Unfortunately, we have collectively failed to pick up our end of the rope and enable a vibrant conversation that includes both individuals and the larger "we." "Thinking big" suggests that we accept these responsibilities together with their necessary repercussions.
For starter subjects, we could go with the implications of current economic realities for individuals and our families and communities. We could provide intriguing counter-perspective on the various attacks on wealth builders and job creators, governmental deficits and dysfunctions, the diatribes of class warfare and class envy, financial illiteracy at all levels, the constant rehash of the capitalist/communist dialectic and the money-based dysfunctions of many family units. We could look to the general lack of gratitude on the part of so many whose current lifestyles significantly exceed the material qualities endured by their ancestors.
As a country, we know we are headed straight for incredible financial trouble with health care, schools and the baby boomers' financial requirements as they age, yet we continue to leave these issues unaddressed. Worse, those who attempt to address them are demonized. Moreover, national infrastructure is a disaster that continues to be ignored. We seemingly cannot find the internal fortitude to address these problems or create new infrastructure that could provide the basis for increased wealth building. Individuals will pay dearly for this.
Without going all Ayn Rand here, where is the honor for the genuine wealth builders who enable genuine solutions to emerge while enabling others to be employed? There is genuine rage out there against the wealth builders [and, no, I don't include financial manipulators as "wealth builders"] but no apparent understanding of the relationship between wealth building and jobs. Where are those that would quell the rage with genuine answers? Instead, it seems our so-called leaders delight in throwing gasoline on the fire. Those that actually pay the taxes continue to be demonized. Moreover, otherwise intelligent people continue to confuse the terms "rich," "wealthy" and "current high earners." Our leaders spend money they don't have and/or undermine the quality of the money they do have.
Could we have gotten in the mess of 2008 in the absence of cultural/societal financial illiteracy? Could we continue to employ slimeball tactics in our elections?
Money has not been seriously addressed from a cultural perspective. We haven't looked at its role in our lives individually and collectively. Because our subjective relationships with it remain taboo subjects, these issues do not get addressed. Nonetheless, I continue to believe that finologists like us need to step up and take a role in the public discourse. These issues are serious. It is time for us to "think big."