Ways of the World: An Introduction

We all interact with business and the economy every day. Back when I was in graduate school, I began to think I should teach in a junior college where I might help "ordinary people" better understand business and economics. Then they could make better decisions in their own lives and see more clearly through politicians' rhetoric and businesses' P.R. Life took me down a different path instead: a long, sometimes arduous and frequently rewarding career as a Wall Street economist.

Then, in 2001 and 2002, two events brought me back to my earlier perspective. On the morning of September 11, I was sitting at breakfast in the Marriott hotel in the World Trade Center with some 250 other economists at the annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics, which was being held in New York for the first time in over 20 years. We were listening to a presentation by the president of a leading investment firm. All at once, the building shook, there was a loud boom and we all jumped up and ran out. In the aftermath, among a multitude of thoughts and feelings, I realized that if there was anything else I wanted to do with my life, I should set about doing it. [Over time, I'll share more with you about that momentous event.]

Just a few months later, still actively grieving this national tragedy, we began to hear news of another kind of tragedy, a business debacle of major proportions. A number of large companies and their accounting firms were producing false financial statements. No peccadilloes here, these managers were committing massive fraud. Now, a great strength of American society is its adherence to the Rule of Law and its careful preservation of property rights. These guys were flaunting all of this. They also tarnished the many decent, honest, hardworking businesspeople I knew from my own career experience.

What struck me – in my heart – was that these people were also leaders in their communities: board members of hospitals, arts organizations and, most of all, active church members. Hypocrisy, of course, has been around forever, but I began to wonder if there might be some special outreach the church could make to them. Maybe I could find a way to spread knowledge about these issues so the church might minister more fully to business leaders and to all of us who do business and finance in our daily lives. We are all stewards, caring for the things of this world, and our actions have repercussions far beyond our own doorsteps.

Enter The Geranium Farm. Here, in this new feature called "Ways of the World", we'll talk about business and consumers and stewardship. We'll raise questions: how can kids understand about finances, how did gas prices get so god-awful high? Isn't it dangerous if foreigners start dumping our debt? What about the burden of our own personal debt? And so on. We can provide some answers here and we can seek out sources for others. We can talk about current events and perhaps I can offer some perspective you don't get from the media. My own ideas for this grow by the day and Mother Crafton has already added to them herself. Please, you too participate: make it a forum!

I am grateful to Mother Crafton for providing this opportunity and this platform. I hope – and pray – that this work lives up to her trust and indeed helps you understand more about the "ways of the world".

A disclaimer: the material we present will not ever be meant as investment advice or to address specific individual questions on investments, taxes or other purely personal business matters. We do not know which way stock prices are going, and economists are notoriously poor managers of their own assets!