If We Rely On Faith To Fix The Economy, We'll All Need Charity

For a Concerned Christian

Part the First

There once was a Christian named Tom
Who list-posted hither and yon
Folks covered their eyes
And muffled their cries
Til he went back where he came from.

Part the Second

A blogger named CCNL
No one knew how to expel
He named everyone thrice
Once would never suffice
Since he composed with his three brain cells.

Back to the topic:

Religion, Greed and Economics 101:

The Baptizer drew crowds and charged for the "dunking".

The historical Jesus saw a good thing and continued dunking and preaching the good word but added "healing" as an added charge to include free room and board. Sure was better than being a poor peasant but he got a bit too zealous and they nailed him to a tree. But still no greed there.

Paul picked up the money scent on the road to Damascus. He added some letters and a prophecy of the imminent second coming for a fee for salvation and "Gentilized" the good word to the "big buck" world. i.e. Paul was the first media evangelist!!!

And he and the other Apostles forgot to pay their Roman taxes and the legendary actions by the Romans made them martyrs for future greed. Paul was guilty of minor greed?

Along comes Constantine. He saw the growing rich Christian community and recognized a new tax base so he set them "free". Major greed on his part!!

The Holy Roman "Empirers"/Popes/Kings/Queens et al continued the money grab selling access to JC and heaven resulting in some of today's
richest organizations on the globe i.e. the Christian churches (including the Mormon Church) and related aristocracies. Obvious greed!!!

An added note: As per R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue, ( Professors Crossan and Wright are On Faith panelists).

"Reimarus (1774-1778) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."

Judaism - Because the foundations are so mythical, it is almost impossible to be historical about greed in said religion. The historical King Herod and his offspring were with the assistance of Rome, however, were a very greedy bunch.

Verse For a Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
(For Heaven's sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you're the heir.
(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
High in young pride you hold your noble head,
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
(Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
Yours the white rapture of a winged soul,
Yours is a spirit like a Mayday song.
(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

"Whatever is, is good" - your gracious creed.
You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.
(Drop it, I tell you- put that kitten down!)
You are God's kindliest gift of all - a friend.
Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
(Couldn't you wait until I took you out?)

Is Man's best friend getting the short end of the stick, so to speak?

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Alexander Pope

KatLover,

Neat!

Hodge the Cat

Burly and big, his books among,
Good Samuel Johnson sat,
With frowning brows and wig askew,
His snuff-strewn waistcoat far from new;
So stern and menacing his air,
That neither Black Sam,
nor the maid
To knock or interrupt him dare;
Yet close beside him, unafraid,
Sat Hodge, the cat.

"This participle," the Doctor wrote,
"The modern scholar cavils at,
But," - even as he penned the word,
A soft, protesting note was heard;
The Doctor fumbled with his pen,
The dawning thought took wings and flew,
The sound repeated, come again,
It was a faint, reminding "Mew!"
From Hodge, the cat...

The Dictionary was laid down,
The Doctor tied his vast cravat,
And down the buzzing street he strode,
Taking an often-trodden road,
And halted at a well-known stall:
"Fishmonger," spoke the Doctor gruff,
"Give me six oysters, that is all;
Hodge knows when he has had enough,
Hodge is my cat."

Then home; puss dined and while in sleep
he chased a visionary rat,
His master sat him down again,
Rewrote his page, renibbed his pen;
Each "i" was dotted, each "t" was crossed,
He labored on for all to read,
Nor deemed that time was waste or lost
Spent in supplying the small need
Of Hodge, the cat.

The dear old Doctor! Fierce of mien,
Untidy, arbitrary, fat,
What gentle thought his name enfold!
So generous of his scanty gold.
So quick to love, so hot to scorn,
Kind to all sufferers under heaven,
A tend'rer despot ne'er was born;
His big heart held a corner, even
For Hodge, the cat.

Sarah Chauncy Woolsey (Susan Coolidge)

'I Like Katz'

I like katz and that's for sure
I've tried dogs, but that's no cure
Katz are sleek, and Oh so silky!
Dogs are mangy, and just plain silly

Lovely voice, and not just purring
A soulful vibe, most reassuring

Where dogs are coarse
My kat is fine,
A hound is loud and unsublime,
The bard's best friend is more feline

A ghostly shape, a shadow flowing,
familiar shape is ever-growing,
A darkly creature that loves the light
Is now a Tiger burning bright!

All thanks to William Blake -

Victoria:

Kittens! Kittens!

Kittens kittens everywhere
Kittens chewing on my hair
Kittens climbing up my jeans
Kittens hanging from the screens
There's a kitten on each shoulder
Will they do this when they're older?

Kittens fighting on the chairs
Kittens tumbling down the stairs
There's a kitten on my head
There's a kitten in the bread!
There's a kitten in my shoe
I don't believe we just have two!

Author Unknown

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

Poor poets as in the followers of your said prophecies of doom and gloom.

Farnaz,

Stop tilting at windmills, CCNL's mind is welded shut and allows nothing to penetrate. And as I told you before,

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It only wastes your time and annoys the pig."
- Lazarus Long

Clueless Christian Never-endlingly Loony

"poor poets"

Were I your intellectually depleted, educationally deprived, metrically starved self, I'd look up W.B. Yeats and William Wordsworth in Wikepedia.

Somehow--and I'm just guessing here--I suspect your assessment of them has not disturbed their peace.

Religion, Greed and Economics 101:

The Baptizer drew crowds and charged for the "dunking".

The historical Jesus saw a good thing and continued dunking and preaching the good word but added "healing" as an added charge to include free room and board. Sure was better than being a poor peasant but he got a bit too zealous and they nailed him to a tree. But still no greed there.

Paul picked up the money scent on the road to Damascus. He added some letters and a prophecy of the imminent second coming for a fee for salvation and "Gentilized" the good word to the "big buck" world. i.e. Paul was the first media evangelist!!!

And he and the other Apostles forgot to pay their Roman taxes and the legendary actions by the Romans made them martyrs for future greed. Paul was guilty of minor greed?

Along comes Constantine. He saw the growing rich Christian community and recognized a new tax base so he set them "free". Major greed on his part!!

The Holy Roman "Empirers"/Popes/Kings/Queens et al continued the money grab selling access to JC and heaven resulting in some of today's
richest organizations on the globe i.e. the Christian churches (including the Mormon Church) and related aristocracies. Obvious greed!!!

An added note: As per R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue, ( Professors Crossan and Wright are On Faith panelists).

"Reimarus (1774-1778) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."

Judaism - Because the foundations are so mythical, it is impossible to be historical about greed in said religion. The historical King Herod and his offspring were with the assistance of Rome, however, were a very greedy bunch.

Hinduism and Buddhism- A Google search will take you to many instances of greed in the leadership of said religions even though like other religions greed is a major sin and disorder.

Farnaz:

"I was just about to go to sleep, when it occurred to me to ask you if you'd read much poetic satire. If you haven't already read Pope, "The Rape of the Lock;" Byron, "Don Juan"; and "Vision of Judgment," I think you should. I think you'd love them, and they might give you some ideas."

{prose}
In a galaxy long ago and far away, I avoided by Yeats, et al. by reading Cliff's notes. I may read the stuff now based on your recommendation. Because:
{/prose}

My verse it needs work
And my meter's berserk

But I'm so glad to note
that you liked what I wrote.

Ah, we see the "Farnazian" prophets and poor poets of economic doom and gloom are still at it, trying their best to keep us in the Dark Ages of religious myth and voodoo.

I know you've all moved on, but I gave away 3 kittens today, and it's on my mind. :(

Catalogue Rosalie Moore

Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
When they walk, pull in-
- And where the plump's been,
there's skin.
Cats walk thin.
Cats wait in a lump. Jump in a streak
. Cats, when they jump, are sleek
As a grape slipping its skin --
They have technique.
Oh, cats don't creak. They sneak.
Cats sleep fat.
They spread comfort beneath them
Like a good mat,
As if they picked the place
And then sat.
You walk around one
As if he were the City Hall after that.

That was one of my favorite poems as a kid.

Dear Pseudo,

I was just about to go to sleep, when it occurred to me to ask you if you'd read much poetic satire. I ask because I think you're a natural. If you haven't already read Pope, "The Rape of the Lock;" Byron, "Don Juan"; and "Vision of Judgment," I think you should. I think you'd love them, and they might give you some ideas.

They're all very funny. Moi, I love Byron, whom I think was at his best with satire. "Vision of Judgment" was a response to Poet Laureate Southey's
"Vision of Judgment." Byron couldn't stand Southey
for his conservative politics, endless poetical praise of the king, and awful writing.

Pseudo,

You are a genius. There is nothing more to be said. Your "Ode" makes you the Yeats (more properly, the Auden, but why get fussy) of the 21st century.

I think you should send it to the Wall Street Journal. Let them get a different perspective. Then send it to the New York Times, WaPo, and Poetry Magazine.

You are a great thinker, versifier. You teach through delighting. I can say no more.

Farnaz

Their question above is mysterious
Can the WaPo really be serious?

Ode to a house of cards

First we closed our vast steel mills extensive
We thought the unions were just too expensive

Now without the mill's fine refractories
We could sell to the still humming factories

Then those factories down in Carolina
We moved them to far distant China

Having sold our old mech
We next sold to high tech

But our programmers too were expensive
So we marshaled a new fiscal offensive

But they still had their nice houses
Their homes with their wonderful spouses

So we offered cheap loans
Just to stave off their groans

Then they ran out of cash
So we said they were trash

Then we found we could still trade securities
But by "dereg" we added the impurities

And when we were broke
So boldly we spoke

To answer our prayers
The taxpayer must care

But 'cause of our great laissez-faire
We found the treasury too, it was bare

And just for a distracting quarrel
Then the WaPo asks “Is this really moral?”

Hi Arminius,

Great poem! Great point!

Farnaz,

Good poem. What do you think about T S Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'?

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw ,
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
......

That could describe many CEOs!

In times of corporate buyout woe/For comfort, to cat poems, we all should go

See the Kitten on the Wall

See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall.
Withered leaves - one - two - three
From the lofty elder tree.
Though the calm and frosty air,
Of this morning bright and fair.
Eddying round and round they sink,
Softly, slowly; one might think.
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending,
To this lower world descending.
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.

But the Kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow.
There are many now - now one,
Now they stop and there are none.
What intenseness of desire,
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap half-way,
Now she meets the coming prey.
Lets it go as fast, and then;
Has it in her power again.
Now she works with three or four,
Like an Indian conjurer;
Quick as he in feats of art,
Far beyond in joy of heart.
Where her antics played in the eye,
Of a thousand standers-by,
Clapping hands with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crowd?

William Wonrdsworth

Dear Arminius,
Here is a cat poem for you.

The Cat and the Moon

The cat went here and there
and the moon spun round like a top,
and the nearest kin of the moon,
the creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
for, wander and wail as he would,
the pure cold light in the sky
troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass
lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
what better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
tired of that courtly fashion,
a new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
from moonlit place to place,
the sacred moon overhead
has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
will pass from change to change,
and that from round to crescent,
from crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
alone, important and wise,
and lifts to the changing moon
his changing eyes.

William Butler Yeats

Hi, Moderate,

Interesting, your comment '...when I was an atheist...'. So was I, for over 30 years.

The problem with CCNL is that he never explains, he just lists problematical sources, which are not factual but opinions and theories. He never states where he himself stands. He never speaks for himself. He never debates or converses, he only spews his bigotry and occasional long lists of weird stuff. I no longer read his posts, let alone reply to him.

Arminius:

I agree with you that CCNL is in no particular a "Christian". His oft repeated comment that Jesus was illiterate, and insane is sufficient to establish that. He does not even seem accept some kind of "Philosophical Christianity"; preferring to caterwall about "deflawing" everything is sight. His idols, Crossan, Funk, and the Jesus Seminar, basically say that the Gospels are completely inauthentic and do not trace to the first century or the people described.

The real question to me is once you have renounced all of the tenets of the faith why bother to claim to be Christian? It is fine to be something else if you please. When I was an Atheist, I did not claim to be Christian. Why bother?

"Take it from a Christian, CCNL is not Christian. I don't know what he is, and don't care. My advice is to stop tilting at windmills. That dude won't change his tune. Ignore him like most of the rest of us do. Although... Jihadist does have a grand time ridiculing him, much to the delight of us all."

You are right of course. However, he is writing to me, and my great fear is that he will take up list-posting if I don't respond. Pseudo recently said he is intelligent, a view most of us entertained at one point. If so, it would be a great blessing if he would show it.

You're right about Jihadist, as well. I worry about her as things are not so good in her part of the world right now--don't know if you're keeping up with developments in Malaysia, Thailand, and environs.

Arminius, you must not stay away from this blog for long periods. Yours is a voice of reason. I wrote in support of your request for some "oversight" by the blog owners, as it were. See below. Also, I think some spam was deleted today.

Regards,
Farnaz

Farnaz,

Take it from a Christian, CCNL is not Christian. I don't know what he is, and don't care. My advice is to stop tilting at windmills. That dude won't change his tune. Ignore him like most of the rest of us do. Although... Jihadist does have a grand time ridiculing him, much to the delight of us all.

CCS, CCS, CCS,

Hmmm, forgot to practice that fundamental investing rule about diversifying your portfolio and got stuck with a lot of AIG stock???

This is why I will never understand your brand of "Christianity." You simply cannot grasp that one may have concern for one's fellow human; that one must is a basic tenet, is fundamental to Judaism. I'd always thought the Christians had taken that Judaic precept to heart, but here you are. Are you the exception?

I have no "portfolio," and therefore no stock in AIG or anything else. My investment is in my fellow human beings, my belief that they are smart, capable, and inherently decent, that they can do what's right, make changes in the society in which they live.

I refuse all Caesars and therefore try my best not to render unto them. When you do, you get what we've got--recession, possibly deflation, a shrinking job market.

If all that matters to your concerned Christian self-deluded self, is what you've got, your own "portfolio," then I'm wasting my time. You not only render unto Cesar, you are Cesar. Small difference, really, if any.

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

Hmmm, forgot to practice that fundamental investing rule about diversifying your portfolio and got stuck with a lot of AIG stock???

Arminius,

You may be having an effect. Some spam has been deleted. Also, at bottom, I do agree with you and Victoria on this. What is the point of reporting offensive or space-guzzling comments if no one is going to act on them? And it does seem that the same spammers are reported again and again and again.

