Pope Francis denounces ‘trickle-down’ economic theories in critique of inequality

[seekerz]

I get your point, but many of the things you list as necessary today can be delivered more cost effectively, but those in power don’t seem to care. A simple example is the performance of kids in DC public schools vs the performance of kids in Catholic schools. One report says that approximately $30K per student is spent in DC public schools while the average in Catholic schools is $5300. But do those in power care about results and costs? Apparently not, because the refrain is always “we need to spend more on education”. Same could be said for healthcare delivery, food deliver, etc.

One school system decided that since a large percentage of students needed free lunches, that ALL students should receive free lunches, regardless of the fact many families could afford to pay. So the taxpayer pays for a capable family’s free lunch.

The examples are very numerous. People who think more government programs, or more spending on existing government programs would get less pushback if they just pretended to care about money they take from others. They don’t…and thus we have pushback.

I am totally in agreement with you that the way we do things is critically important to success. And that school lunch program is not the only example. To my mind Medicare exemplifies the same problem, partly because (I truly believe this) people at the top don’t always understand the basics of how things outside their field of expertise works.

As widespread as health insurance coverage is, the full costs are often just not appreciated by those who are not insurance specialists. So some fail to appreciate the fact that many, many seniors could be just as adequately served by high deductible plans, leaving more money to cover the truly poor. Because what does Medicare or any insurance do (subject to inter-state variations of course)? Before it pays the bill, it discounts the full amount, meaning that seniors with a good income could pay the discounted bill with very little or no pain. That being said however, having Medicare coverage is critical to those same seniors because if they get sick and need expensive or frequent services, costs could build up really fast.

So I do indeed see where you’re coming from. If I could make one change to what I think is a very good and necessary program, that would be it: update affordable yearly costs for each level of income, and have Medicare recipients pay that amount before the program pays a dime. There is an income requirement for premiums but I think more can be done to tailor benefits to ability to pay. The basic requirement, for any form of assistance from any source, in mind - is that it should be based on demonstrable need, not on giving everyone the same level of help regardless of need.

 

[Darryl1958]

Does economic growth, encouraged by a free market, inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world?

Should we defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation?

A free country requires an ethical people in order that their freedom not be abused to the ill effect on others.

This is what St Paul’s argument was all about. He taught a radical freedom, that people were redeemed, and were free in an absolute sense.
But freedom cannot include the freedom to sin, because it is sin which enslaves us all in the first place.

The American founders, in their vision to separate government from religious institutions did not for one instance ever conceive of anything but a people instilled with the ethical values of their Christian religion in order to make the rational and moral choices according to that religious upbringing.

It is not inevitable that economic freedom will bring about a just world, any more than it was inevitable that the freedom that St Paul taught would bring about a church where sons-in-law would not fornicate with their mothers-in-law. Freedom from the constraints of Jewish law and freedom from serving pagan gods entailed that people be able to constrain themselves.

What we need to defend is the freedom of people to make the correct decisions for their financial future. We should also be defending the need for government to regulate against criminal and unethical business practices, and also uphold the legitimacy of the courts to uphold tort laws against those who harm others by not doing so.
Christianity is based in the freedom of a redeemed people after all, and freedom includes the economic freedom of people making those kind of choices for themselves. St Paul informs of this.
Beware of tyrants therefore, who aspire to take those freedoms away, even those who hold out illusory promises of a return to the fleshpots of yore.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Please show me one person who has claimed this to be so. Just one.

It’s ironic that what we are seeing today is the absolute autonomy of government. While leftists complain about unfettered capiitalism, which exists nowhere, they keep growing the one institution that we are least able to resist: government.

The questions, of course, follow directly from the Popes statements:
54.
In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.
While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.

I agree with seekerz that poverty is not only about money but also about an imbalance of power. Government is about the only thing that can direct capitalism toward the common good. And yet who is it that can get elected, that becomes government representatives? Often those with the deepest pockets, who can spend the most.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Reading the new exhortation by Pope Francis after the wildly misleading presentations of it by the Guardian and Reuters (both from the left side of the U.K. press), and reading it with an American ear for language, I was at first amazed at how partisan and empirically unfounded were five or six of its sentences.

