Bring Back Thrift Week - News Feed

How Thrifty Are You?

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:30:00 EST

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you can take the Thrift Challenge to see how you measure up! It's an App that we here at Templeton Press created to show how thrift can be fun.

Earn points for thrifty behavior like picking up loose change, carpooling, or paying down debt. The more points you earn, the more levels you unlock. More importantly, as you hone these thrifty behaviors over time, you're sure to also notice a positive impact in your real-world finances.

Best of all, it's free!

www.bringbackthriftweek.org

Bring Back thrift Week

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

January 17th, the official start date of national thrift week, is fast approaching and once again Templeton Press is continuing our movement to Bring Back Thrift Week.

We created a Bring Back National Thrift Week Facebook page. The page not only allows us to reach a wider audience, but will better enable us to update fans on all of the new and exciting contests that are in the works for Thrift Week 2010!

By becoming a fan of our new Bring Back Thrift Week page, you will receive a chance to win $250! Hurry and become a fan today! We will draw the winning fan’s name in January. Just in time for paying those holiday bills!

http://www.bringbackthriftweek.org/

Is thrift a forgotten virtue?

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

America Magazine , a Catholic weekly magazine in the United States, recently explored the concept of thrift by reviewing two recent publications on the topic: Thrift: Rebirth of a Forgotten Virtue by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch (Encounter Books) and our very own Franklin's Thrift: The Lost History of an American Virtue by David Blankenhorn, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Sorcha Brophy-Warren.

America on Franklin's Thrift:

. . .quite accessible to the general reader. Engaging the changing legacy of thrift from the 18th century to the present, the contributors to this volume write energetically and with a grounded conviction on a subject of deep cultural significance as they challenge and confound "reductive and unappealing" views thrift.

http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=135

Thrift and Generosity tops the best seller list for October 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

In these difficult economic times, thrift may seem like a necessity, rather than a route to joy. But in this inspirational book, the reader learns about the virtue of thrift, and how, in combination with gratitude and generosity, it can lead to deep, lasting contentment.

Other books to top the best seller list are: Noble Purpose, The Hand of God, From Galileo to Gell-mann, Do Nothing, and Vision

Visit our website for more details on any of our titles. Order through our secure shop site and receive a 20 percent discount!

http://www.templetonpress.org/catalog_bestsellers.asp

The Hard Sell

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:30:00 EST

U.S. consumers at nearly every income level and spending stratum have pulled back over the past year, trading down from department stores to discounters or delaying purchases altogether. According to one poll, 60% of Americans say they're wearing clothes several times between washes to cut cleaning costs. And 72% say they now haggle before they buy some items, up from 56% two years ago, says C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group.

That frugality has retailers running scared as they near the all-important holiday season. Even if the economy picks up, some retail veterans think it could be 10 to 15 years before pre-bubble abundance returns. "They're looking at a new era," says Allen Questrom, a former CEO of J.C. Penney (JCP), Barneys, and Neiman Marcus who is now an adviser at Lee Equity Partners.

To read more of this article, visit Business Week online.

Visit Templeton Press to peruse books on thrift. To learn more about the history of Thrift week, visit Bring Back Thrift .

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_43/b4152042033401.htm?link_position=link2

Franklin's Thrift Now Available!

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST

Americans today often think of thrift as a negative value—a miserly hoarding of resources and a denial of pleasure. Even more telling, many Americans don't even think of thrift at all anymore. Franklin's Thrift challenges this state of mind by recovering the rich history of thrift as a quintessentially American virtue.

The contributors to this volume trace how, from the eighteenth century on, the idea and practice of thrift has been a robust part of the American vision of economic freedom and social abundance. For Benjamin Franklin, who personified and promoted the idea, thrift meant working productively, consuming wisely, saving proportionally, and giving generously. Franklin's thrift became the cornerstone of a new kind of secular faith in the ordinary person's capacity to shape his lot and fortune in life. Later chapters document how in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thrift moved into new domains. It became the animating idea behind social movements to promote children's school savings, create mutual savings banks and credit unions for working men and women, establish a federal savings bond program, and galvanize the nation to conserve resources during two world wars.