I concede that it isn't Susan's "job" to deal with this, but she and the other panelists, who object to it can certainly voice their concerns AND OURs to the management. Otherwise, said panelists may find themselves left with only the sort of posts they'd like eliminated.

Worth thinking about, Susan.

DITLD writes:

"agree also with Arminius, that I cannot say if these are the right questions or not, but they are overly-perplexing, and off the rails of my interests and concerns, if you want to put it that way."

A lot of the questions, such as that of Quinn viz l'affaire de communion are pointless. That one was offensive as well, regardless of whether or not one is Catholic.

Capitalism per se is not the culprit in the current debacle. Rather it is unregulated capitalism that allowed, even facilitated the current crisis. Reregulation would begin with a new version of the irresponsibly repealed Glass Stiegel Act, put in place to prevent a recurrence of the Great Depression, in other words, what would have happened had the government not nationalized AIG.

What to do? One need only consider the least one can do in the current situation, if not from a religious perspective, then from a moral one. Americans are not the robots CCNL would have us be, mechanically moving forward and back, according to remote buttons pushed by insurance companies, banks, brokerage houses and the government.

What can we do? Take up the challenge. The first step would be writing to one's Congressmen, Senators, stating you understand that you now own shares in AIG, that you want full disclosure on its management, that you want honest and ethical reporting through the media on a weekly basis. That you want an end to the practices that put us where we are, that you want a new Glass Stiegel enacted ASAP.

That wouldn't be difficult. It would also enable you to protect yourself and most importantly your children. If you have children graduating from college this year, as one of my nephews is, then you will want to look at the sudden change in the job market.

Again, capitalism isn't the culprit. Failure to take responsibility, our failure, engineered by a government that doesn't want an activist public (no government does) is the culprit.

Write to your elected officials. You want new regulations in place, new legislation, full disclosure on all matters related to the handling of AIG.

I would add to this a demand for the billions that AIG execs and others are stealing from us. That is the very least they can give.

Farnaz said:

"WaPo can't ask the right questions on any blog associated with it. It's a profit-making machine with a comic book mentality. One reads it because along with the Times and WST (God help us), it's what we've got."

I agree that the Washington Post is a corporation,with its own business interests. That is our whole system. We make do with all that we have, because, that's what we've got.

I think I know a little about a whole lot of things. But I don't know much about finance and Capitlaism. They buy and sell; they borrow and lend, and collect debts; and pay interest and collect interest. It all seems plausible and reasonable, since it is a what we have, and it is the the way things work.

Then you accelerate it all, with computers and spread it out and focus it and string it all out everywhere around the world, via the internet, and and put a bunch of rich Republicans in charge who are lazy and won't work, but just live off the sweat of others, and this is our system.

I cannot say I hate this system. It has given us cell phones, and ipods, and HDTV, and decorator bathroom fixtures. I cannot say I understand it well enough to wish it away, to be replaced by something else, different and unknown.

I donot know if this answers the question. I am not really able to answer the question. It doesn't fit very well into my mental slots, and it just gums up the works, neuron-wise.

I agree also with Arminius, that I cannot say if these are the right questions or not, but they are overly-perplexing, and off the rails of my interests and concerns, if you want to put it that way.

Sleep well O "Farnazian" prophets of doom and gloom, the USA Taxpayers are forever vigilant.

If panelists don't have the power to moderate the boards, are those REPORT OFFENSIVE COMMENTS links just a placebo to keep us mollified?

That is interesting- people are coming to the same conclusion. I just called it plain socialism myself- but corporate and national socialism seem to have a ring to them.

Concerned Christian Self-Deluded:

Thanks to it all that we have your benighted self to send us to sleep for much needed rest.

Ah, the "Farnazian" prophets of the New Age are still at it, trying their best to keep us in the Dark Ages of religious myth and voodoo.

And said "Farnazian" prophets have all the answers on the economy but yet refuse to run for political leadership roles. How strange!!!

And I do believe the USA taxpayers were successful with the previous global bailouts of two World Wars, the Depression, the savings and loans, the Chrysler Corporation and Communism.

God Bless the USA Taxpayers!!!! Anybody want to buy a nice home or condo at a reduced price??

And the list of Adoptees was for the benefit of those like KACOO who commented about about "convenience" abortions.

dear arminius,

i'm not a baseball fan, but i'm depressed about yankee stadium. we have no money so the buyout doesn't affect us.

sincerely,
wiglaf

hello arminius,

sincerely,
wiglaf

Btw., I don't know if anyone's interested, but a while back, Common Sense called the buyout of AIG "corporate socialism." PaganPlace called it "national socialism," which IMHO is more accurate. This is far worse than the disaster of ten years ago. This buyout amounts to fascism. Actually, forget "amounts to." It is fascism.

It also means that we can sue the Federal Government as shareholders. I wish to God that would happen. Really do. We, the actual people, need a leader. No one on the horizon fits the bill, at present.

Dear Farnaz:

You have made many interesting and fruitful observations. I used to post here in an earlier and (even) more inflammatory era. After a while I got tired of people who could not understand a logical argument, or rhetorical techniques like reductio ad absurdum and desisted in my posting. It seems like that phase may have worn down. Your observation that the WaPo cannot ask the right questions for political and economic reasons is a good one. I think you are on the right track. Do not be discouraged by people who throw stones.

Whoops! Left out Reagan on my list of presidential contributors to the current disaster. Sorry.

Hi Arminius,

David Waters can remove posts from the blog, but is loath to do so for obvious reasons. He prefers that those who post here take care of the problem, themselves, as it were. Of course, this can't always be done.

He does do it himself, on occasion, as we've seen from time to time. In the meantime, IMHO, just ignore them. You know, there will always be bigots of one sort or another. We say, "The poor you shall have with you always." Some scholars understand these words to mean anyone who is in need and can be redeemed. Well, hopefully, some of those who upset you are among the "poor" of that sort.

I agree that OnFaith isn't asking the right questions. In this, it's not alone, but, at times, it does seem a bit more cynical than one would like, for example, with Quinn's disgusting communion essay. How narcissistic, offensive, etc., can one be, and I, as you know, am not Catholic. One doesn't have to adhere to any group, be of any race, to think in terms of basic human decency.

OnFaith is not alone in not asking the right questions and in answering those it does ask at a level up to that of Reality TV. This morning I listened to Errol Johnson and Steve Abudato discuss the failure of newspapers to issue adequate warnings, to monitor the coming of the present disaster. As you know, I've been posting on this journalistic failure for several days, and it was good for me to hear people own up.

They can, however, given who pays them, go only so far. They blame the editors, but it goes further than they, right up to the publishers and owners of the media. Here, on this blog, we have an interesting phenomena. The bloggers, many of them, were better informed, more articulate, than the majority of panelists. That couldn't last, of course, and we've lost some folks I would have wanted to stay.

WaPo can't ask the right questions, Arminius. If it did, it would get the right answers, don't you see? Not asking the right questions is a way of keeping the masses quiet. Every once in a while, in his highly sectarian way, Stevens-Arroyo attempts it. Awhile ago a number of the clerical panelists said it was silly to equate religion with morality. That is as good as it's gotten around here, except for one essay of Susan Jacoby's awhile back.

WaPo can't ask the right questions on any blog associated with it. It's a profit-making machine with a comic book mentality. One reads it because along with the Times and WST (God help us), it's what we've got.

Meanwhile, looking back to Carter, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., one wonders at the many "qui bono" on WaPo through the years. Ask the right questions? Not any time soon, I don't think. That shouldn't stop us from asking them, though.

Farnaz

Dear Arminius,

"I have a suspicion that On Faith is not asking the right questions."

What you say seems to make sense. What would a good question be?

A couple of other observations by Lazarus Long that might add to the discussion. Old Lazarus had some strong theological views, for example:

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it."

Moderate,

Things are quiet here. Nothing really being discussed. Yes, CCNL is up to his usual nonsense and long stupid lists. I have a suspicion that On Faith is not asking the right questions.

Dear Arminius,

Anything going on around here lately?

I see CCNL is still up to his old tricks.

Any serious topics under discussion?

Susan Jacoby, you said,
"I don't know how many times I can say this. Panelists, including me, have no power to exclude idiots from posting on our threads. And even if I had the power, which I don't, I wouldn't have the time."

That is disappointing. We know you don't have the power. But you must know people who can, like the moderators. And also - there are many here who respect you. Do you not have the TIME to take to at least try to protect your blog for those here who depend on you?

Arminius

I don't know how many times I can say this. Panelists, including me, have no power to exclude idiots from posting on our threads. And even if I had the power, which I don't, I wouldn't have the time.

Susan,

"If We Rely On Faith To Fix The Economy, We'll All Need Charity"

Is a trillion dollars of tax payer funding enough charity?

Of course it's immoral.

Arminius,

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It only wastes your time and annoys the pig."
- - - Lazarus Long

An earlier version of this was spoken around two-thousand years ago:

"... neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

I shouldn't need to remind readers that Susan Jacoby is an idiot on most things, and this subject is no exception.

Economic institutions have no morality - she says they are amoral. If so, then why was it that for years a woman could not obtain credit without her husband's signature?

No guiding principles of morality govern risk = return? Then why is it the most dangerous jobs are always the most poorly paid?

Anyone who believes that our economic institutions are amoral is living in a fantasy.

Given the costs of healthy infants, shouldn't insurance companies promote convnience abortions? Each aborted fetus sends thousands directly to the bottom line of the income statement, and no laws are broken or other harm done. Where are the insurance company abortion ads to companion their "buckle up" and other safety campaigns?

Amoral markets. Heh. Let's call it $800 billion when it settles out.

Ah, the "Farnazian" prophets of the New Age, trying their best to keep us in the Dark Ages of religious myth and voodoo.

And I do believe the USA taxpayers were successful with the previous global bailouts of two World Wars, the Depression, the savings and loans, the Chrysler Corporation and Communism.

God Bless the USA Taxpayers!!!! Anybody want to buy a nice home or condo at a reduced price??

"Come to think of it, anyone run down the qui bono on the AIG bailout? Just out of curiosity."

The CEO was forced to resign as a condition of the bailout. I've been looking for how much he hijacked, but haven't found out yet.

The qui bono should be every tax paying American since AIG has, in effect, been nationalized. That, as economists have noted, is what the bailout amounts to. An activist public about to go into a recession would be demanding s voice. We're all share-holders, could sue the government, and not just theoretically, for representation on the board.

Come to think of it, anyone run down the qui bono on the AIG bailout? Just out of curiosity.

""Common Sense:

"But it's really Corporate Socialism"

Bravo, CS, aptly put! From each according to what we can steal; to us, according to what we can conceal." "

AKA: National Socialism, nothing sharing about it, just all the people working for state and corporations closely allied for profit.

Ask one Mr Prescott Bush how he felt about the idea when he was playing finance in the Thirties....

CCS (Concerned Christian Self-deluded):

Give it up. You're boring. Even the gentle Arminius can't stomach it anymore. You worship false idols. Many of us left that scene a long time ago. We're not going back.

Ah, the "Farnazian" prophets of the New Age, trying their best to keep us in the Dark Ages of religious myth and voodoo.

Farnaz,

Wise up, CCNL can never be reached.

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It only wastes your time and annoys the pig."
- - - Lazarus Long

CCNL:

You are in no position to give anyone any information about the flaws in their religions as your own is so grievously screwed up. Stop being such a scaredy cat, troubling cyberspace with your silly lists.

Unfreeze your brain.

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

You indeed are a fortune teller with only grief to predict. Ulcers have you??

And giving a synopsis of the flaws and errors of the major religions is far overdo as we spend way too much time in useless prayer, kneeling and bowing.

CCNL,

How is it for those of your species whose heads remain forever underground, except for the brief moments when you surface to tell the rest of the world what is wrong with THEIR religions? What an important role you play. What would we ever do without.

And while you are loving your fellow man in a way he/she cannot detect, Malaysia, which may be of no consequence to you and JOsephus, undergoes tremors which are shaking the region, and Thai militants are awakening here and in Europe. Consider that your underground hideaway may just go the way of the WTC.

Be your brother's keeper, or he will turn on you, get it? In other words, since love thy neighbor means nothing to you and leaving the things of the world even less, consider the safety of your own rear end.

Consider the recession we are about to enter while billionaires have not been asked to return their billions. Perhaps they could give it to Texas and environs, still without electricity, still off limits to the media in this Democracy.

And the other greedy shoe has not dropped CCNL. That would be the shoe of European investors, countries such as Germany....

And here is a message to your underground brain: The Marriott HOtel which was blown up a couple of hours ago in Islamabad, ended with FIFTY-FIVE, not eleven dead, mostly Americans. The number injured is not known. The whole of Pakistan, all but destabilized by us, is turning against us, even the educated classes, which had been for us. There is a very large Pashtun population in Pakistan. The US army going back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan is not endearing us to said desperate nation.

What does Josephus say on this? Don't know? Well, here's what I say. I don't think we should invade anywhere. I do want the numbing, dumbing, corrupt media, and the opportunist talking heads it pays and pays well, to do what used to be called reporting.

I want the air waves back in the public domain. The media should be owned by the public, as it always was, before being stolen. Then perhaps we can have a voice.

Speaking of voice and public ownership, having nationalized AIG, WE, including your uninformed self, now own it. GET IT??? Think about that and its legal implications, which would be very, very good for an activist public.

Scared, my little friend? Well start moving, or build a fallout shelter. We're no longer safe, you and I, no longer safe, not at all.

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

Wow, you are a bundle of joy!!!

You need to get into political leadership roles to ensure major hurricanes never overflow areas built below sea level, that we invade Thailand to enforce ethics / morality and we use the unemployed to accomplish both missions.

Well, whoever takes office should have an interesting time during the recession; how interesting will depend, in part, on whether or not the European shoe drops.

Wonder how the newspaper, news channel personnel will be spending their ample paychecks, while hundreds of thousands continue to face unemployment, while much of Texas and other states have no electricity, while Thaksin and family rape Thailand. Always a wonder how some people sleep at night.

"Somchai is known for his close relationship with the family of ex-Premier Thaksin Shinwatra. He is married to Yaowapa, the younger sister of Thaksin."

Earlier this week, Jihadist posted that Thailand has its third prime minister in two weeks. That would be the pig named above, the brother-in-law of the goonish Thaksin, living it up in London, Eng., where he owns a great deal of property, courtesy of the wealth he stole from his country. That which is not evident in England, is tied up elsewhere, notably in Swiss banks.