But reading the exhortation in full in its English translation, and reading it through the eyes of a professor-bishop-pope who grew up in Argentina, I began to have more sympathy for the phrases used by Pope Francis.

And

In my visits to Argentina, I observed a far sharper divide between the upper middle class and the poor than any I had experienced in America. In Argentina I saw very few paths by which the poor could rise out of poverty. In the U.S., many of those who are now rich or middle class had come to America (or their parents had) dirt poor, many of us not speaking English, with minimal schooling, and with mainly menial skills. But before us lay many paths upward. As Peru’s Hernando de Soto stresses, the U.S. had the rule of law and clear property rights, on which one could safely build over generations.

Virtually all my acquaintances while I was growing up had experienced early poverty. Our grandfathers were garment workers, steelworkers, store clerks, gardeners, handymen, blue-collar workers of all sorts, without social insurance, Medicaid, food stamps, housing allowances, or the like. But they labored and somehow were able to send their children to colleges and universities. Now their children are doctors, lawyers, professors, editors, and owners of small businesses all over the country.

nationalreview.com/article/365720/agreeing-pope-francis-michael-novak

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The questions, of course, follow directly from the Popes statements:…

I agree with seekerz that poverty is not only about money but also about an imbalance of power. Government is about the only thing that can direct capitalism toward the common good. And yet who is it that can get elected, that becomes government representatives? Often those with the deepest pockets, who can spend the most.

I recognized them, of course, and I have not spared Pope Francis my criticism for his indulgence of rhetoric. My question still stands.

Government is power. Naked power. There is no institution of human design with more raw power to coerce. Governments have murdered on a mass scale countless times. When it is corrupt it is a terrible tyrant but even in it’s most benelovant form it is an overbearing nanny.

If you want to balance power start but limiting government.

 

[ishii]

I disagree - but we already know that....like I said before, poverty is multifactorial an correlation does not imply causation. For example, there is no convincing evidence I'm aware of that illegitimacy is caused by 'liberalism' rather than by poverty itself (yes, that's another one of my favorite themes).

I never said illegitimacy is caused by liberalism. I said liberal welfare policies have helped encourage illegitimacy (and I think we can agree that illegitimacy/single motherhood is a cause of poverty). illegitimacy among Blacks went from around 22% in the early 60’s to about 70% by the 90’s. Illegitimacy, far from being “caused by poverty” confused is one of the reasons why people are poor!

To get a proper perspective, one has to take one’s eyes off a single country and take a global view if only because poverty and its alleviation has been a global problem. Despite organizations committed to economic development (World Bank, IMF), NGOs, religious and governmental organizations of every description, the track record on global poverty alleviation has not been particularly impressive either.

There is a long-running argument in the global community about what works to relieve poverty; every few years the World Bank changes its approach: once it was busy imposing austerity on every country desperate enough to sign up, then it became enamored with the population control approach and got involved in promoting ‘health’ to increase wealth. None of these are simple black and white issues, regardless of efforts to wrap them up in one-line slogans like ‘health for all before the year 2000’.

While I understand the grandiose dream to end “world poverty” - I think approaching poverty using monolithic organizations mostly empowers bureaucrats and only a fraction of the money ends up helping those in need: call it “trickle down charity.”

So to make it all about the US and ideology, to me, is just a cop-out. I challenge any governmental program or charity out there that has found a definitive solution to the problem of poverty to present the evidence. Or let’s do it a another way: identify the poor society with the lowest expectations, most self-reliance and highest rate of intact families in the world and I’d wager morning coffee for the rest of my lifetime, that after a decade or two - all other factors being equal - those people are just as poor as they are today, and perhaps even poorer.

You can wager all you want, Seekerz, but you can’t deny that after a “war on poverty” things are worse for the groups that the war on poverty was supposed to help.

Ishii

 

[Michael_Mayo]

I recognized them, of course, and I have not spared Pope Francis my criticism for his indulgence of rhetoric. My question still stands.

Government is power. Naked power. There is institution of human design with more raw power to coerce. When it is corrupt it is a terrible tyrant but even in it’s most benelovant form it is an overbearing nanny.