Historians, enthusiasts of Americana or traditional American virtues, and anyone interested in resolving our society's current financial woes will find much to treasure in this diverse collection, with topics ranging from the inspirational lessons we can learn from the film It's a Wonderful Life to a history of the roles played by mutual savings banks, credit unions, and thrift stores in America's national thrift movement. It also includes actual policy recommendations for our present situation.

http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=135

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-editor of Franklin's Thrift, featured in the New York Times opinion section

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST

A Generation’s Turn-Around

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead directs the John Templeton Center for Thrift and Generosity at the Institute for American Values and is the co-editor of the forthcoming book, “Franklin’s Thrift: The Lost History of An American Virtue.”

Americans are curbing spending, beginning to save, and paying down their credit card debt. Yesterday’s shuttering of Circuit City—the purveyor of gigantic plasma screen televisions and other “cool” electronic stuff—is yet another sign of the retreat from competitive consumption of recent decades.

Conventional wisdom says the new thrift will not last. As soon as consumer credit begins to flow again, many argue, Americans will go back to their wild spending ways. I disagree.

While it is true that thrift has a hard time in boom times, there are at least three good reasons why things may be different today and why a turn to savings and wiser spending may persist for a long time:

Generational imprinting Historically, young people are very often poor but rarely have they been so heavily burdened with debt. Even as the recession eases, they will have to struggle for years to pay down their debt.

Like the young who came of age during the Great Depression, today’s young people may be deeply imprinted by the experience of the economic collapse. This formative memory is likely to foster more careful spending and saving in years to come—as it did for the Depression generation.

Institutional reform In money matters, as in most things that matter, authoritative institutions play a role in guiding individual behavior and in setting cultural norms. Individual choice is fallible; that’s why we need institutions to provide broader social knowledge about our choices in a world of competing messages and appeals.

Institutions that promote savings rather than consumer debt—like President Obama’s proposal for a universal, tax-advantaged savings program for working Americans—could help to create a pro-thrift institutional culture.

Sustainability In this era of finite resources, sustainability is part of a thrift philosophy that offers a compelling reason—beyond mere economizing — for Americans to conserve and save for future generations. It is also an idea that appeals to kids who have been known to nag their parents to recycle. Why not get kids to nag Mom and Dad about living within their means?

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/the-new-frugality-no-passing-fad/

Is thrift a miracle cure?

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST

Thriving with a little thrift

Published: Sunday, January 11, 2009

After Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush suggested that it was a citizen’s patriotic duty to shop as if the nation’s economy depended on it. But he wasn’t the first to promote this idea.

In a radio address in 1931, economist John Maynard Keynes told the British people that saving more was the worst thing they could do to end the Great Depression because "whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for a day. Your saving that five shillings adds to unemployment to the extent of one man for one day — and so on in proportion."

Keynes’ fix? "Patriotic housewives" should "sally out tomorrow early into the streets and go to the wonderful sales which are everywhere advertised."

In this spirit, I announced to my husband the other day that I was going to spend the afternoon "shopping for America." I was only half-joking. Because more than two-thirds of our economy is made up of consumer spending, if we "get religion" about saving during an economic downturn, I worry that the recession will only get worse.

A call to shop is wholly inappropriate when it’s all too clear that spending beyond our means with the help of easy credit contributed to our current financial mess. Notice that the president hasn’t asked the American public to hit the malls to solve this latest crisis.

So if consumer spending isn’t answer, what is?

Thrift is the "miracle cure" for the economic ills of our society, according to David Blankenhorn, author of a new book about the misunderstood word. "Thrift: A Cyclopedia," is a collection of historical quotes and images — many of which pay homage to a word that today is narrowly defined by Americans to mean "to be cheap" or "to save."

Many misguided consumers think of thrift in a negative light. To them, thrift reminds them of secondhand stores you shop at if you are poor and unfashionable. Being thrifty is being tight with money like your Uncle Al who lived through the Great Depression.

But that’s not the word’s entire meaning. In fact, being stingy is not being thrifty at all, according to a 1920 speech by Harvard economist T.N. Carver that’s included in Blankenhorn’s book: "The thrifty person is not a miser. He is one who spends money just as freely as the extravagant man, but he spends it wisely."

Look back in history, and thrift had many positive definitions, including growth, good fortune and prosperity. The Treasury Department in 1918 even referred to thrift as "practical patriotism."

So how did we transform from a culture that celebrated the virtues of thrift with a "National Thrift Week" to a culture that’s all about keeping up with the Joneses using borrowed money?

