A Higher Power
“First of all, I would like to thank God…”
We’ve heard pro athletes mumble this childish tripe for decades. Now, Peter Grandich – whose firm offers athletes “guidance from a Christian perspective” – says he’s bringing the good news to personal finance.
Grandich is co-founder of Trinity Financial & Sports Entertainment Management Co., but these days the “Wall Street Whiz Kid” says, “I get my financial guidance from the Bible.”
Grandich’s business partner is Lee Rouson, who played for the New York Giants from 1985 to 1991. So, just so we’re straight, a Wall Street Whiz Kid and a guy who was a running back in New York in the 1980s think the rest of us should take financial advice from the Bible.
The Teller has seen this before. It has the distinct look and feel of attempted atonement for a past filled with bacchanalian excess. If that is indeed the case, The Teller would like to remind Grandich and Rouson that those were the good times. You don’t have to feel bad about all the things you drank, snorted, licked, inhaled or injected. Or the people you, well, did the same things to. Obviously, some of it hasn’t worn off.
The Teller would relive those “shattered shoobee” days again in a heartbeat. But Grandich is instead feeling guilty.
“The writers of the Bible anticipated the problems we would have with money and possessions; there are more than 2,000 references,” Grandich says in the promotional materials for “Confessions of a Wall Street Whiz Kid.”
“Our whole culture now is built on the premise that we have to have more money and more stuff to feel happy and secure,” he continues.
Being young and rich in New York City will do that to ya, old boy. It doesn’t mean the rest of us – who had a hell of a time in those days without the Patrick Bateman-style accumulation of material wealth or crisis of conscience – should have to put up with your proselytizing.
Sure, the Bible may encourage believers to “invest wisely,” as Grandich so helpfully puts it. It may also encourage charitable giving. “God expects you to give 10 percent of your wealth to your place of worship,” Grandich says.
In the Bible, God expects lots of things we rightly feel comfortable disregarding today.
If The Teller gave 10 percent of our “wealth” to anything, we wouldn’t have enough for groceries. And we’re pretty sure God doesn’t want us to starve – fairly sure, anyway.
So here’s some financial advice from the streets: Don’t buy books from conmen.
