The focus of our public discourse has been on how American companies are competing with Japanese, German, and other foreign companies. What this allows us to ignore is how each of those American companies is really in competition with the families of the workers. That's the real competition.

We don't live with the community of yesteryear. And we don't enjoy the public services Europeans do. So we turn to the market. Once we do, we find that service providers raise the standards of personal life, so that we come to feel we need them to live our 'best' personal lives.

People who volunteer at the recycling center or soup kitchen through a church or neighborhood group can come to feel part of something 'larger.' Such a sense of belonging calls on a different part of a self than the market calls on. The market calls on our sense of self-interest. It focuses us on what we 'get.'

Each person's drive to overwork is unique, and doing too much numbs every workaholic's emotions differently. Sometimes overwork numbs depression, sometimes anger, sometimes envy, sometimes sexuality. Or the overworker runs herself ragged in a race for attention.

My time with my family is a priority.

My mother was - and is - a very strong woman; very strict. She was a serious mum; a feared parent.

Full financial citizenship means more than just a savings account and a way to transfer money and pay bills. It also requires access to credit along with the ability to accept payments and run a business, send money to family or transact business across borders, contribute to the community and help others in need, and invest for the future.

It's based around a Jewish family but it really is a universal theme about getting along and coming along.