Entrepreneur offers a short article titled "The Secret To Saving: Think Before You Spend." While it does not address the important topic of giving money away, it focuses on being thoughtful and intentional about spending. It also reminds us, as Jesus did, that it's okay to splurge sometimes. "Being a conscious spender is about making your money match up with your values guilt-free. It's about spending extravagantly on the things you love while cutting costs mercilessly on the things you don't." -- Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich The Greater Good Science Center at U.C. Berkeley reports on the phenomenon of "compassion collapse" (why we feel more compassion for one suffering person than for many), and how we can increase our compassion: We find that when there are more suffering victims, people think they will feel more compassion. Given this expectation, people may become concerned about the financial and emotional costs of intense compassion. Compassion for many victims can be seen as an expensive proposition—one that will not make much of a difference. People may also become worried about being overwhelmed or burned out by compassion for many sufferers. In under five minutes, Hill Harper touches on what's wrong with our society's approach to money: the taboo about discussing income, fixation on projecting an image of wealth, and what true wealth values can be.
Sojourners reports on an ecumenical Christian community (including Lutherans, Catholics, and Mennonites) in Minneapolis who have covenanted to pay a voluntary "tax" on their gas purchases. They collectively decide where the money will be contributed. The photo on the left, by Andreas Solberg, shows gas prices in Norway. Gas prices outside the United States are significantly higher. Why intentionally pay more for gas than it costs? According to CSM members, this is precisely the point: The price of gas in the U.S. doesn’t reflect the actual costs that U.S. society and the global community incur as a result of the country’s dependence on oil. Those costs include fossil fuel’s contributions to air pollution and global warming. Also hidden at the pump are the costs of U.S. strategies to maintain an inexpensive supply of oil, often through political or military interventions in oil-producing regions—not to mention $4 billion a year in tax credits and subsidies to Big Oil. Grist.com has published an interview with Elizabeth Kline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. Kline outlines how the clothing industry and shopping has fundamentally changed, with far-ranging effects we don't realize.
"[S]he set out on a nearly three-year journey behind the scenes of the fashion industry, traveling from sweatshops in China to overflowing Goodwills to a mostly shuttered New York garment district haunted by ghosts of U.S. industry’s past. The resulting book... is a revealing look at how fashion arrived at where it is today. Before you write off apparel as low-hanging Fruit of the Loom, keep in mind that clothing is easily the second largest consumer sector, after food." Woody tells his story of recurring cancer and how that became a motivation for him to make a difference in this humorous and engaging TEDxMileHigh talk titled, "You Are Here." More on BoingBoing. |