Something remarkable happened in the world of the richest men on earth. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who dedicated most of their lives to accumulating as much wealth as possible, decided to give nearly all of it away - in their lifetimes. Why? To help those who cannot help themselves. And even more than that, they have asked their peers to do the same (the Giving Pledge) – give it all away.  If you don’t see this as unusual, think again. This act represents one of the most extraordinary moments in global economic history.

Rich men (I am leaving women out purposely) do not give their money away easily. After all, it represents their life’s work. Their wealth supports their egos, power and position in the top levels of gazillionaire moguls. We imagine a secret society of power players divvying up the world’s wealth for themselves with no regard for those without. When you give your money away, you give your power away too. It’s emasculating. Male virility shrinks with one’s portfolio. Big swinging….well, you know the rest.

So why would the world’s two richest men give it away?

It boils down to an evolving sense of social conscience – the deep belief in individual responsibility to help relieve human suffering.

Perhaps we all have this mandate to some degree. We call it charity, tithing, philanthropy. Yet social conscience goes beyond those traditional labels to the depths of our being. We are not simply writing a check for a “good cause” or attending a gala with our social set. We are investing ourselves in creating a better world.

The innovative David Miller, who heads up Princeton University’s Faith and Work Initiative, writes, “We all have greater capacity than we realize to live lives of radical generosity. We can do it with our time, treasures, and talent.”

The new giving pledge is a part of our consciousness. We give, because we must. However humble, all of us can affect someone else’s life in a positive way through kindness, compassion and generosity—not for the kudos, but for the personal satisfaction of knowing we are part of a giving (not taking) world.

Beyond Noblesse Oblige

Commitment to philanthropy is nothing new. Noblesse Oblige has dictated that wealth and privilege requires the responsibility to serve society. No one embodies this more than the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II. In modern monarchal systems supported by the taxpaying public, royals know the part they play in balancing the scales of privilege—lest they lose their heads. Modern royals have given moguls a model for social responsibility.

We have come to a moment in the evolution of humankind where we recognize that each of us has co-created the world we live in—the good, the bad and the ugly. Each of us is responsible for the state of our fellow inhabitants. Each of us has the power to change our world to a more caring place.

Apathy is a direct act. If we do nothing; we are part of the problem. It is a clear statement of “I accept all that is and will make no effort to change it.”

For those of us like myself, who do not, cannot, will not, accept all that is—we are called to fight. Like spiritual warriors, we charge into the Battle for Goodness. It is our mission to usher in the change that we know, as consciously evolved human beings, is our purpose here on earth.  In the fight against the ugliness of gluttony and the violence of greed, compassion is our sword. Arm yourselves and get ready for battle.

Contrary to outdated beliefs, compassion is not weak. It represents love and love is the strongest force in the universe. It is the very essence of what we live and die for. It takes great courage to love in an unloving world, great courage to show compassion in a culture that reveres aggression, great courage to stand up to destructive forces of power and say: Enough! You have had your time at the top. We are taking our world back.

Only the strongest among us can do this. It requires us to push through the status quo of who has more, and those that want only more for themselves. It forces us to not play both sides by catering to the self-serving while claiming concern for humanity, or placing self-interest above social conscience. Love inspires us to recognize that we are indeed at war—with corruption, greed, injustice and the brutal inhumanity of top down economics.

If we say yes to social responsibility, we are saying yes to the fight for Goodness and the hope of transforming humanity from a culture of hate and selfishness to one of compassion and community. All of this brings me back to the Giving Pledge and the example of two business titans, Gates and Buffet, who are galvanizing the troops to create a better world for us all.

It is a giant leap forward in the evolution of human civilization for power and privilege to finally join the Fight on the side of Good.

©2010 – All Rights Reserved

Monika Mitchell - Executive Director  

www.good-b.com/blog

Fortune Magazine reports that Wal-Mart hit the top of the revenue charts again in 2010 beating out the big boys like Exxon Mobil in insatiable profits. Also in the list of top revenue producers are eight bailed out companies: General Electric (3), Bank of America (7), J.P. Morgan Chase (9), Citigroup (12), General Motors (15), AIG (16), Wells Fargo (19), Freddie Mac (54)….

AIG, made the list? Freddie Mac? Citigroup? GM? Aren’t these more like Misfortune 500 companies?

Question: How can you be completely mismanaged, virtually insolvent and held up by taxpayer billions and still make the Fortune 500 list? That is the Trillion Dollar question.

Answer: What constitutes a “great company” for Fortune Magazine is entirely based on numbers, however creative those numbers may be. The 500 List doesn’t consider how many employees lost their jobs, how many worker benefits were cut, how many millions of American families were rendered homeless, and how many of America’s 15 million unemployed and 15 million under-employed lost their medical insurance and ability to feed their families due to the distorted and singular pursuit of revenues by Fortune’s “Best.”

The top dog position this year falls to discount king Wal-Mart. Fortune asks the question:
“Is Wal-Mart Stores a great company, or what?”

How exactly does Fortune Magazine define “great?”

2010 Fortune 500: Wal-Mart back on top
“The mega-retailer knocked Exxon Mobil out of the top slot to rule the Fortune 500 again this year. Wal-Mart managed to lift revenues, on top of a big increase in 2008, by attracting bargain-hungry customers from competitors with remodeled stores and inexpensive private-label goods, offering everything from frozen pizza to patio furniture in one stop. A single trip also meant less spending on gas. Result: Profits surged a whopping 7% to $14.3 billion.”

Wow, that sure is a lot of frozen pizza. So what is the secret to Wal-Mart’s success? Maybe we can learn something about being “great” from Wal-Mart’s example.

In recent years Wal-Mart has gone green, not with envy but with sustainable business practices –at least that is what we are told.

Naturally wherever the retail giant can save money by cutting back on energy usage and recycling goods would make perfect sense for Fortune’s Number One. But making Wal-Mart the poster child for environmentally sustainable practices would be a big pill to swallow for most of us. (Didn’t we already do that with BP?)

As for integrity some of us cannot forget Wal-Mart deliberately mislabeling foods as “organic” only three years ago.  Nor can we forget the internal memo released by top management to encourage high employee turnover and “dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart” to save on healthcare benefits and wages.

But people change and so do companies. Perhaps the “Top Company in America” is a role model for us after all. So just what is the Greenest of Green discount retailers doing today?

Wal-Mart Stores, the $14.3bn revenue producer, is flexing its big legal muscles to fight a $7,000 fine issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for failing to protect the safety of a minimum wage worker who was trampled to death in November 2008.   Wal-Mart, who agreed to a settlement with the Nassau County District Attorney to avoid criminal charges, does not feel the fine is fair. Why is it unfair? Because “crowd trampling” is not an occupational hazard that retailers must actively prevent says the big WM.

Excuse me Wal-Mart…an occupational hazard would be any danger on the job.  Two thousand people queued up in front of a store sign that said, “Blitz Line Starts Here” and a 34-year old temporary worker was stomped to death in the rushing surge for a $300 laptop. It seems safe to conclude from this event that crowd danger is an occupational hazard.

