Demand Ethical Leadership

Mom passed away early Christmas morning.  Her passing was a peaceful release from the body she was trapped in.  Thank you for the kind expressions of concern you offered over the past weeks regarding my mother and mother-in-law’s death.  At my age it’s strange to feel orphaned, but that’s my unshakeable feeling.

As I am preparing a eulogy for Mom, one of the things I most admire about her was her ability to somehow both forcefully and gently remind the strong men in her life to be virtuous.  Mom was kind and empathetic.  Living through a massive Depression followed by a World War that involved all her four brothers tends to amplify your compassion.  Today we live in times that call each of us in the same way.

So this morning I am watching the news about thousands of layoffs being announced by various companies across many industries.  Most of these layoffs are unethical acts of powerful leaders who think it’s responsible business.  It’s not.  It’s moral cowardice masquerading as a practical business decision.  I’m not just ranting here.  I am stating the most obvious flaw of financial capitalism that has emerged over the past 40 years.  This flaw is that short-term actions can generate short-term financial gains while destroying long-term value.  Business leaders are incented to cut jobs, investment, research, new technology and worse, pollute, mis-state earnings, corrupt lawmakers, and an endless list of shenanigans that hurt us all.  All of this, whether it’s legal, is immoral.  Here’s why.

The core standard of ethics is the mandate to never cause avoidable suffering.  Period. Is it asking too much?  Or does it ask us simply to be morally responsible for the consequences of our decisions?

One way to judge suffering caused by business decisions is something called switching costs.  Ethics requires us to consider how much it costs to the person my decision impacts to switch to another company.  So for investors the switching costs are very low.  For instance, Toyota recently announced two things.  They will likely lose money this next year, and they will continue their no-layoff policy for full-time employees.  (They are doing extra employee training during their manufacturing slowdown.)  So if an investor in Toyota doesn’t like this policy, they can sell their stock or “switch” to another one in 30 seconds online.  Switching costs for investors are very low.  Next to consider are customers.  The cost of switching from one brand of product to another of equal value is also very low.  There are so many substitute products today that consumers’ switching costs are nearly non-existent.

So what about employees?  Consider your own situation.  What if you involuntarily get laid off from a profitable business during an economic downturn?  What are the “costs” of switching to a new job or industry?  Huge.  Gargantuan.  Brutal.  The American Psychological Association reports that the two biggest traumas that are the most difficult to overcome are loss of a spouse (death or divorce) and job loss.  The suffering caused by these two events has severe long-term consequences not only on the individual directly involved but also their families.  The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 40 percent of white-collar workers over 40 laid off in the past fifteen years never achieve their previous level of income. Illness, chronic pain, abuse, divorce, alcoholism, depression, and suicide are markedly higher among laid off workers.  Is this the kind of society we want?  If a company is making money or has ample resources to continue operating, is pleasing Wall Street the highest moral good?

Is this the best business leadership we can imagine?  The much admired Jack Welch championed shareholders over all others also pioneered the mass firing of workers of GE’s profitable businesses to increase earning.  Fortune Magazine honored him as manager of the century. Right.  What’s hard about firing people and demanding everyone else work harder so we can make more money for shareholders who churn stock holdings faster than bank robbers running for their getaway car?

So if we can agree that willfully causing human suffering is immoral then profitable companies who layoff workers are by definition behaving immorally.  Consider this.  We just “donated” $350 billion to America’s banks without any oversight and they just laid off tens of thousands employees.  Meanwhile they continue to hoard our money, choke off lending to other businesses and pay their executives for their outstanding performance.  Is that okay?  Is that just “aw shucks?”  If a business leadership cannot find productive ways to use bright, loyal, hardworking employees, whose fault is that, the employee’s or the leader’s?

So how can we fix this?  Not through laws.  If we pass no-layoff regulation we’ll only succeed in making sure people don’t get hired at all.  One of America’s great advantages is our fluid workforce that allows us to change jobs and careers whenever we choose.  The difference, of course, is that when we have a well-led economy rich with job creation then employees have a playing field where we can bargain with our talent.  When we have a corrupt leadership creating fake economic gains we have mass suffering.

So what’s the best thing we can do?

