it happen? What if the church as a whole doesn’t provide for it, but individuals within the church who are passionate about it get creative and make it work?


This leads us to an especially important message for the American People and our Silly Politicians. Are you ready… Wait for it…


The Government is not the only one who can provide money for good things to happen! Whoa! Step Back! You mean that private investors can do charity? You mean that churches and community groups can be responsible for some of this stuff? You mean families can actually help each other? You mean communities can get together and make something work? All of this without our Mommy the Government doing it for us?


Abso-stinkin-lutely!



7. Good stewardship matters for good character.


I know you may not believe it, but church is not about money. Our message is one of hope and truth. We point people to a righteous God. But, our message gets awfully muddled when we misuse the money that is entrusted with us. Why would someone trust us to listen to our message if we aren’t open and transparent about something as basic as our finances? Why would someone believe that God wants us to care for the poor if the church community spends all its money on events for themselves? Where is our integrity when we say we care about the poor in third-world nations who live on less than a dollar a day, but we spend $50 million on a new building for our church to meet in? As a church, the message is simple: people see the way we spend our money and it reflects on their perception of the truth of our message.


Dear Congress, this applies to you. America was once a shining beacon in the world. Is it anymore? If we expect people in developing nations to believe that democracy works, we’d better be showing them that it does. Our message of the American Way is marred by our financial failures.


8. Someone has to pay the bills and it ain’t fair to leave it for someone else.


A house of cards is bound to come tumbling down someday. It’s funny, but there is a parable about building your house on sand versus building it on solid rock. Now, Jesus wasn’t talking about our budget there, but the lesson still rings true with our finances. We may be able to spend in a deficit for a few years (or generations if you are the government). We can get away with it for a little while, but eventually the bills are going to be called in. It will be time to pay up. It just isn’t right to spend freely now, knowing our children will one day face crushing austerity measures and crumbling economy, just so we selfishly can have everything we want now. For a household, this may mean bankruptcy. For a church, it could very well close us down. For a nation, the end results are almost unthinkable.






9. Brutal Realism is Required.


This is true of thousand dollar family budgets, hundreds of thousand dollar church budgets, multi-million dollar industry budgets, and trillion dollar governments. When it comes time to cut, EVERYBODY must give a little. Pet projects must go by the wayside. If they are good, then maybe they can return someday. This is probably the biggest problem we face as a nation. Everyone agrees that the budget must be cut, but nobody is willing to give away their pet project. The arts community wants the budget cut, just not the National Endowment for the Arts. Soldiers want the budget cut, just not a dime from the military. Teachers want the budget cut, but nothing from the schools. Seniors talk about how they lived through tight times in the depression, but the AARP isn’t about to discuss ANY changes to Social Security or Medicare. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you want everyone else to tighten their belt, just not you. It’s time to cut everywhere. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to go through EVERY line item on the budget and make adjustments. It hurts, but it is necessary.


10. Yes, budgeting is Hard – Quit Whining About It.


I hate numbers. I detest accounting. I loathe detail work. So what? It’s my job and I have to buckle down and do it. Every year, we have to look at the budget. We have to crunch numbers. We have to make hard decisions. We have to give up things. We have to say, ‘No.’ So, I get a cup of coffee, treat myself to a donut that I’m not allowed to have, I sigh a little; and then I get to work.


Dear Congress and Mr. President (of any administration and any party). Despite what you may have been led to believe, we did NOT send you there to enrich yourself. We sent you there to make hard decisions and to be leaders. Please listen clearly to the following Public Service Announcement: “Suck It Up!!!” Quit whining, work together, give till it hurts, and tell the lobbyists and your own constituents, “I know you want this, but we just can’t afford this, so the answer is No.”






There are some who would say all of this is naïve. Sure, this stuff applies to households and small businesses, but the government just doesn’t work that way. Well, they are right about that last part: it doesn’t work. What we are doing with our money doesn’t work; it is a house of cards that is past due for a collapse. We, the American people of any party, truly are naïve if we think this can continue much longer.


I don't have all the answers, and trust me, this is still a work in progress in my own life.  But, I do know that this lesson will be learned someday... The easy way or the hard way.



* Oddly enough, I wasn’t required to take a single class in Bible College or Seminary called How To Run A Small Business 101.