This incident reveals a lot about the 2,000 Wal-Mart customers who were clearly more interested in a bargain than respecting human life. The case also reveals a lot about Wal-Mart’s business practices. Birds of a feather you know…

Wal-Mart believes that paying the small sum of $7000 would set a precedent to make them legally responsible to safeguard workers against errant crowds. And they don’t want to be responsible for that—legally or otherwise.

To make their position clear, Wal-Mart has filed 20 motions, 400 pages of legal briefs, and spent 2 million dollars in legal fees. The case is costing taxpayers millions too by demanding nearly 5,000 hours from OSHA legal eagles. In the NY office, 17% percent of attorney hours are taken up with defending the negligence fine levied against Wal-Mart.

OSHA states that Wal-Mart failed to protect employees from “recognized hazards” and to prevent situations that were “likely to cause death or serious harm” due to “crowd surge or crowd trampling.”

Wal-Mart’s official response: “We are committed to learning from the incident and making our stores even safer for customers and our associates.“

Actions always speak louder than words. Wal-Mart’s fierce battle to avoid the fine says more about company values than any amount of legal briefs or PR. The attorney for an injured shopper states, “They don’t want to take responsibility realistically for what they did.”

So in answer to Fortune’s $14.3bn question:  Is Wal-Mart Stores a great company, or what?
If “great” means only bottom-line profits, maybe so.

But if “great” includes the human-bottom line that requires a company to place the sanctity of life and dignity of human beings ahead of profits?

Or What.

Who knew until just a few weeks ago that Big Oil had a contract with God? BP, the self-proclaimed poster child for corporate social responsibility, got their right to dig one mile below the surface of the sea direct from above.

Yup, that is just the way it is. Nothing any of us can do about it. Because if God gave them the right to drill baby drill, who are we mere mortals to question their authority? 

How else would the American government, the international maritime agencies, and oil industry regulators have allowed this one profit-driven company and any oil digger out there, the right to destroy our God-given eco-system? It must have been the Big Guy, or Gal, herself.

You don’t believe me? It says so right in the Good Book. Look it up.

Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Okay, so what happens after that?

Chapter 1, Verse 28: “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

So human beings, i.e. governments, private profit-driven oil companies, industry regulators, have determined they were given the right to “subdue and rule” over the earth and sea from the highest authority. That must be why Big Oil believes that off-shore drilling is its Divine Right. How else would these shareholder companies have the opportunity to drive their drills down five thousand feet underwater to annihilate our fish of the sea, birds of the sky, and every living thing that moves?

Do you get it now? We can’t blame BP. They get their mandate to destroy the eco-system from a higher authority. They do it all in the name of the Almighty.  In the case of global oil companies, that higher authority is the Almighty Buck.

That means for BP and Big Oil, Buck is God himself. Or for all practical purposes in the United States of America, God is the Almighty Buck. Yup it has to be. Otherwise why would we worship it over Creation?

We would never let anything less than a Supreme Being take from us our rightful heritage. No human being would have the ability to trade our eco-system for profit. It just couldn’t be done—because we understand that nature itself is sacred.

We live in a shared world. No single person, group of people, corporation or nation has the moral, ethical, or legal right to rape, pillage and plunder what belongs to the living and yet unborn. Not unless it was given away by the Creator itself. So that must be the Almighty Buck.

Now I feel better. The Oil Spill in the Gulf at the hands of the inept and dangerous BP must be an act of God – like an earthquake or something. The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh away. For Big Oil, Buck giveth and taketh away.

So I ask you as you grumble, moan and wring your hands in despair at the great tragedy in the Gulf, WHO GAVE BRITISH PETROLEUM OIL COMPANY THE RIGHT TO DESTROY THE SEA?

Almighty Buck.  Buck is in charge. Buck is the one who decides who lives and who dies, who thrives and who perishes. You did not create the universe. You cannot determine how to use our earth. That is Almighty Buck’s  job and only He decides who has dominion over earth and sea.

Right now that is BP.

You thought a mere oil company would not be free to poison the seas that belong to you, me, our children and theirs.

You thought that nature was so grand and awe-inspiring in design that no person or institution should be allowed to tamper with its majesty.

You believed that human beings were given the privilege of protecting and preserving our natural world.

You thought wrong.

Our sacred covenant with the earth is not to protect and preserve it after all. BP and our oil drilling laws have shown us that the covenant with Almighty Buck gives human beings the right to strip the earth of its abundance and leave behind environmental devastation for posterity.

The earth and seas are under the rule and dominion of private profit-driven international corporations. The global community decided long ago that this is how it should be. Common economic ideology dictates that our natural resources should serve only short-term human needs. Our governments, even the most enlightened among them, are convinced that profit is more important than people, that shareholder value is greater than nature’s value.

In the name of freedom, free markets and that Holy Grail called “Enterprise” we have forsaken our own eco-systems—those that sustain us. In the process, we have forsaken humankind.

Somehow we cannot see a way to value life and money at the same time. We cannot find a way to profit without endangering the delicate balance of the earth.  We cannot imagine a comfortable existence without sacrificing our natural surroundings for it.

We continue the call for off-shore drilling. Almighty Buck wants it that way. We will not “kick our addiction to oil,” or so he says. We are not willing to sacrifice convenience for longevity. So we are told.

As we watch the billions of gallons of toxic oil plumes deadening our sea life, the majority of us would gladly inconvenience ourselves for an end to this destruction. We are willing to forgo shareholder dividends for peace of mind and a greater future on this earth.

It takes our business, political, religious, and global leaders to say “enough.” By ourselves, we do not have the power to stop “off-shore drilling.” We do not possess the engineering skills to create a green car, cheap solar power, or replace our national oil dependency with eco-saving alternatives. Yet we can imagine it; speak of it loudly and boldly for all to hear.

To effect real change, we must join forces in large numbers and say no more to the savage raping of our earth and sea.  No more to off-shore drilling. No more to threatening our eco-systems. No more to profit over people and life itself.

There is another way.

We can hold a vision, a dream perhaps, of a balanced life where the earth and sea serve us as we preserve them. Our vision includes a symbiotic relationship with nature – where She provides for us and we protect Her.

In the meantime, we watch in agony the destruction of the Gulf coast, the livelihoods of those that live by nature and the unbelievable toll of perishing sea life.  We recognize our vision remains a “pipe dream.” (No pun intended.)

Yet it does not have to be. Nature should not be trumped by private interests. People need not take second place to profits.

If you are looking for someone’s “ass to kick,” you might try finding Almighty Buck.

©2010 – All Rights Reserved

Monika Mitchell - Executive Director  

www.good-b.com/blog

Humanity is at a pivotal moment of transformation. How we proceed from here will determine the level of suffering we will endure or the level of peace we can achieve in our lifetime.

The more strife and hardship experienced by our world, the more we question the status quo. We have not arrived at this moment by accident. We are part of a growing force of voices that yearn to bring about change.