Word among the Thai here is that Britannia (which used to rule the waves, remember?), is not only greedy but scared s*itless of Thaksin. Btw., news from Malaysia is not good either, as Jihadist indicated.

Now if Sally Quinn is not otherwise occupied offending Catholics with her narcissistic tales of taking communion, perhaps, she could ask a question about the role of religion in the welfare of one's fellow human being. If Thailand is too far away for Quinn, how about the US?

The panelists, at least some of them, might rise to the occasion, if they have not already numbed, dumbed, and corrupted themselves beyond repair.

Too many houses, too many condos, too many apartments, too many offices, too many shopping centers, too many brokers, too many banks, too many mortgages, too many speculators !!! And the correction begins!!!

And now I am part owner of over one million of these now inexpensive homes, condos, apartments and shopping centers. Always wanted to be a Land Lord!!!!

No religion involved!!!!!

The full effect of the Reagan Legacy is finally becoming clear to all - financial meltdown, third-world status for the USA and a major screwing of the tax payer.

The Fed agrees to buy up the bad debt of the bankers, and MIRACULOUSLY!, the market has a GREAT day! How's that work?

Simple: imagine if the Fed stepped in and paid off your mortgage, your credit cards, your medical bills and even your GAMBLING debts! Hey, you'd suddenly have a ton of newly disposable income as well, wouldn't you? Time to buy that new car and that second home by the lake!

Once again, the CHUMPS - the American tax payers - are left holding the bag that the rich and super-rich have filled with their sh*t as they played in their little financial sandbox. The titans of industry somehow get to retain their aura AND all their money, even as they laugh all the way to the bank - that bank being the Fed that holds all of that money that's deducted from the little guy's paycheck every day of the week. Money that WON'T be going to build schools, or roads, or to insure health care for every American. Money that WILL be going to insure that the same crooks who created the current mess are allowed to jump right back into the game to do it all over again.

If you're tired of this BS, you have one option: vote Obama.

"But it's really Corporate Socialism"

It's also known as "Corporate Welfare".

Common Sense:

"But it's really Corporate Socialism"

Bravo, CS, aptly put! From each according to what we can steal; to us, according to what we can conceal.

Today is a very special day - it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Aaaarr....

What has this got to do with religion? The day is universally revered by Pastafarians! All real pirates have been touched by His noodley appendage.

Ya gotta laugh.

"Anonymous:

Farnaz you are no poet."

Perhaps...
Wait for it...

Perhaps...

She is a poet..
and doesn't know it?

Owen - do you suppose the Wall Street wizards that engineered the recent implosion of the financial markets were socialists? And do you think the CEOs that escaped with their fortunes intact were avid supporters of Marxism?

They will live on to make even greater fortunes at the expense of our society at large. The corporate CEO is among the most protected species on the planet.

My guess is even the hedge fund managers had their money elsewhere when their own funds crumbled - poor investors....they're probably the socialists you're talking about, no?

In any event, bailing all of these greedy idiots out, along with General Motors, does smack of Socialism with a capital "S". But it's really Corporate Socialism - and it does neither you nor I any good at all.

Ben Bernanke controls about $800 billion of our very own taxpayer dollars all by himself, according to his own recent statement.

When can the rest of us get in that very special welfare line, I wonder?

Oh there Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist,

I assume the Gabriel code made it past the Islamic, blog watching, goon squads. Keep up the good work but be wary of the lurking jinn.

There is a not-so-fine line between controlling greed and socialism. I fear don't see it.

"Anonymous:

Farnaz you are no poet."

You poor Pseudo! Now, you are no longer Jihadist, but me!! Would I could take credit for your great gifts!

But, alas, the muse selects her own society! And your audience grows. You've got Arminius, Jihadist, and yours ever truly. Ah, Pseudo, who knows how far your sweet melodies may wander....

" Richard Thomas:

The Money Changers gives some interesting perspective

Then and now.

http://coinage.me/coinage_the_money_changers.htm"

Yes, from the same school of nonevidence.

Farnaz you are no poet.

The Money Changers gives some interesting perspective

Then and now.

http://coinage.me/coinage_the_money_changers.htm

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated: Maybe she could respond in some kind of Gabriel code??

Oh ya, kalau begitu, saya amat setuju.

Dengan segala hormatnya saya ingin menyatakan di sini bahawa ada harapan besar saya bahawa Concy sentiasa berada di dalam keadaan sihat selalu.

Pada hemat saya, mengulangi sesuatu perkara beberapa kali di sana sini tidak mendatangkan apa saja manfaat kepada sesiapa. Ada kemungkinan besar ramai orang, kalaupun tidak telah bosan, akan menjadi mual.

Pada pandangan saya, keadaan ekonomi di Amerika Syarikat boleh ditangani dengan lebih lagi oleh pihak berkuasa, khususnya mereka yang bertanggung jawab untuk memantau perkembangan ekonomi dan pergerakan matawang.

Kegagalan untuk bertindak dalam membenteras penyalahgunaan kuasa di institusi kewangan telah memudaratkan rakyat Amerika yang tidak mengetahui ke hala mana masa depan mereka. Ahli politik pula tidak memberi jawaban yang munasabah.

Namum begitu, saya percaya rakyat Amerika masih dan tetap mempunyai daya usaha yang cekal untuk mencari jalan keluar bagi mereka sendiri dan juga dunia.

bila sampai waktu ku
ku mau tak seorang pun merayu
biar peluru menebusi badan ku
tak perlu sedu sedan itu
sebab aku aku mau hidup
seribu tahun lagi

Salam dari saya
J

Farnaz,

Now you've gone and done it
I've got to go study poetical verse
I don't know how it works
With strangely perverse words
And the more complex forms are really a curse. %-}

{prose}
Hope everything is well out your way.
Do keep up the thoughtful posts.
And non illegitimi carborundum.

Emmm... what rhymes with "carborundum"?
{/prose}

Arminius,

"JJ has totally ruined two blogs on On Faith now, with his long idiotic posts."

The posts from old JJ Roll on in their strange way
But oddly they sometimes have something to say

But sometimes they're so long
they clog up the whole blog.

So don't just be pensive
when JJ's offensive

Especially big triangles
Which do your nerves do jangle

Just hit the kill links,
And tell them when it stinks.

Susan Jacoby,

JJ has totally ruined two blogs on On Faith now, with his long idiotic posts. I'm sure he will continue.

No other panel member except you ever monitors his/her blog. We respect your efforts to look into your blog and reply. Can you not ask the official monitor to trash JJ's megablogs? Any decent human would thank you.

Here is the article Victoria mentions. Mother Jones is available on line. Just use google; I've never had a subscription. Note the author of this article.

I should point out that it isn't only leftist magazines that have been issuing warnings. The problem with MJ is the problem with the National Review; it generally doesn't print articles antithetical to its dogma, just as most of us don't read that which opposes our own. That is why it would be delightful to have an unbiased, uncorrupt, not dumb national newspaper or two.

MotherJones.com / News / Feature

The GOP's December Surprise
Is the GOP cooking the books to avoid recession till after Election Day?" />

James K. Galbraith" />
July 01" /> , 2008" />

Is the worst over? Are we on the road to recovery? Will the next president take office against a backdrop of economic improvement, as Bill Clinton did in 1993? Or has something deeper and more intractable gone wrong?

Early this year, the optimists, including Citigroup chairman Bob Rubin and Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, argued that the slowdown was short-term and that a "stimulus" package should be "targeted and temporary." This with rare haste the Democratic Congress enacted. As a result, most taxpayers got one-time $600 checks in May, prefigured by bubbly messages touting "Good News!" if you filed your taxes electronically.

The rebate isn't the only little Dutch boy thrown headlong at the dike this election year. Government spending, especially for defense, will be up: Military spending as a share of gdp is expected to grow by $75 billion in fiscal 2008, enough to neutralize a 0.3 percent decline in gdp. Dick Cheney was secretary of defense for Bush 41; just before the 1992 election he engineered a big run-up in outlays, as the military restocked following the first Gulf War. (It was exposed in the first Clinton "Economic Report.") Is the Pentagon up to that trick again? I'd be astonished if it were not.

Under intense pressure from panicky bankers, Ben Bernanke cut interest rates relentlessly from August 2007 through the spring of 2008. I don't accuse Bernanke of playing politics. But it's worth noting that this is what usually happens. In presidential election years when Republicans are in office, the Fed regularly and predictably pursues a more expansionary policy than when Democrats rule—after controlling for differences in the rates of inflation and unemployment. (I made these calculations myself; see the chart.) Maybe they just can't help themselves.

But much of the ordinary effect of interest cuts on new lending—like a rebound in construction and automobile sales—didn't happen this time. That's because the fall in home prices (and therefore the value of collateral) overwhelmed the benefit of cheaper money to the banks. And the banks barely cut mortgage rates, so consumers saw no benefits at all. Lower interest rates did cut the value of the dollar, however, and that promotes exports and foreign investment. (These days New York Times real estate listings come with a currency converter.) It also boosts the stock market, since multinational firms can report their (unchanged) foreign income as higher dollar earnings.

Possibly all this stimulus will ward off the two-quarter decline that has historically defined a recession. Don't be surprised: Republicans haven't had an election-year slump since 1960. On the other hand, the National Bureau of Economic Research, which has the official call, may describe the early spring as a recession anyway. Republicans will welcome that, too, so long as they can plausibly call the summer a "recovery." Even if they can't stop a recession, they may be able to make it short and shallow enough, this year, to put John McCain in the White House. But all this brings up an important question—what of next year?

You get what you pay for
How Fed's election-year rates varied from nonelection years when the incumbent was:

1984-2004. Source: Galbraith et al report, page 20.
No matter how effective the stimulus, two enormous clouds remain for whoever becomes president: the housing slump and the banking crisis. Both are far from being finished yet.

The problem with a housing slump is inventory. Unlike factories and Internet startups, shuttered houses don't go away. No one declares them obsolete. They aren't boxed up and sent to China. They remain, a drag on the market, decaying and pulling down property values for years. Here in Texas, housing values slumped with the S&L crisis and the oil bust of 1985 and did not recover until around 1993. That slump clobbered the oil patch but was barely felt anywhere else. This slump is the reverse—it's driving down housing prices just about everywhere except Texas, where the scars of the last bubble helped keep the recent one under control.

Nationally, the subprime debacle is blowing away the homeownership gains of the last few years. Those abusive mortgages were deliberately targeted at vulnerable, even desperate, people who could be steered into financial death traps. Lenders didn't care, because with the help of fraudulent appraisals, the loans could be off-loaded quickly in packages bought by greedy or gullible investors, including your pension fund. Poor people got hit on the front end; 1.5 million homes entered foreclosure last year. Middle-class people got it on the return volley.

And middle-class homeowners are now getting hit a second way: in the declining value of their homes. You don't have to be holding a subprime to find yourself underwater. That means that home-equity loans will dry up. (As of April, California homeowners in default were already a median of eight months behind on those loans.) Many people will be tempted to walk on their houses and mail the keys to the bank. Incidents of the foreclosed expressing themselves to their lenders by yanking the plumbing and the wires on the way out the door are on the rise, as is arson by desperate homeowners, according to the Los Angeles Times. Will students, small businesses, and other borrowers still be able to get credit when this is over? God only knows.

The mechanisms of mortgage finance and home-equity drawdown haven't simply been damaged. That well has been poisoned. Having largely outsourced mortgage originations to companies like Countrywide who didn't care whether the borrowers had good credit, the banking system cannot easily go back to its old method of making loans to creditworthy people and contenting itself with the interest paid back over many years. And who would trust them, anyway, if that's what they claimed they wanted to do?

Then there's another problem: The banks no longer trust each other. Last August, as mortgage-backed securities unraveled, finances froze up worldwide. Why? Because banks knew how much undisclosed junk they had on their own books. Who could say what the next fellow had? Overnight lending between banks—the process that ensures that every bank has funds when it needs them—fell apart. This is a very big deal. If banks will not lend money to each other, why (except for the blessings of federal insurance) should anyone else leave their money to them? Economists like me wait entire careers to study events such as these—which should provide no comfort to anyone else.

Since August, America's big banks have been wards of the Fed, and those in Europe equally so of the Bank of England and the European Central Bank. The system survives because central banks keep the lending windows open, and the result is that—except for one instance in Britain—the public has not pulled out of the banks. Let's be clear. The private financial markets did actually fail. It's only the fact that the public trusts government that keeps the system from dissolving in panic. But even if the Fed and its counterparts can hold the line, the problem of mistrust among the big bankers won't go away soon. And that means we're at the end of the age of credit expansions, for now.

As for next year, good luck. No matter who becomes president, there probably won't be another tax cut. Instead, cries for "fiscal responsibility" will be heard. States and localities, hit in 2008 on their property taxes, will cut their spending. Consumers, hit hard on their home equity, will cut back on new borrowing (which they probably couldn't get anyway) and pinch pennies however they can. Businesses won't even think about new investments.

In this situation, more cuts to interest rates—the only applicable tool the Fed has—don't work well. And they weaken the dollar, which raises inflation. What is gained by cheaper money will be lost in higher gas and food prices. But if the Fed reverses field and defends the dollar, exports will slump and the housing crisis will get worse. There's no easy way out.

Thus far the dollar has fallen, but it hasn't collapsed. Will it? There are two big threats. The first is the financial crisis itself, which is a problem of trust not only in the ordinary borrower, and not only in the banks, but in the American dollar. Why is the rest of the world nervous? Because the fundamental trust that they have always had—that the United States was a safe place to put your money—has come into question.

The second threat, not often mentioned, is our reckless foreign policy, including the invasion of Iraq, bellicosity toward Iran, and the ongoing subtext of hostility toward China. Since the Middle East has the oil and China holds our debts, all this is spitting in the soup, big time. It may not by itself wreck the financial system. But it doesn't exactly build up the reserve of good will that we may need when the financial going gets tough.

For half a century much of the world believed that we provided security under which they too could prosper; many no longer think so. Today, our country, like our banks, has a problem of global trust. Unlike the banks, we have no higher power to keep things going if we screw up.

James K. Galbraith is a contributing writer for Mother Jones. His new book, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too, comes out in August.

