"I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods."
Posted on 06/17/2014 9:05:04 AM PDT by Gamecock
I am pretty sure the editors of the Wall Street Journal would be disinclined to endorse Pope Francis' call for international regulation of markets via state action, to promote impact investment. Yet, that is just what he called for yesterday in speaking to a meeting at the Vatican on the theme "Investing in the Poor," which was organized, in part, by the University of Notre Dame. The pope said:
No spinning that is there. I am sure our libertarian friends think this pope just keeps wandering down the road to serfdom.Advances in technology have increased the speed of financial transactions, but in the long run this is significant only to the extent that it better serves the common good. In this regard, speculation on food prices is a scandal which seriously compromises access to food on the part of the poorest members of our human family. It is urgent that governments throughout the world commit themselves to developing an international framework capable of promoting a market of high impact investments, and thus to combating an economy which excludes and discards.
No, you are confusing price-gouging with speculation. In price-gouging, a commodity is already scarce, but a supplier (or current owner) charges extra because he knows the purchaser has no alternatives. The alternative is to sell cheaply, but run out quicker (although the same amount of product is sold).
A speculator PREDICTS a shortage, and stocks up ahead of time. This can be a virtuous act, if he stocking up means saving. (In this sense, one could say Joseph son of Isaac was a speculator.) But many foodstuffs spoil, and hoarding can mean less actual product is available for consumption. Also, the prediction can be wrong and can needlessly produce a shortage, or suffering where there need not have been any. In the worst sense, some speculators have tried to corner the market, creating an artificial scarcity. While this is very difficult to accomplish on the global market, it has allegedly happened globally (Soros’ silver, 2008 oil panic), and certain CAN happen locally with spoilables.
Oh look at you! You can quote out of context even more unfairly than the NCR! I bet you’re so proud of yourself!
Yeah, but it's the National Catholic Reporter that's being critical of the endorsement. Therefore, FRoaman Catholics will most likely take the opposite position, and advocate for increased regulation.
Related thread:
Catholics 'more likely to back state economic intervention' [European Central Bank study]
how does he feel about corn ethanol?
Without speculation, the economy would contract by 80%. Massive unemployment and poverty.
Luke, chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
13* Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
14He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”h
15Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”i
16Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
17He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
18And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods
19j and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’k
20But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
21Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”*
LOL, Alex Murphy! You sure scour the world for ways to discredit the Catholic Church!
Making a generalization of the entire world’s Catholic v Protestantism based on a comparison of Swiss cantons?
Try checking out an election map of Germany! You’ll notice the Catholic areas vote for the Christian Democrats consistently, and the Protestant areas consistently vote for the Socialists. And I really don’t think you want to make the argument that Swiss economic policy is guided by Christianity.
You can go back and forth on this forever: Ooh, look! For instance: Mexico is filled with Socialists! Yes, but that’s after a Protestant-funded anti-clerical regime killed tens of thousands of Catholic nuns, priests and catechists, setting up a socialist dictatorship for 80+ years.
Theology by ad-hominem is stupid, but it seems to be the passion that consumes your entire life.
Yes, but there’s good speculation and corrupt speculation. Joseph storing up seven years of grain was good speculation. Attempts to manipulate prices by creating artificial scarcity is bad speculation.
I must say...
there ARE problems we CAN fix in the structure of the food marketplace
we have zillions of subsidy dollars going into agriculture, it is one of the most powerful lobby groups in WashDC
(dating from the Great Depression before the current one, when the FDR administration wanted to prevent even more massive farm foreclosures....difficult conditions make for problematic laws).
Anyway, for all the good FDR’s programs did in the 1930’s, we still have them today!!!!
AND.... as part of all this, millions of pounds of perfectly good food is deliberately thrown into the garbage by government order.....in order to help “stabilize the agricultural markets” ... this alone constitutes tremendous waste of food
we certainly can ask our Congresscritters to...at the very least...end all this waste of good food! (and then reconsider the larger questions perhaps )
But yes, I, too, am concerned with some of His Holiness’s statements...at least as reported in the mass media. I hope to see a longer quotation soon on this
We discussed price ceilings in Econ 202 (Micro Principles) today. I mentioned that Hugo Chavez’s price controls in Venezuela are leading to food shortages. Here’s an article that describes what’s going on.
Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.
President Hugo Chávez’s administration blames the food supply problems on speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible.
Such shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chávez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.
Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.
‘’Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls,’’ Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told Unión Radio on Thursday. ``The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high.’’
It’s an excellent example of someone trying to fight the invisible hand and the invisible hand fighting back.
http://marketpower.typepad.com/market_power/2007/02/price_controls_.html
We discussed price ceilings in Econ 202 (Micro Principles) today. I mentioned that Hugo Chavez’s price controls in Venezuela are leading to food shortages. Here’s an article that describes what’s going on.
Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.
President Hugo Chávez’s administration blames the food supply problems on speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible.
Such shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chávez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.
Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.
‘’Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls,’’ Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told Unión Radio on Thursday. ``The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high.’’
It’s an excellent example of someone trying to fight the invisible hand and the invisible hand fighting back.
http://marketpower.typepad.com/market_power/2007/02/price_controls_.html
"I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods."
Interesting info! Goes into the reason for food shortages in a socialist system, though it could have explored production problems a bit more. I’m not an economist, so correct me if this is wrong, but here’s my take. If you legislate that people cannot afford to produce—much less actually make $ producing—production ceases, or virtually so. Then the *real* shortages set in.
& btw, with Hugo gone, things in Venezuela have only gotten worse. It’s telling that, per the article I linked, the Venezuelan gov won’t allow peaceful protests—not even of the absence of crucial food items. Perhaps that is a big part of the appeal of socialism? That along with ‘income redistribution’ you also get as much power over a citizenry as you want.
For example, a group of peaceful women, banging on empty pots to signify the lack of basic food, are countered with armed guards. Anybody enamored of control is going to fall head over heels for that type of government. Says something really bad about human nature, doesn’t it?
You’d think he could hire a translator....
He could. Or he couldread John 21, where Jesus commands the Christian to “feed my sheep” instead of banks or governments.
From Wikipedia:
Among the NUSJ's articles of faith were work and income guarantees, nationalizing necessary industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of worker's unions, and decreasing property rights in favor of the government controlling the country's assets for public good.[17] Illustrative of his disdain for free market capitalism is his statement
We maintain the principle that there can be no lasting prosperity if free competition exists in industry. Therefore, it is the business of government not only to legislate for a minimum annual wage and maximum working schedule to be observed by industry, but also to curtail individualism that, if necessary, factories shall be licensed and their output shall be limited.[18]
“The REAL quote, IN CONTEXT, promotes FREE-MARKET solutions and INDIVIDUAL CHOICES as to how to invest in a more Christian light”
Not really.
“Investments of this sort are meant to have positive social repercussions on local communities, such as the creation of jobs, access to energy, training and increased agricultural productivity. The financial return for investors tends to be more moderate than in other types of investment.”
That in turn means they will LOSE in a free market.
“Christians are called to rediscover, experience and proclaim to all this precious and primordial unity between profit and solidarity.”
I don’t know what that means, and I doubt Francis does either.
“It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences.”
In a free market, people make great wealth by doing a very good job of providing people with what they want at a price they are willing to pay. That is the reward for doing something admirable, not something despicable.
“It is urgent that governments throughout the world commit themselves to developing an international framework capable of promoting a market of high impact investments...”
Please explain in what sense government regulation, across borders, constitutes “FREE-MARKET solutions and INDIVIDUAL CHOICES”.
Other quotes by Father Coughlin:
"Oh you poor laborers and farmers, we have tried, time and again, to tell you that there can be no resurrection for America until Congress begins to coin and regulate the value money. We have endeavored to teach you, time and again, that there can be no coming out of this depression until what you earn goes to sustain your wife and your children.""Roosevelt or ruin."
"The New Deal is Christ's deal."
"I need not recall for you that both the laboring and agricultural classes of America are forced to work for less than a living wage while the owners of industry boastfully proclaim that their profits are increasing."
"I believe that when a banker speaks, you can go the opposite way and be right. That has been proved in recent years."
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