Make noise.  Buy from ethical companies.  Demand ethical leadership.  A revolution is happening right now.  Employees and consumers worldwide are demanding that Corporate Social Responsibility be more than cosmetic.  We are seeing major strides in the reduction of waste and increasing sustainability.  This is all due to yours and my demands for a better future.

Now is the time to demand that Corporate Social Responsibility begins with responsibility to employees.  If Toyota and Honda can keep their employees when the car business has collapsed then so can nearly every other business if they have a will to.

I once had a large client who was going through a massive financial implosion during the dot-com era.  Their woman President didn’t layoff a soul.  She instead sponsored huge strategy workshops involving every employee in creating either cost saving or income increasing strategies.  The entire process was led by a senior maintenance man.  Yes, crazy, idealistic….well it worked.  Within 12 months the company was minting money and growing faster than ever.  Do you know why this visionary leader did this when her board was encouraging her to slash and burn?  She told me, “Our problems came from bad leadership decisions.  Firing our employees would have been immoral.”

It’s time for a new kind of leadership.

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Corporate Responsibility OR a Disposable Society

Frankly I am amazed almost daily by the breakthroughs companies are making to create more responsible and greener products and humanitarian services.  I am not talking about superficial PR to re-label factory made food as organic or other advertising buzzwords designed to mislead us.  Rather I am impressed that global companies are making genuine progress to reinvent the future.

I have been most recently impressed when I visited the big financial firm ING to learn of their aggressive micro-credit business in India and their European car leasing operation that buys carbon credit for every mile driven to make their auto fleets carbon neutral.  I am inspired that General Electric is making organic lights that are nearly 10 times more effective than every light sold today.  Even if you’re not a raging environmentalist, you’ve got to be impressed with how companies are paying more attention to making more things more energy efficient.

The reason these trends are persisting is that consumers, especially younger ones, are demanding products that are more responsible.  Companies that are responding to this growing consumer demand will continue to grow while those who don’t will fade away.

Why General Motors is Failing

That’s one of the main reasons General Motors is sucking air.  My brother-in-law once owned a GM Geo Metro, a dog of a car if there ever was one.  As the tin and can aged he noticed that the price of parts was beginning to exceed the value of the car.  Finally a mechanic told him, “Hey, the Geo was designed as a disposable car and guess what, it’s time to junk it!”  A disposable car.  Hmmm.

A Disposable Society

In the 1950’s the big American car company accountants came up with the brilliant idea of planned obsolescence that required engineers to design parts to fail at 50, 60, or 70 thousand miles.  This, they were told, would increase their downstream parts business.  What a tragic idea.  But this has been the mindset of leadership over the past 40 years—create one big disposable society.  Disposable cars, disposable marriages and fast food that has as much nourishment as the cardboard package it comes in.  Have we gotten so seduced by “new” things that we have lost sight of the quality of our lives and the strength of our society?

Americans are Rethinking Their Addiction to Waste

Americans are a resilient people.  We seem to have un-ending ingenuity.  So inventors, engineers, and increasingly companies are re-thinking their addiction to waste.  They are doing so because we are demanding it and our children are demanding it.

So what’s the best thing we can do? We should all be fully engaged, noisy consumers.  We need to demand genuine quality, real nutrition, and yes environmentally responsible products.  We should demand personalized, low-stress service to be treated like a person instead of a problem.  The louder our voices are in the market place, the more it will change.  I am seeing this first hand.  Of course progress is slow and imperfect, but at least there is progress.  Progress caused by us.

So what do you think?  Am I into something or is my view to rosy?  What’s the best thing you can think of to drive business to become more responsible?

Letter to President-elect Obama

Dear President Obama,

First of all, congratulations on your historic victory.  Your election is a vivid affirmation of the American Dream.  Anything is possible in America.  Truly.

Now let me offer you a word of caution.  Please don’t misread your election as a mandate for the traditional Democrat liberal agenda.  What we want is real change.  Change that is not a swing to the left.  We don’t want a refried “Great Society.”  We just want change that gives everyone an honest chance to be self-reliant and contribute to our common good. We want change from the increasingly narrow and corrupt view that creating a class of super-rich would somehow benefit all the rest of us.  We don’t want to have a foreign policy based on fear.  We don’t want an economy based on buying stuff made in China.  We don’t want to be lied to.  What we do want is a President we respect.  We need to trust your judgment and your character.  We hope we can.  Just be what you say you are.

