Category: Economic Issues

happy the man who takes no interest on a loan

Mark Shea’s got a little mini-column up at the Register about Dante’s connection between sodomy and usury.  I don’t do sodomy blogging.  But usury?  Irresistable.  I’m coming  back later — maybe in the morning if I don’t mis-sleep again — to toss out some thoughts.

Here’s where I’ll be going:  Lending money at interest can be part of a wholesome act of wealth-creation.

(Hint there: what economic activities create wealth?  Lots of them.  Trouble being that these days our heads are so deeply sucked into the money economy that we easily lose track of wealth vs. money.  But then again, in Dante’s day there were a few factors confusing the topic.)

Plus maybe some comments on my first real-live run-in with a Repo Man.  Friendly guy, once he quit banging on my door.  Choice words were said.  Okay, that’s really the whole story.  So probably no additional repo-man tales in the official comments.  But hey, if you want to hear me say bad words, it can be done.  [Note to repo men: You are more likely to get me to open if you don’t look like a hoodlum and act like one too.]  And no, not my vehicle they wanted.

how God uses even the grumpy

[Grumpy would be me, not the long-suffering soul to whom I am wed.]

December is our month to send in charitable donations.  We do all gifts in one big batch, because it makes the deciding and record-keeping that much easier.

So the other night the SuperHusband and I sit down for our evening couple time after kids are in bed, and I’m roving through the topics, mostly just exercising my not-so-inner curmudgeon.  No lofty goals intended.  I mention this blog post about expat parties in Haiti.  My conclusion is this:  But really, we’re the same way.  I feel bad for all those poor people, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have my beer.

And SuperHusband, who is a generous and charitable person, says: I’m not sure aid to Haiti really helps.

I concede that there are no doubt problems in Haiti that no amount of aid will fix, but that certain projects, especially certain Christian humanitarian mission projects, are helping.

SuperHusband brings in North Korea.  If you send money to North Korea, it only supports the corrupt regime, and no starving people are saved.

I suspect he is probably correct, but point out that we talking about Haiti tonight, not North Korea.

SuperHusband says that UN aid to Haiti is helping maintain the status quo.

I agree, but observe that for all a UN water truck might discourage the local government from building its own water treatment plant, for the person who will be dead tomorrow without clean water, it might be nice to live long enough to agitate for reform.  But in any case, I am not proposing we send money to the UN.  I would like to send money to some Christian missionaries.

SuperHusband says that he does not believe change can happen from without.  That people must decide for themselves they want change.  Therefore, outside aid is not helpful.

Yes, I say.  I have discovered that every time I try to work through a major policy problem, I keep coming back to how the answer is Jesus.

Yes, he says.

And isn’t it interesting, I say, how the New Testament doesn’t tell us to send extra money to government aid programs.  But curiously, it does tell us Christians to provide for the poor ourselves.  Pure religion is this: providing for the widow and the orphan.

And he says okay.  Send some money to missionaries.

2 Quick Book Recommendations

I wanted to quick post these, because they would make great gifts.   Both available from your favorite local Catholic Book & Gift Store:

Everyday Catholic Prayer by Angela Tilby (Paraclete Press 2006, originally published 1998.) This was our DRE’s gift to the catechists this Advent.  Lovely little book.  Opening chapters are very encouraging for those of us who struggle with our faith — the author lays bare her own struggles with belief, and invites us to grow closer to God even when we don’t feel good enough.   Even when we don’t really understand how it can work.

Middle section is a ‘little office’ – a small set of prayers you can make into a 5-minute variation on the divine office.  Psalms, canticles, gospel meditations, close with an Our Father.   Nothing weird. 100% solid prayer power.  This would make a great daily prayer regime if you are looking for one; designed for people whose vocations do not leave long expanses of time for liturgical prayer.

Final section is a compendium of other stalwart prayers — all the big ones — so you can build up your daily prayer routine, or you can grab a needed prayer when the occasion merits.  No groovy namby-pamby.  Think: Te Deum, Anima Christi, and the like.

This is a small book — made for carrying around and using when you can.  Would be handy for catechists, by the way, because you can easily access all kinds of good stuff for use in class.  (Go figure: Gift from the DRE.  She knows we’re busy, knows we need to pray, and knows we need ideas for class.  Have I mentioned how much I love my DRE?)