If you want to balance power start but limiting government.

Government limits itself with its three main branches and and two main parties.
It is a wonder anything gets done at all these days.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Government limits itself with its three main branches and and two main parties.
It is a wonder anything gets done at all these days.

No, it doesn’t. Cheks and balances is one constitutional limit on one form of government (the US). Most governments are parliaments with literally unlimited power. But even the American government has grown far beyond its enumerared constitutional powers.

Expecting governments to limit themselves is dangerously naieve.

 

[Filii_Dei]

I don’t think it is practiced anywhere… Hong Kong is often cited as being the least regulated, passing Singapore in recent years, but even Hong Kong has a minimum wage as well as other regulations.

And to further confound matters, Singapore doesn’t have a minimum wage. So who’s less regulated now?

 

[KSU]

The English-speaking world became painfully aware of questionable translations back in the 60’s when handmissal translations were scrapped for some “dynamic” translations.

The translations you speak of weren’t merely questionable. They were willful mistranslations by the ICEL. Liberal Catholicism came out of the closet with an agenda-- to drive a wedge between pre and post VC II Catholicism.

They succeeded in destroying, for two generations of Catholics, the peace, beauty, awe, reverence and authenticity of the liturgical experience intended by VC II. Much of the damage remains to be undone.

One would think that perhaps some of those translators now work in the… Naw, probably not.

 

[ProVobis]

The translations you speak of weren’t merely questionable. They were willful mistranslations by the ICEL. Liberal Catholicism came out of the closet with an agenda-- to drive a wedge between pre and post VC II Catholicism.

They succeeded in destroying, for two generations of Catholics, the peace, beauty, awe, reverence and authenticity of the liturgical experience intended by VC II. Much of the damage remains to be undone.

One would think that perhaps some of those translators now work in the… Naw, probably not.

At least those translators worked for the Church, but I do agree with you. Now if something is issued in Italian or Spanish, or anything other than Latin, the news media grabs it right away and plays politics with it. As I often say, perhaps there was some wisdom in Veterum Sapientia, written by John XXIII, after all.

 

[Bill1940]

There has been so much said here pro and con that I hesitate to comment. Okay, just a few brief remarks. Did not St. Paul say, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat”. This sounds harsh but culpable idleness must be repressed. There appears to be an inexorable trend towards the creation of a permanently unemployed underclass dependent upon a government in the hands of a single dominant party devoted to a collectivist and secular humanist worldview. Can I say that each and every member of the Democratic party consciously subscribes to such a program? No.That is however where they are going as a party. I recall reading, that when the Corn Laws were passed in ancient Rome, they could never be repealed. Can this trend be reversed before the country is ruined? Obamacare is a wake up call. It may help, when the vast majority of productive people find their very financial security threatened by this ill-conceived program. I do not mean the wealthy few or the many unemployed. I mean the so-called middle class who just get by from month to month. The people who those in their ivory towers cannot see nor take into consideration. Obama’s economics, albeit probably fictive, is destroying the ladder to success climbed by so many past generations of Americans. He is removing the rungs between the top and the bottom. At the same time, the principle of subsidiarity is being ground into powder, as the Federal Government increasingly dominates every area of life. Liberty, religious especially, is being extinguished in the former land of the free.

 

[Elizabeth502]

poverty is not only about money but also about an imbalance of power. Generally speaking, the poor have less of a voice, less of a say and less freedom even in their personal decision-making.

= The Rhetoric of the Left, in spades. Every social problem framed politically.

“Less freedom in their personal decision-making?” What…some shadow person somewhere is forcing them to do X,Y, Z? They have “less freedom” because whenever we are short of money we have fewer options, are more trapped by our situation, and more focused on the immediate vs. long-term solutions.

Poverty is about two things, only, in the Free World:
lack of money
+
lack of ability to make money

Ability can be lots of things, but in this country it is mostly due to:
~limited literacy in English
~limited education
~limited skills in which to earn and sustain an independent lifestyle

A subset of the poor are any or many of these:
~psychologically dysfunctional
~chemically dependent
~medically/physically disabled (limited employability)
~feeble due to age

It has nothing to do with political power.

