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

[ReConverted]

My friend, the haters on MSNBC say the same thing, e.g., youtube.com/watch?v=3VmuMhkVgFw

Doesn’t it give you serious pause that they agree with you?

A few days ago, in another CA thread, I said that the pope did not and would not and could not reject the social teaching in the Compendium. [See, for example, Compendium paragraphs 347 and 424], and that, therefore, Pope Francis could not have knowingly attacked the American Conservative political system, pejoratively known as “trickle-down” economics. American style Capitalism is the most unique, life-affirming, /url]Church supporting, charitable, compassionate, just and productive system of government ever known to mankind. No serious person would dispute the fact that the poor in America have benefited from that system more than any poor class anywhere in any age.

The angels in heaven would be dancing with joy if by some miracle Satan was vanquished and the entire world adopted the American Conservative political system of so-called “trickle-down” economics. Pope Francis knows that, and Rush Limbaugh, who suspected a mistranslation of trickle-down, apparently got it right. See post #257 in this thread.

We also were told the pope attempted to change Catholic teaching on homosexual behavior. Did you believe that as well?

Y’know, I was gonna write a full length reply, but upon reflection, I’m reminded of the phrase “You can lead someone to facts, but you can’t make them think.” Now I’m going to repeat a question asked by an evil gay jewish guy, Rep. Barney Frank: “On what planet do you spend the majority of your time?”. (Originally asked by Rep. Frank after a woman called the ACA a “Nazi” plan. Right, a gay Jewish guy is gonna support Naziism. Yeah, hello.) Tea Partiers wonder why so many think they’re idiots, it’s because of people like her. PS: 2+2=4 on any network, whether you admit that or not.

 

[ReConverted]

In the USA I promise you that if the GOP has a bad economic policy (and it would really need to be bad to be worse than than the Dems policies) they will lose and lose big.

Most Americans vote on economics before any of the social issues. The only reason the social issues have been afforded to be more at the forefront by the left is because the Fed Reserve Board has very carefully floated an artificial economy along.

Even then, the democrats after all of #occupy and the faux “war on women” had to have record turnout in some places just to get Obama/Biden across the finish line.

Of course, the American media might try and tell you otherwise, but when Americans get in hit in the wallet and lose their insurance, they tune out the elites.

“Elites”…I just love the way the right uses that word. When a Progressive has money, he or she is an “elite”. When a Conservative has money, he or she a “hard worker”. Hilarious.

 

[ReConverted]

Seekerz, the medicine for poverty in the form of welfare, prescribed since the 1960’s has created a culture of dependency, entitlement, and illegitimacy. The medicine of liberalism has failed.

Ishii

Because starvation, disease, illiteracy, etc., are soooo much better. Oh, wait, lemme guess…I’m “patronizing the poor”, right? When the world sees as many Christians angrily fighting hunger as they do abortion, the number of abortions will drop. DRAMATICALLY. Funny how that works. Remove the desperation, people make choices not driven by desperation.

Liberalism is doing quite well, thank you very much. With geniuses like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh spouting off about what Liberals supposedly are, do, and think, our ranks are growing day by day. Thanks, Anne, Rush, and Co.! Keep up the good work!

 

[KSU]

Y’know, I was gonna write a full length reply, but upon reflection, I’m reminded of the phrase “You can lead someone to facts, but you can’t make them think.” Now I’m going to repeat a question asked by an evil gay jewish guy, Rep. Barney Frank: “On what planet do you spend the majority of your time?”. (Originally asked by Rep. Frank after a woman called the ACA a “Nazi” plan. Right, a gay Jewish guy is gonna support Naziism. Yeah, hello.) Tea Partiers wonder why so many think they’re idiots, it’s because of people like her. PS: 2+2=4 on any network, whether you admit that or not.

You have been ReConverted to what, Socialism? I am grateful that, at least, you didn’t “write a full length reply.”

Here are excerpts from Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Sept. 6, 2012 interview with the NCR:
QUOTE
What about the wing of the church that says a party that supports the Ryan budget also ought to cause concern?

Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell. Period. There’s just no doubt about it. That has to be a foundational concern of Catholics and of all Christians. But Jesus didn’t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to pay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments. Anybody who would condemn someone because of their position on taxes is making a leap that I can’t make as a Catholic. … You can’t say that somebody’s not Christian because they want to limit taxation. Again, I’m speaking only for myself, but I think that’s a legitimate position. It may not be the correct one, but it’s certainly a legitimate Catholic position; and to say that it’s somehow intrinsically evil like abortion doesn’t make any sense at all.

