A few years ago I had this dream called "Jubilee Bank". It was a hybrid of micro-credit and "pay day lending". The idea was to use the network of churches in the UMC to advance money to a person in need (like a pay day lender would). However, the overhead of the Jubilee Bank would be much less than that of a single pay day lender thus, Jubilee Bank could afford to lower the interest rate (perhaps at the proposed cap of 35%). Additionally, rather than use the title of a car for collateral (like that of a Title Loan company) the Jubilee Bank might be more modeled after payday loans. This may insure the borrower could get quick cash to cover an emergency while ensuring the lender is not taking on too much risk. Jubilee bank would not have to receive interest, but make it clear that any over-drafting on the account of the borrower was risk they had to accept.

It never came to fruition but the dream still is there.

The payday lending area has been demonized by many with a lot of different data. Recently Freakanomics radio took on the merits of some of these claims in their episode, "Are Payday Loans Really as Evil as People Say?" This episode stoked the dream of Jubilee Bank.

I encourage you to take some time to listen to the episode and then close your eyes and see if you can see a world with a Jubilee Bank?

Freakonomics is a wonderful little source that gets me thinking and if you are not hipped to it, you may just be missing out on some greatness.

Recently they posted about how important negative feedback is. Here is the excerpt from the full transcript:

DUBNER: ...Positive feedback is really helpful when you’re trying to increase someone’s commitment. So let’s say, you know, someone new to a job or a project. Here’s Stacey Finkelstein, a Columbia management professor who’s been studying feedback.

FINKELSTEIN: For these people, positive feedback is most motivating. It’s what signals that there’s value to what they’re doing, they like what they’re doing, or that they might achieve their goal at some point.

DUBNER: ...once somebody really buys into that goal, positive feedback has diminishing returns. So if you’re looking for actually improvement you’ve got to start going negative. Okay? Here is Heidi Grant Halvorson, she’s a psychologist also at Columbia.

HALVORSON: Look, doling out negative feedback is not fun. It’s embarrassing. We feel terrible. We feel guilty. So we love hearing, ‘hey, maybe I don’t have to give negative feedback.’ ‘Maybe I can just say positive things!’ ‘If I just keep saying positive things, then somehow this person will work to their fullest potential and everything will turn out fine. ’ And that just turns out to not be the case.

The church is great at giving positive feedback. But you know what? Jesus was not just giving positive feedback. In fact, to those whom were deeply dedicated, he gave negative feedback. From telling a pious man that he should sell all that he has or even when he yells that his disciples have little faith. Jesus understands that positive feedback is helpful for motivating people to commit, but to improve those already committed, you need to give negative feedback.

No truer words have been spoken then by Dubner when he says, "you can either look at trying to make people happy or trying to make people better."

God wants to make us better, not just happy.

Jubilee Bank - Could it work?

Negative feedback and the church