Here is what I’ve heard from Americans across the country over the past five years:

1. We want an economy built on innovation, production and creating a sustainable future.  We want to lead the world in invention and quality.  (We are sick about leading the world into a world-wide recession based on a few people’s greed.)
2. We want universal health care for all Americans.  We don’t want a European or Canadian version.  We want a uniquely American best-in-the-world answer of quality, affordability health for all.  Of course it’s going to be hard, but that’s why you were elected.
3. We want a strong, wise and good foreign policy.  We want the world’s respect.  We want to be moral leaders with moral authority.  We want to respect all cultures and promote local solutions to local problems whenever possible.  We want real strength against terrorists, sound intelligence and a campaign to promote pluralism, tolerance and civilization around the world.
4. We want clean, renewable energy now.  We want you to promote a broad-based investment to create a world-wide solution.  We should lead the world to sustainable non-polluting energy.
5. We want a fair, legal and smart immigration policy.  We don’t want to exploit undocumented workers or build an economy that requires us to.
6. We want free, quality education for every child and every student in high school and college.  This is the greatest investment in our future we can make.  We want education that is efficient, relevant, and engaging.  We must have the best education in the world.  No excuses.
7. We want wise regulation to promote the healing of our environment, corporate governance, safe food and drugs and protection from financial corruption.  We want to trust our banks and business leaders.

Well, we are pretty sure you know what we want.  Now that you’re off the campaign trail and the immediacy of voters in your face, we want you to remember our voices.  Please resist the pressures of special interests.  Don’t listen to those who agree with you.  Least of all those who praise you.  Always reach for a higher solution.  Please bring us together to create a new future.  This could be a great new era for America if you make it so.

Please be the leader you’ve promised to be.  You simply must.  Our future depends on it.  If you do your part, believe me, we will do ours.  That’s something you can depend on.  “Yes you can!”

It’s a great time to be an American if we make it so!

Will Marre

Feedback or additions before I send it off?

The 4th American Revolution

There are so many things wrong with the world today from economic turmoil, poor education, mass poverty, etc., but we also are living at a great time in history in which we can make a difference.  Today we can ride the waves of change.  And if we are willing to surf the energy of the storm we can enjoy the power of the ever-changing ocean rather than fear it.

Luckily there are plenty of surfers already in the water.  When you see unexpected people do unexpected things, or unexpected organizations behave in new ways, or new institutions begin to blossom, you can be sure change is accelerating.  Let’s look at five areas:

Popular Culture

We see it in our popular culture.  We are not surprised when Oprah calls out for greater social justice and personal integrity.  We are amazed, though, when rock star Bono does it not only with passion but also with intelligent action.  Or when playboy actor George Clooney travels to Darfur or bad boy Brad Pitt and over-the-edge Angelina Jolie adopt orphans and choose to live part-time in Africa.  Whether you believe these are sincere expressions or publicity stunts is beside the point.  Popular culture is shifting.

Philanthropy

We see it in philanthropy.  When Bill Gates resigns from business and convinces Warren Buffet to give his fortune to solve society’s problems or when Bill Clinton’s Foundation brings together a community of global leaders, university students, and private citizens to identify and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, including poverty alleviation, climate change, global health, and education. And when large-scale giving is built into the core business models of corporations such as Google and eBay, something is up.

Business

We see it in business.  When eco-conscious Patagonia clothing company pioneers the use of organic cotton in tee-shirts, it’s cool.  When they teach Wal-Mart how to do it, it’s jaw dropping.  When the largest for-profit company in the world transforms itself into the largest seller of organic food, fair trade coffee and organic clothing in the globe, when it converts part of its truck fleet to alternative fuel and mandates recycling, we must sit up and take note.

Countries

When countries like Denmark get much of their power from the wind, we are not impressed.  Most macho Americans think Europeans are eco-weenies.  But when big box stores like Circuit City and Target are putting solar panels on their stores and warehouses to cut their energy costs, we take notice.  New companies like SunEdison have created a brand new business by installing the solar panels for free in exchange for a 10-year contract to buy the generated electricity.  Yes, when mainstream entrepreneurs and venture capital firms begin to scale large businesses using new solutions that are better for everyone, something is happening.