Humanity has suffered tremendously in the 20^th century.  The traumas of wars, conflict, and injustice over the past 100 years have taught us great lessons. From these painful moments we have made great advances in terms of human rights. The second half of the 20^th century brought forward a consciousness for the urgent need  to protect the innocent and to “right” the many wrongs of society. Before this shift in thinking, human rights was a fringe idea held by a small group of brave and enlightened souls. The creation of the United Nations and the hundreds of advocacy groups that evolved from it represent the dramatic change in our cultural beliefs. We have gone from killing each other to saving each other. At least some of us have.

What this proves is that it is possible for human beings to change in a fundamental way. As change agents, this is important for us to remember as we move through the often frustrating process of transformation. While it can be slow, plodding, and exhausting, when we look back over the last century we see enormous progress in the way human beings relate to one another.  In spite of those who wish to maintain the status quo, change does come.

One of those areas of progress is the treatment of women.

Beginning half a century ago the plight of women as second class citizens was brought to the world stage. We discussed civil rights, education, and economic rights, and made serious political and social advances. Most of all a consciousness grew that refused to relegate women to the simplistic roles of submission and subjugation we suffered as a gender for the previous 2500 years.

If you remember the progress we have made in recent years (after more than two thousand years of repression and suppression), we recognize as a species human beings have advanced further than we think. Yet the fight is still on…

We hear of young girls subjected to vicious attacks as they fight for their right to be educated. We witness the violent abuse of women worldwide as they struggle to take their rightful place along side of men. All of these challenges reawaken us to a simple fact. There is still so much to do.

We have arrived astonishingly in this new century at a crossroads of spiritual and cultural evolution of the world community. The advancement of women is a crucial part of that evolution.  If we wish to advance as a species, the 21^st century is poised to become the Century of Women. This will be the century where women fully participate in the decisions and direction of their own lives.

I worked in the financial industry in the U.S., here in New York, for several years—a traditionally male world. For all the progess America claims in the advancement of women, the world of money in the United States and across the globe is still controlled by a small group of men. The proof of this unilateral control was exemplified by the financial crisis that began in the U.S. in 2008 and spread around the world in a matter of days. It continues to wreak havoc today. Hundreds of millions of innocent people are struggling to survive due to the aggressive and predatory acts of a few thousand men.

I am convinced (and I am part of a growing consciousness) that the only thing that can right this great wrong will be the addition of women to the economic and political systems in a real and integral way.

Greed is not the sole province of men. Women are prone to this human flaw as anyone else. Yet what are traditionally recognized principles of feminine energy – compassion, love, receptivity and conscious humanity – are exactly the elements missing from the current economic structures of the world. These human qualities are precisely the factors that can fix the financial system and prevent another collapse from occurring at the hands of greed.

Compassion and business are not supposed to mix, but a human social system (whether political, religious, or economic) that does not include compassion is forever destined to destroy and not create.

The world needs love. The absence of love is the catalyst behind all human-made suffering. When we forget about love for humanity, we become violent, detached, and destructive. We needlessly create pain for others, because we falsely believe that caring about them will make us vulnerable.  The absence of love inevitably becomes a virulent hate; this is the greatest tragedy of our civilization.

Women are lovers. Women know that love makes us stronger. We understand in our deepest core that love not hate has the greatest power to heal. While hate destroys, love rebuilds.

We are mothers. We nurture our children who create the future of the world and give them strength to face the challenges they will meet. We are the givers of life, not the takers of life. In giving life, we give love with it.

Women are healers. Our job is to offer strength, tolerance, understanding, and wisdom to help repair our world.

In this Century of Women, it is not that women will replace men. It is that men by our example will open themselves to the compassion women embody. Men will find the courage to open their hearts to the love women innately feel for the planet, for our children and communities.

In this Century, women will finally face their fears of annihilation and find the strength to step up and take our rightful place as leaders along side of men.

It is only in true partnership of men and women in government, spiritual traditions, and in our economic structures that we can heal the suffering of our modern world.

Monika Mitchell - Executive Director    editor@goodb.net

©2010 – All Rights Reserved

It used to be that indifferent wealth building and outsized risk was sexy. For thirty years, the world of high rolling high finance was the object of admiration and envy. The chants of “Wall Street sucks” some ten thousand strong in front of City Hall last week signify that the days of glamour and greed are over. Inarticulate and ineffectual as that phrase might be, it reveals the increasing rage building against Wall Street titans. In the wake of the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, economic hardship has become too real for too many.

Wall Street’s ”burn baby burn” ethos isn’t looking so hot these days. The thrill is gone baby. The thrill is gone away.

Last week, Wall Street’s ruling class, the risk managers of the mortgage securities division at Goldman Sachs were skewered to a well-done temperature by a suddenly alive and outraged Senate Committee.

Question: Where was this “you done wrong” stance when the Street paid themselves millions on the backs of the downtrodden and newly homeless? Where was the outrage and effective action when the industry cannibalized itself and then walked away with the Golden Goose? The rage of our elected officials on display across TV Land America seems too little too late to help those in foreclosure or destitute from loss of income directly due to the excessive greed of a select few.

So what was this humiliating display of Goldman Sachs princes falling from grace all about?

The current anger at Wall Street seems to be channeled almost exclusively at one firm and that nefarious place called “Wall Street.” Goldman Sachs has come to represent for many critics, the Great Satan in modern America.  Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi called Goldman the “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”  His attack of the Big Bank established lines of battle between those who believe the investment banking giant can do no wrong (Warren Buffet  & junk bond king Michael Milken) and those who believe they are modern day Dillingers (Taibbi and most of America.)

In case you missed it, the Securities and Exchange Commission suddenly awakened from its decades long “see-no-evil” stupor and brought civil charges against Goldman Sachs for allegedly deceiving clients by selling bad debt called “synthetic CDOs” and then profiting on their client’s investment faux pas. These “exotic” financial instruments were once ironically termed “weapons of financial mass destruction” by Goldman’s most vocal supporter, Warren Buffet. (Buffet invested 5 billion dollars in GS in the fall of 2008.)

Goldman’s defense: Our investors are big boys capable of making their own decisions. Translation: “We are not responsible for your ignorance…suckers!”

Taibbi points out in a recent UK Guardian article that the philosophy behind their defense is the medieval business model of “caveat emptor.” He writes, “The investment bank’s cult of self-interest is on trial against the whole idea of civilization – the collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even if we can.”

Goldman’s greatest critic is indeed correct that the investment giant’s “cult of self-interest is on trial,” but this is not exclusive to Goldman Sachs. They are simply the most visible and seemingly “best” practitioner of unrestrained profit-seeking at the expense of the greater society. Goldman Sachs is not on trial literally (at least not yet). The entire business model of profit-at-any-cost (Atlas Shrinks) is “on trial” in the eyes of the public.

For years, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. As a culture, we have defended a business model of profits-before-people that has come to bite us in the bloomin’ arse. The model has been reduced to an inane battle of “conservatives versus liberals.” Just curious: Since when is it “conservative” to take the food out of a baby’s mouth and the roof over a hard working family’s heads? Since when is it “liberal” to establish a morally restrained code of behavior that embodies the Golden Rule? All these absurd labels prove is that as a society we force people into tiny boxes for our tiny minds to comprehend and then completely miss the point.