As a country we are reaping the fruits of decades of celebrating multiculturalism, domestically, by which was meant not respect for different cultures, but apologies for English as both the country’s language and (now) the primary language of business, internationally. Decades of catering to non-English speakers in all public institutions, from local government to education, has borne its dysfunctional fruit.

Education (and I have worked for years in pubic education in diverse populations in metropolitan regions) became years ago, and still is primarily, controlled by those with sociological priorities instead of academic, concrete, practical, and empowering priorities. Those sociological priorities --and these are in public documents-- insist on affirming and reaffirming cultural /ethnic habits and perspectives, which in themselves limit the mainstreaming of those groups into a First World economy.

And the very people who created and maintain such sociological preferences in education and in society are supporters of Big Government and, ultimately of the status quo for such underskilled workers, who may ‘feel good about their culture,’ but probably don’t feel real good about their financial status, and will rapidly feel less so as technology advances, with momentum, I will add.

‘Don’t ask too much of the country’s subcultures’ is still the operative philosophy in public education – whether that subculture be urban blacks, illegal immigrants from Latin America, etc. Inviting them to change (aim higher) is viewed as a form of cultural violence.

And of course to the Left, such perceived cultural violence, not keeping the poor poor, is the greatest Mortal Sin. Just do violence to their futures, but tell them, “I’m OK; you’re OK, and don’t change.”

 

[SuperLuigi]

= The Rhetoric of the Left, in spades. Every social problem framed politically.

“Less freedom in their personal decision-making?” What…some shadow person somewhere is forcing them to do X,Y, Z? They have “less freedom” because whenever we are short of money we have fewer options, are more trapped by our situation, and more focused on the immediate vs. long-term solutions.

Poverty is about two things, only, in the Free World:
lack of money
+
lack of ability to make money

Ability can be lots of things, but in this country it is mostly due to:
~limited literacy in English
~limited education
~limited skills in which to earn and sustain an independent lifestyle

A subset of the poor are any or many of these:
~psychologically dysfunctional
~chemically dependent
~medically/physically disabled (limited employability)
~feeble due to age

It has nothing to do with political power.

As a country we are reaping the fruits of decades of celebrating multiculturalism, domestically, by which was meant not respect for different cultures, but apologies for English as both the country’s language and (now) the primary language of business, internationally. Decades of catering to non-English speakers in all public institutions, from local government to education, has borne its dysfunctional fruit.

Education (and I have worked for years in pubic education in diverse populations in metropolitan regions) became years ago, and still is primarily, controlled by those with sociological priorities instead of academic, concrete, practical, and empowering priorities. Those sociological priorities --and these are in public documents-- insist on affirming and reaffirming cultural /ethnic habits and perspectives, which in themselves limit the mainstreaming of those groups into a First World economy.

And the very people who created and maintain such sociological preferences in education and in society are supporters of Big Government and, ultimately of the status quo for such underskilled workers, who may ‘feel good about their culture,’ but probably don’t feel real good about their financial status, and will rapidly feel less so as technology advances, with momentum, I will add.

‘Don’t ask too much of the country’s subcultures’ is still the operative philosophy in public education – whether that subculture be urban blacks, illegal immigrants from Latin America, etc. Inviting them to change (aim higher) is viewed as a form of cultural violence.

And of course to the Left, such perceived cultural violence, not keeping the poor poor, is the greatest Mortal Sin. Just do violence to their futures, but tell them, “I’m OK; you’re OK, and don’t change.”

:clapping:

 

[Darryl1958]

Big spending big government policies are now more responsible for robbing the poor of dignity than any capitalist system ever will.

Once the poor are caught into the trap of government dependency, there is no such thing as trickle-up.

The bigger problem in the West is not lack of social programs, but a plethora of such programs. In Argentina, that may not be the case. Capitalism is just not the problem for the poor in the socialized world of the West.

