Tim Noah in Slate: In years past, Americans scorned societies starkly divided into the privileged and the destitute. They were repellent. Is it my imagination, or do we hear less criticism of such societies today in the United States? Might it be harder for Americans to sustain in such discussions the necessary sense of moral superiority?
Swearing to my sorrow that a young girl ought to stand a better chance.
It is perhaps only more evidence for why we need ritual in our lives: that act of doing something one has done before, but, even though it’s the same thing, being able to see it as one never has before.
The Saint Paul’s Institute at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London has launched an intriguing new web site that “seeks to foster an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times: financial integrity, economic theory, and the meaning of the common good.”
It is true that women become more likely to work outside the home following the adoption of unilateral divorce laws, but this is not evidence that these laws favor the moneyed spouse. The reason women work more is because unilateral divorce favors the person with the best options outside of the marriage.
Study after study has shown that immigrants grow the economy, expanding demand for goods and services that the foreign-born workers and their families consume, and thereby creating jobs.
It used to be true that shotgun marriages worked out just fine — you could do well with no more than a high school education.
The faith community is not a newcomer to this fight. Catholic social teaching, in particular, has long addressed the need for sound economic principles that serve the common good. Amid the global economic collapse of 1931, Pope Pius XI affirmed a positive role for government that tempers the vagaries of the market and stressed the social obligation to pay workers a living wage.
It is painful to watch the transitions taking place here in Michigan, the Mitten State, the once proud home of America’s automotive prowess. The parishioners in our pews are facing challenges they never thought they would confront. A number encounter regular furlough days, or have had salaries reduced, or – worse – have lost their jobs.
The alternatives explain 99.5% of the difference in per capita income between the U.S. and Somalia.