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OrdinaryMelkite
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Good point.
Pope Francis denounces ‘trickle-down’ economic theories in critique of inequality
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OrdinaryMelkite
Guest
I personally don’t quite think he is advocating “more Christ,” specifically, as one previous poster said.
I agree Darryl1958, who said it is not quite clear what Holy Father meant. Whatever he intended, it did not quite come across totally clear. At least to me.
Or maybe me and others are just that dense.
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Dranu
Guest
Maybe not
. My only point is that he does not clearly seem to be generally condemning capitalistic economic policies like some news outlets (and some readers) seem to want to think.
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Et_Cetera
Guest
The Pope could come right out and say, “The American GOP is not the party of the RCC,” and people here would still argue. I mean, that’s more or less what he’s saying. The economic policies of Republicans don’t align with Catholicism. You can either accept it or not. You can’t be all in support of the unborn only until the birth point and say that you’re being pro-life.
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Dranu
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Well of course they are not. They would probably be called something else if they were (like the ‘Catholic Party’), but he certainly is not saying their economic policies are evil on a whole
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CaptFun
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CaptFun responds in RED
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CaptFun
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CaptFun responds in RED
Nothing new. Had he not used the term “trickle-down” I wonder if the Washington Post would have covered the 50,000 word message at all?!
Good catch on the Pope’s qualifying words Dranu.
Meanwhile: Jesus on “the economy” (personal or otherwise).
Summary: Pope Francis warns that Capitalism is not without its perils.Yes, but you failed to mention he did not condemn each and every version of ‘trickle down economics’. He condemned * 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**. He condemned THAT specifically, not ‘trickle down’ (in its many meanings) generally. See what happens when one gives important details due scrutiny? One understands things more clearly (most of the time).
The logical implications do not mean the Bolshevistic doom you fear nor the pure anti-capitalism TRH1292 giddily seems to think is so obvious. An entertaining take I agree with … without prejudice to the two other posters mentioned here.
Thats a good thing methinks
Nothing new. Had he not used the term “trickle-down” I wonder if the Washington Post would have covered the 50,000 word message at all?!Good catch on the Pope’s qualifying words Dranu.
Hmm. JUST the “English translation”? Did Francis actually speak these words in English? Or does his English interpreter have a hand in issuing the written text of what he WOULD have said … had he spoken in English? We have had the press attribute juicy news items to sources cryptically identified as " … according to the Vatican" or “…according to Vatican sources” (two guys walking about in St. Peter’s square that day) ? I’d like to know whether this is straight from the Pontiff’s mouth or not actually. Though I have no problem with the Pope warning ANYBODY against committing any sin.
Meanwhile: Jesus on “the economy” (personal or otherwise).
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CaptFun
Guest
:sad_yes: And if you read the “business news article” carefully … Pope Francis is quoted far less than he is paraphrased. That is to say the article is rife with running commentary.
The ONE long quote from “Francis” (or the English interpreter(s) that submitted the English version of the document) … was the one that used the term “trickle-down” theories. Writers Goldfarb and Boorstein weave in all sorts of background details of their impressions of the Francis Papacy along with reporting on the document.
Is it really a “wide-ranging and decidedly populist teaching …” does he really reveal plans to “reshape the Church”? Populism how? William Jennings Bryan version? Robert La Follette (Sr. and Jr.) version? Reshaping how? They don’t really say … but it is an exciting phrase and guarantees a more juicy read. One can imagine any reshaping one likes in the meanwhile.
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EmperorNapoleon
Guest
No one can complain that the bottom 50% pay little-to-nothing in effective income taxes while they’re forced to compete for the 2% scraps because the top 50% horde 98% of taxable wealth. Trickle-down economics has only ever made the rich richer, sometimes at the expense of the poor, and it is the achilles heel of the conservative bootstrap philosophy.
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CaptFun
Guest
HERE is the “controversial” section in context. It is in the middle of the Pope’s document. Not at the top. But the “trickle-down” reference seems to be an aside comment on a greater issue.
vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html
If it is aimed at a Government in power at this time – I’m not sure which country that would be.
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
EVANGELII GAUDIUM
OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY,
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
IN TODAY’S WORLD
vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html
If it is aimed at a Government in power at this time – I’m not sure which country that would be.
