Secondary: Rapid Response Assemblies


The banking crisis
By James Lamont

As this situation is changing day by day, you may need to update this assembly.

Suitable for Key Stage 4/Key Stage 5

Aim

To encourage the students to reassess their priorities in the light of the present banking crisis.

Preparation and materials

• You could play ‘Money, money, money’ by Abba or ‘Material girl’ by Madonna as the students come into assembly.

Assembly

1. Imagine a gambler. He’s a real high roller – he’s won lots of money from a small stake and just keeps winning. His confidence is such that he’ll take massive bets, sure of his luck and skill. Seeking greater and greater rewards, he takes bigger and bigger risks. Eventually he’ll lose everything. He does lose, and is in real trouble. He appeals to you for help, despite the fact that his undoing is entirely his own fault. He took too many risks, overconfident in his own ability, and eventually he lost and couldn’t pay.
   
2. Initially, it would seem fair enough to wash your hands of this man. He lost and it was his fault. He took a massive stake and risked it all recklessly, and he paid the price. However, imagine now that this gambler owns the business in which you work: if he goes under you lose out. Reluctantly, out of need, you pay up to get him back into the game. Besides, he’s a good gambler most of the time and he’ll play more conservatively now he’s had that shock. But it still seems wrong to reward someone who had everything for losing it through his own recklessness.
   
3. This is what has been happening over the past few weeks. Confidence in banks has collapsed, owing to the extreme risks that were taken in lending mortgages. The principles of safe banking were turned almost upside down and replaced by the idea of selling on debts to others. Growth, which had been enormous, suddenly came crashing down to a more realistic size. The international markets retreated and many historical financial institutions took the hit. The international corporations of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, American International Group, HBOS and more lost their independence or worse.
   
4. The American government proposed a seven hundred billion dollar bail-out to allow the banks to get themselves into shape. But on the 29th of September, the US House of Representatives rejected the bill. On principle, they had a good point: the government should not use taxpayers’ money and increase the national debt to bail out the rich, especially given the US’s poverty rates. But the rejection of the bill led to a further economic downturn: Wall Street and the High Street are interconnected on many levels.
   
5. Since then, politicians have put pragmatism before principal and supported a number of bail-outs. However, it is hoped that lessons will be learnt to ensure that this financial catastrophe will never happen again. With failing banks in the UK being nationalized or part-nationalized, it seems likely that a more centralized approach to the markets will be adopted to bring them under greater state control, as it was after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, which left 25 per cent of Americans unemployed and was one of the major causes of the rise of the Nazis. Lessons were learnt then to ensure that no future crisis would happen on that scale. Let’s hope that our leaders today are in a similar mood to learn from their mistakes.
   
6. ‘You cannot serve God and money’ is a well-known proverb that Jesus quoted. Even so, all faiths insist that money and the economic system are necessary evils if the world is going to keep turning. But over the past twenty years or so, the West has become more and more confident in the increasing wealth of some of its institutions and citizens, while the gap between rich and poor has grown.
   
7. Perhaps this time of economic difficulty will help us all to reflect on our attitudes towards the wealth that we have. Maybe, at the individual level, your family is suffering through the crisis, with people losing jobs and having less access to credit. Your family may be worrying about their own situation, and this will affect you and your life too. You may have to tighten your belt regarding Christmas presents or holidays, or buy cheaper goods when you do shop.
   
8. Maybe it would be good for all of us to stop and reflect on a personal level about the motivation in our lives: is it about doing what is good for the community and other people, or has your life been about how much ‘stuff’ you own? Is now the time to take stock and look wider for security and well-being?

Time for reflection

Reflection

St Paul wrote these words:

‘I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers . . . nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8.8–9)

Jesus said:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . . . Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ (Matthew 5.3, 5)

Let’s be quiet and think about all those whose lives are being turned upside down by the credit crisis. May God be with them all, may they know God’s comfort as they work to find order in their lives once more.

And let’s think about our own lives:

How much do we depend on our material possessions to define who we are?

Let’s think about how we could rely less on our stuff,

and more on ourselves, who we are,

as we live our lives together.

Prayer

Lord God,

Help us to rely primarily on you for our self-esteem and worth.

Help us to rely less on material things and more on who we are, secure in your love.

Amen.