While watching the evening news the other day, my teenage daughter Gabrielle asked me whether everything is going to be okay. Tuning in to major network news is a lot scarier than Halloween specials that air this time of year. In her case, Gabi was referring to news stories discussing the economic crisis. I assured her that our country has come back from worse, and I am optimistic that we’ll all be fine.

We somehow got on the topic of personal sacrifice during tough times. I recounted to Gabi how, many years ago while putting myself through college and law school, I would occasionally have to limit my diet to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or macaroni and cheese because that was all I could afford to purchase at the grocery. I recounted the times that Patti (my wife and Gabi’s mother) would fill my refrigerator with good food since she had a regular paying job while I was still in law school.

Gabi seemed encourage by my stories how we overcame adversity, and how that perseverance allowed me to earn graduate and law degrees, enabling me to work in a profession I truly enjoy.

It then occurred to me that the current economic crisis isn’t really rooted in subprime mortgages or in bad political decisions. Sure, those had a great deal to do with all of this mess we’re in. But I believe our country’s crisis really has to do with something much deeper and profound.

We’ve lost our values. I’m not talking about hot social issues that the political pundits and candidates often bring up when talking about Supreme Court nominees or whether flags can be legally burned or whether gay marriage should be legalized. I’m talking about how our institutions have embedded greed and material insatiability into the American psyche.

You might be wondering how this ties into my normal topic of estate planning, so please bear with me.

Regular readers know that I commonly write about family relationships. I believe that the health and strength of our relationships make a difference in the effectiveness of one’s financial and estate plan. The amount of money or assets that we have accumulated or that we leave to our progeny doesn’t really matter if we haven’t first embedded within them a solid family foundation of personal sacrifice and responsibility.

I propose to you that our culture and institutions haven’t shunned greed and material insatiability, rather they encourage it. If you don’t agree, consider the following:

We’re at war and the economy is sliding? Spend more at the mall. Let’s give everyone a few hundred dollars tax rebate so that they’ll be more willing to purchase that foreign made large screen television at zero down and no interest for twelve months. Let’s run up enormous government deficits borrowing billions from the Chinese that could cripple our children and grandchildren’s futures.

Let’s pass legislation under the guise of “affordable housing” resulting in the packaging of worthless loans into investments that tank our 401(k)s, while financial firm executives enjoy posh hotels and spa treatments after receiving multi-billion dollar taxpayer bail outs. Is greed and material insatiability endemic in our society and institutions? You decide.

Tip O’Neill, a longtime speaker of the House of Representatives, once said that “all politics is local.” The same can be said of the current crisis. I believe that we can, one person and one family at a time, inject some good old fashioned sacrifice, accountability and responsibility back into our institutions and in our personal lifestyles.

Many of you who are retirees (or nearly retired) reading this column have a lot to share with your family. You’ve been through good times and bad. You’ve raised your family; you’ve skimped and saved to be able to retire. It’s through your life experience that you can help benefit the current working generation. If your adult children are worried about the economy and choose to seek your advice, don’t hesitate to tell them about the tough times that you had to endure in order to get where to the place you are today.

A client who visited with me recently recounted the story of how, after her father’s untimely death, her mother raised five children during the depression by washing other people’s clothes with nothing more than a bucket and washboard. That family obviously had to make do with a lot less than those families we consider poor today.

Hopefully we all won’t regress to eating peanut butter sandwiches or macaroni and cheese. I am confident, however, that no matter who wins the election – the people will demand and we will rebuild accountability and responsibility into our institutions. Couple that with our own personal histories of resilience – sharing those stories with those that we love–we should all come out ahead in the end.