That said, do you find the Ryan budget troubling?

The Ryan budget isn’t the budget I would write. I think he’s trying to deal with the same issue in the government I’m dealing with here locally, which is spending more than we bring in. I admire the courage of anyone who’s actually trying to solve the problems rather than paper over them. I think a vigorous debate about the issues, rather than the personalities, is the way through this problem. It’s immoral for us to continue to spend money we don’t have. I think that those persons who don’t want to deal with the issue are, in some ways, doing wrong by putting it off for their own political protection or the protection of their party.
END QUOTE

 

[fnr]

Your criticism of the US as not living up to its duty as global leader in care for the poor reminds me that some countries are left off the hook for creating the poor. For example, Mexico is corrupt and its refusal to reform itself results in all the poor in that country trying to emigrate into the US. Yet, the debate on immigration almost never involves the responsibility or culpability of countries like Mexico - with all sorts of wealth and natural resources - that does not work to provide its people with more opportunities so that they don’t have to run across the border. Instead, the Church focusses primarily on the responsibilities of Americans and how they treat the illegals, etc.

Ishii

On Mexico, let’s be concrete here. We’ve had a farm policy that involves massive subsidization of commodity crops like corn and soybeans. Since the Nixon Administration, U.S. policy has paid farmers to grow these crops at a level that is beyond that implied by supply/demand equilibration. That means we all get cheap corn for applications as diverse from meat production (hello, feed lots with much need for immigrant labor), synthesis of high fructose corn syrup, and a whole range of products from wallboard to paint. That means soy oil is in a large fraction of foods.

When NAFTA became law, that farm policy didn’t change. So cheap, subsidized US corn flooded into Mexico, undercutting the price of corn that most Mexican farmers (being generally smaller growers of regional heirloom varieties), putting them out of business. Looking for work, the unemployed farmers flowed north.

That same pattern applies to other crops as well. This farm policy has undercut small farmers by pushing the price of commodity crops through the floor. This promotes agricultural consolidation in the U.S., which corporate agronomists claim is actually market-efficient. At the same time, the amount of soil lost in a year in Iowa from the highly intensive farming done there takes 1,000 years to regenerate naturally (without the addition of compost, which does produce soil).

Meanwhile, all that cheap corn made the production of cheap meat in the form of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where the innovation from an ocean of cheap corn was able to “liberate” animals from the need to graze. Turns out the slaughterhouses used to process all this cheap animal protein also happen to be a major employer of undocumented labor! Go figger!

The industrialization of agriculture and its impacts on farmers has, incidentally, been the subject of prior papal encyclicals, from Leo XIII’s breathtaking Rerum Novarum to John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra. Just search papal encyclicals from the last 150 years, and the issue comes up time and time again.

To call this a free market system is laughable.

 

[scatter_wisdom]

The bottom 50% of this country pay little to no taxes and are the ones who make-up the vast amounts receiving government benefits. Just how much does the Holy Father suggest we should raise the tax level to prevent the middle class/wealthy from living comfortably while maximizing the amount given to those who do not contribute? Ever since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, this country has spent over 16 *trillion *dollars and the poverty rate has only decreased marginally.

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? 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. 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.

 

[epan]

What would your solution be?

Yes, well that is the tough question. Just as the transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy was painful, so will be this transition. Given the increased tolerance for mass violence, compared to the turn of the 20th century, we may be in for some unprecedented violence.

I don’t really know what the answers are. My education and expertise is in medicine.

But I recognize that there is a very fundamental change occurring in the world economy, which seems to be going largely unacknowledged by the politicians. Business, on the other hand, is exploiting the new technologies to their benefit, and to the detriment of many employees who are struggling to survive. This is reminiscent of the rise of manufacturing jobs to replace agricultural work at the turn of the 20th century, except that everything happens much more rapidly now.

 

[ReConverted]

You have been ReConverted to what, Socialism?
END QUOTE

Thanks for reminding me why critical thinking classes should be required in every public school nationwide. No wonder Texas wants to do away with those. Sheesh.

William F. Buckley and Dwight D. Eisenhower are turning over in their graves at what Conservatism has become. Maybe John Boehner finally having enough with the Tea Party will start waking up some people and return Conservatism back to its proud heritage.

