Frank J. Hanna III, Georgia CEO of Hanna Capital and cofounder of the Solidarity Foundation, is author of the new book What Your Money Means (and How to Use It Well). Hanna, a board member of the Acton Institute, talked to National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez in a Q&A titled “Virtue and Volatility” about earning money, using it well, the market meltdown, and more.
Excerpt:
Lopez: What do love, virtue, and religious faith have to do with money?
Hanna: Money is merely an instrumentality — a tool. It is a tool designed to serve greater ends, like love, virtue, and our faith. However, if we are not thoughtful and deliberate in the way we treat our money, it can work against those ends, rather than for them.
Lopez: Is it fair to say that “non-essential wealth threatens those we love”? Can’t those we love appreciate some luxuries too?
Hanna: Non-essential wealth is a threat — to all of us. A threat is not synonymous with evil, but it is the potential for something evil. When we have non-essential wealth, there is the chance that we spend it unwisely, in ways that can hurt others or ourselves. This possibility does not, however, rule out enjoying life’s legitimate pleasures.
Lopez: Do you feel guilty about being wealthy? Is that a bad thing?
Hanna: Being wealthy is a gift, just like other gifts, and one should no more feel guilty about it than one would feel guilty about being pretty, or playing an instrument well, or being a great athlete. It is how we treat the gift we have received that determines whether we should have guilt.
Lopez: “Money is good” but not greed? A little revision on Michael Douglas?
Hanna: Greed is an unhealthy attachment to money, and is always bad. It is very similar to an unhealthy attachment to food, which we know as the sin of gluttony, or the unhealthy attachment to one’s appearance, which we know as the sin of vanity. Food is good, good grooming is good, and money is good; the unhealthy attachment to any of these things is not good.