The Point: Are we survival-of-the-fittest capitalists in a deadly game of Darwinian magnitude? Or are we morally responsible and socially conscious capitalists who have personal boundaries in the pursuit of profit which we won’t cross? In other words: In the quest for money, is there anything at all that we won’t or can’t do?

Libertarians or Randian greed-mongers would say no. In the purity of the “free market,” there is nothing we should not be able to do. Theirs is a Wild West philosophy of lawlessness, predatory mortgages, and under-the-radar “derivatives.”

The chances of Goldman Sachs breaking a securities law and being convicted of fraud are pretty slim. They are too “clever” and too connected to behave criminally. Goldman does not have to break laws to profit; they simply change laws to their advantage-circa Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The purity of our democracy is the real issue, not Goldman’s alleged “fraud.”

Law of the Land

While in Wyoming traveling from Yellowstone National Park some years ago, the owner of a lodge asked me if I wanted to go grizzly bear hunting. I replied, “I thought it was illegal to shoot grizzly bears.” The cowboy smiled, “We make our own laws here.” Looking around at the rugged and wild expanse of nature surrounding me, it was easy to understand his conviction. He could have killed me too and no one would have ever known.

What struck me most about his question was that he and I were of such contrasting worlds. I, a city girl, was comfortable with society’s rules. He, a wilderness child, had no respect for anyone else’s law. The fact that he thought I would share his love for the indiscriminate killing of innocent animals astonished me. We held a completely different moral view.

It reminds me of a conversation with a former mortgage trader from one of the big banks just after Lehman’s fall. He had been skiing in Aspen in 2007 and overheard two mortgage brokers ranting about a deal they failed to close. “F***ing Bitch,” they swore of the cautious widow who refused their loan. My friend was weary of the business and said, “I made my money; it’s not fun anymore.” His was a rare conscience in the world of finance-one where he gave up “the fun” to become part of Vermont’s middle class. The price of easy money became too high for his morally conscious mind.

What is really on trial with Goldman on the hot seat is our cultural ambivalence to greed. There is no such thing as easy money or “money for nothing” – that is the great American myth. There is always a price to pay when we throw care and responsibility to the wind.

We live in a shared society, not an island apart from the world. We are part of a complex and extensive global community. Everything we do from polluting the environment to polluting the economic system comes back to haunt us. In our adolescent materialism, we forget there are consequences for our actions.

For the record, “Wall Street” is not the few blocks stretching downtown that last week’s protestors symbolically walked. Wall Street is an amorphous destination that exists as much in our minds as it does behind the gold and glass plated doors of 200 West Street. It stretches from one end of the nation to the other – south, north, west, east and everywhere in between. It reaches every continent on earth and directly affects every nation. It operates through every bank, insurance company, corporation, lender, and financial advisor. It includes the stock exchanges and bond markets in New York, London, Hong Kong, Chicago, and around the world. Wall Street is not a “place” at all, but a global economic system. The question is do we want to support a system that creates value for society or destroys it?

The myth of the “free market” is that we should have no laws. We should be able to shoot grizzlies and each other with impunity in our current economic philosophy. No one will really know if we “screw” each other over. As long as we do not leave a trail of emails behind, it’s your word against mine. Who would ever know?

Our market values do not emulate our societal values. We live in a ”free society” within a complicated system of laws designed to protect us from the tyranny of each other. I can no more “kill” you, than you me, without legal consequences. Yet I can sell you bad debt hidden in between thousands of pages and laugh at your stupidity as you writhe in agony from economic disaster. The double standard of our flawed morality makes little sense.

Greed is looking ugly these days. “The great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity” is greed itself. Unbridled greed is primitive, crude, crass, dangerous, socially obsolete and not in the least bit sexy. To paraphrase that great philosopher, B.B. King:

The thrill is gone baby.
The thrill is gone away.
You know you done us wrong baby.
You’ll be sorry someday.

Taibbi writes of the task facing the modern world to make a collective decision once and for all, “not to screw each other over” just because we can.

Goldman Sachs is not the source of the problem. The real source is the primitive and socially unconscious business model they embody and we embrace. The acceptable for-profit survival of the fittest model where we “take the money and run” without responsibility for our actions. The model where it is not only “okay” but “good business” to leave dead bodies in our wake. The model where if I survive and you fail… I win!

After all, they shoot grizzly bears don’t they?

Monika Mitchell - Executive Director    editor@goodb.net

©2010 – All Rights Reserved

American business is getting an important lesson in civics as one of the world’s most beloved automakers dramatically and temporarily falls from grace. 

Toyota Motor Company is accused of delaying its response to countless service complaints about “sticky” accelerators. Millions of cars, including the wildly popular Prius, have been recalled in an effort to avoid more accidents, injuries and potential fatalities. To date thirty four deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to the sudden surge in acceleration.

U.S. journals wrote scathing reports claiming Toyota sacrificed quality for profits. Tough questions about motives for the negligence were fired at the CEO by a U.S. congressional panel. One represenative asked, “Where’s the remorse?”

The remorse was apparent as Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder, repeatedly apologized to the families of victims, “I extend my sincerest condolences to them from the bottom of my heart. I’m deeply sorry …” His sincerity was palpable. Either because he was looking at hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of dollars in losses, or because he was losing “face” as the leader of the company his ancestor built.

Apologies will never be enough for the families that lost loved ones. Yet the acknowledgment of responsibility offers some relief to those who held the company in trust. One lawmaker spoke of the almost mythological reverence he held for the Japanese car maker. He remembered those “like myself <who> have grown up in an atmosphere that we had a great deal of faith in something that was stamped Made in Japan.” 

Toyota was a brand held in reverence. The brand was built on reliability and integrity. The Toyota Way was the official name for the top of the line production quality and efficiency that Detroit envied, but could not repeat.

Toyota will undoubtedly right its sinking ship and get to the top of the industry heap again. The automaker has enjoyed a reputation for excellence stretching back for decades. Their downfall was to veer from the integrity model and focus instead on maximizing profits. A lesson for all businesses that your best profit model is to serve your customers first. To remedy the problem, the car company should use its own tried and true model for creating value for its loyal customers.

Professor Jeffrey Liker, an expert on the Toyota business model, summed it up this way, “Failure to follow all the principles of the Toyota Way led to this crisis. Now the Toyota Way is the only way out of it.”

Saving Face

Shame is a great burden in Japanese culture where honor has almost religious qualities. In America, where honorable business is often a quaint memory from our parents and grandparents, the U.S. financial industry could learn a thing or two from Toyota.

One Congressman revealed a document written to the chief of Toyota Motor North America, Yoshimi Inaba, celebrating the official agreement for a limited recall. The sentiment ignored public safety issues and focused on the bottom line. Inaba confessed, “It is inconsistent with the guiding principles of Toyota.” They have principles? How refreshing.