PS: There are a lot of Christians living in Socialist countries who are quite happy.

Funny thing, I don’t hear many Bishops in Europe condemning Gov’t healthcare. You may want to ponder that.

 

[epan]

scatter_wisdom:
Now wait a minute. The bottom 50%, as you call it, lives from paycheck to paycheck. They spend all of their disposable income. So that means that they pay plenty of taxes. If they pay rent, then they pay property taxes through their rent. One of the fallacies that the commercial property owners like to propagate is that THEY pay the taxes, when in fact their tenants and customers give them the money to pay the taxes. The lower 50 pay sales tax on everything they buy. Sales tax is a regressive tax which taxes the poor at a higher rate than the rich.

Whenever you talk about the truly rich paying taxes, keep in mind that the tax burden is actually being paid by the people who are making that person rich. The tax is passed on down in the form of the price paid for the good or service. Otherwise, there would be no profits. The huge tax burden which the rich complain about is in reality a tax paid by the poor to support them. They are just passing the tax money along, and keeping the rest for themselves.

If, for some reason, the Congress passed a special tax on software company owners tomorrow, then the price of software would go up. The owners would pay the tax out of that higher revenue, and tell us all about how much they pay in taxes. In fact, the taxes would be paid by the higher price paid by the buyers of the software.

The entire idea that the rich pay all the taxes is ludicrous. Where do they get the profits to pay those taxes? It is not self generated. They get money from other people, and pay taxes on that. If you buy something, then the price of that item includes the income taxes and other taxes for every person involved in producing of delivering that item, plus a profit. You pay taxes on the worker who produced it, the person who manufactured it, the accountant, the truck driver, the advertising person… all these taxes are charged to you in the price you pay. It is a fallacious claim that people who don’t file an income tax return don’t pay taxes.

However, much of “wealth creation” is just not taxed. It accrues by holding assets which appreciate.

 

[ReConverted]

Now wait a minute. The bottom 50%, as you call it, lives from paycheck to paycheck. They spend all of their disposable income. So that means that they pay plenty of taxes. If they pay rent, then they pay property taxes through their rent. One of the fallacies that the commercial property owners like to propagate is that THEY pay the taxes, when in fact their tenants and customers give them the money to pay the taxes. The lower 50 pay sales tax on everything they buy. Sales tax is a regressive tax which taxes the poor at a higher rate than the rich.

Whenever you talk about the truly rich paying taxes, keep in mind that the tax burden is actually being paid by the people who are making that person rich. The tax is passed on down in the form of the price paid for the good or service. Otherwise, there would be no profits. The huge tax burden which the rich complain about is in reality a tax paid by the poor to support them. They are just passing the tax money along, and keeping the rest for themselves.

If, for some reason, the Congress passed a special tax on software company owners tomorrow, then the price of software would go up. The owners would pay the tax out of that higher revenue, and tell us all about how much they pay in taxes. In fact, the taxes would be paid by the higher price paid by the buyers of the software.

Salute!

 

[ReConverted]

Thanks for reminding me why critical thinking classes should be required in every public school nationwide. No wonder Texas wants to do away with those. Sheesh.

William F. Buckley and Dwight D. Eisenhower are turning over in their graves at what Conservatism has become. Maybe John Boehner finally having enough with the Tea Party will start waking up some people and return Conservatism back to its proud heritage.

PS: There are a lot of Christians living in Socialist countries who are quite happy.

Funny thing, I don’t hear many Bishops in Europe condemning Gov’t healthcare. You may want to ponder that.

 

[fnr]

Salute!

Amen!

 

[estesbob]

Thanks for reminding me why critical thinking classes should be required in every public school nationwide. No wonder Texas wants to do away with those. Sheesh.

William F. Buckley and Dwight D. Eisenhower are turning over in their graves at what Conservatism has become. Maybe John Boehner finally having enough with the Tea Party will start waking up some people and return Conservatism back to its proud heritage.

PS: There are a lot of Christians living in Socialist countries who are quite happy.

Funny thing, I don’t hear many Bishops in Europe condemning Gov’t healthcare. You may want to ponder that.

How about we ponder the fact the Bishops in the US unanimously oppose Obsmacare

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Francis didnt issue an encyclical. And war on who’s status quo? The US? Argentina? Uganda? Bangladesh?

Quite right. I believe the proper word is “exhortation,” not “encyclical.”