A report written by the Commission on Thrift — a diverse group of scholars and think-tank folks — says that the shift took place as payday lenders and fee-laden credit cards multiplied and low-income earners began playing the lottery instead of saving their nickels at "thrift institutions," or banks and credit unions.
Over time, the stigma attached to being in debt gave way to the sense that overindebtedness is commonplace and therefore, acceptable, the report’s authors say.
Unfortunately, it took millions of Americans losing their homes to foreclosure, fat-cat credit-card companies raking in billions in sneaky fees and trillions lost in the stock market for us to realize that being a society of debtors is unacceptable.

It’s time for a change. The authors call for a national re-education campaign for thrift as well as a revival of National Thrift Week, which started in 1917 and ended in 1966. They also have several policy suggestions listed at their Web site, www.newthrift.org.

To be sure, we have a long way to go before we can say we’ve returned to our thrifty roots, and getting our mall-centric society there will be painful.
But it will be worth it. The root of the word "thrift," Blankenhorn points out in his book, is "thrive." Sounds pretty good to me.

XKara McGuire writes about personal finance. Write to her at kara@startribune.com or at the Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55488.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/jan/11/thriving-with-a-little-thrift/

American Spending: Are Cutbacks Permanent?

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST

Americans cut back, but permanent thrift elusive
Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:00am GMT
By Andrea Hopkins

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Single mother Kelly Dukes has lost her house, her car and her salary, but rather than curse the U.S. recession, the Cincinnati mom said she's grateful to have learned a whole new way to live.

"Now I understand the difference between want and need," said Dukes, 27, as she shopped for a pared-down Christmas for her 3-year-old daughter at discount retailer Target.

"I used to go shopping every other day ... but now I know I don't need the same pair of shoes in three different colors," said Dukes, who worked at a nonprofit organization helping children until it lost funding and couldn't pay her salary.

"Even though a recession is hard on people, I think maybe it'll shake a lot of people up and force them to think and educate their kids -- even if you want something, you can't always have it, and it's not important anyway."

Spending less, saving more and eschewing consumerism were out of fashion just a year ago in America, where "more" often means "better," but the loss of 1.3 million jobs in three months, foreclosures on millions of homes and the prospect of a deep recession has made thrift the new mainstream.

Dukes has cut her expenses by using public transportation, buying store brands instead of name-brand goods, looking for sales and simply buying fewer things. She moved from a huge house to a small apartment, changed to a cheaper day-care and has pledged to save more money for the next emergency.

These signs of change, backed by economic data showing U.S. consumers buying less and saving more, have excited David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, a New York-based think tank.

"The way of thinking about money that has characterized most of us Americans for the past several decades, a debt-oriented way of thinking, spending more than we earn ... that way of thinking has come to an end," said Blankenhorn, whose 2008 book, "Thrift: A Cyclopedia," was dreamed up when the idea was a quaint throwback but published just as Americans started talking about clipping coupons again.

Data released in November showed U.S. consumer spending dropped 0.5 percent in October, its fifth straight monthly decline, while the personal saving rate climbed to 2.4 percent. That means Americans are saving $2.40 for every $100 of disposable income. As recently as April 2008, Americans were saving none of their after-tax income.

'THRIFT CULTURE?'

But even Blankenhorn is skeptical the belt-tightening represents a permanent change in American values.

"My hope is that the debt culture will be replaced by the thrift culture, but it remains to be seen," he said. "The thing about thrift is it's not just in response to necessity, but it's actually a positive value -- a wise use of resources ... not just medicine for hard times."

Economists, too, have mixed feelings about whether the dramatic drop in consumer spending and increase in the nation's saving rate are temporary or permanent.

"It's both," said Richard DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp in Cleveland.

DeKaser said the sharp rise in saving had come because Americans feel economic insecurity -- a fear that may pass when the recession eases. But because personal assets like homes are not going to rise in value like they did during the housing boom, Americans are also going to change permanently the way they save for education or retirement.

"I see a long-term trajectory of increased savings because asset appreciation is not going to be able to provide for financial goals as it did in the past," DeKaser said, adding that people would spend less in order to save -- perhaps by driving a car for an extra year or forgoing luxuries.

Because consumer spending has traditionally accounted for as much as two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, consumption has sometimes been portrayed as patriotic, such as after the September 11 attacks when U.S. President George W. Bush urged Americans to go shopping.