Globalism

We see it in globalism.  Fifteen years ago the quality movement took off.  Standards of manufacturing quality were accelerated when international manufacturing standards were adopted.  Soon, large manufacturers and retailers were demanding parts and products built in factories that were certified.  What’s happened is a revolution in quality.  Our expectations of the things we buy, how they work and how long they should last have been dramatically raised because our worldwide manufacturing standards have.

Guess what?  In 2008, SA 8000, which are social accountability standards are being adopted in countries around the world.  They set standards for fair labor practices, overtime and child labor.  What started 10 years ago as protests against Gap and Nike for using sweatshops is now going mainstream.  Of course, there will always be cheaters and outlaws; that’s not the point.  The point is there is a rising tide of change that we can all participate in, that we can all help to accelerate.

Most of all we see it in our personal lives.  When our high school and college-age kids start volunteering more than Americans have in a century, it’s inspiring. When millions of Boomers begin seeking redemption from self-focused lives, it’s downright revolutionary.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

Join the Revolution…Are you going to join the revolution?  Why or why not?

Voting for the American Dream

This election has the promise to be truly future changing.  But only if the winner seeks a dramatic new course from the wrong-headed assumptions both parties have been operating under for a very long time.  Our nation is the first in human history founded on the ideals of a government designed to constantly promote life and liberty so that all our citizens could pursue genuine happiness.  This is the root of the real American Dream.

I was raised on a ranch where the ideals of rugged individualism and personal responsibility were emphasized.  Those principles are the engine of a strong productive society.  But it’s not all there is to it.  As I’ve spent the past three decades helping leaders and organizations link fundamental values to their decisions it has become clear to me that the questions of the purpose of life and society must be answered or our unbridled individualism will degrade into selfishness and yes, greed.

The idea that our society exists only to enable its strongest individuals to amass power and wealth is a new spin on history’s oldest story.  It’s always told by the people in power.  The higher ideal our founders fought for is a society in which our common responsibility is to help people we aren’t related to, don’t even know, or more importantly the unborn next generation.  It was based on the inspired belief that the best society is one in which all of us help ensure that the most people have a full opportunity to achieve security, dignity and contentment.  This is the vision that inspires me.

I believe that the American Dream has little to do with money.  The dream is not so much materialistic as it is spiritual.  By that I mean the promise of America is the promise of an equal chance to make something of our lives.  The freedom and responsibility to give our gifts and express our most noble desires.  If that sounds corny, maybe it’s because we’ve become so cynical.  That’s a shame.  Our founders were anything but cynical.  They were perhaps the greatest group of practical-idealists in history.

I was reminded of that when I read Dean Calbreath’s column in the San Diego Union Tribune titled “Spreading the Wealth.” Calbreath reminds us that Jefferson and Madison were insistent that significant financial inequality not become life-as-usual in America.  They were escaping a smothering aristocracy in Europe and England and they knew that if the wealthy interests controlled the government, the banks, and the land a new aristocracy would pass laws to insulate themselves from competition and protect their wealth and their children’s wealth in a thousand different ways that would cripple opportunity for the rest of us.  Neither Jefferson nor Madison were socialists but as Calbreath reminds us, Jefferson proposed “taxes could be used to reduce enormous inequality,” and Madison proposed policies to limit “extreme wealth” and promote a broad middle class.  Calbreath also points out that none other than Abraham Lincoln instituted America’s first income tax.  It only taxed the more prosperous.  And Teddy Roosevelt proposed a graduated income tax and inheritance tax.  The motivation of these great presidents was not to punish the hard working, inventive risk-takers and reward the slackers; rather it was to use the taxes raised to create a civil society where the infrastructure of universal education, roads, bridges, and later power, water, and communication would reinforce the force of liberty for all of us to pursue our own dreams.

Our great presidents were trying to create a society that presented the greatest opportunity for happiness and least avoidable suffering possible.  They realized that liberty is not simply an absence of laws and regulations, but rather it is a system of laws and regulations that promotes the common good for us.

Today, those who believe that the opportunities for a well-educated suburban high school student whose parents can help him pay for college, buy a car or a down payment on the his first home and the opportunities for a fatherless inner city girl attending a violence-drenched high school are anywhere near the same are simply ignoring another inconvenient truth.  And any self-made millionaire that thinks they achieved their wealth and advantage solely through their own hard work is as deluded as Donald Trump.