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This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2008" /> The Foundation for National Progress

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O'Victoria, O'Victoria, O'Victoria,

So Mahound via mythical Gabriel declared American Express "sinful"?

Pay your monthly credit card bills and you will win twice i.e. no interest paid and no purse- cash needed.

And again, where are you investing your savings?

Wow Farnaz. Thanks for economics lesson.

Farnaz- I've been subscribing to Mother Jones for a long time- they have been giving us a heads up for some time.
If you don't have the physical magazine in front of you- get it- the previous article (to Foreclosure Phil)in the July-August edition called December Surprise, on p.38- gives a succinct timeline that really puts it into perpsective.
I admit my own head swims when confronted with the details associated with our economy.
Despite Susan's predictable rants against religion, this is one instance where religion has proven wiser that secualrism.
As a Muslim, I don't have any credit cards- and live within my means.
Normally-this is an occasion to be ridiculed by just about everybody.
I bet if I said this a month ago I would be barraged with a bunch of insulting posts questioning my intellegence.

FROM http://www.concordatwatch.eu/

Featured topics
What are Concordats?

These church-state accords give the Church massive state subsidies and other privileges. They can effectively force liberal Catholics to observe orthodoxy, and can disadvantage non-Catholics, as well.
Hitler's concordat (1933) : Text and background

This concordat with Nazi Germany was negotiated by Cardinal Pacelli, who in 1939 became Pius XII. In his ongoing canonisation process he has reached the venerable stage, and is now officially "heroic in virtue". Could this be a smokescreen of incense?
Côte d'Ivoire

A concordat was made especially for “the basilica in the bush”. The church is modelled on the pope's cathedral, but was planned to top it. The concordat removes money from this desperately poor country for the upkeep of the huge and empty basilica.

Prof. John M. Swomley, St. Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Missouri: “A concordat is a pact between the Vatican and a nation-state whereby the Vatican gains certain political and financial benefits in return for support of a policy or arm of the national government. Such a concordat in a nation with numerous Catholics is also helpful in getting their allegiance or in curbing opposition to the government.”

Wolfgang Huber: “[When drawing up concordats] the aims of the Church are always the same: money, influence on education and marriage laws. However, not everywhere can the maximal demands be achieved.”

“Concordats”, Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1913:
“…It were to be desired that the Church should never need concordats, and should always find in civil rulers devoted children….”

———————————————————————————
EU lawyers warn:
Concordats endanger human rights

Concordats help enforce Canon Law, the Vatican version of Sharia

Under Canon Law wife beating is no ground for divorce -- in fact, nothing is. Therefore if you've been married in a Catholic Church, which means under Canon Law, you may find that a concordat has deprived you of your right to a civil divorce. The Polish concordat phrases it with great delicacy (1993, Article 10.2), calling for the state to put in place the enabling legislation which would enforce "concordat marriage”. But the Dominican one (1954, Article 15.2) says explicitly that people married in a Catholic church, and therefore under Canon Law, may never file for a divorce.

Other concordat clauses enforce Canon Law on the employees of Church-run institutions, even though these are funded by the state. For example, the concordat with Hitler (1933, Article 24) is used to this day to fire teachers in Catholic schools if they remarry after a civil divorce.

Through these intimidated Church employees, concordats can be used to enforce Canon Law on the general public. The Slovak “conscience concordat” would have prevented doctors in Church-run hospitals from performing abortions or nurses from giving out information about family planning, since it gave them the “right” to claim that this went against their religious conscience. And, of course, if they didn't exercise this “right” to impose Canon Law on others, they'd lose their jobs. In a rural area where the only hospital may be Church-run, this can effectively limit access to what are in Slovakia perfectly legal services.

At this point legal experts appointed by the European Union put their foot down. They stated firmly that denying access to such services, Canon Law or no Canon Law, was a violation of international Human Rights. Read more...

Latest news on concordats and secularism:

● Invasion of Georgia halts concordat feelers in Belarus
However, the Vatican has covered all possible outcomes and has been giving “humanitarian aid” to the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia.

● The secret costs of papal visits
In Australia protests are mounting against the unknown bill for the Pope's July trip.

● “Multi-faithism” is bad news for women
New study shows how treating minorities as “faith communities” can harm their most vulnerable members

● The Vatican's “L’Osservatore Romano” floats seven more “mortal sins” Yet an Ivory Coast concordat abets three of them: “contributing to widening divide between rich and poor”, piling up “excessive wealth” and “creating poverty”. This concordat takes money from a land where most don't reach the age of 50.

● Church, state and money : Groundbreaking series from La Repubblica
The Vatican Secretary of State has objected to the publication of these revealing articles, but has not disputed their accuracy. Here is the entire series so far, specially translated by Graeme Hunter for Concordat Watch.
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Ryan said:
But the Catholic Church has always insisted that a thing is moral or immoral, not because of some inscrutable divine decree that has to be taken on faith alone, but because (essentially) it hurts or helps people.

This was a very thoughtful post. The one, serious problem is in how the church determines what helps or hurts people.

The Catholic church is as concerned with the "eternal" well-being of individuals and that, many times, forms an opposing view as to what helps people. Let me give you an example.

Working alongside Catholic charities in Africa are Doctors without borders. Now the good people of Catholic Charities will work tirelessly to relieve the suffering of people afflicted with AIDS. But they will not lift a finger toward distributing a condom that could very well, protect future generations from this disease.

Presumably, workers are concerned about the eternal viability of the afflicted and therefore, they believe they are "helping" them by not distributing birth control.

Doctors without Borders has no such hangups and are more concerned with helping people in this world.

My point is that even in the overall scheme of trying to help someone, the basis for your moral yardstick affects people. And even though Catholic Charities and the like are doing what they think is helping people, the fact that they give a higher priority to pleasing their imaginary friend so as to "save" someone after this world, calls into question the charitable effort.

For me, I'd take the help from Doctors without Borders because they don't saddle people with their religious beliefs.

So....How did all this happen? Under whose "(non)watch" did the economy slowly sink in the west? See Priver's post below, and take a gander at this:

Foreclosure Phil

Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown."

Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania.

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

It's not exactly like Gramm hid his handiwork—far from it. The balding and bespectacled Texan strode onto the Senate floor to hail the act's inclusion into the must-pass budget package. But only an expert, or a lobbyist, could have followed what Gramm was saying. The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

Subprime 1-2-3

Don't understand credit default swaps? Don't worry—neither does Congress. Herewith, a step-by-step outline of the subprime risk betting game. —Casey Miner

Subprime borrower: Has a few overdue credit card bills; goes to a storefront lender owned by major bank; takes out a $100,000 home-equity loan at 11 percent interest

Lending bank: Assuming housing prices will only go up, and that investors will want to buy mortgage loan packages, makes as many subprime loans as it can

Investment bank: Packages subprime mortgages into bundles called collateralized debt obligations, or cdos, then sells those cdos to eager investors. Goes to insurer to get protection for those investors, thus passing the default risk to the insurer through a "credit default swap."

Insurer: Thinking that default risk is low, agrees to cover more money than it can pay out, in exchange for a premium

Rating agency: On basis of original quality of loans and insurance policy they are "wrapped" in, issues a rating signaling certain slices of the cdo are low risk (aaa), medium risk (bbb), or high risk (ccc)

Investor: Borrows more money from investment bank to load up on cdo slices; makes money from interest payments made to the "pool" of loans. No one loses—as long as no one tries to cash in on the insurance.

It didn't quite work out that way. For starters, the legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)

But the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It's like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill—which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers—a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.

In essence, Wall Street's biggest players (which, thanks to Gramm's earlier banking deregulation efforts, now incorporated everything from your checking account to your pension fund) ran a secret casino. "Tens of trillions of dollars of transactions were done in the dark," says University of San Diego law professor Frank Partnoy, an expert on financial markets and derivatives. "No one had a picture of where the risks were flowing." Betting on the risk of any given transaction became more important—and more lucrative—than the transactions themselves, Partnoy notes: "So there was more betting on the riskiest subprime mortgages than there were actual mortgages." Banks and hedge funds, notes Michael Greenberger, who directed the cftc's division of trading and markets in the late 1990s, "were betting the subprimes would pay off and they would not need the capital to support their bets."

These unregulated swaps have been at "the heart of the subprime meltdown," says Greenberger. "I happen to think Gramm did not know what he was doing. I don't think a member in Congress had read the 262-page bill or had thought of the cataclysm it would cause." In 1998, Greenberger's division at the cftc proposed applying regulations to the burgeoning derivatives market. But, he says, "all hell broke loose. The lobbyists for major commercial banks and investment banks and hedge funds went wild. They all wanted to be trading without the government looking over their shoulder."

Now, belatedly, the feds are swooping in—but not to regulate the industry, only to bail it out, as they did in engineering the March takeover of investment banking giant Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase, fearing the firm's collapse could trigger a dominoes-like crash of the entire credit derivatives market.

No one in Washington apologizes for anything, so it's no surprise that Gramm has failed to issue any mea culpa. Post-Enron, says Greenberger, the senator even called him to say, "You're going around saying this was my fault—and it's not my fault. I didn't intend this."

Whether or not Gramm had bothered to ponder the potential downsides of his commodities legislation, having helped set off an industry free-for-all, he reaped the rewards. In 2003, he left the Senate to take a highly lucrative job at ubs, Switzerland's largest bank, which had been able to acquire investment house PaineWebber due to his banking deregulation bill. He would soon be lobbying Congress, the Fed, and the Treasury Department for ubs on banking and mortgage matters. There was a moment of poetic justice when ubs became one of the subprime crisis' top losers, writing down $37 billion as of this spring—an amount equal to its previous four years of profits combined. In a report explaining how it had managed to mess up so grandly, ubs noted that two-thirds of its losses were the fault of collateralized debt obligations—securities backed largely by subprime instruments—and that credit default swaps had been "key to the growth" of its out-of-control cdo business. (Gramm declined to comment for this article.)

Gramm's record as a reckless deregulator has not affected his rating as a Republican economic expert. Sen. John McCain has relied on him for policy advice, especially, according to the campaign, on housing matters. The two have been buddies ever since they served together in the House in the 1980s; in 1996, McCain chaired Gramm's flop of a presidential campaign. (Gramm spent $21 million and earned only 10 delegates during the gop primaries.) In 2005, McCain told a Wall Street Journal columnist that Gramm was his economic guru. Two years later, Gramm wrote a piece for the Journal extolling McCain as a modern-day Abraham Lincoln, and he's hailed McCain's love of tax cuts and free trade. Media accounts have identified Gramm as a contender for the top slot at the Treasury Department if McCain reaches the White House. "If McCain gets in," frets Lynn Turner, a former chief sec accountant, "we'll have more of the same deregulatory mess. I like John McCain, but given what I know about Phil Gramm, I wouldn't vote for McCain."

As a thriving bank exec and presidential adviser, Gramm has defied a prime economic principle: Bad products are driven out of the market. In John McCain, he has gained an important customer, so his stock has gone up in value. And there's no telling when the Gramm bubble will burst.

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington, D.C. bureau chief.

MotherJones.com / News / Feature

You take the people from the WSJ five years back, put them down in Washington to push buttons at the Post and you end up with another decade of trouble and the fraud pays millions of dollars for loyalty to fraud. You can't lose faith, you got to run with it. News dorks sux and the numbers go down from their fraud. More trouble ahead for you millionaires and we aren't bailing you. They don't have time to read this or the other thing too. They'll be weeping though. Money can't save you, faith always does.

I'm walking this morning and the cars are coming right at me. I have faith they are going to make the bend and not run me down. You never know, you have to trust the woman behind the wheel even if you don't know the woman. Then there's the gun problem. Some gang bang type goes by, he can shoot you down and keep going. Never too be seen again. People control their cars without legislation and people control their guns without legislation. Today I was reading about gun control and the new laws are looking more open to reason. Faith is a powerful idea. You have to believe that people will act in their best interests and killing somebody in cold blood isn't in your best interest. Murder is illegal, so restrictive gun laws won't stop it. They will make it more difficult to defend yourself. You outlaw guns and only outlaws have guns. Now the problem appears to be tracing guns. Even if a gun can be traced, you never know who had access to the gun and what it was used for and who used it. You end up with manufactured evidence because records can be manipulated to suit a particular objective. You never know, so you have to have faith in the unknowns. There are unknown unknowns too, so it's not always cut and dry. There's always wet work to do and those guns shoot water. We could burn the Constitution, but I don't think that is an option. Never refuse an option when you can get it and never fire at somebody who doesn't deserve it. They might fire back and burn down your house of cards. Be nice to each other and stay locked and loaded. And try to have a little faith in the goodness in people. We all need charity, we all don't need guns. People still have faith in guns to solve problems and the best gun is one you don't need because the pen solves the problem. Not everyone respects the badge, everyone respects the gun. The pen, that's a whole nother story. People are trying to rewrite history and tell you what you can't do and where you can't do it. You know what you can do and you know where you can do it. It's always open season on something. It seems it's open season on the Constitution and we are waiting for instructions from Washington.

I have my own ideas and opinions. They are working on centralizing the nuclear weapons command. That will make it easier for a few people or one person to push a button. It's decentralized to make it hard to launch an attack. Now they want that to be easier and for it to be harder to legally carry a gun. There's lots of triggers out there. Weapons that can kill millions are getting easier and guns are being restricted. The same people bailing out the scum are now working on making our jobs more difficult as if it wasn't difficult enough. We get to pay and then we get to have our rights dictated to us from Washington. It's open season. Don't get nuked.

I just found a new goal, so the day is looking better already. Atleast for my faith dollar. You guys are on your own.

"What other firms are going to collapse?"
Lately I've been running on faith.

The Associated Press erroneously reported that analysts have cited banks including Washington Mutual Inc., National City Corp., and Fifth Third Bancorp. as being at risk for failure. Analysts actually described these banks as being in trouble because of their exposure to failed mortgages.

There are no bad risks, because without risk there is no reward. If there were no risks, we wouldn't need insurance. We wouldn't need firefighters either. We need both as reality would have it. The government is giving billions to failed firms and yet the firefighter has to volunteer, then rush into a burning building to save somebody they don't even know. That takes faith. We will see who gets burned today. Nat City looks nasty for a number of reasons. Charity is a two way street. We all need charity, some for the giving and some for the taking. I need a coffee.

*Did I miss something ?*
Correct sentence; *Did I miss anything ?*

Yes,you did.

