No, planning on winning the lottery is not a good retirement plan. It is interesting that today, when foreclosures this year are up some 67% over last year, Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, comes up with a curious idea. It plans to take in deposits from small savers to lend out to other people who will actually pay back the money. Just like George Bailey did in “It’s A Wonderful Life’.
Thrift, historically, meant a wise use of resources. It means no waste, whether of raw material, time, energy, or money. It meant being conservative in the best sense. It meant Americans understood that getting out of the slavery of payday-to-payday meant saving some of what one earned.
I remember going to the bank with my father. The object, to open a savings account with some pennies I had been given. Banks were the place to keep money, and the Bank President himself, an imposing man dressed in a suit and wearing a white shirt and tie, called me over, gave me a savings book with my own name on it, and showing a deposit of one dollar, a gift from the bank to start me out. To this he added the money I had and gave me the filled book to bring back every time. Later a bit interest was added. Wonderful! My money was earning me money. What a fine system. Can’t beat that.
Well, that system still works, and there is hope that Americans will finally see the wisdom in this terribly mundane thing. This simple process.
Sad to say, we are living in a world where our government itself leads the way, borrowing from earmarked funds like social security to pay for its excesses, and even promoting such anti thrift institutions as lotteries as a way to pay expenses.
Our Lord has wisdom here also. Jesus told the story of the foolish farmer whose fields yielded abundant harvests, so that he planned to build more storage so he could “Have thine ease.”: Jesus said it is more important to be “rich toward God” than to worry about money here. Luke 12, 13 – 21. And being ‘rich toward God’ simply means that we believe His word, trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord, and live “as unto Him.”
And God bless that sort of life.
GPD 10/18/07
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