Check out article on CNN.com examining the prosperity gospel, or in other words, that God rewards his faithful with both spiritual and financial gifts. It opens with a discussion of Jesus’ financial portfolio.
Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, says Jesus couldn’t have been poor because he [...]

Some of our readers are observing Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of Av, the day that marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples. On this day, Jews fast and read from the book of Lamentations:
4:2 The precious children of Zion
Once valued as gold
Alas they are accounted as earthen pots
Work of a potter’s hands!
How many times have [...]

Continuing our discussion of Joseph and the financial lessons in his story: the Divine plan behind Joseph’s sale to the Ishmaelites and his ultimately landing in Pharaoh’s court is stated clearly in Genesis 50 as was foreshadowed a few chapters earlier.
After their father, Jacob-Israel dies, Joseph tells his brothers, “you meant evil against me (in [...]

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach spoke with BiblEconomy about the roots of the financial crisis and how we transcend it.
“The collapse of our economy was caused not by an economic crisis but a spiritual crisis called greed, where you become voracious and insatiable. I believe that the Jewish community, and the Jewish religion has unique values that need [...]

Here’s the latest twist on administration officials/nominees with tax problems.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was forced to fork up $34,000 in unpaid back taxes, told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday that the Obama administration will be going after people who avoid and evade taxes. In prepared remarks before Congress, he said the president [...]

In a column detailing how we piled on debt from 2004-2008, Ralph R. Mabey in the Mormon Times has a good line to help us focus our future priorities:
In Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin’s words, we unwisely based our spending much more on our “yearnings” than our “earnings.”

Now a fourth Obama administration nominee with tax troubles.
This time, it’s Ron Kirk, the president’s choice to be U.S. trade representative. Kirk owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to pay them, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday.
Remember this good lesson for public officials from Abraham in Genesis: even [...]

Column worth reading by Kristine Frederickson in the Mormon Times on the perils of conspicuous consumption and how now necessity ”has engendered thrift, industry and charitable impulses and actions” prompting a new recognition of the difference between wants and needs, teaching us “to live well on less.”
She says that in 1869 Brigham Young:
…explained that others looked at the [...]

When 60 Minutes first aired this segment 15 months ago, it seemed a bit over the top.
Today, it appears just about every premise inspiring the nauseating trend it profiled has disappeared along with the wealth that allowed it to exist. It’s also a good lesson in not taking our riches for granted – even if [...]

Scion of the Baskin-Robbins business, John Robbins, who unwittingly lost his entire fortune in the Madoff scandal waxes philosophical in the face of the immense loss (98% of his wealth). He walked away from the family business 20 years ago in favor of a writing career. Now, he finds himself at the age of 61 finding [...]