Tag: poverty

Church and state: Francis I

If a Catholic priest were to echo Francis’ complaint about the rich-poor divide, that might be safe territory.

I found this graphic really interesting. The Socialist US Senator is embracing the Pope’s condemnation of “doctrinaire capitalism, ‘deified markets,” trickle-down economics, and the finance industry. He decried the growing gap between the rich and the poor, tax evasion by the wealthy, and characterized ruthless free-market economics as a killer that was inherently sinful.” I assume this will mean that the Pope will be painted as a socialist.

Francis, moreover, launched a broadside against former President Ronald Reagan’s signature economic theory, which continues to serve as conservative Republican dogma.

Of course, he’s in the Vatican, so he’s insulated from the US political issue. But I’m always re-examining what “separation of church and state” means. (And so is Dustbury.) I will make the case that being a good Christian – in my definition, obviously – could be, may be perceived as a political statement. If a Catholic priest were to echo Francis’ complaint about the rich-poor divide, perhaps by calling for raising the minimum wage, that might be safe territory. But if he were to name names, such as calling out the late 40th US President, that might well be crossing the line to partisan political talk that could theoretically get one’s tax-exempt status yanked.

Certainly promoting, or denouncing a political party or candidate can be a treacherous path, whereas, say, praying for the President and Congress and the federal courts to do good and just actions is OK. Calling for the closing of the wage-productivity gap is OK, but calling out the politicians who created the system, not so much.

It was weird watching Peggy Noonan on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday. She was SO pleased by the new pope, who was bringing back some of the disaffected Catholics, even though he was directly dissing her former employer and mentor, Ronald Reagan, who she clearly adores (present tense). It’s enough to give other denominations a case of pope envy.

Francis still stubbornly traditional positions on women’s ordination and other issues notwithstanding, I’m liking this Pope; the fact that his position is considered radical by some tells how far from Christ’s teaching some of the church has become.
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Bill O’Reilly speaks on behalf of Jesus about the scourge of Food Stamps

No, the US is NOT closing the Vatican embassy.

For the Bible tells me so

If Jesus had any bias, it was in favor of the poor, the downtrodden.

No, these are NOT my positions. Or His.

So this is what happens on a regular basis in the past decade or so. The particulars are almost unimportant, though I’ll give you an example anyway.

1. Someone will say something I think is outrageous, and justify their position by citing Jesus, God, and/or the Bible. Current example: Rep. Stephen Fincher’s defense of Congress slashing $4.1 billion + from food stamps over the next 10 years was from the New Testament, specifically 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” As the article notes, “Because many of the members of this sect believed that Jesus’ return was imminent, they stopped working. They figured why work when Jesus would be back at any moment to sweep us all into heaven?” Interesting that the people of first-century Thessaloniki sound like certain current Christians – though not all of them – who believe polluting the earth is OK, even good because the Lord will come back soon to fix it.

2. Other folks will sneer, “See how Christians are!” This is inevitably followed by calls to ban religions because if we did that, it’d all be SO much better. Usually, the “liberal church” will be called to task for not repudiating the original offending comment.

Rinse, repeat.

I have said again and again (and again and again and…): beliefs like those of Fincher do not reflect all of the Christian church or all the Christian people. In fact, if Jesus had any bias, it was in favor of the poor, the downtrodden.

May I make it clear, please: next time some yahoo proclaims the word of God as a tool of oppression (and/or stupidity), just assume I oppose it. I may not mention it all the time, because that’s what I would be writing about ALL THE TIME. I’m not interested in doing that; it would be boring for me, and quite possibly for you.

I stole this from some Facebook friend of my sister’s: “Some people think they are Christian evangelists, but instead they’re being self-appointed ‘Bullies for God.’ (I just made up that term.) Remember, ‘the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God’ – James 1:20. It’s the GOODNESS of God that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4) not anger, badgering, hostility, and contempt.”

J is for Jubilee

People of Christian faith often ask God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”


“Proclaim liberty throughout the lands and to all the inhabitants thereof, it shall be a jubilee for you.” – Leviticus 25:10. In the Judaic tradition, during the Jubilee year, debts were forgiven and land that had been sold to repay debts was returned to the original owners. “What was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee, it shall be released, and the property shall be returned.” – Leviticus 25:28. In both Judeo-Christian and non-Biblical traditions, there has been an understanding that forgiveness of debt, when that debt becomes so onerous that one cannot ever get from under it, is both fair and practical.

Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania, asks, “Must we starve our children to pay our debts?” As Jubilee USA Network notes: “In the world’s most impoverished nations, the majority of the populations do not have access to clean water, adequate housing, or basic health care. These countries are paying debt service to wealthy nations and institutions at the expense of providing these basic services to their citizens. The United Nations Development Program estimated in 2003 that 30,000 children die each day due to preventable diseases. Debt service payments take resources that impoverished countries could use to cure preventable diseases. Debt cancellation frees up resources to reverse this devastating reality.” And, in many cases, the debt has already been paid, or would have, had the interest rates been reasonable.

The primary argument against debt jubilee is the notion of moral hazard; i.e., “situation where the behavior of one party may change to the detriment of another after the transaction has taken place.” People who enter into contracts should fulfill contracts, lest others be tempted to renege as well. Too often though, the original loan was consummated without the borrower having all the information. Or that the borrower is a nation that generated debt under a previous regime. This writer submits that when debt is essentially fraudulent, then debt forgiveness is both the logical and the only remedy.

People of the Christian faith often ask God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” To me, that suggests that the way to show God’s love involves showing much more compassion than many financial institutions have shown to their customers. The United Church of Christ, for one, “has joined with other faith communities and organizations to call on governments to cancel the debts of poor countries and restore just economic relations between nations.”

Many US householders understand this concept on a micro-level. They buy a house, lose their job, and, instead of the banks agreeing to negotiate interest rates with the borrowers, the lenders choose to foreclose. And this mass seizure of homes has forced cities such as Cleveland, Ohio to raze some of its housing stock, since banks, by their nature, are ill-equipped to actually protect and take care of the buildings in their ownership. How much more reasonable and mutually beneficial it would have been if money lenders had been able to agree on a lower interest rate with homeowners,as some of the largest banks have finally been forced to do.

The business magazine Forbes asked last year if a debt jubilee might help kick start the American economy. As any good accountant will tell you, debt or credit which cannot be paid back is never an asset; it is always a liability.

ABC Wednesday – Round 10

Let the poor sweat

“Where Heritage sees luxurious poor people, I see a desperately sliding middle class. And there’s no substantial research here to prove either view is right.”

There was this recent article in the National Review, Modern Poverty Includes A.C. and an Xbox, reporting on a Heritage Foundation report, What is Poverty. The implication was clear: the poor in the United States don’t have it all that bad.

My initial inclination was not to even address the issue. After all, it was one of those unwinnable arguments with people of a particular mindset And look at some of the items- Owning a refrigerator? Probably provided by the landlord; ditto the stove and oven. Air conditioning is a necessity in much of the country. TVs are a relatively cheap form of information and entertainment. Even people in Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa have cell phones. And are these new items or second-hand?

But some of my data colleagues made interesting points:

One wrote: “Poverty status is about the ability of a ‘family’ to obtain a given standard of living based on its current flow of resources during some relatively short period, e.g. one year. Much of today’s poor were not poor in the recent past when they were able to purchase the consumer durables” measured. Interestingly, my seven-year daughter made pretty much the same observation when I was talking about this.

Another data colleague reflected on the interesting responses of who “bought stuff when employed and now haven’t worked in years and it’s difficult to replace what they have. Where Heritage sees luxurious poor people, I see a desperately sliding middle class. And there’s no substantial research here to prove either view is right.

“Not to mention the details. If you have an air conditioner, you may not be able to afford to turn it on. Individual pay-as-you-go cell phones are encouraged for the unemployed as help in job searches and more stable than landlines given the instability of housing for the poor… Subsidized housing often comes with washers and dryers because it takes fewer resources than trips to the laundromat. Go into any thrift shop in the U.S. and find used x-box systems for $10 or less as the employed trade up to a better system. And non-digital TVs for the taking.”

It’s clear that the writer created “a ‘straw man’ in selectively picking out polling data indicating that most Americans view poverty as third-world style depravation. If you think that is appropriate to the US, then quite right; few Americans qualify.” But, by American standards, the promise of children doing better than their parents is very much in question.
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The Effect of Income on Appliances in U.S. Households

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