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
EVANGELII GAUDIUM
OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY,
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
IN TODAY’S WORLD
But you’d never know that by the article’s headline.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
Can anyone predict economic events better than economists?Most economists wouldn’t really be “qualified” for economics either if we actually held them accountable for their many failed predictions.
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stinkcat_14
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I am not sure what you mean by hoarding wealth? In my own case, I went from the bottom 20% of the wealth distribution to the top 20% over a period of about 20 years without killing myself. Not terribly difficult if you know what you are doing. I have friends who make the same money I do with much less wealth, mainly because of poor decision making. Wealth is one of the few areas where there are few barriers to entry. Anyone with a library card and the ability to read can learn how to create wealth.
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_Abyssinia
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_Abyssinia
Guest
Richard Epstein compared Pope Benedict’s comments in 2011 to those from Spanish socialists
Matt and Pat Archbold recount
ncregister.com/blog/archbold/is-pope-benedict-xvi-a-commie
Who could seriously call Pope Benedict a socialist?
When Pope Francis was Cardinal, he wrote in Hambre y sed de justicia as cited
What do those that call Pope Francis a liberal think now? Or does Richard Epstein know Pope Benedict wrote in his encyclical
Giving Popes political titles just doesn’t really work
Matt and Pat Archbold recount
ncregister.com/blog/archbold/is-pope-benedict-xvi-a-commie
Who could seriously call Pope Benedict a socialist?
When Pope Francis was Cardinal, he wrote in Hambre y sed de justicia as cited
acton.org/pub/commentary/2013/06/19/pope-francis-true-meaning-poverty
What do those that call Pope Francis a liberal think now? Or does Richard Epstein know Pope Benedict wrote in his encyclical
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html
Giving Popes political titles just doesn’t really work
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Mickey_Finn
Guest
The bottom 50% of this country pay little to no taxes and are the ones who make-up the vast amounts receiving government benefits. This is false of course. They pay taxes everyday. Perhaps you are referring to federal income tax? Well in that case after having paid an assortment of other taxes they have reduced their wealth to the point where it is unjust to tax them further. We can alleviate this situation by raising their wage.
France, Italy, Spain and Greece have been spending money like drunken sailors on social programs and now that the bill has come due, cannot afford to pay it. Is this what the Holy Father recommends? He recommends just what he’s said. You shouldn’t try to delude his message with your rhetoric.We were told that in the past 20 years, the extreme poverty rate in the world was cut in half because of a thriving economy. Apparently, a rising tide *does *raise all ships. Like it or not, rich people are the ones with the capital and the means to make things work. Hitting them with crippling taxes is not going to be the solution to eliminating poverty in the world. More talk radio rhetoric. In the united states our taxes are far from crippling.And I think it naive of the Holy Father to think that governments, who are the reason for the economic troubles of recent, are the ones to make things right. Pope Francis should keep in mind that his experiences with massively corrupt third-rate South American countries doesn’t extend to the entire world. I would suggest you listen to the Holy Father,more and the sources you seem to rely on at present less.
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Robert_Sock
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Pope Francis is neither liberal or conservative, but a humanitarian.
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catholictiger
Guest
I still want to read this article in context but from my slight reading of it and my knowledge of past teachings on economics
the pope isn’t rejecting capitalism all together which many will say he is, rather he is rejecting the idea of a economic system governed by greed, and profits, rather the economy should be governed by ethics and justice.
I would think most people , maybe except libertarians, would be completely ok with this view.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
It would be difficult, I think, to find in the developed world, an economy less conducive to wide distribution of income and wealth than what we have in this country right now.HERE is the “controversial” section in context. It is in the middle of the Pope’s document. Not at the top. But the “trickle-down” reference seems to be an aside comment on a greater issue.
vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html
If it is aimed at a Government in power at this time – I’m not sure which country that would be.
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
EVANGELII GAUDIUM
OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY,
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
IN TODAY’S WORLD
**(Emphases of color, bolding etc. above are mine)
**
I live in California during the Obama Administration (five years in). Much of what the Holy Father mentions in section 53 I see here in this far from “trickle-down economy” place.