To create our best society those of us who are blessed to have had responsible and loving parents, good teachers and a dose of good fortune have the responsibility to use our considerable resources and innovative minds to provide an infrastructure of education and opportunity for those who aren’t so lucky.  We all know direct handouts weaken and embitter the recipients of no-strings-attached charity.  But that’s not what the real American Dream’s promise is.

Our real dream is based on a mutual promise to give everyone an honest chance at a decent life.  But our pursuit of the common good has been lost in a chorus of “tough luck—it’s your own damn fault” social and economic policies.  I am not proposing we bailout irresponsible behavior of anyone, rich or poor.  Everyone should be responsible to clean up his or her own messes.  But the self-serving belief that wealth is a sign of virtue and that financial struggles are proof of laziness is obscenely wrong.  What kind of a society have we created?  For me what I see is a society that has parachutes and bailout plans for the rich and well connected while everyone else gets pushed out of the airplane and told to roll when they hit the ground.  This is not the best we can do.  We need wisdom, morality, fairness and dignity rather than slogans, selfishness, self-righteousness and nastiness.   To get it we’re going to have to vote for it, from the President to your City Council candidates.

When I look at the example of some of our best presidents, I am inspired.  Inspired by their belief that the best society is one in which those with the most advantages and resources help strengthen the means to rise up the opportunities of all.  For me that’s a renaissance of practical-idealism.  Isn’t our best society one in which the most citizens are empowered to do their best and be their best?  It’s time we vote for the American Dream.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do? So what do you think?  What is the point of society?  Were Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln wrong?  How do we avoid turning a commitment to the common good into a welfare state?  What mutual obligations should we embrace? What can we do as individuals for each other right now?

The American Dream and the Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness is the third pillar of the American Dream.  It’s the payoff for a secure Life and the benefits of Liberty.   Until recently, the “pursuit of happiness” sounded a little airy-fairy.  A little “let’s hold hands and sing from sea to shining sea.”

That’s because the idea of happiness has always been subjective.  It has meant different things to different people.  No more.  The past twenty years have produced mountains of worldwide research on human happiness.  Over 500 studies in the past five years alone.  We have also conducted our own research at American Dream Project. Now we actually know what happiness is and what produces it.  Understanding happiness is one of the great breakthroughs of the last decade.

Happiness is measurable, observable, and verifiable.  Through brain scans we now know that feelings of wellbeing occur when our left frontal lobes, found above our left eye, are stimulated  (Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard When we are anxious or unhappy, our right frontal lobes have their lights on and we are mentally “pacing our cage.”

Happiness is a persistent feeling of wellbeing, despite the challenges and the ups and downs.  Happy people remain generally content and optimistic.  Happiness also requires an absence of anxiety, stress and depression.

We also know that personal happiness has two drivers: inner and outer.  The most powerful is our own inner landscape.  How we think, approach problems, and bounce back from troubles.  But we don’t live in bubbles, so we are greatly affected by the outer “weather” as well.  Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison had it right; society and government have a big impact on how we pursue happiness.  It turns out the societies that have the greatest equality of access to health care, education, and economic opportunities are the happiest.

But, that’s not all.  Societies that have sticky social glue, meaning high family solidarity, low divorce rates, and broad membership in social and civic groups tend to be much happier. Belief in God, participation in religious organizations, and high optimism are also strongly tied to happiness  (Authentic Happiness and Martin Seligman).

The research comes at just the right time because, as a nation, with all our advantages, wealth, technology and power, we seem to stink at the Happiness game.  We’re not even in the top 20 on the first ever World Map of Happiness.

It turns out two of the greatest causes of unhappiness are divorce and job loss.  We are world class at that.  We’ve come to expect regular turnover in our jobs and marriages.  In fact, we now lead the world in those categories. We’ve been led to believe “creative destruction” is a good thing.  Evidently we’ve gotten a little carried away.  Trust, the measure of how much we can count on each other to keep commitments, is half of what it was in 1950. We don’t trust our leaders, our bosses, our government, our schools, our religions, our neighbors, our spouses, our kids, our working colleagues, or the evening news.  When trust in society is shot, social friction slows everything down, makes everything cost more and puts us on guard.  Distrust is the dance music for unrelenting stress.