*Sukuk market* collapsed,Bloomberg TV said.

It may also be my problem, but where are all the religionistos and self-righteous atheists in this Phil Gramm scandal? AS Congressional errors and slimy doings were underway?

This Phil Gramm stuff is not new. Where was the "media" lo these many years? Any chance of us holding them accountable any time soon?

In the meantime, how about asking them to tell us about Thaksin? When is he going home?

Now, it could just be me. But I do wonder why all the moral, believing Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc., as well all the ethical atheists out there do not recall that they are their brother's keepers.

The Thai people are our brothers. They want the dictator Thaksin returned to Thailand. They want the amoral Swiss to turn over Thaksin's bank accounts. Where is the outcry? Did I miss something?

Bursa Efek Jakarta plunged.
Bursa Malaysia/FBM 100 slumped 236 point.

Ah, the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist never fails. On and on about economics and world politics but nothing about the flaws and errors of Islam that 24/7 impact said economics and world politics. Again, it must be those Islamic blogwatching goons that are hindering her freedom to respond. Maybe she could respond in some kind of Gabriel code??

Whoops!

I believe it is a football team that the thieving human rights violator, Thaksin, now living in luxury in Britain, with Thai wealth, owns.

Fact is, the nuclear industry has long had more capacity than they use. They just want to keep the prices up and not update for safety in less-profitable areas. So much for 'too cheap to meter,' eh?

This is the capitalist paradox in a nutshell as it were. Slash and burn. Go for the immediate profit. Don't worry about reaction, war, in this case nuclear waste, nuclear waste. Don't think ahead with morgtages for all. Never consider retooling, no matter the product. The people turned against nuclear power for excellent reasons, and it is going to take a lot to bring them back. The oil interests and oil invested media will also have to get an answer to the WIFME question.

In Obama's most recent comments on the current crisis, he mentioned the need for regulations or lack thereof to keep up with changing times. An excellent point, but a new take on things for him, and capitalist bureaucracies thrive on inertia. Once a process like degulation is in place, it is difficult to push vested interests out of the way to regregulate.

IN fact, what Obama is getting at is FDR style reform, and possibly oversight. This is a welcome change from said candidate's earlier pronouncements, but skeptic that I am, I'll believe it when I see it. In the interim, those of you who have read Priver's post and the terrifying Mother Jones piece to which I provided a link may want to give thought to people like Phil Gramm and a Congress that doesn't read the bills and addenda it approves.

It is not only a question of reregulation, but of overseeing the behavior of Congress, perhaps, by independent commissions designed for that purpose. This would be helpful in eliminating those disgusting earmarks.

Once, this house is, if not clean, at least a little neater, time to move on to the IMF and World Bank. Good reading is Confessions of an Economic Hitman by Perkins and Perkins other books. I also know two World Bank Employees, well placed. Their struggles to do something for the wretched of the earth are worth hearing, their unpublished letters to the Times and to WaPo worth reading if they haven't yet found a print audience.

Arminius,

Just wanted to clarify something. When I accused the media of numbing and dumbing, an accusation I stand by firmly, of creating an audience of children, I certainly didn't mean to include you in that category.

Last word on the BBC. The BBC provides better international coverage than our media does, of course. HOwever, it is no less corrupt and interested.

At my urgent request, friends from Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, are taping BBC broadcasts, sending me the tapes. I'm comparing them with BBC broadcasts here. Duplicitous, corrupt, you name it, it's all there. All of this is to be expected, of course.

"As for over here, Thailand got its third prime minister in two weeks and Malaysia in still in a state of political flim flam and economic flux."

Thailand's goonish prime minister, Thaksin, is in England with much of his country's wealth invested in said country, including a baseball time. See my post below. Thailand, whose economy is worsening daily, has repeatedly asked the Brits for the return of said goon, Thaksin. People have settled outside the presidential mansion, or equivalent, as they are losing their homes and jobs.

The BBC, true to form, a bit ahead of our media in this sense, has reported that Thaksin has "no plans" to return to Thailand. As I reported, the Thai government and people did not ask for Thaksin to "plan." They want the British government to return Thaksin to Thailand, as would be expected of a civilized nation, a member of the community of nations to do.

"(repetition is good for the mind and soul!!!)"

"As you so ably show, the beauty of this stratagem is that it confuses each generation anew."

Mary Cunningham,

Good morning and thanks for your post.

I am always hoping your post/s will not be all, or the last from you in any On Faith threads, even here in this thread.

Come now, organised online mugging is nothing. You are in financial services like me. We have ice water in our system, not warm blood. On Faith is like the markets with some excitable, hubristic or herd mentality fellows thrown in to induce blog panic and chaos.

I am pleasantly surprised to know you started out as a currency trader like me. My parents were less than delighted as your mother was, and my siblings cheekily took to calling me pisau cukur ~ razor blade. Obviously not a flattering label, and I moved to investment banking. I must admit being on the floor gave me a rush one would get in performing an extreme sport.

I toyed with becoming an independent like you, but moved to Islamic banking and financial services instead. Nick Leeson and Barings Bros. was a reality check for me. What the currency traders and speculators did to cause 1997/98 Asian Crisis was also a wake up call and a defining time for me.

I am happy with my switch to Islamic banking and financial services. Only problem is, over the years, the portfolio got bigger and bigger and am now bunching them into easily moveable packages. I did not expect non Muslim Asians to take to it. They now comprise almost 50%of my clients.

I am not quite fond hedgies or LBO specialists or arbs. A lawyer friend call them rapists, vultures, gamblers and speculators in the markets. A lawyer saying that? She is a divorce lawyer. Oh, some financial institutions and mutual funds are finding out how much it cost them to loan to these species.

Ah.."empty stable regulation" and the 10 year panic cycles, eh? The last being in Asia in 1997/98 and now in the west, or rather mostly in UK and US, and the global markets feeling the pinch instead now?

Oh, do not get me started on busts, both minor and major, self induced or induced. And on the predictable reactions with terms like "systemic risk" being articulated to Explain What Went Wrong And What Must Be Done, and not done enough eventually. Deja vu.

This US elections is getting more and more coverage here. Most media pieces on it like Obama. However, most of my clients prefer a Republican Adminstration rather than a Democratic one. One is business friendly and focussed for profits. The other is people friendly and focussed on human rights and well being. That, in a nutshell, is what most of my clients think. They are people in business with their eye on the bottom line.

As for over here, Thailand got its third prime minister in two weeks and Malaysia in still in a state of political flim flam and economic flux. Third world politics is never boring. Blood in the streets. Blood in the blogs. The economy bled. The people stunned but not speechless in their anger and/or hunger for oil, for things, for truth, for justness, for justice, for sanity, for peace, for stability that has now become rarer and costlier in every way.

Got to go.

Regards
J

spiderman2 is a writer for landoverbaptist.org

It was a democrat-turned republican (Phil Gramm) who sponsored the The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and it was a democrat president Bill Clinton who signed it into law. I think it is because of that law why the price of oil can be dictated by speculators including the price of many goods like rice.

I think and I hope by now, McCain has seen the stupidity of this guy. On the other hand, the Dems still think drilling is not important and nuclear power is out of the question. Phil Gramm was a former democrat. The republicans will do well if they send him back to the Dems where he truly belongs.

Hi, Paganplace,

Indeed, the conversion of U235 into more peaceful stuff goes on. I have a good friend who is a nuclear physicist, and he is deep into this stuff. He was one of the first on the ground in Russia when we went there in the early 90's to recover a number of tons of weapon-grade uranium. He told me recently that the US has over 250 tons of U235 from various sources, and is converting it as we write here.

Strange he didn't recommend that, CCNL, what, like saying,

"Currently, much of the uranium used by the United States is coming from mines in such countries as Australia, Canada, Namibia and, most recently, Kazakhstan. Small amounts are mined in the western United States, but the United States is largely reliant on overseas supplies. The United States also relies on Russia for half its fuel, under a "swords to ploughshares" deal that Neff originated in 1991. This deal is converting about 20,000 Russian nuclear weapons to fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants, but it ends in 2013, leaving a substantial supply gap for the United States."

From the post below yours.

Bush actually cut back on purchases through that program when the former Soviet Union was more cash-poor and tractable about it, (not to mention more apt to let nuclear materials fall into the wrong hands cause the military people guarding the stuff weren't getting paid any too regularly...)

But, in fact, the conversion of nuclear weapons to fuel has been ongoing for quite some time.

Is *Russia* going to be interested in giving us second chances on missed opportunities at this point? Not looking that way.

Fact is, the nuclear industry has long had more capacity than they use. They just want to keep the prices up and not update for safety in less-profitable areas. So much for 'too cheap to meter,' eh?

Hmmm, we might just have to dismantle a few atomic bombs to power our nuclear plants. Sounds like a great idea for a lot of reasons. Strange that the MIT expert did not recommend that.

Lack of fuel may limit U.S. nuclear power expansion

March 21, 2007

Limited supplies of fuel for nuclear power plants may thwart the renewed and growing interest in nuclear energy in the United States and other nations, says an MIT expert on the industry.

Over the past 20 years, safety concerns dampened all aspects of development of nuclear energy: No new reactors were ordered and there was investment neither in new uranium mines nor in building facilities to produce fuel for existing reactors. Instead, the industry lived off commercial and government inventories, which are now nearly gone. Worldwide, uranium production meets only about 65 percent of current reactor requirements.

That shortage of uranium and of processing facilities worldwide leaves a gap between the potential increase in demand for nuclear energy and the ability to supply fuel for it, said Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at MIT's Center for International Studies.

"Just as large numbers of new reactors are being planned, we are only starting to emerge from 20 years of underinvestment in the production capacity for the nuclear fuel to operate them. There has been a nuclear industry myopia; they didn't take a long-term view," Neff said. For example, only a few years ago uranium inventories were being sold at $10 per pound; the current price is $85 per pound.

Neff has been giving a series of talks at industry meetings and investment conferences around the world about the nature of the fuel supply problem and its implications for the so-called "nuclear renaissance," pointing out both the sharply rising cost of nuclear fuel and the lack of capacity to produce it.

Currently, much of the uranium used by the United States is coming from mines in such countries as Australia, Canada, Namibia and, most recently, Kazakhstan. Small amounts are mined in the western United States, but the United States is largely reliant on overseas supplies. The United States also relies on Russia for half its fuel, under a "swords to ploughshares" deal that Neff originated in 1991. This deal is converting about 20,000 Russian nuclear weapons to fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants, but it ends in 2013, leaving a substantial supply gap for the United States.

Further, China, India and even Russia have plans for massive deployments of nuclear power and are trying to lock up supplies from countries on which the United States has traditionally relied. As a result, the United States could be the "last one to buy, and it could pay the highest prices, if it can get uranium at all," Neff said. "The take-home message is that if we're going to increase use of nuclear power, we need massive new investments in capacity to mine uranium and facilities to process it."

Mined uranium comes in several forms, or isotopes. For starting a nuclear chain reaction in a reactor, the only important isotope is uranium-235, which accounts for just seven out of 1,000 atoms in the mined product. To fuel a nuclear reactor, the concentration of uranium-235 has to be increased to 40 to 50 out of 1,000 atoms. This is done by separating isotopes in an enrichment plant to achieve the higher concentration.

As Neff points out, reactor operators could increase the amount of fuel made from a given amount of natural uranium by buying more enrichment services to recover more uranium-235 atoms. Current enrichment capacity is enough to recover only about four out of seven uranium-235 atoms. Limited uranium supplies could be stretched if industry could recover five or six of these atoms, but there is not enough processing capacity worldwide to do so.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/fuel-supply.html

For more on the substance of Priver's post:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html

Scary stuff.

As a layperson, I couldn't say with any certainty I had any understanding of what this whole wall street mess meant.. Until I listened to the radio.

What I learned scared me. Somebody was taking bets on whether or not all those sub prime folks would be able to pay back their loans. They took so many bets about people that they bundled them together with the loans themselves and sold them to other companies. Made those other companies sign very complicated contracts that even an executive for Lehman Brothers themselves said their own bosses didn't know what they were signing. (and just for speaking out, was fired promptly the next day). Somebody went to the insurance companies and got them to underwrite these transactions without calling it 'insurance' in order to avoid regulation, so they didn't have to follow any rules.

Somebody made a MINT on these transactions. The regulators were nowhere in sight. Anyone who noticed problems were shut up, shut out or fired. The companies that are supposed to rate these investment companies gave them higher ratings than they should have because the ones asking them to do this was... the Wall street firms that they were supposed to be regulating. The fox guarding the henhouse.

One of those somebodies was Phil Gramm. Yes, the Texas senator good old boy was the one who convinced the insurance companies to be complicit in this. Who got insurance companies to guarantee payments on these bets with disregard to the rules.

The SAME Phill Gramm whose own wife sat on the commodities commission when the first steps to deregulate the industry were taken at the tail end of the Clinton years. And approved such measures.

The same Phill Gramm that is one of the leading, if not THE leading economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate McCain. The same one who calls us a 'Nation of Whiners.'

While he is by no means the ONLY person involved in this.. it's really striking to me as a layperson and registered voter how much I keep hearing his name come up over and over again.

People better wake up and smell the danger here.
Gramm was involved in this and is now involved in McCain's campaign. McCain, by the way, who with his formidable number of years in the Senate was in a position to do something about this.. and didn't.

People better demand a President who has a firm grasp of economic policy. McCain has admitted already that it's not his 'strong suit'. Can we afford four more years of 'not my job'?

Palin is WAY out of her league here. She is no more qualified to hold executive office than I am. I've had illnesses longer than she's been in office.

We HAVE to get back to the issues in this election. People's lives are at stake here. Our financial collective futures are on the line here.

I am a layperson.. but if I can understand this, why can't other people look past the 'lipstick on pigs' and really get back to what matters here?

What is happening to our country??

Dear Mary Cunningham,

Before something,let me write a little about the markets.
Wall Street collapsed.375 points down.FED unchanged rates and leaved 2.00.To me,it was very bad decision and I posted Wash.Post Journal yesterday *stocks may tumble* and now I am right.

Dear M.Cunningham,

You were a currency trader.Pound is 1.7879 at this moment.What do you predict about GBP-USD.Do you advice *short-selling* or to buy.Shall Pound continue to *free-fall* or jump/rebound/top 2.00 USD ?