I have seen people sleeping on the very streets of San Francisco downtown. I have seen school lunches given to pre-schoolers eaten about a quarter of the way, then whole apples, pears, bags of trail mix, cartons of milk and juice thrown out - because the rules are that they must be. Food (even wrapped food) must not be taken home. It is put in the trash (and in such a way as not to feed the birds). An efficient Government MIGHT let some of this tax paid for nourishment “trickle down” to the homeless on the street it seems to me – but then the Holy Father’s point (if one reads the document) points toward the believer taking a more personal responsibility than to defer to government also!
But you’d never know that by the article’s headline.
There is a common denominator between those who assume that:
and those who assume that
- a good economy would inevitably take care of the poor, etc.
Our personal responsibility to care for others is delegated rather than accepted. While the “trickle-down” adjective seems to throw all the light on one economic world view in section 54, “the excluded are still waiting …” would seem to throw a more immediate challenge toward those non-trickle-down economies that are in power NOW and still have the same problems. But the Pope’s message is only incidentally an economic one (though it gives counsel there).
- a good government program or two (funded by one class to the benefit of another) would do the trick.
One certainly can’t be sure that increased GDP (miniscule, though it is) will have a broad effect. Even in the Great Depression, there were many who were not bad off at all, and some even improved their situation. As my grandfather was fond of saying “You have to remember that even when 25% were unemployed, that meant 75% were employed.” The labor utilization rate keeps sinking, and yet nobody does anything to reverse that.
The huge failure to recover we are now seeing is due to the intended transformation of much of the population from self-sustaining through employment, to dependency. I see no real attempt to improve the employment situation of Americans, and much that suppresses it.
It is not entirely a Democrat failure. Some Repubs are on the brink of opening the gates to yet more competition for jobs by foreign labor.
And meanwhile, it is Fed policy to keep interest rates at a level that guarantees arbitrage profits on Wall Street. I bear stock market investors no ill will at all. However, simultaneously guaranteeing arbitrage for those who can borrow most cheaply and suppressing employment is, in my mind, not only foolish but inhumane.
Does anybody really expect that money fund profits on Wall Street are going to do much for, say, an unemployed welder who could be working for serious wages on the Keystone pipeline? Does anybody really think guaranteed arbitrage will do anything for an unemployed dry-waller who has seen his occupation totally taken over by illegal immigrants?
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catholictiger
Guest
he is Catholic and views the world in the eyes of the Church, not some political ideology.Pope Francis is neither liberal or conservative, but a humanitarian.
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Ender
Guest
Others have cited relevant passages in Evangelii Gaudium but this is the specific part that stood out to me: 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 …*
If we claim that the US has a trickle-down economy then that fact would confirm that such an economy succeeds tremendously well in conveying economic benefits on those it serves. While we still have large numbers living in poverty, that poverty is more definitional than real; it is surely nothing whatever like the abject poverty experienced in much of the rest of the world. If we do not have a trickle-down economy then the criticism does not apply to us.
The reason I cited this passage, however, is because of the last sentence: the issue is a question of economic fact, not moral judgment. If an economic argument can be made that effectively defends “trickle-down” theories (assuming we can come to an understanding of just what that means) then such an economy would be quite acceptable. The pope’s opposition is practical. He opposes trickle-down economics because he believes they don’t* “bring about greater justice and inclusiveness”*. He opposes them because (he believes) they don’t work, not because they are inherently immoral.
Ender
If we claim that the US has a trickle-down economy then that fact would confirm that such an economy succeeds tremendously well in conveying economic benefits on those it serves. While we still have large numbers living in poverty, that poverty is more definitional than real; it is surely nothing whatever like the abject poverty experienced in much of the rest of the world. If we do not have a trickle-down economy then the criticism does not apply to us.
The reason I cited this passage, however, is because of the last sentence: the issue is a question of economic fact, not moral judgment. If an economic argument can be made that effectively defends “trickle-down” theories (assuming we can come to an understanding of just what that means) then such an economy would be quite acceptable. The pope’s opposition is practical. He opposes trickle-down economics because he believes they don’t* “bring about greater justice and inclusiveness”*. He opposes them because (he believes) they don’t work, not because they are inherently immoral.
Ender
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