We’ve been lulled into measuring happiness with a dollar symbol.  The quality of our society is now equated with the activity of our economy.  Our national policy makers worship at the altar of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP); our nation’s health is determined by dividing the total amount paid for all goods and services by the number of citizens.

As an indicator, though, the GDP is both amoral and illogical.  All expenditures are counted as good.  So all the costs of lawsuits, divorces, pollution and disaster clean up, car wrecks, crime, prisons, cigarettes, and even the price rise in health care, college tuition and gasoline add to our GDP.  Does that make any sense to you?  Or is the Gross Domestic Product as Robert F. Kennedy challanged just gross?

According to economists, our standard of living may be rising on paper, but our real standard of life is falling.  When we account for the true economic costs of environmental destruction, urban sprawl, depletion of resources, crime, poverty, illness and education failure, we find our per capita standard of living is declining.  That’s why we somehow feel poorer and more vulnerable even though our house prices have risen and we can buy SUVs with zero percent financing.  Our garages are full, but our souls are empty.

So, what’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?  Everything.  Happiness is personal at its core.  So in spite of our stress-crazed society, we can all make individual choices that matter.  And these choices, our choices, will change the world.

Everything Matters

The past three days of surfing have been amazing.  San Diego in October is often mind-blowing.  All week temperatures have been in the low 80’s.  The ocean has been completely glassy, water transparent.  On days like this I surf until my arms turn to noodles because I am not sure when another day like it will come along.  The ocean is my gym.  Surfing and walking with Debbie are all I do for exercise.  Obviously I can’t surf everyday, but I try to everyday I am home because I find the rhythm of it keeps vibrating in my being and that rhythm seems to have nature’s wisdom in it.

Last night at 1:30 am one of my sons and his wife and my three grandchildren arrived for a week that will include Disneyland on Halloween.  Whenever I see my grandchildren my resolve to do what I can to create a sustainable future deepens.  In many ways my nine grandchildren are the music of the vibrating wisdom I feel from surfing.  I often feel there is a silent harmony underneath the chaos of our apparent life that is “real reality.”  Today was one of those days.  Everything matters, just not in the way we think it does.  It’s much more important.

Slaves to Debt

Making money with money, that’s where the real money is. The banks of today are mammoth multinational financial machines.  Interest rate restraints vanished in the ‘90’s and America’s debt soared.  Since our wages stalled years ago, we’ve financed our lifestyle with debt.  Americans have lived on our home equity lines and credit cards.  Our home equity has paid for exotic trips and new cars.  We stripped the value of an appreciating asset to buy depreciating assets.  Then our appreciated assets suddenly depreciated themselves.  We are now paying the price for such greed and irresponsibility with what’s been called by many including the Wall St. Journal as the

“worst crisis since the 1930’s.”

Yes the greed of Wall Street and deregulation is to blame, but so is the excessive American lifestyle that is supported by debt.  In “A Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis” Morgan Housel states,

“The larger picture is that it wasn’t just Wall Street gorging on more debt than they could handle and taking excessive risks. It was nearly everybody. By 2005, over a quarter of Americans’ income went toward revolving debt payments. Debt was the lifeblood of the economy, and the chickens have come to roost.”

The average American household owes $9200 in credit card debt.  Half of cardholders pay only the minimum payment each month.  Creditors send out statements within seven days of the due date, and then suddenly, oops, you’re late - you now pay penalty fees and jump to a 27% interest rate.  Banks make more on penalty payments than on interest. What a business! (See also Credit Card Industry Facts (2006-2007)

You see, when maximizing shareholder value became gospel, everything legal became ethical.  The taboo against predatory lending was labeled old-fashioned.  Predatory lending lures unsophisticated people into borrowing money they have no reasonable hope of paying back quickly.  There used to be laws against it.  Not anymore.  Today there are more strip-mall paycheck loan stores than McDonald’s.  They charge an average 300% interest and their customers take out an average of 13 “loans” per year.   They make Junior Soprano look like Mother Theresa.  Many loans charge interests and fees of over 1000%.

Five billion “pre-approved” credit card offers a year now flood our homes, and lots of them are going to our teenage children.  Our nation’s largest 100 universities make over $300 million a year selling our children’s data to banks for credit solicitation Why would anyone offer credit to impulsive, inexperienced, desire-crazed teenagers before they’ve ever held a job? Simply to create a life-long relationship.

