Download
1 / 48
E N D
Somewhere in the seventies, or the sixties, we started expecting to be happy. I think we have lost the old knowledge that happiness is over-rated—that in a way life itself is overrated. We are the first generations of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search has caused such unhappiness. The reason: if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe only in the flat material world around you, if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness--if that is what you believe, then you are more than disappointed when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you are in despair.” Peggy Noonan Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
“My advice to a school of business management is to teach the business manager to give unlimited love and he or she will be more successful." Sir John M. Templeton “Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.” Martin Luther King
“Wall Street says: split yourself off from your values and invest strictly for profit. We say: invest with as much integrity as possible. An uncomfortable state of dissonance occurs when our actions are out of alignment with our hearts. It is possible to live with such inconsistencies only by putting on blinders--by maintaining that an investor has no responsibility for the actions of the companies in which his or her money is invested. But such conflicts are real, and no amount of denial can make them disappear.” Investing With Your Values
“The investor likes to think of himself as a force for honesty and transparency, but he has proved in recent years that he prefers a lucrative lie to an expensive truth. And he’s very good at letting corporate management know it. Investors, in their shortsightedness, encourage companies to neglect their social responsibilities.” Michael Lewis The Irresponsible Investor New York Times Magazine June 6, 2004
“Those who buy counterfeit designer goods project a fashionable image at a fraction of the price of the real thing. You might think that would make them feel rather smug about themselves. But an intriguing piece of research published in Psychological Science suggests the opposite: wearing fake goods makes you feel a fake yourself, and causes you to be more dishonest in other matters than you would otherwise be.” The Economist June 26, 2010
“Religion is not some kind of psychic exercise that occasionally offers a transcendent experience. It either shapes one’s life—all of one’s life—or it vanishes, leaving behind anxious, empty souls that no psychotherapy can reach.” Irving Kristol The Wall Street Journal
“It is a curious fact that as we leave the most primitive peoples of the world, we find the economic insecurity of the individual many times multiplied. The solitary Eskimo, Bushman, Indonesian, or Nigerian peasant, left to his or her own devices, will survive a considerable time. Living close to the soil or to his or her animal prey, such an individual can sustain his own-more rarely, her own- life. But when we turn to the New Yorker or the Chicagoan, we are struck by exactly the opposite situation, by a prevailing ease of material life coupled with an extreme dependence on others.” Robert Heilbroner The Making of Economic Society
“Feeling down, anxious? Your problem may be that fat bank account. New research says the hell-bent pursuit of money can be hazardous to your mental health. It debunks the popular belief that having a goal, any goal, is psychologically beneficial. People who value extrinsic goals are more prone to behavioral problems and physical ailments...The gold diggers interviewed scored far lower on measures of vitality and self -actualization...There’s no drawback in having money. You just need to remember the things that truly provide meaning in life.” Forbes
“The church’s often-dismissive response to the layperson’s optimistic desire to integrate faith and career cannot be justified. In fact, this attitude may be the largest act of self-marginalization mainstream churches have ever engaged in.” Professor Laura Nash Harvard University
Sweating The Small Stuff… “Many people think the church asks too much of its members. In reality, it asks too little… Frankly, many churches have dumbed down church until it has no meaning at all. We are afraid to ask men for a great commitment, so they think we’re after their wallets, not their hearts.”
“While many Americans are no doubt ‘overspent,’ the possibility of most people drowning in credit card debt as an explanation for lack of generous religious and charitable financial giving lacks empirical support…One commonly cited statistic in the media is that the average American owes more than $8,000 in credit card debt. Numbers like that are inflated by a relatively small number of people in huge debt. The median balance was $2,200.* That itself represents only three percent of all debts held by Americans.” *Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances 2004
“The steady drop in donations, volunteering, and personal involvement is a direct result of a spiritual crisis -- a crisis caused in large part by the clergy’s failure to address the vital relationships between faith and money… the solution is not simply to talk more about the financial needs of the church -- 30 percent said they would actually give less money if churches talked more about finances than they do now. The answer is to talk about the broader relationships between faith, work, money, giving, the poor, and economic justice.” Robert Wuthnow The Crisis In The Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe
Part Three: Atheistic Challenges to Our Well-Being
America’s New Secular, Economic Religion “We will give people a faith--a positive, clear and consistent system of belief.”
