Wednesday, June 24, 2015

the worship of markets and the acceptance of greed are moral problems..,


WaPo |  “Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature.” 

The pope condemns the current global economy “where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and human and ethical degradation are closely linked.” 

Wall Street comes under particular criticism: “Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated.” As a result, “whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become the only rule.” 

For Pope Francis, the market and the economy must be bound by rules that serve “basic and inalienable rights.” At the center of these is work: “We were created with a vocation to work.” Work is the setting for “rich personal growth . . . creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values . . . giving glory to God.” Therefore, priority should be given to “the goal of access to steady employment for everyone, no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning.” 

But instead of the common good, we have constructed an economy built on private interest and unrestrained appetite, an economy that excludes the poorest and most vulnerable. For Pope Francis, “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” derive from the same distorted global market economy.
.........
Pope Francis is seeking a far more profound change: economic policy grounded in moral values, measured not by how much money the few make but the respect accorded the rights of all and the health of the environment. Conservatives say he should stick to theology. But he already is sticking to theology, understanding that the worship of markets and the acceptance of unrestrained appetites are moral problems, not technical ones. If this statement on climate is most welcome, his teachings on the economy offer a critique necessary to finding the way out of these problems.

21 comments:

BigDonOne said...

The fun will not seriously begin until the day those EeeeBeeeeTeeeee cards fail to swype.......

Constructive_Feedback said...

The word "WORSHIP" - is that a scientific term that can be applied to an enemy or a friend in an equally dispassionate manner?

When you see "Micro-Financing" as a MARKET BASED means of distributing financial resources to "unbanked" individuals who reside outside of the MARKET - could you please provide QUALITATIVE distinction as to why this is "GOOD", but various people who are associated with the "Wall Street Machine" who get 6 figure bonuses that helps fund the NEW YORK CITY GOVERNMENT operations is EVIL?

(You keep dismissing my hypotheticals as diversionary, but I assure you, my friend, that they are highly relevant)

Constructive_Feedback said...

The NY Times said FUND GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS that purportedly reduce pregnancy.

What if this is done in the context of destroying the "Cultural Institutions" that were in place - in some cases to GIVE VALUE to that child and thus bring it to term OR by limiting unwanted pregnancies by culturally regulating the sexually intimate relationship.

While the US Dollar that funds these government programs is based on a fiat currency that is on a trajectory of distress - a FUNCTIONAL CULTURE is one that follows the people around, regardless of where they are in the world.

The beloved Nordic nations that are the "ADVANCED NATIONS" that Obama spoke of the other day are having a (White) population replacement crisis, unable to procreate enough humans.

ken said...

"School is not for the congenitally fact-resistant."

Yep and I think my last post was explaining who was supplying facts and who wasn't. It looks like according to this chart, life expectancy in Cuba is the same as the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

I noticed their suicide rate is the highest in the Americas, You are right though, there is no prosperity in Cuba.

http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/brutally-honest-assement-of-current-life-in-cuba/

John Kurman said...

Sorry, but your soft old velvety leech SS check will bounce long before then... unless you get all Juan de Fuca'd up Richter 11 style, with your ceiling tiles receiving bullethead-shaped dents as you type in your last "aye-yi-yi-yi-k-k-cue seventy-five".

ken said...

There's the communist public propaganda story and there is what really happens.

http://baracuteycubano.blogspot.com/2007/07/myth-of-cuban-health-care.html



I am sure you are so invested in the lie, it won't even give you pause.

Dale Asberry said...

You do understand that the majority of Electronic Benefit Transfer cards are held by white people, right?

Constructive_Feedback said...

Not sure where my previous post disappeared to but...............

BDO:

Why do you focus on the EBT cards and the stereotype about Welfare when it is clear that American citizens writ large are the greatest "Benefits Transfer" agents of them all?

Your hide was saved in the post Great-Recession Era by the fact that the US Federal Reserve had the market power to create over $3 trillion of fake money off of a credit card (US Treasury prints bonds to back the money they printed. The Federal reserve buy's up these bonds during the crisis, CONFIDENT that they can drain their balance sheet over time after world investors look to park their money in the relatively stable AMERICA, as the world or investment alternatives is collapsing around her.

Imagine if these "Dark Nations" had the ability to print their own money in a pinch and have the world markets cover them -ALL WITHOUT the World Bank or IMF setting "restrictions on their domestic finances"?

Since you support "Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients", why don't you support some world financial body regulating what the USA can do domestically with its finances?

CNu said...

the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration - is - what it is.


I haven't qualified micro vs. macro finance activity. Hypertiger, on the other hand, has made a stark moral appraisal calling all rent-seeking lying.

CNu said...

and in a post-industrial world fueled by steadily declining available net energy, these population declines matter because.....?

CNu said...

and yet they have a profoundly functional culture, when not infected by displays of conspicuous consumption. so what is it to be Bro. Feed, functional culture living on the cusp of self-sufficiency and sustainability, or, where you come from where civilization is only 6 missed meals thick?

BigDonOne said...

Huh?? Who said anything about the race of the swypers...??

CNu said...

lol, when posting links here, you might consider using only those taken from the information cistern, rather than the information cess pool. Ken, in your N-1 partisan struggle motions, you're getting to be about as bad as BD with his ratchet PRR links taken from New Zealand community colleges.

CNu said...

I'm gonna go with the now well and thoroughly established premise that BD is a canonical lastrhodesian Bro. Feed.

CNu said...

I filter for selected BD'isms to afford him a brake-tapping opportunity think about what he's writing, or failing that, to devise comical coinages in order to convey the content of his rants.

By using a canonical lastrhodesian BD'ism, (EBT) you got caught in that spam filter.

CNu said...

https://youtu.be/6fVaP6dM1fs

BigDonOne said...

John Kurman (above) had the genetic hardwiring to figure it out and circumvent the trap.
Any time something that needs to be avoided is going on, superior intelligence always rises to the top.


By contrast, CNu's dreaded 400 years of oppression went on for 400 years, and the DNA-deficient target group couldn't figure it out, and develop a means to avoid it......(e.g., make their collective ass scarce deep in the African jungle)

CNu said...

genetic hardwiring
ass scarce deep in the African jungle
lol, canonical BD'ism - straight out of a comic book....,

Vic78 said...

It will end badly for you if you're anywhere near as frail as I'm picturing. I'd be surprised if you lasted an hour. I doubt your willingness to submit will save you due to your advanced age. There are plenty of young sissies to choose from.

John Kurman said...

...SMDH, BD seem not to notice I am second dullest knife in this particular drawer...

John Kurman said...

"Everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast".


http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

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