There is current proposed credit card legislation, the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights, but it faces an “uphill climb on Capitol Hill” and apposed lobbying by the banking industry.  “Credit Card ‘Bill of Rights’ Inches Forward” discusses how the legislation has provisions such as credit card companies are required to give cardholders 45 days notice of any interest rate increases, retroactive rate increases are prohibited unless the card holder is more than 30 days late, and billing statements must be sent 25 calendar days before the due date under the legislation. The article also states that Barack Obama has proposed his own credit card bill of rights as part of his economy plan that would among other things apply interest rate increases only to future debt, prohibit interest on fees, and ban unilateral charges. We could find no specified credit card rules from McCain’s camp.

Regulations may help, if they ever come to be, but the problem is moneylenders are eager to sell us “priceless” experiences followed by years of debt slavery and too many of us are too eager to take the bait.  For moneylenders, the best thing that could happen is that we spend a lifetime in debt.  Our job is just to keep the interest current.  In fact, if we could pass on our debts to our children, they all like that even better.  Want proof?  Watch for 50 and 100-year mortgages.  They are coming.  Eternal, endless balances earning daily interest.  Have you seen the T.V. commercials to buy furniture and TV’s today with no payment for five years?  That’s modern America.  It’s the reverse of delayed gratification.  It’s delayed responsibility.  We start paying for stuff after it’s old, broken, or used up.

It used to be we borrowed to build factories and do research.  We borrowed to invest in our future.  Now we simply borrow our future.

Today, most Americans, maybe 80%, are slaves to debt, the price of oil, and the costs of education.  But increasingly, the top 20% who run business, government and the media tell us it’s our own fault.  If life is stressful, it’s because we made it that way.  The free market is sacred, and it’s what makes America great.  The selfish, lucky and advantaged have always said that, but what if free markets don’t really exist?  What if government favors the big public companies and harms and restrains smaller businesses that actually create jobs, growth and innovation?  What if free trade is not fair trade at all?  What if we allow foreign piracy of our intellectual ideas and encourage the “dumping” of under priced foreign-made goods on our shores to keep consumer prices low?  What if we foster an economy that creates millions of low paying jobs that only a poor immigrant would do because it allows our big employers to avoid investing in the development of their employees’ skills, safety, health insurance, and working conditions?

America’s economic genius has come from public policy that allowed ordinary, hard working, responsible folks to become extraordinary. Unfortunately, the business sector has gotten so concentrated, powerful, and wealthy from the results of technology and globalism it has become the patron of our government, corrupting the very system that originally made them succeed.  And that problem is unlikely to end no matter whose elected.  The financial bailout is causing mergers that will only make the concentration of power, wealth, and corruption worse.

The problem with unrestrained capitalism is that it rewards monopolies, which promotes bureaucracy and exploitation, losing innovation and efficiency in the process.  Using government to tame capitalism’s abuses is a losing battle because government itself is so vulnerable to corruption.  The private business and the public sector have become locked in a lethal partnership that is burning up our trust, our hope, and our natural resources.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?

We must create our own “Citizen” Economy, which means:

1.  Spend less than we earn.

2.  Create career capabilities that will enable us to earn money until we’re 80 or beyond.

3.  Develop a personal relationship with a banker at a local commuity bank or local credit union.  Most small banks and credit unions do not play the Wall St. game.  Most are responsibly managed by local people.  Often their interest rates are lower, fees lower, and value your relationship.  By supporting local financial institutions, you are making a statement of resistance against money-center banks who play financial casino games an make most of their profit from charging you fees for your mistakes.

Discovering YOUR Talents

In my recent post, Elect Yourself President, I made the statement that,

“Whatever we do just for the money we do poorly.  Life is simply not just about money. Doing what you love will not guarantee you riches.  But doing things you don’t intrinsically care about will surely put your business or your career at greater risk.”

There were many inspiring comments, and one comment in particular that stood out.  It was from Lili who commented,

“What if you don’t have any skills or interests? What are you supposed to do then? You speak like it is so natural for anyone to just go out and apply these supposed “talents” that we all have and just start a business with them. Some of us don’t have any talents, that is why we end up slipping into menial jobs for huge companies that barely know we exist. That is why we end up unhappy, poor and dependent on them for mere survival. It is not possible for anyone to go out and start a business. Not everyone has marketable talents and not everyone has something they love to do. What are WE supposed to do?”

