What Would You Accomplish With Billions of Dollars?

I am watching with great interest the hoopla surrounding the “stimulus package” being offered by the Democrats in our U.S. Congress.  According to Daniel Henninger’s excellent analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal, this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (just 700 pages of reading) is more a “self” stimulus bill than it is an economic stimulus bill because of how much would be spent on rebuilding the government’s infrastructure.  For example, the boast within the bill that says 3 million jobs will be created fails to clarify that these jobs will all be on our government’s payroll with the federal government as their boss.  Is this economic stimulus?  Sounds sketchy and a bit scary to me.

Whatever happened to zero-based budgeting?  You know, where we figure out what is needed first and then assign a cost.  It seems we have reversed this process to something like, “How much money can we spend or print?” and then let’s start putting everything into categories of spending.  We can’t operate our own homes this way.

I looked over some of the numbers in the stimulus package and have never seen so many zeros in all my life.   There is $6,000,000,000 for the construction, repair, and alteration of Federal buildings.  How about $375,000,000 to rebuild trails on our Federal lands?  Or we have the Weatherization Assistance Program chiming in at $6,200,000,000.  By the way, what is that $500,000,000 of expenses included within this?  No detail, just half-a-billion dollars of expenses.

Perhaps in contrast, I became aware that Wycliffe Bible Translators launched the Last Languages Campaign.  This campaign focuses on translating the Bible into 2300 languages that remain on their list of people groups without a Bible in their native language.  Bob Creson, President of Wycliffe, gathered their staff together to pray and plan this campaign.  It was fueled by a donor who asked the question, “If I gave you $100,000,000 for your work, what would you accomplish?”  This is cold, hard cash.  The Last Languages Campaign will enable all of these remaining languages to have a translation started by the year 2025.  The price tag is $1,000,000,000 (give or take a few dollars).

This represents billions of dollars that will accomplish something far-reaching on a scope that influences many people groups on the face of the earth.  It is not an “invest in ourselves” mentality like the Democrats are proposing, but rather an “invest in others” plan that will influence untold cultures and societies for the better.  The lesson for us, and for the next generation, is to look at how we invest in others and how we learn to be a conduit for good while we inhabit a short time on the face of this earth.  The present fades away, the eternal endures.  This must become our focus.

Madoff, Merckle, Wealth, and Suicide

Grim news hits hard. It appears that the unraveling of another business empire claimed a life this week in Germany. Adolf Merckle, a 74-year-old multibillionaire, apparently took his life after a failed attempt to restructure the finances of his family’s conglomerate.  Officials found his body on a train track.

I thought back just a month or so earlier to news about a French financier’s suicide in relation to the Bernard Madoff scandal. He oversaw a fund largely invested with Madoff that lost close to $1.5 billion.

There are others. On the same day as the Merckle news, The Wall Street Journal listed 4 apparent suicides of high-profile business officials occurring recently. WSJ probably figures obituaries sells newspapers these days.

How can we take this news and use it as a teaching point for the next generation?

First, let’s stress the importance of keeping your identity free from notions of personal wealth. This is nothing new, for it seems that men continue to yearn for the type of power and recognition that wealth has to offer.  A person’s identity needs something much greater than this earth has to offer.

Next, focus on developing quality relationships with balanced people. I wondered many times about the relationships these reported deaths have left behind. Are there family members with broken hearts? Any other friends who might come forward to share something positive about these men? Strange, such reports elude our attention.

Also, develop personal interests other than the ones money can buy. I can think of a few that require relatively little investment of money: reading (check out local libraries), gardening, cooking (you’ve got to eat), walking, listening to music, developing a skill, outdoor recreation, etc. Creativity helps. Don’t give in to notions that you are not creative.

Finally, cultivate your spiritual life. My personal relationship with Christ takes on new meaning when the media shouts the word “uncertainty.” I know what certainty is, and that is having a hope and a future because of the saving grace of God expressed through Jesus Christ. This makes life worth living, this gives life worth. This is the type of wealth you want to share with others.

Next generation, please realize that change rests with you. Notions of wealth reside within each generation, so ask God to help you change your heart and influence the hearts of others with true notions of worth.

Wealth Transfer and the Next Generation

From time to time I enjoy hearing the advice offered to the general public by various wealth managers.  It is instructive to hear their views on the basics of wealth management, but further to hear their views on the values of the wealthy and how they handle their wealth in light of these values.

I must give credit where credit is due for getting me on this topic.  In my rapid perusal of current business news, I ran across an older video of an interview with wealth manager Stuart Lucas on the Business Week website.  Lucas is one of the heirs of the Stuart family, whose patriarch E.A. Stuart founded the Carnation Company.  Due to this connection, Lucas actively manages the wealth for at least 18 of the heirs and provides advice to many others.  He has written the book Wealth: Grow It, Protect It, Spend It, and Share It.

One of the issues that Lucas runs across in managing the wealth for this family fortune is teaching everyone to have a concern for their next generation of heirs. In particular, if the values of the family are not passed on along with the money there will be potential problems with the future value of this fortune.  Passing money on to the next generation without passing along sound values could cause adverse effects according to Lucas.

Let’s think together–how do we transmit values to the next generation? Is this not the number one question anyway? Many times among Believers we share a concern for passing along solid values to the next generation, but do we really focus on doing it?  It is a challenge that we must bolster up and address.

It would be interesting to poll some of the younger generation to see what their perspectives are on wealth. Perhaps that is what Jesus was doing when he encountered the rich young ruler as recorded in Matthew 19:16-22.  Through this interaction, Jesus got to the heart of the matter when He encouraged the rich young ruler to consider the poor, thereby laying up treasure in heaven. Then He simply ended by saying, “Come, follow me.”  This produced sorrow in the young man’s heart perhaps as he realized what values he held in his own heart and how he could not get a perspective on a future generation that could benefit from his fortune.

This angst is not the value I want to pass on to the next generation.  We must set ourselves free from the love of the world and its passing treasures, and to pass on eternal values as we teach stewardship principles to the next generation. Investing in eternity is part of God’s plan for us and the next generation.