Book of God which had been written by Human Matthew says;
*Jesus says,Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth* Matthew 6:19
But,what are those Catholic Banco Amgrosiano and Vatican Bank ?

How can we interprete Vatican Bank and Matthew 6:19 ?

Dem don't want to drill, don't want nuclear power, don't like imported oil. Waht would they want to do in the meantime that we're still looking for alternatives? What? Abort babies?

Here's a quote from a demoratic blog : http://dispatch.thirdway.org/articles/2008/01/17/the-democrats-nuclear-free-zones

---

" John Edwards led the charge: “I am not for it [nuclear power] or agnostic. I am against building more nuclear power plants, because I do not think we have a safe way to dispose of the waste. I think they’re dangerous, they’re great terrorist targets and they’re extraordinarily expensive. They are not, in my judgment, the way to green this—to get us off our dependence on oil.”

" Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton dismissed nuclear power from our future with this: “I have a comprehensive energy plan that I have put forth. It does not rely on nuclear power for all of the reasons that we’ve discussed.”

"But back to the politicians. The leading Republican candidates, to their credit, have been almost universally supportive of nuclear power. McCain mentions it favorably on his website, as does Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani. (Fred Thompson doesn’t, and he questions climate change, so he’s every bit the loser you thought he was.) "

---

Spiderman2,

I was expecting more of a case from you. I've visited many websites (conservative and liberal alike) and I've read what they had to say. I was asking YOU for specifics, not rhetoric.

Come on, please give me a viable counter argument.

Irischermann, visit any liberal democrat blog sites and see for yourself. Anti drilling, anti nuke power, anti everything except abortion.

Im not a fan of Bush. He makes many errors. But the errors of the Dems are insurmountable. They always top his idiocy.

Jihadist

This will be all from me here. It's a faith blog, the atheist post, and we are talking about Mammon.

It's so easy to yell "greed", but--hey!--we all are prone to greed, it's one of the seven deadly sins, isn't it? Yours truly is somewhat susceptible to profiteroles and has the waistline to prove it (that plus the children). So you get lefties screaming "greed" when the biggest practicioners of these "greedy acts" are--guess what--lefties! Well, the hedgies are the major contributors to the Dem. party which is probably not the same thing.

Anyway, what we have here is what the economist John Kay calls "empty stable regulation", which is pretty self-explanatory; we've had a panic every ten years or so since the LatAm default in 1981, 89 the S&L plus Drexel, 98 LTCM plus emerging markets, 08 Leh, FNMA, AIG, and God knows who else when this one's all over. And what happened was the regulators fixed the empty stable problem but the rocket scientists just moved on to the next 'opportunity' and did it even bigger and better before the next bust. Then they cried "systemic risk", the authorities step in, and the whole cycle starts all over again. (When I was managing big time--thank God, I have only a very few a/cs now, being independent--I used to have a motto: if an investment bank tries to sell you something, DON'T BUY!)

Is it involved with morality? I don't know. My mother--the Lord have mercy on her--was the sweetest, most devout Catholic you could ever want to meet and when I told her I was a currency trader (which I was when I started) she looked a wee bit shocked. I moved into management as soon as I could afterwards but even then she kept referring to my brother Con who was a doctor, doing good rather than doing money.

Anyway, in regards to the US election I don't think it favours either candidate. This will not spread to Main Street (unless Main Street is in NYC) and most of the Leh culprits and other Masters of the Universe are Dems! Not religious folk. And they live in NY and Conn, not the South. Merrill Lynch was rescued by a firm called Bank of America, but it was acquired some years back by Nationsbank, a VERY conservative No. Carolina bank. I used to love to buy their debt, not that they had very much. You could hear the Southern accent in Ken Lewis's voice, so I guess the old guard is still around. So you see the 'saviour' here is a Southern (maybe religious?) Republican, whilst the wrongdoers were Northern Democrats, (although John Thain of MER is a Republican and IMHO behaved very honourably.)

That's all, J. (I still remember your kind actions when F and co. organised that online mugging which is why I am extremely reluctant to post here.)

Regards,
Mary C.

Your AU,

You speak about the following flaws and errors of the contemporary religions?? (repetition is good for the mind and soul!!!)

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a
mythical character as was mythical Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

Current crisis:
Realization that the Jews are not god's not chosen people.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. www. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

Current crises:

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

Current crises:

Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology. .

4. Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/ plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/ mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.

And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

Current crises:

The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’."
The caste/laborer system and cow worship/reverence are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

Current crises:

The caste system and cow worship/reverence.

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."
"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life. e.g. Buddha by one legend was supposedly talking when he came out of his mother's womb.

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies, and myths surrounding the founders and foundations of said rules of life.

Evidence and rationality aren't Spidey's strong point. Emotional tirades are.

SPIDERMAN2:
Not only they are against drilling, Democrats are also against nuclear power. These people complain too much but does not think much. They are against anything except aborting babies. They never thought that having sex makes them pregnant. What a weird set of people.
------------------------
Really? Is that so? It sounds like you're insinuating Democrats are against ANYTHING that will help the people.

Do you have sources you can cite and evidence to prove this claim or is this just an emotional generalization?

Sounds like the latter but, please, prove me wrong. I'd like to hear your case.

My Dearest Concerned Christian,

I see your progress with "deflawing" the writings about The Enemy progresses. Particularly your quest for the "historical Jesus". My most excellent and superior predecessor was very clear upon the excellence of this strategy:

"Now this idea must be used by us to encourage once again the conception of a "historical Jesus" to be found by clearing away later "accretions and perversions," and then to be contrasted with the whole Christian tradition. In the last generation we promoted the construction of such a "historical Jesus" on liberal and humanitarian lines. We are now putting forward a new "historical Jesus" on Marxian, catastrophic and revolutionary lines. The advantages of these constructions, which we intend to change every thirty years or so, are manifold."

--- Screwtape letter 23 - 1942 - Through Clive Sinclair Lewis.

As you so ably show, the beauty of this stratagem is that it confuses each generation anew.

Not only they are against drilling, Democrats are also against nuclear power. These people complain too much but does not think much. They are against anything except aborting babies. They never thought that having sex makes them pregnant. What a weird set of people.

SPIDERMAN2 wrote:

Here's a news clip why the Dems are the scourge of this country.
" The House voted late Tuesday to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore.

Democratic leaders called it a step toward energy independence, but Republicans labeled it a "SHAM" because most of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil believed to lie below off-limits coastal waters are within 50 miles of land and will remain out of bounds. "
------------------------
I find it ironic when I read critics moan about how we aren't allowed to have off-shore drilling because of the bleeding-heart Liberals but when atomic energy is suggested I hear these same people scream 'not in MY backyard!' Atomic energy is a clean, safe energy source used by other countries, one of them being Japan, a country whom we attacked with atomic bombs no less.

Drilling for more oil is clearly a stop-gap solution, no matter which party supports it.

understanding the big picture.

in a$ juchristiansecularcapitalistic$ society ,the grand schism between the church of christianity and the church of secularism need to be hi,ly addressed.

people are schismed between the pure morality and ideals of christianity and the practical live values and ideals of secularism , so far secularism got the upper hands if it,s not the way the truth and life (i,m not a secular nor i,m in support of secularism but rather descriping a fact of life).

1-juchristianity lack any divine laws ,the scripture doesnot even put a certain shape or a character to the upper authority who they call god,there is no constitution ,there is no civil laws ,no state laws ,no mechanism in applying and enforceing any laws ,in order to come with a decree you need a secular legislator and in order to apply the decree you need a secular executives .

2-juchristianity paradigim if (divine )then apply the divine laws in life if not then staying in the church box is much honorable much beneficial to the society.

3-secularcapitalistic paradigim need only secularcapitalistic laws, you cannot tell people laise faire laise pass$ and on the same breath tell them do not use usury or stop gambling or do not sell beer and alchoholics?life paradigim need to contain all the society ,pure love wd,not do it pure faith need practical and life mechanism .the species would not survive on pure love ,you need hammer in order to drive the nail .

4-the wealth and accumlating of the wealth is the way the truth and life in any secularcapitalistic society, in sharp disregard to the even common values and morality of any decent humanbeing .

5-separation between the church or the place of worship in general and the state or life in general is the problem not the solution ,the 2 gears need to be meshed in order for the ship to sail .

6-the above doesnot contadict the right of the people by the people and for the people slogan and tatoo,if people do not rise up and solve their problems then who ?it start at the people any way.

And again the Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist fails to address the basic flaws and errors of Islam so eloquently noted by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Sir Salman Rushdie. Why is that? Fear of Malaysian, Islamic blogwatch goons?? Yes indeed!!!

If she ever does get out from under the goon watch, she should follow that with comments on the effect of Isalamic terror on global economics starting with the Sunni-Shiite, 800-year blood feud presently being carried out in the Middle East.

Hi Janet,

Thanks for the kind words. I enjoy your posts, too.

Farnaz

Pseudo, son of Phoebus, Jihadist speaks truth. Your verse is inspired by heavenly muse. With dollars to dust, no government to trust, songs sent from Pseudo
sound with Kindness.

With appreciation,
Farnaz

Here's a news clip why the Dems are the scourge of this country.

" The House voted late Tuesday to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore.

Democratic leaders called it a step toward energy independence, but Republicans labeled it a "SHAM" because most of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil believed to lie below off-limits coastal waters are within 50 miles of land and will remain out of bounds. "

Hello Pseudo

I agree with Farnaz on your talent. You should publish verses, but not the ones you casually and toss in On Faith without breaking any sweat.

And you are always such a cool, cool soul in these sometimes hot, hot On Faith threads.

Yes, why else are we given a mind never still and seeking the truth will not take us to hell.

Best regards and good night you time zone.

J

Here's a news clip why the Dems are the scourge of this country.

" The House voted late Tuesday to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore.

Democratic leaders called it a step toward energy independence, but Republicans labeled it a "SHAM" because most of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil believed to lie below off-limits coastal waters are within 50 miles of land and will remain out of bounds. "

Jihadist,

"Can I, may I, join in a wee bit? I am the one going to hell as a believer for this."

I think that our God, or Allah if you will,
Does embrace seeking truth with all of your skill
Why else are we given a mind never still?
I think truth rings out as clear as a bell
And seeking it will not take us to hell.

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated: Too many houses, too many condos, too many apartments, too many offices, too many shopping centers, too many brokers, too many banks, too many mortgages, too many speculators !!! And the correction begins!!!

Aye. Have no family planning. Ban abortion. Have more babies, therefore more people to fill up houses, condos, apartments, offices, shopping centres. More people more demand to fill the oversupply. And the market correction begins.

This is Concynomics?.

Veritas

"It is a mortal sin to lend money for interest.
You are not a Christian if you do so."

The tale of the Talents is abundantly clear
That to bury your money, not grow it by year

Shows not to your credit when accounting is made
And your work as a steward just won't make the grade

The scriptures you see are a splendorous thing
But there's many a truth that at times they will sing

Farnaz-

You're amazing, not just because of what you know, but because of how you put it together. No BS. You can't abide lying and self-deceit. You should be a panelist here and give us a break from the junk. Otherwise, start your own blog. I mean it. People are fed up with the crap.

Janet

Bittersweet, but freedom feels good, goodbye

The black evil cat is out of the bag, a bit early don't you think?? God Love the spirit of discernment. Hope you are ready for what was reserved for last, I am!

Mary Cunningham,

Time zone differences aside, do come back. Share some more of your thoughts on the global financial mess.

I have only got around to reading Paul Gray"s Black Mass last month. Any comments on this book?

Regards

J

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pseudo: God did not create the food shortage. God did not create global warming, raise gasoline prices.

Can I, may I, join in a wee bit? I am the one going to hell as a believer for this.

Of course God created the food shortage as God did not send us manna from heaven, nor multiply the loaves and fishes, nor make the Sahara and the Gobi desert bloom.

Of course God created global warming so we will have new lands devoid of ice in the Antartica so we can plant rice, corn and wheat there.

Of course God raised gasoline prices so we will try really, really, really hard to make solar and wind and water power effective and cheap.

Of course God caused the Dow to Dive 500 Points on Banking Turmoil to make us shiver for a few hours or a few days, we forget and our greed got the better fo us in the global markets.

There will always be bears, both American and non, to swoop in and pick up the low price stocks and drive the market up again a bit more. Ups and downs, for hours or days or weeks or months or years, is the only constant in the marketplace nowadays.

If the market is down somewhere, all the money pulled out has to go somewhere else.

Regards

J

Three doors down are foolish, they beleive in myths. Don't beleive in their white trailer trash of evil........relate, brother.......get the fuc* off the boat if you can't handle the ride, but don't be a liar, cheat, and a deceiver, because in the end it WILL BITE YOU IN THE AS*. WAR IT IS HOPE YOU ARE PREPARED FOR THE PAST TO BE PUT IN FUTURE SENSE FOR ALL TO SEE.....GOTTA LOVE THOSE NEWSPAPERS, BIGMONEY, YEA, YEA, MAN!!!!!!

Jihadist:

Some of us here just abuse our free speech
Not knowing its price, or the lessons you teach

They tell us that freedom is not always free
If you've always had freedom that's not easy to see

Your personal courage I really admire
And to such resolve we all can aspire.

Google it tells us the sources you use
Your little web spider finds nothing that's news.
The bandwidth it takes to cut and to paste
Is really a terrible terrible waste.

I'm also not sure why my name you repeat
'Cause Repeating your self is redundant and cheap.

'cause these blogs are myopic
when they switch the topics

I thought I would say it again:

Insightful Farnaz:

"People warn against diversionary tactics such as Dominionism, exploited to keep us busy and arguing.

God did not create the food shortage. God did not create global warming, raise gasoline prices, or
cause this:

Dow Dives 500 Points on Banking Turmoil"

You tell us right rightly fear mongering feeds
A panic that serves some political needs

They feed some distractions to the heated factions
and in all the noise, the key facts get no traction.

When faith is exploited for politics' sake
Often appearances are a roving fake

Sorry no time to comment right now. Too busy worrying if I can afford enough gas to get to work tomorrow. Even my atheist friends are praying that they will win the lottery and get a free pass to the McCain/Bush tax bracket.

Just think, no capital gains tax, no tax on corporate dividends, no inheritance tax. I guess some people are too rich to ever pay taxes!

Hi Arminius,

No need to apologize. I realize that what I wrote was hard to believe, but you know what? A significant number of local stations are also being kept from the worst sites. Americans are often fed a load of garbage, just as other nations are. The difference is that we tend to question it. We lost that ability somewhere down the line.

