Tag: Economics

And we are seeing also the manifestation of another of nature’s cruel aspects: the greed and folly of human nature. A society built on the acquisition of material possessions, constructed around the beliefs of those who tell us that it is possible to buy now and pay later; that what’s theirs is ours and what’s ours is theirs – but please can they have what’s theirs back now. But we can’t give it back because it was never ours in the first place.

Arjun Appadurai translates a recent speech by Presdient Bush: We must believe in capitalism, in the ways that the early Protestants were asked to believe in predestination. Not all are saved, but we must all act as if we might be saved, and by acting as if we might be among the saved, we enact our faith in capitalism, even if we might be among the doomed or damned.

One of the best ways people can be the church together in a money-dominated age is to break the taboo against discussing money and money worries. If we are concerned with having enough money to care for others or ourselves, or with meeting payments, let’s confess those concerns to our brothers and sisters in a supportive setting. A burden confessed is a burden shared.

The John Templeton Foundation asked thirteen thinkers this big question: Does the free market corrode moral character?

As the United States staggers from its credit binge to a straitened future, the religious holidays demand their own form of self-denial. Jews fast on Yom Kippur and, for the most observant, the Fast of Gedalia, which comes the day after Rosh Hashana. Devout Muslims did not take food or drink during daylight hours for the entire month of Ramadan, which ended this week.

Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, urged the Bush Administration and Congress, September 26, to consider the moral aspects of the current financial crisis.