And although it is called Everyday Catholic Prayer, it would be comfortable for protestants.  There are exactly two Marian prayers, both quite mild, plus a mention of the Rosary.  Otherwise all the rest is protestant-friendly, per the mission of Paraclete Press.  So handy for ecumenical  purposes, where you want something more formal-liturgy-like, but that sits firmly on common ground.  Everyone can feel all ancient and happy praying St.Patrick’s Breastplate or Psalm 67 or whatever suits, and no guests need squirm.

Great little book.  Sized for a stocking.  Would be a decent confirmation or older-godchild gift.

***

2nd Book, and I’m out of blogging time but wanted to toss it out there, is my latest Catholic Company review book:  Why Enough is Never Enough: Overcoming Worries about Money – A Catholic Perspective by Gregory S. Jeffery (Our Sunday Visitor, 2010).

Awesome book.

It is not about managing your money.  It is about managing your soul.  The focus is money-topics — greed, generosity, trusting God, fighting envy, rooting out sin, etc. etc.  If you struggle with money issues, this will not teach you how to budget or pay off your credit cards.  It will teach you to deal with some of the underlying causes that may be feeding your financial problems.

–> If you actually find the money thing not so difficult, this book is a great spiritual guide for seeing your way through other besetting sins.  You’ll understand what he’s saying re: money (because you understand money), and realize that hey, there are other areas of my life that I do struggle with, that stem from the same types of problems — generosity, trust, envy, selfishness.

Good stuff.  Official review coming after I work through the backlog elsewhere.  But I give it a ‘buy’ recommend.   Maybe not as a gift to someone else, because what kind of message does that send.  But to yourself.  Yes.  Very Advent-y.

the economics of sugar vs. corn syrup

Nice post here.  For all of you who are with me when I complain the movie didn’t include enough accounting stories.

(For the record: I personally vote for sugar over corn syrup. Ceteris paribus. Though I had never considered the exploding factories thing.  Then again, I also eat flour, and you get exploding factories with that, too.  Maybe I am not a good example in the eating-for-worker-safety department.)

Wednesday had me thinking quite a lot about sin.

About what a fallen world it is.   About my own inability to behave as I ought.  And then of course I couldn’t help but notice other people seem to be having this problem as well.  (Full disclosure: I noticed the other people first.  You knew that.)

–> And all that finally settled into a realization new to me, though I suppose the rest of you junior & senior economists already understood this:

There are people who believe true socialism can work, and there are people who believe pure capitalism can work.  And here I’m assuming they believe in a good way — that their system is in fact the solution to economic problems, for the betterment of all humanity.  But either way, they have something in common:  They do not believe in original sin.

And of course that is why as catholics we don’t support either system in a “pure” form.   Socialism tries to achieve by force what man would naturally do if only he were good.    But of course, the people running the system aren’t any better than the ones who can’t be persuaded to freely share and share alike in the first place.  Capitalism tries to harness the natural tendency of man to assume responsibility for his own good — but forgets that left to our own devices, we do not necessarily do what is good for ourselves, let alone show any caution for our neighbor.

People do sin.   There is no real solution to the human condition until you admit that.

 

Cholera in Port-au-Prince

Not cheerful reading:  http://goatpath.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/cholera-reaches-port-au-prince-as-victims-are-left-in-mass-graves/

Thanks to the Livesay’s for the link.

UPDATED to add:

Sanitation and the cholera panic from the Mangine’s.  Additional perspective, not graphic.

Here and here are photos of the RHFH Rescue Center’s Cholera House in action.

And if you are a Catholic Relief Services supporter, here’s their report on what they are doing to help curb the spread of the epidemic.

 

Inexcusable.

After a long hiatus for practical reasons (newborns and newsprint don’t mix), I re-subscribed to the Wall Street Journal about two years ago.  Bit of a vice, really, but I enjoyed it.   Would have gladly re-subscribed if they had sent me a proper renewal notice.

Instead, I got a credit card statement today charging me for a “renewal” I never authorized.

So that’s the end of that.  I have a strict rule against doing business with anyone who thinks they can use my credit card at will, to charge me for products I never agreed to purchase.

FYI, they did promise to refund my card when I called to complain.   (Good thing, since using my credit card without my permission is theft.)

Too bad.  I’ll miss my morning paper.