“Saving face” is a deeply ingrained principle in Japanese culture and business affairs. Unlike American business, Japanese corporate culture sees business as personal. Clark Roundy, VP of Marketing at Luxul Wireless, writes “When doing business in Japan, never underestimate the importance of personal relationships or the role that honor, loyalty, and saving face will play in your success.” American Roundy claims that to do business successfully in Japan, there must be a respectful relationship of mutual concern behind monetary goals. In other words, trust and honor are your bread and butter in Japan.

Clearly, things go wrong in business. Products malfunction and quality can be compromised in the rush to get products out to the market. How a company responds to a problem is the key to recovery.

The American Way

The remarkable aspect to Toyota’s tragic debacle is the glaring comparison to top corporate behavior in the U.S. this past year. We have seen former national treasures, including some of our largest financial institutions, not only shame and embarrass us around the world, but deliberately attack us where we live.

Through marketing predatory loans, hiding bad debt inside complex securities, hedging debt against worthless paper “swaps,” and unloading products on an unsuspecting public through Government Sponsored Enterprises, the actions of professionals and institutions were not due to neglect or oversight. Their actions were the result of a calculated strategy to market lethal quality loans to financially vulnerable citizens and sham securities to ignorant investors. The “shame” is on all of those who participated in this economic American tragedy, yet somehow those individuals feel little or no responsibility for their actions.

Apologies from some of those directly involved have been absent. Executives from now defunct subprime and predatory lenders such as, New Century Financial, Countrywide, Wachovia, and Washington Mutual have never admitted culpability nor offered any explanation or apology. Most of the executives at the top of these companies have found jobs in other banks or recreated new firms.

Investment and large commercial banks called before Congress offered lukewarm responses to the effect of, “I am sorry for my firm’s part in the industry’s negligence…” Always passing the buck to someone else and never acknowledging direct responsibility. To apologize with sincerity for an American financial firm would be to admit weakness. No company or manager wants to be that vulnerable. Denial goes a long way in corporate America. It minimizes legal and social costs and lets the deniers stay happily in their “not my problem” bubble.

Unlike the Toyota and Japanese business model, the American business model has been based on a “principle” of pure profit. The “rip-your-face-off,” “eat what you kill’ language of the financial industry reveals the whole story. As a culture, we have embraced and celebrated a model that leaves out any sense of moral decency or collective responsibility. Shame, embarrassment, or any other behavior modifying emotion are antithetical to the American business model.

In the wake of the economic collapse, we have begun to examine why this moral vacuum exists and how we got here. Pursuing profit without connection to the greater society that supports it is the primary misunderstanding of modern business. In the Japanese model, executives understand their direct responsibility to society, colleagues, and employees-hence the severe social consequences of their corporate actions. (Some executives are “shamed” enough to take their own lives based on professional missteps.)

Business and society are inextricably linked in Japan. In America, with the exception of conscious business leaders and companies, this link is remarkably absent.

The actions of the last decade, as well as the response to the crisis over the past 18 months, reveal that the overwhelming majority of America’s financial industry remains unconscious. They are seemingly unaware and indifferent to the enormous material and personal effects of their acts on the greater society.

The Toyota tragedy opens the window into deeper self-examination of the American business model. Toyota will rebuild itself in its own image-based on tried and true historical values. What values do we have to return to as we rebuild American business other than the principle of profits before people?

The continuing economic recession has (and continues to) put tens of millions of people out of work, forced millions of businesses to close, cost billions of dollars in savings and lost income, interrupted retirements, put millions out of their homes, destroyed marriages and families, caused heart attacks and suicides, and wrecked the American Dream for hundreds of millions of homeowners and ordinary citizens.

Shame is a useful thing if it propels one to better behavior or inhibits poor behavior. In Japan perhaps shame has too great a consequence. In America’s corporate boardrooms and everyday trading desks, there isn’t enough shame or simple conscience. There isn’t enough sense of commitment to the greater collective that would prevent our “best and brightest” from bringing down their own economy or compel them to build it back up.

Our continuing economic suffering is reason enough to re-evaluate our for-profit “value” system. Is it only money we are after? Or in the wake of the on-going Great Recession and all its inherent moral turpitude is there something like “human decency” we can add?

A dangerous moral vacuum exists in modern American finance and throughout large portions of American business. It propels us to do in the pursuit of profit what we would never justify in our personal lives.

If we don’t use the lessons of the Toyota Way to rebuild American business in the image of a morally responsible society, a for-profit model that understands its direct obligation to the greater collective, that would be the real shame.

Unrestrained greed among the investment banking elite has been blamed for much of the world’s suffering in recent years. In a remarkable shift from only two decades ago, greed in all its crude reality, is no longer “good” in the eyes of the world.

Maverick thinkers have warned of the perils of unbridled greed for centuries, yet few were listening. Not until the world turned dark on September 15, 2008 with the perfect financial storm did the rest of society take notice.

That was a day of economic infamy-the day Wall Street investment banking died. Lehman Brothers, one of the most respected and powerful financial institutions in the U.S., came crashing down in an economic shock heard round the world. With its demise, the remaining investment banks went on life support resuscitated only by woeful government rescues.

With the crash of the credit and securities markets in 2008, the relationship between business and the public irrevocably changed. No longer is the old adage, “it’s not personal, it’s business” an acceptable view. The crisis resulting from the misbehavior of bankers at the expense of ordinary folks unequivocally reveals that everything we do in business is indeed personal to someone.

The official theme of this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland is “Rethink, Redesign, and Rebuild.” The unofficial theme could be called, “Greed is Ugly.” We traveled a long hard road to get here from the Ivan Boesky days of last century. With it, we endured a lot of economic pain. Yet as human beings we rarely change when things are comfortable. It is the advent of crisis, either personal or public, that forces us to reexamine our values and reinvent ourselves.

The Economic Crisis of 2008 has brought forth the Economic Epiphany of 2010. The sentiments last week among the world’s business leaders echoed the urgent need for a moral economic framework. Out of the halls of darkness comes the light. Mercy, mercy, hallelujah.

For all those skeptics out there, the 2010 Davos Forum focus on values signifies an enormous change for the year ahead. People are mad as hell and they don’t want to take it anymore.

Yet these are not ordinary angry mortals, like Joe the Plumber or moose shooting hockey moms. The outraged include the banking and business elite themselves. Members of a once admired fraternity hold errant colleagues responsible for destroying the good business model. Barclays’ President Robert Diamond said, “Those who stayed strong are angry at those who had poor management.”

Trust is your bread and butter in business. Banking is a respectable and honored profession when used to serve the community. Not a roulette wheel spun with the chips of pension-less factory workers, ninety-year-old widows, and the working poor. Where did common good values go?

Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman complained to the Davos crowd, “We should stop the blame game,” and “start looking forward.” His remarks were directed against the inevitable new taxes and industry regulation favored by those present. Ackerman did not realize that regulating banks is looking forward-toward creating a system that works for all, not just a self-serving few.

