Wall Street Execs Fit Prodigal Parable (Commentary by Gwen Moritz)

Our son achieved his Eagle Scout designation in early January — yes, we are very proud — and one of the questions asked by his board of review was which of the 12 points of the Boy Scout Law he might change.

As you may know, the law says a Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

In answer to the question, my son said he thought thrifty could be replaced, preferably with honest, because thrift offers a personal benefit while the other 11 points have to do with external relationships.

I thought that was an excellent off-the-cuff answer, but if there’s anything Americans are learning from the current economic crisis, it is that thrift is a social virtue as well as a personal one.

Fortunately, it is becoming fashionable.

Thanks to guidance from Internet Editor Lance Turner’s award-winning blog for young professionals, The Ladder, I read a recent Slate.com article on fashionable frugality — a synonym for thriftiness — by Farhad Manjoo.

“The frugality cult emphasizes that their lifestyle is different from merely being cheap,” Manjoo wrote.

The primary difference, as explained by FrugalDad.com, is that frugality seeks to spend prudently and avoid wastefulness while cheapskates just try to get stuff at the lowest price.

America as a nation, unfortunately, has been neither frugal nor cheap. What America has been is “prodigal,” a word you hardly ever hear outside church and which is misunderstood as a result.

Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son recounts the misadventures of a young man from a well-to-do family who demands his inheritance early and proceeds to squander it on what the King James Version calls (with admirable economy of language) “riotous living.”

Then a famine — the biblical equivalent of a deep recession — sets in. When the young man is reduced to menial labor that doesn’t pay enough to feed himself, he comes to his senses and returns to his father’s house with the hope of becoming a servant.

But his father, as fathers are wont to do, forgives him and welcomes him back with open arms and a new wardrobe, while his obedient older brother is resentful, as brothers are wont to be.

Since this is virtually the only context in which prodigal is used these days, many Sunday school regulars assume that the word refers to the young man’s repentance and return. They think prodigal is a good thing — a change of heart, a family reunion. But prodigal is actually the opposite of frugal, and it refers to the boy’s wastefulness, not his redemption.

The Prodigal Son, like all parables, is an allegory. In proper context, the younger son represents a sinner who is reunited with a forgiving God the Father, while the older son represents faithful Jews who questioned Jesus’ association with sinners during His ministry.

By torturing the Scripture, however, I think the parable could also be recast, with prodigal Wall Street executives as the younger son.

They rewarded themselves with money they hadn’t actually earned and squandered it on lifestyles that might not have been riotous but certainly wouldn’t live up to the Boy Scout ideal of thrift.

In this version, Congress becomes the father who rushes out with a ring and fatted calf.

And the older brother?

That would be those of us who played by the rules and, very naturally, resent the bailout being given to the very people whose self-indulgence created this mess.

Hey, Congress, “thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends.”

I’m willing to rejoice that banks and investment houses have been brought back from the brink of death under two conditions.

First, I want the prodigal executives to repent and profess themselves willing to settle for much more modest lifestyles. (John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co., did forgo a bonus in 2008, but that Peter Kraus guy got $25 million for working at Merrill Lynch for just three months.)

Second, I want Congress to be trustworthy (the first point of the Boy Scout Law) and remember that its duty now is to the rest of us. As the father said to the responsible older son, “All that I have is thine.”

(Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. E-mail her at [email protected].)