In 2006, as news of rising foreclosure rates began gathering steam, our national savings rate hit the lowest level since the Great Depression -- negative 1 percent. Compare that to the 1.5 percent that Americans were saving in 1933. You don’t even have to go back that far, actually: We were saving 4.5 percent a decade ago. And back in the 1980s, the rate was in double digits, according to Peter Russo, a professor at Vanderbilt University.

It’s clear that we drifted badly from two bedrock American virtues: thrift and personal financial responsibility. And now that the economy is struggling, we’re all … well, paying the price.

Some of the most famous sayings of Benjamin Franklin stress thrift -- and the foolishness of wasteful spending. “A penny saved is a penny earned” is perhaps the most famous, but there are others, such as “Buy what thou hast no need of, and e’er long thou shalt sell thy necessaries” and “He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.” The other founding fathers also emphasized the importance of good character is sustaining a representative democracy. And thrift is clearly a crucial aspect of good character.

It’s also a hallmark of genuine capitalism. “One should be a civilized man, saving something, and not a savage, consuming every day all that which he has earned,” steel magnate Andrew Carnegie writes in his book “The Empire of Business.” According to him, thrift was the “first duty” of those who aspire to wealth.

That isn’t news to those who read the Bible, though. "The wise man saves for the future,” we read in Proverbs 21:20, “but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.” Let’s strive -- and pray -- to conduct our future financial affairs with wisdom.