The Archbishop and The Pope Speaks – Wealth Redistribution Ahead

Since time immemorial, we always had politics mixed up with religion. That stands to reason given that most of our judicial systems have their origins in some form of religious law.

We may have forgotten that western banking also, mostly, originated from the temples or places of worship.

Hark ! The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks, comparing the current gloom in the UK economy to a depression. He is qualified enough, being a former oil trader in the City !

“Among his suggestions to help resolve the situation, he called for at least one of the major state-controlled banks to be recapitalised and then broken up to create a network of new regional banks to promote investment beyond the capital.”

And thus we had a barrage of criticisms, as the Church of England is having trouble maintaining the growth of their flock, or rather stem the loss of followers, these days. This strikes me as strange for do we not all seek God in times of trouble than take matters into our own hands like the jihadists ?

What got me sitting up was when the Pope spoke out too, yesterday !

“Pope Francis on Wednesday urged political leaders to make every effort to create jobs and said unemployment was caused by economic thinking “outside the bounds of social justice.”

“I call on politicians to make every effort to relaunch the labour market,” the pope told thousands of followers at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.”

And on Bangladesh, largely Muslim.

“Pope Francis, speaking at a Mass on Wednesday, referred to the building collapse in a sharp condemnation of worker exploitation and “slave labor.“” Source CNN

I recall a time when I told a well brought up British girl at a dinner party how I thought that the concept of foreign workers in Singapore, Asian and South American sweat shop factories was modern day slavery, she was mortified, along with her dashing fiance. Her idea was that we are giving them better lives.

Is your wardrobe killing Bangladeshis, or saving them?

The Issues

It would seem we have 2 issues here.

The first issue of plutonomy, that is brought up by the Archbishop whereby the money does not leave the city, implying that the rich get richer while the poor gets left behind.

That is quite true. Since the credit crisis, it would appear that only the credit worthy has any chance of getting credit and the good credits, get the largest share of the pie. The Apple I-bonds are testimony to that.

22 Facts That Prove That The Bottom 90% Of America Is Systematically Getting Poorer poorer

The second issue of exploitation, where developing nations provide the labour and resources to ensure that our lives are good and affordable. The concept is nothing new, for the entire history of humanity, slavery in one form or another. No fuss ?

The Irony

The whole irony of the situation is that both religious leaders are speaking at a time when the S&P 500 hit a historic high and most other indices around the world are at multi year highs.

There is so much money in the world that real interest rates are negative and bond issuances are all many times oversubscribed giving Rwanda and the Dominican Republic access to global funds.

It is very hard to empathise for most of us but I suppose if we really looked around us, we will see a person around who has been left behind – more likely a stranger.

This was one of my main worries of this year. A crisis of confidence which I wrote about in Dec, stemming from the plutonomy that has taken over societies and resulted in the rise of the populist movement.

The Pope and the Archbishop may as well be the poster children of Occupy Wallstreet which most of us paid scant attention to. This article on the global May Day protests seems to echo the refrains of the Occupy movements.

And now that the Pope and Archbishop has spoken, do you think that the rest of the congregation will continue to suffer in silence ?

Politics is responding, no doubt about that. Obama makes a clown of himself, western governments are chasing the tax evaders to the ends of the world, Singapore is finally listening to the people and Malaysians gets free ice creams and laptops for their elections tomorrow. Is it too late ?

Conclusion

I am not writing to suggest we all take up the cudgels for the downtrodden. We have enough activists taking care of that. But ask anyone of them if they would take the poor Bangladeshi home to live in their countries, they will think twice.

It looks like we are set on a head on collision course for some form of wealth re-distribution in the world.

Sometimes when things implode and we get lost scrambling for answers even when the truth lies before us. I just do not want to die (metaphorically) in ignorance.

Leaving you with a wholesome jihadist bunny video that is public on You Tube.

 

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