“Ayn Rand--the heroine of America’s libertarian right--described her philosophy as ‘the concept of man as a noble being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.’ The Reagan presidency provided opportunities for a few objectivists to try their hand at their most hated institution: government. The most celebrated Randist even survived the passing of the Reagan years. Alan Greenspan was an acolyte of Rand’s in the 1960’s.” The Economist January 1994
“Rand was blazing a trail distinct from the broader conservative movement, as indicated by the title of her second nonfiction book, The Virtue of Selfishness. Whereas traditional conservatism emphasized duties, responsibilities, and social interconnectedness, at the core of the right-wing ideology that Rand spearheaded was a rejection of moral obligations to others.” Jennifer Burns, Ph.D. Goddess of the Market; Ayn Rand and the American Right
“For her, government was nothing more than licensed robbery and altruism just an excuse for power-grabbing.” The Economist October 24, 2009
“I believe in complete, laissez faire, full, unregulated capitalism--not mixed economy. Ayn Rand
Moses/Jesus Both Personal & Social Responsibility * U.S. Rand Marx Socialism Capitalism No Social Responsibility No Personal Responsibility
“I believe it is simply wrong to maintain that God and the Bible favor one modern form of economic organization, such as capitalism or socialism, over the other. The Bible clearly teaches concepts that should move the most conservative and liberal readers far beyond their comfort zones and far above worldly approaches.” Gary Moore
“The search for the third way must begin by rejecting all forms of political ideology.” Prospect Magazine
“Libertarianism is a philosophy of radically limited government. It is attractive to those well-off professionals who have nothing in common with the religious right but would just like to be left alone. The libertarians have also replaced the Marxists as the world’s leading utopia builders.” E. J. Dionne
Household Checking, Savings & Treasury Holdings $12 Trillion Source: Forbes, 10/13/08, from Federal Reserve
“Within the rich world, where destitution is rare, countries where incomes are more evenly distributed have longer-lived citizens and lower rates of obesity, delinquency, depression and teenage pregnancy than richer countries where wealth is more concentrated.” The Economist February 28, 2009
“In a sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation’s adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data…Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group’s share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income.” The Wall Street Journal July 23, 2008
“The top 5% of Americans by income account for 37% of all consumer outlays. The bottom 80% account for 39.5%. It is no surprise the rich spend so much, since they earn a disproportionate share of income. The top 10% of earners captured about half of all income as of 2007…The data may be a further sign that the U.S. is becoming a plutonomy--an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy.” The Wall Street Journal August 7, 2010
Annual Income # People Over$15,000 800 Million $1,500 - $15,000 1.5 Billion Under $1,500 4 Billion Source: Capitalism at the Crossroads
“If you had $2,161 in 2000, you belonged to the wealthier half of the human race …Wealth is shared much less equitably than income; more than half of it is held by just 2% of the world’s adults. The distribution is equivalent to a world of ten people, in which one had $1,000 and the other nine had $1 each…Many people in poor countries have next-to-nothing; but quite a lot of people in rich countries have less than that; their liabilities exceed their assets. The bottom half of Swedes have a collective net worth of zero. That said, the Nordic countries seem to thrive without much personal wealth.” The Economist December 9, 2006
“Selfishness is a Virtue” February 7, 2009
“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue, and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty…What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.” Ayn Rand Playboy Interview
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” Adam Smith Opening sentence of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
“Success is nice and I’ve had some and enjoyed it, but so what? It isn’t sufficient reason to get up in the morning. It’s not good enough to live for…This is all an illusion, a lovely tender illusion. We’re all running around being busy and doing important things. But this has nothing to do with anything. Up there God and the angels are looking down and laughing, and not unkindly. They just find us touching and dizzy.” Peggy Noonan
“It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it’s in one’s power.” Ayn Rand
“Referring to the disastrous advice given by a [major Wall Street firm] who sucked nearly $100 million in commissions from Orange County, Greenspan declared that both brokers and their customers should be ‘unburdened by any perceived need to take into consideration the interest of their counterparties.’ It sounds dull enough—until you realize what he’s driving at. Greenspan expressed that same radical belief more clearly during the 1960’s in a book of essays assembled by his mentor, the novelist and free-market zealot, Ayn Rand.” Worth Magazine
“Michael Milken grew up wanting to be rich, he confesses, and by the time he was in his 30’s he had more money than he could ever hope to spend on himself. It was at this point that Milken faced a crisis of purpose. Most people derive dignity, depth and purpose by prevailing in the struggle for existence. What happens when this struggle ends? Milken faced a spiritual crisis at a young age that many of his newly affluent counterparts are encountering today.” Forbes October 11, 1999
“Ayn Rand filled in the ideas of Aristotle. It’s a whopping competitive advantage. I personally believe objectivism will be the dominant philosophy in this country in 25 years.” John A. Allison IV Chairman of BB&T Sunday Business New York Times August 2, 2009