In some ways, we've lost our sense of perspective, of judgment. It was clear from the beginning that we should never have gone to Iraq, that it posed no threat to us. It was painful to watch Colin Powell prostituting himself at the UN. But what was truly amusing was the left's calling upon France's condemnation of our involvement. FRance?! France was using Iraq as its playground. Didn't want to share, understandably.

The point is we have a lazy, cowardly, corrupt media that manufactures its audience. When people are all but shut out from the truth in all its complexity, they believe what they read and hear. When what they read and hear is intended for children, they act like children. The New York Times estimates its reading level to be at the 9th grade. I know. I called to inquire. You can do the same.

I, then, brought it to our REading Dept. which reported that it was more like 8.5, that is 8.5 2008, which, I was assured, is pitiful indeed.

Mary Cunningham,

Hello, hello, hello. Good to see you here. Did not notice your posts below before. Economics is not a sexy subject. Gini coff... what? Keynesian economics?

The seemier and irresponsible side of international economics, international/transnational financial enterprises and the Bretton Woods institutions in your posts here? Yes, it can be quite unethical and reckless when driven by personal unquenched greed.

Greenspan? The fellow who opined on the "irrational exuberance" of the markets and the markets splat a bit? This must be some sort of remedial or corrective action by Greenspan in place of real regulations and actions to control the overheating markets and inflationary economy a bit.

The LTCM case, is, well, a case study. The Bretton Woods institutions tut, tut and tsk, tsk Asian governments during the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 not to bail out their direly affected financial institutions, inploding businesses and exploding in rage populations due to economic hardship. Then the US government bailed out LTCM stating it is doing so to ensure there by so economic and social fallouts.

As for Schumpeter and his term, "creative destruction", a certain Anwar Ibrahim, during the 1997/98 Asian economic crisis, called for the "gale of creative destruction" of the Asian economies and to bring in political and social reforms. The gale to cleanse Asian businesses of corynism, corruption etc. To make businessses more moral and less greedy. Turns out to be more like a tsunami. And he was wrong. And the Bretton Woods institutions were wrong too as admitted by Robert Stiglitz in his "Globalisation and its Discontents". One remedy to fit all is not quite right.

Now on to Paul Krugman......and let us leave at that for a moment. Krugman is an economist. Stiglitz is an economist. Anwar Ibrahim is not an economist. How could he have known, before shooting off his mouth, that the so called market forces, including financial markets, well, can be forced into a certain route for profits by those who know how and have the funds and nerve or hubris to do so without getting caught, until they lose billions. Then, they get caught. Then it is bail out time.

Yes, it is high stakes gambling with other peoples money. You steal a chicken, you get jail time. You lose billions, you only get terminated of your job or punished with community service for 18 months. You obviously cheat your clients, you will get jail time if your lawyers cannot get you out of your bind.

Such very moral and equitable punishments for markets masters of the universe and the gods of gooey money and deities of dubious financial instruments.

What is not mentioned is "moral choices", if we are to say there is one in the markets. Obvious example, moving funds away from a politically splitting and economically splatting country to save clients money.

A greater political and economic mess is caused for the citizens of the country of course. This may be temporary or long term depending on how the government get itself out of the morass, but the clients funds are saved. Moral choices or moral hazards? Unfortunately, for the financial institutions, it is just business and profits matters, not social well being.

Oh, there is that sposorship of the arts and funding for certain charities and NGOs to ante up corporate image as responsible citizens towards society and such. So, we get to listen to sponsored ballet and opera with cheaper ticket prices for old money pretending to have more money than they actually have, and new money having more money than they could spend with taste.

Free markets is costly for the poor. The rich only make some paper loses in the free markets.

Cheers

J

Just to make it clear, we are far from alone corruption-wise. Europe is instructive in this regard. BBC reporting on Thaksin, former prime minister of Thailand, who left, with much of his country's wealth for merry old Eng. where he owns a great deal of property, a football team, etc., should be instructive to US media on its path to perdition.

BBC reports (I kid you not) that Mr. Thaksin "has no plans to return." The Thai government has not asked him to "plan." They have asked Britain to return him to stand trial. The Thai economy is worsening daily, but why should that trouble the BBC? Did Homeini in France trouble the French media?

We are not Europeans. We do have a heritage that demands accountability. The media was stolen from the public beginning in the 1930s. Deregulation allows for monopoly. Time to get the airwaves back. Time to make the press accountable.

Before AIG goes down. I worked for AIG for awhile when I was in college. It's reach goes far beyond the borders of this nation. It not only insures, but re-insures, that is, backs up other insurance companies.

It is a mortal sin to lend money for interest.
You are not a Christian if you do so.

Hi, Farnaz,

I owe you an apology - I did not believe you about the news blackout. But I did a web search, and, sure enough, the national media has been kicked out. Local media may still report, but that could be filtered now. One theory is that the insurance giant AIG, about to have a meltdown, is being protected.

Welcome to the Benighted States of Amerika.

I did a google news search on FEMA. They do have a very low-profile presence in Texas now. They apparently are offering to help to pay hotel/motel bills for evacuated people.

Hi Arminius,

The hurricaine affected eight states. The media blackout remains. There are still people without ice and water, without electricity, with no place to go. There is great danger of disease. Texas emergency personnel have fanned out to other states. Everyone's looking for FIMA. But Bush got there in time to walk hand in hand with the mayor of Galveston. One would almost think one is watching Iran News.

If we had a media, the country would know this, among other things.

Did I say that the media was spineless, gutless? Did I forget corrupt? Find out how much some of your broadcasting fav's get for a lecture. Diane Sawyer, for instance. That would be the same Sawyer, who praised "Donnie" Rumsfeld at event after event.

Reading much about World Bank activities in the press? Ever?

Ever read about some of the big funders of Depts. of Middle East Studies? Exxon, for example?

Ever read about the number of laws BP breaks in this country? Forget about everywhere els.

Funny about gas prices. Why do I have such trouble thinking they're due only to added consumption by China and INdia? Ever been to India? Oh those gas guzzling Indians.

We're being numbed and dumbed by a corrupt government in league with a corrupt media. That would be the media that gave the Great Communicator a pass with deregulation, Iran Contra, etc.

THEY need to be held accountable.

"Vast and growing wealth disparities may violate many religious principles, but that's much less important than the fact that entrenched economic injustice is bad for society as a whole and ultimately leads to a breakdown of social consensus."

Well, gee, our corporate CEO made 8 million dollars in one day from his stock options not two months ago, and now that our stock has fallen he wants to cut jobs, and is playing a cruel and inhuman game, offering everyone over 55 the choice of either taking an miserly early retirement package or gambling that they won't be one of those laid off in his planned cuts. If you are still in your 50s you probably can't afford to take retirement, so what do you do, gamble and lose the package benefits or take the early retirement and gamble that you will somehow be able make it until Social Security kicks in? Our society is sick. Our CEOs are so used to sucking money out of the companies they head that they can't see what they are doing to America's economy. B**tards. The conservatives keep calling for cuts in Social Security benefits and Medicare costs, without proposing any replacements. They could care less how many millions of people they hurt with their policies, because the population of the US is over 300 million and rising. Who cares about a few 10s of million people here or there? What they are ignoring is that they are screwing millions of Americans who have worked all their lives for the good of American, and are being thrown aside on the trash heap. The corporate elite are the real traitors to America, and that crowd includes people like Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and John McCain, in fact the entire Republican party, since they have supported and backed the people who are responsible for the economy we have today. There is no place in a just and honest country for people like this.

Many things have been done in the name of God and the King. Some have been good. I cannot think of any at this time. Excellent article. Exactly where is Benny Hinn when he is sorely needed??

Concy pussycat!

Salman Rushdie? To keep me up to date with modern literature?

How about modern non fiction? Say, Barbarians at the Gates, Den of Thieves, The Money Machine et al with more relevance to the current worrying state of the US economy. They read like literature.

Basic belief of Islam?
Google or yahoo on the Five Pillars.

Basic beliefs of Islamonomics?
There is no God, but God.
There is no dismal economy,
but dismaying economic policies.

And how goes your Republicanomics?
As in, more tax breaks for the rich, more social services cuts for the poor.

And how goes your Crossanomics?
As in, the economy cannot possibly be resurrected, only methaphorically so.

And how goes your Palinomics?
As in, the state of the economy is God"s will.

Cheers

Farnaz,

I did a google news search on FEMA. They do have a very low-profile presence in Texas now. They apparently are offering to help to pay hotel/motel bills for evacuated people.

Speaking of irresponsible, unaccountable government and the spineless, gutless, deeply interested media that supports it, what say they about FIMA these days? That would be the same FIMA that prior to its dismantling had been a model of emergency response the world over?

What, oh champions of free speech and truth? Didn't quite hear you?

And Mary "Judge" Cunningham said unto us: "Thank you. This will be all from me on this subject."

Oh There Reality Challenged and Obfuscating Jihadist,

Still "obfusing" I see. And just how goes those basic beliefs of Islam?

Sir Salman Rushdie has an interesting view on said beliefs as noted in his book, Satanic Verses. We realize you cannot read said book for fear of stoning by the local crazy clerics and their Islamic "purity" gangs.

Therefore here is an excerpt from the book to keep you up to date with modern literature:

p. 376, paperback issue:

"The faithful lived by lawlessness, but in those years Mahound - or should one say the Archangel Gibreel? - should one say Al-Lah? - became obsessed by law.

Amid the palm-trees of the oasis Gibreel appeared to the Prophet and found himself spouting rules, rules, rules, until the faithful could scarcely bear the prospect of any more revelation, Salman said, rules about every damn thing, if a man farts let him turn his face to the wind, a rule
about which hand to use for the purpose of cleaning one's behind.

It was as if no aspect of human existence was to be left unregulated, free. The revelation - the recitation- told the faithful how much to eat, how deeply they should sleep, and which sexual
positions had received divine sanction, so that they leamed that sodomy and the missionary position were approved of by the archangel, whereas the forbidden postures included all those in which the female was on top.

Gibreel further listed the permitted and forbidden subjects of conversation, and earmarked the parts of the body which could not be scratched no matter how unbearably they might itch. He vetoed the consumption of prawns, those bizarre other-worldly creatures which no member of the faithful had ever seen, and required animals to be killed slowly, by bleeding, so that by experiencing their deaths to the full they
might arrive at an understanding of the meaning of their lives, for it is only at the moment of death that living creatures understand
that life has been real, and not a sort of dream.

And Gibreel the archangel specified the manner in which a man should be buried, and how his property should be divided, so that Salman the Persian got to wondering what manner of God this was that soundedso much like a businessman.

This was when he had the idea that
destroyed his faith, because he recalled that of course Mahound himself had been a businessman, and a damned successful one at that, a person to whom organization and rules came naturally, so
how excessively convenient it was that he should have come up with such a very businesslike archangel, who handed down the management decisions of this highly corporate, if noncorporeal, God."

Morality can be expressed simply by the saying, "we must all hang together or we will hang separately." Hanging together is the essence of morality. Those who would exploit any resource for their own benefit, without regard for the needs of others like themselves, are immoral, and have the capability to bring all of us to ruin. This is a lesson that cannot be learned in one lifetime, maybe not even in several, but it is a lesson that any educated and experienced human being knows well. What we have not yet learned is how to deal with the immoral among us when they have achieved great power, and can no longer be held morally accountable. Democratic government is the treatment we have been experimenting with.

Another topic already? Where was I? Ah, fretting about the political, economic and social woes of home.

Do I want to get started? Not at all.

Jacoby, "....entrenched economic injustice is bad for society as a whole and ultimately leads to a breakdown of social consensus."

The current predicament of Malaysia succinctly expressed, and perhaps, of the US too.

On financial institution and markets, for one, is the IMF and IBRD moral, immoral or amoral? Or were they, are they immoral moralising institutions whoring themselves to amoral commercial financial institutions?

Surely not all financial institutions and markets is amoral. They are moral and immoral. Grameen Bank is moral. Drexel Burnham Lambert is not.

Financial institutions can be immoral in some of the measures taken due to the judgment and conscience of individuals that comprise that financial institution.

Too much regulation do dampen innovations, but too little led to obvious iffy financial instruments such as found in derivitives, the black holes of the financial markets. Should have started to worry when junk bonds are marketed as high yield bonds in the seventies. Thanks to Milken.

Is the right wing deificiation of "free markets" also the deificiation of the Almighty Dollar, the Greenback God of Capitalism and Materialism? Now there are other capitalist and materialist deities out there, winning new converts and gaining in strength, the Euro for one.

It impossible to legislate away poverty with laws. But, yes, anyone who currently has faith in the American economy is a fool. Or, actually, anyone who has faith that anything effective will be done about it. It is all just firefigthing thus far, to save one financial institution after another, or not, as in the case of Drexel for one.

And anyone who has faith the government is going preventive meesures rather than offer reactive remedies as from Drexel to LCTM to Bear Sterns to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Lehman is a bigger fool.

Have faith. "It is the will of God" or "It is God's will" or ""God wills it" is very apt and true when applied to those who are greedy and got their comeuppance due their greed of course.

But, at what cost to the innocent and the trusting? At what further price the innocent, the trusting as victims has to be further victimised in paying for the cost of greed by few upon so many?

This is a case of crammed down debts, bail outs and economic woes for Americans and for the world. It is only a question of how much can that be tolerated or when will a market is abandoned as risky after being kept afloat at the risk of the lifesavers sinking along.

Religion has nothing to do with it? Perhaps not having "got" or to "get" the values and ethics lauded by religions has something to do with it. After all, quite a number in the financial institutions thinks they are the Master of the Universe. Add hubris to greed.

Cheers

J the religious non elite

Let the big global monopoly corporations kill themselves. Watch them fall apart. Cities rise and fall. We'll all need charity any old way. We're supposed to say screw charity and faith and fix the economy with computers and searchbots. Maybe we can get rid of musical instruments while we're at it. Moronic. I'm going out to shoot. Maybe if we don't help anybody, then nobody will need help either.

Consider this:

Perhaps the current economic situation is nothing less than a sign from God that we in America have focused on our wealth and possessions for far too long, and now it is time for us to rediscover love of neighbor, rather than the GDP, as what is truly important to society.

Or, I could just be saying nonsense on a Web page. You decide.

