And to clarify for my part, I spoke very quickly there simply to nod in your direction so as to make my other point within the 200 word limit.

I take your point, and was not attempting to muddy the water. I agree with your interpretation of the data.

I'm not sure what the ideal thread length is, but my rule of thumb has always been to try to keep any original essays here around 700 words. 700-1000 (or maybe just a bit longer) if you have to quote and article or book etc that is integral to your point. Sometimes I've violated that, but I do try to keep it in that range.

I find its long enough that allows you to develop a point at some length and long enough that it shouldn't just have been two posts in a row on someone else's thread, but not exhausting to read. The rule of thumb imposes some discipline.

It's not flownover terseness, however.

Yes, I would say that there are some occasions--because of the part of a person's comment which you may have quoted--that drive a post above 200 words and which necessitate a few underscores to get everything on one post for coherence. 

But when we're beyond the 1 sentence mark with underscores, it's just too long. Cut something; write a second post.

Gosh, it appears as though higher ups in the IRS and at Treasury knew in June of 2012 that this activity had been happening.

.....I can't imagine why it didn't come to light immediately......

"A turf n' turf in every pot"

To steal a favorite phrase of the President, "Let me be clear"--the degree to which you department heads cannot be held responsible or accountable  for what your departments are doing because they are so vast and complex that you cannot effectively exercise oversight over them, is the degree to which we are no longer governed by laws but instead by caprice, whim, and accident.

Has anyone asked the local imam for a reaction?

Ricochet at its best gives us all the chance, so long as we remain level-headed, to hash out some of these issues and follow where an argument is taking us. 

I'm glad we've been able to agree over the course of the thread, and I  did agree with your statement re: caricature of capitalism at the beginning of the thread, though I failed to cite it. 

Quite right, and that is essentially what I am asking from him. Take a moral stand, but in so far as you engage in politics, do not give aid and comfort to ideas inimical to free enterprise or the market, and do not mistakenly support social democrats who promise greater solidarity but who will, in the end, end up seizing your religious freedom.

A vast social welfare state that is pro-life is not an adequate solution to our problem. The hierarchy must be brought to see_that.

I am not critiquing the Church's position as articulated more completely in the encyclicals. Nor am I demanding that in a short speech, the Pope is supposed to convey all the subtlety and depth of them.

What I am asking is that, when he attempts to condense that teaching, he does so in a way that clearly and straightforwardly represents all sides of that teaching.

Here, I think, he does a poor job of that and he leaves the reader with an impression which is not only insufficient in representing the Church's full teaching with regard to the market economy, but which would seem to promote an interpretation of that Church teaching which furthers an alliance with social democrats who, he appears to fail to recognize, are not his friends.

My intention is exactly, quoting you, to explain to Catholic laity how to reform the market and the state in ethical ways. This speech makes that task_harder.

Let's talk speech context for a moment. Now, we all know that the Pope is speaking to a particular group of ambassadors on a particular day, and that he is addressing the causes of the 2008 financial collapse. But we also know that when you're the Pope, your remarks are never quite so confined, and especially using general language you are lodging this particular and more narrow discussion within a wider framework of the teachings of the Church. The discussion points beyond itself, as others have recognized by discussing Catholic social teaching more generally on this thread already.

Which brings me back to the point I made to Katie many pages ago. On this thread, and speaking only for myself, I am distinguishing between a broad argument--say, the Church's position as articulated in Centesimus Annus, with which I am identifying myself--and this instantiation of it.

(cont)

As to this question, yes I think the government has the authority to erect tariffs or other barriers to trade as one of is powers.

Whether it is wise to do so is another question, and one which must be considered carefully (I would submit, taking an extreme example, a nation without factories or shipyards is unable_to_defend_itself)

When considering this question in full, we have to ask ourselves whether the government can foresee all of the impacts of its decision. The intention to stop the export or jobs, or the intention to stop the increase in oil prices via state control or subsidies can have distorting effects on markets--bringing with it its own disparate impact on the poor--which are unforeseen externalities to this decision.

In more cases then not, we do better to allow the market to function in setting these prices than in erecting odious barriers to trade.

I want to answer your hypothetical--its a narrower question than the one I'm really concerned with, but I don't want folks to think its unanswerable. 

The Pope might have a point in criticizing the decision. 

On the other hand, since we're speaking in hypotheticals, he might not. Consider other variables.

Perhaps the cost of continuing to employ as many workers in the US because of labor law, the cost of OSHA regulation, the costs of environmental regulation on production, the cost of taxation, cause the company to fail.

In short: a certain form of "solidarity" is just as dangerous as a certain form of predatory "capitalism".

So, given that the context of the speech is explicitly addressing the 2008 crisis (I'll talk more about the context further down [see 300/301]), having clarity over what caused that crisis, to the extent that we understand it, is important when speaking publicly as a moral authority figure.

The crisis, and the opening gap between rich and poor (we'll stipulate for the moment this exists, though I think James has debunked it already) was not caused by an ideology of autonomous markets.

Quite the opposite. It was caused by an ideology that included an implicit guarantee by the State of socializing of the loss of major financial firms and banks, while privatizing their gains. 

In the context of his remarks, therefore, he completely misidentifies the source of the problem, in so far as he is talking to the developed West. The problem here was corporatism, not autonomous market capitalism--a thing which exists no where in the world affected by the financial crisis of 2008.

This is a useful jumping off point for my responses to both KC's and Joseph's comments over the last several pages.

As I recognized when discussing Centesimus Annus much earlier on in this thread, JPII does an outstanding job of clarifying what conditions obtain in the 1st and 3rd world, and which of his remarks apply to which. 

As a historical point, therefore, KC's concern about an inadequate juridical framework in the West is correct. 

But this framework has been established in the West. Its absence is not the cause of the 2008 collapse.

This framework has not been fully established in the 3rd World, and JPII explicitly addresses his point there--we see the results of inadequate state structures there to ensure the foundations of a market economy. Take any failed state, Somalia for example: there is no authority to keep the peace or ensure property rights. There can be no market under these conditions. Joseph, KC, James, myself, et al. I presume are agreed here.

(cont)

In a previous thread discussing some of these same issues, I also cited the example of Chile and de Soto's work.

The contrast between the success in Chile (partly because of de Soto's teaching) and the failed oligarchy in Argentina is stark.

If His Holiness, and the Magisterium, could be brought to understand the arguments laid out there, it would go some way to correcting these misstatements. I second Centesimus Annus, as previously discussed.