The German banking chief acknowledged the importance of public opinion. “If you lose the support of society, you are not going to realize your corporate objectives in the long run.” (A belief that seems not to be shared by all colleagues.)

As WEF’s official theme reveals, the new paradigm is to redesign the global economy to include world interest with self-interest. It is no longer okay to create suffering for others in the savage quest for more. French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that for “those who create jobs and wealth” to “earn a lot of money is not shocking. But those who contribute to destroying jobs and wealth and also earn a lot of money (it) is morally indefensible.”

Survival-of-the-fittest naysayers have become like dinosaurs on the verge of extinction. The only ones who don’t know that seem to be employed by bailed out banks.

Yet “blame”, as distasteful as that might be on most WEF participant lips, is not altogether fruitless. If the perpetrators of this colossal calamity continue to ignore their personal responsibility, then the world will continue to point fingers and tighten the strings. Call it blame if you must, but the post-crisis behavior of unrestrained banker bonuses looks greedy to those looking on. And greed no longer looks good.

Mexico’s ex-banking chief pointed out that banks have “misjudged the deep feelings of the public.” The Wall Street Journal reported that banks returned to a “culture of high-risk-taking and lavish pay as soon as they were out of intensive care” and brought the anger on themselves.

The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, claimed bankers changed the game by using taxpayer money “to guarantee loans at banks…a gigantic amount” and could no longer dictate the new rules.

Sarkozy summed up the general sentiment of the conference stating that “indecent behavior will no longer be tolerated.” He claimed that capitalism could only be saved “by restoring its moral dimension.”

That morality is being discussed at all in the setting of the formally “greed is good” culture of Davos is extraordinary. Continuing global economic hardship is yielding remarkable changes in profit perspectives. Glimmers of hope are emerging from the depths of despair.

New economic thought has shifted to a world that cares for the poor, voiceless, and forgotten. The official message of the conference proclaims, “Now is the moment to rethink values as we rebuild prosperity. The interrelated fights against unemployment, global poverty and climate change are not just noble struggles: they are essential for long-term recovery and avoidance of future crises.”

It was not good to be a banker at the World Economic Forum this year. The chairman of Morgan Stanley Europe compared their social status to that of “terrorists.” The comparison is humorous until one thinks about the havoc reeked by what economist Joseph Stiglitz calls “negative value”. Traders, underwriters, lenders, analysts, salesmen bought and sold securities, loan products, and swaps that were based on mortgages that could/would never be repaid.

American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as a “state of fear and submission.” Considering the submission of millions of families to banks who took their homes and millions more who lost their incomes through no fault of their own, the fear gripping those facing foreclosure and unemployment, and the millions of investors who face uncertain retirement, the subprime mortgage debacle could undoubtedly be viewed as economic terrorism.

As we begin the second month of the year 2010, it seems clear that greed, defined as the accumulation of wealth and profit at the expense of others, is no longer ”good” to most of those observing. That is a great relief.

The outrage expressed by pillars of the global economy in Davos, as well as the general public, reflects that the new “good” is as much about serving the common good as anything else.  Now that is what I would call an epiphany!

editor@goodb.net

This week I am proud to be a Googlican.

GoodB is happy to report that Google continues to be one of the best models for Good Business around. No, we are not sipping Kool-Aid! As most of you know, Google, the internet search giant, has challenged one of its biggest clients, the money machine of the 21^st century Communist China, on the subject of free speech and ethics.

In all the hullabaloo this past year as the financial crisis enfolded and China stepped in to lend America piles of cash against a future of debt, little was mentioned about the communist government of China. People like brilliant policy shaper Tom Friedman waxed rhapsodic at the wonders of China with green-eyed envy. China had become the flat world’s wunderkind.

I marveled at the hypnotic affects of China’s “capitalism” in the past decade over respected and innovative thinkers. Friedman in “The World is Flat” listed China as a welcome addition to the global economy, a great commercial giant leveling the playing field.

In the U.S. love affair with China, as the Big O (and George Dubbya before him) shake their hands and money tree, otherwise smart people seemed to forget who our benefactor really is. It’s the Big Bad Wolf, folks and we are on our way to Grandma’s house.

For all the Red Scare of the 50’s through 80’s, the Soviet Union was the wolf. Russia continues to be vilified in the press and Public Square. The message is repeatedly clear. They are a communist dictatorship and do not value American-style freedom. They can’t be trusted.  Okay…so how did China slip through the cracks to become one of the most admired economies by the western world?

The affair with Big Red began with the smell of money. Back in the mid 1990s, top execs at Goldman Sachs were scouting the world for new opportunities. The economic neutron bomb, hedge fund Long Term Capital, had exploded and with it the Russian market.

All eyes turned to the East. CEO Hank Paulson turned for help to Goldman pal, Robert Rubin, who sat comfortably in the U.S. Treasury seat. President Clinton signed on and the stars aligned. China was open for business.

The belief in the early 21^st century among many of the “best” economic minds of the day (including Alan Greenspan) was that communism through capitalism would slowly transform into democracy.  Ahh, we were so young and foolish back then. We believed so many fanciful things, like capitalism actually has anything to do with democracy!

In the lust for profits in the developing nation of China, American businessmen and policy makers seemed to forget – they kill people there! They round up “dissidents” (anyone who does not agree with The Party), force them into kangaroo courts, torture them behind closed doors, break their spirits, and whisk them away forever. And we think Iran’s government is ”bad?” I guess they are not our trading partner, so we can afford to be preachy. As soon as China became a primary source of revenue we were up the creek without a paddle….

(Just a quick note, if the financial crisis had occurred in China, what do you think would have happened to the subprime mortgage industry titans who took the money and ran? It is doubtful a Chinese Wall Street could have run too far. Guess there are perks to living with the Green-Reds after all.)

I have not understood for the past decade how the U.S. government can crow loudly about the violations of individual freedom in parts of the Middle East and somehow remain non-committal on the ongoing human cruelty in China.

Last month, outspoken Chinese dissident and well-known member of the American civil rights group PEN, Liu Xiaobo, was convicted of “inciting subversion” for calling forth “greater human rights” in China and the end of one-party rule. He was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum security prison. His wife was held in house arrest by the Chinese police during the trial. So much for democracy, even worse, forget about basic human rights.

These are the people with whom we willingly do business. These are the folks whose fortunes are made by Walmart shoppers. These are the folks who now own the future of America. Isn’t business supposed to be based on trust?

Google’s recent challenge to the Chinese government’s hacking of private email accounts reveals the struggle between Chinese and American style commerce. When it comes to “free enterprise” in a non-free society, the limitations of capitalism are plain to see. In America, capitalism trumped democracy once again this year. In China, communism will always have the upper hand. 

China and Google have butted heads over user privacy and censorship before. In my book, Spiritual Capitalism, I detailed the complex ethical issues between Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Chinese authorities. In 2006, all three tech companies succumbed to pressure to remove any blog or website critical of the Chinese government. Yahoo shockingly turned a political activist’s email identity over to officials. He was never seen nor heard from again.

