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

[ReConverted]

When did the Pope use the words “trickle down economics” ? He didn’t. But there is no shortage of ideologues that will twist what he says to serve their own partisan ends.

Ishii

And the word “Trinity” isn’t in the Bible, yet we believe in the Trinity.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

 

[ReConverted]

The free market - when allowed to do so, provides economic opportunity for all willing to take advantage of it. The restaurant jobs where I live start at minimum wage + tips - and is one of the ways those without a college education or job skills can make a living wage. Not sure where you are living …

Btw, the correct quote is: “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” I think Oscar Wilde was referring to something other than economics when he wrote that.

Ishii

Ishii, what planet are you living on? The free market let the insurance companies gouged people beyond belief! People died because of this, and you know it.

 

[ReConverted]

Open your eyes dude.

Army Vets sleeping rough in American cities and waiting to die to take themselves out of their misery in the country they put their lives on the line for.

Children rummaging through open sewers for food to feed their families in Calcutta.

The more liberal the open market is, the more savagery is inflicted on the poor and dispossessed…

 

[ReConverted]

Ever been to Scandinavia? The highest Tax rates on the planet and the most compassionate Welfare system to go with it. Oh and guess what. Poverty statistics are the lowest in the OECD…

Facts like that will bounce off the Tea Partiers here like BB’s off the rock of Gibraltar.

 

[ReConverted]

Look. India is a Capitalist’s amusement park. Huge riches to be gained on the backs of the people. Multi-nationals are given free reign to impose their regimes greed and de-humanisation.

All the while families are prostituting their children, selling organs and living off garbage tips. Yeah. God loves the Free Market…

And being burned alive in sweatshops…

 

[freeRadical]

Ishii, what planet are you living on? The free market let the insurance companies gouged people beyond belief! People died because of this, and you know it.

Health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive. That’s how insurance works. The cost of medical care influences the cost of health insurance, not the other way around. Why is healthcare so expensive in this country? Because the AMA has a government supported monopoly on healthcare in the US. They control the supply, thus they control the price. Like all good monopolists, the AMA restricts supply to raise price. That’s not a free market. There is no competition in the healthcare industry and there is no competition in the health insurance market because of government regulation.

 

[ReConverted]

Health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive. That’s how insurance works. The cost of medical care influences the cost of health insurance, not the other way around. Why is healthcare so expensive in this country? Because the AMA has a government supported monopoly on healthcare in the US. They control the supply, thus they control the price. Like all good monopolists, the AMA restricts supply to raise price. That’s not a free market. There is no competition in the healthcare industry and there is no competition in the health insurance market because of government regulation.

Any port in a storm. Why don’t you tell that to my friend who took early retirement from a major insurer because she was disgusted due to people dying due to their illnesses not being cost effective. THERE are your death panels, folks. Why are WE in the US paying much higher drug prices that countries like Canada? It’s because Pharmaceutical companies buy off GOP and Tea Party Congressmen. When the last time the GOP crowed about THAT, eh?

 

[ReConverted]

I’m utterly disgusted by the worship of mammon by so many on CAF. I wish you all well, and may God bless you and yours. Fare thee well.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A reminder of the current Pope’s thinking in the myth of Trickle Down Economics…:

*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 naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralised workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.*

Perhaps, since you show your location as Ireland, you are not aware that in the U.S. the term “trickle down economics” is a misleading term used only by the left to mischaracterize and condemn tax reduction at all levels. It dates back to Reagan’s tax reductions, and is not even the same thing as the “defining” language that follows in the English translation of what the Pope said.

In other languages, the term used does not have the same meaning, and is closer to the “definition” that follows; that being that economic growth does not, in and of itself, benefit all. I think we all know that. Nevertheless, it is often a condition, often a necessary condition, to improving the economic situation of most. A stagnant economy benefits almost nobody but the very quickest and brightest and (sometimes) the least ethical.

It has seemed to me that many, on the right and the left, have wrongly interpreted the Pope’s words as encouraging the middle class welfare that has been the hallmark of the last several years. But does it? Maybe, as one would expect, he is talking about the actual poor here, and if so, he is totally correct in believing (at least in the U.S.) that the poorest of all; those who cannot help themselves, have benefitted not at all in the last few decades. In fact, those poorest have been harmed by at least two middle class welfare schemes; “Cash for Clunkers” and “Obamacare”. They are about to get hit with “skyrocketing” utility bills, also on the agenda, which (we are assured) will serve the ecological ideologies expressed primarily by the upper classes.

Whoever devised the English version either did not understand that the term “trickle down” is an American idiomatic misrepresentation, or, understanding it, deliberately caused confusion and negative impressions in this country.

But Pope Francis has also suggested that he might clean house in the Vatican bureaucracy. He might want to start with the English language translators.

 

[freeRadical]

Any port in a storm. Why don’t you tell that to my friend who took early retirement from a major insurer because she was disgusted due to people dying due to their illnesses not being cost effective. THERE are your death panels, folks. Why are WE in the US paying much higher drug prices that countries like Canada? It’s because Pharmaceutical companies buy off GOP and Tea Party Congressmen. When the last time the GOP crowed about THAT, eh?

Your response is anecdotal evidence and strawmen. Nice. No response to my claim that the AMA has a government supported monopoly on healthcare and control the supply and thus the price of healthcare.

 

[KSU]

A reminder of the current Pope’s thinking in the myth of Trickle Down Economics…:

*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 naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralised workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.*

That is proof positive that Pope Francis was not talking about America where the historically fantastic results of our free-market system have become the economic envy of the world. A rising tide really does lift all boats under our free-market, small government system now under attack by the Democratic Socialists.

“Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.” JP II

Here is Archbishop Charles Chaput from a September 14, 2012 interview with John Allen Jr.:
Q. What about the wing of the church that says a party that supports the Ryan budget also ought to cause concern?
A. 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.

Q. That said, do you find the Ryan budget troubling?
A. 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.

 

[Silvio_Dante]

Sure, Ishii, you go with that story. Lots of Catholics worshiping mammon on this forum. It’s disgusting.

Its a real eye opener from my European perspective to see so many American Catholics whose loyalty to an unregulated Free Market is unerring. Despite the evidence of its poisonous effects on the Third World and our Pope’s open denouncing of its principles…

 

[KSU]

Facts like that will bounce off the Tea Partiers here like BB’s off the rock of Gibraltar.

I hope you mean me.

 

[Silvio_Dante]

That is proof positive that Pope Francis was not talking about America where the historically fantastic results of our free-market system have become the economic envy of the world. A rising tide really does lift all boats under our free-market, small government system now under attack by the Democratic Socialists.

“Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.” JP II

Here is Archbishop Charles Chaput from a September 14, 2012 interview with John Allen Jr.:
Q. What about the wing of the church that says a party that supports the Ryan budget also ought to cause concern?
A. 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.

Q. That said, do you find the Ryan budget troubling?
A. 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.

Not one word of your post takes anything away from the Pope’s clear denunciation of Trickle down theories.

By the way, you mention Paul Ryan? Isn’t he the guy who suspended his Pro-life beliefs to stay on the Romney ticket? What a hero…

 

[ReConverted]

Its a real eye opener from my European perspective to see so many American Catholics whose loyalty to an unregulated Free Market is unerring. Despite the evidence of its poisonous effects on the Third World and our Pope’s open denouncing of its principles…

Silvio, AMEN. May I ask you a side question? What do European Bishops think of Gov’t healthcare? Somehow, I think most of them support it.

 

[ReConverted]

Its a real eye opener from my European perspective to see so many American Catholics whose loyalty to an unregulated Free Market is unerring. Despite the evidence of its poisonous effects on the Third World and our Pope’s open denouncing of its principles…

Now, now, Silvio, everyone knows that God is an American Conservative! LOL

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ishii, what planet are you living on? The free market let the insurance companies gouged people beyond belief! People died because of this, and you know it.

Had the insurance companies made less, they would have probably gone insolvent. Look up the profit ratios. They’re not at all impressive; in many cases less than healthcare cost inflation.

Possibly some people died for the sole reason that they didn’t have insurance. Possibly, of those, some couldn’t afford insurance or couldn’t qualify.

But do we know how many will die because of Obamacare? It reduces Medicare funding. It imposes very large deductibles and co-pays. Thirty million (and I suspect that’s an underestimate…it’s the CBO’s current estimate and might be conservative) will not have insurance at all. Medicaid is going to be crowded by an additional 17 million, perhaps more. IPAB will decide who gets to have which procedures and treatments and for whom they are not, in their sole judgment, “cost effective”.

How many people are going to die because of those things? We aren’t going to know for a few years. People just assume that somehow healthcare will become more available because of even greater government intervention. There is no particular reason to believe that, and pretty good reason to doubt it.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

I don’t think this question has yet been posed to the “usual suspects” on this thread, and its lifespan is probably limited. So here goes.

If it is such a matter of Gospel truth that Francis has no problem with capitalism, as presently constituted, and didn’t really find fault with it, why did Rush Limbaugh go into such a crisis over the papal exhortation?

 

[Silvio_Dante]

Perhaps, since you show your location as Ireland, you are not aware that in the U.S. the term “trickle down economics” is a misleading term used only by the left to mischaracterize and condemn tax reduction at all levels. It dates back to Reagan’s tax reductions, and is not even the same thing as the “defining” language that follows in the English translation of what the Pope said.

In other languages, the term used does not have the same meaning, and is closer to the “definition” that follows; that being that economic growth does not, in and of itself, benefit all. I think we all know that. Nevertheless, it is often a condition, often a necessary condition, to improving the economic situation of most. A stagnant economy benefits almost nobody but the very quickest and brightest and (sometimes) the least ethical.

It has seemed to me that many, on the right and the left, have wrongly interpreted the Pope’s words as encouraging the middle class welfare that has been the hallmark of the last several years. But does it? Maybe, as one would expect, he is talking about the actual poor here, and if so, he is totally correct in believing (at least in the U.S.) that the poorest of all; those who cannot help themselves, have benefitted not at all in the last few decades. In fact, those poorest have been harmed by at least two middle class welfare schemes; “Cash for Clunkers” and “Obamacare”. They are about to get hit with “skyrocketing” utility bills, also on the agenda, which (we are assured) will serve the ecological ideologies expressed primarily by the upper classes.

Whoever devised the English version either did not understand that the term “trickle down” is an American idiomatic misrepresentation, or, understanding it, deliberately caused confusion and negative impressions in this country.

But Pope Francis has also suggested that he might clean house in the Vatican bureaucracy. He might want to start with the English language translators.

So its either because I’m a dumb Irishman or the translators got the Pope’s words mixed up.

Seriously… The pope’s words are there for all to see. Now its up to us to heed them or ignore them…

 

[Silvio_Dante]

I don’t think this question has yet been posed to the “usual suspects” on this thread, and its lifespan is probably limited. So here goes.

If it is such a matter of Gospel truth that Francis has no problem with capitalism, as presently constituted, and didn’t really find fault with it, why did Rush Limbaugh go into such a crisis over the papal exhortation?

And we all know what a friend of Catholicism good old Rush is…