And I’d be inclined to think the status quo he has in mind is not fixed within any national boundaries.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

How about we ponder the fact the Bishops in the US unanimously oppose Obsmacare

Unfortunately, if Bishop Dolan is representative, only because of funding for abortion and birth control. And I don’t see them changing his opinion in view of the growing problems with it.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Now wait a minute. The bottom 50%, as you call it, lives from paycheck to paycheck. They spend all of their disposable income. So that means that they pay plenty of taxes. If they pay rent, then they pay property taxes through their rent. One of the fallacies that the commercial property owners like to propagate is that THEY pay the taxes, when in fact their tenants and customers give them the money to pay the taxes. The lower 50 pay sales tax on everything they buy. Sales tax is a regressive tax which taxes the poor at a higher rate than the rich.

Whenever you talk about the truly rich paying taxes, keep in mind that the tax burden is actually being paid by the people who are making that person rich. The tax is passed on down in the form of the price paid for the good or service. Otherwise, there would be no profits. The huge tax burden which the rich complain about is in reality a tax paid by the poor to support them. They are just passing the tax money along, and keeping the rest for themselves.

If, for some reason, the Congress passed a special tax on software company owners tomorrow, then the price of software would go up. The owners would pay the tax out of that higher revenue, and tell us all about how much they pay in taxes. In fact, the taxes would be paid by the higher price paid by the buyers of the software.

The entire idea that the rich pay all the taxes is ludicrous. Where do they get the profits to pay those taxes? It is not self generated. They get money from other people, and pay taxes on that. If you buy something, then the price of that item includes the income taxes and other taxes for every person involved in producing of delivering that item, plus a profit. You pay taxes on the worker who produced it, the person who manufactured it, the accountant, the truck driver, the advertising person… all these taxes are charged to you in the price you pay. It is a fallacious claim that people who don’t file an income tax return don’t pay taxes.

However, much of “wealth creation” is just not taxed. It accrues by holding assets which appreciate.

You’re talking heresy, epan–heresy against a widespread faith in this country. Take care that a bunch of zealots don’t burn you and charge people more for the BTUs you put off.

 

[Darryl1958]

A tax on business is a tax on everybody as well, for inasmuch as they need the product they pay that tax in the increased price of the product.

It is a hidden tax, and the extra profit is assumed to go to the business whereas it ends up in the coffers of government.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

How about we ponder the fact the Bishops in the US unanimously oppose Obsmacare

How about we ponder the fact that, despite the imprecations of numerous people within these forums and their ideological fellow travelers elsewhere against the Obama administration, the Holy See has yet to issue any direct message to Catholic parishes in this country dispensing them from any moral obligation to obey and respect the authority of the Obama administration? Or for any American administration, for that matter? Such a measure WAS observed in Germany in the nineteen-thirties when Hitler was in his ascendancy.

Nor has the Holy See ever condemned European healthcare systems or called for their end on the basis that they include insurance coverage for abortion-related services that I am aware of.

I think there IS room to question the correctness of the American bishops’ stance.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Unfortunately, if Bishop Dolan is representative, only because of funding for abortion and birth control. And I don’t see them changing his opinion in view of the growing problems with it.

**n that category of prudential judgment, the Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good – it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible – health care should not be subject to federal monopolization.

Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined ‘best procedures,’ which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses. Therefore any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect. Private, religious hospitals and nursing homes, in particular, should be protected, because these are the ones most vigorously offering actual health care to the poorest of the poor."* - Bishop Nickless

Slightly more related to the topic the thread is about, I found a quote from Archbishop Naumann that is quite insightful:

• Part of my concern, which I expressed at the bishops’ meeting, is that people—who have good intentions and motivations—have too often looked to massive government programs to help the poor, yet we have a history now of almost 50 years with these programs and we don’t have fewer poor and we don’t have more people empowered. But we do have a weaker family life and weaker public morality. And so we have to look at it and ask, “Are these really the best ways to go about addressing the problem?” Not all of us, I think, agree with the way it has been addressed. Does the state have some role to play with the poor? Absolutely, I think, in terms of a safety net. But that doesn’t mean that we keep increasing the number of people who are dependent on the state in some way. That, to me, is the direction we’ve been going for the last 50 years.* - Archbishop Naumann*

 

[Darryl1958]

…

I think there IS room to question the correctness of the American bishops’ stance.

We all agree with the popes and the bishops when they agree with us.
There is always lots of room to question the correctness of their stance when they disagree with us.