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These challenges all require sacrifice. That means everyone. We fat cats will have to pay more taxes. The government will have to spend less. Everyone will have to save more. I'm not sure if we remember how to give up something for the long-term general good. Nor do we hear calls for sacrifice from our leaders. Our lawmakers are enablers, either joining us in the state of denial or trying to anesthetize us. But if we can learn to face the future realistically, everyone will benefit from a more robust, sustainable economy.

The "Greatest Generation" that lived through the Depression of the 1930s and World War II confronted, overcame and paid for challenges more sobering than those we face today. We can do it again. I refuse to believe that we have become so selfish and self-absorbed that we don't care about our children's future and America's leadership in the world.

How do we as a country, and Americans as a people, learn to save more and spend less? How do we educate the young about the crisis they will face if things aren't changed, and then move them to do something about it? Or will it take a real and very costly crisis to force us into action?

We need to go where the young people are: new media, bloggers, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, MTV, and networks and Web sites that have not even been invented, and that is what my foundation will try to do. We will sponsor the production of films that educate people about the perils America faces (I have been impressed with what Al Gore accomplished with "An Inconvenient Truth"). We will have youth summits to get young leaders engaged in the process. Maybe someone should develop an AAYP, an American Association of Young People, to counteract the lobbying power of the American Association of Retired Persons. There are, of course, many other groups we must reach. How best do we energize the business community? Tom Friedman of The New York Times called us MIAs, "missing in action" on these daunting challenges. We have a huge stake in tomorrow's economy. How do we convince the media that the future is worth covering?

These challenges have hung over our economy for years. Others have tried to sound the alarm. I know that the odds of success are daunting. Yet given what is at stake and what I owe this remarkable country, I, and we, have no alternative but to try. As we move forward, we need to remind ourselves of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was instrumental in the resistance movement against Nazism. "The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children," he said.

It is time we become moral and worthy ancestors.

Mr. Peterson will always be associated in my mind with bringing to public awareness the financial
time bomb inside our nation's entitlement programs. However, his Blackstone Group is typical of today's financial shenanigans, the poster child, if you will, and his comments on savings bring to mind Mr. Potter in "It's A Wonderful Life".

Pressing for the dissolution of the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan following Peter Bailey's
death, local bank owner and savings and loan shareholder Potter chastises Jimmy Stewart (George Bailey) for making an unsecured $5,000 building loan to a friend.

"If you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money," snorts Potter. "What
does that get us? A discontented, lazy, rabble instead of a thrifty working class."

Stewart, on the other hand, asks Potter why people are supposed to wait for a home. "Wait for what?" Stewart asks. "Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down - you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000?"

Perhaps you know the rest of the film and the Capra-corn definition of success and failure.

Like George Bailey, I ask what are people supposed to wait for? Banks, investment and otherwise, are good at coming up with and pushing into our mailboxes new lending products (credit cards, mortgages, etc.) but inventing new savings products? Not so good.

To a bank, your loan is an asset, your savings its liability. Finance is the only industry that can create its assets with the stroke of a pen.

After the inflation of the 1970s blew away state usury laws, the deregulation of the 1980s completed the job and financial institutions were given a blank check, so to speak. Remember the savings & loan meltdown of 1989? What happened to those savings?

Why is it almost embarrassing to admit to having a savings account? Why save then see it erode with spurious fees? Where are the creative savings products, the micro-bonds instead of lottery tickets? Where are savings rates that are truly incentive? We have the technology to account for such products. Where are they? What choices do young people have between saving at a pittance rate or going on credit to provide for their family?

Now the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way, and maybe we're beginning to think that financial regulation isn't such a bad thing, but it will be a fight to reinstall some rules. Regulation battles don't make good headlines and, as Mr. Peterson points out, the media will probably let us down.

I hope Mr. Peterson's foundation takes on those issues, invents those products, and reminds his fellow financiers of their fiduciary responsibility to the financial system.

Member Comments

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Posted By: Thevail @ 04/02/2008 12:51:47 PM

I'm impressed Mr. Peterson, and your grandfather would be very proud.
I went to the website for the Peterson Foundation and there's no way to contact them yet, though, so the release of this story may be a bit premature. I think many common sense middle of the road Americans would love to volunteer to help.
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Posted By: nixonrd @ 04/02/2008 12:50:08 PM

Mr. Peterson will always be associated in my mind with bringing to public awareness the financial
time bomb inside our nation's entitlement programs. However, his Blackstone Group is typical of today's financial shenanigans, the poster child, if you will, and his comments on savings bring to mind Mr. Potter in "It's A Wonderful Life".

Pressing for the dissolution of the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan following Peter Bailey's
death, local bank owner and savings and loan shareholder Potter chastises Jimmy Stewart (George Bailey) for making an unsecured $5,000 building loan to a friend.

"If you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money," snorts Potter. "What
does that get us? A discontented, lazy, rabble instead of a thrifty working class."

Stewart, on the other hand, asks Potter why people are supposed to wait for a home. "Wait for what?" Stewart asks. "Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down - you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000?"

Perhaps you know the rest of the film and the Capra-corn definition of success and failure.

Like George Bailey, I ask what are people supposed to wait for? Banks, investment and otherwise, are good at coming up with and pushing into our mailboxes new lending products (credit cards, mortgages, etc.) but inventing new savings products? Not so good.

To a bank, your loan is an asset, your savings its liability. Finance is the only industry that can create its assets with the stroke of a pen.

After the inflation of the 1970s blew away state usury laws, the deregulation of the 1980s completed the job and financial institutions were given a blank check, so to speak. Remember the savings & loan meltdown of 1989? What happened to those savings?

Why is it almost embarrassing to admit to having a savings account? Why save then see it erode with spurious fees? Where are the creative savings products, the micro-bonds instead of lottery tickets? Where are savings rates that are truly incentive? We have the technology to account for such products. Where are they? What choices do young people have between saving at a pittance rate or going on credit to provide for their family?

Now the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way, and maybe we're beginning to think that financial regulation isn't such a bad thing, but it will be a fight to reinstall some rules. Regulation battles don't make good headlines and, as Mr. Peterson points out, the media will probably let us down.

I hope Mr. Peterson's foundation takes on those issues, invents those products, and reminds his fellow financiers of their fiduciary responsibility to the financial system.
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Posted By: deebee1222 @ 04/02/2008 8:48:26 AM

Very well put. I don't wonder though that it will take a crisis to make the country change. After all, most of the economy is tied to consumerism. Buying new things. If people were to stop and start saving, we'd be thrown into a recession. Americans don't want to hear about sacrifice such as paying more taxes. Politicians who bring up the subject are routinely voted out. But leadership as shown by Mr. Peterson can't hurt. A billion dollars used to educate the population is a good start. Heck, why doesn't he run for President? Like Ross Perot who gave us all an early look at these problems with his presentations. While he didn't get elected, he did have a big impact!