If the new thrift takes hold long term and consumers do not return to spendthrift ways, economists say the United States will have to find a new engine for growth, such as exports.

'SPENDING ...THE AMERICAN WAY'

DeKaser warns against assuming the thrift consumers are now displaying will last once employment picks up again and the sense of crisis has passed.

"I think it is tempting to extrapolate the present forever into the future," DeKaser said, noting that Americans had long had a tendency to judge their own well-being by comparing themselves to friends and neighbors -- and trying to compete.

"If they view themselves as falling behind society as a whole, there is a desire to fill the gap and fill it with debt," he said. "I think there is still going to be that perceived desire to keep up with the Joneses."

For her part, Dukes said the changes she had made were permanent, because she has seen the folly of relying on material things for happiness. But she laughs when asked whether her fellow Americans will stick to tight budgets when the economy booms again.

"They'll go right back to it, all the spending," said Dukes. "That's the American way."

(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKTRE4BA0P420081211

The Age of Thrift has arrived. Can old-school banking save us from debt?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:00:00 EST

Old-school banking will save us from debt
By David Blankenhorn and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead
Thursday, November 13th 2008, 4:00 AM

Our new economic reality is now quite clear. The old debt culture is dead. The Age of Thrift has arrived.

While the federal, state and city governments try to sort out the financial fiasco that has brought the economy to a virtual standstill, it isn't just the politicians and billionaires who must now figure out how to kick the debt habit.

Consumers, too, have to change their ways.

With foreclosures up, the stock market down and the total amount of consumer debt in the United States at nearly $2.6 trillion, the old way of doing business is over.

If you're short on cash, but just gotta have that flat-screen TV, then you have to be able to pay for it upfront. The old "rent-to-own" scheme, in which you put down about $5, took the TV home that very day and agreed to pay about $20 a week for the rest of your life, won't cut it anymore.

The new way may well involve a layaway plan, a blast from the past based on the quaint notion that you actually had to afford something before you could own it. The layaway idea is simple: you pay the store a few dollars a week until you've paid the regular price for the TV. Then, you take home the TV. About as complicated as a piggy bank. In fact, the layaway plan - which is now being promoted by Kmart and other stores as the next new thing - is in fact nothing more than a store-sponsored piggy bank, in which you save up money to buy what you want.

When it comes to purchasing that dream home, forget the mortgage brokers who secure a loan from a bank you never heard of at a price you know you can't afford. Any time you as a homebuyer don't understand the exotic-sounding jargon - debt derivative, anyone? - then almost certainly the smart move today is to walk away.

Things are about to get simpler. In the Age of Thrift, you as a homebuyer will walk into a local community bank, make an agreement with the loan officer for a home mortgage, offer at least 20% in a down payment and then start repaying the bank. About as exotic as grandma's nightgown.

If you want your ship to come in, forget about spending a few bucks each week on lottery tickets. A little bit of luck will now come in the form of spending each month a little bit less than what you earn. What's left over goes into a savings account. A fancy idea? Hardly. Your grandparents probably did it, and it worked for them.

Even our political ideology must change. We should stop supporting those politicians who, like President Bush, constantly are urging everyone to go to the mall and spend all their money in order to keep the economy going. If the terrorists hit us, shop! If the economy starts to tank, shop! Here's a stimulus check for more shopping!

That idea is so yesterday. From now on, let's support the politicians who are going to figure out ways to help us save some of our money. These are the leaders who understand that not even a country as great as America can prosper over time if we are constantly digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt.

In the Age of Thrift, there will be higher penalties for haste and waste, and more rewards for steadiness over time and the wise use of small amounts.

There will be less focus on today, and more focus on tomorrow. People will spend less time asking themselves "How much do I have?" and more time asking "What should I do with what I have?"

All of this will be necessary. But here's the real payoff: Thrift is much more than the belt-tightening required by hard times. At its best, thrift is a positive vision of shared abundance and sustainable prosperity. Thrift is not just a medicine for when we are sick. It's a practical strategy for the good life.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/11/13/2008-11-13_oldschool_banking_will_save_us_from_debt.html

David Blankenhorn mentioned in "Thrift Is the New Fashion" from Newsweek

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST

Thrift Is the New Fashion
Time was, national crises stimulated saving. But thrift today has a negative, miserly connotation.

