Changing the Culture of Consumption with Bank Brand Differentiation by the Social Benefits of Lending Practices

Banks could measure their impact on the community and use that data to differentiate them from the competition in relation to depositors. Banks get an increasing amount of their revenue from fees depositors pay. This factor could increase the potential benefit of this sort of brand differentiation.

Perhaps the most significant social impact banks have is through their lending practices. The events of financial crisis of 2008/09 shows the harm that can come from poor loan practices but it is also clear the substantial economic gain that can come from good behavior. Business expansion can be funded, homes can be made more energy efficient or accommodated for occupant disabilities, and educations can be funded.

Loaning behavior could be rated on how well they match the financial ability of borrowers to repay. Loans could also be evaluated by whether they are spent in ways that meet needs and contribute to the common good or are spent on luxury and entertainment that fits more with worldly hedonism.

A successful implementation could change borrower behavior and motivate them to consider the overall benefit of their borrowing and change their approach to obtaining loans from any bank. Perhaps they would seek to expand their business instead of their homes or they would realize they don't need a shiny new car just because the neighbors bought one.

While this type of promotion seems to offer banks that implement it a competitive advantage a third party rating system could also achieve the social benefits. One roadblock to third party ratings would be access to loan data. Information on general categories of loans might be available but these categories likely don't differentiate a home equity loan used for a 3 month around the world trip versus one used to widen doorways and put in a first story bathroom for someone confined to a wheelchair.

Banks with the best records in these measures and the means to obtain and share in aggregate this sort of data could benefit from participation in this sort of third party rating system. With the proper branding of the rating system it could offer prestige and bolster the bank brand all while achieving the social benefits.

Increasing School Revenue with After Hours Use of Facilities

Our schools have vast amounts of space that, for the most part, are used for less than a third of a day and remain wholly unused during summer months. This is a wasted resource. Finding ways to utilize this space in socially and economically valuable ways can reduce the hardships facing school budgets and offer new opportunities to area communities.

Some ideas for productive after-hour use of this space include the following:

1. After-hour childcare

2. Leasing to area businesses – most consumer activity occurs outside school hours anyway. This sort of leasing could reduce the cost for startups. Multiple businesses would allow the school to become, in effect a local mall.

3. Community events

4. Adult education and degree programs

5. Local government public meetings for increased participation

A number of challenges exist to enable this course. First is the actual mechanics of daily implementation. While gym space is often available, classrooms space is most underutilized. Using classrooms may require moving desks and other classroom materials to make space. This moving creates a setup time and increases the risk of damage to the desks and materials. Public access to classrooms increases the risk of thefts and disruption of materials so systems would have to be established to manage these risks.


Depreciation of the facility would occur at an increased rate for parts of the facility like bathrooms, doors, floors, and moved materials. This increased depreciation would have to be accounted for in lease pricing and evaluation of potential uses.

Legal liability risks would have to be accounted for as well. Exposer to the errors of leasees and occupants would have to be limited. This could involve clear distinctions and notices that use of school facilities by other organizations does not constitute endorsement or verification of leasee practices by government or the school.

Solutions to US Economic Woes with Christian Evangelism

A cause of much of the trouble now facing the US economy is the effort by many to seek from material goods and services the joy and peace that can come only from a right relationship with God. We need bigger faster more esteemed cars, bigger houses, prettier faces, lots of travel, and too much food. We seek to be respected intellectually, socioeconomically, and physically by those just as confused about what truly matters in life.

Hearts surrendered to God free themselves from these bondages. They become free to do what is good and to love without concern for what matters not in the least. With these freedoms also comes freedom from debt obtained in the pursuit of vain things and freedom from the sense of burden to accumulate even more wealth merely for wealth's sake.

Seeing for the Blind Using Moble Device Web Tool

Those with visual difficulties could carry a camera phone for taking and sending pictures of items and situations for which they would like a visual interpretation along with a message describing their specific inquiry. This information would then be sent to a web site where people answer the questions about the images. The answers are then sent to the camera phone as a message or through live conversation.

Volunteers could be motivated to interpret more images by prizes and drawings where the odds of winning increase with more interpretations. Interpretations would also be rated by the client to help eliminate bad actors.

Gaming of the system could also be discouraged by requiring a credit card during registration. Volunteer integrity could also be increased by restricting recruiting to churches with churches agreeing to staff the site at certain hours. With sufficient volume multiple interpretations could be made available to the client and volunteers could rate other volunteers' responses.

Volunteer participation could be made easier by allowing inquiries to be sent to and replied from volunteers' phones. This functioning may need to be restricted to those inquiries that don't require high resolution viewing.

Dialogue with Muslim Extremists - A Starting Point for Results?

Perhaps the Muslim extremist movement could be deflated by a direct theological/values discussion. Young men may choose to join these movements for a number of reasons but one component seems to be that they believe they are serving God. The Taliban in Pakistan desire to instill sharia law. Perhaps a motive for this is that it will allow better devotion to God and eliminate temptation and sin.

This particular motive is one the nation and particularly the church can offer agreement. Emphasizing that we also desire a society with less lust and prideful vain ambitions could open discussion on the means towards this end. We could then argue that killing innocent people is not the best way. We could show how people in the US are living holy lives even while women are given equal rights to dress and work as they are called.

We could even offer assistance and collaboration for living lives free from sin. This could include counseling and advertisement. It could include assistance countering pornography and prostitution and it could emphasize using wealth for the benefit of the poor and countering greed.

Perhaps this effort would seem too religious for the US government to undertake. If this is the case perhaps the Vatican or some association of churches could take this tact.