 

[ishii]

This:

There has been so much said here pro and con that I hesitate to comment. Okay, just a few brief remarks. Did not St. Paul say, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat”. This sounds harsh but culpable idleness must be repressed. There appears to be an inexorable trend towards the creation of a permanently unemployed underclass dependent upon a government in the hands of a single dominant party devoted to a collectivist and secular humanist worldview. Can I say that each and every member of the Democratic party consciously subscribes to such a program? No.That is however where they are going as a party. I recall reading, that when the Corn Laws were passed in ancient Rome, they could never be repealed. Can this trend be reversed before the country is ruined? Obamacare is a wake up call. It may help, when the vast majority of productive people find their very financial security threatened by this ill-conceived program. I do not mean the wealthy few or the many unemployed. I mean the so-called middle class who just get by from month to month. The people who those in their ivory towers cannot see nor take into consideration. Obama’s economics, albeit probably fictive, is destroying the ladder to success climbed by so many past generations of Americans. He is removing the rungs between the top and the bottom. At the same time, the principle of subsidiarity is being ground into powder, as the Federal Government increasingly dominates every area of life. Liberty, religious especially, is being extinguished in the former land of the free.

 

[ishii]

Big spending big government policies are now more responsible for robbing the poor of dignity than any capitalist system ever will.

Once the poor are caught into the trap of government dependency, there is no such thing as trickle-up.

The bigger problem in the West is not lack of social programs, but a plethora of such programs. In Argentina, that may not be the case. Capitalism is just not the problem for the poor in the socialized world of the West.

Liberal welfare policies are the ultimate ineffective “trickle down economics.” Not, free market capitalism.

Ishii

 

[Elizabeth502]

The brutal fact is that an advanced economy (such as we in the West largely are) is not friendly to those who lack the skills to keep up. Unskilled workers (menial laborers) will become increasingly disadvantaged in such an economy, by definition. Immigration reform advocates (I know, a separate subject) decry the official preference, in immigration priorities, on skilled and even advanced workers, but such preference also benefits those immigrants by ensuring an independent lifestyle in a country with a high cost of living, and probably climbing higher. The highest form of charity is to provide people, natives and immigrants, with instruments at their disposal to avoid dependency on institutions. All of that will require change: on the part of current residents and those hoping to immigrate, as well as change in the official assumptions of social and governmental institutions.

True cash handouts and cash subsidies from government should be restricted to those, not without current skills, but those with no or very limited ability, permanently, to improve their lot by becoming more financially self-sustainable. (i.e., elderly, disabled)

Housing, for example, is not likely to decline in price. And while some of that is due to fluctuation caused by speculation (the “brutal” effects of capitalism) and the vagaries of a market economy, much of that is due to fundamental standards in housing (regulations) which cannot be compromised legally. Many other countries lack such standards, which is why the poor in Mexico live in houses with dirt floors, and why “seismic retrofitting” is not translatable into most any language in much of the developing world. (And it’s why, when earthquakes hit, thousands in those countries usually die.)

Survivability in the First World will only become rapidly more challenging, even for the educated and skilled. (Most of us have to continue to work toward not just maintaining our employability, but improving our skills,flexibility & knowledge to meet market demand.)

 

[ProVobis]

As a country we are reaping the fruits of decades of celebrating multiculturalism, domestically, by which was meant not respect for different cultures, but apologies for English as both the country’s language and (now) the primary language of business, internationally. Decades of catering to non-English speakers in all public institutions, from local government to education, has borne its dysfunctional fruit.

Things may be going in another direction here, though. Americans previously dominated the computer programming languages, COBOL, etc. These were primarily for the English. However, over the years, our foreign friends became quite expert in programming and starting excelling in such languages and started writing in code very unfamiliar to the Americans. Hence the hiring of foreigners to do the work of healthcare websites, etc. English may not be the primary language of business too much longer. And the fact that American reading skills are declining isn’t helping the situation any.

 

[Darryl1958]

Liberal welfare policies are the ultimate ineffective “trickle down economics.” Not, free market capitalism.

Ishii

Good intentions may be sufficient to enter heaven, but liberals with good intentions need to start asking themselves if the new programs that they are proposing will do any good in restoring dignity and honor to the poor. They also need to start asking themselves if their unfettered criticisms of free enterprise and free market economies are doing more harm than good. That is to say, for free enterprise to raise people out of poverty, which it has, people must first start to believe that it is possible.