Google and Microsoft chose to allow censorship, yet refused to reveal private identities and moved all email accounts offshore. All three U.S. companies were summoned before a Congressional panel and summarily chastised for their actions. More than one congressman compared their actions to Nazi complicity.

Time Magazine ran a cover story in February 2006, “Can you trust Google with your secrets?” as the commitment of the tech giant to its mantra, Don’t Be Evil, was called into question. A Google spokesman stated the company was not “ashamed” of its action, but “not proud.”  Better to have limited Internet rather than none, he explained. The response never sat quite right with the rest of Free Speech America.

The current situation involves more than suppression of First Amendment values. The Chinese government stands accused of “hacking” into private email accounts of political dissidents. Hacking is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering. The issue at stake is the very essence of Google core values. It’s good to know that when Big Brother is watching you, your other Big Brother has got your back.

Google is considering pulling their search engine out of China – a country of 1.3 billion people, four times the population in the United States. An amazing action for any hugely profitable publicly traded company. The threat alone would make shareholders shudder and competitors gloat. It also can make their largest client, the People’s Republic of China, mad as a hatter.

Yet they are willing to put their money where their ethics are, potentially risking enormous profits, and raising the bar of corporate social responsibility to a new level most of us will have to leap to follow.

This week Google profits are down 13%. The toll of the recession and the threat of Chinese action are already weighing heavily on the tech giant. Yet Google stated in their 2004 IPO that they wanted to be a different kind of company, one that did not sacrifice their core values for short-term profits.

That is a tough call for any for-profit company. Business leaders meet ethical challenges daily. Little in the world of money is black and white. There is always a grey area where profits must be considered against human needs. This is what doing good business demands of us. Asking questions like, “How do you stay in business, answer to the bottom line, and still maintain the soul of who you are?”

These are the dilemmas faced by modern business -big, small, and everything in between. Wall Street has been called on the carpet in recent months. So far they have failed miserably to balance two essential values: profits and the human bottom line.

The key for managers and companies faced with difficult decisions is to have a clear foundation of principles from which to act. Like valuing quality of life and placing the welfare of people and planet before profits. That is a hard lesson for business. Yet it remains the fundamental test of good business for 21^st century enterprise.

However this issue rolls out, Google has made a profound statement with its current stance. Sergey, Brin, and all the Googlicans are saying simply, some things are more important than money- principles and people. In the process, they have renewed our faith in ethically responsible capitalism.

This year, we watched incredulously as one profitable firm after another justified reprehensible breeches of ethics as the cost of doing business.  Google’s actions set them apart from the pack by drawing a distinct line in the sand. They are in business to profit, but they refuse to sell their soul to do it. The search king reveals once again that trust in business is not a PR slogan, but an absolutely essential component in any contemporary business model. 

Just goes to show, there are some things in life you can still count on. It is good to know that Google is one of them.

Christmas might be over, but the Spirit of Giving seems alive and well – at least on Wall Street. Investment banking firms like Goldman Sachs are considering whether to require employees to “give back” to society with a mandatory charity clause. The purpose of the action would be to:  a) Do the “right” thing. b) Appease the common folk. c) A & B 

Really what difference does it make why? The real questions are, is it the right thing and will it diminish public criticism? After all, according to one CEO, these firms are doing “God’s Work.” 

Employees at the big bailout firms stand to make even bigger gains for last year’s debacle than previously imagined. With the help of friends in high places, the “too-big-to-fail” banks have roared back to the top of the charts and execs expect to be paid for it. Bonuses are to be announced in late January and early February and are guaranteed to stir up ire among the long-suffering public. Some of Goldman’s efforts to soothe public resentments have included earmarking $500m for “small business education in community colleges” and $61m more to build urban affordable housing. Global investment banks are considering making employee tithing an official part of their business model.

Wall Street firms, including the greed-is-good 1980s Solomon Brothers, have long given back to the community. Junk Bond King Michael Milken has been one of the financial industries largest philanthropists since his release from prison in 1993. George Soros who “broke the Bank of England” has been an unceasing benefactor for many of the world’s neediest for decades.

Financial firms have built schools, underwritten libraries, created poverty programs, fought deadly diseases, and supported environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship – all in an effort to balance the scales of prosperity.

Three of the biggest contributors to the fallen firefighters’ widows and children funds after the September 11 attacks were Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs. All the big Street firms gave hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the city and honor its fallen heroes. No one in New York ever forgot that.

So what is different now? Isn’t this what capitalism is all about? Making a profit and circulating it back to the people? Of course. Yet any firm that used bailout funds to get back on its feet is no longer viewed as a pure capitalistic venture. With the official label of “too-big-to-fail,” the public sees these firms as government-backed. Therefore the old rules of capitalism no longer apply. Giving a portion of profits to personal charities does little for those losing their homes or the millions of middle-class jobless who took the fall for others.

Since the days of Andrew Carnegie, people have confused good business with philanthropy. The titans of yesteryear, like Carnegie and Rockefeller, established the big business standard of supporting the arts and other non-profits. These men forced people to work at subsistence level wages in subhuman conditions, and then built libraries and schools for the same folks. In the 19^th century selective philanthropy balanced the scales, in the 21^st century it does not.

Business has an obligation to give back to the community that supports it. Therefore, charitable giving is a basic reality for any profitable company. However, in the past year it has become unmistakably clear that business also has an obligation not to profit by exploiting that community.

A great example of this model is the former investment bank Bear Stearns. The Bear was one of the most reckless subprime mortgage securities houses leading to the financial crisis. In the 2000’s, Bear Stearns also set the trend for “giving” by requiring top executives to contribute 4% of their income to charity. Levered at over 40 to one, Bear’s flimsy underwriting standards and outsized trading risk brought the behemoth firm down. Following in its footsteps were Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, both high flying mortgage market makers and generous patrons. The loss of Lehman and Bear to the greater New York not-for-profit community has been heart-breaking.

Yet charitable giving by these firms has not made up for the financial devastation left behind in their wake. Donating 4% to a favorite charity while crushing the working and middle classes has not satisfied stressed taxpayers. The same people who lost their incomes and perhaps their homes directly due to market mayhem are asked to accept charitable donations to quell their rage. Hardly a reasonable offering.      

While firms cannot earmark 10% of profits for philanthropy without enraging shareholders, they can invoke the “charity clause.” Setting aside 5-10% of earnings for top producers to support a special community fund might establish better relations with the public after all – if that fund is funneled into a program that supports those affected directly.

For example, Goldman has set aside $16bn in a 2009 bonus pool. What if $1.6bn of this executive fund was used to finance small business loans at zero percent, refinance at-risk homeowners, pay a portion of monthly mortgage payments for unemployed homeowners, or seed money to social entrepreneurship start-ups who guarantee they will hire U.S. workers? These may be highly unusual solutions for profit-seeking Wall Street, but these extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.

This week, the top banking chiefs expressed mia culpa for the industry’s part in the economic crisis. Apologies are due, but actions are imperative. Earmarking a portion of bonus checks to plaster your name above the public library door isn’t going to relieve suffering or reduce anger. Real and effective solutions to current economic dilemmas are expected from both the government and financial industry.

