And financial problems are exactly the same thing. You're humiliated. You're ashamed. You're embarrassed about telling anyone that you are suffering financial difficulties.

Today, the average family has enough financial reserves to keep going for about three weeks. That's it.

I have no credit cards. That was the decision that was made jointly by the credit card companies, and by me. I can't say that that was completely on my account. I buy nothing on credit now, nothing. If I can't afford it, I don't buy it. I have a debit card, that's all I have. Any debt that I have, I am paying down.

We lived in a very modest house. My father drove modest cars, we didn't travel, we didn't do any of the things that, were commensurate with the kind of income that he was making. So we got this kind of, double message, which was, y'know, "You work hard and you make as much money as you possibly can, but you don't spend any money." And you see how well I learned that lesson.

We have stagnant wages in America. We have stagnant, even declining net worth in this country. That's part of something that's much larger than any single individual. And that is something that is way above my pay grade, to be able to deal with, but it's something I deal with on a daily basis. All my life, from the time that I was very small, my feeling was always, that there's a moral dimension to life. And it's not the moralistic dimension to life, that we often hear about, that's rather church-y or whatever.

Within the studies and on the screen, the Jews could simply create a new country - an empire of their own, so to speak, one where they would not only be admitted, but would govern as well. The would create its values and myths, its traditions and archetypes.

Our own personal salvation is to say, "I'm not going to judge myself, or let other people judge me, by my economic worth." We can't, obviously, control how other people will judge us, but - Life's too short to worry about those things. We can't control those things, but we can control how we feel about ourselves. And we work towards that. To say, "My life has been a success. Even if my bank account doesn't indicate it."