As much as the Right would love to say, 'Everyone blame yourselves and the impious for what *we did* and what *you voted for in the name of Christian values' *

...This just isn't an issue about personal morality. It's about an econonomic system looted by those who would hijack it for greed in the name of religious authority.

"It's funny what people think religion and morals are about. I cannot speak about Hinduism; I know that in ancient times the Jews might have stoned someone for wearing the wrong shirt as quickly as for sleeping with the wrong man, or something like that.

But the Catholic Church has always insisted that a thing is moral or immoral, not because of some inscrutable divine decree that has to be taken on faith alone, but because (essentially) it hurts or helps people. Moral reality emerges from the fact of human consciousness engaging the world; not how a particular human sees things, but because human beings as such are capable of seeing things, and dealing with things, in rational terms - even to the point of recognizing each other as subject-actors and not mere object-means."

Really. You don't say. How interesting. And here I am thinking I know something about Judaism. And here I am thinking I know something about history. Tell me, Ryan Haber, how the concept of limpe pura fits in with your encomium. Recall the Inquisition? Yes, I know that there were two, one church sponsored and one led by Isabella, the Catholic, but then Isabella the Catholic's kill fest was headed by Catholic priests and lay clergy. Pure blood, Ryan Haber, does it sound familiar? Moving down through the centuries, consider the twentieth. I like to think about Bishop Hudal,among so many others. Why should I go back to ancient times?

SUSAN JACOBY:

A good essay. If you want to bring Jesus and the Christian Testament into this, then the more relevant passage concerns his command to leave the things of this world and follow him. I don't see your religionists leaving anything, not two cents behind them when they walk away from whatever they're currently exploiting.

One cannot blame the Fundies for everything. Journalism, the media, their sensationalistic bloviating are part of the numbing of America. The deregulation of Ronald Regan, the Great Communicator, should have been much more heavily scrutinized than it was. The same was true of Clintonomics, but, then, the media was busy with Monica. Now, we are in the terrifying position of Bank of America holding a great deal of US wealth. Where has the media been?

Discussing Clinton's pant suits, breasts, ankles, butt, Sarah Palin's tenure as mayor of a small town in Alaska, warning women not to vote for McCain, Obama-idolizing, etc., etc., etc.

Mortgage rates, tax cuts and their implications for services? Did and do they have bearing on the election? We have a sense of McCain's economic agenda. Most have no idea of Obama's. One didn't and doesn't have to be Paul Krugman to explain that this mortgage insanity would end in disaster, that tax cuts have consequences to the public. One didn't and doesn't have to be on the level of an Edward R. Murrow to report the truth of Iraq today, not just the horror on the ground, the cost in lives, but the cost, period.

But no. Journalists are busy with more important non-matter, trying to bring election coverage up to the level of reality TV. They cannot report on the material and ethical issues raised by laissez faire let-them-eat-cake-or-die-whoever-they-are-and-wherever-they're-from capitalism.

Time for the "fourth estate" to weed, plant, and grow.

McCain's been claiming the economy is 'fundamentally sound' and proposing more deregulation, basically giving Big ooil and big finance what they want...

Bush *deregulated* as well, not to mention more quietly cutting back on enforcement of the regulations we have... everyone knows it's been a free-for all with the public expected to absorb the risks, even as Bush has said 'Borrow and spend or the terrorists win' while real wages have declined... His whole financial policy has been 'borrow and spend' and transfer more of the nation's wealth to the richest of us, who won't personally suffer for gambling and losing with other people's money and all the predatory lending.

As for the bonds, what I heard was that China was the big purchaser of those, essentially putting us in hock to them so they could flood the market with cheap money and keep their competitive advantages against *us* in the process.

McCain couldn't stand up to the 'agents of intolerance' or for his own strong stand against torture as a man who'd been tortured.

Forget about going against his backers and stated policies.

Whatever happens, these very rich will continue to be very rich. It's others who suffer.

Look pagan, try to understand. There is plenty of regulation and regulators. The OFHEO is the regulatory body charged with the regulation of FNMA and freddie mac. That is ALL it is does, well, did. It has some 240 or so employees and the salary of all those men and women COMBINED did not equal the salary of FNMA (ex) CEO Franklin Raines.

FNMA is--well, was--one of the biggest lobbyist in Washington contributing to BOTH parties. Those regulators never had a chance at reining in FNMA. The 'twins' were just too powerful. Why charge these well-meaning people with doing the impossible?

You say, oh, put in more regulation but there was plenty of regulation, there was just an asymetry of power.

I don't much care WHO wins in the US, since I can't vote, except by trading bonds which works with Russia, but not really with the US mkt, although you do have a lot of foreign holders. I think FWIW McCain might be better able to stand up to the financial lobby, wasn't he involved with the Keating scandal?

Anyway, said I would go a few posts ago. Apologies for staying on.

"Reep and Dem fell for it. Regulation or lack thereof notwithstanding."

Oh, come on. Deregulation notwithstanding? In the name of 'voluntary regulation' the constant Republican talking point?

Just like conservatives, to insist on imposing their will over all others, then when it goes wrong, try to just 'Blame everyone equally!' then run more of the same people as 'outsiders and mavericks' ...even if they aren't.

"Not sure about pagans though. This is all from me."

Can't say our ways have ever seemed to appeal much to the venture capitalist types.

Oh please. They believed that they would be bailed out when the music stopped, because-- wait for it!--every overleveraged firm HAD BEEN PREVIOUSLY bailed out when things got tough.

These previous overleveraged firms had convinced the gov't that the entire system was at risk, should their firm go bust. It was a great sell and BTW gov't of both sides Reep and Dem fell for it. Regulation or lack thereof notwithstanding. Morality of lack thereof notwithstanding. Religious beleif or not, and I do believe, there are as healthy a proportion of atheists in NY and Greenwich as anywhere.

Not sure about pagans though. This is all from me.

"What most of these traders/owners engaged in was thrill seeking behaviour pure and simple. It would have been a lot better for society if they raced performance automobiles!"

Not with the unchecked privatization of profit and nationalization of risk.

Not with corporate bonuses *just for* taking risks with other people's money, which the decision makers *still* got to keep.

Even when they knew the results, they just kept taking.

It's not about 'thrills,' ...this has been a Republican-sponsored *looting of the American dream.*

With 'values issues' as a distraction.

Just have to amplify this, from the columnist:

"The public did not pay the slightest attention to all of the laws passed in the past eight years by Republican congresses to deregulate the credit industry."

Anyone remember my occasional frantic hand-waving about this, when it was more fun to attack gays and demand ideological conservative Christianity?

"People simply don't realize what the right-wing deificiation of "free markets" means until they lose pensions and health care benefits promised to them by companies that have gone bankrupt, leaving executives with golden parachutes and workers with nothing to show for a lifetime of their labor."

Only question is how they'll blame the libruls and non-Christians for it.

Moral hazard, look it up: reward reckless behaviour and more will behave recklessly.

What most of these traders/owners engaged in was thrill seeking behaviour pure and simple. It would have been a lot better for society if they raced performance automobiles!

Anyway, thanks to Ms Jacoby for the treatise on Darwin, but evenso, note I did amend it to Darwinism=survival of the best adapted. Adaptation, that's what it's about IMHO.

Not about greed or morality or religion. Thrill seeking behaviour and adaptation.

CCNLCCNLCLLCNCNLCLCNCLLCN

What no triple name? No Mary,Mary,Mary. Tell me what hedgie from LTCM went to jail? Oh sure, Enron and Worldcom, which went bust and had ZERO SYSTEMIC risk whatsoever, but who from LTCM? Who from (what was then) Citibank? Citi had the Fed in its highest offices from 1990 to 199? having got its mortgage book WAY WAY too large in the S&L debacle...and nothing happened to any of them.

Today,what Lehman exec is going to do the perp walk? I very much doubt any.

Sure the Drexel biggies went to jail and found God, but the usual trader just went to work at Sali, who BTW was accused of manipulating the treasury market, cornering the bond auctions and NOTHING NOTHING happened to any of them.

You don't know what you're talking about here, my friend. Although I do agree that religion and 'greed' (which we all have)are unlikely to have anything to do with what is happening.

CCNL, Susan,

It's funny what people think religion and morals are about. I cannot speak about Hinduism; I know that in ancient times the Jews might have stoned someone for wearing the wrong shirt as quickly as for sleeping with the wrong man, or something like that.

But the Catholic Church has always insisted that a thing is moral or immoral, not because of some inscrutable divine decree that has to be taken on faith alone, but because (essentially) it hurts or helps people. Moral reality emerges from the fact of human consciousness engaging the world; not how a particular human sees things, but because human beings as such are capable of seeing things, and dealing with things, in rational terms - even to the point of recognizing each other as subject-actors and not mere object-means. From this fact arises every "rule" that the Church, without herself having invented, defends.

In fact, the Catholic Church has gotten very careful about articulating which things are immoral as such, and which things, without being inherently moral/immoral, are binding on Catholics.

When the Catholic Church speaks about economics, or robotics, or such, it is not to address how-to issues. She's never claimed that authority even if some of her leaders have claimed to be (or were/are) authorities on such matters. What she does do is look at the moral (the I-Thou) implications of a thing and do her best to articulate those. Are hedgefunds more economically viable than moneymarkets? The Church doesn't care much - she only wants to ensure that folks won't be hurt by either.

An example would be Darwin's theories. The Church has never voiced objection to them. She has issued and reissued the caveat that a scientific theory about the origin of species should not be taken as a moral norm about how the human species is to conduct itself. The advent of consciousness, however it arose, changes things and we are not to treat each other as lions treat gazelle. Apparently, Darwin agreed with Her on the point. Thanks for the reference, Ms. Jacoby.

So what does the Church say in the face of such greed? I don't know that the bishops local to the US have issued a statement, but can take a guess at what they might say if they would.

Greed is a fact in human nature, but must be limited rather than fueled.

People in society have the right collectively to organize in order to protect themselves from greedy predators, and to do right justice upon those predators when they are discovered.

Personally, I suspect along with Mary Cunningham that we in the US have quite enough regulations, and that they go largely unenforced. I also share Ms. Jacoby's concern about deregulation, although I will note that deregulation of the banking/finance/insurance industries dates to the 1990s and, along with NAFTA, was the brainchild of a Republican Congress and Democrat President.

I am increasingly confident that the wealthy leadership of our major parties have more in common with each other than with most of their constituents.

We all do need charity. Some need to give and other receive. It's a two way street. You are on a one way street and it leads somewhere I'm not going. Enjoy the trip. I'm going to enjoy lunch.

Ms. Jacoby --

Thank you for your post on Darwin and his views on natural selection and human civilization. Too many people tend to equate Darwin with the more Nietzschean idea of the overman and his will to power.

Now to the substance of your original post. As a rational human being, I agree that laws protecting people from capitalism run amuck are very important and that we can't rely on a purely "faith-based" approach. However, as a Christian, I do believe that faith can play a part in the solution by teaching compassion for the downtrodden and moral fairness in all aspects of human interaction, including business dealings.

Personally, I think that a good first step in the process is to eliminate Business Administration as an undergraduate major in colleges. All the business majors I knew in college learned more in the first three months of their careers than they did in the four years they were getting their degree anyway, so why have a degree program at all? At the very least, there should be a required series of courses dealing with business law and ethics. That way, the disturbing cycle that we seem to have entered can be slowed if not completely stopped.

Charles Darwin himself strongly disapproved of the application of the principle of "survival of the fittest" to man in a state of civilization. He stated explicitly that in a state of civilization, natural selection become subordinate to environmental factors and man's own moral evolution. "The aid which we feel compelled to give the helpless is mainly a result of the instinct of sympahthy," he observed, "which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts...Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature...If we were intentionally to neglect the weak and the helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil." Religious conservatives, by contrast, disapprove of teaching that the principle of natural selection applies to nature, but they approve of intervening on behalf of those who have made their fortunes by cheating the less fortunate. Hence, the CEOs of failed companies like Enron, and of failed financial institutions, emerge with their golden parachutes as small investors and workers are ground under the wheels of the "market economy." This is not only immoral; it's bad business.

Hmmm, Mary Cunningham you might want to check with the corrupt CEO/CFOs occupying jail cells in the USA.

Well, Ms Jacoby it's called "moral hazard" and you should note there IS a moral in it. It basically means if the gov't bails out one financial firm for whatever good reason, others will look to do the same thing. Encourage bad behaviour with rewards and--guess what!--the bad behaviour will spread. And between the time the bad behaviour (overleveraging) begins and the time the (inevitable) bust catches up with it they will have taken billions out of the firm. It's called raping the shareholder/or investor and they do not because they're greedy but because they can.

In 1998 (or was it 1995?) the "committee that saved the world", Greenspan, Summers and Rubin as Time magazine's adoring cover put it, saved a very large hedge fund (or holders of Mexican debt if it was 1995) from the cost of its follies. LTCM was supported by a consortium of other banks and in doing so all other hedgies--and all investment banks are are glorified hedge funds-- were told "go and do likewise". And the LTCM traders set up another hedge fund. Now was that "greed" or unintended consequences of a good deed, which a bailout usually is?

Since 1987 really, the booms have got stronger and so have the busts. Everything is always "the worst crisis we have seen in a century"; it;s just the centuries come around sooner that they used to.

Regulation, more regulation, is not going to do anything. There is already enough regulation, but the regulators are hopelessly outclassed. One smart person like Howard Raines was paid more than all the people tasked with regulating FNMA COMBINED! In normal times the hapless regulators don't have a chance.

No, what will save is a more basic instinct than regulation: self preservation. What's going/went wrong is because of folly, not greed. The gov't is trying to do too much. Schumpeter called it creative destruction, and it works a lot like evolution, survival of the fittest or at least the best adapted.

Protect the depositor with federal insurance schemes, that's a must. But no more bailouts of investment banks or hedge funds. Let them shrink, which is what they are doing. Keep the regulatory tasks to what regulators can achieve.

Thank you. This will be all from me on this subject.

Too many houses, too many condos, too many apartments, too many offices, too many shopping centers, too many brokers, too many banks, too many mortgages, too many speculators !!! And the correction begins!!!

No religion involved!!!!!

Susan Jacoby,

I'd like to see the 'Bush regulatory changes + greed -> current crisis' argument fleshed out a bit more. Would you be so kind as to point out which regulatory changes led to the housing market problems and how?

Thank you.