If anyone can recommend a good print periodical that doesn’t engage in sleazy business practices, I’m looking for one.

Croup

We seem to be running a ‘healthcare’ theme to fit the national mood.  Trying to predict what will happen once everyone has affordable, decent health care coverage?  Here’s our experience:

-When a small child nearly sheared off her pinkie, why yes, we did spend two surgeries, PT, etc etc to get it back in order.  Knowing full well it was was only a pinkie.  Felt a little extreme, but on the other hand, we’re glad to have a pretty useful little finger in exchange.   If said finger hadn’t survived the attempt, we’d feel like we had been extravagant.  But it did and is faring quite well, so instead we feel like it was money well spent.   That said, sincerely doubt anyone — us or doctors — would have put such an effort into the little finger if we lived in a place where we expected to pay the full cost out of pocket.   We are quite grateful for insurance.

-When a much smaller child came down with croup in the middle the night (4th child, but our first run-in with croup), the first instinct was to run to the ER.   Which is close to home, well-run, and for which we have insurance.  But, would have involved being out for hours, and probably would have ended with “Your child isn’t on death’s door.  Go home and put her in the shower”.  Luckily we had a handy baby book  and DH remembered a co-worker telling us what to do for croup. Between the two, we were set.  Shower did the trick first time, out into cool wet night air did it the second time, and in between we (I) just stayed with her through the night to make sure nothing worse developed.  Next day I considered calling the pediatrician (no charge) for some advice and reassurance, but decided we had it under control and didn’t need to speak to the nurse in order to be told what we had already figured out.  Croup summary: Even with a kinda scary incident and inexpensive or free healthcare, the hassle factor outweighed the need for reassurance.  [I assure you, we’d be in the ER in a second if the baby was showing signs of distress.]

My brilliant economic analysis based on those anecdotes: I don’t have any idea what will happen post-Obamacare.  I know that good insurance does encourage us to seek treatment we otherwise might decline.  I think in many cases we end up with a better health care decision as a result.  More accurately: we end up with better health.   I also know that “just because it’s free” doesn’t always mean we’re going to seek the treatment or professional advice.

My best guess on health care usage is that we”ll see an increase in visits for more “minor” situations.  Including much more preventive care, which means we’ll see a corresponding decrease in last-minute emergency care for people who put off going to the doctor.  I think on the whole, this will help with our nation’s overall physical health.

I’m hopeful that the health care exchanges will help the economy by allowing individuals to start small businesses without the fear of losing corporate health care.  I’m concerned that this will be run about as well as we run our other government functions: sometimes quite well, but sometimes quite badly.

I think that financially it is all very much part of the current national habit.  Take a look at this year’s 1040 forms.  Have you noticed the creep in complexity over the past decade?   (Have you noticed that an awful lot of people don’t do their own taxes anymore?  Um, excuse me?  How have we gotten to the point that a worksheet of basic arithmetic has generated an entire profession?)  I think we have reached a point where we expect our government’s work to be complex and burdensome, and we expect to be in debt.   As long as we think all that is normal, we should not be surprised our economy isn’t so healthy.

Which reminds me, I need to go clean my house.   Happy Holy Week.

Made a section in the sidebar for Haiti blogs, including a few extras I didn’t have on my list the other day. The Pye’s write about their work distributing emergency food aid:

We talked with World Food Program and they said we could use their food if each pastor wrote their name, their church, a phone number, and each person’s name that would receive the food. So we did and we were given hundreds of list; from 14 people to 2,000 people on them. Saturday we started calling pastors. We would get a pile of food together that would feed the number of people on their list. They would come in a vehicle and pick it up. On Saturday we were able to give to 20 pastors food and water for the needy in their congregations.

I think this is a good response to the WSJ op-ed the other day questioning the role of foreign aid.  Using the Pyes as a distribution-point, World Food Bank is getting food into the hands of specific individuals.  There is a mechanism in place for accountability and transparency.  (On the topic of corruption and graft, see Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s  WSJ column today.  Chilling.)

****

On another note, I signed up for the Coalition for Clarity.  I’m not usually the joining type, but I make an exception for this worthy cause.  Because you know, torturing people is just plain wrong.  FYI, you don’t need to be catholic to join.   Just as you don’t need to be catholic to know that torture is evil.