To calm the ire of the seething public, firms do need to acknowledge their part in the nation’s misery, but not by following the path of Gilded Age robber barons. The way to rectify ongoing economic fallout is not through subjective “charitable giving,” but through genuine proactive restitution and reform.

contact@good-b.com  © 2010

This is our winter of discontent. The jobless seek a pay check; the almost-homeless pray for a miracle; the indebted seek relief. Throughout the nation and across the globe, human beings are locked in the battle for survival. Yet despite our struggles, this last week signifies a new season of hope for humanity.

Something miraculous happened on the way to the White House this holiday week. Sixty privileged and pampered U.S. senators dragged themselves out on Christmas Eve in the wee hours of the morning to push through historic health care reform.

Many Americans are against the reforms in the current health care bill either because they hold too much or too little change. Yet the miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue is so much more than the bill itself; the debate on healthcare reform represents a shift of consciousness from exclusive self-interest to inclusive world-interest.

Healthcare is an economic issue as we know in America. It costs too much for too little. The only people who benefit from the high costs of care are pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, those who pad the bills to Medicaid and Medicare, and their investors. Everyone else is out on a limb to pay for the outrageously expensive cost of maintaining our bodies.

The healthcare debate has revealed a clear dividing line in the consciousness of the public. The debate cuts across economic classes, genders, ethnicity, and social stratas. We are no longer separated in a battle between haves, have nots or have mores. The debate reveals a clarion call raging through society: The ancient struggle of self-service versus common-good.

Given the painful lessons of the last year, the mood of the nation seems to be shifting from a “what’s in it for me” cultural ethic to a newly emerging ethos of “If I flourish, so should you.” Battle lines are drawn between those afraid to lose what they have and those willing to share their fortune with others. A new day is dawning in America, because compassion for others has won a decisive victory-at least for the moment.

We are good people in this country; kind people, generous perhaps even to a “fault.” Yet fear of suffering can make even the gentlest of souls selfish and indifferent. A newly minted senior citizen, a woman of 65, is adamantly against health care reform. She states her objection to expanding care, “I don’t want a 45 year old to get my MRI.” The sentiment sounds petty and insensitive coming from someone receiving taxpayer supported Medicare. Yet her concerns are real. Would she get the required care needed or would she have to sacrifice her own health for another’s?

Some don’t want to see their already costly healthcare premiums increase. Others don’t want to pay tax on top level care. Still others fear their healthcare will be compromised in service to others. All these are real concerns for ordinary Americans. Some working, some not-all are understandably worried whether their survival and comfort will be threatened by “reform.”

Yet an extraordinary change of heart is underfoot, worthy of the era we find ourselves in: the era of shared concern.

The issues of universal healthcare go far beyond any legislation debated in Congress. The fundamental issue revolves around, “What is our obligation as human beings to care for others?” “Must I sacrifice any part of my comfort or share my good fortune with you?”

The big banks have answered this question this year by plowing ahead with bonuses at the expense of the American taxpayer. If we really believe in “raw survival-of-the-fittest capitalism” we should be okay with this. Yet most of us are adamantly opposed to this inequity.

The Fed Chief states the bailout he himself engineered is “distasteful and unfair;” yet only those who benefited from his actions agree. Anyone struggling financially to survive knows how misguided and undemocratic the 2008-2009 bailout programs truly are.

We have been in an on-going struggle in America since our founding between individualism, our personal sense of freedom, and a broader sense of justice and fair play. “What is our obligation to the greater public and at what cost does that come to ourselves?” is the key question consistently argued in our two century history.

I don’t know the answer for everyone, but for me the answer can be best told through a story. Several years ago I visited an American friend in Brazil. As we sat at an outdoor churrascaria gazing at the crowded sands of Ipanema, content in all our abundant perfection, a little boy of nine or ten peered at me through the restaurant gates. His huge brown eyes hungrily took in the bounty before me. As the waiters brought more food, I said to my friend, “Can we ask him to join us?” My friend seemed annoyed by the question and explained that Rio was not like the U.S. “Orphaned street children are common here,” he said. “You can give them a few coins, but not more than that because if you do you will never get rid of them.”

The callousness of his remark shocked me. I asked, “But we have so much food, can’t we give him some? He looks like he is starving.” My friend shook his head no, made a joke about life’s inequities and detailed the Brazilian social system to me. “People are just used to it here, you can’t help them. This is just the way it is.” My friend and I began a deep discussion on indifference, civic duty, and compassion. All the time the little boy’s eyes stared at the table of food through the gate. The discussion became heated as we both stated our increasingly diverse views. As my friend kept eating and talking, the limitless supply of meats flowing, my appetite and conversation diminished. “How can you eat while this child is starving?” I asked him. He laughed and stuffed a rare piece of Filet Mignon in his mouth and said, “Like this.”

When he got up to go to the restroom I signaled to the child to come and sit down. The boy ran through the gates to the table, only to be intercepted by angry waiters who shooed him away like a fly. The head waiter scolded me harshly for inviting “street urchins” into his restaurant. My friend returned to the chaotic scene embarrassed by my social faux pas and I decided to leave, but not before asking for a “doggie bag.” The waiter refused and I scooped up the meats untouched on my plate into a napkin, handed them to the boy who grabbed them and ran off.

My companion was as repulsed by my actions as I was by his. In my youth I judged him harshly. I left to go back to the States and rarely spoke to him again. In time, I recognized the real issue between us was not as cut and dry as one might suppose- it was the differing ways we viewed the world. I felt an obligation to help those less fortunate in any way I could; he felt he had no obligation to the “world,” only to a select few. His seeming self-interest belied the fact that he was deeply generous to a handful of friends in New York and Brazil. Yet his kindness did not spill over to the greater human population. “I cannot help everyone,” he told me, “and neither can you.”

In the years since, I understand his behavior more than I once did. He was a kind man who could not express that compassion to the greater community without overwhelming himself. That “is just the way it is,” he had told me. His statement marked an apathy and acceptance I did not share. That was the major difference between us more than any innate goodness on my part or his.

He was right of course in his mature wisdom. I cannot help everyone, nor can anyone. But we can do whatever possible to help others without sacrificing ourselves. I told my friend in Rio that it might be the way it is, “but I don’t accept it.” Neither should any of us, accept a status quo of indifference and apathy, not if we hope to create a better world.

While the healthcare bill is as imperfect as we humans are, it marks an important shift from apathy and indifference to shared responsibility. Healthcare in this country is an expensive commodity reserved only for those who are fortunate enough to afford it or old enough to qualify for it.

That might be the way it is, but we don’t have to accept it, because it is just not good enough.

The new vote on Healthcare brings Hope for a less indifferent and more responsible America in the year ahead-one where the basic necessities of life are not considered luxuries meant only for a lucky few.

Happy Holidays from all of us at GoodB!

editor@goodb.net  GoodB Blogger Monika Mitchell