I believe that each of us has a one-of-a-kind “spiritual DNA.”  Our inner dreams and longings are the urgings of this spiritual DNA trying to fulfill its patterns.  You cannot live a fulfilling life UNTIL YOU DISCOVER YOUR AUTHENTIC INNER DESIGN.  How is this accomplished?  You discover it by becoming aware of your persistent traits, talents, and track record.  Your “Design” is the intersection of traits and talents that you bring with you into the world.  Your track record is the expression of your traits and talents in action.

TALENTS

A talent is simply a natural skill.  Don’t think you’ve got a talent the world wants…neither did Paul Potts, a mobile phone salesman in Britain, who nearly gave up on his talent because of circumstances in his life.

And Potts’ competition, Connie Talbot, six years old, who doesn’t mind if she becomes a famous singer…just wants to sing, inspired millions with her sweet spirit and voice.

How about mathemagician Arthur Benjamin, who combines his talent of mathematics with magic to create an amazing display of the human mind.

Each of us has talents.  Talents are externally geared; they reveal themselves in our interactions with other people and the world.  Some of us are talented at building things or solving logical problems.  Others may be talented at communicating with children, motivating others, cleaning and organizing, impersonating famous people, telling jokes.  Some talents have clear economic value; others do not.  Not all talents need to be turned into jobs, but nearly all can be expressed in one.

Not sure what your talents are?

Use this simple exercise, “Your Talent Inventory,” from my upcoming book “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner,” which will be published in early 2009, to get you started.

And you won’t want to miss the next LIFE category post on Discovering Your Traits.

Will Marre
founder, American Dream Project and ThoughtRocket

World Peace Through Surfing

I just got back from surfing.  Recently I started riding a Rusty Quad.  I can’t get over how responsive it is.  The board seems to go wherever I “think it to.”  So at nearly 59 I’m doing things on a surfboard I’ve never done before.  And that’s what brings me back to wave after wave for 45 years.

I was 12 when I first saw some college kids surfing long boards in 1963.  I felt hypnotized.  I constantly imagined myself gliding effortlessly on a wall of moving water.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  So I worked and worked and talked my parents into a matching grant, and for 80 bucks I bought my first surfboard.  It was a 9’2” green dream.  I remember vividly my first day surfing.  My first wave and my first wipeout.  I was hooked.  I’m a life long addict.  Why?  Why not tennis or golf or the many other sports I’ve played?  Well surfing is not a sport exactly.  It’s more like aerobics for the soul.

Surfing takes me away from every distraction.  It offers an immersion in nature’s huge mineral bath.  It allows me to sit in tranquility waiting for the next wave.  Then it jacks me up in anticipation as I paddle for a wave that is always unpredictable in its flow seemingly creating itself drop by drop underneath me as I pump across its face.  It jacks me up because when I push myself over the ledge of an overhead wave I don’t know what the outcome will be.  Surfing ceaselessly demands vision, faith and when it’s fierce, guts.  Yet even when I wipe out the landings are nearly always soft.  Surfing also takes me to a world away from the ever-noisy grid.  The emails, texts, phones, media, all disappear confined to shore as I escape to the deep blue.

Sometimes I can sit on my board and gaze at the glorious mess called Southern California.  As I look toward shore I can see traffic snaking down the freeway full of people rushing to what is important that day.  Meanwhile I can turn my board seaward and frequently see dolphins playing within 30 yards of me.  Of course there are many times that I join my fellow commuters jamming to the airport to keep my promises.  But I carry with me the rhythmic memory of my last wave.

The ocean is my monastery.  It’s my place of active meditation where I connect to a divine force that keeps reminding me to do what I came to do, but to do it with wisdom.  It keeps me anchored in the knowledge that what I do is not as important as what I am becoming.  Some days as I walk down the sand stepping over shells and polished sea pebbles that litter this little used beach my unconscious pops a new idea on the movie screen of my mind.  Often it’s the opposite of what I was previously thinking.  My mind feels blown open with new possibilities.

The surf was amazing today.  Head-high sets, clear green water and only four people out.  The October sun shone bright and there was not a breath of wind.  Why do I surf?  Because it renews me.  The real me.  Sometimes I wonder if world leaders all surfed maybe there would be no war…World Peace through surfing.

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