Can the Bible, Shakespeare and Ben Franklin All Be Wrong?
There are not many issues on which the Bible, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin and the modern mass media offer nearly identical social criticism. On the matter of saving money and going into debt, however, they speak in one voice. The New Testament advises readers to ”owe no man anything,” and Polonius famously said in ”Hamlet,” ”Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Should people fail to heed these admonitions, as they often do, they risk both their morality and their independence, becoming ”a slave to the lender,” Franklin said, paraphrasing Proverbs. When entire societies ignore the warnings, they forfeit future prosperity for conspicuous consumption. This is the essence of the most widespread worry about the American economy today. After having taken on ever higher levels of credit-card and mortgage debt to finance arguably the highest material standard of living the world has ever known, Americans will eventually have to cut back, many economists and writers have argu