Daniel Gross
NEWSWEEK
Nov 3, 2008

Thrift, like the repossession business, is one of those classic countercyclical industries. When the gross domestic product shrinks and bulls grow mute, Americans are called to rouse themselves from a consumption-induced daze and start saving and investing rather than borrowing and splurging. At about this time in the economic cycle, we hear a lot more from Warren Buffett and a lot less from Donald Trump. Coupon clippers are exalted and high fliers are laid low. Of course, once the good times begin to roll again, the calls for thrift subside. Back in 1994-I know I'm dating myself here-I wrote a piece of juvenilia on the hot new cheapskate trend that grew up in the wake of widespread corporate restructuring. (Among the key data points: the popularity of "The Tightwad Gazette"and a decline in charitable donations.) But penny-pinching went out of style once the dotcom boom started.

During the last recession, which coincided with the 9/11 attacks, we didn't even try. President Bush went on television and urged people to go take a trip. For New Yorkers, patronizing a restaurant in the afflicted downtown area became something akin to civic duty. "Our leaders in recent years seem increasingly determined to insist, as a response to such challenges, on the importance of high and continued consumer spending," writes historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, in the newly released "For a New Thrift,"a report sponsored by an array of think tanks, left, right and center.

Whitehead writes eloquently about the powerful array of anti-thrift institutions that have made it difficult for middle- and lower-income Americans to save: credit-card solicitations, ubiquitous casinos, state lotteries and payday lenders, which "outnumber McDonald's franchises in four out of five of the nation's most populous states." The nation's biggest banks dole out loans with abandon, but many won't issue passbook savings accounts to kids.

More powerful still may be the macroeconomic barriers to saving. The income of a typical family hasn't risen in real terms since 1999, while the cost of basics like health insurance, energy, food and housing have soared. "Surveys show that much of the rising credit-card debt is related to job loss, home repair or health care," says Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and programs at the New York think tank Demos, and author of "Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead."

In addition, during asset bubbles and booms, we tend to let buoyant markets do the saving for us. According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of households and nonprofit organizations soared from $39.2 trillion at the end of 2002 to $58.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2007, a 50 percent increase. This at a time when personal savings were minuscule: $174.9 billion in 2003 and just $57.4 billion last year. But those who live by paper gains also die by them. Between September 2007 and June 2008, according to the Fed, the nation's net worth fell by $2.7 trillion. And it has likely fallen much further.

Clearly, we need to save more. But as John Maynard Keynes taught us, thrift can be counterproductive in times of weak demand. Consumer activity accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity. Spending money heedlessly-traveling, redecorating, eating out-keeps our friends and neighbors employed. The great concern about the stimulus package was that Americans would squirrel away those $300 checks for a rainy day rather than put them into circulation immediately. Self-described global citizens have also had reason to eschew thrift. The prodigious appetites of U.S. consumers for imported goods enabled tens of millions of peasants in China to escape subsistence living and find factory work each year.

Time was, national crises stimulated saving. Whitehead notes that during World War II, the savings rate soared to 25 percent, as the government, "partnering with the leaders of civil society, actively stressed the importance of saving for the war effort while also providing a specific new savings tool, in the form of war bonds."

But thrift today has a negative connotation-miserly, penny-pinching, no fun. Here, too, we need to go back to the future. "The goal of thrift is not to cut back or scrimp and save, but rather to enjoy the good things in life," says David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, and author of "Thrift: A Cyclopedia," a charming compendium of musings and quotes on the many virtues of thrift, going back to Benjamin Franklin's "The Road to Wealth."

Is there any reason to think we'll recover our lost sense of thrift in this economic crisis? Perhaps. The baby boomers, champion consumers who had counted on appreciation of their homes and 401(k)s to ensure a golden retirement, will have to start saving more. Policy changes-government matches for low-income savers, lottery offices where people can purchase savings tickets-might help. But profligacy and spendthriftness have also been part of our cultural inheritance. The most compelling character in the greatest American novel, "The Great Gatsby," makes a pile of money and then squanders it spectacularly. For every Warren Buffett, patiently building a down-to-earth fortune by purchasing stocks with hard-earned money, there's a Donald Trump, impatiently building glitzy over-the-top towers with cash borrowed from others.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/165641

Smart Money highlights the book Thrift by David Blankenhorn

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:00:00 EST

Thrift: A Cyclopedia, by David Blankenhorn

To that end, you might want to reserve a place on your holiday shopping list now for Thrift: A Cyclopedia (Templeton Foundation Press, 368 pages, $34.95), a thoughtful collection of quotations and historical insight on this seemingly antiquated concept that has quickly come back into fashion.

Author David Blankenhorn has assembled a bear market’s worth of material covering the ideals of prudence, diligence and sound financial stewardship. Remember those old chestnuts? You will.

Jonathan Hoenig is managing member at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC.

http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=121

World Magazine features article on Thrift: A Cyclopedia by David Blankenhorn

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:00:00 EST

Reviving thrift

David Blankenhorn champions a controversial-and largely lost-virtue | Marvin Olasky

We usually don't think of "thrifty" as a controversial adjective, but a glance at the first five synonyms-frugal, miserly, parsimonious, provident, prudent-offered by thesaurus.com quickly shows the debate: The first is neutral, the next two negative, the last two positive. One reason for this fall's market crash and economic crisis: We confused prudence with parsimony.

David Blankenhorn's Thrift: A Cyclopedia (Templeton Foundation Press, 2008) provides a thoughtful, entertaining, and pro-thrift look at a surprisingly controversial concept. WORLD readers who have given their homeschooled children passages about thrift might wonder, what's the fuss? Well, listen to this Great Depression radio address by John Maynard Keynes: "There are today many well-wishers of their country who believe that the most useful thing which they and their neighbors can do to mend the situation is to save more than usual. . . . [That] is utterly harmful and misguided—the very opposite of truth."

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14565

Thrift - More than an old fashioned idea

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:30:00 EST

The Great Seduction
By David Brooks
The New York Times

The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality. Millions of parents, preachers, newspaper editors and teachers expounded the message. The result was quite remarkable.

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country's moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

Sixty-two scholars have signed on to a report by the Institute for American Values and other think tanks called, "For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture," examining the results of all this. This may be damning with faint praise, but it's one of the most important think-tank reports you'll read this year.

he deterioration of financial mores has meant two things. First, it's meant an explosion of debt that inhibits social mobility and ruins lives. Between 1989 and 2001, credit-card debt nearly tripled, soaring from $238 billion to $692 billion. By last year, it was up to $937 billion, the report said.

Second, the transformation has led to a stark financial polarization. On the one hand, there is what the report calls the investor class. It has tax-deferred savings plans, as well as an army of financial advisers. On the other hand, there is the lottery class, people with little access to 401(k)'s or financial planning but plenty of access to payday lenders, credit cards and lottery agents.

The loosening of financial inhibition has meant more options for the well-educated but more temptation and chaos for the most vulnerable. Social norms, the invisible threads that guide behavior, have deteriorated. Over the past years, Americans have been more socially conscious about protecting the environment and inhaling tobacco. They have become less socially conscious about money and debt.

The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity. Twenty percent of Americans are frequent players, spending about $60 billion a year. The spending is starkly regressive. A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income. Aside from the financial toll, the moral toll is comprehensive. Here is the government, the guardian of order, telling people that they don't have to work to build for the future. They can strike it rich for nothing.

Payday lenders have also played a role. They seductively offer fast cash — at absurd interest rates — to 15 million people every month.

Credit card companies have played a role. Instead of targeting the financially astute, who pay off their debts, they've found that they can make money off the young and vulnerable. Fifty-six percent of students in their final year of college carry four or more credit cards.

Congress and the White House have played a role. The nation's leaders have always had an incentive to shove costs for current promises onto the backs of future generations. It's only now become respectable to do so.

Wall Street has played a role. Bill Gates built a socially useful product to make his fortune. But what message do the compensation packages that hedge fund managers get send across the country?

The list could go on. But the report, which is nicely summarized by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in The American Interest (available free online), also has some recommendations. First, raise public consciousness about debt the way the anti-smoking activists did with their campaign. Second, create institutions that encourage thrift.

Foundations and churches could issue short-term loans to cut into the payday lenders' business. Public and private programs could give the poor and middle class access to financial planners. Usury laws could be enforced and strengthened. Colleges could reduce credit card advertising on campus. KidSave accounts would encourage savings from a young age. The tax code should tax consumption, not income, and in the meantime, it should do more to encourage savings up and down the income ladder.

There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it's socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It's considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future.

Thrift: A Cyclopedia by David Blankenhorn
Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving by John M. Templeton Jr., MD

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html